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FORS CLAVIGERA
LETTERS
TO THE WORKMEN AND LABOURERS
OF GREAT BRITAIN.
r.v
JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D.,
HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART.
Vol. VIII.
GEORGE ALLEN,
SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT.
1878-80-83-84.
FORS CLAVIGERA
SECOND SERIES.
CONTENTS OF VOL. VIII.
I. Unique Dogmatism.
II. Let us (all) Eat and Drink.
III. The Snow-Manger.
IV. The Convents of St. Quentin.
V. Whose Fault is it ?
VI. Lost Jewels.
VII. Dust of Gold.
VIII. Ashestiel.
IX. Invocation.
X. Retrospect.
XL Fors Infantle.
XII. Rosy Vale.
Janua?y, 1878.
February, 1878.
March, 1878.
March, 1880.
September, 1880.
May, 1883.
September, 1883.
November, 1883.
Christmas, 1883.
March, 1884.
October, 1884.
Christmas, 1884.
FORS CLAVIGERA
SECOND SERIES.
" YEA, THE WORK OF OUR HANDS, ESTABLISH THOU IT."
LETTER THE 85th.
UNIQUE DOGMATISM.
THE series of letters which closed last year were
always written, as from the first they were intended to
be, on any matter which chanced to interest me, and
in any humour which chance threw me into. By the
adoption of the title ' Fors/ I meant (among other
meanings) to indicate this desultory and accidental
character of the work ; and to imply, besides, my
feeling, that, since I wrote wholly in the interests of
others, it might justifiably be hoped that the chance
to which I thus submitted myself would direct me
better than any choice or method of my own.
So far as regards the subjects of this second series
of letters, I shall retain my unfettered method, in
reliance on the direction of better wisdom than mine.
But in my former letters, I also allowed myself to
write on each subject, whatever came into my mind,
2ND SERIES, I.] I
2 Fors Clavigera.
wishing the reader, like a friend, to know exactly what
my mind was. But as no candour will explain this to
persons who have no feelings in common with me, —
and as I think, by this time, enough has been shown
to serve all purposes of such frankness, to those who
can receive it, — henceforward, I shall endeavour to
write, so far as I can judge, what may be serviceable
to the reader, or acceptable by him ; and only in
some occasional and minor way, what may explain, or
indulge, my own feelings.
Such change in my method of address is farther
rendered necessary, because I perceive the address must
be made to a wider circle of readers.
This book was begun in the limited effort to gather
a society together for the cultivation of ground in a
particular way ; — a society having this special business,
and no concern with the other work of the world. But
the book has now become a call to all whom it can
reach, to choose between being honest or dishonest ;
and if they choose to be honest, also to join together
in a brotherhood separated, visibly and distinctly, from
cheats and liars. And as I felt more and more led into
this wider appeal, it has also been shown to me that,
in this country of England, it must be made under
obedience to the Angel of England ; — the Spirit which
taught our fathers their Faith, and which is still
striving with us in our Atheism. And since this was
shown to me, I have taken all that I understand of
Fors Clavigera. 3
the Book which our fathers believed to be divine, not,
as in former times, only to enforce, on those who still
believed it, obedience to its orders ; but indeed for help
and guidance to the whole body of our society.
The exposition of this broader law mingling more
and more frequently in my past letters with that of
the narrow action of St. George's Guild for the
present help of our British peasantry, has much
obscured the simplicity of that present aim, and raised
up crowds of collateral questions, in debate of which
the reader becomes doubtful of the Tightness of even
what might otherwise have been willingly approved by
him : while, to retard his consent yet farther, I am com-
pelled, by the accidents of the time, to allege certain
principles ,of work which only my own long study of
the results of the Art of Man upon his mind enable
me to know for surety ; and these are peculiarly
offensive in an epoch which has long made — not only
all its Arts mercenary, but even those mercenary forms
of them subordinate to yet more servile occupations.
For example ; I might perhaps, with some success,
have urged the purchase and cultivation of waste land,
and the orderly and kindly distribution of the food
produced upon it, had not this advice been coupled
with the discussion of the nature of Rent, and the
assertion of the God-forbidden guilt of that Usury, of
which Rent is the fatal lest form. And even if, in
subtlety, I had withheld, or disguised, these deeper
Fors Clavizera
,v
underlying laws, I should still have alienated the
greater number of my possible adherents by the
refusal to employ steam machinery, which may well
bear, to the minds of persons educated in the midst
of such mechanism, the aspect of an artist's idle and
unrealizable prejudice. And this all the more, because
the greater number of business-men, finding that their
own opinions have been adopted without reflection, yet
being perfectly content with the opinions so acquired,
naturally suppose that mine have been as confidently
collected where they could be found with least pains : —
with the farther equally rational conclusion, that the
opinions they have thus accidentally picked up them-
selves are more valuable and better selected than the
by no means obviously preferable faggot of., mine.
And, indeed, the thoughts of a man who from his
youth up, and during a life persistently literary, has
never written a word either for money or for vanity,
nor even in the careless incontinence of the instinct
for self-expression, but resolutely spoken only to teach
or to praise others, must necessarily be incomprehen-
sible in an age when Christian preaching itself has
become merely a polite and convenient profession, —
when the most noble and living literary faculties, like
those of Scott and Dickens, are perverted by the will
of the multitude, and perish in the struggle for its gold ;
and when the conceit even of the gravest men of
science provokes them to the competitive exhibition
Fors Clavigera. 5
of their conjectural ingenuity, in fields where argument
is impossible, and respecting matters on which even
certainty would be profitless.
I believe, therefore, that it will be satisfactory to
not a few of my readers, and generally serviceable, if I
reproduce, and reply to, a portion of a not unfriendly
critique which, appearing in the 'Spectator' for 22nd
September, 1877, sufficiently expressed this general
notion of my work, necessarily held by men who are
themselves writing and talking merely for profit or
amusement, and have never taken the slightest pains
to ascertain whether any single thing they say is true :
nor are under any concern to know whether, after it
has been sold in the permanent form of print, it will
do harm or good to the buyer of it.
" Mr. Ruskin's unique dogmatism.
" As we have often had occasion, if not exactly to remark, yet
to imply, in what we have said of him, Mr. Ruskin is a very
curious study. For simplicity, quaintness, and candour, his con-
fidences to ' the workmen and labourers of Great Britain ' in
1 Fors Clavigera ' are quite without example. For delicate irony
of style, when he gets a subject that he fully understands, and
intends to expose the ignorance, or, what is much worse, the
affectation of knowledge which is not knowledge, of others, no
man is his equal. But then as. curious as anything else, in that
strange medley of sparkling jewels, delicate spider-webs, and
tangles of exquisite fronds which makes " (the writer should be
on his guard against the letter s in future passages of this descrip-
tive character) " up Mr. Ruskin's mind, is the high-handed arro-
JFors C la viper a.
gance which is so strangely blended with his imperious modesty,
and that, too, often when it is most grotesque. It is not, indeed,
his arrogance, but his modest self-knowledge which speaks, when
he says in this new number of the ' Fors ' that though there are
thousands of men in England able to conduct the business affairs
of his Society better than he can, 'I do not believe there is
another man in England able to organize our elementary lessons
in Natural History and Art. And I am therefore wholly occupied
in examining the growth of Anagallis tenella, and completing some
notes on St. George's Chapel at Venice.' And no doubt he is
quite right. Probably no one could watch the growth of Ana-
gallis tenella to equal purpose, and no one else could complete
his notes on St. George's Chapel without spoiling them. We are
equally sure that he is wise, when he tells his readers that he must
entirely decline any manner of political action which might hinder
him 'from drawing leaves and flowers.' But what does astonish
us is the supreme confidence, — or say, rather, hurricane of dicta-
torial passion, — though we do not use the word ' passion ' in the
sense of anger or irritation, but in the higher sense of mental
white-heat, which has no vexation in it, (a) — with which this
humble student of leaves and flowers, of the Anagallis tenella
and the beauties of St. George's Chapel at Venice, passes judg-
ment on the whole structure of human society, from its earliest
to its latest convolutions, and not only judgment, but the
sweeping judgment of one who knows all its laws of structure
and all its misshapen growths with a sort of assurance which
Mr. Ruskin would certainly never feel in relation to the true
form, or the distortions of the true form, of the most minute
fibre of one of his favourite leaves or flowers. Curiously enough,
the humble learner of Nature speaking through plants and trees,
(a) I don't understand. Probably there is not another so
much vexed person as I at present extant of his grave.
Fors Clavipera.
<v
is the most absolute scorner of Nature speaking through the
organization of great societies and centuries of social expe-
rience, {b) We know well what Mr. Ruskin would say, — that
the difference is great between the growth that is without moral
freedom and the growth which has been for century after cen-
tury distorted by the reckless abuse of moral freedom. And
we quite admit the radical difference. But what strikes us as
so strange is that this central difficulty of all, — how much is
really due to the structural growth of a great society, and quite
independent of any voluntary abuse which might be amended
by voluntary effort, and how much is due to the false direc-
tion of individual wills, never strikes Mr. Ruskin as a difficulty
at all. (e) On the contrary, he generalizes in his sweeping way,
on social tendencies which appear to be (d) far more deeply
ingrained in the very structure of human life than the veins of
a leaf in the structure of a plant, with a confidence with which
he would never for a moment dream of generalizing as to the
true and normal growth of a favourite plant. Thus he tells us
in the last number of Fors that ' Fors Clavigera is not in any
way intended as counsel adapted to the present state of the
public mind, but it is the assertor of the code of eternal laws
which the public mind must eventually submit itself to, or die ;
and I have really no more to do with the manners, customs,
feelings, or modified conditions of piety in the modern England,
which I have to warn of the accelerated approach either of
(I?) It would be curious, and much more, if it only were so.
[c — Italics mine.) On what grounds did the writer suppose
this ? When Dr. Christison analyzes a poison, and simply states
his result, is it to be concluded he was struck by no difficulties
in arriving at it, because he does not advise the public of his
embarrassments ?
(d) What does it matter what they appear to be ?
8 Fors Clavigera.
Revolution or Destruction, than poor Jonah had with the
qualifying amiabilities which might have been found in the
Nineveh whose overthrow he was ordered to foretell in forty
days.' But the curious part of the matter is that Mr. Ruskin,
far from keeping to simple moral laws, denounces in the most
vehement manner social arrangements which seem to most men (e)
as little connected with them as they would have seemed to
'poor Jonah.' We are not aware, for instance, that Jonah
denounced the use of machinery in Nineveh. Indeed, he
seems to have availed himself of a ship, which is a great com-
plication of machines, and to have ' paid his fare ' from Joppa
to Tyre, without supposing himself to have been accessory to
anything evil in so doing. We are not aware, too, that Jonah
held it to be wrong, as Mr. Ruskin holds it to be wrong, to
charge for the use of a thing when you do not want to part
with it altogether. These are practices which are so essentially
interwoven alike with the most fundamental as also with the
most superficial principles of social growth, that any one who
assumes that they are rooted in moral evil is bound to be very
careful to discriminate where the evil begins, and show that it
can be avoided, — just as a naturalist who should reproach the
trees on a hill-side for sloping away from the blast they have
to meet, should certainly first ask himself how the trees are to
avoid the blast, or how, if they cannot avoid it, they are to help
so altering their growth as to accommodate themselves to it.
But Mr. Ruskin, though in relation to nature he is a true
naturalist, in relation to human nature has in him nothing at
all of the human naturalist. It never occurs to him apparently
that here, too, are innumerable principles of growth which are
quite independent of the will of man, and that it becomes the
highest moralist to study humbly where the influence of the
(e) What does it matter what they ' seem to most men ' ?
Fors Clavigera.
•V
human will begins and where it ends, instead of rashly and
Bweepingly condemning, as due to a perverted morality, what
is in innumerable cases a mere inevitable result of social struc-
ture. (/)
" Consider only how curiously different in spirit is the humility
with which the great student of the laws of beauty watches the
growth of the Anagallis tenella, and that with which he watches
the growth of the formation of human opinion. A correspondent
had objected to him that he speaks so contemptuously of some
of the most trusted leaders of English workmen, of Goldwin
Smith, for instance, and of John Stuart Mill. Disciples of such
leaders, the writer had said, ' are hurt and made angry, when
names which they do not like are used of their leaders.' Mr.
Ruskin's reply is quite a study in its way : —
'Well, my dear sir, I solemnly declare,' etc., down to 'ditches
for ever.' — See Fors, September, 1877.
Now observe that here Mr. Ruskin, who would follow the
lines of a gossamer-thread sparkling in the morning dew with
reverent wonder and conscientious accuracy, arraigns, first, the
tendency of man to express immature and tentative views of
(/) To this somewhat lengthily metaphorical paragraph, the
needful answer may be brief, and without metaphor. To every
' social structure ' which has rendered either wide national crime
or wide national folly ' inevitable ' — ruin is also ' inevitable.'
Which is all I have necessarily to say ; and which has been by
me, now, very sorrowfully, — enough said. Nevertheless, some-
what more may be observed of England at this time, — namely,
that she has no ' social structure ' whatsoever j but is a mere
heap of agonizing human maggots, scrambling and sprawling
over each other for any manner of rotten eatable thing they can
get a bite of.
io Fors Clavigera
&
passing events, (g) as if that were wholly due, not to a law of
human nature, ! ! (h) but to those voluntary abuses of human
freedom which might as effectually be arrested as murder or
theft could be arrested by moral effort ; next arraigns, if not the
discovery of the printing press (of which any one would suppose
that he entertained a stern disapprobation), at least the inevi-
table (/) results of that discovery, precisely as he would arraign
a general prevalence of positive vice ; and last of all, that he
actually claims the power, as an old litterateur, to discern at
sight ' what is eternally good and vital, and to strike away from
it pitilessly what is worthless and venomous.' On the first two
heads, as it seems to us, Mr. Ruskin arraigns laws of nature
as practically unchangeable as any by which the sap rises in
the tree and the blossom forms upon the flower. On the last
head, he assumes a tremendous power in relation to subjects
very far removed from these which he has made his own, "
(g) I have never recognized any such tendency in persons
moderately well educated. What is their education for — if it
cannot prevent their expressing immature views about anything ?
(/z) I insert twro notes of admiration. What ' law of human
nature' shall we hear of next? If it cannot keep its thoughts
in its mind, till they are digested, — I suppose we shall next hear
it cannot keep its dinner in its stomach.
(z ) There is nothing whatever of inevitable in the ' universal
gabble of fools,' which is the lamentable fact I have alleged
of the present times, whether they gabble with or without the
help of printing-press. The power of saying a very foolish
thing to a very large number of people at once, is of course
a greater temptation to a foolish person than he was formerly
liable to ; but when the national mind, such as it is, becomes
once aware of the mischief of all this, it is evitable enough —
else there were an end to popular intelligence in the world.
Fors Clavi«era. I i
w&
1 have lost the next leaf of the article, and may
as well, it seems to me, close my extract here, for I
do not know what subject the writer conceives me to
have made my own, if not the quality of literature !
If I am ever allowed, by public estimate, to know any-
thing whatever, it is — how to write. My knowledge of
painting is entirely denied by ninety-nine out of a
hundred painters of the day ; but the literary men are
great hypocrites if they don't really think me, as they
profess to do, fairly up to my work in that line. And
what would an old litterateur be good for, if he did
not know good writing from bad, and that without
tasting more than a half page. And for the moral
tendency of books — no such practised sagacity is needed
to determine that. The sense, to a healthy mind, of
being strengthened or enervated by reading, is just as
definite and unmistakeable as the sense, to a healthy
body, of being in fresh or foul air : and no more
arrogance is involved in perceiving the stench, and
forbidding the reading of an unwholesome book, than
in a physician's ordering the windows to be opened in
a sick room. There is no question whatever concern-
ing these matters, with any person who honestly desires
to be informed about them ; — the real arrogance is
only in expressing judgments, either of books or any-
thing else, respecting which we have taken no trouble to
be informed. Here is my friend of the ' Spectator,' for
instance, commenting complacently on the vulgar gossip
1 2 Fors C lav i vera
cV
about my opinions of machinery, without even taking
the trouble to look at what I said, else he would have
found that, instead of condemning machinery, there is
the widest and most daring plan in Fors for the
adaptation of tide-mills to the British coasts that has
yet been dreamt of in engineering ; and that, so far
from condemning ships, half the physical education of
British youth is proposed by Fors to be conducted in
them.
What the contents of Fors really are, however, it is
little wonder that even my most studious friends do
not at present know, broken up as these materials have
been into a mere moraine of separate and seemingly
jointless stones, out of which I must now build such
Cyclopean wall as I shall have time and strength
for. Therefore, during some time at least, the main
business of this second series of letters will be only
the arrangement for use, and clearer illustration, of the
scattered contents of the first.
And I cannot begin with a more important subject,
or one of closer immediate interest, than that of the
collection of rain, and management of streams. On
this subject, I expect a series of papers from my friend
Mr. Henry Willett, containing absolutely verified data :
in the meantime I beg the reader to give his closest
attention to the admirable statements by M. Viollet-
le-Duc, given from the new English translation of his
book on Mont Blanc, in the seventh article of our
Fors Clavigera. 13
Correspondence. I have before had occasion to speak
with extreme sorrow of the errors in the theoretical
parts of this work : but its practical intelligence is
admirable.
Just in time, I get Mr. Willett's first sheet. His
preface is too valuable to be given without some farther
comment, but this following bit may serve us for this
month :
" The increased frequency in modern days of upland
floods appears to be due mainly to the increased want
of the retention of the rainfall. Now it is true of all
drainage matters that man has complete power over
them at the beginning, where they are widely dissemi-
nated, and it is only when by the uniting ramifications
over large areas a great accumulation is produced, that
man becomes powerless to deal satisfactorily with it.
Nothing ever is more senseless than the direct contra-
vention of Nature's laws by the modern system of
gathering together into one huge polluted stream the
sewage of large towns. The waste and expense in-
curred, first in collecting, and then in attempting to
separate and to apply to the land the drainage of large
towns, seems a standing instance of the folly and per-
versity of human arrangements, and it can only be
accounted for by the interest which attaches to the spending
of large sums of money." (Italics mine.)
14 Fors Clavigera.
" It may be desirable at some future time to revert
to this part of the subject, and to suggest the natural,
simple, and inexpensive alternative plan.
11 To return to the question of floods caused by rain-
fall only. The first and completely remunerating ex-
penditure should be for providing tanks of filtered water
for human drinking, etc., and reservoirs for cattle and
manufacturing purposes, in the upland valleys and moor-
land glens which form the great collecting grounds of
all the water which is now wastefully permitted to flow
either into underground crevices and natural reservoirs,
that it may be pumped up again at an enormous waste
of time, labour, and money, or neglectfully permitted to
deluge the habitations of which the improper erection
on sites liable to flooding has been allowed.
" To turn for a moment to the distress and incurred
expense in summer from want of the very same water
which has been wasted in winter, I will give three or
four instances which have come under my own know-
ledge. In the summer of 1876 I was put on shore
from a yacht a few miles west of Swanage Bay, in
Dorsetshire, and then, walking to the nearest village, I
wanted to hire a pony-chaise from the landlady of the
only inn, but she was obliged absolutely to refuse me
because the pony was already overworked by having to
drag water for the cows a perpendicular distance of
from two hundred to three hundred feet from the valley
beneath. Hardly a rain-shoot, and no reservoir, could
Fors Clavigera. 15
be seen. A highly intelligent gentleman in Sussex,
the year before, remarked, ' I should not regret the
rain coming and spoiling the remainder of my harvest,
as it would thereby put an end to the great expense I
am at in drawing water from the river for my flock
of sheep.' In the village of Farnborough, Kent, there
are two wells : one at the Hall, 1 60 feet deep, and a
public one at the north-west of the village. In summer
a man gets a good living by carting the water for the
poor people, charging id. for six gallons, and earning
from 2s. 6d. to 3^. a day. One agricultural labourer
pays $d. a week for his family supply in summer. ' He
could catch more off his own cottage, but the spouts
are out of order, and the landlord won't put them right.'
I know a farmer in Sussex who, having a seven-years'
lease of some downland, at his own expense built a
small tank which cost him £30. He told me at the end
of his lease the farm would be worth ^30 per annum
more, because of the tank. The Earl of Chichester,
who has most wisely and successfully grappled with the
subject, says that ;£ioo per annum is not an unfrequent
expenditure by individual farmers for the carting of
water in summer-time.
" In my next I will give, by his lordship's kind per-
mission, a detailed account and plan of his admirable
method of water supply, superseding wells and pump-
ing."
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
I. Affairs of the Company.
I never was less able to give any account of these, for the
last month has been entirely occupied with work in Oxford ;
the Bank accounts cannot be in my hands till the year's end ;
the business at Abbeydale can in no wise be put on clear
footing till our Guild is registered ; and I have just been-
warned of some farther modifications needful in our memo-
randum for registry.
But I was completely convinced last year that, fit or unfit,
I must take all these things in hand myself; and I do not
think the leading article of our Correspondence will remain,
after the present month, so wholly unsatisfactory.
II. Affairs of the Master. (12th December, 1877.)
Since I last gave definite statements of these, showing that
in cash I had only some twelve thousand pounds left, the
sale of Turner's drawings, out of the former collection of
Mr. Munro, of Novar, took place ; and I considered it my duty,
for various reasons, to possess myself of Caernarvon Castle,
Leicester Abbey, and the Bridge of Narni ; the purchase of
which, with a minor acquisition or two besides, reduced my
available cash, by my banker's account yesterday, to ,£10,223,
that being the market value of my remaining ^"4000- Bank
Stock. I have directed them to sell this stock, and buy
2ND SERIES, I.] 2
1 8 Notes and Correspo?idence .
me £9000 New Threes instead ; by which operation I at
once lose about sixty pounds a year of interest, (in conformity
with my views already enough expressed on that subject,) and
I put a balance of something over ^1500 in the Bank, to
serve St. George and me till we can look about us a little.
Both the St. George's and my private account will hence-
forward be rendered by myself, with all clearness possible to
me ; but they will no longer be allowed to waste the space of
Fors. They will be forwarded on separate sheets to the Com-
panions, and be annually purchaseable by the public.
I further stated, in last year's letters, that at the close of
1877 I should present my Marylebone property to St. George
for a Christmas gift, without interfering with Miss Octavia Hill's
management of it. But this piece of business, like everything
else I try to do just now, has its own hitches ; the nature of
which will be partly understood on reading some recent corre-
spondence between Miss Hill and myself, which I trust may-
be closed, and in form presentable, next month. The trans-
ference of the property will take place all the same ; but it
will be seen to have become questionable how far Miss Hill
may now consent to retain her control over the tenants.
III. We cannot begin the New Year under better auspices
than are implied in the two following letters.
To Mr. John Ruskin, LL.D.
" Honoured Sir, — I send ten shillings, which I beg you to
accept as a gift for your St. George's Fund. The sum is small,
but I have been thinking that as you are now bringing some
plots of land into cultivation, that even so small a sum, if spent
in the purchase of two or three apple or other fruit trees suitable
to the locality, they might be pointed to, in a few years' time,
Notes and Correspondence. 19
to show what had been the result of a small sum, when wisely
deposited in the Bank of Nature.
" Yours very Respectfully,
" A Garden Workman,
" This day 80 years old,
" Joseph Stapleton.
" November 2$t/i, 1877."
(The apple-trees will be planted in Worcestershire, and kept
separate note of.)
" Cloughton Moor, near Scarborough,
November 15, 1877.
" Dear Master, — We have delayed answering your very kind
letter, for which we were very grateful, thinking that soon we
should be hearing again from Mr. Bagshawe, because we had
a letter from him the same day that we got yours, asking for
particulars of the agreement between myself and Dr. Rooke.
I answered him by return of post, requesting him likewise to
get the affair settled as soon as convenient ; but we have not
heard anything since. But we keep working away, and have
got the house and some of the land a bit shapely, We are
clearing, and intend closing, about sixteen hundred yards of
what we think the most suitable and best land for a garden,
and shall plant a few currant and gooseberry bushes in, I hope
directly, if the weather keeps favourable. In wet weather we
repair the cottage indoors, and all seems to go on very nicely.
The children enjoy it very much, and so do we too, for you
see we are all together — ' father's always at home.' I shall never
be afraid of being out of work again, there is so much to do ;
and I think it will pay, too. Of course it will be some time
before it returns anything, excepting tired limbs, and the satis-
faction that it is, and looks, better. We intend rearing poultry,
and have a cow, perhaps, when we get something to ^.rov to
20 Notes and Correspondence.
feed them with j and to that intent I purpose preparing stone
this winter to build an outbuilding for them in the spring-time.
I can do it all myself — the working part ; but should require
help to purchase lime and timber, but not yet. We shall try
our best to work and make our arrangements suit your views
as far as we understand them, and anything you could like us
to do, we shall be glad to perform. " Yours truly,
" John Guy.
" Our gross earnings for the year is ^54 iSs. $^d. Our
expenses this year have been heavy, with two removals, but we
have a balance of ^n after paying tenth, for which we enclose
Post Office order for ^5 gs. 10^. We have plenty of clothing
and shoes and fuel to serve us the winter through ; so Mary says
we can do very well until spring."
IV. The following important letters set the question raised
about the Bishops' returns of income at rest. I need scarcely
point out how desirable it would be for these matters to be
put on so simple footing as to leave no ground for misappre-
hension by the common people. ' Disingenuousness ' which the
writer suspects in the ' Humanitarian ' is not usually a fault of
the lower orders; nor do they ever fail in respect to a good
and active clergyman.
"November 28, 1877.
" Dear Mr. Ruskin, — I see from the November Fors that
you ask for further explanation of some figures published by a
' Humanitarian,' of Bishopwearmouth, touching the Bishops'
incomes of thirty-nine years ago. 'The apparent discrepancy
between the actual and alleged incomes is very easily explained.
The larger figures are not, and are not said to be, the incomes
of the Bishops at all. The estates were then let on 'beneficial '
leases ; and the people who held these leases, generally country
Notes and Correspondence. 21
squires, were the real owners of the lands, paying to the Bishops
ancient nominal rents, and occasional lump sums (' fines '), when
the leases were renewed. The big sums, therefore, are the
estimated rental of the lands — that is, e.g., in the case of York
the ,£41,030 represent the rents paid to the country gentlemen
by their tenants, and the ,£13,798 is the average, one year with
another, of what the squires paid to the Archbishop in rents
and fines. The difference, of course, represents the value of
the lands to the squires. What the figures really show, there-
fore, is the amount of Church property which, little by little,
in the course of centuries, through a bad system of tenure, had
got into the hands of laymen. This bad system has been long
abolished, under the operation of divers laws passed in 1841,
and later; and the Bishops have now, as your other table
shows, much-reduced and unvarying income."
" It may help you to see how the proportions (in the case of
different Bishops) of the Bishops' receipts to value of lands,
vary so much, when I explain that the average episcopal income
was required, in the forms issued by the Royal Commission, to
be made out from the actual receipts of a specified period —
seven years, I think.* Now the separate leaseholds were of
very various values, some big and some little, and it would
often happen that several years elapsed without any big ' fine '
falling in j and then there might come, in quick succession, the
renewals of three or four very valuable estates, thus raising
immensely the average for those particular years. Hence every
Bishop's return, though accurately given as required, was a very
rough average, though the return, taken as a whole — that is, as
regards all the sees together — gave a fair view of the facts.
The ins and outs of the affair, you see, can only be understood
* The term had necessarily to be moderate, as it would have been useless
to ask a Bishop as to the receipts of his predecessor.
22 Notes and Correspondence.
by people familiar with the working of the now obsolete system.
I therefore in my last note abstained from saying more than
was just sufficient to indicate the blunder, or disingenuousness,
of the pamphleteer, knowing that it would be useless to burden
your pages with farther details. To any one who knows the
facts, the large figures given as the apparent incomes of Bishops
are simply ludicrous. No Bishop ever had any income ap-
proaching to ^50,000. That of the late Bishop Sumner, of
Winchester, was always quoted as exorbitantly vast, and it was
about ;£i 9,000. I know privately that the late Archbishop of
Canterbury, with his ^15,000 a year, left his family the noble
fortune of £600 per annum ! "
V. "The fate of Cyfarthfa. — Mr. Crawshay has put a
summary end to all rumours as to the possibility of a start at
Cyfarthfa. One of his old servants, says the ' Western Mail,'
wrote to him lately on matters apart from the iron-works ; but
in the course of his letter he asked his old master whether
there were any hopes of the works being again started. The
reply from Mr. Crawshay was as follows : ' Trade is worse
than ever it was, and I see not the slightest chance of Cy-
farthfa starting again ; and I believe if it ever does start it
will be under different circumstances to the present, as it will
require a large sum to be laid out in improvements, such as
making steel-works, etc. I am too near my grave to think of
doing anything of the sort ; and I think so badly of trade
altogether that I have no wish to see my sons remain in it.
I am feeling very poorly, and do not think I can possibly
live very long, and if I am able I shall sell the works before
I die. There is nothing now to bind me to them, for I have
been estranged from them by the conduct of the men. I
always hoped and expected to die with the works going, and
the same feeling among the men for their employers j but things
Notes and Correspondence. 23
have changed, and all is different, and I go to my grave feeling
I am a perfect stranger, as all my old men are gone, or nearly
so.' "
"9, Stevenson Square, Manchester,
gt/i October, 1877.
" My dear Sir, — Could you have thought, did you expect,
that such an utter vindication of your words would embody
itself in this form ? " T. W. P.
"J. Ruskin, Esq."
Yes, my friend, I not only expected, but knew positively
that such vindication, not of my words only, but of the words
of all the servants of God, from the beginning of days, would
assuredly come, alike in this, and in other yet more terrible,
"forms. But it is to be noted that there are four quite distinct
causes operating in the depression of English, — especially iron,
— trade, of which two are our own fault ; and the other two,
being inevitable, should have been foreseen long since, by
even the vulgar sagacity of self-interest.
The first great cause is the separation between masters and
men, which is wholly the masters' fault, and the necessary
result of the defiance of every moral law of human relation
by modern political economy.
The second is the loss of custom, in consequence of bad
work — also a result of the teaching of modern political economy.
The third, affecting especially the iron trade, is that the
funds which the fools of Europe had at their disposal, with
which to build iron bridges instead of wooden ones, put up
spike railings instead of palings, and make machines in sub-
stitution for their arms and legs, are now in a great degree
exhausted ; and by the time the rails are all rusty, the bridges
snapped, and the machines found to reap and thresh no more
corn than arms did, the fools of Europe will have learned a
24 Notes and Correspondence,
lesson or two which will not be soon forgotten, even by them ;
and the iron trade will be slack enough, thereafter.
The fourth cause of trade depression, — bitter to the hearts
of the persons whom Mr. Spencer Herbert calls patriots, — is,
that the inhabitants of other countries have begun to perceive
that they have got hands as well as we — and possibly, in
some businesses, even better hands ; and that they may just
as well make their own wares as buy them of us. Which
wholesome discovery of theirs will in due time mercifully put
an end to the British ideal of life in the National Shop ;
and make it at last plain to the British mind that the cliffs
of Dover were not constructed by Providence merely to be
made a large counter.
VI. The following paper by Professor VV. J. Beal is sent me
by a correspondent from a New York journal. The reader is
free to attach such weight to it as he thinks proper. The
passage about the Canada thistle is very grand.
" Interest money is a heavy tax on many people of the United
States. There is no other burden in the shape of money which
weighs down like interest, unless it be money spent for intoxi-
cating liquors. Men complain of high State taxes, of school-
taxes, and taxes for bridges, sewers, (? grading,) and for building
churches. For some of these they are able to see an equivalent,
but for money paid as interest — for the use of money, few
realize or gain (? guess) what it costs. It is an expensive luxury
to pay for the mere privilege of handling what does not belong
to you. People are likely to overestimate your wealth, and
(make you ?) pay more taxes than you ought to.
" In most parts of our new country, ten per cent, per annum,
or more, is paid for the use of money. A shrewd business man
may reasonably make it pay to live at this rate for a short
time, but even such men often fail to make it profitable. It
Notes and Correspondence, 25
is an uncommon thing for any business to pay a sure and safe
return of ten per cent, for any length of time. The profits
of great enterprises, like railroads, manufactories of iron, cloth,
farm-implements, etc., etc., are so variable, so fluctuating, that
it is difficult to tell their average profit, or the average profit
of any one of them. We know it is not uncommon for rail-
roads to go into the hands of a receiver, because they cannot
pay the interest on their debts. Factories stop, and often go
to decay, because they cannot pay running expenses. Often
they cannot continue without losing money, to say nothing
about the interest on the capital. Merchants seldom can pay
ten per cent, on large amounts for any length of time. Even
six per cent, is a heavy tax on any kind of business.
" But it was not of these classes that I intended to speak
at this time. The writer has been most of his life among
farmers, and has had unusual opportunities for studying their
management of finances. It may be worse in a new country
than in an old one, but so far as my knowledge extends, a
latge majority of the farms of Michigan are covered by a mort-
gage. The farmer needs capital to" buy sheep, cattle, tools j to
build houses and barns, and to clear and prepare land for crops.
He is very likely to underestimate the cost of a farm, and
what it takes to stock it properly. He invests all his money,
and perhaps runs in debt, for his land alone, leaving nothing
with which to furnish it. Quite often he buys more land
before he has money to pay for it, or even before he has paid
off the mortgage on his present farm. Times may be easy;
crops may be good, and high in price, for a few years. He
overestimates his ability to make money, and runs in debt.
Fortune changes. He has ' bad luck,' and the debt grows larger
instead of smaller.
u Farming is a safe business, but even this has its dark
side. Good crops are by no means sure, even with good
26 Notes and Correspondence.
culture. Blight, drought, insects, fire, sickness, and other cala-
mities may come when least expected, and with a large debt
overwhelm the hopeful farmer.
" I have never seen a farm that for several years together
paid ten per cent, interest on the capital invested. In an old
scrap-book I find the following : ' No blister draws sharper
than does the interest. Of all industries, none is comparable
to that of interest. It works all day and night, in fair weather
and in foul. It has no sound in its footsteps, but travels fast.
It gnaws at a man's substance with invisible teeth. It binds
industry with its film, as a fly is bound in the spider's web.
Debts roll a man over and over, binding him hand and foot,
and letting him hang upon the fatal mesh until the long-legged
interest devours him. There is but one thing on a farm like
it, and that is the Canada thistle, which swarms with new plants
every time you break its roots, whose blossoms are prolific, and
every flower the father of a million seeds. Every leaf is an
awl, every branch a spear, and every plant like a platoon of
bayonets, and a field of them like an armed host. The whole
plant is a torment and a vegetable curse. And yet, a farmer
had better make his bed of Canada thistles than to be at ease
upon interest.'
" There are some exceptions to the general rule, that no
man should run in debt. It may be better for one to owe
something on a house and lot than to move from house to
house every year or so and pay a high rent. It may do for
a farmer to incur a small debt on a new piece of land, or on
some improvement, but be cautious. A small debt will some-
times stimulate to industry and economy, but a large one will
often weary, and finally come off victorious.
" A farmer wishes to save his extra lot for his son, and so pays
ten per cent. His sons and daughters cannot go to a good
school or college because of that mortgage. The son sees the
Notes and Correspondence, 27
privations of a farmer's life under unfavourable circumstances.
The lather dies, and leaves the farm to his son with a heavy-
debt on it, which he in vain attempts to remove, or he sells
the farm and leaves that kind of drudgery. Very often a farmer
is keeping more land than he is able to work or manage well.
He does not know how to get value received, and more, out
of his hired help. Such a one is unwise not to sell a part,
clear the debt, and work the remainder better."
VII. The passage referred to in the text, from Mr. Bucknall's
translation of M. Viollet-le-Duc's essay on Mont Blanc : —
" But what is man in presence of the great phenomena which
geology reveals ? What can he do to utilize or to counteract
their consequences ? How can such diminutive beings, whose
most numerous army would be barely noticed on the slopes of
these mountains, in any degree modify the laws which govern
the distribution of watercourses, alluvial deposits, denudations,
and the accumulation and melting of snows on such vast moun-
tain masses? Is not their impotence manifest?
" No ; the most terrible and powerful phenomena of Nature
are only the result of the multiplication of infinitesimal appli-
ances or forces. The blade of grass or the fibre of moss
performs a scarcely appreciable function, but which, when
multiplied, conducts to a result of considerable importance.
The drop of water which penetrates by degrees into the fissures
of the hardest rocks, when crystallized as the result of a
lowering of the temperature, ultimately causes mountains to
crumble. In Nature there are no insignificant appliances, or,
rather, the action of Nature is only the result of insignificant
appliances. Man, therefore, can act in his turn, since these
small means are not beyond the reach of his influence, and
his intelligence enables him to calculate their effects. Yet
owing to his neglect of the study of Nature — his parent and
28 Notes and Correspondence.
great nurturer, and thus ignorant of her procedure, man is
suddenly surprised by one of the phases of her incessant work,
and sees his crops and habitations swept away by an inunda-
tion. Does he proceed to examine the cause of what he calls a
cataclysm, but which is only the consequence of an accumulation
of phenomena ? No ; he attributes it to Providence, restores
his dykes, sows his fields, and rebuilds his dwellings ; and then
.... waits for the disaster — which is a consequence of laws
he has neglected to study — to occur again. Is it not thus that
things have been taking place for centuries? — while Nature,
subject to her own laws, is incessantly pursuing her work with an
inflexible logical persistency. The periodical inundations which
lay waste vast districts are only a consequence of the action
of these laws ; it is for us, therefore, to become acquainted with
them, and to direct them to our advantage.
" We have seen in the preceding investigations that Nature
had, at the epoch of the great glacial debacles, contrived reser-
voirs at successive stages, in which the torrent waters deposited
the materials of all dimensions that were brought down — first
in the form of drift, whence sifting them, they caused them to
descend lower down ; the most bulky being deposited first, and
the lightest, in the form of silt, being carried as far as the low
plains. We have seen that, in filling up most of these reservoirs
by the deposit of materials, the torrents tended to make their
course more and more sinuous— to lengthen it, and thus to
diminish the slopes, and consequently render their flow less
rapid. We have seen that in the higher regions the torrents
found points of rest — levels prepared by the disintegration of the
slopes; and that from these levels they incessantly cause debris
to be precipitated, which ultimately formed cones of dejection,
often permeable, and at the base of which the waters, retarded in
their course and filtered, spread in rivulets through the valleys.
" Not only have men misunderstood the laws of which
Notes and Correspondence, 29
we mention here only certain salient points, but they have
for the most part run counter to them, and have thus been
paving the way for the most formidable disasters. Ascending
the valleys, man has endeavoured to make the great labora-
tories of the mountains subservient to his requirements. To
obtain pastures on the slopes, he has destroyed vast forests ;
to obtain fields suitable for agriculture in the valleys, he has
embanked the torrents, or has obliterated their sinuosities, thus
precipitating their course towards the lower regions; or, again,
bringing the mud-charged waters into the marshes, he has dried
up the latter by suppressing a great many accidental reserves.
The mountaineer has had but one object in view — to get rid
as quickly as possible of the waters with which he is too
abundantly supplied, without concerning himself with what may
happen in the lower grounds. Soon, however, he becomes
himself the first victim of his imprudence or ignorance. The
forests having been destroyed, avalanches have rolled down in
enormous masses along the slopes. These periodical avalanches
have swept down in their course the humus produced by large
vegetable growths ; and in place of the pastures which the
mountaineer thought he was providing for his flocks, he has
found nothing more than the denuded rock, allowing the water
produced by rain or thawing to flow in a few moments down
to the lower parts, which are then rapidly submerged and deso-
lated. To obtain a few acres by drying up a marsh or a small
lake, he has often lost double the space lower down in conse-
quence of the more rapid discharge of pebbles and sand. As
soon as vegetation has attempted to grow on the cones of
dejection — the products of avalanches, and which consist entirely
of debris — he will send his herds of goats there, which will destroy
in a few hours the work of several years. At the terminal point
of the elevated combes — where the winter causes the snows to
accumulate — far from encouraging the larger vegetable growths,
30 Notes and Correspondence.
which would mitigate the destructive effects of the avalanches,
he has been in the habit of cutting down the trees, the approach
to such points being easy, and the cones of dejection favouring
the sliding down of the trunks into the valley.
" This destruction of the forests appears to entail consequences
vastly more disastrous than are generally supposed. Forests
protect forests, and the more the work of destruction advances,
the more do they incline to abandon the altitudes in which they
once flourished. At the present day, around the massif of Mont
Blanc, the larch, which formerly grew vigorously at an elevation
of six thousand feet, and marked the limit of the larger vegetable
growths, is quitting those heights, leaving isolated witnesses in
the shape of venerable trunks which are not replaced by young
trees.
" Having frequently entered into conversation with mountaineers
on those elevated plateaux, I have taken occasion to explain
to them these simple problems, to point out to them the fore-
sight of Nature and the improvidence of man, and to show how
by trifling efforts it was easy to restore a small lake, to render a
stream less rapid, and to stop the fall of materials in those terrible
couloirs. They would listen attentively, and the next day would
anticipate me in remarking, ' Here is a good place to make
a reservoir. By moving a few large stones here, an avalanche
might be arrested.'
11 The herdsmen are the enemies of the forests ; what they
want is pasturage. As far as they can, therefore, they destroy
the forests, without suspecting that their destruction is sure to
entail that of the greater part of the pastures.
" We saw in the last chapter that the lowering* of the limit of
the woods appears to be directly proportioned to the diminution
of the glaciers ; in fact, that the smaller the volume of the
* 'Raising,' I think the author must have meant.
Notes and Correspondence. 31
glaciers, the more do the forests approach the lower (? higher)
regions. We have found stumps of enormous larches on the
beds of the ancient glaciers that surmounted La Flegere, beneath
the Aiguilles Pourries and the Aiguilles Rouges — i.e., more than
three hundred feet above the level of the modern Chalet de
la Flegere, whereas at present the last trees are some yards
below this hotel, and maintain but a feeble existence. These
deserts are now covered only with stone debris, rhododendrons,
and scanty pasturage. Even in summer, water is absent at many
points, so that to supply their cattle the herdsmen of La Flegere
have been obliged to conduct the waters of the Lacs Blancs
into reservoirs by means of a small dyke which follows the
slopes of the ancient moraines. Yet the bottoms of the trough-
shaped hollows are sheltered, and contain a thick layer of
humus, so that it would appear easy, in spite of the altitude
(6,600 feet), to raise larches there. But the larch is favoured
by the neighbourhood of snows or ice. And on this plateau,
whose summits reach an average of 8,500 feet, scarcely a few
patches of snow are now to be seen in August.
" Formerly these ancient glacier beds were dotted with small
tarns, which have been drained off for the most part by the
herdsmen themselves, who hoped thus to gain a few square
yards of pasture. Such tarns, frozen from October to May,
preserve the snow and form small glaciers, while their number
caused these solitudes to preserve permanent neves, which,
covering the rocky beds, regarded their disintegration. It was
then also that the larches, whose stumps still remain, covered
the hollows and sheltered parts of the combes. The area of
pasturage was evidently limited ; but the pasturage itself was
good, well watered, and could not be encroached upon. Now
both tarns and neves have disappeared, and larches likewise,
while we see inroads constantly made on the meadows by stony
debris and sand.
32 Notes and Correspondence.
" If care be not taken, the valley from Nant-Borant to Bon-
horame, which still enjoys such fine pastures, protected by some
remains of forests, will be invaded by debris ; for these forests
are already being cleared in consequence of a complete mis-
understanding of the conditions imposed by the nature of the
locality.
" Conifers would seem to have been created with a view to
the purpose they serve on the slopes of the mountains. Their
branches, which exhibit a constant verdure, arrest the snows,
and are strongly enough attached to their trunk to enable them
to support the load they have to carry. In winter we may see
layers of snow eight inches or a foot thick on the palmated
branches of the firs, yet which scarcely make them bend. Thus
every fir is a shelf which receives the snow and hinders it from
accumulating as a compact mass on the slopes. Under these
conditions avalanches are impossible. When the thaws come,
these small separate stores crumble successively into powder.
The trunk of the conifer clings to the rocks by the help of
its roots, which, like wide-spread talons, go far to seek their
nourishment, binding together among them all the rolling
stones. In fact, the conifer prefers a rock, settles on it, and
envelopes it with its strong roots as with a net, which, stretching
far and wide, go in search of neighbouring stones, and attach
them to the first as if to prevent all chance of their slipping
down.* In the interstices debris of leaves and branches accu-
mulate, and a humus is formed which retains the waters and
promotes the growth of herbaceous vegetation.
" It is wonderful to see how, in a few years, slopes, composed
of materials of all shapes, without any appearance of vegetation,
become covered with thick and vigorous fir plantations — i.e.,
if the goats do not tear off the young shoots, and if a little
rest is left to the heaps on which they grow. Then the sterile
* Compare the chapter on the offices of the Root, in 'Proserpina.'
Notes and Correspondence. 33
ground is clothed, and if an avalanche occurs, it may prostrate
some of the young trees and make itself a passage, but vegetation
is eager to repair the damage. Does man ever aid in this work ?
No ; he is its most dangerous enemy. Among these young
conifers he sends his herds of goats, which in a few days make
sad havoc, tear off the shoots, or hinder them from growing ;
moreover, he will cut down the slender trunks for firewood,
whereas the great neighbouring forest would furnish him, in
the shape of dead wood and fallen branches, with abundance
of fuel.
" We have observed this struggle between man and vegetation
for several years in succession. Sometimes, but rarely, the rising
forest gains the victory, and, having reached a certain develop-
ment, can defend itself. But most frequently it is atrophied,
and presents a mass of stunted trunks, which an avalanche
crushes and buries in a few moments.
# .# * , * *
" Reservoirs in steps at successive heights are the only means
for preventing the destructive effects of floods, for regulating
the streams, and supplying the plains during the dry seasons.
If, when Nature is left to herself, she gradually fills up those
she had formed, she is incessantly forming fresh ones ; but
here man interferes and prevents the work. He is the first
to suffer from his ignorance and cupidity ; and what he considers
his right to the possession of the soil is too often the cause of
injury to his neighbours and to himself.
"Civilized nations are aware that in the towns they build it
is necessary to institute sanitary regulations — that is, regulations
for the public welfare, which are a restriction imposed on the
absolute rights of property. These civilized nations have also
established analogous regulations respecting highways, the water-
courses in the plains, the chase, and fishing; but they have
scarcely troubled themselves about mountain districts, which
2ND SERIES. I.] 3
34 Notes and Correspondence.
are the sources of all the wealth of the country ; (Italics mine ;
but the statement needs qualification. — J. R.) for where there
are no mountains there are no rivers, consequently no culti-
vated lands; nothing but steppes, furnishing, at best, pasturage
for a few cattle distributed over immense areas.
" On the pretext that mountain regions are difficult of access,
those among us who are entrusted by destiny, ambition, or
ability, with the management of the national interests, find it
easier to concern themselves with the plains than with the
heights. (I don't find any governments, nowadays, concern-
ing themselves even with the plains, except as convenient fields
for massacre. — J. R.)
"We allow that in those elevated solitudes Nature is incle-
ment, and is stronger than we are j but it so happens that an
inconsiderable number of shepherds and poor ignorant moun-
taineers are free to do in those altitudes what their immediate
interests suggest to them. What do those good people care
about that which happens in the plains ? They have timber,
for which the sawmill is ready, and they fell it where the
transport to that sawmill is least laborious. Is not the incline
of the couloir formed expressly for sliding the trunks directly
to the mill?
" They have water in too great abundance, and they get rid
of it as fast as they can. They have young fir-plants, of which
the goats are fond ; and to make a cheese which they sell for
fifty centimes, they destroy a hundred francs' worth of timber,
thereby exposing their slopes to be denuded of soil, and their
own fields to be destroyed. They have infertile marshes, and
they drain them by digging a ditch requiring two days' work.
These marshes were filled with accumulations of peat, which,
like a sponge, retained a considerable quantity of water at the
time of the melting of the snows. They dry up the turf for
fuel, and the rock, being denuded, sends in a few minutes
Notes and Correspondence. 35
into the torrents the water which that turf held in reserve for
several weeks. Now and then an observer raises a cry of alarm,
and calls attention to the reckless waste of territorial wealth.
Who listens to what he says ? who reads what he writes ? (Punch
read my notes on the inundations at Rome, and did his best to
render them useless. — J. R.)
" Rigorously faithful to her laws, Nature does not carry up
again the pebble which a traveller's foot has rolled down the
slope— does not replant the forests which your thoughtless hands
have cut down, when the naked rock appears, and the soil has
been carried away by the melted snows and the rain — does not
restore the meadow to the disappearance of whose soil our want
of precaution has contributed. Far from comprehending the
marvellous logic of these laws, you contravene their beneficent
control, or at least impede their action. So much the worse for
you, poor mortal ! Do not, however, complain if your lowlands
are devastated, and your habitations swept away ; and do not
vainly impute these disasters to a vengeance or a warning on
the part of Providence. For these disasters are mainly owing
to your ignorance, your prejudices, and your cupidity."
FORS CLAVIGERA
SECOND SERIES.
YEA, THE WORK OF OUR HANDS, ESTABLISH THOU IT."
LETTER THE 86th.
LET US (ALL) EAT AND DRINK.
In assuming that the English Bible may yet be made
the rule of faith and conduct to the English people ;
and in placing in the Sheffield Library, for its first
volume, a MS. of that Bible in its perfect form, much
more is of course accepted as the basis of our future
education than the reader will find taken for the ground
either of argument or appeal, in any of my writings
on political economy previous to the year 1875. It
may partly account for the want of success of those
writings, that they pleaded for honesty without praise, and
for charity without reward ; — that they entirely rejected,
as any motive of moral action, the fear of future judg-
ment ; and — taking St. Paul in his irony at his bitterest
word, — " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,"
— they merely expanded that worldly resolution into
its just terms : " Yes, let us eat and drink " — what
2ND SERIES, II.] 4
38 Fors Clavigera,
else ? — but let us all eat and drink, and not a few
only, enjoining fast to the rest.
Nor do I, in the least item, now retract the assertion,
so often made in my former works,* that human probity
and virtue are indeed entirely independent of any hope
in futurity ; and that it is precisely in accepting death
as the end of all, and in laying down, on that sorrow-
ful condition, his life for his friends, that the hero and
patriot of all time has become the glory and safety
of his country. The highest ideals of manhood given
for types of conduct in ' Unto this Last ; ' and the as-
sertions that the merchant and common labourer must
be ready, in the discharge of their duty, to die rather
than fail, assume nothing more than this ; and all the
proper laws of human society may be perfectly deve-
loped and obeyed, and must be so wherever such society
is constituted with prudence, though none of them be
sanctioned by any other Divinity than that of our own
souls, nor their violation punished by any other penalty
than perfect death. There is no reason that we should
drink foul water in London, because we never hope to
drink of the stream of the City of God ; nor that we
should spend most of our income in making machines
for the slaughter of innocent nations, because we never
expect to gather the leaves of the tree for their healing.
Without, therefore, ceasing to press the works of pru-
dence even on Infidelity, and expect deeds and thoughts
* Most carefully wrought out in the preface to the ' Crown of Wild Olive.'
Fors Clavigera. 39
of honour even from Mortality, I yet take henceforward
happier, if not nobier, ground of appeal, and write as a
Christian to Christians ; that is to say, to persons who
rejoice in the hope of a literal, personal, perpetual life,
with a literal, personal, and eternal God.
To all readers holding such faith, I now appeal,
urging them to confess Christ before men ; which
they will find, on self-examination, they are most of
them afraid to do.
For going to church is only a compliance with the
fashion of the day ; not in the least a confession of
Christ, but only the expression of a desire to be thought
as respectable as other people. Staying to sacrament is
usually not much more ; though it may become super-
stitious, and a mere service done to obtain dispensation
from other services. Violent combativeness for particular
sects, as Evangelical, Roman Catholic, High Church,
Broad Church — or the like, is merely a form of party-
egotism, and a defiance of Christ, not confession of
Him.
But to confess Christ is, first, to behave righteously,
truthfully, and continently ; and then, to separate our-
selves from those who are manifestly or by profession
rogues, liars, and fornicators. Which it is terribly
difficult to do ; and which the Christian church has at
present entirely ceased to attempt doing.
And, accordingly, beside me, as I write, to-day,
(shortest day, 1877,) lies the (on the whole) honestest
4 A
40 Fors Clavigera.
journal of London, — ' Punch,' — with a moral piece of
Christian art occupying two of its pages, representing
the Turk in a human form, as a wounded and all but
dying victim — surrounded by the Christian nations, under
the forms of bear and vultures.
" This witness is true " as against themselves, namely,
that hitherto the action of the Christian nation to the
infidel has always been one of rapine, in the broad
sense, The Turk is what he is because we — have been
only Christians in name. And another witness is true,
which is a very curious one ; never, so far as I know,
yet received from past history,
Wherever the Christian church, or any section of it,
has indeed resolved to live a Christian life, and keep
God's laws in God's name, — there, instantly, manifest
approval of Heaven is given by accession of zvorldly
prosperity and victory. This witness has only been un-
heard, because every sect of Christians refuses to believe
that the religion of any other sect can be sincere, or
accepted of Heaven : while the truth is that it does
not matter a burnt stick's end from the altar, in
Heaven's sight, whether you are Catholic or Protestant,
Eastern, Western, Byzantine, or Norman, but only
whether you are true. So that the moment Venice is
true to St. Mark, her flag flies over all the Eastern
islands ; and the moment Florence is true to the Lady
of Lilies, her flag flies over all the Apennines ; and
the moment Switzerland is true to Notre Dame des
Fors Clavigera. 41
Neiges, her pine-club beats down the Austrian lances ;
and the moment England is true to her Protestant
virtue, all the sea-winds ally themselves with her
against the Armada : and though after-shame and
infidel failure follow upon every nation, yet the glory
of their great religious day remains unsullied, and in
that, they live for ever.
This is the Temporal lesson of all history, and with
that there is another Spiritual lesson, — namely, that
in the ages of faith, conditions of prophecy and
seer-ship exist, among the faithful nations, in painting
and scripture, which are also immortal and divine ; — of
which it has been my own special mission to speak
for the most part of my life : but only of late I
have understood completely the meaning of what had
been taught me, — in beginning to learn somewhat
more, of which I must not speak to-day ; Fors ap-
pointing that I should rather say final word respecting
our present state of spiritual fellowship, exemplified in
the strikes of our workmen, the misery that accom-
panies them, and the articles of our current literature
thereupon.
The said current literature, on this subject, being
almost entirely under the command of the Masters,
has consisted chiefly in lectures on the guilt and
folly of strikes, without in any wise addressing itself
to point ,out to the men any other way of settling
the question. " You can't have three shillings a day
42 Fors Clavigera.
in such times ; but we will give you two and sixpence :
you had better take it — and, both on religious and
commercial grounds, make no fuss. How much better
is two-and-sixpence than nothing ! and if once the mill
stop — think — where shall we be all then ? " " Yes," the
men answer, " but if to-day we take two and sixpence,
what is to hinder you, to-morrow, from observing to us
that two shillings are better than nothing, and we had
better take that sum on religious and commercial prin-
ciples, without fuss ? And the day after, may not the
same pious and moral instructors recommend to us
the contented acceptance of eighteenpence ? A stand
must clearly be made somewhere, and we choose to
make it here, and now."
The masters again have reason to rejoin : " True,
but if we give you three shillings to-day, how are we
to know you will not stand for three and sixpence
to-morrow, and for four shillings next week ? A stand
must be made somewhere, and we choose to make it
here, and now."
What solution is there, then ? and of what use are
any quantity of homilies either to man or master, on
their manner of debate, that show them no possible
solution in another way ? As things are at present,
the quarrel can only be practically closed by immi-
nence of starvation on one side, or of bankruptcy on
the other : even so, closed only for a moment, — never
ended, burning presently forth again, to sink silent only
Fors Clavigera. 43
in death ; — while, year after year, the agonies of conflict
and truces of exhaustion produce, for reward of the
total labour, and fiat of the total council of the people,
the minimum of gain for the maximum of misery.
Scattered up and down, through every page I have
written on political economy for the last twenty years,
the reader will find unfailing reference to a principle
of solution in such dispute, which is rarely so much as
named by other arbitrators ; — or if named, never believed
in : yet, this being indeed the only principle of decision,
the conscience of it, however repressed, stealthily modifies
every arbitrative word.
The men are rebuked, in the magistral homilies, for
their ingratitude in striking ! Then there must be a
law of Grace, which at least the masters recognize.
The men are mocked in the magistral homilies for
their folly in striking. Then there must be a law
of Wisdom, which at least the masters recognize.
Appeal to these, then, for their entire verdict, most
virtuous masters, all-gracious and all-wise. These repro-
bate ones, graceless and senseless, cannot find their way
for themselves ; you must guide them. That much I
told you, years and years ago. You will have to do
it, in spite of all your liberty-mongers. Masters, in
fact, you must be ; not in name.
But, as yet blind ; and drivers — not leaders — of the
blind, you must pull the beams out of your own eyes,
now ; and that bravely. Preach your homily to your-
44 Fors Clavigera.
selves first. Let me hear once more how it runs, to
the men. " Oh foolish and ungrateful ones," you say,
" did we not once on a time give you high wages —
even so high that you contentedly drank yourselves to
death ; and now, oh foolish and forgetful ones, that
the time has come for us to give you low wages,
will you not contentedly also starve yourselves to
death ? "
Alas, wolf-shepherds — this is St. George's word to
you : —
" In your prosperity you gave these men high wages,
not in any kindness to them, but in contention for
business among yourselves. You allowed the men to
spend their wage in drunkenness, and you boasted of
that drunkenness by the mouth of your Chancellor of
the Exchequer, and in the columns of your leading
journal, as a principal sign of the country's prosperity.
You have declared again and again, by vociferation of
all your orators, that you have wealth so overflowing
that you do not know what to do with it. These men
who dug the wealth for you, now lie starving at the
mouths of the hell-pits you made them dig ; yea, their
bones lie scattered at the grave's mouth, like as
when ooe cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth.
Your boasted wealth — where is it ? Is the war
between these and you, because you now mercilessly
refuse them food, or because all your boasts of wealth
were lies, and you have none to give ?
Fors C lav i gey a. 45
" Your boasts of wealth were lies. You were working
from hand to mouth in your best times ; now your
work is stopped, and you have nothing in the country
to pay for food with ; still less any store of food laid
by. And how much distress and wrath you will have
to bear before you learn the lesson of justice, God only
knows. But this is the lesson you have to learn."
Every workman in any craft * must pass his ex-
amination, (crucial, not competitive,) when he comes
of age, and be then registered as capable of his pro-
fession ; those who cannot pass in the higher crafts
being remitted to the lower, until they find their level.
Then every registered workman must be employed
where his work is needed — (You interrupt me to say
that his work is needed nowhere ? Then, what do you
want with machinery, if already you have more hands
than enough, to do everything that needs to be
done ?) — by direction of the guild he belongs to, and
paid by that guild his appointed wages, constant and
unalterable by any chance or phenomenon whatsoever.
His wages must be given him day by day, from the
hour of his entering the guild, to the hour of his
* Ultimately, as often before stated, every male child born in England
must learn some manner of skilled work by which he may earn his bread.
If afterwards his fellow- workers choose that he shall sing, or make speeches
to them instead, and that they will give him his turnip a day, or some-
what more, for Parliamentary advice, at their pleasure be it. I heard on
the 7th of January this year that many of the men in Wales were reduced
to that literal nourishment. Compare Fors, Nov. 187 1, page 6.
46 Fors Ctavigera.
death, never raised, nor lowered, nor interrupted ; ad-
mitting, therefore, no temptation by covetousness, no
wringing of anxiety, no doubt or fear of the future.
That is the literal fulfilment of what we are to pray
for — " Give us each day — our daily bread" observe —
not our daily money. For, that wages may be constant
they must be in kind, not in money. So much bread,
so much woollen cloth, or so much fuel, as the work-
man chooses ; or, in lieu of these, if he choose, the
order for such quantity at the government stores ;
order to be engraved, as he chooses, on gold, or
silver, or paper : but the " penny " a day to be always
and everywhere convertible, on the instant, into its
known measure of bread, cloth, or fuel, and to be the
standard, therefore, eternal and invariable, of all value
of things, and wealth of men. That is the lesson you
have to learn from St. George's lips, inevitably, against
any quantity of shriek, whine, or sneer, from the
swindler, the adulterator, and the fool. Whether St.
George will let me teach it you before I die, is his
business, not mine ; but as surely as / shall die, these
words of his shall not.
And " to-day " (which is my own shield motto) I
send to a London goldsmith, wmose address was written
for me (so Fors appointed it) by the Prince Leopold,
with his own hand, — the weight of pure gold which I
mean to be our golden standard, (defined by Fors, as
I will explain in another place,) to be beaten to the
Fors Ciavigera. 47
diameter of our old English "Angel," and to bear the
image and superscriptions above told, (Fors, Oct. 1875,
p. 287).
And now, in due relation to this purpose of fixing
the standard of bread, we continue our inquiry into
the second part of the Deacon's service — in not only
breaking bread, but also pouring wine, from house to
house ; that so making all food one sacrament, all
Christian men may eat their meat with gladness and
singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour
with all the people, their Lord adding to their assembly
daily such as shall be saved.
Read first this piece of a friend's recent letter : —
" My dear Mr. Ruskin, — In reading over again the
December ' Fors/ I have been struck with your ques-
tion quoted, ' They have no wine ? ' and the command
is ' Fill the water-pots with WATER.' I am greatly
averse to what is called improving, spiritualizing — i.e.,
applying the sacred text in a manner other than the
simple and literal one ; but Christ's words had doubt-
less in them a germ of thoughtful wisdom applicable
to other aims and ends besides the original circum-
stances ; and it is a singular coincidence that Fors should
have induced you to close your last year with your
quotation from the Cana miracle, and that the next
number should propose to deal with ' filling the water-
pots (cisterna) with water.' One thing is certain, viz.,
that in many parts of the world, and even in England
48 Fors Clavigera.
in summer, the human obedience to the command pre-
cedent to the miracle would be impossible. Did you
ever read Kingsley's Sermon on Cana ? If you think
it well to give a few of the extracts of him ' who
being dead yet speaketh,' I shall be delighted to
make them, and send them ; * they are different from
what one hears in ordinary churches, and are vital
for St. George."
" It is, I think in the first place, an important, as well
as a pleasant thing, to know that the Lord's glory, as
St. John says, was first shown forth at a wedding, —
at a feast. Not by helping some great philosopher to
think more deeply, or some great saint to perform more
wonderful acts of holiness ; but in giving the simple
pleasure of wine to simple, commonplace people of whom
we neither read that they were rich, nor righteous.
Though no one else cares for the poor, He cares for
them. With their hearts He begins His work, even as
He did in England sixty years ago, by the preaching
of Whitfield and Wesley. Do you wish to know if
anything is the Lord's work ? See if it is a work
among the poor.
But again, the Lord is a giver, and not a task-
master. He does not demand from us : He gives to
us. He had been giving from the foundation of the
world. Corn and wine, rain and sunshine, and fruitful
* From 'Sermons on National Subjects.' Parker and Son. i860.
Fors Clavigera. 49
seasons had been His sending. And now He has
come to show it. He has come to show men who it
was who had been filling their heart with joy and
gladness, who had been bringing out of the earth and
air, by His unseen chemistry, the wine which maketh
glad the heart of man.
In every grape that hangs upon the vine, water is
changed into wine, as the sap ripens into rich juice.
He had been doing that all along, in every vineyard
and orchard ; and that was His glory. Now He was
come to prove that ; to draw back the veil of custom
and carnal sense, and manifest Himself. Men had
seen the grapes ripen on the tree ; and they were
tempted to say, as every one of us is tempted now,
' It is the sun, and the air, the nature of the vine
and the nature of the climate, which make the wine.'
Jesus comes and answers, ' Not so ; I make the wine ;
I have been making it all along. The vines, the sun,
the weather, are only my tools, wherewith I worked,
turning rain and sap into wine : and I am greater than
they. I made them ; I do not depend on them ; I
can make wine from water without vines, or sun-
shine. Behold, and drink, and see my glory without
the vineyard, since you had forgotten how to see it in
the vineyard ! '
We, as well as they, are in danger of forgetting who
it is that sends us corn and wine, and fruitful seasons,
love, and marriage, and all the blessings of this life.
50 Fors Clavigera.
We are now continually fancying that these out-
ward earthly things, as we call them, in our shallow
carnal conceits, have nothing to do with Jesus or His
kingdom, but that we may compete, and scrape, even
cheat, and lie, to get them* and when we have them,
misuse them selfishly, as if they belonged to no one but
ourselves, as if we had no duty to perform about them,
as if we owed God no service for them.
And again, we are in danger of spiritual pride ; in
danger of fancying that because we are religious, and
have, or fancy we have, deep experiences, and beautiful
thoughts about God and Christ, and our own souls ;
therefore we can afford to despise those who do not
know as much as ourselves ; to despise the common
pleasures and petty sorrows of poor creatures, whose
souls and bodies are grovelling in the dust, busied
with the cares of this world, at their wits' end to
get their daily bread ; to despise the merriment of
young people, the play of children, and all those
everyday happinesses which, though we may turn from
them with a sneer, are precious in the sight of Him
who made heaven and earth.
All such proud thoughts — all such contempt of those
who do not seem as spiritual as we fancy ourselves —
is evil.
See, in the epistle for the second Sunday after the
* Italics mine. The whole sentence might well have them ; it is supremely
important
Fors Clavigera. 51
Epiphany, St. Paul makes no distinction between rich
and poor. This epistle is joined with the gospel of
that day to show us what ought to be the conduct of
Christians who believe in the miracle of Cana ; what
men should do who believe that they have a Lord in
heaven, by whose command suns shine, fruits ripen,
men enjoy the blessings of harvest, of marriage, of the
comforts which the heathen and the savage, as well
as the Christian, man partake.
My friends, these commands are not to one class,
but to all. Poor as well as rich may minister to
others with earnestness, and condescend to those of
low estate. Not a word in this whole epistle which
does not apply equally to every rank, and sex, and age.
Neither are these commands to each of us by our-
selves, but to all of us together, as members of a
family. If you will look through them, they are not
things to be done to ourselves, but to our neighbours ;
not experiences to be felt about our own souls, but
rules of conduct to our fellow-men. They are all dif-
ferent branches and flowers from that one root, ' Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.'
Do we live thus, rich and poor ? Can we look
each other in the face this afternoon and say, each
man to his neighbour, * I have behaved like a brother
to you. I have rejoiced at your good fortune, and
grieved at your sorrow. I have preferred you to
myself ' ? "
52 Fors Clavigera.
Seldom shall you read more accurate or more noble
words. How is it that clergymen who can speak
thus, do not see the need of gathering together, into
one ' little ' flock, those who will obey them ?
I close our Fors this month with Mr. Willett's
admirable prefatory remarks on water-distribution, and
a few words of his from a private letter received at the
same time ; noting only farther a point or two of my
own mountain experience. When ' Punch ' threw what
ridicule he could * on my proposal to form field and
glen reservoirs on the Apennines to stay the storm-
waters ; and, calculating ironically the quantity that
fell per acre in an hour's storm, challenged me to
stay it, he did not know that all had actually been
done to the required extent by the engineers of three
hundred years since, in the ravine above Agubbio, (the
Agubbio of Dante's Oderigi,) — their rampart standing,
from cliff to cliff, unshaken, to this day ; and he as
little foresaw that precisely what I had required to
be done to give constancy of sweet waters to the
storm-blanched ravines of Italy, I should be called on
* It is a grotesque example of the evil fortune which continually waits
upon the best efforts for essential good made in this unlucky nineteenth
century, that a journal usually so right in its judgment, and sympathetic in
its temper, (I speak in entire seriousness,) and fearless besides in express-
ing both, (see, for instance, the splendid article on the Prince Christian's
sport in the number for the 12th of this month,) should have taken the
wrong side, and that merely for the sake of a jest, on the most important
economical question in physics now at issue in the world !
Fors Claz'igera. 53
in a few years more to prevent the mob of England
from doing, that they may take them away from the
fair pastures of the valley of St. John.
The only real difficulty in managing the mountain
waters is when one cannot get hold of them, — when
the limestones are so cavernous, or the sands so porous,
that the surface drainage at once disappears, as on the
marble flanks of hill above Lucca ; but I am always
amazed, myself, at the extreme docility of streams when
they can be fairly caught and broken, like good horses,
from their youth, and with a tender bridle-hand. I
have been playing lately with a little one on my own
rocks, — now as tame as Mrs. Buckland's leopard,* — and
all I have to complain of in its behaviour is, that when
I set it to undermine or clear away rubbish, it takes
a month to do what I expected it to finish with a
morning's work on a wet day ; and even that, not
without perpetual encouragement, approbation, and
assistance.
On the other hand, to my extreme discomfiture, I
have entirely failed in inveigling the water to come
down at all, when ' it chooses to stay on the hill-side
in places where I don't want it : but I suppose modern
scientific drainage can accomplish this, though in my
rough way I can do nothing but peel the piece of
pertinacious bog right off the rock, — so beneficently
faithful are the great Powers of the Moss, and the
* See 'The World,' January 9th of this year.
2ND SERIES, II. $
54 Fors Clavigera.
Earth, to their mountain duty of preserving, for man's
comfort, the sources of the summer stream.
Now hear Mr. Willett.
" Three or four times every year the newspapers tell
us of discomfort, suffering, disease, and death, caused
by floods. Every summer, unnecessary sums are ex-
pended by farmers and labourers for water carted from
a distance, to supply daily needs of man and beast.
Outbreaks of fever from drinking polluted and infected
water are of daily occurrence, causing torture and
bereavement to thousands.
All these evils are traceable mainly to our wicked,
wasteful, and ignorant neglect ; all this while, money is
idly accumulating in useless hoards ; people able and
willing to work are getting hungry for want of employ-
ment ; and the wealth of agricultural produce of all
kinds is greatly curtailed for want of a wise, systematic,
and simple application of the mutual lazv of supply and
demand* in the storage of rain-water.
I can only now briefly introduce the subject, which
if you consider it of sufficient importance I will follow
up in future letters.
While the flooding of the districts south of the
Thames at London is mainly owing to the contraction
of the channel by the embankment, thereby causing
* Somewhere, (I think in ' Munera Pulveris '), "I illustrated the law of
Supply and Demand in commerce, and the madness of leaving it to its
natural consequences without interference, by the laws of drought and rain.
Fors Clavigera. 55
the flood-tide to form a sort of bore, or advancing
tidal-wave, as in the Severn and Wye, the periodic
winter floods near Oxford, and in all our upland
valleys, are admittedly more frequent and more severe
than formerly ; and this not on account of the increased
rainfall.* The causes are to be found rather in —
I. The destruction of woods, heaths, and moorlands.
II. The paving and improved road-making in cities
and towns.
* On the Continent, however, there has been an increased rainfall in the
plains, caused by the destruction of the woods on the mountains, and by
the coldness of t ie summers, which cannot lift the clouds high enough to
lay snow on the high summits. The following note by Mr. Willett on my
queries on this matter in last Fors, will be found of extreme value: "I am
delighted with ' Violet le Due's ' Extracts. Yet is it not strange that he calls
man 'impotent'? The same hands that can cut down the forests, can plant
them ; that can drain the morass, can dam up and form a lake ; the same
child that could lead the goats to crop off the young fir-tree shoots, could
herd them away from them. I think you may have missed Le Due's idea
about lower glaciers causing higher forests, and vice versa. ' Forests collect
snow, retard its rapid thaw, and its collection into denuding slides of snow
by this lower temperature, and retard the melting of the glacier, which
therefore grows — i.e., accumulates, — and pushes lower and lower down the
valley. The reduction in temperature condenses more of the warm vapour,
and favours growth of conifers, which gradually spread up so that destruction
of forests in higher regions causes melting and retraction of glaciers.' I will
send you shortly an old essay of mine in which the storage of water and the
destructive avalanche were used as illustrating the right and wrong use of
accumulated wealth. Lord Chichester's agent is at work with the plans and
details for us, and you shall have them early in the new year (D.V.), and
for it may I say —
1 With patient mind, thy path of duty run :
God nothing does, nor suffers to be done,
But thou thyself wouldst do, if thou couldst see
The end of all events as well as He.' "
56 Fors Clavigera.
III. The surface drainage of arable and pasture
lands.
IV. The draining of morasses and fens ; and,
V. The straightening and embanking of rivers and
water-courses.
All these operations have a tendency to throw the
rainfall rapidly from higher to lower levels.
This wilful winter waste is followed by woeful
summer want.
1 The people perish for lack of knowledge.' The
remedy is in our own hands.
Lord Beaconsfield once wisely said, ' Every cottage
should have its porch, its oven, and its TANK.'
And every farm-house, farm-building, and every
mansion, should have its reservoir ; every village its
series of reservoirs ; and every town and city its multi-
plied series of reservoirs, at different levels, and for the
separate storage of water for drinking, for washing, and
for streets, and less important purposes.
I propose in my next to give more in detail the
operations of the principles here hinted at, and to show
from what has been done in a few isolated instances,
what would follow from a wider and more general
application of them."
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE
I. Affairs of the Guild.
I am happy to be able at last to state that the memorandum
of our constitution, drawn up for us by Mr. Barber, and already
published in the 55th number of the first series of Fors, has
been approved by the Board of Trade, with some few, but im-
perative, modifications, to which I both respectfully and gladly
submit, seeing them to be calculated in every way to increase
both our own usefulness, and public confidence in us.
The organization of the Guild, thus modified, will be, by the
time this letter is published,' announced, as required by the
Board, in the public journals ; and, if not objected to on the
ground of some unforeseen injuriousness to existing interests,
ratified, I believe, during the current month, or at all events
within a few weeks. I have prepared a brief abstract of our
constitution and aims, to be issued with this letter, and sent
generally in answer to inquiry.
I- stated in my last letter that I meant to take our accounts
into my own hands ; — that is to say, while they will always be
printed in their properly formal arrangement, as furnished by
our kind accountants, Mr. Rydings and Mr. Walker, I shall
also give my own abstract of them in the form most intelligible
to myself, and I should think also to some of my readers.
This abstract of mine will be the only one given in Fors :
the detailed accounts will be sent only to the members of the
58 Notes and Correspondence.
Guild. Until the registration of the Guild, I am still obliged
to hold the Abbey Dale estate in my own name ; and as we
cannot appoint our new trustees till we are sure of our own
official existence, I am obliged to order the payment of sub-
scriptions to my own account at the Union Bank, to meet the
calls of current expenses, for which I have no authority to
draw on the account of the Guild but by cheque from its
trustees.
I shall only farther in the present article acknowledge the
sums I have myself received since the last statement of our
accounts. The twenty days since the beginning of the year
have melted into their long nights without sufficing for half
the work they had been charged to do ; and have had farther
to meet claims of unexpected duty, not profitless to the Guild,
assuredly; but leaving me still unable to give the somewhat
lengthy explanations of our year's doings, without which our
accounts would be unintelligible.
1877. £ s. d.
Nov. 1. Joseph Stapleton . . . . . . o 10 o
7. Mr. Talbot (Tithe) 100 o o
15. John Guy . . . . . . . 5 9 10
„ Frances M. Henderson 3 3°
„ Sale of Mr. Sillar's pamphlets on Usury . . o 17 o
Dec. 1 7. Louisa A. Keighley . . . . . .500
28. Helen J. Ormerod . . . . . .110
31. Elizabeth Green ... . . . . o 10 9
1878.
Jan. 1. Margaret Cox . . . . . .500
4. R. B. Litchfield 20 o o
10. William Hall 220
20. Ada Hartnell 500
£148 13 7
II. Affairs of the Master.
The lengthy correspondence given in our last article leaves
Notes and Correspondence. 59
me no farther space for talk of myself. People say I invite
their attention to that subject too often : bat I must have a
long gossip in March.
HI- "8, Kingsgate Street, Winchester, 2yd Nov., 1877.
" Dear Sir, — If you will not help us, I do not know who
will.
"One of the loveliest parts of the meadows close to the town
is going to be entirely and irremediably spoiled : an engine-
house is to be built, and all the drains are to be brought into
a field in the middle of the Itchen valley, so that the buildings
will be a blot in the landscape, an eyesore from every point,
whether looking towards South Cross or back from there to the
Cathedral and College ; or almost worse than these, from every
hill round the town they will be the most conspicuous objects.
I think you know the town ; but do you know that this is its
prettiest part ? You can have some idea what it would be to
have a spot which has been dear to you all your life, and
which you see day by day in all its aspects, utterly ruined ;
and besides, it seems so wrong that this generation should spoil
that which is not theirs, but in which none have really more
than a life interest, but which God has given us to enjoy and
to leave in its loveliness for those after us. I wish I could
speak as strongly as I feel, if it would induce you to speak
for us, or rather that I could show you the real need for
speaking, as I know you would not keep silence for any but
good reasons. Surely destroying beauty to save a little money
is doing the devil's work, though I am told that it is wrong to
say so.
"Yours respectfully and gratefully,
"A. H. W.
" There is another place where the works might be, where
they could be planted out, and where the trees would be an
60 Notes and Correspondence.
improvement ; some engineers say that the soil too is better
suited to the purpose. Do help us if you can ! It is a haunting
misery to me — both what we shall lose, and the sin of it."
Alas, my poor friend, no mortal can help you. England
has bred up a race of doggish and vile persons, for the last
fifty years. And they will do their doggish work, be sure of
that, whatever you or I can say, until, verily, him that dieth
of them the dogs shall eat.
IV. The following admirable letter is enough for its work.
I have no room for the article it enclosed : —
"Arnold House, \6tk Dec, 1877.
" My dear Mr. Ruskin, — It is very singular that the day
after I wrote to you on the evils of drainage as adopted by
modern engineers, such an article as the enclosed should appear
in the ' Times.' The time must come when most of the
expenditure on these drains will prove useless. But the evil
continues, viz., of adding daily more streets to the present
system, often choking the drains and converting them into
stagnant elongated cesspools, ten times more injurious than the
old ones, because of the risk of contagious and infectious germs
being introduced from some house to multiply and infect a
number. The remedy I think should be, 1st, to prevent addi-
tions to the present system; 2ndly, to enact that instead of fresh
constructive works, bearing interest to be paid in rates, each
house above a certain rental, say above ^20 a year, shall be
compelled to deodorize and remove its own sewage — i.e., faecal
matter in its original concentrated form ; and that all smaller
houses should be done by the municipality or local board,
who should employ a staff of labourers to do it by districts,
weekly, the material being very valuable to agriculturists if kept
concentrated and deodorized by the charcoal of peat or of tan,
Notes and Correspondence. 61
of sawdust, and of rubbish of all sorts. Labour of this kind
would employ a great many now burdensome to the rates, un-
employed ; land would be fertilized instead of impoverished ; and
eventually perhaps districts now infested with drains that don't
drain might be gradually won from the senseless system of
accumulating streams, to the natural order of distribution and
deposit under earth for fertilizing objects.
"Just as 'dirt is something in its wrong place,' so social
evils are mainly wrong applications of right powers; nay, even
sin itself is but the misuse of Divine gifts, — the use at wrong
times and places of right instincts and powers.
" Pardon these scribblings ; but when I see and feel deeply,
I think perhaps if I put the thoughts on paper to you, they may
perhaps take a better form, and be sown in places where they
may take root and spring up and bear fruit to man's benefit,
and therefore to the glory of the Great Father.
" Ever most faithfully and gratefully,
" Henry Willett."
V. The following "word about the notice which appeared in
last Fors about the Cyfarthfa Ironworks " deserves the reader's
best attention ; the writer's name and position, which I am
not at liberty to give, being to me sufficient guarantee of its
trustworthiness.
"Their owner has lately passed as a martyr to unreasonable
demands from his workmen, in more than one publication.
But what are the facts ? Mr. Crawshay held himself aloof from
the Ironmasters' combination which in 1873 locked out the work-
men. When the works of the combined masters were reopened,
it was upon an agreed reduction. Mr. Crawshay's workmen sent
a deputation to him, offering to work on the terms agreed upon
at the other works of the district ; but Mr. Crawshay would not
accede unless his men accepted ten per cent, beloiv the rate that
62 Notes and Correspondence.
was to be paid by his rivals in trade, and received by his men's
fellow-workmen in the same town and district ! In a month
or two the Associated Masters obtained another reduction of
ten per cent, from their men. Mr. Crawshay's workmen waited
upon him, and offered to go in at these new terms. But no :
they must still accept ten per cent, below their neighbours, or
be shut out. In another couple of months wages fell another
ten per cent. Mr. Crawshay's men made the same offer, and
met with the same rebuff. This was repeated, I think, a fourth
time — (wages certainly fell forty per cent, in less than a twelve-
month)— but Mr. Crawshay had nailed his colours to the mast
for ten per cent, below anybody else.
"It is quite true, as Lord Aberdare says, that 'the Cyfarthfa
Works are closed because the men would not work at the wages
offered them.' But what else is true ? The following : —
" i. The works presumably could have been worked at a
profit, with wages at the same rate as was paid at rival works.
"2. The demand that his men should work at ten per cent,
less wages than was given in the same market, was the unjusti-
fiable act of an unscrupulous competition, and the heartless
act of an unreasonable and selfish master.
" 3. Had the men submitted to his terms, it would have been
the immediate occasion of reducing the whole of their fellow-
workmen in the Associated works. Hence,
"4. What has been called the unreasonable conduct of in-
fatuated workmen, can be clearly traced to conduct on their
masters' part flagrantly unreasonable; and the stand they made
was recommended alike by justice, by regard for the other
employers, and by unselfish solicitude for their fellows in the
trade.
" I may add — Had the men quietly submitted, the works
would have run only a short time. Iron-workers are now
suffering from one of those stages in the march of civilization
Notes and Correspondence. 63
which always produces suffering to a few. Steel rails have
supplanted iron rails, and capitalists who have not adapted
their plant accordingly must needs stand. Some may perhaps
feel that a great capitalist who, having amassed an enormous
fortune, has neither built market, hall, fountain, nor museum
for the town where he made it, might be expected, at all
events, to acknowledge his responsibility by adapting his works
to meet the times, so that a little population of wealth pro-
ducers might be kept in bread. However that may be, Cyfarthfa
Works standing has no more to do with strikes and unreason
of workmen than * Tenterden steeple has to do with Goodwin
Sands.' The iron-workers — poor creatures ! — had nothing to do
with putting the knife to their throats by helping Mr. Bessemer
to his invention of cheap steel ; but of course they have long
since got the blame of the collapse of the iron trade. All the
capitalists in all the journals have said so. They might exclaim
with Trotty Veck, 'We must be born bad — that's how it is.'"
VI. The following correspondence requires a few, and but a
few, words of preliminary information.
For th^ last three or four years it has been matter of con-
tinually increasing surprise to me that I never received the
smallest contribution to St. George's Fund from any friend or
disciple of Miss Octavia Hill's.
I had originally calculated largely on the support I was
likely to find among persons who had been satisfied with the
resultof the experiment made at Marylebone under my friend's
superintendence. But this hope was utterly disappointed ; and
to my more acute astonishment, because Miss Hill was wont
to reply to any more or less direct inquiries on the subject,
with epistles proclaiming my faith, charity, and patience, in
language so laudatory, that, on the last occasion of my receiving
such answer, to a request for a general sketch of the Maryle-
64 Notes and Correspondence.
bone work, it became impossible for me, in any human modesty,
to print the reply.
The increasing mystery was suddenly cleared, a month or
two ago, by a St. George's Companion of healthily sound and
impatient temper, who informed me of a case known to herself,
in which a man of great kindness of disposition, who was well
inclined to give aid to St. George, had been diverted from such
intention by hearing doubts expressed by Miss Hill of my ability
to conduct any practical enterprise successfully.
I requested the lady who gave me this information to ascertain
from Miss Hill herself what she had really said on the occasion
in question. To her letter of inquiry, Miss Hill replied in the
following terms :
" Madam, — In justice to Mr. Ruskin, I write to say that
there has evidently been some misapprehension respecting my
words.
"Excuse me if I add that beyond stating this fact I do not
feel called upon to enter into correspondence with a stranger
about my friend Mr. Ruskin, or to explain a private conversation
of my own. « j am> Madam, yours truly,
" Octavia Hill."
Now it would have been very difficult for Miss Hill to have
returned a reply less satisfactory to her correspondent, or more
irritating to a temper like mine. For, in the first place, I con-
sidered it her bounden duty to enter into correspondence with
all strangers whom she could possibly reach, concerning her
friend Mr. Ruskin, and to say to them, what she was in the
habit of saying to me : and, in the second place, I considered
it entirely contrary to her duty to say anything of me in private
conversation which she did not " feel called upon to explain "
to whomsoever it interested. I wrote, therefore, at once myself
to Miss Hill, requesting to know why she had not replied to
Notes and Correspondence, 65
Mrs. 's question more explicitly : and received the following
reply : —
" 14, Nottingham Place, Oct. yt/i, 1877.
" My dear Mr. Ruskin, — I wrote instantly on receiving Mrs.
's letter to say that my words had been misunderstood. I
could not enter with a stranger, and such a stranger ! ! (a) into
anything more concerning a friend, or a private conversation.
"But if you like to know anything I ever said, or thought,
about you for the twenty-four years I have known you,
* most explicitly ' shall you know ; and you will find no trace
of any thought, much less word, that was not utterly loyal,
and even reverently tender towards you " (my best thanks ! —
had I been more roughly handled, who knows what might
have come of it ?) " Carlyle, who never saw me, told you I
was faithful. Faithful — I should think so ! I could not be
anything else. Ask those who have watched my life. I have
not courted you by flattery ; I have not feigned agreement
where I differed or did not understand j I have not sought
you among those I did not trust or respect;" (thanks, again,
in the name of my acquaintance generally,) " I have not
worried you with intrusive questions or letters. I have
lived very far away from you, but has there been thought or
deed of mine uncoloured by the influence of the early, the
abiding, and the continuous teaching you gave me ? Have I
not striven to carry out what you have taught in the place
where, I have been called to live? Was there a moment when
I would not have served you joyfully at any cost? Ask those
who know, if, when you have failed or pained me, (b) I have not
(a) I have no conception what Miss Hill meant by this admiring paren-
thesis, as she knew nothing whatever of the person who wrote to her,
except her curiosity respecting me.
(b) I should have been glad to have known the occasions on which I did
either, before being excused.
66 Notes and Correspondence.
invariably said, if I said anything, that you might have good
reasons of which I knew nothing, or might have difficulties I
could not understand; or that you had had so much sorrow
in your life, that if it was easier to you to act thus or thus in
ways affecting me, so far as I was concerned I was glad you
should freely choose the easier. You have seen nothing of
me ; (c) but ask those who have, whether for twenty-four years
I have been capable of any treasonable thought or word about
you. It matters nothing to me ; (d) but it is sad for you for
babbling tongues to make you think any one who ought to
know you, chattered, and chattered falsely, about you.
" I remember nothing of what I said, (e) but distinctly what I
thought, and think, and will write that to you if you care. Or
if you feel there is more that I can do to set the rumour at
rest than the strong positive assertion I . have made that I have
been misunderstood, tell me. (/) But my own experience of
character and of the world makes me resolutely adhere to my belief
that though Mrs. would vastly like to get behind that, (g)
that, and nothing else, is the right, true, and wise position as
far as you and as far as I (h) am concerned. Shall I not leave
it there, then?
" I am sorry to write in pencil ; I hope you will not find it
difficult to read. I am ill, and not able to be up.
(c) This statement appears to me a singular one ; and the rather that
Miss Hill, in subsequent letters, implies, as I understand them, that she
has seen a good deal of me.
(d) It seems to me that it ought, on the contrary, to matter much.
(e) I greatly regret, and somehow blame, this shortness of memory.
The time is not a distant one, — seven or eight weeks. Anything I say,
myself, earnestly, of my friends, I can remember for at least as many years.
(/) The only thing to be done, when people have been misunderstood,
is to state what they said — which in this case Miss Hill has just declared
impossible for her to do.
{g) She certainly would — and so should I.
(h) "As far as I" — am concerned, probably.
Notes and Correspondence. 67
" I have tried to answer both points. First, to show that I
contradicted the statement, and that explanations of what
I did say (/) (unless to yourself) seem to me most unwise and
uncalled-for.
"And, secondly, to assure you, so far as words will, that
however inadequate you may feel the response the world has
given, an old friend has not failed you in thought, nor inten-
tionally, though she seems to have made a confusion, by some
clumsy words. Hoping you may feel both things,
" I am, yours as always,
"Octavia Hill."
To this letter I replied, that it was very pretty ; but that I
wanted to know, as far as possible, exactly what Miss Hill had
said, or was in the habit of saying.
I received the following reply. The portions omitted are
irrelevant to the matter in hand, but shall be supplied if Miss
Hill wishes.
"14, Nottingham Place, W,, Nov. yd, 1S77.
"Dear Mr. Ruskin, — I offered immediately, on October 6th,
on receiving your first letter, to tell you anything I had ever
said about you. Whatever needed explanation seemed to me
best said to you.
* % * # #
" I have spoken to you, I think, and certainly to others, of
what appears to me an incapacity in you for management of
great practical work, — due, in my opinion, partly to an ideal
standard of perfection, which rinds it hard to accept any limita-
tions in perfection, even temporarily ; partly to a strange power
(z) Partly remembered then ? but with a vague sense of danger in explain-
ing the same, except to myself ! I do not think the explanation would have
been 'unwise,' as it was certainly not 'uncalled-for.' But I suspect the
sayings themselves to have been both.
68 Notes and Correspondence.
of gathering round you, and trusting, the wrong people, which
I never could understand in you, as it mingles so strangely
with rare powers of perception of character, and which always
seemed to me therefore rather a deliberate ignoring of disqualifi-
cations, in hope that that would stimulate to better action, but
which hope was not realized.
"In Mr. 's case, and so far as I can recollect in every
case in which I have spoken of this, it has been when I have
found people puzzled themselves by not finding they can take
you as a practical guide in their own lives, yet feeling that
you must mean practical result to follow on your teaching,
and inclined to think you cannot help them. Mr. and
I were great friends : when I was a girl, and he a young man,
we read and talked over your books together. I had not seen
him for many years till he asked me to come and see him and
his wife and children. He is a manufacturer, face to face with
difficult problems, full of desire to do right, with memories of
ideals and resolutions, building his house, managing his mills,
with a distinct desire to do well. I found him inclined to
think perhaps after all he had been wrong, and that you could
teach him nothing, because he could not apply your definite
directions to his own life. The object of my words was just this :
1 Oh, do not think so. All the nobility of standard and aim,
all the conscience and clear sight of right principles, is there,
and means distinct action. Do not look to Mr. Ruskin for
definite direction about practical things : he is not the best
judge of them. You, near to the necessities of this tangible
world and of action, must make your own life, and apply prin-
ciples to it. Necessity is God's, rightly estimated, and cannot
be inconsistent with right. But listen to the teacher who sees
nearer to perfection than almost any of us : never lose sight or
memory of what he sets before you, and resolutely apply it,
cost what it may, to your own life.'
Notes and Correspondence. 69
" I do think you most incapable of carrying out any great
practical scheme. I do not the less think you have influenced,
and will influence, action deeply and rightly.
'.*: 7(P l(c V
" I have never said, or implied, that I was unable to answer
any question. I did think, and do think, the explanation of
what I might have said, except to yourself likely to do you more
harm than good ; partly because I do strongly think, and cannot
be sure that I might not have said, that I do feel you to have
a certain incapacity for practical work ; and all the other side
it is difficult for the world to see. It is different to say it to
a friend who reverences you, and one says more completely
what one means. I was glad when you said, 'Let the thing
be while you are ill.' God knows I am ill, but remember your
proposal to leave it was in answer to one offering to tell you
all. And I never have to any other single creature made my
health any reason whatsoever for not answering any question,
or fulfilling indeed any other duty of my not very easy life.
Clearly, some one has received an impression from what I
said to Mr. , very different from what I had intended
to convey, but he seemed in tune with your spirit and mine
towards you when I spoke.
" For any pain my action may have given you, I earnestly
desire to apologize — yes, to ask you to forgive me. I never
wronged or injured you or your work in thought or word
intentionally ; and I am, whatever you may think, or seem to
sa.v> "Faithfully yours,
"Octavia Hjll."
To this letter I replied as follows : —
" Br ant wood, November 4, 1877.
" My dear Octavia, — I am glad to have at last your letter,
though it was to Mrs. , and not to me, that it ought at or.ce
2ND SERIES, II.] 6
70 Notes and Correspondence.
to have been addressed, without forcing me to all the trouble of
getting at it. Your opinions of me are perhaps of little moment
to me, but of immense moment to others. But for this par-
ticular opinion, that I trust the wrong people, I wish you to
give me two sufficient examples of the error you have imagined.
You yourself will be a notable third ; and at the mouth of
two or three witnesses, the word will be established.
" But as I have never yet, to my own knowledge, ' trusted '
any one who has failed me, except yourself, and one other person
of whom I do not suppose you are thinking, I shall be greatly
instructed if you will give me the two instances I ask for. I
never trusted even my father's man of business ; but took my
father's word as the wisest I could get. And I know not a
single piece of business I have ever undertaken, which has failed
by the fault of any person chosen by me to conduct it.
"Tell me, therefore, of two at least. Then I will request
one or two more things of you ; being always
"Affectionately yours,
"J. R.
" P.S. — Of all injuries you could have done — not me — but
the cause I have in hand, the giving the slightest countenance
to the vulgar mob's cry of 'unpractical' was the fatallest."
The reader may perhaps, at first, think this reply to Miss
Hill's sentimental letter somewhat hard. He will see by the
following answer that I knew the ground : —
" 14, Nottingham Place, W., Nov. 5, 1877.
" Dear Mr. Ruskin, — You say that I am a notable instance
of your having trusted the wrong people. Whether you have
been right hitherto, or are right now, the instance is equally
one of failure to understand character. It is the only one I
have a right to give. I absolutely refuse to give other instances.
Notes and Correspondence. 71
or to discuss the characters of third parties. My opinion of
your power to judge character is, and must remain, a matter
of opinion. Discussions about it would be useless and endless ;
besides, after your letters to me, you will hardly be astonished
that I decline to continue this correspondence.
" I remain, yours faithfully,
"Octavia Hill."
I wasj however, a little astonished, though it takes a good
deal to astonish me nowadays, at the suddenness of the change
in tone; but it rendered my next reply easier: —
" Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
Jth November, 1877.
" My dear Octavia, — You err singularly in imagining I invited
you to a 'discussion.' I am not apt to discuss anything with
persons of your sentimental volubility ; and those with whom
I enter on discussion do not, therefore, find it either useless
or endless.
" I required of yOu an answer to a perfectly simple question.
That answer I require again. Your most prudent friends will,
I believe, if you consult them, recommend your rendering it ;
for they will probably perceive — what it is strange should have
escaped a mind so logical and delicate as yours — that you
have a better right to express your ' opinions ' of my discarded
servants, to myself, who know them, and after the time is
long past when your frankness could have injured them, than
to express your 'opinions' of your discarded master, to persons
who know nothing of him, at the precise time when such
expression of opinion is calculated to do him the most fatal
injury.
" In the event of your final refusal, you will oblige me by
sending me a copy of my last letter for publication, — your own
being visibly prepared for the press. « t r
72 Notes and Correspondence.
"Should you inadvertently have destroyed my last letter,
a short abstract of its contents, as apprehended by you, will
be all that is needful."
" 14, Nottingham Place, W., %th Nov., 1877.
" Dear Mr. Ruskin, — I did consult friends whom I consider
both prudent and generous before I declined to make myself
the accuser of third persons.
'■I send you at your request a copy of your last letter; but
I disapprove of the publication of this correspondence. Such a
publication obviously could not be complete,* and if incomplete
must be misleading. Neither do I see what good object it could
serve.
" I feel it due to our old friendship to add the expression
of my conviction that the publication would injure you, and
could not injure me.
" I am, yours faithfully,
" Octavia Hill."
I saw no occasion for continuing the correspondence farther,
and closed it on the receipt of this last letter, in a private
note, which Miss Hill is welcome to make public, if she has
retained it.
Respecting the general tenor of her letters, I have only now
to observe that she is perfectly right in supposing me unfit to
conduct, myself, the operations with which I entrusted her ; but
that she has no means of estimating the success of other opera-
tions with which I did not entrust her, — such as the organization
of the Oxford Schools of Art ; and that she has become unfor-
tunately of late confirmed in the impression, too common among
reformatory labourers, that no work can be practical which is
* This is not at all obvious to me. I can complete it to the last
syllable, if Miss Hill wishes.
Notes and Correspondence. 73
prospective. The real relations of her effort to that of the St.
George's Guild have already been stated, (Fors, Oct. 187 1,
pages 13, 14) \ and the estimate which I had formed of it is
shown not to have been unkind, by her acknowledgment of it
in the following letter, — justifying me, I think, in the disappoint-
ment expressed in the beginning of this article.
11 14, Nottingham Place, Oct. yd, 1875.
" My dear Mr. Ruskin, — I send you accounts of both blocks
of buildings, and have paid in to your bank the second cheque,
—that for Paradise Place, £20 $s. 8d. I think neither account
requires explanation.
' But I have to thank you, more than words will achieve doing,
in silent gratitude, for your last letter, which I shall treasure as
one of my best possessions. I had no idea you could have
honestly spoken so of work which I have always thought had
impressed you more with its imperfections, than as contributing
to any good end. That it actually was in large measure derived
from you, there can be no doubt. I have been reading during
my holidays, for the first time since before I knew you, the
first volume of ' Modern Painters,' which Mr. Bond was good
enough to lend me these holidays; and I was much impressed,
not only with the distinct recollection I had of paragraph after
paragraph when once the subject was recalled, — not only with
the memory of how the passages had struck me when a girl, —
but how even the individual words had been new to me then,
and the quotations, — notably that from George Herbert about
the not fooling, — had first sent me to read the authors quoted
from. I could not help recalling, and seeing distinctly, how the
whole tone and teaching of the book, striking on the imagination
at an impressionable age, had biassed, not only this public work,
but all my life. I always knew it, but I traced the distinct lines
of influence. Like all derived work, it has been, as I said, built
out of material my own experience has furnished, and built very
74 Notes and Correspondence.
differently to anything others would have done ; but I know-
something of how much it owes to you, and in as far as it has
been in any way successful, I wish you would put it among
the achievements of your life. You sometimes seem to see so
few of these. Mine is indeed poor and imperfect and small;
but it is in this kind of way that the best influence tells, going
right down into people, and coming out in a variety of forms,
not easily recognized, yet distinctly known by those who know
best ; and hundreds of people, whose powers are tenfold my
own, have received, — will receive, — their direction from your
teaching, and will do work better worth your caring to have
influenced.
11 1 am, yours always affectionately,
" Octavia Hill."
With this letter the notice of its immediate subject in Fors
will cease, though I have yet a word to say for my other
acquaintances and fellow-labourers. Miss Hill will, I hope,
retain the administration of the Marylebone houses as long as
she is inclined, making them, by her zealous and disinterested
service, as desirable and profitable a possession to the Guild
as hitherto to me. It is always to be remembered that she
has acted as the administrator of this property, and paid me
five per cent, upon it regularly, — entirely without salary, and
in pure kindness to the tenants. My own part in the work
was in taking five instead of ten per cent., which the houses
would have been made to pay to another landlord ; and in
pledging myself neither to sell the property nor raise the rents,
thus enabling Miss Hill to assure the tenants of peace in
their homes, and encourage every effort at the improvement
of them.
FORS CLAVIGERA
SECOND SERIES.
YEA, THE WORK OF OUR HANDS, ESTABLISH THOU IT.
LETTER THE 87th.
THE SNOW MANGER.
By my promise that, in the text of this series of
Fors, there shall be " no syllable of complaint, or of
scorn," I pray the reader to understand that I in
no wise intimate any change of feeling on my own
part I never felt more difficulty in my life than I
do, at this instant, in not lamenting certain things with
more than common lament, and in not speaking of
certain people with more than common scorn.
Nor is it possible to fulfil these rightly warning
functions of Fors without implying some measure of
scorn. For instance, in the matter of choice of books,
it is impossible to warn my scholars against a book,
without implying a certain kind of contempt for it.
For I never would warn them against any writer
whom I had complete respect for, — however adverse
to me, or my work. There are few stronger adver-
2ND SERIES, III.] J
76 Fors Clavigera.
saries to St. George than Voltaire. But my scholars
are welcome to read as much of Voltaire as they
like. His voice is mighty among the ages. Whereas
they are entirely forbidden Miss Martineau, — not
because she is an infidel, but because she is a
vulgar and foolish one.*
Do not say, or think, I am breaking my word
in asserting, once for all, with reference to example,
this necessary principle. This very vow and law that
I have set myself, must be honoured sometimes in the
breach of it, so only that the transgression be visibly
not wanton or incontinent. Nay, in this very instance
it is because I am not speaking in pure contempt,
but have lately been as much surprised by the beauty
of a piece of Miss Martineau's writings, as I have
been grieved by the deadly effect of her writings gene-
rally on the mind of one of my best pupils, who had
read them without telling me, that I make her a defi-
nite example. In future, it will be ordinarily enough
for me to say to my pupils privately that they are
not to read such and such books ; while, for general
order to my Fors readers, they may be well content,
it seems to me, with the list of the books I want
them to read constantly, and with such casual re-
* I use the word vulgar, here, in its first sense of egoism, not of selfish-
ness, but of not seeing one's own relations to the universe. Miss Martineau
plans a book — afterwards popular — and goes to breakfast, "not knowing
what a great thing had been done." So Mr. Buckle, dying, thinks only —
he shall not finish his book. Not at all whether God will ever make up His.
Fors Clavigera. 77
commendation as I may be able to give of current
literature. For instance, there is a quite lovely little
book just come out about Irish children, ' Castle Blair,'
— (which, let me state at once, I have strong personal,
though stronger impersonal, reasons for recommending,
the writer being a very dear friend ; and some Irish
children, for many and many a year, much more than
that). But the ///^personal reasons are — -first, that the
book is good and lovely, and true ; having the best
description of a noble child in it, (Winny,) that I ever
read ; and nearly the best description of the next best
thing — a noble dog ; and reason second is that, after
Miss Edgeworth's ' Ormond ' and ' Absentee,' this little
book will give more true insight into the proper way
of managing Irish people than any other I know.*
Wherewith I have some more serious recommendations
to give ; and the first shall be of this most beautiful
passage of Miss Martineau, which is quoted from
1 Deerbrook ' in the review of her autobiography: —
"In the house of every wise parent, may then be
seen an epitome of life — a sight whose consolation is
needed at times, perhaps, by all. Which of the little
* Also, I have had it long on my mind to name the ' Adventures of a
Phaeton ' as a very delightful and wise book of its kind ; very full of
pleasant play, and deep and pure feeling ; much interpretation of some
of the best points of German character ; and, last and least, with pieces
of description in it which I should be glad, selfishly, to think inferior to
what the public praise in ' Modern Painters,' — I can only say, they seem to
mc quite as good.
7 A
78 Fors Clavigera.
children of a virtuous household can conceive of his
entering into his parents' pursuits, or interfering with
them ? How sacred are the study and the office, the
apparatus of a knowledge and a power which he can
only venerate ! Which of these little ones dreams of
disturbing the course of his parents' thought or achieve-
ment ? Which of them conceives of the daily routine
of the household — its going forth and coming in, its
rising and its rest — having been different before its
birth, or that it would be altered by his absence ? It
is even a matter of surprise to him when it now and
then occurs to him that there is anything set apart
for him — that he has clothes and couch, and that his
mother thinks and cares for him. If he lags behind
in a walk, or finds himself alone among the trees, he
does not dream of being missed ; but home rises up
before him as he has always seen it — his father
thoughtful, his mother occupied, and the rest gay,
with the one difference of his* not being there. This
he believes, and has no other trust than in his shriek
of terror, for being ever remembered more. Yet, all
the while, from day to day, from year to year, without
one moment's intermission, is the providence of his
parent around him, brooding over the workings of his
infant spirit, chastening its passions, nourishing its
affections — now troubling it with salutary pain, now
animating it with even more wholesome delight. All
* Italics mine.
Fors Clavigera. 79
the while, is the order of the household affairs regu-
lated for the comfort and profit of these lowly little
ones, though they regard it reverently, because they
cannot comprehend it. They may not know of all
this — how their guardian bends over their pillow
nightly, and lets no word of their careless talk drop
unheeded, and records every sob of infant grief, hails
every brightening gleam of reason and every chirp of
childish glee — they may not know this, because they
could not understand it aright, and each little heart
would be inflated with pride, each little mind would
lose the grace and purity of its unconsciousness ; but
the guardianship is not the less real, constant, and
tender for its being unrecognized by its objects."
This passage is of especial value to me just now,
because I have presently to speak about faith, and its
power ; and I have never myself thought of the innocent
faithlessness of children, but only of their faith. The
idea given here by Miss Martineau is entirely new to
me, and most beautiful. And had she gone on thus,
expressing her own feelings modestly, she would have
been a most noble person, and a verily ' great ' writer.
She became a vulgar person, and a little writer, in
her conceit ; — of which I can say no more, else I
should break my vow unnecessarily.
And by way of atonement for even this involuntary
disobedience to it, I have to express great shame for
some words spoken, in one of the letters of the first
8o Fors Clavivera.
»'
series, in total misunderstanding of Mr. Gladstone's
character.
I know so little of public life, and see so little of
the men who are engaged in it, that it has become
impossible for me to understand their conduct or
speech, as it is reported in journals.
There are reserves, references, difficulties, limits, ex-
citements, in all their words and ways, which are
inscrutable to me ; and at this moment I am unable
to say a word about the personal conduct of any one,
respecting the Turkish or any other national question, —
remaining myself perfectly clear as to what was always
needed, and still needs, to be done, but utterly unable
to conceive why people talk, or do, or do not, as
hitherto they have spoken, done, and left undone. But
as to the actual need, it is now nearly two years since
Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Froude, and several other men of
1 creditable ' (shall we say ? ) name, gathered together at
call of Mr. Gladstone, as for a great national need,
together with a few other men of more retired and
studious mind, Edward Burne Jones for one, and myself
for another, did then plainly and to the best of their
faculty tell the English nation what it had to do.
The people of England answered, by the mouths of
their journals, that Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Froude knew
nothing of history, that Mr. Gladstone was a dishonest
leader of a party, and that the rest of us were insig-
nificant, or insane, persons.
Fors Clavizera. 81
Y>
Whereupon the significant and sagacious persons,
guiding the opinions of the public, through its press,
set themselves diligently to that solemn task.
And I will take some pains to calculate for you,
my now doubtless well-informed and soundly purposed
readers, what expenditure of type there has been on
your education, guidance, and exhortation by those
significant persons, in these last two years.
I am getting into that Cathedra Pestilentiae again! — -
My good reader, I mean, truly and simply, that I hope
to get, for next month, some approximate measure of
the space in heaven which would be occupied by the
unfolded tissue or web of all the columns of the
British newspapers which have during these last two
years discussed, in your pay, the Turkish question.
All that counsel, you observe, you have bought with
a price. Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Froude gave you theirs
gratis, as all the best things are given ; I put nearly a
prohibitory tax upon mine, that you might not merely
travel with your boots on it ; but here was an article
of counsel made up for your consumption at market
price. You have paid for it, I can tell you that, ap-
proximately, just now, one million nine hundred and
four thousand nine hundred and eighteen pounds. You
have voted also in your beautiful modern manner, and
daily directed your governors what they were to do for
British interests and honour. And your result is
well, you shall tell me your opinions of that next month ;
82 Fors Clavigera.
but — whatever your opinions may be — here IS the
result for you, in words which are not of the newest,
certainly, and yet are in a most accurate sense " This
Evening's News."
" Quare fremuerunt Gentes, et Populi meditati sunt
inania.
" Astiterunt Reges terrae, et Principes convenerunt in
unum, adversus Dominum et adversus Christum ejus.
" Disrumpamus vincula eorum, et projiciamus a nobis
jugum ipsorum.
" Qui habitat in celis irridebit eos, et Dominus sub-
sannabit eos.
" Tunc loquetur ad eos in ira sua, et in furore suo
conturbabit eos."
If you can read that bit of David and St. Jerome,
as it stands, so be it. If not, this translation is closer
than the one you, I suppose, don't know : —
" Why have the nations foamed as the sea ; and
the people meditated emptiness ?
" The Kings of the earth stood, and the First
Ministers met together in conference, against the Lord,
and against His Christ.
" Let us break, they said, the chains of the Lord
and Christ. Let us cast away from us the yoke of
the Lord and Christ.
" He that inhabits heaven shall laugh at them, and
the Lord shall mock them.
Fors Ciavigera. 83
" Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and
torment them with His strength."
There are one or two of the points of difference in
this version which I wish you to note. Our ' why do
the heathen rage ' is unintelligible to us, because we
don't think of ourselves as ' heathen ' usually. But we
arc ; and the nations spoken of are — the British public,
— and the All-publics of our day, and of all days.
Nor is the word ' rage ' the right one, in the least.
It means to " fret idly," like useless sea, — incapable of
real rage, or of any sense, — foaming out only its own
shame. " The wicked are like the troubled sea, when
it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt ; "
— and even just now — the purest and best of public
men spitting out emptiness only and mischief. " Fluc-
tibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace MARINO." In the
Septuagint, the word is to neigh like a horse — (" They
were as fed horses in the morning ; every one neighed
after his neighbour's wife.")
Then, I have put the full words ' of the Lord and
Christ ' in the third verse, instead of ' their,' because
else people don't see who ' they ' are.
And in the fourth verse, observe that the ■ anger '
of the Lord is the mind in which He speaks to the
kings ; but His ' fury ' is the practical stress of the
thunder of His power, and of the hail and death
with which He ' troubles ' them and torments. Read
this piece of evening's news, for instance. It is one
84 Fors Clavigera.
of thousands such. That is what is meant by " He
shall vex them in His sore displeasure," which words
you have chanted to your pipes and bellows so sweetly
and so long, — ' His so-o-o-ore dis-plea-a-sure.'
But here is the things nearly at your doors,
reckoning by railway distance. " The mother got im-
patient, thrust the child into the snow, and hurried
on — not looking back."
But you are not ' vexed,' you say ? No, — perhaps
that is because you are so very good. And perhaps
the muffins will be as cold as the snow, too, soon, if
you don't eat them. Yet if, after breakfast, you look
out of window westward, you may see some " vexa-
tion " even in England and Wales, of which more,
presently, and if you read this second Psalm again, and
make some effort to understand it, it may be provision-
ally useful to you, — provisionally on your recognizing
that there is a God at all, and that it is a Lord that
reigneth, and not merely a Law that reigneth, accord-
ing to the latter-day divinity of the Duke of Argyll
and Mr. George Dawson. Have patience with me.
I'm not speaking as I didn't mean to. I want you
to read, and attentively, some things that the Duke of
Argyll and Mr. Dawson have said ; but you must
have the caterpillar washed out of the cabbage, first.
I want you to read, — ever so many things. First
of all, and nothing else till you have well mastered
that, the history of Montenegro given by Mr. Gladstone
Fors Clavigera. 85
in the 'Nineteenth Century' for May 1877, p. 360.
After that, ' Some Current Fallacies about Turks,' etc.,
by the Rev. Malcolm MacColl, ' Nineteenth Century,'
December 1877, p. 831. After that, the Duke of
Argyll's 'Morality in Politics.' And after that, the
obituary of ' George Dawson, Politician, Lecturer, and
Preacher,' by the Rev. R. W. Dale, ' Nineteenth Century,'
August 1877, p. 44.
It is an entirely kind and earnest review of one of
the chief enemies of Evangelicalism, by an Evangelical
clergyman. The closing passages of it (pp. 59 to 61)
are entirely beautiful and wise, — the last sentence, let
me thankfully place for an abiding comfort and power
in St. George's Schools.
11 To despise the creeds in which the noblest intellects
of Christendom in past times found rest, is presumptuous
folly ; to suppose that these creeds are a final and exact
statement of all that the Church can ever know, is to
forget that in every creed there are two elements, —
the divine substance, and the human form. The form
must change with the changing thoughts of men ; and
even the substance may come to shine with clearer
light, and to reveal unsuspected glories, as God and
man come nearer together."
And the whole of the piece of biography thus nobly
closed is full of instruction ; but, in the course of it,
there is a statement (pp. 49 — 5 1) respecting which I
have somewhat contradictory to say, and that very
86
Fors Clavigera.
gravely. I am sorry to leave out any of the piece I
refer to : but those of my readers who have not access
to the book, will find the gist of what I must contra-
dict, qualifiedly, in these following fragments.
A. " The strength of his (George Dawson's) moral
teaching was largely derived from the firmness of his
own conviction that the laws which govern human life
are not to be evaded ; that they assert their authority
with relentless severity ; that it is of no use to try to
cheat them ; that they have no pity ; that we must
obey them, or else suffer the consequences of our dis-
obedience. He insisted, with a frequency, an earnestness,
and an energy which showed the depth of his own sense
of the importance of this part of his teaching, that what
a man sows he must also reap, — no matter though he
has sown ignorantly or carelessly ; that the facts of the
physical and moral universe have a stern reality ; and
that, if we refuse to learn and to recognize the facts,
the best intentions arc unavailing. The iron girder
must be strong enough to bear the weight that is put
upon it, or else it will give way, — no matter whether
the girder is meant to support the roof of a railway
station, or the floor of a church, or the gallery of a
theatre. Hard work is necessary for success in busi-
ness ; and the man who works hardest — other things
being equal — is most likely to succeed, whether he is
a saint or a sinner."
B. " The facts of the universe are steadfast, and not
Fors Clavigtt 87
to be changed by human fancies or follies ; the laws
>f the universe are relentless, and will not relax in
le presence of human weakness, or give way under
le pressure of human passion and force."
C " No matter though you have a most devout and
ihscientious belief that by mere praying you can save
a town from typhoid fever ; if the drainage is bad and
ie water foul, praying will never save the town from
typhoid."
Thus far, Mr. Dale has been stating the substance
if Mr. Dawson's teaching; he now, as accepting that
substance, so far as it reaches, himself proceeds to
:arry it farther, and to apply the same truths — ad-
litting them to be truths — to spiritual things. And
low, from him we have this following most important
jgftd noble passage, which I accept for wholly true,
id place in St. George's schools.
D. " It would be strange if these truths became false
as soon as they are applied to the religious side of
the life of man. The spiritual universe is no more to
be made out of a man's own head, than the material
universe or the moral universe. T/ierey too, the con-
ditions of human life are fixed. There, too, we have
to respect the facts ; and, whether we respect them or
not, the facts remain. Tlicn\ too, we have to confess
the authority of the actual laws ; and, whether we con-
fess it or not, we shall suffer for breaking them. To
suppose that, in relation to the spiritual universe, it
88 Fors Clavigera.
is safe or right to believe what we think it pleasant
to believe, — to suppose that, because we think it is
eminently desirable that the spiritual universe should
be ordered in a particular way, therefore we are at
liberty to act as though this were certainly the way
in which it is ordered, and that, though we happen ' to
be wrong, it will make no difference, — is preposterous.
No ; water drowns, fire burns, whether we believe it
or not. No belief of ours will change the facts, or
reverse the laws of the spiritual universe. It is our
first business to discover the laws, and to learn how
the facts stand."
I accept this passage — observe, totally, — but I accept
it for itself. The basis of it — the preceding Dawsonian
statements, A, B, and C, — I wholly deny, so far as I
am a Christian. If the Word of Christ be true, the
facts of the physical universe are not steadfast. They
are steadfast only for the infidel. But these signs shall
evermore follow them that believe. " They shall take
up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it
shall not hurt them." No matter how bad the drain-
age of the town, how foul the water, " He shall deliver
thee from the noisome pestilence ; and though a thousand
fall at thy right hand, it shall not come nigh thee*
This, as a Christian, I am bound to believe. This,
speaking as a Christian, I am bound to proclaim, what-
ever the consequences may be to the town, or the
opinion of me formed by the Common Council ; as a
Fors Clavigera. 89
Christian, I believe prayer to be, in the last sense,
sufficient for the salvation of the town ; and drainage,
in the last sense, insufficient for its salvation. Not
that you will find me, looking back through the pages
of Fors, unconcerned about drainage. But if, of the
two, I must choose between drains and prayer — why,
" look you " — whatever you may think of my wild and
whirling words, I will go pray.
And now, therefore, for St George's schools, I most
solemnly reverse the statement B, and tell my scholars,
with all the force that is in me, that the facts of the
universe are NOT steadfast, that they ARE changed by
human fancies, and by human follies (much more by
human wisdoms), — that the laws of the universe are
no more relentless than the God who wrote them, —
that they WILL relax in the presence of human weak-
ness, and DO give way under the pressure of human
passion and force, and give way so totally, before so
little passion and force, that if you have but ' faith ' as
a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible
unto you.
" Are these merely fine phrases, or is he mad,
as people say ? " one of my polite readers asks of
another.
Neither, oh polite and pitying friend. Observe, in
the first place, that I simply speak as a Christian, and
express to you accurately what Christian doctrine is. I
am myself so nearly, as you are so grievously, faithless
90 Fors Clavigera.
to less than the least grain of — Colman's — mustard, that
/ can take up no serpents, and raise no dead.
But I don't say, therefore, that the dead are not
raised, nor that Christ is not risen, nor the head of
the serpent bowed under the foot of the Seed of the
Woman. I say only, — if my faith is vain, it is because
I am yet in my sins. And to others I say — what
Christ bids me say. That, simply, — that, literally, —
that, positively ; and no more. " If thou wilt believe,
thou shalt see the salvation of God."
If thou wilt (wouldest) — Faith being essentially a
matter of will, after some other conditions are met.
For how shall they believe on whom they have not
heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher ?
Yea ; but — asks St. George, murmuring behind his visor,
— much more, how shall they hear without — ears.
He that hath ears, (it is written) — let him hear ; —
but how of him that hath none ?
For observe, far the greater multitude of men cannot
hear of Christ at all. You can't tell an unloving
person, what love is, preach you till his doomsday.
What is to become of them, God knows, who is their
Judge ; but since they cannot hear of Christ, they
cannot believe in Him, and for them, the Laws of the
Universe are unchangeable enough. But for those who
can hear — comes the farther question whether they will.
And then, if they do, whether they will be steadfast
in the faith, steadfast behind the shield, point in earth,
Fors Clavigera. 91
cross of iron — (compare ' Laws of Fesole,' chapter iii.,
add the old heraldic word ' restrial,' of bearings, first
written in blood,) — else, having begun in the spirit,
they may only be " made perfect in the flesh." (Gal.
iii. 3.) But if, having begun in the Spirit, they grieve
it not, there will be assuredly among them the chorus-
leader. He that " leads forth the choir of the Spirit,"
and worketh MIRACLES among you. (Gal. iii. 5.)
Now, lastly, read in the ninth chapter of Froude's
History of England, the passage beginning, " Here,
therefore, we are to enter upon one of the grand
scenes of history,"* down to, " He desired us each to
choose our confessor, and to confess our sins one to
another ; " and the rest, I give here, for end of this
Fors : —
" The day after, he preached a sermon in the chapel
on the 59th Psalm: 'O God, Thou hast cast us off,
Thou hast destroyed us ; ' concluding with the words,
! It is better that we should suffer here a short penance
for our faults, than be reserved for the eternal pains
of hell hereafter ; ' — and so ending, he turned to us,
and bade us all do as we saw him do. Then rising
from his place he went direct to the eldest of the
brethren, who was sitting nearest to himself, and
kneeling before him, begged his forgiveness for any
offence which in heart, word, or deed he might have
* Octavo edition of 1858, vol. ii., p. 341.
2ND SERIES, III.] 8
92 Fors Clavigcra.
committed against him. Thence he proceeded to the
next, and said the same ; and so to the next, through
us all, we following him, and saying as he did, — each
from each imploring pardon.
" Thus, with unobtrusive nobleness, did these poor
men prepare themselves for the end ; not less beautiful
in their resolution, not less deserving the everlasting
remembrance of mankind, than those three hundred
who in the summer morning sate combing their golden
hair in the passes of Thermopylae. We will not regret
their cause ; there is no cause for which any man can
more nobly suffer than to witness that it is better for
him to die than to speak words which he does not
mean. Nor, in this their hour of trial, were they left
without higher comfort.
" ' The third day after,' the story goes on, ' was the
mass of the Holy Ghost, and God made known His
presence among us. For when the host was lifted up,
there came as it were a whisper of air, which breathed
upon our faces as we knelt. Some perceived it with
the bodily senses ; all felt it as it thrilled into their
hearts. And then followed a sweet, soft sound of
music, at which our venerable father was so moved,
God being thus abundantly manifest among us, that
he sank down in tears, and for a long time could not
continue the service — we all remaining stupefied, hear-
ing the melody, and feeling the marvellous effects of if
upon our spirits, but knowing neither whence it came
Fors C/avigera. 93
nor whither it went. Only our hearts rejoiced as we
perceived that God was with us indeed.' *
It can't be the end of this Fors, however, I find,
(15th February, half-past seven morning,) for I have
forgotten twenty things I meant to say ; and this
instant, in my morning's reading, opened and read,
being in a dreamy state, and not knowing well what
I was doing, — of all things to find a new message ! —
in the first chapter of Proverbs.
I was in a dreamy state, because I had got a letter
about the Thirlmere debate, which was to me, in my
purposed quietness, like one of the voices on the hill
behind the Princess Pairzael. And she could not hold,
without cotton in her ears, dear wise sweet thing. But
luckily for me, I have just had help from the Beata
Vigri at Venice, who sent me her own picture and
St. Catherine's, yesterday, for a Valentine ; and so I
can hold on : — only just read this first of Proverbs with
me, please.
" The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king
of Israel.
" To know wisdom and instruction."
(Not to ' opine ' them.)
" To perceive the words of understanding."
(He that hath eyes, let him read — he that hath
ears, hear. And for the Blind and the Deaf, — if
patient and silent by the right road-side, — there may
also be some one to say ' He is coming.')
94 Fors Clavigera.
"To receive the instruction of WISDOM, JUSTICE,
and Judgment, and Equity."
Four things, — oh friends, — which you have not only
to perceive, but to receive. And the species of these
four things, and the origin of their species, — you know
them, doubtless, well, — in these scientific days ?
" To give subtlety to the simple ; to the young man,
knowledge and discretion."
(Did ever one hear, lately, of a young man's want-
ing either ? Or of a simple person who wished to be
subtle ? Are not we all subtle — even to the total
defeat of our hated antagonists, the Prooshians and
Rooshians ?)
" A wise man will hear and will increase learning."
{e.g. "A stormy meeting took place in the Birmingham
Town Hall last night. It was convened by the Con-
servative Association for the purpose of passing a vote
of confidence in the Government ; but the Liberal Asso-
ciation also issued placards calling upon Liberals to
attend. The chair was taken by Mr. Stone, the Pre-
sident of the Conservative Association, but the greater
part of his speech was inaudible even upon the platform,
owing to the frequent bursts of applause, groans, and
Kentish fire, intermingled with comic songs. Flags
bearing the words ' Vote for Bright ' and ' Vote for
Gladstone ' were hoisted, and were torn to pieces by
the supporters of the Government Dr. Sebastian Evans
moved, and Alderman Brinsley seconded, a resolution
Fors Clavigera. 95
expressing confidence in Her Majesty's Government.
Mr. J. S. Wright moved, and Mr. R. W. Dale seconded,
an amendment, but neither speaker could make himself
heard; and on the resolution being put to the meeting
it was declared carried, but the Liberal speakers dis-
puted the decision of the chairman, and asserted that
two-thirds of the meeting were against the resolution." —
Pall Mall Gazette, February 13th, 1878.)
"And a man of understanding shall attain unto wise
counsels."
(Yes, in due time ; but oh me — over what burning
marie, and by what sifting of wheat !)
" To understand a proverb, and the interpretation."
(Yes, truly — all this chapter I have known from
my mother's knee — and never understood it till this
very hour.)
" The words of the wise and their dark sayings."
(Behold this dreamer cometh, — and this is his
dream.)
11 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of know-
ledge : but fools despise wisdom and instruction."
(e.g. " Herr , one of the Socialist leaders, declaring
that he and his friends, since they do not fear earthly
Powers, are not likely to be afraid of Powers of any
other kind." — Pall Mall Gazette, same date.*)
* I take this passage out of an important piece of intelligence of a quite
contrary and greatly encouraging kind. " A new political party has just
been added to the many parties which already existed in Germany. It
g 6 Fors Clavigera.
" My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and
forsake not the law of thy mother."
The father is to teach the boy's reason ; and the
mother, his will. He is to take his father's word, and
to obey his mother's — look, even to the death.
(Therefore it is that all laws of holy life are called
1 mother-laws' in Venice. — Fors, 1877, page 38.)
" For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy
head."
Alas, yes ! — once men were crowned in youth with
the gold of their father's glory ; when the hoary head
was crowned also in the way of righteousness.
And so they went their way to prison, and to
death.
But now, by divine liberty, and general indication,
even Solomon's own head is not crowned by any means.
— Fors, 1877, p. 138.
" And chains about thy neck " — (yes, collar of the
calls itself ' the Christian Social party.' It is headed by several promi-
nent Court preachers of Berlin, who, alarmed at the progress made by
the Socialists, have taken this means of resisting their subversive doctrines.
The object of the party is to convince the people that there can be no
true system of government which is not based upon Christianity ; and this
principle is being elaborately set forth in large and enthusiastic meetings.
Herr Most, one of the Socialist leaders, has given the political pastors an
excellent text for their orations by declaring that he and his friends, since
they do not fear earthly Powers, are not likely to be afraid of Powers
of any other kind. Branches of the Christian Socialist party have been
formed in several of the most important German towns ; and they con-
fidently expect to be able to secure a definite position in the next Imperial
Parliament."
Fors Clavigera. 97
knightliest. Let not thy mother's Mercy and Truth
forsake thee) bind them about thy neck, write them
upon the tables of thine heart. She may forget : yet
will not / forget thee.
(Therefore they say — of the sweet mother laws of
their loving God and lowly Christ — ' Disrumpamus
vinculo, eorum et projiciamus a nobis, jugum ipsorum.')
Nay — nay, but if they say thus then ?
" Let us swallow them up alive, as the grave."
(Other murderers kill, before they bury ; — but YOU,
you observe, are invited to bury before you kill. All
these things, when once you know their meaning, have
their physical symbol quite accurately beside them.
Read the story of the last explosion in Yorkshire —
where a woman's husband and her seven sons fell — all
seven — all eight — together : about the beginning of
barley harvest it was, I think.)
" And whole as those that go down into the pit."
(Others murderers kill the body only, but YOU are
invited to kill ' whole • — body and soul. Yea — and to
kill with such wholeness that the creatures shall not
even know they ever had a soul, any more than a frog
of Egypt. You will not, think you. Ah, but hear yet
— for second thoughts are best.)
" We shall find all precious substance. We shall fill
our houses with spoil."
(ALL precious substance. Is there anything in those
houses round the park that could possibly be suggested
98 Fors Clavigera,
as wanting ? — And spoil, — all taken from the killed
people. Have they not sped — have they not divided
the spoil — to every man a damsel or two. Not one bit
of it all worked for with your own hand, — even so,
mother of Sisera.)
" Cast in thy lot among us." — (The Company is
limited.)
" Let us all have one " — (heart ? no, for none of us
have that ; — mind ? no, for none of us have that ; — but
let us all have one — ) " purse." And now — that you
know the meaning of it — I write to the end my
morning's reading.
My son, walk not thou in the way with them.
Refrain thy foot from their path. For their feet run
to evil, and hasten to shed blood.
Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any
bird.
And they lay wait for their own blood.
They lurk privily for their own lives.
SO ARE THE WAYS OF EVERY ONE THAT IS GREEDY
OF GAIN WHICH TAKETH AWAY THE LIFE OF THE
OWNERS THEREOF.
Now, therefore, let us see what these ways are — the
Viae Peccatorum, — the Pleasantness of them, and the
Peace.
The following are portions of a letter from the brother
of one of my country friends here, who has been pastor
of the English Baptist church in Tredegar about twenty
years.
Fbrs Clavioera. 99
1 * Tr e i > to '.Mi, 11 th February t 1 878.
" Some three hundred men are said to have been
discharged from tjie works last week. The mills are to
be closed all this week, and the iron-workers do not
expect to be able to earn a penny. About a day and a
half per week, on the average, is what they have been
working for several months. The average earnings have
been six shillings a week, and out of that they have to
pay for coal, house-rent, and other expenses, leaving very
little for food and clothing. The place has been divided
into districts. I have one of these districts to investigate
and relieve. In that district there are a hundred and
thirty families in distress, and which have been relieved
on an average of two shillings per week for each family
for the last month. Many of them are some days every
week without anything to eat, and with nothing but
water to drink: they have nothing but rags to cover them
by day, and very little beside their wearing apparel to
cover them on their beds at night. They have sold or
pawned their furniture, and everything for which they
could obtain the smallest sum of money. In fact, they
seem to me to be actually starving. In answer to our
appeal, we have received about three hundred pounds,
and have distributed the greater part of it. We also
distributed a large quantity of clothing last week which
we had received from different places. We feel increasing
anxiety about the future. When we began, we hoped
the prospect would soon brighten, and that we should
2ND SERIES, III.] . C)
ioo Fors Clavigera.
be able before long to discontinue our efforts. Instead
of that, however, things look darker than ever. We
cannot tell what would become of us if contributions to
our funds should now cease to come in, and we do not
know how long we may hope that they will continue to
come in, and really cannot tell who is to blame, nor what
is the remedy."
They know not at zvhat they stumble. How should
they ?
Well — will they hear at last then ? Has Jael-Atropos
at last driven her nail well down through the Helmet
of Death he wore instead of the Helmet of Salvation —
mother of Sisera ?
2\D SERIES, IV.] I O
fl 6vrjT0L(TL SLKaLOTarrj, 7roXvoXf3e, TToOewrj,
i£ txroTrjros act Ovtjtols ^aipovaa St/catotSj
TravTifx, , 6\.f3iO[JLOip€, AiKGLLOcrvvr] fieyaXav^-qSj
rj KaOapcLis yv(x)fJLcu<s aUl ra Seovra ySpa/Jtueis,
a0pav(TTOs to oweiSoV aei Opaveis. yap airavTas,
ocrcroL fxr] to crbv rjXOov v7ro fcvyov, aXXcmpocraXXoi,
7rXd<TTLy£Lv j3piapfj(rL irapeyKXivavTcs aTrXrjo-TW
acrTa(Tia(TT€, <f>iXrj 7rdvT(nv, cfuXoKOifju epareiVT],
elprjvrj ^atpouo-a, J3lov £17X01x70, fiifSatov.
aiet yap to irXtov arvyceig, l(r6Tr)TL 8e ^cupeis.
kv crol yap cro^trj aperf}? reXos karOXbv i/caVci.
kXvOl, Bed, KaKtrjv OvryrCov Opavovo~a 81*0.1009,
<I)S av lcroppo7rtyo-iv del /2io9 taOXos oSevoi
Ov-qroiv dvdpdiTruiv, 01 dpovprjs Kapirov eSovcnv,
/cat t,iinav 7rdvT0)v, oirocf kv koXttoktl TL0r)V€t
yaid Oed /xrJTTjp koX 7t6Vtio9 eu/aA.109 Zevs.
Thou who doest right for mortals ,— full of blessings, — thou, the
desired of hearts.
Rejoicing, for thy equity, in mortal righteousness ; —
All-honoured, ha fifty -fated, majestic-miened Justice,
Who dost arbitrate, for j>ure minds, all that ought to be.
Unmoved of countenance thou ; — (it is they who shall be moved
That come not under thy yoke, — other always to others,
Driving insatiably oblique the leaded scales.)
Thou, — seditionless , dear to all — lover of revel, and lovely,
Rejoicing in jbeace, zealous for fiureness of life,
(For thou hatest always the More, and rejoicest i?i equalness.
For in thee the wisdom of virtue reaches its noble end.)
Hear, Goddess / — trouble thou justly the mischief of mortals,
So that always in fair equipoise the noble life may travel
Of mortal men that eat the fruit of the furrow,
And of all living creatures, whom nurse in their bosoms
Earth the Goddess mother, and the God of the deep sea.
ORPHEUS.— Sixty-third Hymn.
FORS CLAVIGERA.
SECOND SERIES.
" YEA, THE WORK OF OUR HANDS, ESTABLISH THOU IT.'
LETTER THE 88th.
THE CONVENTS OF ST. QUENTIN.
Brantwood, Zth February, 1880.
It is now close on two years since I was struck by
the illness which brought these Letters to an end, as
a periodical series ; nor did I think, on first recovery,
that I should ever be able to conclude them otherwise
than by a few comments in arranging their topical
index.
But my strength is now enough* restored to permit
me to add one or two more direct pieces of teaching
to the broken statements of principle which it has become
difficult to gather out of the mixed substance of the
book. These will be written at such leisure as I may
find, and form an eighth volume, which with a thin ninth,
containing indices, I shall be thankful if I can issue in
this tenth year from the beginning of the work.
To-day, being my sixty-first birthday, I would ask
104 Fors Clavigera.
leave to say a few words to the friends who care for
me, and the readers who are anxious about me, touching
the above-named illness itself. For a physician's estimate
of it, indeed, I can only refer them to my physicians.
But there were some conditions of it which I knew better
than they could : namely, first, the precise and sharp
distinction between the state of morbid inflammation of
brain which gave rise to false visions, (whether in sleep,
or trance, or waking, in broad daylight, with perfect
knowledge of the real things in the room, while yet I
saw others that were not there,) and the not morbid,
however dangerous, states of more or less excited
temper, and too much quickened thought, which gradually
led up to the illness, accelerating in action during the
eight or ten days preceding the actual giving way of
the brain, (as may be enough seen in the fragmentary
writing of the first edition of my notes on the Turner
exhibition); and yet, up to the transitional moment of
first hallucination, entirely healthy, and in the full sense
of the word * sane ' ; just as the natural inflammation
about a healing wound in flesh is sane, up to the transi-
tional edge where it may pass at a crisis into morbific,
or even mortified, substance. And this more or less
inflamed, yet still perfectly healthy, condition of mental
power, may be traced by any watchful reader, in Fors,
nearly from its beginning, — that manner of mental
ignition or irritation being for the time a great addi-
tional force, enabling me to discern more clearly, and
Fors Clavigera. 105
say more vividly, what for long years it had been in
my heart to say.
Now I observed that in talking of the illness, whether
during its access or decline, none of the doctors ever
thought of thus distinguishing what was definitely
diseased in the brain action, from what was simply
curative — had there been time enough — of the wounded
nature in me. And in the second place, not perceiving,
or at least not admitting, this difference ; nor, for the
most part, apprehending (except the one who really
carried me through, and who never lost hope — Dr.
Parsons of Hawkshead) that there were any mental
wounds to be healed, they made, and still make, my
friends more anxious about me than there is occasion
for : which anxiety I partly regret, as it pains them ;
but much more if it makes them more doubtful than
they used to be (which, for some, is saying a good
deal) of the " truth and soberness " of Fors itself.
Throughout every syllable of which, hitherto written,
the reader will find one consistent purpose, and per-
fectly conceived system, far more deeply founded than
any bruited about under their founders' names ; including
in its balance one vast department of human skill, —
—the arts,— which the vulgar economists are wholly
incapable of weighing ; and a yet more vast realm of
human enjoyment — the spiritual affections, — which ma-
terialist thinkers are alike incapable of imagining : a
system not mine, nor Kant's, nor Comte's ; — but that
106 Fors Clavigera.
which Heaven has taught every true man's heart, and
proved by every true man's work, from the beginning of
time to this day.
I use the word ' Heaven ' here in an absolutely literal
sense, meaning the blue sky, and the light and air of
it. Men who live in that light, — " in pure sunshine,
not under mixed-up shade," — and whose actions are
open as the air, always arrive at certain conditions of
moral and practical loyalty, which are wholly independent
of religious opinion. These, it has been the first business
of Fors to declare. Whether there be one God or
three, — no God, or ten thousand, — children should have
enough to eat, and their skins should be washed clean.
It is not / who say that. Every mother's heart under
the sun says that, if she has one.
Again, whether there be saints in Heaven or not,
as long as its stars shine on the sea, and the thunnies
swim there — every fisherman who drags a net ashore
is bound to say to as many human creatures as he
can, \ Come and dine.' And the fishmongers who
destroy their fish by .cartloads that they may make the
poor pay dear for what is left, ought to be flogged
round Billingsgate, and out of it. It is not I who say
that. Every man's heart on sea and shore says that —
if he isn't at heart a rascal. Whatever is dictated in
Fors is dictated thus by common sense, common equity,
common humanity, and common sunshine — not by me.
But farther. I have just now used the word * Heaven '
Fors Clavigera. 107
in a nobler sense also : meaning, Heaven and our Father
therein.
And beyond the power of its sunshine, which* all
men may know, Fors has declared also the power of
its Fatherhood, — which only some men know, and others
do not, — and, except by rough teaching, may not. For
the wise of all the earth have said in their hearts
always, "God is, and there is none beside Him;" and
the fools of all the earth have said in their hearts
always, " I am, and there is none beside me."
Therefore, beyond the assertion of what is visibly
salutary, Fors contains also the assertion of what is
invisibly salutary, or salvation-bringing, in Heaven, to
all men who will receive such health : and beyond this
an invitation — passing gradually into an imperious call
— to all men who trust in God, that they purge their
conscience from dead works, and join together in work
separated from the fool's ; pure, undefiled, and worthy
of Him they trust in.
But in the third place. Besides these definitions,
first, of what is useful to all the world, and then of
what is useful to the wiser part of it, Fors contains
much trivial and desultory talk by the way. Scattered
up and down in it, — perhaps by the Devil's sowing
tares among the wheat, — there is much casual expres-
sion of my own personal feelings and faith, together
with bits of autobiography, which were allowed place,
not without some notion of their being useful, but yet
108 Fors Clavigera.
imprudently, and even incontinently, because I could
not at the moment hold my tongue about what vexed
or interested me, or returned soothingly to my memory.
Now these personal fragments must be carefully
sifted from the rest of the book, by readers who wish
to understand it, and taken within their own limits, —
no whit farther. For instance, when I say that "St.
Ursula sent me a flower with her love," it means that
I myself am in the habit of thinking of the Greek
Persephone, the Latin Proserpina, and the Gothic St.
Ursula, as of the same living spirit; and so far regu-
lating my conduct by that idea as to dedicate my
book on Botany to Proserpina ; and to think, when I
want to write anything pretty about flowers, how St.
Ursula would like it said. And when on the Christmas
morning in question, a friend staying in Venice brought
me a pot of pinks, ' with St. Ursula's love,' the said pot
of pinks did afterwards greatly help me in my work ;
- — and reprove me afterwards, in its own way, for the
failure of it.
All this effort, or play, of personal imagination is
utterly distinct from the teaching of Fors, though I
thought at the time its confession innocent, without in
any wise advising my readers to expect messages from
pretty saints, or reprobation from pots of pinks : only
being urgent with them to ascertain clearly in their
own minds what they do expect comfort or reproof
from. Here, for instance, (Sheffield, 12th February,)
Fors Clavigera. 109
I am lodging at an honest and hospitable grocer's, who
has lent me his own bedroom, of which the principal
ornament is a card printed in black and gold, sacred
to the memory of his infant son, who died aged
fourteen months, and whose tomb is represented under
the figure of a broken Corinthian column, with two
graceful-winged ladies putting garlands on it. He is
comforted by this conception, and, in that degree,
believes and feels with me : the merely palpable fact
is probably, that his child's body is lying between two
tall chimneys which are covering it gradually with
cinders. I am quite as clearly aware of that fact as
the most scientific of my friends ; and can probably
see more in the bricks of the said chimneys than they.
But if they can see nothing in Heaven above the
chimney tops, nor conceive of anything in spirit greater
than themselves, it is not because they have more
knowledge than I, but because they have less sense.
Less common-sense, — observe : less practical insight
into the things which are of instant and constant need
to man. •
I must yet allow myself a few more words of auto-
biography touching this point. The doctors said that
I went mad, this time two years ago, from overwork.
I had not been then working more than usual, and
what was usual with me had become easy. But I went
mad because nothing came of my work. People would
have understood my falling crazy if they had heard that
no Fors Clavigera.
the manuscripts on which I had spent seven years of my
old life had all been used to light the fire with, like
Carlyle's first volume of the French Revolution. But
they could not understand that I should be the least
annoyed, far less fall ill in a frantic manner, because,
after I had got them published, nobody believed a word
of them. Yet the first calamity would only have been
misfortune, — the second (the enduring calamity under
which I toil) is humiliation, — resisted necessarily by a
dangerous and lonely pride.
I spoke just now of the 'wounds' of which that fire
in the flesh came ; and if any one ask me faithfully,
what the wounds were, I can faithfully give the answer
of Zechariah's silenced messenger, "Those with which I
was wounded in the house of my friends." All alike,
in whom I had most trusted for help, failed me in this
main work : some mocked at it, some pitied, some
rebuked, — all stopped their ears at the cry : and the
solitude at last became too great to be endured. I tell
this now, because I must say some things that grieve
me to say, about the recent work of one of the friends
from whom I had expected most sympathy and aid,
— the historian J. A. Froude. Faithful, he, as it
appeared to me, in all the intent of history : already
in the year 1858 shrewdly cognizant of the main
facts (with which he alone professed himself concerned)
of English life past and present ; keenly also, and
impartially, sympathetic with every kind of heroism,
Fors Clavigera. 1 1 1
and mode of honesty. Of him I first learned the story
of Sir Richard Grenville ; by him was directed to the
diaries of the sea captains in Hakluyt ; by his influence,
when he edited Fraser's Magazine, I had been led to
the writing of Munera Pulveris : his Rectorial address
at St. Andrew's was full of insight into the strength of
old Scotland ; his study of the life of Hugo of Lincoln,
into that of yet elder England ; and every year, as Auld
Reekie and old England sank farther out of memory
and honour with others, I looked more passionately for
some utterance from him, of noble story about the brave
and faithful dead, and noble wrath against the wretched
and miscreant dead-alive. But year by year his words
have grown more hesitating and helpless. The first
preface to his history is a quite masterly and exhaustive
summary of the condition and laws of England before
the Reformation ; and it most truly introduces the fol-
lowing book as a study of the process by which that
condition and those laws were turned upside-down, and
inside-out, " as a man wipeth a dish, — wiping it, and
turning it upside-down ; " so that, from the least thing
to the greatest, if our age is light, those ages were
dark ; if our age is right, those ages were wrong, — and
vice versa. There is no possible consent to be got, or
truce to be struck, between them. Those ages were
feudal, ours free ; those reverent, ours impudent ; those
artful, ours mechanical : the consummate and exhaustive
difference being that the creed of the Dark Ages was,
1 1 2 Fors Clavigera.
<i>
" I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker
of heaven and earth ; " and the creed of the Light
Ages has become, " I believe in Father Mud, the
Almighty Plastic ; and in Father Dollar, the Almighty
Drastic."
Now at the time when Mr. Froude saw and announced
the irreconcilableness' of these two periods, and then went
forward to his work on that time of struggling twilight
which foretold the existing blaze of day, and general
detection of all impostures, he had certainly not made
up his mind whether he ought finally to praise the
former or the latter days. His reverence for the right-
eousness of old English law holds staunch, even to the
recognition of it in the most violent states of — literal —
ebullition : such, for instance, as the effective check given
to the introduction of the arts of Italian poisoning into
England, by putting the first English cook who practised
them into a pot of convenient size, together with the
requisite quantity of water, and publicly boiling him, — a
most concise and practical method. Also he rejoices in
the old English detestation of idleness, and determina-
tion that every person in the land should have a craft
to live by, and practise it honestly : and in manifold other
matters I perceive the backward leaning of his inmost
thoughts ; and yet in the very second page of this
otherwise grand preface, wholly in contravention of
his own principle that the historian has only to do
with facts, he lets slip this — conciliating is it? or
Fors Clavigera. 1 1 3
careless ? or really intended ? — in any case amazing —
sentence, " A condition of things " (the earlier age)
" differing both outwardly and inwardly from that into
which a happier fortune has introduced ourselves!' An
amazing sentence, I repeat, in its triple assumptions,
— each in itself enormous : the first, that it is happier
to live without, than with, the fear of God ; the second,
that it is chance, and neither our virtue nor our wisdom,
that has procured us this happiness ; — the third, that
the ' ourselves ' of Onslow Gardens and their neighbour-
hood may sufficiently represent also the ourselves of
Siberia and the Rocky Mountains — of Afghanistan and
Zululand.
None of these assumptions have foundation ; . and
for fastening the outline of their shadowy and meteoric
form, Mr. Froude is working under two deadly dis-
advantages. Intensely loving and desiring Truth before
all things, nor without sympathy even for monkish
martyrs, — see the passage last quoted in my last
written Fors, p. 91, — he has yet allowed himself to slip
somehow into the notion that Protestantism and the
love of Truth are synonymous ; — so that, for instance,
the advertisements which decorate in various fresco the
station of the Great Northern Railway, and the news-
papers vended therein to the passengers by the morning
train, appear to him treasures of human wisdom and
veracity, as compared with the benighted ornamentation
of the useless Lesche of Delphi, or the fanciful stains
H4 Fors Clavigera.
on the tunnel roof of the Lower Church of Assisi. And
this the more, because, for second deadly disadvantage,
he has no knowledge of art, nor care for it ; and there-
fore, in his life of Hugo of Lincoln, passes over the
Bishop's designing, and partly building, its cathedral, with
a word, as if he had been no more than a woodman
building a hut : and in his recent meditations at St.
Albans, he never puts the primal question concerning
those long cliffs of abbey- wall, how the men who
thought of them and built them, differed, in make and
build of soul, from the apes who can only pull them
down and build bad imitations of them : but he fastens
like a remora on the nearer, narrower, copper-coating
of fact — that countless bats and owls did at last cluster
under the abbey-eaves ; fact quite sufficiently known
before now, and loudly enough proclaimed to the
votaries of the Goddess of Reason, round Jier undefiled
altars. So that there was not the slightest need for
Mr. Froude's sweeping out these habitations of doleful
creatures. Had he taken an actual broom of resolutely
bound birch twigs, and, in solemn literalness of act,
swept down the wrecked jackdaws' nests, which at this
moment make a slippery dunghill-slope, and mere peril
of spiral perdition, out of what was once the safe and
decent staircase of central Canterbury tower, he would
have better served his generation. But after he had,
to his own satisfaction, sifted the mass of bonedust,
and got at the worst that could be seen or smelt in
Fors Clavigera. 1 1 5
the cells of monks, it was next, and at least his duty,
as an impartial historian, to compare with them the
smells of modern unmonastic cells ; (unmonastic, that is
to say, in their scorn of sculpture and painting, — monastic
enough in their separation of life from life). Yielding
no whit to Mr. Froude in love of Fact and Truth, I
will place beside his picture of the monk's cell, in the
Dark Ages, two or three pictures by eye-witnesses —
yes, and by line-and-measure witnesses — of the manu-
facturer's cell, in the happier times " to which Fortune
has introduced ourselves." I translate them (nearly as
Fors opens the pages to me) from M. Jules Simon's
1 L'Ouvriere,' a work which I recommend in the most
earnest manner, as a text book for the study of French
in young ladies' schools. It must, however, be observed,
prefatorily, that these descriptions were given in 1864;
and I have no doubt that as soon as this Fors is
published, I shall receive indignant letters from all the
places named in the extracts, assuring me that nothing
of the sort exists there now. Of which letters I must
also say, in advance, that I shall take no notice ; being
myself prepared, on demand, to furnish any quantity
of similar pictures, seen with my own eyes, in the course
of a single walk with a policeman through the back
streets of any modern town which has fine front ones.
And I take M. Jules Simon's studies from life merely
because it gives me less trouble to translate them than
to write fresh ones myself. But I think it probable
1 1 6 Fors Clavigera.
that they do indicate the culminating power of the
manufacturing interest in causing human degradation ;
and that things may indeed already be in some struggling
initial state of amendment. What things were, at their
worst, and were virtually everywhere, I record as a most
important contribution to the History of France, and
Europe, in the words of an honourable and entirely
accurate and trustworthy Frenchman.
" Elbceuf, where the industrial prosperity is so great,
ought to have healthy lodgings. It is a quite new
town, and one which may easily extend itself upon
the hills {coteaux) which surround it. We find already,
in effect, jasqitd, mi-cote (I don't know what that means,
— half-way up the hill ?), beside a little road bordered
by smiling shrubs, some small houses built without care
and without intelligence by little speculators scarcely
.less wretched than the lodgers they get together " — (this
sort of landlord is one of the worst modern forms of
Centaur, — half usurer, half gambler). " You go up two or
three steps made of uncut stones " (none the worse for
that though, M. Jules Simon), " and you find yourself in
a little room lighted by one narrow window, and of
which the four walls of earth have never been white-
washed nor rough-cast. Some half-rotten oak planks
thrown down on the soil pretend to be a flooring.
Close to the road, an old woman pays sevenpence half-
penny a week," (sixty-five centimes, — roughly, forty francs,
or thirty shillings a year,) " for a mud hut which is
Fors Clavigera. 1 1 7
literally naked — neither bed, chair, nor table in it {dest
en demeurer confondu). She sleeps upon a little straw,
too rarely renewed ; while her son, who is a labourer at
the port, sleeps at night upon the damp ground, without
either straw or covering. At some steps farther on,
a little back from the road, a weaver, sixty years old,
inhabits a sort of hut or sentry-box, (for one does not
know what name to give it,) of which the filth makes
the heart sick " (he means the stomach too — -fait soulever
le cceur). " It is only a man's length, and a yard and
a quarter broad ; he has remained in it night and day
for twenty years. He is now nearly an idiot, and
refuses to occupy a better lodging which one proposes
to him.
" The misery is not less horrible, and it is much more
general at Rouen. One cannot form an idea of the
filth of certain houses without having seen it. The poor
people feed their fire with the refuse of the apples which
have served to make cider, and which they get given
them for nothing. They have quantities of them in
the corner of their rooms, and a hybrid vegetation comes
out of these masses of vegetable matter in putrefaction.
Sometimes the proprietors, ill paid, neglect the most
urgent repairs. In a garret of the Rue des Matelas,
the floor, entirely rotten, trembles under the step of the
visitor ; at two feet from the door is a hole larger than
the body of a man. The two unhappy women who
live there are obliged to cry to you to take care, for
2ND SERIES, IV.] J J
1 1 8 Fors Clavigera.
they have not anything to put over the hole, not even
the end of a plank. There is nothing in their room
but their spinning-wheel, two low chairs, and the wrecks
of a wooden bedstead without a mattress. In a blind
alley at the end of the Rue des Canettes, where the
wooden houses seem all on the point of falling, a weaver
of braces lodges with his family in a room two yards
and a half broad by four yards and three-quarters long,
measured on the floor ; but a projection formed by the
tunnels of the chimney of the lower stories, and all the
rest, is so close to the roof that one cannot make three
steps upright. When the husband, wife, and four children
are all in it, it is clear that they cannot move. One
will not be surprised to hear that the want of air and
hunger make frequent victims in such a retreat (reduit).
Of the four children which remained to them in April,
i860, two were dead three months afterwards. When
they were visited in the month of April, the physician,
M. Leroy, spoke of a ticket that he had given them
the week before for milk. ' She has drunk of it,' said
the mother pointing to the eldest daughter, half dead,
but who had the strength to smile. Hunger had reduced
this child, who would have been beautiful, nearly to the
state of a skeleton.
" The father of this poor family is a good weaver.
He could gain in an ordinary mill from three to four
francs a day, while he gains only a franc and a half
in the brace manufactory. One may ask why he stays
Fors Clavigera. 1 1 9
there. Because at the birth of his last child he had
no money at home, nor fire, nor covering, nor light,
nor bread. He borrowed twenty francs from his patron,
who is an honest man, and he cannot without paying
his debt quit that workshop where his work neverthe-
less does not bring him enough to live on. It is clear
that he will die unless some one helps him, but his
family will be dead before him."
Think now, you sweet milkmaids of England whose
face is your fortune, and you sweet demoiselles of
France who are content, as girls should be, with
breakfast of brown bread and cream, (read Scribe's
little operetta, La Demoiselle a Marier,) — think, I say,
how, in this one, — even though she has had a cup of
cold milk given her in the name of the Lord, — lying
still there, " nearly a skeleton," that verse of the song
of songs which is Solomon's, must take a new mean-
ing for yon : " We have a little sister, and she has
no breasts : what shall we do for our sister in the day
of her espousals ? "
" For the cellars of Lille, those who defend them,
were they of Lille itself, have not seen them. There
remains one, No. 40 of the Rue des Etaques ; the
ladder applied against the wall to go down is in such
a bad state that you will do well to go down slowly.
There is just light enough to read at the foot of the
ladder. One cannot read there without compromising
one's eyes ; the work of sewing is therefore dangerous
1 20 Fors Clavigera.
in that place ; a step farther in, it is impossible, and the
back of the cave is entirely dark. The soil is damp
and unequal, the walls blackened by time and filth.
One breathes a thick air which can never be renewed,
because there is no other opening but the trapdoor
(soupirail). The entire space, three yards by four, is
singularly contracted by a quantity of refuse of all
sorts, shells of eggs, shells of mussels, crumbled ground
and filth, worse than that of the dirtiest dunghill. It
is easy to see that no one ever walks in this cave.
Those who live in it lie down and sleep where they
fall. The furniture is composed of a very small iron
stove of which the top is shaped into a pan, three
earthen pots, a stool, and the wood of a bed without
any bedding. There is neither straw nor coverlet. The
woman who lodges in the bottom of this cellar never
goes out of it. She is sixty-three years old. The
husband is not a workman : they have two daughters,
of which the eldest is twenty-two years old. These
four persons live together, and have no other domicile.
" This cave is one of the most miserable, first for the
extreme filth and destitution of its inhabitants, next by
its dimensions, most of the cellars being one or two
yards wider. These caves serve for lodging to a whole
family ; in consequence, father, mother, and children
sleep in the same place, and too often, whatever their
age, in the same bed. The greater number of these
unhappies see no mischief in this confusion of the
Fors Clavigera. 1 2 1
sexes ; whatever comes of it, they neither conceal it,
nor blush for it ; nay, they scarcely know that the rest
of mankind have other manners. Some of the caves,
indeed, are divided in two by an arch, and thus
admit of a separation which is not in general made.
It is true that in most cases the back cellar is entirely
dark, the air closer, and the stench more pestilent. In
some the water trickles down the walls, and others
are close to a gully-hole, and poisoned by mephitic
vapours, especially in summer.
" There are no great differences between the so-called
' courettes ' (little alleys) of Lille, and the so-called
1 forts ' of Roubaix, or the ' convents ' of St. Quentin ;
everywhere the same heaping together of persons and
the same unhealthiness. At Roubaix, where the town
is open, space is not wanting, and all is new, — for
the town has just sprung out of the ground, — one has
not, as at Lille, the double excuse of a fortified town
where space is circumscribed to begin with, and where
one cannot build without pulling down. Also at Rou-
baix there are never enough lodgings for the increasing
number of workmen, so that the landlords may be always
sure of their rents. Quite recently, a manufacturer
who wanted some hands brought some workwomen
from Lille, paid them well, and put them in a far more
healthy workshop than the one they had left. Never-
theless, coming on Thursday, they left him on Saturday :
they had found no place to lodge, and had passed the
122 Fors Clavigera.
three nights under a gateway. In this open town, though
its rows of lodgings are more than half a mile from the
workshops, they are not a bit more healthy. The houses
are ill-constructed, squeezed one against another, the
ground between not levelled, and often with not even a
gutter to carry away the thrown-out slops, which accu-
mulate in stagnant pools till the sun dries them. Here
at hazard is the description of some of the lodgings.
To begin with a first floor in Wattel Street : one gets
up into it by a ladder and a trap without a door ; space,
two yards and a half by three yards ; one window,
narrow and low ; walls not rough-cast ; inhabitants,
father, mother, and two children of different sexes, —
one ten, the other seventeen : rent, one franc a week.
In Halluin Court there is a house with only two
windows to its ground floor, one to the back and one
to the front ; but this ground floor is divided into three
separate lodgings, of which the one in the middle" —
(thus ingeniously constructed in the age of light) —
" would of course have no window at all, but it is
separated from the back and front ones by two lattices,
which fill the whole space, and give it the aspect of a
glass cage. It results that the household placed in this
lodging has no air, and that none of the three house-
holds have any privacy, for it is impossible for any person
of them to hide any of his movements from the two
others. One of these lodgings is let for five francs a
month ; the woman who inhabits it has five children,
Fors Clavigera. 123
though all young, but she has got a sort of cage made
in the angle of her room, which can be got up to by a
winding staircase, and which can hold a bed. This the
lodger has underlet, at seventy-five centimes a week, to
a sempstress, abandoned by her lover, with a child of
some weeks old. This child is laid on the bed, where
it remains alone all the day, and the mother comes to
suckle it at noon. A gown and a bonnet, with a little
parcel which may contain, at the most, one chemise, are
placed on a shelf, and above them an old silk umbrella
— an object of great luxury, the debris of lost opulence.
Nearly all the inhabitants of this court are subject to
fever. If an epidemic came on the top of that, the
whole population would be carried off. Yet it is not
two years since Halluin Court was built."
Such, Mr. Froude, are the ' fortresses ' of free — as
opposed to feudal — barons ; such the ' convents ' of
philosophic — as opposed to catholic — purity. Will you
not tell the happy world of your day, how it may yet
be a little happier ? It is wholly your business, not
mine ; — and all these unwilling words of my tired lips
are spoken only because you are silent.
I do not propose to encumber the pages of the few
last numbers of Fors with the concerns of St. George's
Guild : of which the mustard-seed state (mingled hopefully
however with that of cress) is scarcely yet overpast.
124 Fors Clavigera.
This slackness of growth, as I have often before stated,
is more the Master's fault than any one else's, the
present Master being a dilatory, dreamy, and — to the
much vexation of the more enthusiastic members of
the Guild — an extremely patient person ; and busying
himself at present rather with the things that amuse
him in St. George's Museum than with the Guild's wider
cares ; — of which, however, a separate report will be
given to its members in the course of this year, and
continued as need is.
Many well-meaning and well-wishing friends outside
the Guild, and desirous of entrance, have asked for
relaxation of the grievous law concerning the contribution
of the tithe of income. Which the Master is not, however,
in the least minded to relax ; nor any other of the Guild's
original laws, none of which were set down without
consideration, though this requirement of tithe does
indeed operate as a most stiff stockade, and apparently
unsurmountable hurdle-fence, in the face of all more or
less rich and, so to speak, overweighted, well-wishers.
For I find, practically, that fifty pounds a year can often
save me five — or at a pinch, seven — of them ; nor should
I be the least surprised if some merry-hearted apprentice
lad, starting in life with a capital of ten pounds or so,
were to send me one of them, and go whistling on
his way with the remaining nine. But that ever a
man of ten thousand a year should contrive, by any
exertion of prudence and self-denial, to live upon so
Fors Clavigera. 125
small a sum as nine thousand, and give one thousand
to the poor, — this is a height of heroism wholly incon-
ceivable to modern pious humanity.
Be that as it may, I am of course ready to receive
subscriptions for St. George's work from outsiders — whether
zealous or lukewarm — in such amounts as they think fit :
and at present I conceive that the proposed enlargements
of our museum at Sheffield are an object with which
more frank sympathy may be hoped than with the
agricultural business of the Guild. Ground I have
enough — and place for a pleasant gallery for such students
as Sheffield may send up into the clearer light ;* — but I
don't choose to sell out any of St. George's stock for
this purpose, still less for the purchase of books for the
Museum, — and yet there are many I want, and can't
yet afford. Mr. Quaritch, for instance, has an eleventh
century Lectionary, a most precious MS., which would
be a foundation for all manner of good learning to
us : but it is worth its weight in silver, and inaccessible
for the present. Also my casts from St. Mark's, of
sculptures never cast before, are lying in lavender — or
at least in tow — invisible and useless, till I can build
walls for them : and I think the British public would not
regret giving me the means of placing and illuminating
these rightly. And, in fine, here I am yet for a few
* An excellent and kind account of the present form and contents of the
Museum will be found in the last December number of Cassell's Magazine
of Art.
2ND SERIES, IV.] I 2
126 Fors Clavigera.
years, I trust, at their service — ready to arrange such a
museum for their artizans as they have not yet dreamed
of; — not dazzling nor overwhelming, but comfortable,
useful, and — in such sort as smoke-cumbered skies may
admit, — beautiful ; though not, on the outside, otherwise
decorated than with plain and easily-worked slabs of
Derbyshire marble, with which I shall face the walls,
making the interior a working man's Bodleian Library,
with cell and shelf of the most available kind, undis-
turbed, for his holiday time. The British public are
not likely to get such a thing done by any one else
for a time, if they don't get it done now by me, when
I'm in the humour for it. Very positively I can assure
them of that ; and so leave the matter to their discretion.
Many more serious matters, concerning the present day,
I have in mind — and partly written, already ; but they
must be left for next Fors, which will take up the
now quite imminent question of Land, and its Holding,
and Lordship.
FORS CLAVIGERA.
SECOND SERIES.
YEA, THE WORK OF OUR HANDS, ESTABLISH THOU IT.
TO THE TRADES UNIONS OF ENGLAND.
My Dear Friends, Beauvais, August 31, 1880.
This is the first letter in Fors which has been
addressed to you as a body of workers separate from
the other Englishmen who are doing their best, with
heart and hand, to serve their country in any sphere
of its business, and in any rank of its people. I have
never before acknowledged the division marked, partly
in your own imagination, partly in the estimate of others,
and of late, too sadly, staked out in permanence by
animosities and misunderstandings on both sides, between
you, and the mass of society to which you look for
employment. But I recognize the distinction to-day,
moved, for ©ne thing, by a kindly notice of last Fors,
which appeared in the Bingley Telephone of April 23 rd
of this year ; saying, " that it was to be wished I would
write more to and for the workmen and workwomen of
these realms," and influenced conclusively by the fact
2ND SERIES.] I2
I2& Fors Clavigem.
of your having expressed by your delegates at Sheffield
your sympathy with what endeavours I had made for
the founding a Museum there different in principle
from any yet arranged for working men : this formal
recognition of my effort, on your part, signifying to me,
virtually, that the time was come for explaining my
aims to you, fully, and in the clearest terms possible
to me.
But, believe me, there have been more reasons than I
need now pass in review, for my hitherto silence respecting
your special interests. Of which reasons, this alone might
satisfy you, that, as a separate class, I knew scarcely
anything of you but your usefulness, and your distress ;
and that the essential difference between me and other
political writers of your day, is that I never say a word
about a single thing that I don't know, while they never
trouble themselves to know a single thing they talk of;
but give you their own ' opinions ' about it, or tell you
the gossip they have heard about it, or insist on what
they like in it, or rage against what they dislike in it ;
but entirely decline either to look at, or to learn, or to
speak, the Thing as it is, and must be.
Now I know many things that are, and many that
must be hereafter, concerning my own class : but I know
nothing yet, practically, of yours, and could give you no
serviceable advice either in your present disputes with
your masters, or in your plans of education and action
for yourselves, until I had found out more clearly, what
Fors Clavigera. 129
you meant by a Master, and what you wanted to gain
either in education or action, — and, even farther, whether
the kind of person you meant by a Master was one in
reality or not, and the things you wanted to gain by
your labour were indeed worth your having or not. So
that nearly everything hitherto said in Fors has been
addressed, in main thought, to your existing Masters,
Pastors, and Princes, — not to you, — though these all I
class with you, if they knew it, as "workmen and
labourers," and you with them, if you knew it, as capable
of the same joys as they, tempted by the same passions
as they, and needing, for your life, to recognize the same
Father and Father's Law over you all, as brothers in
earth and in heaven.
But there was another, and a more sharply restrictive
reason for my never, until now, addressing you as a
distinct class ; — namely, that certain things which I knew
positively must be soon openly debated — and what is
more, determined— in a manner very astonishing to some
people, in the natural issue of the transference of power
out of the hands of the upper classes, so called, into
yours, — transference which has been compelled by the
crimes of those upper classes, and accomplished by their
follies, — these certain things, I say, coming now first into
fully questionable shape, could not be openly announced
as subjects of debate by any man in my then official
position as one of a recognized body of University
teachers, without rendering him suspected and disliked
130 Fors Clavigera.
by a large body of the persons with whom he had to
act. And I considered that in accepting such a position
at all I had virtually promised to teach nothing contrary
to the principles on which the Church and the Schools
of England believed themselves — whether mistakenly or
not — to have been founded.
The pledge was easy to me, because I love the Church
and the Universities of England more faithfully than most
churchmen, and more proudly than most collegians ;
though my pride is neither in my college boat, nor my
college plate, nor my college class-list, nor my college
heresy. I love both the Church and the schools of
England, for the sake of the brave and kindly men
whom they have hitherto not ceased to send forth into
all lands, well nurtured, and bringing, as a body, wherever
their influence extended, order and charity into the ways
of mortals.
And among these I had hoped long since to have
obtained hearing, not for myself, but for the Bible which
their Mothers reverenced, the laws which their Fathers
obeyed, and the wisdom which the Masters of all men
— the dead Senate of the noblest among the nations —
had left for the guidance of the ages yet to be. And
during seven years I went on appealing to my fellow
scholars, in words clear enough to them, though not to
you, had they chosen to hear : but not one cared nor
listened, till I had sign sternly given to me that my
message to the learned and the rich was given, and ended.
Fors Clavigera. 131
And now I turn to you, understanding you to be
associations of labouring men who have recognised the
necessity of binding yourselves by some common law
of action, and who are taking earnest counsel as to
the conditions of your lives here in England, and their
relations to those of your fellow-workers in foreign lands.
And I understand you to be, in these associations, dis-
regardant, if not actually defiant, of the persons on whose
capital you have been hitherto passively dependent for
occupation, and who have always taught you, by the
mouths of their appointed Economists, that they and
their capital were an eternal part of the Providential
arrangements made for this world by its Creator.
In which self-assertion, nevertheless, and attitude of
inquiry into the grounds of this statement of theirs, you
are unquestionably right. For, as things are nowadays,
you know any pretty lady in the Elysian fields of Paris
who can set a riband of a new colour in her cap in a
taking way, forthwith sets a few thousands of Lyonnaise
spinners and dyers furiously weaving ribands of like stuff,
and washing them with like dye. And in due time the
new French edict reaches also your sturdy English mind,
and the steeples of Coventry ring in the reign of the
elect riband, and the Elysian fields of Spital, or what-
ever other hospice now shelters the weaver's head, bestir
themselves according to the French pattern, and bedaub
themselves with the French dye ; and the pretty lady
Links herself your everlasting benefactress, and little
132 Fors Clavigera.
short of an angel sent from heaven to feed you with
miraculous manna, and you are free Britons that rule
the waves, and free Frenchmen that lead the universe,
of course ; but you have not a bit of land you can
stand on — without somebody's leave, nor a house for
your children that they can't be turned out of, nor a
bit of bread for their breakfast to-morrow, but on the
chance of some more yards of riband being wanted.
Nor have you any notion that the pretty lady herself
can be of the slightest use to you, except as a con-
sumer of ribands; what God made her for — you do
not ask : still less she, what God made you for.
How many are there of you, I wonder, landless, roof-
less, foodless, unless, for such work as they choose to
put you to, the upper classes provide you with cellars
in Lille, glass cages in Halluin Court, milk tickets, for
which your children still have " the strength to smile — " *
How many of you, tell me, — and what your united hands
and wits are worth at your own reckoning ?
Trade Unions of England — Trade Armies of Christen-
dom, what's the roll-call of you, and what part or lot
have you, hitherto, in this Holy Christian Land of your
Fathers ? Is not that inheritance to be claimed, and
the Birth Right of it, no less than the Death Right ?
Will you not determine where you may be Christianly
bred, before you set your blockhead Parliaments to debate
where you may be Christianly buried, (your priests also
* See Fors for March of this year, p. 118, with the sequel.
Fors Clavigera. 133
all a-squabble about that matter, as I hear, — as if
any ground could be consecrated that had the bones of
rascals in it, or profane where a good man slept !) But
how the Earth that you tread may be consecrated to
you, and the roofs that shade your breathing sleep, and
the deeds that you do with the breath of life yet
strengthening hand and heart, — this it is your business
to learn, if you know not ; and this mine to tell you,
if you will learn.
Before the close of last year, one of our most earnest
St. George's Guildsmen wrote to me saying that the Irish
Land League claimed me as one of their supporters ; and
asking if he should contradict this, or admit it.
To whom I answered, on Christmas Day of 1879, as
follows : —
BRANTWOOD, Christmas, '79.
" You know I never read papers, so I have never seen
a word of the Irish Land League or its purposes ; but
I assume the purpose to be — that Ireland should belong
to Irishmen ; which is not only a most desirable, but,
ultimately, a quite inevitable condition of things, — that
being the assured intention of the Maker of Ireland,
and all other lands.
"But as to the manner of belonging, and limits and
rights of holding, there is a good deal more to be found
out of the intentions of the Maker of Ireland, than I fancy
the Irish League is likely to ascertain, without rueful
134 Fors Clavigera.
experience of the consequences of any and all methods
contrary to those intentions.
" And for my own part I should be wholly content
to confine the teaching — as I do the effort — of the St.
George's Guild, to the one utterly harmless and utterly
wholesome principle, that land, by whomsoever held, is to
be made the most of, by human strength, and not defiled,*
nor left waste. But since we live in an epoch assuredly
of change, and too probably of Revolution ; and
thoughts which cannot be put aside are in the minds
of all men capable of thought, I am obliged also to
affirm the one principle which can — and in the end
will — close all epochs of Revolution, — that each man
shall possess the ground he can use — and no more, — rUSE,
I say, either for food, beauty, exercise, science, or any
other sacred purpose. That each man shall possess, for
his own, no more than such portion, with the further
condition that it descends to his son, inalienably — right
of primogeniture being in this matter eternally sure.
The nonsense talked about division is all temporary ;
you can't divide for ever, and when you have got down
to a cottage and a square fathom — if you allow division
so far — still primogeniture will hold the right of that.
* And if not the land, still less the water. I have kept by me now for
some years, a report on the condition of the Calder, drawn up by Mr. James
Fowler, of Wakefield, in 1866, and kindly sent to me by the author on my
mention of Wakefield in Fors. I preserve it in these pages, as a piece of
English History characteristic to the uttermost of our Fortunate Times. See
appendix to this number.
Fors Clavigera. 135
u But though possession is, and must be, limited by use
(see analytic passages on this head in ' Munera Pulveris '),
Authority is not. And first the Maker of the Land, and
then the King of the Land, and then the Overseers of the
Land appointed by the King, in their respective orders,
must all in their ranks control the evil, and promote
the good work of the possessors. Thus far, you will
find already, all is stated in Fors ; and further, the right
of every man to possess so much land as he can live on
— especially observe the meaning of the developed Corn
Law Rhyme
" Find'st thou rest for England's head
Free alone among the Dead?"*
meaning that Bread, Water, and the Roof over his head,
must be tax- (i.e. rent-) free to every man.
" But I have never yet gone on in Fors to examine the
possibly best forms of practical administration. I always
felt it would be wasted time, for these must settle them-
selves. In Savoy the cottager has his garden and
field, and labours with his family only ; in Berne, the
farm labourers of a considerable estate live under the
master's roof, and are strictly domestic ; in England,
farm labourers might probably with best comfort live in
detached cottages ; in Italy, they might live in a kind
of monastic fraternity. All this, circumstance, time, and
national character must determine ; the one thing St.
* See 'Fors,' Letter lxxiv. p. 36 (note).
136 Fors Clavigera.
George affirms is the duty of the master in every case
to make the lives of his dependents noble to the best
of his power."
Now you must surely feel that the questions I have
indicated in this letter could only be answered rightly
by the severest investigation of the effect of each mode
of human life suggested, as hitherto seen in connection
with other national institutions, and hereditary customs
and character. Yet every snipping and scribbling block-
head hired by the bookseller to paste newspaper
paragraphs into what may sell for a book, has his
' opinion ' on these things, and will announce it to you
as the new gospel of eternal and universal salvation —
without a qualm of doubt — or of shame — in the entire
loggerhead of him.
Hear, for instance, this account of the present pros-
perity, and of its causes, in the country of those Sea
Kings who taught you your own first trades of fishing
and battle : —
" The Norwegian peasant is a free man on the scanty bit of
ground which he has inherited from his fathers ; and he has
all the virtues of a freeman — an open character, a mind clear of
every falsehood, an hospitable heart for the stranger. His reli-
gious feelings are deep and sincere, and the Bible is to be found
in every hut. He is said to be indolent and phlegmatic ; but
when necessity urges he sets vigorously to work, and never ceases
till his task is done. His courage and his patriotism are abun-
dantly proved by a history of a thousand years.
" Norway owes her present prosperity chiefly to her liberal
Fors Clavigera. 137
constitution. The press is completely free, and the power of
the king extremely limited. All privileges and hereditary titles
are abolished. The Parliament, or the ' Storthing,' which assembles
every three years, consists of the ' Odelthing,' or Upper House,
and of the ' Logthing,' or Legislative Assembly. Every new law
requires the royal sanction \ but if the l Storthing ' has voted it
in three successive sittings, it is definitely adopted in spite of
the royal veto. Public education is admirably cared for. There
is an elementary school in every village ; and where the popu-
lation is too thinly scattered, the schoolmaster may truly be said
to be abroad, as he wanders from farm to farm, so that the most
distant families have the benefit of his instruction. Every town
has its public library ; and in many districts the peasants annually
contribute a dollar towards a collection of books, which, under
the care of the priest, is lent out to all subscribers.
" No Norwegian is confirmed who does not know how to read,
and no Norwegian is allowed to marry who has not been con-
firmed. He who attains his twentieth year without having been
confirmed, has to fear the House of Correction. Thus ignorance
is punished as a crime in Norway, an excellent example for far
richer and more powerful governments."
I take this account from a book on the Arctic regions,
in which I find the facts collected extremely valuable, the
statements, as far as I can judge, trustworthy, the opinions
and teachings — what you can judge of by this specimen.
Do you think the author wise in attributing the prosperity
of Norway chiefly to her king's being crippled, and her
newspapers free ? or that perhaps her thousand years of
courage may have some share in the matter ? and her
mind clear of every falsehood ? and her way of never
ceasing in a task till it is done ? and her circulating
138 Fors Clavigera.
schoolmasters ? and her collected libraries ? and her pre-
paration for marriage by education ? and her House of
Correction for the uneducated ? and her Bible in every
hut ? and, finally, her granted piece of his native land
under her peasant's foot for his own ? Is her strength,
think you, in any of these things, or only in the abolition
of hereditary titles, the letting loose of her news-mongers,
and the binding of her king ? Date of their modern
constitutional measures, you observe, not given ! and
consequences, perhaps, scarcely yet conclusively ascer-
tainable. If you cannot make up your own minds on
one or two of these open questions, suppose you were to
try an experiment or two ? Your scientific people will
tell you — and this, at least, truly — that they cannot find
out anything without experiment : you may also in
political matters think and talk for ever — resultlessly.
Will you never try what comes of Doing a thing for a
few years, perseveringly, and keep the result of that, at
least, for known ?
Now I write to you, observe, without knowing, except
in the vaguest way, who you are ! — what trades you
belong to, what arts or crafts you practise — or what
ranks of workmen you include, and what manner of idlers
you exclude. I have no time to make out the different
sets into which you fall, or the different interests by whicl
you are guided. But I know perfectly well what sets yoi
sliould fall into, and by what interests you should b(
guided. And you will find your profit in listening whil
Fors Clavigera. 139
I explain these to you somewhat more clearly than your
penny-a-paragraph liberal papers will.
In the first place, what business have you to call your-
selves only Trade Guilds, as if ' trade,' and not production,
were your main concern ? Are you by profession nothing
more than pedlars and mongers of things, or are you also
makers of things ?
It is too true that in our City wards our chapmen have
become the only dignitaries — and we have the Merchant-
Tailors' Company, but not the plain Tailors ; and the
Fishmongers' Company, but not the Fishermen's ; and
the Vintners' Company, but not the Vinedressers' ; and the
Ironmongers' Company, but not the Blacksmiths' ; while,
though, for one apparent exception, the Goldsmiths'
Company proclaims itself for masters of a craft, what
proportion, think you, does its honour bear compared with
that of the Calf-worshipful Guild of the Gold Mongers ?
Be it far from me to speak scornfully of trade. My
Father — whose Charter of Freedom of London Town I
I keep in my Brantwood treasury beside missal and cross —
sold good wine, and had, over his modest door in Billiter
Street, no bush. But he grew his wine, before he sold
; it ; and could answer for it with his head, that no rotten
grapes fermented in his vats, and no chemist's salt effer-
vesced in his bottles. Be you also Tradesmen — in your
place — and in your right ; but be you, primarily, Growers,
Makers, Artificers, Inventors, of things good and pre-
cious. What talk you of Wages ? Whose is the Wealth
140 Fors Clavtgera.
of the World but yours ? Whose is the Virtue ? Do
you mean to go on for ever, leaving your wealth to be
consumed by the idle, and your virtue to be mocked by
the vile ?
The wealth of the world is yours ; even your common
rant and rabble of economists tell you that — " no wealth
without industry." WTho robs you of it, then, or beguiles
you ? Whose fault is it, you clothmakers, that any
English child is in rags ? Whose fault is it, you shoe-
makers, that the street harlots mince in high-heeled shoes,
and your own babes paddle barefoot in the street slime ?
Whose fault is it, you bronzed husbandmen, that through
all your furrowed England, children are dying of famine ?
Primarily, of course, it is your clergymen's and masters'
fault : but also in this your own, that you never educate
any of your children with the earnest object of enabling
them to see their way out of this, not by rising above
their father's business, but by setting in order what was
amiss in it : also in this your own, that none of you who
do rise above your business, ever seem to keep the
memory of what wrong they have known, or suffered ;
nor, as masters, set a better example than others.
Your oivn fault, at all events, it will be now, seeing
that you have got Parliamentary power in your hands,
if you cannot use it better than the moribund Parlia-
mentary body has done hitherto.
To which end, I beg you first to take these following
truths into your good consideration.
Pars Clavigera. 141
First. Men don't and can't live by exchanging articles,
but by producing them. They don't live by trade, but
by work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades
Unions ; and take that of Labourers' Unions.
And, whatever divisions chance or special need may
have thrown you into at present, remember there are
essential and eternal divisions of the Labour of man, into
which you must practically fall, whether you like it or
not ; and these eternal classifications it would be infinitely
better if you at once acknowledged in thought, name, and
harmonious action. Several of the classes may take finer
divisions in their own body, but you will find the massive
general structure of working humanity range itself under
these following heads, the first eighteen assuredly essential ;
the three last, making twenty-one altogether, I shall be
able, I think, to prove to you are not superfluous : — suffer
their association with the rest in the meantime.
1. Shepherds.
2. Fishermen.
3. Ploughmen.
4. Gardeners.
5. Carpenters and Woodmen.
6. Builders and Quarrymen.
7. Shipwrights.
8. Smiths and Miners.*
9. Bakers and Millers.
10. Vintners.
* See note in Appendix II.
142 Fors Clavigera.
11. Graziers and Butchers.
12. Spinners.
13. Linen and Cotton-workers.
14. Silk-workers.
15. Woollen-workers.
16. Tanners and Furriers.
17. Tailors and Milliners.
18. Shoemakers.
19. Musicians.
20. Painters.
21. Goldsmiths.
Get these eighteen, or twenty- one, as you like to take
them, each thoroughly organised, proud of their work, and
doing it under masters, if any, of their own rank, chosen
for their sagacity and vigour, and the world is yours, and
all the pleasures of it, that are true ; while all false pleasures
in such a life fall transparent, and the hooks are seen
through the baits of them. But for the organization of
these classes, you see there must be a certain quantity of
land available to them, proportioned to their multitude :
and without the possession of that, nothing can be done
ultimately ; though at present the mere organization of
your masses under these divisions will clear the air, and
the field, for you, to astonishment.
And for the possession of the land, mind you, if you
try to take it by force, you will have every blackguard
and vaut-rien in the world claiming his share of it with
you, — for by that law of force he has indeed as much
Fors Clavigera. 143
right to it as you ; but by the law of labour he has not.
Therefore you must get your land by the law of labour ;
working for it, saving for it, and buying it, as the spend-
thrifts and idlers offer it you : but buying never to let go.
And this, therefore, is practically the first thing you
have to bring in by your new Parliaments — a system of
land tenure, namely, by which your organized classes of
labouring men may possess their land as corporate bodies,
and add to it — as the monks once did, and as every single
landlord can, now ; but I find that my St. George's Guild
cannot, except through complications or legal equivo-
cations almost endless, and hitherto indeed paralyzing me
in quite unexpectedly mean and miserable ways.
Now I hope all this has been clearly enough said, for
once : and it shall be farther enforced and developed as
you choose, if you will only tell me by your chosen heads
whether you believe it, and are any of you prepared to
act on it, and what kinds of doubt or difficulty occur to
you about it, and what farther questions you would like
me to answer.
And that you may have every power of studying the
matter (so far as / am concerned), this Fors you shall
have gratis ; — and the next, if you enable me to make it
farther useful to you. That is to say, your committees
of each trade-guild may order parcels of them from my
publisher in any quantities they wish, for distribution
among their members. To the public its price remains
fixed, as that of all my other books. One word only let
2ND SERIES.] j ^
144 Fors Clavigera.
me say in conclusion, to explain at once what I mean
by saying that the pleasures of the world are all yours.
God has made man to take pleasure in the use of his
eyes, wits, and body. And the foolish creature is con-
tinually trying to live without looking at anything,
without thinking about anything, and without doing
anything. And he thus becomes not only a brute, but
the unhappiest of brutes. All the lusts and lazinesses
he can contrive only make him more wretched ; and at
this moment, if a man walks watchfully the streets of
Paris, whence I am now writing to you, — a city in which
every invention that science, wit, and wealth can hit upon
to provoke and to vary the pleasures of the idle, — he will
not see one happy or tranquil face, except among the
lower and very hard-labouring classes. Every pleasure
got otherwise than God meant it — got cheaply, thievingly,
and swiftly, when He has ordered that it should be got
dearly, honestly, and slowly, — turns into a venomous
burden, and, past as a pleasure, remains as a load,
increasing day by day its deadly coat of burning mail.
The joys of hatred, of battle, of lust, of vain knowledge^
of vile luxury, all pass into slow torture : nothing remains
to man, nothing is possible to him of true joy, but in the
righteous love of his fellows ; in the knowledge of the
laws and the glory of God, and in the daily use of the
faculties of soul and body with which that God has
endowed him.
Paris, 18M September, 1880.
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
"John Ruskin, Esq.
" Dear Sir,— May I take an advantage of this note, and call
your attention to a fact of much importance to Englishmen, and
it is this ? On reference to some Freethought papers — notably,
the 'National Reformer' — I find a movement on foot amongst the
Atheists, vigorous and full of life, for the alteration of the Land
Laws in our much-loved country. It is a movement of much
moment, and likely to lead to great results. The first great move
on the part of Charles Bradlaugh, the premier in the matter, is
the calling of a Conference to discuss the whole question. The
meeting is to be attended by all the National Secular Society's
branches throughout the empire ; representatives of nearly every
Reform Association in England, Scotland, and Ireland; depu-
tations from banded bodies of workmen, colliers, etc., — such as
the important band of Durham miners — trade unionists ; and, in
fact, a most weighty representative Conference will be gathered
together. I am, for many reasons, grieved and shocked to find
the cry for Reform coming with such a heading to the front.
Where are our statesmen, — our clergy ? The terrible crying evils
of our land system are coming to the front in our politics without
the help of the so-called upper classes ; nay, with a deadly hatred
of any disturbance in that direction, our very clergy are taking up
arms against the popular cry.
" Only a week ago I was spending a few days with a farmer
near Chester, and learned to my sorrow and dismay that the
Dean and Chapter of that city, who own most of the farms, etc.,
146 Notes and Correspondence.
in the district wherein my friend resides, refuse now — and only
now — to accept other than yearly tenants for these farms, have
raised all the rents to an exorbitant pitch, and only allow the
land to be sown with wheat, oats, or whatever else in seed, etc.,
on a personal inspection by their agent. The consequence of
all this is, that poverty is prevailing to an alarming extent : the
workers, all the bitter, hard toil ; the clergy, one may say, all the
profits. It is terrible, heart-breaking; I never longed so much
for heart-searching, vivid eloquence, so that I might move men
with an irresistible tongue to do the Right.
u I wonder how many of these great ones of our England have
seen the following lines from Emerson ; and yet what a lesson is
contained in them !
' God said, I am tired of kings,
I suffer them no more ;
Up to my ear the morning brings
The outrage of the poor.
Lo ! I uncover the land
Which I hid of old time in the West,
As the sculptor uncovers the statue
When he has wrought his best ;
I show Columbia, of the rocks
Which dip their foot in the seas,
And soar to the air-borne flocks
Of clouds, and the boreal fleece.
I will divide my goods ;
Call in the wretch and slave :
None shall rule but the humble,
And none but toil shall have.'
Boston Hymn.
" I can only pray and hope that some mighty pen as yours, if
not yourself, may be moved to show Englishmen the right way
before it is too late. I have the honour to remain,
" Your obedient servant."
Notes and Correspondence. 147
"Mr. Ruskin.
" Dear Sir, — I have seen a letter from you to Mr. G. J. Holyoake,
in which you say ' the only calamity which I perceive or dread
for an Englishman is his becoming a rascal ; and co-operation
amongst rascals — if it were possible — would bring a curse. Every
year sees our workmen more eager to do bad work, and rob their
customers on the sly. All political movement among such animals
I call essentially fermentation and putrefaction — not co-operation.'
" Now, sir, I see, I think, as completely and consequently as
positively as you possibly can, the truth of your general statement
— that is, that there is a widespread tendency and habit of pro-
ducing work that has the appearance of being good when yet it
is a fraud : its reality is not according to the appearance. But,
sir, is the part that I have underlined correct? It is said that
Lancashire sends to India calico with lime or paste put in it to
make it feel stout ; — is that the workman's fault ?
11 I myself am a workman in what is called fancy hosiery, and
to get a living have to make a great quantity of work — in some
instances turning very good wool into rubbish, when yet I know
that it is capable of being made into very nice and serviceable
clothing; but if I made it into anything of the sort I should be
ruining my employer, because he could not sell it at a profit :
something at four shillings, that should be fourteen, is what is
required — I should like to see it stopped. How is it to be done ?
u If you, sir, were to ask a merchant in these goods why they
were not made better, more serviceable, and perfect, he would
most certainly tell you that the Germans are in our market with
enormous quantities of these goods at terribly low prices, and
that he has no market for goods of superior quality and higher
prices. I produced a great novelty about six years ago ; it was
a beautiful class of goods, and a vast trade came on in them >
and now those goods are entirely run out in consequence of their
being made worse, and still worse, till they were turned into
148 Notes and Correspondence,
rubbish. Competition did that — * fermentation and putrefaction ; '
but I cannot see that the workman was to blame : he was ordered
to do it. " Yours most respectfully."
(No answer to this is expected.)
Answer was sent, nevertheless • promising a more sufficient one
in Fors ; which may be briefly to the first question, " Is the part
underlined correct ? " — too sorrowfully, Yes ; and to the second
question — Is it the workman's fault? — that the workman can
judge of that, if he will, for himself. Answer at greater length
will be given in next Fors.
"Cranleigh, Surrey, May 26th, 1880.
" Revered Sir, — You ask me how I came to be one of your
pupils. I have always been fond of books, and in my reading I
often saw your name; but one day, when reading a newspaper
account of a book-sale, I saw that one of your books fetched
^38 for the five volumes : I was struck with the amount, and
thought that they must be worth reading ; I made up my mind
to find out more about them, and if possible to buy some. The
next time I went to London I asked a bookseller to show me
some of your works : he told me that he did not keep them. I
got the same answer from about half a dozen more that I tried ;
but this only made me more determined to get them, and at last
I found a bookseller who agreed to get me * Fors.'
" When I got it, I saw that I could get them from Mr. Allen.
I have done so ; and have now most of your works.
" I read ' Fors ' with extreme interest, but it was a tough job
for me, on account of the number of words in it that I had never
met with before ; and as I never had any schooling worth mention-
ing, I was obliged to look at my dictionaries pretty often : I think
I have found out now the meanings of all the English words
in it.
" I got more good and real knowledge from ' Fors ' than from
all the books put together that I had ever read.
Notes and Correspondence. 149
" I am now trying to carry out your principles in my business,
which is that of a grocer, draper, and clothier ; in fact, my shop
is supposed by the Cranleigh people to contain almost everything
that folks require.
" I have always conducted my business honestly : it is not so
difficult to do this in a village as it is in larger places. As far
as I can see, the larger the town the worse it is for the honest
tradesman. [Italics mine. — J. R.]
" The principal difference I make now in my business, since
I read 'Fors,' is to recommend hand-made goods instead of
machine-made. I am sorry to say that most of my customers
will have the latter. I don't know what I can do further, as I am
not the maker of the goods I sell, but only the distributor.
" If I understand your teaching, I ought to keep hand-made
goods only* and those of the best quality obtainable. If I did
this, I certainly should lose nearly all my trade ; and as I have a
family to support, I cannot do so. No ; I shall stick to it, and
sell as good articles as I can for the price paid, and tell my
customers, as I always have done, that the best goods are the
cheapest.
11 1 know you are right about the sin of usury. I have but little
time to-day, but I will write to you again some day about this.
11 1 met with a word (Adscititious) in ' Carlyle,' I cannot find
in any dictionaries that I can get at.
" I sent the minerals off yesterday packed in a box.t I am
half-afraid now that you will not think them good enough for
the Museum.
" Your grateful pupil,
"Stephen Rowland."
John Ruskin, LL.D.
* Answered — By no means, but to recommend them at all opportunities.
f A collection of English minerals and fossils presented by Mr. Rowland to
St. George's museum, out of which I have chosen a series from the Clifton
limestones for permanent arrangement.
APPENDIX I.
MR. FOWLER'S REPORT ON THE CONDITION OF
THE CALDER.
Given in evidence before the Royal Commissioners at Wakefield,
and published in their Report, page 17 {with some additions).
It would be difficult to find a more striking instance than that afforded by
the Calder, of the extent to which our rivers have been defiled by sewage and
refuse from manufactories. Its green banks and interesting scenery made it
formerly a pleasant resort for the artizan and operative in hours of leisure,
while its clear and sparkling waters invited the healthful recreations of boating,
bathing, and fishing. " In 1826 the water was clear, and the bottom was
free from mud ; it was a gravelly, sandy bottom, and I have frequently myself
sent stones into it for boys to dive down after ; the water at a depth of seven
or eight feet was sufficiently clear to distinguish stones at the bottom ; some
of the streams running in, for instance the Alverthorpe Beck, at that time were
full of fish ; there was a great deal of fish in the river. I have frequently
seen kingfishers there, which shows the general clearness of the water." —
Extract from Mr. Milners evidence, p. 63. Pike of all sizes, trout up to
three pounds in weight, salmon trout, dace, and bream were plentiful. Even
so lately as within the last twenty years, any one with a fly might in an
afternoon catch a basketful of chub, each weighing at least two or three
pounds : and during freshes, with a cast net, very frequently ninety or a
hundred, sometimes even a hundred and fifty pounds, of roach, chub, gudgeon,
etc., were caught in an evening. On one occasion, where the water was let
off from a quite short cutting belonging to the Calder and Hebble Navigation
Company, at least four hundred and fifty pounds of eels were taken ; in fact,
whenever any one wanted fish, a sackful might readily be obtained. Nothing
Appendix. 1 5 1
of this kind has been known, however, since the springing up of manufactories
in the Vale of the Calder. Soon after the Thornes Soap Works were begun
near Wakefield, many stones of fish, which had come up the river to spawn,
were to be seen floating dead upon the surface. During that year all fish
forsook this part of the stream as regular inhabitants. For some time after,
however, during freshes, a fish was occasionally to be seen as a curiosity ;
and so lately as 1858, an experienced fisherman succeeded, on one of several
persevering trials, in capturing two small chub.
At present, the condition of the river is most disgusting. Defiled almost
from its source, it reaches us with the accumulated refuse of Todmorden,
Hebden Bridge, Sowerby Bridge, Halifax, Elland, Brighouse, Cooper Bridge,
Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Mirfield, Dewsbury, Earlsheaton, Thornhill, and
Horbury. At the suspension bridge, about a mile and a half above Wakefield,
it runs slowly, and in many places is almost stagnant. It has a bluish-black,
dirty-slate colour ; and a faint, nauseous smell, which leaves an extremely
unpleasant impression for long after it has been once thoroughly perceived, —
considerably worse than that made by the Thames after a stage on a penny
boat. The banks and every twig and weed in reach are coated with soft,
black slime or mud, which is studded on the edges of the stream with vivid
patches of annelides. Above are overhanging willows ; and where the branches
of these touch the water, especially in any quiet pool, large sheets of thin
bluish or yellowish green scum collect, undisturbed save by the rising to the
surface of bubbles of foetid gas. Between this point and Wakefield, the refuse
of extensive soap works and worsted mills enters, causing discolouration for
several hundred yards. I have, in fact, traced large quantities of soap scum
beyond Portobello, a distance of about half a mile. Nearer the town, quan-
tities of refuse from large dye works are continually being discharged, to say
nothing of the periodical emptying of spent liquor and vat sediments. // is
noteworthy that whereas formerly goods were brought to Wakefield to be dyed on
account of the superiority of the water for the purpose, the trade has noiv left
Wakefield to a considerable extent, and the Wakefield manufacturers have them-
selves to send away their finer goods from home to be dyed. On the opposite
side are two full streams, one of sewage, the other apparently from some
cotton mills ; and here it may be stated that the exact degree to which
influxes of this kind injure in different cases is extremely difficult to estimate ;
some manufacturers using ammonia, while others adhere to the old-fashioned
pigs' dung and putrid urine. The banks on each side are here studded
with granaries and malting houses, from the latter of which is received that
most pernicious contamination, the steep-liquor of malt. There is also the
152 Appendix.
refuse of at least one brewhouse and piggery, and of a second soap manu-
factory drained into the river before it reaches the outlet of Ings Beck, at the
drain immediately above Wakefield Bridge. In this situation, on any warm
day in summer, torrents of gas may be seen rising to the surface, and every
now and then large masses of mud, which float for awhile and then, after the
gas they contain has escaped and polluted the atmosphere, break up and are
re-deposited, or are at once carried down the river, stinking and putrefying in
their course. The Calder and Hebble Navigation Company are periodically
put to great inconvenience and expense in removing collections of this kind,
the smell of which is often most offensive, and has more than once caused
serious illness to the workmen employed. About two years ago the mud had
accumulated to a depth of five feet, and, the water having been drained off,
at least two thousand tons were removed, but no fish or living being of any
kind was discovered. At the bridge there has been a water-mill for at least
seven hundred years, and any one interested in the smell of partially oxidized
sewage should not omit to. stand over the spray which ascends from the wheel.
Masses of solid faeces may be seen at the grating through which the water is
strained. Looking from the bridge westward, except in wet weather, is a
large, open, shallow, almost stagnant pond of the most offensive character,
with tracts of dark-coloured mud constantly exposed. The sewer of the town
and the West Riding Asylum, with the refuse of the worsted, woollen, and
cloth mills, malt-houses, breweries, brew-houses, slaughter-houses, dye-works,
fibre mills, soap mills, and grease works enters by the drain just below ; its
surface covered with froth of every conceivable colour and degree of filthiness,
overhung by willows, in whose branches are entangled and exposed to view
the most disgusting objects. , The scum may readily be traced down the river
for a considerable distance. The last defilement of moment is that from some
extensive grease works, in which oil of vitriol is largely employed.
The Ings Beck, to which I have already alluded, merits a few particular
remarks, being the most important tributary the Calder receives in this district.
On the day I last examined its outlet, the smell arising was most offensive.
The general resemblance of the stream was rather to thick soup than water,
and it had a dirty, greasy, yellowish, indigo-slate colour, where not coated by
froth, scum, or floating filth. Its bed is silted to a considerable extent by
black, foetid mud, and its outlet partially obstructed by two large ash heaps.
It may be observed, however, that this is perhaps the only place in the
neighbourhood at present where refuse ashes have been tilted, and that, though
the height of the water in the river alters considerably according to the state
of the weather, the raising of the bed is due for the most part to matters
Appendix. 153
washed down from a higher source. Such is the case with the miscellaneously
constituted sediment dredged by the Calder and Hebble Navigation Company
near the Wakefield dam, and with the shoal at Lupset pond above Wakefield ;
an accumulation of ashes and dye-woods having risen in the latter situation
during the last five or six years. Walking up the bank of the beck, one may
form a fair idea of the kind of contamination received. Besides dead dogs,
tin kettles, broken pots, old pans, boots, hats, etc., we find house-sinks and
surface drains, public-house refuse and factors' privies flowing in unscrupulously.
Myriads of annelides in the mud upon the banks subsist on the impurities ;
that in the neighbourhood of a warm sewer being, in fact, for some distance
entirely concealed by sheets of moving pink. A railway waggon-maker's
establishment was a little while ago an artificial manure factory, and con-
tributed greatly to the general pollution.
At the bottom of Thornhili Street are two strong foul streams, one of sewage,
the other, on the day I visited it, discharging deep indigo-coloured stuff. Im-
mediately above this the beck, though receiving muddy refuse from some cement
works, was purple coloured, and where the branches of overhanging shrubs
dipped beneath its surface, a polychrome froth and scum collected. A few
hundred yards higher, having passed the place of entrance of the purple dye,
the stream regained nearly its original dirty indigo appearance. Near the Low
Hill bridge was a fall of hot mauve refuse, with several yards of rainbow-
coloured scum. Where the water could be seen, in one light it would have a
bluish tint, in another a dirty yellowish ; and the mud was deep and flocculent.
Nearer Chald Lane there was an extremely filthy ditch, covered with scum, and
loaded with the privy and house refuse of a large number of cottages and low
lodging-houses ; and a little higher two large streams of thick purple dye refuse.
Above the dam in this situation enter the waste of a dye-works and shoddy
mill, with the filthy privy and surface drains of Salt Pie Alley. The water
here is the colour of the contents of a slop-pail, is almost stagnant, coated in
patches of several yards with scum, and is in other respects very offensive. At
Brooksbank a kind of long oblong pond is formed, two sides of which are of
thick mud, one exposing the privy refuse and excrements in three drains from
the neighbouring cottages and lodging-houses ; and about here does or did
recently enter the flushings of the cesspools from the prison with its sixteen
hundred inmates, and the refuse of the chemicals used in the annual manu-
facture, dyeing, and bleaching of about seven hundred and fifty tons of matting.
Balne Beck also enters at this point. Going upwards we find the Westgate
Beck receiving the fouled water and other refuse of two large worsted mills, of
surface drains, of piggeries, and of privies ; then muddy water, apparently from
154 Appendix.
some brick-yards, and hot waste from a large woollen mill. Immediately
above healthy green confervas begin to show themselves ; long grass floats
on the surface ; shrubs grow upon the banks ; and if a brown scum collects
where the branches touch the surface, it has altogether a less disgusting
character. Fairly out in the country the water is bright and clear, and boys
bathe in it in summer when deep enough.
Balne Beck is on the whole as yet tolerably clean, the sid^s only being lined
with mud patched with red, and the stones at the bottom coated with long trails
of green confervas. The principal impurities are from a soap-works, a coal-
mine, a skin-preparing shed, and a brick-field. The Yorkshire Fibre Company
did a short time since drain a large quantity of poisonous matter into the beck,
but is at present restrained by an injunction.
The Water Company's works are situated about two and a half miles below
Wakefield Bridge, and consequently receive the water in an extremely un-
favourable condition. It has received the unchecked and accumulating filth
and pollution of 400,000 inhabitants (number now much greater), and their
manufactures, to which Wakefield itself, with its 20,000 inhabitants, has contri-
buted. The large live-stock market also, with its average sale of 800 beasts and
6,000 sheep, has added a grave pollution. As if to show how completely we
acquiesce in the abandoned corruption of the stream, the putrefying carcases of
animals — not only of dogs and cats, but of pigs, sheep, and calves — are allowed
to drift along with their surfeiting smell, until stopped of themselves at Stanley
Ferry.
On stirring up the mud from the bottom, a Winchester quart of gas was
readily collected by means of an inverted funnel, and was found, on exami-
nation, to consist chiefly of carbonic acid, light carburetted hydrogen, sulphu-
retted hydrogen, and free nitrogen.
It is not easy to estimate accurately the effect of nuisances of this kind on the
public health. Two years and a half ago, whilst the waterworks were under-
going improvement, and for some months the supply to the town was merely
pumped up from the river into the mains without filtration, the actual mortality
did not appear directly to increase. This, however, may be explained by the
fact that a peculiar atmospheric condition is necessary in order to develop fully
the death-bearing properties of impure water ; and it may be added that, as it
was, and as I had occasion to represent to the Local Board at that time, there
was a greater amount of diarrhoea, continued fever, erysipelas, diffuse abscess,
and of cutaneous and subcutaneous cellular inflammation ; while the inflam-
mation generally was peculiarly liable to take on the erysipelatous form and
become unmanageable, and the convalescence from various diseases to be
Appendix. 155
unwontedly interrupted and prolonged. Possibly this, and even an increased
death-rate, had it occurred, might have been explained in part by other causes;
but I cannot resist the conviction that bad water as a beverage, and the taint
which it communicates to the atmosphere, bear a most important part both in
causing actual disease and in weakening the power of the constitution to bear
up against disease, and so shorten life in that way. Greatly improved houses
have been built for the artizan class during the last few years ; greater attention
has been paid to the ventilation of mills and workshops ; the agitation for a
people's park, indicates how wide-awake the population is to the benefit of
fresh air ; wages have increased ; the character of the food consumed is more
closely inspected ; the drainage is more efficient ; many open sewers have been
closed ; bad wells have been stopped ; but both the death-rate and the amount
of disease have increased ; the former reaching so high as 27 '4 per thousand in
the present year. The whole of the excess in this mortality is due to prevent-
able disease, which includes diarrhoea, cholera, and typhoid, the poison of which
may unquestionably and has frequently been known to be conveyed through
water. An indication of the extent to which constitutional vigour has at the
same time diminished, is found in the fact that less than twenty years ago to
blister, bleed, and purge was the routine of the physicians' practice at the
dispensary, while cod-liver oil and quinine were unknown. This mode of
treatment, if it did not cure, certainly did not kill ; for the patients did well
under it, having strength to bear up against and conquer both disease and
treatment. Now, I will venture to say, that ninety-nine per cent, of our
patients would sink under the depletory measures of bygone days ; and during
last year, in a practice of only 2,700 patients, it was found necessary to pre-
scribe no less than twenty-three gallons of cod-liver oil, and sixty-four ounces of
quinine, to say nothing of nourishment and stimulants. An atmosphere satu-
rated with smoke, and shutting out instead of conveying the light of the sun,
sedentary habits, dense population, and unhealthy pursuits, have doubtless
shared in bringing about this general lowness of constitution ; but the healthy
textural drainage and repair of the body, and consequently the perfect activity
of its functions, can scarcely take place if, instead of pure water, it be supplied
with a compound with which it is not organised to operate.
I have nothing to add respecting the moral contamination of material filthi-
ness, since that is out of my province. But surely drunkenness and vice, and
other forms of intellectual insensibility, are fostered, if not originated, by mental
despair and disappointment ; the things which should, in the ordinary course of
nature, be pleasing and refreshing to the mind, having ceased to be so. At least
we are taught that in the heavenly Jerusalem the river which proceeds from
156 Appendix.
the throne of God is clear as crystal, giving birth on either side to the tree of
life for the healing of the nations ; whereas
" Upon the banks a scurf,
From the foul stream condensed, encrusting hangs,
That holds sharp combat with the sight and smell,"
freighted by devils, in the dingy regions of the damned.
(Signed) James Fowler.
Wakefield, \$th October, 1866.
(The Commissioners at this time said the river had received the utmost
amount of contamination of which a river was capable, — but it is much worse
now.)
APPENDIX II,
The business of mining is put in this subordinate class, because
there is already more metal of all sorts than we want in the world,
if it be used prudently ; and the effect of this surplus is even now
to make mining, on the whole, always a loss. I did not know that
this law extended even to recent gold-workings. The following
extract from the ' Athenaeum ' of April 3 of this year is, I suppose,
trustworthy : —
A History of the Precious Metals from the Earliest Times to the Present.
By Alexander Del Mar, M.E. (Bell and Sons.)
It is not often that a volume which deals with such a subject as that which
Mr. Del Mar has written on can be considered interesting by the general
reader. Yet in the present instance this really might be the case if the reader
were to occupy himself with those chapters in this work which deal with
mining for the precious metals in America. A residence of some years in
California has given Mr. Del Mar a practical acquaintance with the manner in
which mining is conducted, and the history of that industry there from the
commencement. This knowledge also has enabled him to describe with the
vividness derived from actual knowledge the operations of the Spaniards in
Central America while seaching for gold from the fifteenth century onwards.
The picture Mr. Del Mar draws of the results of the auri sacra fames which
consumed both earlier and later seekers after wealth is indeed terrible.
Empires were' overthrown, and their industries and docile populations were
swept away in numbers almost beyond belief, or ground down by every
suffering which avarice, cruelty, and sensuality could inflict. The ultimate utter
exhaustion both of conquerors and conquered marks the period, reaching far
into the eighteenth century, when forced labour was employed. The state-
158 Appendix.
ment that "the Indies had become 'a sort of money '" (p. 63), expresses
perhaps as forcibly as possible what the fate of the native inhabitants of Southern
America was under the rule of the Spaniard. And if, during the compara-
tively short period that has elapsed since the famous discovery of gold at Mill
Race in California, the reckless consumption of life has not been associated
with the utter brutality which marked the conduct of the followers of Cortes
and Pizarro, the economic results are scarcely more satisfactory. Mr. Del Mar
calculates that the outlay on mining far outweighs the proceeds ; he estimates
that the ^90,000,000 of gold produced in California from 1848 to 1856 inclu-
sive M cost in labour alone some ^450,000,000, or five times its mint value "
(p. 263). Nor is this estimate of the net product even of the " Comstock
Lode " more favourable to the owners (p. 266). Here also the total cost is
placed at five times the return. Beyond this the mining country is devastated.
Destruction of timber, consequent injury to climate, ruin to fertile land by
hydraulic mining, are but a part of the injury. The scale on which operations
are carried on may be judged from the fact that the aggregate length of the
"mining ditches," or aqueducts, employed in bringing water to the mines, is
put down as 6,585 miles in California in 1879 (p. 290). These works are
maintained at much cost. The reader will ask, ' How can such an industry
continue ? The country is desolated, the majority of those employed lose.
"Why is all this labour thus misapplied ? ' The answer is, The spirit of
gambling and the chance of a lucky hit lure the venturers on. The multitude
forget the misfortunes of the many, while they hope to be numbered among the
fortunate few.
FORS CLAVIGERA.
SECOND SERIES.
"YEA, THE WORK OF OUR HANDS, ESTABLISH THOU IT.'
AM putting my house in order ; and would fain
* put my past work in order too, if I could. Some
guidance, at least, may be given to the readers of
Fors — or to its partial readers — in their choice of
this or that number. To this end I have now given
each monthly part its own name, indicative of its special
subject. The connection of all these subjects, and of
the book itself with my other books, may perhaps begin
to show itself in this letter.
The first principle of my political economy will be
found again and again reiterated in all the said books, —
that the material wealth of any country is the portion
of its possessions which feeds and educates good men
and women in it ; the connected principle of national
policy being that the strength and power of a country
depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and
women in the territory of it, and not at all on the
extent of the territory — still less on the number of vile
2ND^SERIES.] I 4
160 Fors Clavigera.
or stupid inhabitants. A good crew in a good ship,
however small, is a power ; but a bad crew in the
biggest ship — none, — and the best crew in a ship cut
in half by a collision in a hurry, not much the better
for their numbers.
Following out these two principles, I have farther,
and always, taught that, briefly, the wealth of a country
is in its good men and women, and in nothing else :
that the riches of England are good Englishmen ; of
Scotland, good Scotchmen ; of Ireland, good Irishmen.
This is first, and more or less eloquently, stated in the
close of the chapter called the Veins of Wealth, of
1 Unto this Last ' ; and is scientifically, and in sifted
terms, explained and enforced in ' Munera Pulveris.' I
have a word or two yet to add to what I have written,
which I will try to keep very plain and unfigurative.
It is taught, with all the faculty I am possessed of,
in ' Sesame and Lilies,' that in a state of society in
which men and women are as good as they can be,
(under mortal limitation), the women will be the guiding
and purifying power. In savage and embryo countries,
they are openly oppressed, as animals of burden ; in
corrupted and fallen countries, more secretly and
terribly. I am not careful concerning the oppression
which they are able to announce themselves, forming
anti-feminine-slavery colleges and institutes, etc. ; but
of the oppression which they cannot resist, ending in
their destruction, I am careful exceedingly.
Fors Clavigera. 161
The merely calculable phenomena of economy are
indeed supposed at present to indicate a glut of them ;
but our economists do not appear ever to ask them-
selves of what quality the glut is, or, at all events, in
what quality it would be wisest to restrict the supply,
and in what quality, educated according to the laws
of God, the supply is at present restricted.
I think the experience of most thoughtful persons
will confirm me in saying that extremely good girls,
(good children, broadly, but especially girls,) usually die
young. The pathos of their deaths is constantly used
in poetry and novels ; but the power of the fiction rests,
I suppose, on the fact that most persons of affectionate
temper have lost their own May Queens or little Nells
in their time. For my own part of grief, I have known
a little Nell die, and a May Queen die, and a queen
of May, and of December also, die ; — all of them, in
economists' language, ' as good as gold,' and in Christian
language, ' only a little lower than the angels, and
crowned with glory and honour.' And I could count
the like among my best-loved friends, with a rosary
of tears.
It seems, therefore, that God takes care, under present
circumstances, to prevent, or at least to check, the glut
of that kind of girls. Seems, I say, and say with
caution — for perhaps it is not entirely in His good
pleasure that these things are so. But, they being so,
the question becomes therefore yet more imperative —
1 62 Fors Clavigera.
how far a country paying this enforced tax of its good
girls annually to heaven is wise in taking little account
of the number it has left ? For observe that, just
beneath these girls of heaven's own, come another
kind, who are just earthly enough to be allowed to
stay with us ; but who get put out of the way into
convents, or made mere sick-nurses of, or take to
mending the irremediable, — (I've never got over the
loss to me, for St. George's work, of one of the sort).
Still, the nuns are always happy themselves ; and the
nurses do a quantity of good that may be thought of
as infinite in its own way ; and there's a chance of
their being forced to marry a King of the Lombards
and becoming Queen Theodolindas and the like : pass
these, and we come to a kind of girl, just as good, but
with less strong will# — who is more or less spoilable
and mis-manageable : and these are almost sure to
come to grief, by the faults of others, or merely by the
general fashions and chances of the world. In romance,
for instance, Juliet — Lucy Ashton — Amy Robsart. In
my own experience, I knew one of these killed merely
by a little piece of foolish pride — the exactly opposite
fault to Juliet's.")* She was the niece of a most trusted
friend of my father's, also a much trusted friend of
* Or, it may be, stronger animal passion. — a greater inferiority.
t Juliet, being a girl of a noble Veronese house, had no business to fall
in love at first sight with anybody. It is her humility that is the death of
her ; and Imogen would have died in the same way, but for her helpful
brothers. Of Desdemona, see Tors' for November 1877 (vol. vii., p. 357).
Fors Clavigera. 163
mine in the earliest Heme Hill days of my Cock
Robin-hood ; when I used to transmute his name, Mr.
Dowie, into ' Mr. Good-do,' not being otherwise clear
about its pronunciation. His niece was an old sea-
captain's only daughter, motherless, and may have been
about twenty years old when I was twelve. She was
certainly the most beautiful girl of the pure English-
Greek* type I ever saw, or ever am likely to see of any
type whatever. I've only since seen one who could
match her, but she was Norman-English. My mother
was her only confidante in her love affairs : consisting
mostly in gentle refusals — not because she despised
people, or was difficult to please, but wanted simply
to stay with her father ; and did so serenely, modestly,
and with avoidance of all pain she could spare her
lovers, dismissing quickly and firmly, never tempting
or playing with them.
At last, when she was some five or six and twenty,
came one whom she had no mind to dismiss ; and
suddenly finding herself caught, she drew up like a
hart at bay. The youth, unluckily for him, dared not
push his advantage, lest he should be sent away like
the rest ; and would not speak, — partly could not,
loving her better than the rest, and struck dumb, as an
* By the English-Greek type, I mean the features of the statue of Psyche
at Naples, with finely-pencilled dark brows, rather dark hair, and bright
pure colour. I never forget beautiful faces, nor confuse their orders of
dignity, so that I am quite sure of the statement in the text.
164 Fors Clavigera.
honest and modest English lover is apt to be, when
he was near her ; so that she fancied he did not care
for her. At last, she came to my mother to ask
what she should do. My mother said, " Go away for
a while,' — if he cares for you, he will follow you ; if
not, there's no harm done."
But she dared not put it to the touch, thus, but
lingered on, where she could sometimes see him, — and
yet, in her girl's pride, lest he should find out she
liked him, treated him worse than she had anybody
ever before. Of course this piece of wisdom soon
brought matters to an end. The youth gave up all
hope, went away, and, in a month or two after, died
of the then current plague, cholera : upon which his
sister — I do not know whether in wrath or folly — told
his mistress the whole matter, and showed her what
she had done. The poor girl went on quietly taking
care of her father, till his death, which soon followed ;
then, with some kindly woman-companion, went to
travel.
Some five or six years afterwards, my father and
mother and I were going up to Chamouni, by the old
char-road under the Cascade de Chede. There used to
be an idiot beggar-girl, who always walked up beside
the chars, not ugly or cretinous, but inarticulate and
wild-eyed, moaning a little at intervals. She came to
be, in time, year after year, a part of the scene, which
one would even have been sorry to have lost. As we
Fors Clavigera. 165
drew near the top of the long hill, and this girl had
just ceased following, a lady got out of a char at some
little distance behind, and ran up to ours, holding out
her hands.
We none of us knew her. There was something in
the eyes like the wild look of the other's ; the face
was wrinkled, and a little hard in expression — Alpine,
now, in its beauty. " Don't you know Sybilla ? " said
she. My mother made her as happy as she could for
a week at Chamouni, — I am not sure if they ever met
again : the girl wandered about wistfully a . year or two
longer, then died of rapid decline.
I have told this story in order to draw two pieces of
general moral from it, which may perhaps be more
useful than if they were gathered from fable.
First, a girl's proper confidant is her father. If there
is any break whatever in her trust in him, from her
infancy to her marriage, there is wrong somewhere, —
often on his part, but most likely it is on hers ; by
getting into the habit of talking with her girl-friends
about what they have no business with, and her father
much. What she is not inclined to tell her father, should
be told to no one ; and, in nine cases out of ten, not
thought of by herself.
And I believe that few fathers, however wrong-headed
or hard-hearted, would fail of answering the habitual
and patient confidence of their child with true care
for her. On the other hand, no father deserves, nor
1 66
Fors Clavigera.
can he entirely and beautifully win, his daughter's
confidence, unless he loves her better than he does
himself, which is not always the case. But again here,
the fault may not be all on papa's side.
In the instance before us, the relations between the
motherless daughter and her old sea-captain father
were entirely beautiful, but not rational enough. He
ought to have known, and taught his pretty Sybilla,
that she had other duties in the world than those
immediately near his own arm-chair ; and she, if
resolved not to marry while he needed her, should
have taken more care of her own heart, and followed
my mother's wise counsel at once.
In the second place, when a youth is fully in love
with a girl, and feels that he is wise in loving her, he
should at once tell her so plainly, and take his chance
bravely, with other suitors. No lover should have the
insolence to think of being accepted at once, nor should
any girl have the cruelty to refuse at once; without
severe reasons. If she simply doesn't like him, she
may send him away for seven years or so — he vowing
to live on cresses, and wear sackcloth meanwhile, or the
like penance : if she likes him a little, or thinks she
might come to like him in time, she may let him
stay near her, putting him always on sharp trial to
see what stuff he is made of, and requiring, figuratively,
as many lion-skins or giants' heads as she thinks herself
worth. The whole meaning and power of true courtship
Fors Clavigera. 167
is Probation ; and it oughtn't to be shorter than three
years at least, — seven is, to my own mind, the orthodox
time. And these relations between the young people
should be openly and simply known, not to their
friends only, but to everybody who has the least
interest in them : and a girl worth anything ought to
have always half a dozen or so of suitors under vow
for her.
There are no words strong enough to express the
general danger and degradation of the manners of mob-
courtship, as distinct from these, which have become
the fashion, — almost the law, — in modern times : when
in a miserable confusion of candlelight, moonlight, and
limelight — and anything but daylight, — in indecently
attractive and insanely expensive dresses, in snatched
moments, in hidden corners, in accidental impulses
and dismal ignorances, young people smirk and ogle
and whisper and whimper and sneak and stumble
and flutter and fumble and blunder into what they
call Love ; — expect to get whatever they like the
moment they fancy it, and are continually in the
danger of losing all the honour of life for a folly, and
all the joy of it by an accident.
Passing down now from the class of good girls who
have the power, if they had the wisdom, to regulate
their lives instead of losing them, to the less fortunate
classes, equally good — (often, weighing their adversity
in true balance, it might be conjectured, better,) — who
1 68 Fors Clavigera.
have little power of ruling, and every provocation to
misruling their fates : who have, from their births, much
against them, few to help, and, virtually, none to guide,
— how are we to count the annual loss of its girl- wealth
to the British nation in these ? Loss, and probably
worse ; for if there be fire and genius in these neglected
ones, and they chance to have beauty also, they are
apt to become to us long-running, heavy burdening,
incalculable compound interest of perdition. God save
them, and all of us, at last !
But, merely taking the pocket-book red-lined balance
of the matter, what, in mere cash and curricle, do
these bright reverses of their best human treasures cost
the economical British race, or the cheerful French ?
That account you would do well to cast, looking down
from its Highgate ' upon your own mother — (of
especially these sort of children ?) city ; or, in Paris,
from the hill named, from the crowd of its Christian
martyrs, Mont Martre, upon the island in Seine
named ' of our Lady ' — the He Notre Dame ; or, from
top of Ingleborough, on all the south and east of
Lancashire and Yorkshire, black with the fume of
their fever-fretted cities, rolling itself along the dales,
mixed with the torrent mists. Do this piece of statistic
and arithmetic there, taking due note that each of
these great and little Babylons, if even on the creditor
side you may set it down for so much (dubitable)
value of produce in dynamite and bayonet, in vitriol,
Fors Clavigera. 169
brass, and iron, — yet on the debtor side has to account
for annual deficit zV/dubitable ! — the casting away
of things precious, the profanation of things pure,
the pain of things capable of happiness — to what
sum ?
I have told you a true story of the sorrow and
death of a maid whom all who knew her delighted
in. I want you to read another of the sorrow and
vanishing of one whom few, except her father, delighted
in ; and none, in any real sense, cared for. A younger
girl this, of high powers — and higher worth, as it
seems to me. The story is told in absolute and simple
truth by Miss Laffan, in her little grey and red book,
— 'Baubie Clarke.' (Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh,
1880.) "It all happened in Edinburgh," Miss Laffan
says in a private letter to me, " exactly as I relate :
I went into every place in which this child was, in
order to describe them and her, and I took great
pains to give the dialect exactly. I remember how
disappointed you were to learn that Flitters' death
was not true ; — this story is quite true, from first to
last." I must leave my darling Baubie for a moment,
to explain the above sentence with a word or two about
my still better beloved Flitters, in ' Tatters, Flitters,
and the Councillor.' The study of those three children,
given by Miss Laffan, is, in the deepest sense, more
true, as well as more pathetic, than that, of Baubie
Clarke, — for Miss Laffan knows and sees the children
170 Fors Clavigera.
of her own country thoroughly,* but she has no clear
perceptions of the Scotch. Also, the main facts
concerning Tatters and Flitters and their legal adviser
are all true — bitterly and brightly true : but the
beautiful and heroic death was — I could find it in my
heart to say, unhappily, — not the young girl's. Flitters,
when last I heard of her, was still living her life of
song ; such song as was possible to her. The death,
so faithfully and beautifully told, was actually that of
an old man, an outcast, like herself. I have no
doubt Flitters could, and would, have died so, had it
become her duty, and the entire harmony of the story
is perfect ; but it is not so sound, for my purpose
here, as the pure and straightforward truth of Baubie
Clarke.
I must give the rude abstract of it at once : Miss
Laffan's detailed picture will not, I believe, be after-
wards of less interest.
Baubie, just thirteen, lived with her father and
mother, in lodgings, such as the piety of Edinburgh
provides for her poor. The mother was a hopeless
drunkard, her father the same — on Saturday nights ;
during the week carrying advertisement-boards for
what stipend that kind of service obtains. Baubie, a
* It is curious, by the way, how totally Miss Edgeworth failed in
drawing Irish children, though she could do English ones perfectly — and
how far finer ' Simple Susan ' is than * The Orphans ' — while her Irish men
and women are perfect, and she is, in fact, the only classical authority in
the matter of Irish character.
Fors Clavigera. 171
vagrant street- singer, is the chief support and guardian
both of father and mother. She is taken captive one
day, at a street corner, by a passing benevolent lady ;
(I can't find out, and Miss Laffan is to be reprehended
for this omission, if Baubie was pretty ! — in her wild
way, I gather — yes ;) carried off to an institution of
sempstresses, where she is cross-examined, with wonder
and some pity; but found to be an independent British
subject, whose liberties, at that moment, cannot be
infringed. But a day or two afterwards, her father
coming to grief, somehow, and getting sent to prison
for two months, the magistrate very properly takes
upon him the responsibility of committing Baubie, in
the meantime, to Miss Mackenzie's care. (I forget
what becomes of the mother.)
She is taken into a charitable, religious, and extremely
well-regulated institution ; she is washed and combed
properly, and bears the operation like a courageous
poodle ; obeys afterwards what orders are given her
patiently and duly. To her much surprise and dis-
content, her singing, the chief pleasure and faculty of
her existence, is at once stopped, under penalties.
And, while she stays in the institution, she makes no
farther attempt to sing.
But from the instant she heard her father's sentence
in the police court, she has counted days and hours.
A perfect little keeper of accounts she is : the Judg-
ment Angel himself, we may not doubt, approving and
172 Fors Clavigera.
assisting, so far as needful. She knows the day and the
hour by the Tron church, at which her father, thinking
himself daughterless, will be thrust out, wistful, from his
prison gate. She is only fearful, prudently and beauti-
fully self-distrusting, of missing count of a day.
In the dormitory of her institution, on an unregarded
shutter, in the shade, morning after morning she cuts
her punctual notch.
And the weary sixty days pass by. The notches
are counted true to the last, — and on the last night,
her measures all taken, and her points and methods of
attack all planned, she opens the window-sash silently,
leaps down into the flowerless garden, climbs its wall,
cat-like, — Lioness-like, — and flies into Edinburgh before
the morning light. And at noon, her father, faltering
through the prison gate, finds her sitting on its step
waiting for him.
And they two leave Edinburgh together, and are
seen — never more.
On the cover of the book which tells you this
ower-true Scots novel, there is a rude woodcut of Baubie,
with a background consisting of a bit of a theatre, an
entire policeman, and the advertisement window of a
tavern, — with tacit implication that, according to the
benevolent people of Edinburgh, all the mischief they
contend with is in theatres, as against chapels ; taverns,
as against coffee-shops ; and police, as against universal
Scripture-readers.
Fors Clavigera. i 73
Partly, this is true, — in the much greater part it is
untrue ; — and all through ' Fors ' you will find the
contrary statement that theatres should be pious places ;
taverns, holy places, and policemen an irresistibly
benevolent power : which, indeed, they mostly are
already ; and what London crossings and cart-drivings
would be without them we all know. But I can
write no more on these matters myself, in this Fors,
and must be content to quote the following extremely
beautiful and practical suggestion by Sir John Ellesmere,
and so, for to day, end.
" I don't care much about music myself. Indeed, I
often wonder at the sort of passionate delight which
Milverton, and people like him, have in the tinkling
of cymbals ; but I suppose that their professions of
delight are sincere. I proposed to a grave statesman,
who looked daggers at me for the proposal, that the
surplus of the Irish Church revenues should be devoted
to giving opera-boxes to poor people who are very
fond of music. What are you all giggling at ? I'll bet
any money that that surplus will not be half so well
employed. Dear old Peabody used to send orders for
opera-boxes to poor friends. I v/as once present when
one of these orders arrived for a poor family devoted
to music ; and I declare I have seldom seen such joy
manifested by any human beings. I don't mind telling
you that since that time, I have sometimes done
174 Fors Clctvigcra.
something of the same kind myself. Very wrong, of
course, for I ought to have given the money to a
hospital."
In looking back over Fors with a view to indices,
I find the Notes and Correspondence in small print a
great plague, and purpose henceforward to print all
letters that are worth my reader's diligence in the same-
sized type as my own talk. His attention is first
requested to the following very valuable one, originally
addressed to the editor of the ' Dunfermline Journal ' ;
whence reprinted, it was forwarded to me, and is here
gladly edited again ; being the shortest and sensiblest
I ever got yet on the vegetarian side.
Vegetarianism. — " Sir, — As a vegetarian, and mother
of four vegetarian children, will you kindly grant me a
little space in favour of a cause which editors seemingly
regard as a subject for jest rather than serious conside-
ration ? Without aiming at convincing men, I would
appeal principally to women and mothers ; to consider
this cause, if they wish to enjoy good rest at nights and
see robust healthy children who are never fevered with
fatty soups. Without taking up the question about the
use or abuse of the lower animals, I would direct your
attention to our own species — men and women — and
the benefit of vegetarianism as regards them only,
economy being one of my pleas ; health, comfort, and
Fors Clavigera. 175
cleanliness the others. Look on the lower masses who
live in fever dens, dress in rags, are constant claimants
of charity, invariable exhibitions of dirt and disease ;
and go when you like to their dens, what fries of
steaks and pork do you not sniff up, with the other
compounds of abominations ! Look at the other picture.
Scotsmen are all the world over foremen in workshops
and leaders of men. Who are the best men in Scotland
but these porridge-fed, abstemious, clear-headed Aber-
donians, who only grow weakly and unhealthy when
they grow out of the diet that made their positions,
and take to the customs about them ? Is the man
or woman to be laughed at, or admired, the most who
can be content with a bit of bread or a basin of
porridge as a meal, that he may be able to buy clothes
or books, or take a better house to live in, or have
something to lay past for education, or to give in
charity after he has paid his debts ; or. is the custom
to be advocated that encourages gorging three or four
times a-day with all sorts of expensive luxuries, meaning,
to the workman, when his work is slack, starvation
or dependence ? Sir, to me — a vegetarian both from
choice and necessity — it appears that no condition of
life can justify that practice while poverty exists. As
regards the laws of health I leave the matter to doctors
to take up and discuss. I have only to say from the
personal experience of five years that I am healthier
and stronger than I was before, have healthy, strong
2ND SERIES.] I £
l7& Fors Clavigera.
children, who never require a doctor, and who live on
oatmeal porridge and pease bannocks, but who do not
know the taste of beef, butter, or tea, and who have
never lost me a night's rest from their birth. Porridge
is our principal food, but a drink of buttermilk or an
orange often serve our dinner, and through the time
saved I have been able to attend to the health of my
children and the duties of my home without the
hindrance of a domestic servant, my experiments in
that line being a complete failure.
" I am, etc., Helen Nisbet.
"35, Lome Street, Leith Walk."
I am in correspondence with the authoress of this
letter, and will give the results arrived at in next
Fors, only saying now that Walter Scott, Burns, and
Carlyle, are among the immortals, on her side, with a
few other wise men, such as Orpheus, St. Benedict,
and St. Bernard ; and that, although under the no less
wise guidance of the living Esculapius, Sir William
Gull, (himself dependent much for diet on Abigail's
gift to David, a bunch of raisins,) I was cured of my
last dangerous illness with medicine of mutton-chop,
and oysters ; it is conceivable that these drugs were
in reality homoeopathic, and hairs of the dogs that bit
me. I am content to-day to close the evidence for the
vegetarians with Orpheus' Hymn to the Earth : —
"Oh Goddess Earth, mother of the happy Gods and
of mortal men,
Fars Clavigera. 177
All-nursing, all-giving, all-bearing, all-destroying ;
Increasing in blossom, heavy with fruit, overflowing
with beauty,
Throne of eternal ordinance, infinitely adorned girl,
Who bearest in birth-pang all manner of fruit ;
, Eternal, all-honoured, deep-hearted, happy-fated;
Rejoicing in meadow-sweetness, deity of flower-
multitude,
And joyful in thy Night ; round whom the fair-
wrought order of the stars
Rolls in its everlasting nature and dreadful flowing;
Oh blessed goddess, increase thy fruits in gladness,
And through thy happy seasons in kindness of soul."
The second, and in this number terminal letter,
which I have to recommend to the reader's study,
is one from the agents to the Dean and Chapter of
Chester, as follows : —
"St. Werburgh Chambers, Chester, April 17, 1883.
"Sir, — Our attention has just been called to an
anonymous letter contained in your ' Fors ' — letter fifth,
1880 — reflecting on the Dean and Chapter of Chester
in the management of their property. The paragraph
occurs at p. 145-46, and commences thus : 'Only a week
ago,' etc. ; and ends, ' With an irresistible tongue,' etc.
" Our answer is : — The Dean and Chapter have never
refused to grant a lease to an eligible man, but have
always complied when asked. They have not * raised
178 Fors Clavigera.
all the rents,' etc., but have materially reduced most of
them since they acquired their property. The agents
never interfere with the modes of farming unless
manifestly exhaustive ; and the statement that they
' only allow the land to be sown,' etc., on a ' personal
inspection of their agents,' is untrue. They never heard
of any ' poverty prevaling {sic) on their estate to an
alarming extent,' or to any extent at all. Surely ' the
Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain ' deserve to
be approached with verified facts, and not thus.
" Yours obediently, ToWNSHEND AND BARKUS.
(Agents to the Dean and Chapter of Chester.)
"John Ruskin, Esq., LL.D."
The only notice which it seems to me necessary to
take of this letter is the expression of my satisfaction
in receiving it, qualified with the recommendation to
the Very Revd- the Dean and Revds- the Chapter of
Chester, to advise their agents that 'prevailing' is
usually spelt with an ' i.'
John Ruskin.
Brantwood, 2yd April, 1883.
LETTER THE 91st.
September,
[883.
DUST OF GOLD.
HAVE received several letters from young corre-
spondents, complaining that I attach too much
importance to beauty in women, and asking, " What are
plain girls to do ? " — one of them putting this farther
question, not easy of answer, " Why beauty is so often
given to girls who have only the mind to misuse it, and
not to others, who would hold it as a power for God's
service ? " To which question, however, it is to be
XCI.]
1 80 Fors C laviper a.
answered, in the first place, that the mystery is quite
as great in the bestowal of riches and wit ; in the second
place, that the girls who misuse their beauty, only do
it because they have not been taught better, and it
is much more other people's fault than theirs ; in the
third place, that the privilege of seeing beauty is quite
as rare a one as that of possessing it, and far more
fatally misused.
The question, " What are plain girls to do ? " requires
us first to understand clearly what " plainness " is. No
girl who is well bred, kind, and modest, is ever offensively
plain ; all real deformity means want of manners, or of
heart. I may say, in defence of my own constant praise
of beauty, that I do not attach half the real importance
to it which is assumed in ordinary fiction ; — above all,
in the pages of the periodical which best represents, as
a whole, the public mind of England. As a rule, through-
out the whole seventy-volume series of ' Punch,' — first by
Leech and then by Du Maurier, —all nice girls are repre-
sented as pretty ; all nice women, as both pretty and
well dressed ; and if the reader will compare a sufficient
number of examples extending over a series of years,
he will find the moral lesson more and more enforced
by this most popular authority, that all real ugliness
in either sex means some kind of hardness of heart,
or vulgarity of education. The ugliest man, for all
in all, in ' Punch ' is Sir Gorgius Midas, — the ugliest
women, those who are unwilling to be old. Generally
Fors Clavigera. 1 8 1
speaking, indeed, ' Punch ' is cruel to women above a
certain age ; but this is the expression of a real truth
in modern England, that the ordinary habits of life and
modes of education produce great plainness of mind in
middle-aged women.
I recollect three examples in the course of only the
last four or five months of railway travelling. The
most interesting and curious one was a young woman
evidently of good mercantile position, who came into
the carriage with her brother out of one of the manu-
facturing districts. Both of them gave me the idea of
being amiable in disposition, and fairly clever, perhaps
a little above the average in natural talent ; while the
sister had good features, and was not much over
thirty. But the face was fixed in an iron hardness,
and keenly active incapacity of any deep feeling or
subtle thought, which pained me almost as much as
a physical disease would have done ; and it was an
extreme relief to me when she left the carriage. Another
type, pure cockney, got in one day at Paddington, a
girl of the lower middle class, round-headed, and with
the most profound and sullen expression of discontent,
complicated with ill-temper, that I ever saw on human
features : — I could not at first be certain how far this
expression was innate, and how far superinduced ; but
she presently answered the question by tearing open
the paper she had bought with the edge of her hand
into jags half an inch deep, all the way across.
1 82 Fors Clavigera.
The third, a far more common type, was of self-
possessed and all-engrossing selfishness, complicated with
stupidity ; — a middle-aged woman with a novel, who
put up her window and pulled down both blinds (side
and central) the moment she got in, and read her novel
till she fell asleep over it : presenting in that condi-
tion one of the most stolidly disagreeable countenances
which could be shaped out of organic clay.
In both these latter cases, as in those of the girls
described in Fors II., p. 146, the offensiveness of feature
implied, for one thing, a constant vexation, and diffused
agony or misery, endured through every moment of
conscious life, together with total dulness of sensation
respecting delightful and beautiful things, summed in
the passage just referred to as "tortured indolence,
and infidel eyes," and given there as an example of
" life negative, under the curse," the state of condem-
nation which begins in this world, and separately
affects every living member of the body ; the opposite
state of life, under blessing, being represented by the
Venice-imagined beauty of St. Ursula, in whose counte-
nance what beauty there may be found (I have known
several people who saw none, and indeed Carpaccio has
gifted her with no dazzling comeliness) depends mainly
on the opposite character of diffused joy, and ecstasy
in peace.
And in places far too many to indicate, both of Fors
and my Oxford lectures, I have spoken again and again
Fors Clavigera. 183
of this radiant expression of cheerfulness, as a primal
element of Beauty, quoting Chaucer largely on the
matter ; and clinching all, somewhere, (I can't look for
the place now,) by saying that the wickedness of any
nation might be briefly measured by observing how far
it had made its girls miserable.
I meant this quality of cheerfulness to be included
above, in the word "well-bred," meaning original purity
of race (Chaucer's " debonnairete") disciplined in courtesy,
and the exercises which develop animal power and
spirit. I do not in the least mean to limit the word
to aristocratic birth and education. Gotthelf's Swiss
heroine, Freneli, to whom I have dedicated, in Proser-
pina, the pansy of the Wengern Alp, is only a farm-
servant ; and Scott's Jeanie Deans is of the same type
in Scotland. And among virtuous nations, or the
portions of them who remain virtuous, as the Tyrolese
and Bavarian peasants, the Tuscans (of whom I am
happily enabled to give soon some true biography and
portraiture), and the mountain and sea-shore races of
France, England, Scotland, and Ireland, almost every-
body is " well-bred," and the girlish beauty universal.
Here in Coniston it is almost impossible to meet a child
whom it is not a real sorrow again to lose sight of. So
that the second article of St. George's creed, " I believe
in the nobleness of human nature," may properly be
considered as involving the farther though minor belief
in the loveliness of the human* form ; and in my next
184 Fors Clavigera.
course of work at Oxford, I shall have occasion to insist
at some length on the reality and frequency of beauty
in ordinary life, as it has been shown us by the popular
art of our own day. This frequency of it, however,
supposing we admit the fact, in no wise diminishes the
burden to be sustained by girls who are conscious of
possessing less than these ordinary claims to admira-
tion ; nor am I in the least minded to recommend the
redemption of their loneliness by any more than common
effort to be good or wise. On the contrary, the prettier
a girl is, the more it becomes her duty to try to be
good ; and little can be hoped of attempts to cultivate
the understanding, which have only been provoked by
a jealous vanity. The real and effective sources of
consolation will be found in the quite opposite direction,
of self-forgetfulness ; — in the cultivation of sympathy
with others, and in turning the attention and the heart
to the daily pleasures open to every young creature bornt
into this marvellous universe. The landscape of the
lover's journey may indeed be invested with aetherial
colours, and his steps be measured to heavenly tunes
unheard of other ears ; but there is no sense, because
these selfish and temporary raptures are denied to us,
in refusing to see the sunshine on the river, or hear
the lark's song in the sky. To some of my young
readers, the saying may seem a hard one ; but they may
rest assured that the safest and purest joys of human
life rebuke the violence of its passions ; that they are
Fors Clavigera. 185
obtainable without anxiety, and memorable without
regret.
Having, therefore, this faith, or more justly speaking,
this experience and certainty, touching the frequency
of pleasing feature in well bred and modest girls, I did
not use the phrase in last Fors, which gave (as I hear)
great offence to some feminine readers, " a girl worth
anything," exclusively, or even chiefly, with respect to
attractions of person ; but very deeply and solemnly in
the full sense of worthiness, or (regarding the range of
its influence) All-worthiness, which qualifies a girl to be
the ruling Sophia of an all-worthy workman, yeoman,
squire, duke, king, or Caliph ; — not to calculate the
advance which, doubtless, the luxury of Mayfair and
the learning of Girton must have made since the days
when it was written of Koot el Kuloob, or Enees-el
Jelees, that " the sum of ten thousand pieces of gold
doth not equal the cost of the chickens which she hath
eaten, and the dresses which she hath bestowed on her
teachers ; for she hath learned writing, and grammar,
and lexicology, and the interpretation of the Koran,
and the fundamentals of law, and religion, and medicine,
and the computation of the Calendar, and the art of
playing upon musical instruments," * — not calculating, I
say, any of these singular powers or preciousnesses,
but only thinking of the constant value generalized
among the King's verses, by that notable one, " Every
* ' Arabian Nights,' Lane's translation, i. 392.
1 86 Fors Clavigera.
wise woman buildeth her house ; but the foolish plucketh
it down with her hands," — and seeing that our present
modes of thought and elements of education are not
always so arranged as to foster to their utmost the graces
of prudence and economy in woman, it was surely no
over-estimate of the desirableness of any real house-
builder among girls, that she should have five or six
suitors at once under vow for her ? Vow,, surely also
of no oppressive or extravagant nature ! I said nothing
of such an one as was required by Portia's father of her
suitors, and which many a lover instinctively makes, in
his own bosom, — " her, or none." I said nothing of any
oath of allegiance preventing the freedom of farther
search or choice ; — but only the promise of the youth
that, until he saw one better worth winning, he would
faithfully obey his chosen mistress's will in all things ;
and suffer such test as she chose to put him to : it
being understood that at any time he had the power
as openly to withdraw as he had openly accepted the
candidature.
The position of Waverley towards Flora Maclvor,
of Lord Evandale to Miss Bellenden, of Lovel to Miss
Wardour, Tressilian to Amy Robsart, or Quentin Durward
to the Countess Isabel, are all in various ways illustrative
of this form of fidelity in more or less hopeless endeavour :
while also the frankness of confession is assumed both
by Miss Edgeworth and Richardson, as by Shakespeare,
quite to the point of entire publicity in the social circle
Fors Clavigera. 187
of the lovers.* And I am grieved to say that the casual
observations which have come to my ears, since last Fors
appeared, as to the absurdity and impossibility of such
devotion, only further prove to me what I have long
since perceived, that very few young people, brought up
on modern principles, have ever felt love, or even know
what it means, except under the conditions in which
it is also possible to the lower animals. I could easily
prove this, if it were apposite to my immediate purpose,
and if the subject were not too painful, by the evidence
given me in a single evening, during which I watched
the enthusiastic acceptance by an English audience of
Salvini's frightful, and radically false, interpretation of
Othello.
Were I to yield, as I was wont in the first series
of these letters, without scruple, to the eddies of thought
which turned the main stream of my discourse into
apparently irrelevant, and certainly unprogressive inlets,
I should in this place proceed to show how true-love
is inconsistent with railways, with joint-stock banks, with
the landed interest, with parliamentary interest, with
grouse shooting, with lawn tennis, with monthly maga-
zines, spring fashions, and Christmas cards. But I am
resolute now to explain myself in one place before
becoming enigmatic in another, and keep to my one point
* See the decision of Miss Broadhurst in the thirteenth chapter of the
" Absentee " ; and the courtships to Harriet Byron, passim. The relations
of France to Cordelia, of Henry V. to the Princess Katharine, and of the
Duke to Olivia, are enough to name among the many instances in Shakespeare.
1 88 Fors C/avigera.
until I have more or less collected what has been said
about it in former letters. And thus continuing to insist
at present only on the worth or price of womanhood itself,
and of the value of feminine creatures in the economy
of a state, I must ask the reader to look back to Fors I.
(Letter IV., p. 12), where I lament my own poverty in
not being able to buy a white girl of (in jeweller's
language) good lustre and facetting ; as in another
place I in like manner bewail the present order of
society in that I cannot make a raid on my neigh-
bour's house, and carry off three graceful captives at
a time ; and in one of the quite most important pieces
of all the book, or of any of my books, the essential
nature of real property in general is illustrated by
that of the two primary articles of a man's wealth,
Wife, and Home ; and the meaning of the word " mine,"
said to be only known in its depth by any man with
reference to the first. And here, for further, and in
its sufficiency I hope it may be received as a final,
illustration, read the last lines (for I suppose the ter-
minal lines can only be received as epilogue) of the
play by which, in all the compass of literature, the
beauty of pure youth has been chiefly honoured ; there
are points in it deserving notice besides the one needful
to my purpose : —
Prince. " Where be these enemies ? Capulet ! Montague !
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
Fors Clavigera. 189
That Heaven finds means to kill your joys
with love !
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen : — all are
punish'd."
Cap. " 0 brother Montague, give me thy hand :
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand."
Mont. " But I can give thee more :
For I will raise her statue in pure gold ;
That while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set,
As that of true and faithful Juliet."
Cap. " As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie ;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity."
I do not know if in the tumultuous renderings and
reckless abridgements of this play on the modern stage,
the audience at any theatre is ever led to think of
the meaning of the Prince's saying, " That Heaven finds
means to kill your joys with love!' Yet in that one
line is the key of Christian theology and of wise natural
philosophy ; the knowledge of the law that binds the
yoke of inauspicious stars, and ordains the slumber of
world-wearied flesh.
Look back to Friar Laurence's rebuke of the parent's
grief at Juliet's death, —
" Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid ; now Heaven hath all " ;
I go Fors Clavigera.
and you will find, in the concluding lines, not only the
interpretation of the Prince's meaning, but a clear
light thrown on a question lately, in some one of our
critical magazines, more pertinently asked than intelli-
gently answered — " Why Shakespeare wrote tragedies ? "
One of my chief reasons for withdrawing from the later
edition of " Sesame and Lilies " the closing lecture, on
the " Mystery of Life," was the feeling that I had not
with enough care examined the spirit of faith in God,
and hope in Futurity, which, though unexpressed, were
meant by the master of tragedy to be felt by the
spectator, what they were to himself, the solution and
consolation of all the wonderfulness of sorrow ; — a faith
for the most part, as I have just said, unexpressed ; but
here summed in a single line, which explains the in-
stinctive fastening of the heart on the great poetic stories
of grief, —
11 For Nature's tears are Reason's merriment."
Returning to the terminal passage of the play, may
I now ask the reader to meditate on the alchemy of
fate, which changes the youth and girl into two golden
statues ? Admit the gain in its completeness ; suppose
that the gold had indeed been given down, like Danae's
from heaven, in exchange for them ; imagine, if you will,
the perfectest art-skill of Bezaleel or Aholiab lavished
on the imperishable treasures. Verona is richer, is she,
by so much bullion ? Italy, by so much art ? Old
Fors Clavigera. 191
Montague and Capulet have their boy's and girl's " worth "
in gold, have they ? And though for every boy and
girl whom now you exile from the gold of English
harvest and the ruby of Scottish heath, there return
to you, O loving friends, their corpses' weight, and more,
in Californian sand, — is your bargain with God's bounty
wholly to your mind ? or if so, think you that it is to
His, also ?
Yet I will not enter here into any debate of loss by
exile, and national ostracism of our strongest. I keep
to the estimate only of our loss by helpless, reckless,
needless death, the enduring torture at the bolted theatre
door of the world, and on the staircase it has smoothed
to Avernus.
' Loss of life ' ! By the ship overwhelmed in the river,
shattered on the sea ; by the mine's blast, the earth-
quake's burial — you mourn for the multitude slain. You
cheer the lifeboat's crew : you hear, with praise and joy,
of the rescue of one still breathing body more at the
pit's mouth : — and all the while, for one soul that is saved
from the momentary passing away (according to your
creed, to be with its God), the lost souls, yet locked in
their polluted flesh, haunt, with worse than ghosts, the
shadows of your churches, and the corners of your streets ;
and your weary children watch, with no memory of
Jerusalem, and no hope of return from their captivity, the
weltering to the sea of your Waters of Babylon.
FORS CLAVIGERA
LETTER THE 92nd.
ASHESTIEL.
Abbotsford, September 26th, 1883.
I CAN never hear the whispering and sighing of the
Tweed among his pebbles, but it brings back to
me the song of my nurse, as we used to cross by
Coldstream Bridge, from the south, in our happy days.
" For Scotland, my darling, lies full in my view,
With her barefooted lassies, and mountains so blue."
Those two possessions, you perceive, my poor Euryclea
felt to be the chief wealth of Scotland, and meant the
epithet ' barefooted ' to be one of praise.
• In the two days that have past since I this time
crossed the Border, I have seen but one barefooted lassie,
and she not willingly so,^but many high-heeled ones : —
who willingly, if they might, would have been heeled
yet higher. And perhaps few, even of better minded
Scots maidens, remember, with any due admiration, that
2ND SERIES.] I 9
194 Fors Clavigera.
the greater part of Jeanie Deans' walk to London was
done barefoot, the days of such pilgrimage being now,
in the hope of Scotland, for ever past ; and she, by help
of the high chimneys built beside Holyrood and Melrose,
will henceforward obtain the beatitude of Antichrist, —
Blessed be ye Rich.
Nevertheless, it is worthy of note that in the village
where Bruce's heart is buried, I could yesterday find no
better map of Scotland than was purchaseable for a
penny, — no clear sign, to my mind, either of the country's
vaster wealth, or more refined education. Still less that
the spot of earth under which the king's heart lies
should be indicated to the curious observer by a small
white ticket, pegged into the grass ; which might at first
sight seem meant to mark the price of that piece of
goods ; and indeed, if one meditates a little on the
matter, verily does so ; this piece of pasteboard being
nothing less than King Robert Bruce's monument and
epitaph ; and the devotional offering of Scotland in the
nineteenth century, at his shrine. Economical, even in
pasteboard, as compared with the lavish expenditure of
that material by which the ' Scots wha hae,' etc., receive
on all their paths of pilgrimage the recommendation of
Colman's mustard.
So much, looking out on the hillside which Scott
planted in his pride, and the garden he enclosed in the
joy of his heart, I perceive to be the present outcome
of his work in literature. Two small white tickets — one
Fors Clavigera. 195
for the Bruce, the other for Michael Scott : manifold
acreage of yellow tickets — for Colman's mustard. Thus
may we measure the thirst for knowledge excited by
modern Scottish religion, and satisfied by modern
Scottish education.
Whithorn, October yd, 1883.
As the sum of Sir Walter's work at Melrose, so here
the sum of St. Ninian's at Candida Casa, may be set
down in few and sorrowful words. I notice that
the children of the race who now for fifteen hundred
years have been taught in this place the word of Christ,
are divided broadly into two classes : one very bright
and trim, strongly and sensibly shod and dressed, satchel
on shoulder, and going to or from school by railroad ;
walking away, after being deposited at the small stations,
in a brisk and independent manner. But up and down
the earthy broadway between the desolate-looking houses
» which form the main street of Whithorn, as also in the
space of open ground which borders the great weir and
rapid of the Nith at Dumfries, I saw wistfully errant
groups of altogether neglected children, barefoot enough,
tattered in frock, begrimed in face, their pretty long
hair wildly tangled or ruggedly matted, and the total
bodies and spirits of them springing there by the
wayside like its thistles, — -with such care as Heaven
gives to the herbs of the field, — and Heaven's Adversary
to the seed on the Rock.
196 Fors Clavigera.
They are many of them Irish, the Pastor of Whithorn
tells me, — the parents too poor to keep a priest, one
coming over from Wigton sometimes for what minis-
tration may be imperative. This the ending of St.
Ninian's prayer and fast in his dark sandstone cave,
filled with the hollow roar of Solway, — now that fifteen
hundred years of Gospel times have come and gone.
This the end : but of what is it to be the beginning ?
■of what new Kingdom of Heaven are these children
the nascent citizens ? To what Christ are these to be
allowed to come for benediction, unforbidden ?
Brantwood, October 10th, 1883.
The above two entries are all I could get written of
things felt and seen during ten days in Scott's country,
and St. Ninian's ; somewhat more I must set down
before the impression fades. Not irrelevantly, for it is
my instant object in these resumed letters to index and
enforce what I have said hitherto on early education; and
while, of all countries, Scotland is that which presents
the main questions relating to it in the clearest form,
my personal knowledge and feelings enable me to arrange
aught I have yet to say more easily with reference to
the Scottish character than any other. Its analysis
will enable me also to point out some specialties in
the genius of Sir Walter, Burns, and Carlyle, which
English readers cannot usually discern for themselves.
I went into the border country, just now, chiefly to see
Fors Clavigcra. 197
the house of Ashestiel : and this morning have re-read,
with better insight, the chapter of Lockhart's Life which
gives account of the sheriff's settlement there ; in which
chapter there is incidental notice of Mungo Park's last
days in Scotland, to which I first pray my readers' close
attention.
Mungo had been born in a cottage at Fowlsheils on the
Yarrow, nearly opposite Newark Castle. He returns after
his first African journey to his native cottage, where Scott
visits him, and finds him on the banks of Yarrow, which
in that place passes over ledges of rock, forming deep
pools between them. Mungo is casting stone after stone
into the pools, measuring their depths by the time the
bubbles take to rise, and thinking (as he presently tells
Scott) of the way he used to sound the turbid African
rivers. Meditating, his friend afterwards perceives, on
further travel in the distant land.
With what motive, it is important for us to know. As
a discoverer — as a missionary — or to escape from ennui ?
He is at that time practising as a physician among his
own people. A more sacred calling cannot be ; — by
faithful missionary service more good could be done
among fair Scotch laddies in a day, than among black
Hamites in a lifetime ; — of discovery, precious to all
humanity, more might be made among the woods and
rocks of Ettrick than in the thousand leagues of desert
between Atlas and red Edom, Why will he again leave
his native stream ?
198 Fors Clavigera.
It is clearly not mere baseness of petty vanity that
moves him. There is no boastfulness in the man. " On
one occasion," says Scott, " the traveller communicated
to him some very remarkable adventures which had
befallen him in Africa, but which he had not recorded
in his book." On Scott's asking the cause of this silence,
Mungo answered that " in all cases where he had informa-
tion to communicate, which he thought of importance
to the public, he had stated the facts boldly, leaving it
to his readers to give such credit to his statements as
they might appear justly to deserve ; but that he would
not shock their faith, or render his travels more mar-
vellous, by introducing circumstances which, however true,
were of little or no moment, as they related solely to his
own personal adventures and escapes."
Clearly it is not vanity, of Alpine-club kind, that the
Old Serpent is tempting this man with. But what then ?
" His thoughts had always continued to be haunted with
Africa." He told Scott that whenever he awoke suddenly
in the night, he fancied himself still a prisoner in the
tent of AH ; but when Scott expressed surprise that he
should intend again to re-visit those scenes, he answered
that he would rather brave Africa and all its horrors,
than " wear out his life in long and toilsome rides over
the hills of Scotland, for which the remuneration was
hardly enough to keep soul and body together!'
I have italicized the whole sentence, for it is a terrific
one. It signifies, if you look into it, almost total absence
Fors Clavigera. 199
of the instinct of personal duty, — total absence of belief
in the God who chose for him his cottage birthplace,
and set him his life-task beside it ; — absolute want of
interest in his profession, of sense for natural beauty,
and of compassion for the noblest poor of his native
land. And, with these absences, there is the clear pre-
sence of the fatallest of the vices, Avarice, — in the exact
form in which it was the ruin of Scott himself, — the
love of money for the sake of worldly position.
I have purposely placed the instinct for natural beauty,
and compassion for the poor, in the same breath of
the sentence ; — their relation, as I hope hereafter to show,
is constant. And the total want of compassion, in its
primary root of sympathy, is shown in its naked fear-
someness in the next sentence of the tale.
" Towards the end of the autumn, Park paid Scott
a farewell visit, and slept at Ashestiel. Next morning
his host accompanied him homewards over the wild
chain of hills between the Tweed and the Yarrow.
Park talked much of his new scheme, and mentioned
his determination to tell his family that he had some
business for a day or two in Edinburgh, and send them
his blessing from thence without returning to take leave!'
He had married not long before a pretty and amiable
woman ; and when they reached the Williamhope Ridge,
" the autumnal mist floating heavily and slowly down
the valley of the Yarrow" presented to Scott's imagi-
nation " a striking emblem of the troubled and uncertain
200 Fors Clavigera.
prospect which his undertaking afforded." He remained
however unshaken, and at length they reached the spot
where they had agreed to separate. A small ditch
divided the moor from the road, and in going over it,
Park's horse stumbled and nearly fell.
" I am afraid, Mungo," said the sheriff, " that is a
bad omen." To which he answered, smiling, " Freits
(omens) follow those who look to them." With this
expression Mungo struck the spurs into his horse, and
Scott never saw him again.
" Freits follow those who look to them." Words abso-
lutely true, (with their converse, that they cease to follow
those who do not look to them :) of which truth I will
ask the consenting reader to consider a little while.
He may perhaps think Mungo utters it in all wisdom,
as already passing from the darkness and captivity of
superstition into the marvellous light of secure Science
and liberty of Thought. A wiser man, are we to hold
Mungo, than Wralter, — then ? and wiser — how much
more, than his forefathers ?
I do not know on what authority Lockhart interprets
" freit," as only meaning ' omen.' In the Douglas glossary
it means ' aid,' \ or protection ' ; it is the word used by
Jove, declaring that he will not give ' freit ' from heaven
either to Trojan or Rutulian ; and I believe it always
to have the sense of serviceable warning — protective, if
watched and obeyed. I am not here concerned with
the question how far such guidance has been, or is still,
Fors Clavigera. 20 \
given to those who look for it ; but I wish the reader
to note that the form of Celtic intellect which rejected
the ancient faith . was certainly not a higher one than
that which received it. And this I shall best show by
taking the wider ground of enquiry, how far Scott's own
intellect was capable of such belief, — and whether in its
strength or weakness.
In the analysis of his work, given in the ' Nineteenth
Century ' in ' Fiction, Fair and Foul,' I have accepted
twelve novels as characteristic and essentially good, —
naming them in the order of their production. These
twelve were all written in twelve years, before he had
been attacked by any illness ; and of these, the first
five exhibit the natural progress of his judgment and
faith, in the prime years of his life, between the ages
of forty-three and forty- eight.
In the first of them, \ Waverley,' the supernatural ele-
ment is admitted with absolute frankness and simplicity,
the death of Colonel Gardiner being foretold by the,
at that time well attested, faculty of second sight, — and
both the captivity and death of Fergus Mclvor by the
personal phantom, hostile and fatal to his house.
In the second, ' Guy Mannering,' the supernatural warn-
ing is not allowed to reach the point of actual vision.
It is given by the stars, and by the strains in the thread
spun at the child's birth by his gipsy guardian.
In the third, 'The Antiquary,' the supernatural influence
reduces itself merely to a feverish dream, and to the
202 Fors Clavigera.
terror of the last words of Elspeth of the Craigburn-
foot : " I'm coming, my leddy — the staircase is as mirk
as a Yule midnight."
In the fourth, 'Old Mortality/ while Scott's utmost
force is given to exhibit the self-deception of religious
pride, imagining itself inspired of heaven, the idea of
prophetic warning is admitted as a vague possibility,
with little more of purpose than to exalt the fortitude
of Claverhouse ; and in the two last stories of his great
time, 'Rob Roy,' and 'The Heart of Midlothian,' all sug-
gestion whatever of the interference of any lower power
than that of the Deity in the order of this world has been
refused, and the circumstances of the tales are confined
within the limits of absolute and known truth.
I am in the habit of placing 'The Heart of Midlothian'
highest of all his works, because in this element of
intellectual truth, it is the strictest and richest ; — because,
being thus rigid, in truth, it is also the most exalted
in its conception of human character; — and lastly, because
it is the clearest in acknowledgment of the overruling
justice of God, even to the uttermost, visiting the sin
of the fathers upon the children, and purifying the
forgiven spirit without the remission of its punish-
ment.
In the recognition of these sacred laws of life it stands
alone among Scott's works, and may justly be called the
greatest : yet the stern advance in moral purpose which
it indicates is the natural consequence of the discipline
Fors Clavigera. 203
of age — not the sign of increased mental faculty. The
entire range of faculty, imaginative and analytic together,
is unquestionably the highest when the sense of the
supernatural is most distinct, — Scott is all himself only
in ■ Wavcrley ' and the * Lay.'
No line of modern poetry has been oftener quoted
with thoughtless acceptance than Wordsworth's :
11 Heaven lies about us in our infancy."
It is wholly untrue in the implied limitation ; if life be
led under heaven's law, the sense of heaven's nearness
only deepens with advancing years, and is assured in
death. But the saying is indeed true thus far, that in
the dawn of virtuous life every enthusiasm and every
perception may be trusted as of divine appointment ; and
the maxima reverentia is due not only to the innocence
of children, but to their inspiration.
And it follows that through the ordinary course of
mortal failure and misfortune, in the career of nations no
less than of men, the error of their intellect, and the
hardening of their hearts, may be accurately measured
by their denial of spiritual power.
In the life of Scott, beyond comparison the greatest
intellectual force manifested in Europe since Shakespeare,
the lesson is given us with a clearness as sharp as the
incision on a Greek vase. The very first mental effort
for which he obtained praise was the passionate recitation
of the passage in the ' Eneid,' in which the ghost of
204 Fors Clavigera.
Hector appears to Eneas. And the deadliest sign of
his own approaching death is in the form of incredulity
which dictated to his weary hand the • Letters on
Demonology and Witchcraft.'
Here, for the present, I must leave the subject to
your own thought,— only desiring you to notice, for
general guidance, the gradations of impression on the
feelings of men of strong and well-rounded intellect, by
which fancy rises towards faith.
The lowest stage is that of wilfully grotesque fancy,
which is recognized as false, yet dwelt upon with delight
and finished with accuracy, as the symbol or parable
of what is true.
Shakespeare's Puck, and the Dwarf Goblin of the 'Lay/
are precisely alike in this first level of the imagination.
Shakespeare does not believe in Bottom's translation ;
neither does Scott that, when the boy Buccleugh passes
the drawbridge with the dwarf, the sentinel only saw
a terrier and lurcher passing out. Yet both of them
permit the fallacy, because they acknowledge the Elfin
power in nature, to make things, sometimes for good,
sometimes for harm, seem what they are not. Nearly
all the grotesque sculpture of the great ages, beginning
with the Greek Chimsera, has this nascent form of Faith
for its impulse.
II. The ghosts and witches of Shakespeare, and the
Bodach Glas and White Lady of Scott, are expressions
of real belief, more or less hesitating and obscure.
Fors Clavigera. 205
Scott's worldliness too early makes him deny his convic-
tions, and in the end effaces them. But Shakespeare
remains sincerely honest in his assertion of the un-
comprehended spiritual presence ; with this further subtle
expression of his knowledge of mankind, that he never
permits a spirit to show itself but to men of the highest
intellectual power. To Hamlet, to Brutus, to Macbeth,
to Richard III. ; but the royal Dane does not haunt his
own murderer, — neither does Arthur, King John ; neither
Norfolk, King Richard II. ; nor Tybalt, Romeo.
III. The faith of Horace in the spirit of the fountain
of Brundusium, in the Faun of his hillside, and in the
help of the greater gods, is constant, vital, and practical ;
yet in some degree still tractable by his imagination,
as also that of the great poets and painters of Christian
times. In Milton, the tractability is singular ; he hews
his gods out to his own fancy, and then believes in
them ; but in Giotto and Dante the art is always sub-
jected to the true vision.
IV. The faith of the saints and prophets, rising into
serenity of knowledge, " I know that my Redeemer
liveth," is a state of mind of which ordinary men
cannot reason ; but which in the practical power of
it, has always governed the world, and must for ever.
No dynamite will ever be invented that can rule ; — it
can but dissolve and destroy. Only the Word of God
and the heart of man can govern.
I have been led far, but to the saving of future time,
2o6 Fors Clavigera.
by the examination of the difference in believing power
between the mind of Scott and his unhappy friend. I
now take up my immediate subject of enquiry, the effect
upon Scott's own mind of the natural scenery of the
native land he loved so dearly. His life, let me first
point out to you, was in all the joyful strength of it,
spent in the valley of the Tweed. Edinburgh was his
school, and his office ; but his home was always by
Tweedside : and more perfectly so, because in three
several places during the three clauses of life. You
must remember also the cottage at Lasswade for the
first years of marriage, and Sandy Knowe for his child-
hood ; but, allowing to Smailholm Tower and Roslin
Glen whatever collateral influence they may rightly claim
over the babe and the bridegroom, the constant influences
of home remain divided strictly into the three seras at
Rosebank, Ashestiel, and Abbotsford.
Rosebank, on the lower Tweed, gave him his close
knowledge of the district of Flodden Field : and his store
of foot-traveller's interest in every glen of Ettrick, Yarrow,
and Liddel-water.
The vast tract of country to which these streams
owe their power is composed of a finely-grained dark
and hard sandstone, whose steep beds are uniformly
and simultaneously raised into masses of upland, which
nowhere present any rugged or broken masses of crag,
like those of our Cumberland mountains, and are rarely
steep enough anywhere to break the grass by weathering ;
Fors Clavigera. 207
a moderate shaly — or, rather, gritty — slope of two or
three hundred feet opposite Ashestiel itself, being notice-
able enough, among the rounded monotony of general
form, to receive the separate name of " the Slidders."
Towards the bottom of a dingle, here and there, a few
feet of broken bank may show what the hills consist
of; but the great waves of them rise against the horizon
without a single peak, crest, or cleft to distinguish one
from another, though in their true scale of mountain
strength heaved into heights of 1,500 or 2,000 feet ; and
covering areas of three or four square leagues for each
of the surges. The dark rock weathers easily into surface
soil, which forms for the greater part good pasture, with
interspersed patches of heath or peat, and, Liddesdale-
way, rushy and sedgy moorland, good for little to man
or beast.
Much rain falls over the whole district ; but, for a
great part of its falling time, in the softly-diffused form
of Scotch mist, absorbed invisibly by the grass soil 'r
while even the heavier rain, having to deal with broad
surfaces of serenely set rock, and finding no ravines in
which it can concentrate force, nor any loose lighter soil
to undermine, threads its way down to the greater glens
in gradual and deliberate influence, nobody can well see
how : there are no Lodores nor Bruar waters, still less
Staubbachs or Giesbachs ; unnoticed, by million upon
million of feebly glistening streamlets, or stealthy and
obscure springs, the cloudy dew descends towards the
208
Fors Clavigera.
river, and the mysterious strength of its stately water
rises or declines indeed, as the storm impends or passes
away ; yet flows for ever with a serenity of power
unknown to the shores of all other mountain lands.
And the more wonderful, because the uniformity of
the hill-substance renders the slope of the river as steady
as its supply. In all other mountain channels known to
me, the course of the current is here open, and there
narrow — sometimes pausing in extents of marsh cord
lake, sometimes furious in rapids, precipitate in cataracts,
or lost in subterranean caves. But the classic Scottish
streams have had their beds laid for them, ages and
ages ago, in vast accumulations of rolled shingle, which,
occupying the floor of the valleys from side to side
in apparent level, yet subdue themselves with a steady
fall towards the sea.
As I drove from Abbotsford to Ashestiel, Tweed and
Ettrick were both in flood ; not dun nor wrathful, but in
the clear fulness of their perfect strength : and from the
bridge of Ettrick I saw the two streams join, and the
Tweed for miles down the vale, and the Ettrick for
miles up among his hills, — each of them, in the multi-
tude of their windless waves, a march of infinite light,
dazzling, — interminable, — intervaled indeed with eddies of
shadow, but, for the most part, gliding paths of sunshine,
far-swept beside the green glow of their level inches,
the blessing of them, and the guard : — the stately moving
of the many waters, more peaceful than their calm, only
Fors Clavigera. 209
mighty, their rippled spaces fixed like orient clouds, their
pools of pausing current binding the silver edges with
a gloom of amber and gold ; and all along their shore,
beyond the sward, and the murmurous shingle, processions
of dark forest, in strange majesty of sweet order, and
unwounded grace of glorious age.
The house of Ashestiel itself is only three or four
miles above this junction of Tweed and Ettrick.* It
has been sorrowfully changed since Sir Walter's death,
but the essential make and set of the former building
can still be traced. There is more excuse for Scott's
flitting to Abbotsford than I had guessed, for this
house stands, conscious of the river rather than com-
manding it, on a brow of meadowy bank, falling so
steeply to the water that nothing can be seen of it
from the windows. Beyond, the pasture-land rises steep
three or four hundred feet against the northern sky,
while behind the house, south and east, the moorlands
lift themselves in gradual distance to still greater
height, so that virtually neither sunrise nor sunset can
be seen from the deep-nested dwelling. A tricklet of
stream wavers to and fro down to it from the moor,
through a grove of entirely natural wood, — oak, birch,
and ash, fantastic and bewildering, but nowhere gloomy,
or decayed, and carpeted with anemone. Between this
wild avenue and the house, the old garden remains as
* I owe to the courtesy of Dr. Matthews Duncan the privilege of quiet
sight both of the house and its surroundings.
2ND SERIES.] 20
210 Fors Clavigera.
it used to be, large, gracious, and tranquil ; its high
walls swept round it in a curving line like a war
rampart, following the ground ; the fruit-trees, trained
a century since, now with grey trunks a foot wide,
flattened to the wall like sheets of crag ; the strong
bars of their living trellis charged, when I saw them,
with clusters of green-gage, soft bloomed into gold
and blue ; and of orange-pink magnum bonum, and
crowds of ponderous pear, countless as leaves. Some
open space of grass and path, now all redesigned for
modern needs, must always have divided the garden
from what was properly the front of the house, where
the main entrance is now, between advanced wings,
of which only the westward one is of Sir Walter's
time : its ground floor being the drawing-room, with
his own bedroom of equal size above, cheerful and
luminous both, enfilading the house front with their
large side windows, which commanded the sweep of
Tweed down the valley, and some high masses of
Ettrick Forest beyond, this view being now mostly
shut off by the opposite wing, added for symmetry !
But Sir Walter saw it fair through the morning
clouds when he rose, holding himself, nevertheless,
altogether regardless of it, when once at work. At
Ashestiel and Abbotsford alike, his work-room is strictly
a writing-office, what windows they have being designed
to admit the needful light, with an extremely narrow
vista of the external world. Courtyard at Abbots-
Fors Clavipera. 2 1 1
■a
A
ford, and bank of young wood beyond : nothing at
shestiel but the green turf of the opposite fells
with the sun on it, if sun there were, and silvery
specks of passing sheep.
The room itself, Scott's true ' memorial ' if the
Scotch people had heart enough to know him, or
remember, is a small parlour on the ground-floor of
the north side of the house, some twelve feet deep
by eleven wide ; the single window little more than
four feet square, or rather four feet cube, above the
desk, which is set in the recess of the mossy wall,
the light thus entering in front of the writer, and
reflected a little from each side. This window is set
to the left in the end wall, leaving a breadth of some
five feet or a little more on the fireplace side, where
now, brought here from Abbotsford, stands the garden
chair of the last days.
Contentedly, in such space and splendour of domicile,
the three great poems were written, ' Waverley ' begun ;
and all the make and tenure of his mind confirmed, as
it was to 'remain, or revive, through after time of
vanity, trouble, and decay.
A small chamber, with a fair world outside : — such
are the conditions, as far as I know or can gather, of
all greatest and best mental work. At heart, the
monastery cell always, changed sometimes, for special
need, into the prison cell. But, as I meditate more
and more closely what reply I may safely make to
212 Fors Clavigera.
the now eagerly pressed questioning of my faithful
scholars, what books I would have them read, I find
the first broadly-swept definition may be — Books
written in the country. None worth spending time
on, and few that are quite safe to touch, have been
written in towns.
And my next narrowing definition would be, Books
that have good music in them, — that are rightly-
rhythmic : a definition which includes the delicacy of
perfect prose, such as Scott's ; and which deludes at
once a great deal of modern poetry, in which a
dislocated and convulsed versification has been imposed
on the ear in the attempt to express uneven temper
and unprincipled feeling.
By unprincipled feeling, I mean whatever part of
passion the writer does not clearly discern for right
or wrong, and concerning which he betrays the reader's
moral judgment into false sympathy or compassion.
No really great writer ever does so : neither Scott,
Burns, nor Byron ever waver for an instant, any more
than Shakespeare himself, in their estimate of what is
fit and honest, or harmful and base. Scott always
punishes even error, how much more fault, to the
uttermost ; nor does Byron, in his most defiant and
mocking moods, ever utter a syllable that defames
virtue or disguises sin.
In looking back to my former statement in the
third volume of ' Modern Painters,' of the influence of
Fors Clavigera. 213
natural scenery on these three men, I was unjust
both to it and to them, in my fear of speaking too
favourably of passions with which I had myself so
strong personal sympathy. Recent Vandalism has
taught me, too cruelly, and too late, the moral value
of such scenes as those in which I was brought up ;
and given it me, for my duty to the future to teach
the Love of the fair Universe around us, as the
beginning of Piety, and the end of Learning.
The reader may be interested in comparing with
the description in the text, Scott's first fragmentary
stanzas relating to the sources of the Tweed. Lockhart,
vol. i., p. 314.
" Go sit old Cheviot's crest below,
And pensive mark the lingering snow
In all his scaurs abide,
And slow dissolving from the hill
In many a sightless soundless rill,
Feed sparkling Bowmont's tide.
" Fair shines the stream by bank and lea,
As wimpling to the eastern sea
She seeks Till's sullen bed,
Indenting deep the fatal plain,
Where Scotland's noblest, brave in vain,
Around their monarch bled.
214 Fors Clavigera.
" And westward hills on hills you see,
Even as old Ocean's mightiest sea
Heaves high her waves of foam,
Dark and snow-ridged from Cutsfeld's wold
To the proud foot of Cheviot roll'd,
Earth's mountain billows come."
LETTER THE 93rd.
INVOCATION.
]\ /[ Y Christmas letter, which I have extreme satis-
-*-*-*■ faction in trusting this little lady to present
to you, comes first to wish the St. George's Company,
and all honest men, as merry a Christmas as they
can make up their minds to ; (though, under present
circumstances, the merriment, it seems to me, should
be temperate, and the feasting moderate,) — and in the
second place, to assure the St. George's Company both
of its own existence, and its Master's, which, without
2ND SERIES.] 2 I
216 Fors Clavigera.
any extreme refinement of metaphysics, the said Com-
pany might well begin to have some doubt of — seeing
that there has been no report made of its business,
nor record of its additional members, nor catalogue of
its additional properties, given since the — I don't know
what day of — I don't know what year.
I am not going to ask pardon any more for these
administrative defects, or mysterious silences, because,
so far as they are results of my own carelessness or
procrastination, they are unpardonable ; and so far as
they might deserve indulgence if explained, it could
only be justified by the details, otherwise useless, of
difficulty or disappointment in which more than one
of our members have had their share — and of which
their explanations might sometimes take a different
shape from mine. Several have left us, whose seces-
sion grieved me ; one or two, with my full consent.
Others, on the contrary, have been working with their
whole hearts and minds, while the Master was too
ill to take note of their labour : and, owing, I believe,
chiefly to that unpraised zeal, but in a measure also
to the wider reading and better understanding of
' Fors ' itself, new members are rapidly joining us,
and, I think, all are at present animated with better
and more definite hope than heretofore.
The accounts of the Company, — which, instead of
encumbering ' Fors,' as they used to do, it seems to
me now well to print in a separate form, to be pre-
Fors Clavigera. 217
tented to the Companions with the recommendation
not to read it, but to be freely purchaseable by the
public who may be curious in literature of that kind,
— do not, in their present aspect, furnish a wide basis
for the conSdence I have just stated to be increasing.
But, in these days, that we are entirely solvent, and
cannot be otherwise, since it is our principal law of
business never to buy anything till we have got the
money to pay for it, — that whatever we have bought,
we keep, and don't try to make a bad bargain good
by swindling anybody else, — that, at all events, a
certain quantity of the things purchased on such terms
are found to be extremely useful and agreeable
possessions by a daily increasing number of students,
readers, and spectators, at Sheffield and elsewhere, —
and that we have at, this Christmas-time of 1883
£4,000 and some odd hundreds of stock, with, besides
the lands and tenements specified in my last report,
conditional promise of a new and better site for
the St. George's Museum at Sheffield, and of £5,000
to begin the building thereof, — these various facts
and considerations do, I think, sufficiently justify the
Companions of St. George in sitting down peaceful-
minded, so far as regards their business matters, to
their Christmas cheer ; and perhaps also the Master in
calling with confidence on all kind souls whom his
words may reach, to augment the hitherto narrow
fellowship.
2ND SERIES.] 22
218 Fors Clavigera.
Of whose nature, I must try to sum in this ' Fors •
what I have had often to repeat in private letters.
First, that the St. George's Guild is not a merely
sentimental association of persons who want sympathy
in the general endeavour to do good. It is a body
constituted for a special purpose : that of buying
land, holding it inviolably, cultivating it properly, and
bringing up on it as many honest people as it will
feed. It means, therefore, the continual, however slow,
accumulation of landed property, and the authoritative
management of the same ; and every new member
joining it shares all rights in that property, and has
a vote for the re-election or deposition of its Master.
Now, it would be entirely unjust to the Members who
have contributed to the purchase of our lands, or of
such funds and objects of value as we require for the
support and education of the persons living on them,
if the Master allowed the entrance of Members who
would have equal control over the Society's property,
without contributing to it. Nevertheless, I sometimes
receive Companions whose temper and qualities I like,
though they may be unable to help us with money,
(otherwise it might be thought people had to pay for
entrance,) but I can't see why there should not be
plenty of people in England both able and willing to
help us ; whom I once more very solemnly call upon
to do so, as thereby exercising the quite healthiest
and straightforwardest power of Charity. They can't
Fors Clavigera. 219
make the London or Paris landlords emancipate their
poor, (even if it were according to sound law to
make such an endeavour). But they can perfectly
well become landlords themselves, and emancipate their
oivn.
And I beg the readers alike, and the despisers of
my former pleadings in this matter, to observe that all
the recent agitation of the public mind, concerning the
dwellings of the poor, is merely the sudden and febrile,
(Heaven be thanked, though, for such fever !) recognition
of the things which I have been these twenty years
trying to get recognized, and reiterating description
and lamentation of — leven to the actual printing of my
pages blood-red — to try if I could catch the eye at
least, when I could not the ear or the heart. In my
index, under the head of ' Misery,' I know not yet
what accumulation of witness may be gathered, — but
let the reader think, now, only what the single sentence
meant which I quoted from the Evening news in the
last ' Fors ' I wrote before my great illness (March,
1878, p. 84), "The mother got impatient, thrust the
child into the suow, and hurried on — not looking back."
TJiere is a Christmas card, with a picture of English
1 nativity ' for you — O suddenly awakened friends !
And again, take this picture of what Mr. Tenniel calls
John Bull guarding his Pudding, authentic from the
iron-works of Tredegar, 11th February, 1878 (p. 99):
H For several months the average earnings have been
220 Fors Clavigera.
six shillings a week, and out of that they have to pay
for coaly and house rent and other expenses, (the rent-
collector never out of his work), leaving very little for
food or clothing. In my district there are a hundred
and thirty families in distress ; they have nothing but
rags to cover them by day, and very little beside
that wearing apparel to cover them on their beds at
night, — they have sold or pawned their furniture, and
everything for which they could obtain the smallest
sum of money ; many of them are some days every
week without anything to eat, — and with nothing but
water to drink " — and that poisoned, probably.
Was not this, the last message I was able to bring
to John Bull concerning his Pudding, enough to make
him think how he might guard it better ? But on first
recovery of my power • of speech, was not the news I
brought of the state of La Belle France worth her
taking to thought also ? — " In a room two yards and
a half broad by four yards and three-quarters long, a
husband, wife, and four children, of whom two were
dead two months afterwards, — of those left, the eldest
daughter ' had still the strength to smile.' Hunger
had reduced this child, who would have been beautiful,
nearly to the state of a skeleton." ('Fors,' Letter IV.
New Series, p. 1 1 8, and see the sequel.)
And the double and treble horror of all this, note
you well, is that, not only the tennis-playing and
railroad-flying public trip round the outskirts of it,
Fors Clavigera. 221
and whirl over the roofs of it, — blind and deaf; but
that the persons interested in the maintenance of it
have now a whole embodied Devil's militia of base
litterateurs in their bound service ; — the worst form of
serfs that ever human souls sank into — partly conscious
of their lying, partly, by dint of daily repetition,
believing in their own babble, and totally occupied in
every journal and penny magazine all over the world,
in declaring this present state of the poor to be
glorious and enviable, as compared with the poor that
have been. In' which continual pother of parroquet lie,
and desperately feigned defence of all things damnable,
this nineteenth century stutters and shrieks alone
in the story of mankind. Whatever men did before
now, of fearful or fatal, they did openly. Attila does
not say his horse-hoof is of velvet. Ezzelin deigns
no disguise of his Paduan massacre. Prince Karl of
Austria fires his red-hot balls in the top of daylight,
"at stroke of noon, on the shingle roofs of the weavers
of Zittau in dry July, ten thousand innocent souls
shrieking in vain to Heaven and Earth, and before
sunset Zittau is ashes and red-hot walls, — not Zittau,
but a cinder-heap," * — but Prince Karl never says it
was the best thing that could have been done for
the weavers of Zittau, — and that all charitable men
hereafter are to do the like for all weavers, if feasible.
But your nineteenth century prince of shams and
* Friedrich, v. 124.
222 Fors Clavigera.
shambles, sells for his own behoof the blood and ashes,
preaches, with his steam-throat, the gospel of gain from
ruin, as the only true and only Divine, and fills at the
same instant the air with his darkness, the earth with
his cruelty, the waters with his filth, and the hearts
of men with his lies.
Of which the primary and all-pestilentialest is the
one formalized now into wide European faith by political
economists, and bruited about, too, by frantic clergymen !
that you are not to give alms, (any more than you
are to fast, or pray), — that you are to benefit the
poor entirely by your own eating and drinking, and
that it is their glory and eternal praise to fill your
pockets and stomach, — and themselves die, and be
thankful. Concerning which falsehood, observe, whether
you be Christian or not, this unquestionable mark
it has of infinite horror, that the persons who utter
it have themselves lost their joy in giving — cannot
conceive that strange form of practical human felicity
— it is more ' blessed ' (not benedictum, but beatuni)
to give than to receive — and that the entire practical
life and delight of a ' lady ' is to be a ' \odS-giver*
as of a lord to be a land-giver. It is a degradation
— forsooth — for your neighbour's child to receive a
loaf, and you are pained in giving it one ; your own
children are not degraded in receiving their breakfast,
are they ? and you still have some satisfaction of a
charitable nature in seeing them eat it ? It is a
Fors Clavigera. 223
degradation to a bedridden pauper to get a blanket
from the Queen ! how, then, shall the next bedded bride
of May Fair boast of the carcanet from her ?
Now, therefore, my good Companions of the Guild,
— all that are, and Companions all, that are to be,
— understand this, now and evermore, that you come
forward to be Givers, not Receivers, in this human
world : that you are to give your time, your thoughts,
your labour, and the reward of your labour, so far as
you can spare it, for the help of the poor and the
needy, (they are not the same personages, mind : the
* poor ' are in constant, healthy, and accepted relations
to you, — the needy, in conditions requiring change) ;
and observe, in the second place, that you are to
work, so far as circumstances admit of your doing
so, with your own hands, in the production of sub-
stantial means of life — food, clothes, house, or fire —
and that only by stick labour can you either make
your own living, or anybody else's. One of our lately
admitted Companions wrote joyfully and proudly to me
the other day that she was ' making her own living/
meaning that she was no burden to her family, but sup-
ported herself by teaching. To whom I answered, —
and be the answer now generally understood by all our
Companions, — that nobody can live by teaching, any
more than by learning : that both teaching and learning
are proper duties of human life, or pleasures of it, but
have nothing whatever to do with the support of it,
224 Fors Clavigera.
Food can only be got out of the ground, or the
air, or the sea. What you have done in fishing,
fowling, digging, sowing, watering, reaping, milling,
shepherding, shearing, spinning, weaving, building,
carpentering, slating, coal -carrying, cooking, coster-
mongering, and the like, — that is St. George's work,
and means of power. All the rest is St. George's play
or his devotion — not his labour.
And the main message St. George brings to you is
that you will not be degraded by this work nor sad-
dened by it, — you, who in righteous will and modest
resignation, take it upon you for your servant-yoke, as
true servants, no less than children, of your Father in
Heaven ; but, so far as it does mean an acknowledg-
ment that you are not better than the poor, and are
content to share their lowliness in that humility, you
enter into the very soul and innermost good of sacred
monastic life, and have the loveliness and sanctity of
it, without the sorrow or the danger ; separating your-
selves from the world and the flesh, only in their sin
and in their pain. Nor, so far as the praise of men
may be good and helpful to you, and, above all, good
for them to give you, will it ever be wanting. Do you
yourself — even if you are one of these who glory in
idleness — think less of Florentine Ida because she is
a working girl ? or esteem the feeling in which " every-
body called her ' Signora ' " less honourable than the
crowd's stare at my lady in her carriage ?
Fors Clavigera. 225
But above all, you separate yourself from the world
in its sorrow. There are no chagrins so venomous as
the chagrins of the idle ; there are no pangs so sicken-
ing as the satieties of pleasure. Nay, the bitterest
and most enduring sorrow may be borne through
the burden and heat of day bravely to the due time
of death, by a true worker. And, indeed, it is this
very dayspring and fount of peace in the bosoms of
the labouring poor which has till now rendered their
oppression possible. Only the idle among them revolt
against their state ; — the brave workers die passively,
young and old — and make no sign. It is for you
to pity them, for you to stand with them, for you to
cherish, and save.
And be sure there are thousands upon thousands
already leading such life — who are joined in no recog-
nized fellowship, but each in their own place doing
happy service to all men. Read this piece of a friend's
letter, received only a day or two since, while I was
just thinking what plainest examples I could give you
from real life.
" I have just returned from W , where I lived
in a house of which the master was a distributor of
sacks of grain, in the service of a dealer in grain,
while his two daughters did, one of them the whole
work of the house, including attendance on the old
mother who was past work, and the other the managing
of a little shop in the village, — work, with all " (father
226 Fors Clavigera.
and daughters) " beginning at five a.m. I was there
for some months, and was perfectly dealt with, and
never saw a fault. What I wanted to tell you was
that the daughter, who was an admirable cook, was
conversant with her poets, quoted Wordsworth and
Burns, when I led her that way, and knew all about
Brantwood, as she had carefully treasured an account
of it from an old Art Journal."
* Perfectly dealt with.' Think what praise is in those
three words ! — what straightforward understanding, on
both sides, of true hospitality ! Think, (for one of the
modes of life quickest open to you — and serviceablest,)
— what roadside-inns might be kept by a true Gaius
and Gaia ! You have perhaps held it — in far back
* Fors ' one of my wildest sayings, that every village
should have, as a Holy Church at one end, a Holy
Tavern at the other ! I will better the saying now by
adding — " they may be side by side, if you will." And
then you will have entered into another mystery of
monastic life, as you shall see by the plan given of a
Cistercian Monastery in the second forthcoming number
of ' Valle Crucis ' — where, appointed in its due place
with the Church, the Scriptorium and the school, is the
Hospitium for entertaining strangers unawares. And
why not awares also ? Judge what the delight of
travelling would be, for nice travellers, (read the word
' nice ' in any sense you will) — if at every village there
were a Blue Boar, or a Green Dragon, or Silver
Fors Clavigcra. 227
Swan * — with Mark Tapley of the Dragon for Ostler
— and Boots of the Swan for Boots — and Mrs. Lupin
or Mrs. Lirriper for Hostess — only trained at Girton in
all that becomes a Hostess in the nineteenth century !
Gentle girl-readers mine, is it any excess of Christianity
in you, do you think, that makes you shrink from the
notion of being such an one, instead of the Curate's
wife ?
My time fails me — my thoughts how much more —
in trying to imagine what this sweet world will be,
when the meek inherit it indeed, and the lowliness of
every faithful handmaiden has been regarded of her
Lord. For the day will come, the expectation of the
poor shall not perish for ever. Not by might, nor by
power, but by His Spirit — the meek shall He guide
in judgment, and the meek shall He teach His way.
* "And should I once again, as once I may,
Visit Martigny, I will not forget
Thy hospitable roof, Marguerite de Tours,
Thy sign the Silver Swan. Heaven prosper thee."
(Rogers' ' Italy'.)
In my schools at Oxford I have placed, with Mr. Ward's beautiful copy
of Turner's vignette of the old Cygne, at Martigny, my own early drawing
of the corridor of its neighbour inn " La Poste. '—once itself a convent.
228 Fors Clavigera.
CHRISTMAS POSTSCRIPT.
In the following alphabetical list of our present
Companions, I have included only those who, I believe,
will not blame me for giving their names in full,* and
in whose future adherence and support I have entire
trust ; for, although some of them have only lately
joined us, they have done so, I think, with clearer
knowledge of the nature and working of the Guild
than many former Companions who for various causes
have seen good to withdraw. But some names of
members may be omitted, owing to the scattered
registry of them while I was travelling, or perhaps
forgotten registry during my illnesses. I trust that
in the better hope and more steady attention which
I am now able to bring to the duties of the Master-
ship, the list may soon be accurately completed, and
widely enlarged. One Companion, ours no more,
sends you, I doubt not, Christmas greeting from her
Home, — Florence bennett. Of her help to us
during her pure brief life, and afterwards, by her
father's fulfilment of her last wishes, you shall hear at
another time.
* I only give the first Christian name, for simplicity's sake, unless the
second be an indication of family
Fors Clavigera. 229
* ADA HARTNELL;
ALBERT FLEMING.
ALICE KNIGHT.
* ANNIE SOMERSCALES.
* BLANCHE ATKINSON.
DAVID CAMPBELL.
* DORA LEES.
DORA THOMAS.
EDITH HOPE SCOTT.
EDITH IRVINE.
* EGBERT RYDINGS.
* ELIZABETH BARNARD.
EMILIE SISSISON.
EMMELINE MILLER.
ERNEST MILLER.
* FANNY TALBOT.
FERDINAND BLADON.
* FRANCES COLENSO.
* GEORGE ALLEN.
GEORGE NEWLANDS.
GRACE ALLEN.
HELEN ORMEROD.
* HENRIETTA CAREY.
* HENRY LARKIN.
HENRY LUXMORE.
HENRY WARD.
JAMES GILL.
*JOHN FOWLER.
*JOHN MORGAN.
* JULIA FIRTH.
KATHLEEN MARTIN.
MARGARET COX.
MAUD BATEMAN.
* REBECCA ROBERTS.
* ROBERT SOMERVILLE.
SARAH THOMAS.
Fors Clavigera.
* SILVANUS WILKINS.
♦SUSAN BEEVER.
WILLIAM MONK.
* WILLIAM SHARMAN.
* WILLIAM SMITHERS.
The names marked with a star were on the original
roll of the Guild, when it consisted of only thirty-two
Members and the Master.
I
LETTER THE 94th.
RETROSPECT.
Brantwood, 31st December, 1883.
T is a provoking sort of fault in our English lan-
guage, that while one says defect, defection, and
defective ; retrospect, retrospection, and retrospective, etc.,
— one says prospect and prospective, but not pro-
spection ; respect and respective, but not respection ;
perspective, but not perspect, nor perspection ; pre-
fect, but not praefection ; and refection, but not
refect, — with a quite different manner of difference in
2ND SERIES.] 2 3
232 Fors Clavigera.
the uses of each admitted, or reasons for refusal of
each refused, form, in every instance : and therefore
I am obliged to warn my readers that I don't mean
the above title of this latt 'Fors' of 1883 to be
substantive, but participle ; — that is to say, I don't
mean that this letter will be a retrospect, or back-
prospect, of all ' Forses ' that have been ; but that it
will be in its own tenor, and to a limited distance,
Retrospects? : only I cut the ' ive ' from the end of
the word, because I want the retrospection to be
complete as far as it reaches.
Namely, of the essential contents of the new series
of ' Fors ' up to the date of this letter ; and in con-
nection with them, of the First letter, the Seventeenth,
and the Fiftieth, of the preceding series.
I will begin with the seventeenth letter ; which bears
directly on the school plan given in my report for this
year. It will be seen that I struck out in that plan
the three R's from among the things promised to be
taught, and I wrote privately with some indignation to
the Companion who had ventured to promise them,
asking her whether she had never read this seventeenth
letter ; to which she answered that ' inspectors of schools '
now required the three R's imperatively, — to which I
again answered, with indignation at high pressure, that
ten millions of inspectors of schools collected on Cader
Idris should not make me teach in my schools, come to
them who liked, a single thing I did not choose to.
Fors Clavigera. 233
And I do not choose to teach (as usually under-
stood) the three R's ; first, because, as I do choose to
teach the elements of music, astronomy, botany, and
zoology, not only the mistresses and masters capable
of teaching these should not waste their time on the
three R's ; but the children themselves would have no
time to spare, nor should they have. If their fathers
and mothers can read and count, they are the people
to teach reading and numbering, to earliest intelligent
infancy. For orphans, or children whose fathers and
mothers can't read or count, dame schools in every
village (best in the almshouses, where there might be
dames enow) are all that is wanted.
Secondly. I do not care that St. George's children,
as a rule, should learn either reading or writing, because
there are very few people in this world who get any
good by either. Broadly and practically, whatever
foolish people read, does them harm, and whatever
they write, does other people harm : (see my notes
on Narrs in general, and my own Narr friend in
particular, ' Fors,' Vol. V., page 125,) and nothing can
ever prevent this, for a fool attracts folly as decayed
meat attracts flies, and distils and assimilates it, no
matter out of what book ; — he can get as much out
of the Bible as any other, though of course he or she
usually reads only newspaper or novel.*
* Just think, for instance, of the flood of human idiotism that spent a
couple of years or so of its life in writing, printing, and reading the Tichbome
2ND SERIES.] 2/1
234
Fors Clavigera.
But thirdly. Even with children of good average
sense, — see, for example, what happened in our own
Coniston school, only the other day. I went in by
trial, — the whole of that vital energy and time being not only direct loss,
but loss in loathsome thoughts and vulgar inquisitiveness. Had it been
spent in pure silence, and prison darkness, how much better for all those
creatures' souls and eyes ! But, if they had been unable to read or write,
and made good sailors or woodcutters, they might, instead, have prevented
two -thirds of the shipwrecks on our own coast, or made a pestilential
province healthy on Ganges or Amazon.
Then think farther- —though which of us by any thinking can take measure ?
— of the pestilence of popular literature, as we perceive it now accommodating
itself to the tastes of an enlightened people, in chopping up its formerly
loved authors — now too hard for its understanding, and too pure for its
appetite — into crammed sausages, or blood-puddings swiftly gorgeable.
Think of Miss Braddon's greasy mince-pie of Scott ! — and buy, for subject
of awed meditation, 'No. I, One penny, complete in itself (published by
Henry Vickers, 317, Strand), the Story of Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens,
— re-arranged and sublimed into Elixir of Dickens, and Otto of Oliver,
and bottled in the following series of aromatic chapters, headed thus : —
lap. I.
At the Mercy of the Parish.
II.
In the Clutches of the Beadle
„ III.
Among the Coffins.
„ IV.
Among Thieves.
v.
Fagin the Jew.
„ VI.
Before the 'Beak.'
„ VII.
Bill Sikes.
„ VIII.
Nancy.
„ IX.
Nancy Carries on.
X.
The Burglary planned.
„ XI.
The Burglary.
„ XII.
A Mysterious Stranger.
„ XIII.
The Murdered Girl.
„ XIV.
The Murderer's Flight.
„ XV.
The Murderer's Death.
„ XVI.
The Jew's Last Night Alive.
Fors Clavigera. ' 235
chance during the hour for arithmetic ; and, inserting
myself on the nearest bench, learned, with the rest of
the class, how much seven-and-twenty pounds of bacon
would come to at ninepence farthing a pound, with
sundry the like marvellous consequences of the laws of
number ; until, feeling myself a little shy in remaining
always, though undetectedly, at the bottom of the class,
I begged the master to let us all rest a little ; and in
this breathing interval, taking a sovereign out of my
pocket, asked the children if they had ever been
shown the Queen's Arms on it ?.
(Unanimous silence.)
"At any rate, you know what the Queen's Arms
are ? " (Not a whisper.)
" What ! a roomful of English boys and girls, and
nobody know what the Queen's or the King's Arms
are — the Arms of England ? " (Mouths mostly a little
open, but with no purpose of speech. Eyes also, without
any immediate object of sight.)
" Do you not even remember seeing such a thing as
a harp on them ? " (Fixed attention, — no response.)
" Nor a lion on his hind legs ? Nor three little beasts
running in each corner ? " (Attention dissolving into
bewilderment)
" Well, next time I come, mind, you must be able to
tell me all about it ; — here's the sovereign to look at,
and when you've learnt it, you may divide it — if you
can. How many of you are there here to-day ? " (Sum
236 Fors Clavigera.
in addition, taking more time than usual, owing to the
difficulty of getting the figures to stand still. It is
established finally that there are thirty-five.)
" And how many pence in a sovereign ? " (Answer
instantaneous and vociferous.)
" And thirty-fives in two hundred and forty ? " (All
of us at pause. The master comes to the rescue,
and recommends us to try thirties instead of thirty-
fives.)
" It seems, then, if five of you will stand out, the
rest can have eightpence apiece. Which of you will
stand out ? "
And I left that question for them to resolve at their
leisure, seeing that it contained the essence of an
examination in matters very much higher than arith-
metic.
And now, suppose that there were any squire's sons
or daughters down here, for Christmas, from Christchurch
or Girton, who could and would accurately and explicitly
tell these children " all about " the Queen's Arms : what
the Irish Harp meant, and what a Bard was, and ought
to be ; — what the Scottish Lion meant, and how he
got caged by the tressure of Charlemagne,* and who
Charlemagne was ; — what the English leopards meant,
and who the Black Prince was, and how he reigned in
Aquitaine, — would not all this be more useful, in all
true senses, to the children, than being able, in two
* See 'Fors,' Letter XXV., pp. 12, 13, 14.
Fors Clavigera. 237
seconds quicker than children outside, to say how
much twenty-seven pounds of bacon comes to at
ninepence farthing a pound ? And if then they could
be shown, on a map, without any railroads on it, —
where Aquitaine was, and Poitiers, and where Picardy,
and Crecy, would it not, for children who are likely to
pass their lives in Coniston, be more entertaining and
more profitable than to learn where " New Orleans " is,
(without any new Joan to be named from it), or New
Jerusalem, without any new life to be lived in it ?
Fourthly. Not only do the arts of literature and
arithmetic continually hinder children in the acquisition
of ideas, — but they are apt greatly to confuse and
encumber the memory of them. Read now, with renewed
care, Plato's lovely parable of Theuth and the King of
Egypt (XVII. 7), and observe the sentences I translated,
though too feebly. " It is not medicine (to give the
power) of divine memory, but a quack's drug for memo-
randum, leaving the memory idle." Y myself, for instance,
have written down memoranda of many skies, but have
forgotten the skies themselves. Turner wrote nothing,
— but remembered all. And this is much more true
of things that depend for their beauty on sound and
accent ; for in the present fury of printing, bad verses,
that could not be heard without disgust, are continually
printed and read as if there was nothing wrong in
them ; while all the best powers of minstrel, bard and
troubadour depended on the memory and voice, as
238 Fors Clavigera.
distinct from writing.* All which was perfectly known
to wise men ages ago, and it is continually intimated
in the different forms which the myth of Hermes takes,
from this Ibis Theuth of Egypt down to Correggio's
most perfect picture of Mercury teaching Cupid to read ;
— where, if you will look at the picture wisely, you
see that it really ought to be called, Mercury trying,
and failing^ to teach Cupid to read! For, indeed,
from the beginning and to the end of time, Love
reads without letters, and counts without arithmetic.
But, lastly and chiefly, the personal conceit and
ambition developed by reading, in minds of selfish activity,
lead to the disdain of manual labour, and the desire of
all sorts of unattainable things, and fill the streets
with discontented and useless persons, seeking some
means of living in town society by their wits. I need
not enlarge on this head ; every reader's experience
must avow the extent and increasing plague of this
fermenting imbecility, striving to make for itself what
it calls a ' position in life.'
In sight, and thought of all these sources of evil
in our present staples of education, I drew out the
scheme of schooling, which incidentally and partially
defined in various passages of ' Fors ' (see mainly
* See lives of Beatrice and Lucia, in the first number of ' Roadside
Songs of Tuscany.'
f Sir Joshua, with less refinement, gives the same meaning to the myth,
in his picture of Cupid pouting and recusant, on being required to decipher
the word, " pinmoney."
Fors Clavigera. 239
Letter LXVIL, Vol. VI., p. 225), I now sum as
follows.
Every parish school to have garden, playground,
and cultivable land round it, or belonging to it,
spacious enough to employ the scholars in fine weather
mostly out of doors.
Attached to the building, a children's library, in
which the scholars who care to read may learn that art
as deftly as they like, by themselves, helping each other
without troubling the master ; — a sufficient laboratory
always, in which shall be specimens of all common
elements of natural substances, and where simple
chemical, optical, and pneumatic experiments may be
shown ; and according to the size and importance of
the school, attached workshops, many or few, — but
always a carpenter's, and first of those added in the
better schools, a potter's.
In the school itself, the things taught will be music,
geometry, astronomy, botany, zoology, to all ; drawing,
and history, to children who have gift for either. And
finally, to all children of whatever gift, grade, or age,
the laws of Honour, the habit of Truth, the Virtue of
Humility, and the Happiness of Love.
I say, the "virtue of Humility," as including all the
habits of Obedience and instincts of Reverence which
are dwelt on throughout ' Fors,' and all my other
books # — but the things included are of course the
* Compare especially "Crown of Wild Olive,' pp. 157, 165. I repeat
240 Fors Clavigera.
primary ones to be taught, and the thirteenth Aphorism
of that sixty-seventh letter cannot be too often repeated,
that " Moral education begins in making the creature
we have to educate, clean, and obedient." In after
time, this "virtue of humility" is to be taught to a
child chiefly by gentleness to its failures, showing it
that by reason of its narrow powers, it cannot but fail.
I have seen my old clerical master, the Rev. Thomas
Dale, beating his son Tom hard over the head with the
edge of a grammar, because Tom could not construe a
Latin verse, when the rev. gentleman ought only with
extreme tenderness and pitifulness to have explained to
Tom that — he wasn't Thomas the Rhymer.
For the definitely contrary cultivation of the vice
of Pride, l compare the education of Steerforth by
Mr. Creakle. (' David Copperfield/ chap, vi.)
But it is to be remembered that humility can only
be truly, and therefore only effectively taught, when the
master is swift to recognise the special faculties of
children, no less than their weaknesses, and that it is
his quite highest and most noble function to discern
emphatically the opening sentence — " Educate, or Govern, — they are one
and the same word. Education does not mean teaching people to know
what they do not know — it means teaching them to behave as they do not
behave. It is not teaching the youth of England the shapes of letters and
the tricks of numbers, and then leaving them to turn their arithmetic to
roguery and their literature to lust. It is, on the contrary, training them
into the perfect exercise and kingly continence of their bodies and souls, —
by kindness, by watching, by warning, by precept, and by praise, — but
above all, by example."
Fors Clavigera. 241
these, and prevent their discouragement or effacement
in the vulgar press for a common prize. See the
beautiful story of little George, ' Friends in Council.'
• Next, as to writing. A certain kind of writing,
which will take from half an hour to an hour for a
line, will indeed be taught — as long ago promised,
in St. George's schools ; examples being given of the
manner of it at p. 11 of Letter XVI., and Vol. VI.,
p. 123 ; but, so far from qualifying the pupil for
immediately taking a lucrative clerkship in a Govern-
ment office, or a county banking-house, or a solicitor's
ante-room, the entire aim of our training will be to
afoqualify him, for ever, from writing with any degree
of current speed ; and especially from producing any
such aeschrography, (as everybody writes Greek- English
nowadays, I use this term in order more clearly to
explain myself,) as the entry in my own Banker's book
facsimiled at p. 1 4, Vol. VI., and the ' Dec' for December
here facsimiled from a London tradesman's bill just
iuL,
sent in, f(_J<_j^ej or the ornamental R engrossed on
my Father's executor's articles of release, engraved at
p. 6 of Letter XVI. ; but to compel him, on the con-
trary, to write whatever words deserve to be written
in the most perfect and graceful and legible manner
possible to his hand.
And in this resolution, stated long since, I am now
more fixed than ever ; having had much experience
242 Fors Clavigera.
lately of handwriting, and finding, first, that the scholar
who among my friends does the most as well as the
best work, writes the most deliberately beautiful hand :
and that all the hands of sensible people agree in
being merely a reduction of good print to a form
producible by the steady motion of a pen, and are
therefore always round, and extremely upright, becoming
more or less picturesque according to the humour of
the writer, but never slurred into any unbecoming
speed, nor subdued by any merely mechanical habit,*
whereas the writing of foolish people is almost always
mechanically monotonous ; and that of begging-letter
writers, with rare exception, much sloped, and sharp
at the turns.
It will be the law of our schools, therefore, that the
children who want to write clerk's and begging-letter
hands, must learn them at home ; and will not be
troubled by us to write at all. The children who want
to write like gentlemen and ladies, (like St. Jerome, or
Queen Elizabeth, for instance,) will learn, as aforesaid,
with extreme slowness. And, if you will now read care-
fully the fiftieth letter, above referred to, you will find
* Sir Walter's hand, from the enormous quantity and constancy of his
labour, becomes almost mechanical in its steadiness, on the pages of his
novels ; but is quite free in his letters. Sir Joshua's hand is curiously
slovenly ; Tintoret's, grotesque and irregular in the extreme ; Nelson's,
almost a perfect type : especially in the point of not hurrying, see facsimile
just before Trafalgar, 'Fors' VI., p. 170. William the Conqueror and his
queen Matilda could only sign a cross for their names.
Fors Clavigera. 243
much to meditate upon, respecting home as well as
school teaching ; more especially the home-teaching of
the mining districts (p. 39), and the home library of
cheap printing, with the small value of it to little
Agnes (p. 32). And as it chances — for I have no more
time for retrospect in this letter — I will close it with
the record of a lesson received again in Agnes's cottage,
last week. Her mother died three years ago ; and
Agnes, and her sister Isabel, are at service : — another
family is in the cottage — and another little girl,
younger than Agnes, " Jane Anne," who has two elder
brothers, and one little one. The family have been
about a year there, beginning farmer's life, after miner's,
with much ill-fortune, the last stroke of which was the
carrying away of the entire roof of their grange, at
midnight, by the gale of 1 ith December, the timbers
of it thundering and splintering over the roof of the
dwelling house. The little girl was so terrified that she
had a succession of fainting fits next day, and was sent
for a week to Barrow, for change of scene. When I
went up on Wednesday last to see how things were going
on, she had come back that morning, and was sitting
with her child-brother on her lap, in the corner by the
fireside. I stayed talking to the mother for half an
hour, and all that time the younger child was so quiet
that I thought it must be ill ; but, on my asking, —
" Not he," the mother said, " but he's been jumping
about all the morning, and making such a fuss about
244 Fors Clavigera.
getting his sister back, that now he's not able to
stir."
But the dearest child of the cottage was not there.
Last spring they had a little boy, between these
two, full of intelligent life, and pearl of chief price
to them. He went down to the field by the brook-
side (Beck Leven), one bright morning when his elder
brother was mowing. The child came up behind
without speaking ; and the back sweep of the scythe
caught the leg, and divided a vein. His brother carried
him up to the house ; and what swift binding could
do was done — the doctor, three miles away, coming
as soon as might be, arranged all for the best, and
the child lay pale and quiet till the evening, speaking
sometimes a little to his father and mother. But at
six in the evening he began to sing. Sang on, clearer
and clearer, all through the night, — so clear at last,
you might have heard him, his mother said, "far out on
the moor there." Sang on till the full light of morning,
and so passed away.
" Did he sing with words ? " I asked.
" Oh, yes ; just the bits of hymns he had learnt at
the Sunday-school."
So much of his education finally available to him,
you observe.
Not the multiplication table then, nor catechism then,
nor commandments then, — these rhymes only remained
to him for his last happiness.
Fors Clavigera. 245
" Happiness in delirium only," say you ?
All true love, all true wisdom, and all true knowledge,
seem so to the world : but, without question, the forms
of weakness of body preceding death, or those during
life which are like them, are the testing states, often
the strongest states, of the soul. The " Oh, I could
prophesy ! " of Harry Percy, is neither dream, nor
delirium.-
And the lesson I received from that cottage history,
and which I would learn with my readers, is of the
power for good in what, rightly chosen, has- been rightly
learned by heart at school, whether it show at the
time or not. The hymn may be forgotten in the play-
ground, or ineffective afterwards in restraining contrary
habits of feeling and life. But all that is good and
right retains its unfelt authority ; and the main change
which I would endeavour to effect in ordinary school
discipline is to make the pupils read less, and remember
more ; exercising them in committing to memory, not
by painful effort, but by patient repetition, until they
cannot but remember, (and observing always that the
accentuation is right, — for if that be once right, the
understanding will come in due time), helping farther
with whatever elementary music, both of chant and
instrument, may be familiarly attainable. To which
end, may I modestly recommend all musical clergymen,
and churchwardens, to dispense — if funds are limited —
with organs in the church, in favour of harp, harpsi-
246 Fors Clavigera.
chord, zittern, or peal of bells, in the schoolroom : and
to endeavour generally to make the parish enjoy proper
music out of the church as well as in it, and on Saturday
as well as Sunday.
I hope to persevere in these summaries through
next letter ; meantime, this curiously apposite passage
in one received this morning, from a much valued
Companion, needs instant answer (she is the second
tutress in a school for young girls, which has been
lately begun by a German lady, who is resolved to
allow no ' cramming ') : —
"We have nineteen pupils now, and more are pro-
mised. The children are all progressing satisfactorily,
and seem happy, but our path will be up-hill for
some time to come. Sewing is in a very backward
condition ; the children think it would be better done
in the machine. Hardly any of them can write, and
we can't get any decent large-hand copy-books. And
they don't like poetry ! What is to be done with
such matter-of-fact young persons ? On the other
hand, they are loveable and intelligent children, much
interested in the garden (they are to have little gardens
of their own when the spring comes) and the birds.
Birds, you observe, not merely sparrows ; for though
we are only on the edge of the Liverpool smoke we
have plenty of robins and starlings, besides one tomtit,
and a visit from a chaffinch the other day. We have
not been able to begin the cookery class yet, for we
Fors Clavigera. 247
are not actually living at the school ; we hope to take
up our abode there next term. Mrs. Green, my
' principal,' — I don't see why I shouldn't say mistress,
I like the word much better, — could teach spinning
if she had a wheel, only then people would say we
were insane, and take the children away from us.
" I am very much obliged for last ' Fors,' and delighted
to hear that there is a new one nearly ready. But
would you please be a little bit more explicit on the
subject of ' work ' and ' ladyhood.' Not that what
you have said already seems obscure to me, but people
disagree as to the interpretation of it. The other night
I proposed to a few fellow-disciples that we should
make an effort to put ourselves in serviceable relation-
ship to some few of our fellow-creatures, and they told
me that ' all that was the landlord's business or the
capitalist's.' Rather disheartening, to a person who has
no hope of ever becoming a landlord or capitalist."
Yes, my dear, and very finely the Landlord and
Capitalist — in the sense these people use the words —
of land-taxer and labour-taxer, have done that business
of theirs hitherto ! Land and labour appear to be
discovering — and rather fast now-a-days — that perhaps
they might get along by themselves, if they were to try.
Of that, more next letter ; — for the answers to your
main questions in this, — the sewing is a serious one.
The 4 little wretches ' — (this is a well-trained young
lady's expression, not mine — interjectional on my
248 Fors Clavigera.
reading the passage to her) must be got out of all
that as soon as you can. For plain work, get Miss
Stanley's book, which gives you the elements of this
work at Whitelands, — (I hope, however, to get Miss
Greenaway to sketch us a pattern frock or two, in-
stead of the trimmed water-butts of Miss Stanley's
present diagrams) — and for fine work, make them
every one sew a proper sampler, with plenty of
robins in it, and your visitors the tomtit and
chaffinch, and any motto they like in illuminated
letters, finished with gold thread, — the ground, silk.
Then, for my meaning as to women's work, what
should I mean, but scrubbing furniture, dusting walls,
sweeping floors, making the beds, washing up the
crockery, ditto the children, and whipping them when
they want it, — mending their clothes, cooking their
dinners, — and when there are cooks more than enough,
helping with the farm work, or the garden, or the dairy ?
Is that plain speaking enough ? Have I not fifty times
over, in season and out of season, dictated and insisted
and asseverated and — what stronger word else there may
be — that the essentially right life for all woman-kind is
that of the Swiss Paysanne, — and given Gotthelf 's Freueli
for the perfect type of it, and dedicated to her in
' Proserpina ' the fairest pansy in the world, keeping
only the poor little one of the sand-hills for Ophelia ?
But in a rougher way yet — take now the facts of such
life in old Scotland, seen with Walter Scott's own eyes.
Fors Clavigera. 249
" I have often heard Scott mention some curious
particulars of his first visit to the remote fastness of
one of these Highland friends ; but whether he told
the story of Invernahyle, or of one of his own relations
of the Clan Campbell, I do not recollect ; I rather think
the latter was the case. On reaching the brow of a
bleak eminence overhanging the primitive tower and its
tiny patch of cultivated ground, he found his host and
three sons, and perhaps half a dozen attendant gillies,
all stretched half asleep in their tartans upon the heath,
with guns and dogs, and a profusion of game about
them ; while in the courtyard, far below, appeared a
company of women, actively engaged in loading a cart
with manure. The stranger was not a little astonished
when he discovered, on descending from the height,
that among these industrious females were the laird's
own lady, and two or three of her daughters ; but
they seemed quite unconscious of having been detected
in an occupation unsuitable to their rank — retired pre-
sently to their ' bowers,' and when they reappeared in
other dresses, retained no traces of their morning's work,
except complexions glowing with a radiant freshness,
for one evening of which many a high-bred beauty
would have bartered half her diamonds. He found
the young ladies not ill informed, and exceedingly
agreeable ; and the song and the dance seemed to
form the invariable termination of their busy days."
You think such barbarism for ever past ? No, my
2ND SERIES.] 2 5
5o
Fors Clavigera.
dears ; it is only the barbarity of idle gentlemen that
must pass. They will have to fill the carts — you to
drive them ; and never any more evade the burden
and heat of the day — they, in shooting birds and
each other, or you in walking about in sun-hats and
parasols, — like this
V* ^s
LETTER THE 95th.
FORS INFANTLffi.
DO not well know whether it has more distressed,
-*■ or encouraged me, to find how much is wanting,
and how much to be corrected, in the hitherto accepted
modes of school education for our youngest children.
Here, for the last year or two, I have had the most
favourable opportunities for watching and trying various
experiments on the minds of country children, most
thankfully recognising their native power ; and most
sorrowfully the inefficiency of the means at the school-
2XD SERIES.] 26
252 Fors Clavigera.
master's disposal, for its occupation and development.
For the strengthening of his hands, and that of our
village teachers and dames in general, I have written
these following notes at speed, for the brevity and
slightness of which I must pray the reader's indulgence :
he will find the substance of them has been long and
deeply considered.
But first let me fulfil the pledge given in last
number of 'Fors' by a few final words about the Land
Question — needless, if people would read my preceding
letters with any care, but useful, as a general heading
of them, for those who have not time to do so.
The plan of St. George's Guild is wholly based on the
supposed possession of land by hereditary proprietors,
inalienably ; or if by societies, under certain laws of
responsibility to the State.
In common language, and in vulgar thought, the pos-
session of land is confused with " freedom." But no man
is so free as a beggar ; and no man is more solemnly a
servant to Gcd, the king, and the laws of his country,
than an honest land-holder.
The nonsense thought and talked about 'Nationalization
of Land,' like other nonsense, must have its day, I suppose,
— and I hope, soon, its night. All healthy states from
the beginning of the world, living on land,* are founded
on hereditary tenure, and perish when either the lords
cr peasants sell their estates, much more when they let
* As distinct from those living by trade or piracy.
Fors Clavigera. 253
them out for hire. The single line of the last words of
John of Gaunt to Richard II., " Landlord of England
art thou now, not King," expreses the root of the whole
matter ; and the present weakness of the Peers in their
dispute with the Commons is because the Upper
House is composed now no more of Seigneurs, but of
Landlords.
Possession of land implies the duty of living on it,
and by it, if there is enough to live on ; then, having
got one's own life from it by one's own labour or wise
superintendence of labour, if there is more land than
is enough for one's self, the duty of making it fruitful
and beautiful for as many more as can live on it.
The owner of land, necessarily and justly left in a
great measure by the State to do what he will with his
own, is nevertheless entirely responsible to the State
for the generally beneficial management of his territory ;
and the sale of his land, or of any portion of it, only
allowed under special conditions, and with solemn public
registry of the transference to another owner : above
all, the landmarks by which estates are described are
never to be moved.
A certain quantity of public land (some belonging to
the king and signory, some to the guilds of craftsmen,
some to the town or village corporations) must be set
aside for public uses and pleasures, and especially for
purposes of education, which, rightly comprehended,
consists, half of it, in making children familiar with
2ND SERIES.] 2*]
254 Fors Clavigera.
natural objects, and the other half in teaching the
practice of piety towards them (piety meaning kindness
to living things, and orderly use of the lifeless).
And throughout the various passages referring to this
subject in ' Fors,' it will be found that I always pre-
suppose a certain quantity of carefully tended land to
be accessible near our schools and universities, not for
exercise merely, but for instruction ; — see last ' Fors/
P. 239.
Of course, schools of this kind cannot be in large
towns, — the town school must be for townspeople ; but
I start with the general principle that every school is to
be fitted for the children in its neighbourhood who are
likely to grow up and live in its neighbourhood. The
idea of a general education which is to fit everybody to
be Emperor of Russia, and provoke a boy, whatever he is,
to want to be something better, and wherever he was born
to think it a disgrace to die, is the most entirely and
directly diabolic of all the countless stupidities into which
the British nation has been of late betrayed by its avarice
and irreligion. There are, indeed, certain elements of
education which are alike necessary to the inhabitants of
every spot of earth. Cleanliness, obedience, the first laws
of music, mechanics, and geometry, the primary facts of
geography and astronomy, and the outlines of history,
should evidently be taught alike to poor and rich, to
sailor and shepherd, to labourer and shopboy. But for
the rest, the efficiency of any school will be found to
Fors Clavigera. 255
increase exactly in the ratio of its direct adaptation to
the circumstances of the children it receives ; and the
quantity of knowledge to be attained in a given time
being equal, its value will depend on the possibilities of
its instant application. You need not teach botany to
the sons of fishermen, architecture to shepherds, or painting
to colliers ; still less the elegances of grammar to children
who throughout the probable course of their total lives
will have, or ought to have, little to say, and nothing to
write.*
Farther, of schools in all places, and for all ages, the
healthy working will depend on the total exclusion of
the stimulus of competition in any form or disguise.
Every child should be measured by its own standard,
trained to its own duty, and rewarded by its just praise.
It is the effort that deserves praise, not the success ; nor
is it a question for any student whether he is cleverer
than others or duller, but whether he has done the best
he could with the gifts he has. The madness of the
modern cram and examination system arises principally
out of the struggle to get lucrative places ; but partly
also out of the radical blockheadism of supposing that
all men are naturally equal, and can only make their
* I am at total issue with most preceptors as to the use of grammar to
any body. In a recent examination of our Coniston school I observed that
the thing the children did exactly best, was their parsing, and the thing
they did exactly worst, their repetition. Could stronger proof be given
that the dissection of a sentence is as bad a way to the understanding of it
as the dissection of a beast to the biography of it ?
256 Fors Clavigera.
way by elbowing; — the facts being that every child is
born with an accurately defined and absolutely limited
capacity ; that he is naturally (if able at all) able for
some things and unable for others ; that no effort
and no teaching can add one particle to the granted
ounces of his available brains ; that by competition he
may paralyse or pervert his faculties, but cannot stretch
them a line ; and that the entire grace, happiness, and
virtue of his life depend on his contentment in doing
what he can, dutifully, and in staying where he is,
peaceably. So far as he regards the less or more
capacity of others, his superiorities are to be used
for their help, not for his own pre-eminence ; and his
inferiorities to be no ground of mortification, but of
pleasure in the admiration of nobler powers. It is
impossible to express the quantity of delight I used to
feel in the power of Turner and Tintoret, when my own
skill was nascent only ; and all good artists will admit
that there is far less personal pleasure in doing a thing
beautifully than in seeing it beautifully done. Therefore,
over the door of every school, and the gate of every
college, I would fain see engraved in their marble the
absolute Forbidding
fjL7)8ev /caret ipiOeiav 77 Kevoho^iav :
" Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory : "
and I would have fixed for each age of children and
students a certain standard of pass in examination, so
Fors Clavigera. 257
adapted to average capacity and power of exertion, that
none need fail who had attended to their lessons and
obeyed their masters ; while its variety of trial should yet
admit of the natural distinctions attaching to progress
in especial subjects and skill in peculiar arts. Beyond
such indication or acknowledgment of merit, there
should be neither prizes nor honours ; these are meant
by Heaven to be the proper rewards of a man's con-
sistent and kindly life, not of a youth's temporary and
selfish exertion.
Nor, on the other hand, should the natural torpor
of wholesome dulness be disturbed by provocations,
or plagued by punishments. The wise proverb ought
in every schoolmaster's mind to be deeply set — " You
cannot make a silk purse of a sow's ear ; " expanded
with the farther scholium that the flap of it will not be
the least disguised by giving it a diamond earring. If,
in a woman, beauty without discretion be as a jewel of
gold in a swine's snout, much more, in man, woman,
or child, knowledge without discretion — the knowledge
which a fool receives only to puff up his stomach, and
sparkle in his cockscomb. As I said,* that in matters
moral, most men are not intended to be any better
than sheep and robins, so, in matters intellectual, most
men are not intended to be any wiser than their cocks
and bulls, — duly scientific of their yard and pasture,
peacefully nescient of all beyond. To be proud and
* Notes on the life of Santa Zita (' Songs of Tuscany.' Part II.).
258 Fors Clavigera,
strong, each in his place and work, is permitted and
ordained to the simplest ; but ultra, — ne sutor, ne
fossor.
And it is in the wholesome indisposition of the average
mind for intellectual labour that due provision is made for
the quantity of dull work which must be done in stubbing
the Thornaby wastes of the world. Modern Utopianism
imagines that the world is to be stubbed by steam, and
human arms and legs to be eternally idle ; not perceiving
that thus it would reduce man to the level of his cattle
indeed, who can only graze and gore, but not dig ! It is
indeed certain that advancing knowledge will guide us to
less painful methods of human toil ; but in the true
Utopia, man will rather harness himself, with his oxen, to
his plough, than leave the devil to drive it.
The entire body of teaching throughout the series of
1 Fors Clavigera ' is one steady assertion of the necessity
that educated persons should share their thoughts with
the uneducated, and take also a certain part in their
labours. But there is not a sentence implying that the
education of all should be alike, or that there is to be
no distinction of master from servant, or of scholar from
clown. That education should be open to all, is as
certain as that the sky should be ; but, as certainly, it
should be enforced on none, and benevolent Nature left
to lead her children, whether men or beasts, to take or
leave at their pleasure. Bring horse and man to the
water, let them drink if, and when, they will ; — the
Fors Clavigera. 259
child who desires education will be bettered by it, the
child who dislikes it, only disgraced.
Of course, I am speaking here of intellectual education,
not moral. The laws of virtue and honour are, indeed, to
be taught compulsorily to all men ; whereas our present
forms of education refuse to teach them to any ; and
allow the teaching, by the persons interested in their
promulgation, of the laws of cruelty and lying, until we
find these British islands gradually filling with a breed of
men who cheat without shame, and kill without remorse.
It is beyond the scope of the most sanguine thought
to conceive how much misery and crime would be effaced
from the world by persistence, even for a few years,
of a system of education thus directed to raise the fittest
into positions of influence, to give to every scale of
intellect its natural sphere, and to every line of action
its unquestioned principle. At present wise men, for
the most part, are silent, and good men powerless ; the
senseless vociferate, and the heartless govern ; while all
social law and providence are dissolved by the enraged
agitation of a multitude, among whom every villain has
a chance of power, every simpleton of praise, and every
scoundrel of fortune.
Passing now to questions of detail in the mode of
organising school instruction, I would first insist on the
necessity of a sound system in elementary music. Musi-
cians, like painters, are almost virulently determined in
their efforts to abolish the laws of sincerity and purity ;
260 Fors Clavigera.
and to invent, each for his own glory, new modes of
dissolute and lascivious sound. No greater benefit could
be conferred on the upper as well as the lower classes
of society than the arrangement of a grammar of simple
and pure music, of which the code should be alike
taught in every school in the land. My attention has
been long turned to this object, but I have never till
lately had leisure to begin serious work upon it.
During the last year, however, I have been making
experiments with a view to the construction of an instru-
ment by which very young children could be securely
taught the relations of sound in the octave ; unsuccessful
only in that the form of lyre which was produced for me,
after months of labour, by the British manufacturer, was
as curious a creation of visible deformity as a Greek lyre
was of grace, besides being nearly as expensive as a piano !
For the present, therefore, not abandoning the hope of
at last attaining a simple stringed instrument, I have
fallen back — and I think, probably, with final good
reason — on the most sacred of all musical instruments,
the 'Bell/
Whether the cattle-bell of the hills, or, from the cathedral
tower, monitor of men, I believe the sweetness of its pro-
longed tone the most delightful and wholesome for the
ear and mind of all instrumental sound. The subject is
too wide to be farther dwelt on here ; of experiment or
progress made, account will be given in my reports to the
St. George's Guild.
Fors Clavigera. 261
Next for elocution. The foundational importance of
beautiful speaking has been disgraced by the confusion
of it with diplomatic oratory, and evaded by the vicious
notion that it can be taught by a master learned in it as
a separate art. The management of the lips, tongue, and
throat may, and perhaps should, be so taught ; but this
is properly the first function of the singing master.
Elocution is a moral faculty ; and no one is fit to be the
head of a children's school who is not both by nature
and attention a beautiful speaker.
By attention, I say, for fine elocution means first an
exquisitely close attention to, and intelligence of, the
meaning of words, and perfect sympathy with what feeling
they describe ; but indicated always with reserve. In this
reserve, fine reading and speaking, (virtually one art),
differ from " recitation," which gives the statement or
sentiment with the explanatory accent and gesture of an
actor. In perfectly pure elocution, on the contrary, the
accent ought, as a rule, to be much lighter and gentler
than the natural or dramatic one, and the force of it
wholly independent of gesture or expression of feature.
A fine reader should read, a great speaker speak, as a
judge delivers his charge; and the test of his power
should be to read or speak unseen.
At least an hour of the school-day should be spent
in listening to the master's or some trustworthy visitor's
reading, but no children should attend unless they were
really interested ; the rest being allowed to go on with
262 Fors Clavigera.
their other lessons or employments ; a large average
of children, I suppose, are able to sew or draw while
they yet attend to reading, and so there might be
found a fairly large audience, of whom however those
who were usually busy during the lecture should not
be called upon for any account of what they had heard ;
but, on the contrary, blamed, if they had allowed their
attention to be diverted by the reading from what they
were about, to the detriment of their work. The real
audience consisting of the few for whom the book had
been specially chosen, should be required to give perfect
and unbroken attention to what they heard ; to stop
the reader always at any word or sentence they did not
understand, and to be prepared for casual examination
on the story next day.
I say ' on the story I for the reading, whether poetry
or prose, should always be a story of some sort, whether
true history, travels, romance, or fairy-tale. In poetry,
Chaucer, Spenser, and Scott, for the upper classes,
lighter ballad or fable for the lower, contain always
some thread of pretty adventure. No merely didactic
or descriptive books should be permitted in the reading
room, but so far as they are used at all, studied in the
same way as grammars ; and Shakespeare, accessible
always at play time in the library in small and large
editions to the young and old alike, should never be used
as a school book, nor even formally or continuously read
aloud. He is to be known by thinking, not mouthing.
Fors Clavigera. 263
I have used, not unintentionally, the separate words
1 reading room ' and library. No school should be con-
sidered as organized at all, without these two rooms,
rightly furnished ; the reading room, with its convenient
pulpit and students' desks, in good light, skylight if
possible, for drawing, or taking notes — the library with
its broad tables for laying out books on, and recesses
for niched reading, and plenty of lateral light kept
carefully short of glare : both of them well shut off
from the schoolroom or rooms, in which there must be
always more or less of noise.
The Bible-reading, and often that of other books in
which the text is divided into verses or stanzas, should
be frequently conducted by making the children read
each its separate verse in important passages, afterwards
committing them to memory, — the pieces chosen for
this exercise should of course be the same at all schools,
— with wider scope given within certain limits for
choice in profane literature : requiring for a pass, that
the children should know accurately out of the passages
chosen, a certain number, including not less than five
hundred lines, of such poetry as would always be helpful
and strengthening to them ; therefore never melancholy,
but didactic, or expressive of cheerful and resolute feeling.
No discipline is. of more use to a child's character, with
threefold bearing on intellect, memory, and morals, than
the being accustomed to relate accurately what it has
lately done and seen. The story of Eyes and No Eyes
264 Fors Clavigera.
in ' Evenings at Home ' is intended only to illustrate the
difference between inattention and vigilance ; but the
exercise in narration is a subsequent and separate one ;
it is in the lucidity, completeness, and honesty of state-
ment. Children ought to be frequently required to give
account of themselves, though always allowed reserve, if
they ask : " I would rather not say, mamma," should be
accepted at once with serene confidence on occasion ; but
of the daily walk and work the child should take pride in
giving full account, if questioned ; the parent or tutor
closely lopping exaggeration, investigating elision, guiding
into order, and aiding in expression. The finest historical
style may be illustrated in the course of the narration
of the events of the day.
Next, as regards arithmetic : as partly stated already
in the preceding 'Fors,' p. 233, children's time should
never be wasted, nor their heads troubled with it. The
importance at present attached to it is a mere filthy
folly, coming of the notion that every boy is to become
first a banker's clerk and then a banker, — and that every
woman's principal business is in checking the cook's
accounts. Let children have small incomes of pence won
by due labour, — they will soon find out the difference
between a threepenny-piece and a fourpenny, and how
many of each go to a shilling. Then, watch the way
they spend their money,* and teach them patience in
* Not in Mrs. Pardiggle's fashion : a child ought to have a certain sum given
it to give away, and a certain sum to spend for itself wisely ; and it ought not
Fors Clavigera. 26
0
saving, and the sanctity of a time-honoured hoard (but
for use in a day of need, not for lending at interest) ;
so they will painlessly learn the great truth known to
so few of us — that two and two make four, not five.
Then insist on perfect habits of order and putting-by
of things ; this involves continually knowing and
counting how many there are. The multiplication
table may be learned when they want it — a longish
addition sum will always do instead ; and the mere
mechanism of multiplication and division and dotting
and carrying can be taught by the monitors ; also of
fractions, as much as that \ means a half-penny and
\ a farthing.*
Next for geography. There is, I suppose, no subject
better taught at elementary schools ; but to the pursuit
of it, whether in advanced studentship or in common life,
there is now an obstacle set so ludicrously insuperable,
that for ordinary people it is simply an end to effort. I
happen at this moment to have the first plate to finish for
the ' Bible of Amiens,' giving an abstract of the features
of France. I took for reduction, as of convenient size,
probably containing all I wanted to reduce, the map in
the ' Harrow Atlas of Modern Geography,' and found the
to be allowed to give away its spending money. Prudence is a much more rare
virtue than generosity.
* I heard an advanced class tormented out of its life the other day at our
school to explain the difference between a numerator and denominator. I
wasn't sure myself, for the minute, which was which ; and supremely didn't
care.
266 Fors Clavigera.
only clearly visible and the only accurately delineated
things in it, were the railroads ! To begin with, there
are two Mont Blancs, of which the freeborn British
boy may take his choice. Written at some distance
from the biggest of them, in small italics, are the
words " Grand St. Bernard," which the boy cannot but
suppose to refer to some distant locality ; but neither
of the Mont Blancs, each represented as a circular pimple,
is engraved with anything like the force and shade of
the Argonne hills about Bar le Due ; while the southern
chain of the hills of Burgundy is similarly repre-
sented as greatly more elevated than the Jura. Neither
the Rhine, Rhone, Loire, nor Seine is visible except
with a lens ; nor is any boundary of province to be
followed by the eye ; patches of feeble yellow and
pale brown, dirty pink and grey, and uncertain green,
melt into each other helplessly across wrigglings of
infinitesimal dots ; while the railways, not merely
black lines, but centipede or myriapede caterpillars,
break up all France, as if it were crackling clay, into
senseless and shapeless divisions, in which the eye
cannot distinguish from the rest even the great lines
of railway themselves, nor any relative magnitudes of
towns, nor even their places accurately, — the measure
of nonsense and misery being filled up by a mist of
multitudinous names of places never heard of, much
less 'spoken of, by any human being ten miles out of
them.
Fors Clavigera. 267
For maps of this kind, there can be no question
with any reasonable human creature that, first, proper
physical maps should be substituted ; and secondly,
proper historical ones ; the diagrams of the railways
being left to Bradshaw ; and the fungus growths of
modern commercial towns to the sellers of maps for
counting-houses. And the Geological Society should,
for pure shame, neither write nor speak another word,
till it has produced effectively true models to scale
of the known countries of the world. These, photo-
graphed in good side light, would give all that was
necessary of the proportion and distribution of moun-
tain ranges ;* and these photographs should afterwards
be made the basis of beautiful engravings, giving the
character of every district completely, whether arable,
wooded, rocky, moor, sand, or snow, with the carefullest
and clearest tracing of the sources and descent of its
rivers ; and, in equally careful distinction of magnitude,
as stars on the celestial globe, the capitals and great
provincial towns ; but absolutely without names or
inscriptions of any kind. The boy who cannot, except
by the help of inscription, know York from Lancaster,
or Rheims from Dijon, or Rome from Venice, need
not be troubled to pursue his geographical studies.
* Of the cheap barbarisms and abortions of modern cram, the frightful
method of representing mountain chains by black bars is about the most
ludicrous and abominable. All mountain chains are in groups, not bars,
and their watersheds are often entirely removed from their points of greatest
elevation.
268 Fors Clavigera.
The keys to every map, with the names, should form
part of the elementary school geography, which should
be the same over the whole British Empire, and should
be extremely simple and brief; concerning itself in no
wise with manners and customs, number of inhabitants,
or species of beasts, but strictly with geographical fact,
completed by so much intelligible geology, as should
explain whether hills were of chalk, slate, or granite,
and remain mercifully silent as to whether they
were Palaeo- or Kaino-zoic, Permian or Silurian. The
age, or ages of the world, are not of the smallest
consequence either to ants or myrmidons, — either to
moths or men. But the ant and man must know
where the world, now existent, is soft or flinty, cul-
tivable or quarriable.
Of course, once a system of drawing rightly made
universal, the hand-colouring of these maps would be
one of the drawing exercises, absolutely costless, and
entirely instructive. The historical maps should also,
as a matter of course, be of every county in successive
centuries ; — the state of things in the nineteenth
century being finally simplified into a general brown
fog, intensified to blackness over the manufacturing
centres.
Next, in astronomy, the beginning of all is to teach
the child the places and names of the stars when it
can see them, and to accustom it to watch for the
nightly change of those visible. The register of the
Fors Clavigera. 269
visible stars of first magnitude and planets should be
printed largely and intelligibly for every day of the year,
and set by the schoolmaster every day ; and the arc
described by the sun, with its following and preceding
stars, from point to point of the horizon visible at the
place, should be drawn, at least weekly, as the first of
the drawing exercises.
These, connected on one side with geometry, on the
other with writing, should be carried at least as far, and
occupy as long a time, as the exercises in music ; and
the relations of the two arts, and meaning of the words
' composition,' * symmetry,' ' grace,' and ' harmony ' in
both, should be very early insisted upon and illustrated.
For all these purposes, every school should be furnished
with progressive examples, in facsimile, of beautiful
illuminated writing : for nothing could be more con-
ducive to the progress of general scholarship and taste
than that the first natural instincts of clever children
for the imitation or, often, the invention of picture
writing, should be guided and stimulated by perfect
models in their own kind.
The woodcut prefixed to this number shows very
curiously what complete harmony there is between a
clever child's way of teaching itself to draw and write —
(and no teaching is so good for it as its own, if that can
be had) — and the earliest types of beautiful national
writing. The indifference as to the places of the letters,
or the direction in which they are to be read, and the
2ND SERIES.] 28
270 Fors Clavigera.
insertion of any that are to spare for the filling of corners
or otherwise blank spaces in the picture, are exactly the
modes of early writing which afterwards give rise to
its most beautiful decorative arrangements — a certain
delight in the dignity of enigma being always at the
base of this method of ornamentation. The drawing
is by the same little girl whose anxiety that her doll's
dress might not hurt its feelings has been already
described in my second lecture at Oxford, on the Art
of England. This fresco, executed nearly at the same
time, when she was six or seven years old, may be
compared by antiquarians, not without interest, with
early Lombardic MSS. It needs, I think, no farther
elucidation than some notice of the difficulty caused
by the substitution of T for J in the title of ' The
Jug,' and the reversal of the letter Z in that of ' The
Zebra,' and warning not to mistake the final E of ' The
Cake ' for the handle of a spotted tea-cup. The most
beautifully Lombardic involution is that of " The Fan,"
written —
TN H
E A q
Next, for zoology, I am taking the initiative in what
is required myself, by directing some part of the funds
of the St. George's Guild to the provision of strongly
ringed frames, large enough to contain the beautiful
illustrations given by Gould, Audubon, and other such
Fors Clavigera. 271
naturalists ; and I am cutting my best books to pieces
for the filling of these frames, which can be easily passed
from school to school ; and I hope to prepare with speed
a general text for them, totally incognisant of all quarrel
or inquiry concerning species, and the origin thereof;
but simply calling a hawk a hawk, and an owl an
owl ; and trusting to the scholars' sagacity to see the
difference ; but giving him all attainable information
concerning the habits and talents of every bird and
beast.
Similarly in botany, for which there are quite unlimited
means of illustration, in the exquisite original drawings
and sketches of great botanists, now uselessly lying in
inaccessible cupboards of the British Museum and other
scientific institutions. But the most pressing need is
for a simple handbook of the wild flowers of every
country — French flowers for French children, Teuton
for Teuton, Saxon for Saxon, Highland for Scot —
severely accurate in outline, and exquisitely coloured by
hand (again the best possible practice in our drawing
schools) ; with a text regardless utterly of any but the
most popular names, and of all microscopic observation ;
but teaching children the beauty of plants as they grow>
and their culinary uses when gathered, and that, except
for such uses, they should be left growing.
And lastly of needlework. I find among the materials
of ' Fors,' thrown together long since, but never used,
the following sketch of what the room of the Sheffield
272 Fors Clavigera.
Museum, set apart for its illustration, was meant to
contain.
" All the acicular art of nations, savage and civilized —
from Lapland boot, letting in no snow water, to Turkey
cushion bossed with pearl, — to valance of Venice gold
in needlework, — to the counterpanes and samplers of our
own lovely ancestresses — imitable, perhaps, once more,
with good help from Whitelands College and Girton.
It was but yesterday my own womankind were in
much wholesome and sweet excitement, delightful to
behold, in the practice of some new device of remedy
for Rents (to think how much of evil there is in the
two senses of that four-lettered word ! in the two
methods of intonation of its synonym, Tear !), whereby
it might be daintily effaced, and with a newness which
would never make it worse. The process began —
beautiful even to my uninformed eyes — in the likeness
of herringbone masonry, crimson on white, but it
seemed to me marvellous that anything should yet
be discoverable in needle process, and that of so
utilitarian character.
" All that is reasonable, I say, of such work is to be in
our first Museum room ; all that Athena and Penelope
would approve. Nothing that vanity has invented for
change, or folly loved for costliness.
" Illustrating the true nature of a thread and a needle,
the structure first of wool and cotton, of fur and hair
and down, hemp, flax, and silk, microscope permissible,
Fors Clavigera. 273
here, if anything can be shown of why wool is soft, and
fur fine, and cotton downy, and down downier ; and
how a flax fibre differs from a dandelion stalk, and how
the substance of a mulberry leaf can become velvet for
Queen Victoria's crown, and clothing of purple for the
housewife of Solomon.
11 Then the phase of its dyeing. What azures and
emeralds and Tyrian scarlets can be got into fibres of
thread !
" Then the phase of its spinning. The mystery of that
divine spiral, from finest to firmest, which renders lace
possible at Valenciennes ; — anchorage possible, after
Trafalgar, (if Hardy had done as he was bid).
" Then the mystery of weaving. The eternal harmony
of warp and woof; of all manner of knotting, knitting,
and reticulation ; the art which makes garments possible
woven from the top throughout ; draughts of fishes
possible, miraculous enough, always, when a pilchard or
herring shoal gathers itself into companionable catch-
ableness ; — which makes, in fine, so many nations
possible, and Saxon and Norman beyond the rest.
" And, finally, the accomplished phase of needlework —
the ' Acu Tetigisti ' of all time, which does indeed
practically exhibit — what mediaeval theologists vainly
disputed — how many angels can stand on a needle
point, directing the serviceable stitch, to draw the
separate into the inseparable."
Very thankfully I can now say that this vision of
274 Fors Clavigera.
thread and needlework, though written when my fancy
had too much possession of me, is now being in all
its branches realized by two greatly valued friends, —
the spinning on the old spinning-wheel, with most happy
and increasingly acknowledged results, systematized here
among our Westmorland hills by Mr. Albert Fleming ;
the useful sewing, by Miss Stanley of Whitelands
College, whose book on that subject seems to me in
the text of it all that can be desired, but the diagrams
of dress may perhaps receive further consideration. For
indeed the schools of all young womankind are in great
need of such instruction in dressmaking as shall comply
with womankind's natural instinct for self-decoration in
all worthy and graceful ways, repressing in the rich their
ostentation, and encouraging in the poor their whole-
some pride. On which matters, vital to the comfort and
happiness of every household, I may have a word or
two yet to say in next ' Fors ; ' being content that this
one should close with the subjoined extract from a letter
I received lately from Francesca's mother, who, if any
one, has right to be heard on the subject of education ;
and the rather that it is, in main purport, contrary
to much that I have both believed and taught, but,
falling in more genially with the temper of recent
tutors and governors, may by them be gratefully acted
upon, and serve also for correction of what I may
have myself too servilely thought respecting the need
of compulsion.
Fors Clavigera. 275
"If I have the least faculty for anything in this
world, it is for teaching children, and making them
good and perfectly happy going along. My whole prin-
ciple is that no government is of the least use except
self-government, and the worst children will do right,
if told which is right and wrong, and that they must
act for themselves. Then I have a fashion, told me
by a friend when Francesca was a baby; which is this,
— never see evil, but praise good ; for instance, if children
are untidy, do not find fault, or appear to notice it, but
the first time possible, praise them for being neat and
fresh, and they will soon become so. I dare say you
can account for this, I cannot ; but I have tried it many
times, and have never known it fail. I have other ideas,
but you might not approve of them, — the religious in-
struction I limited to paying my little friends for learning
Dr. Watts' " Though I'm now in younger days," but I
suppose that, like my system generally, is hopelessly old
fashioned. Very young children can learn this verse
from it : —
"Til not willingly offend,
Nor be easily offended ;
What's amiss I'll strive to mend,
And endure what can't be mended.'
There was an old American sea captain who said he
had been many times round the world comfortably by
the help of this verse."
276 Fors Clavigera.
The following letters necessitate the return to my old
form of notes and correspondence ; but as I intend now
the close of ' Fors ' altogether, that I may have leisure
for some brief autobiography instead, the old book may
be permitted to retain its colloquial character to the
end.
11 Woodburn, Selkirk, N.B., wth December, 1883.
"Dear Sir, — The Ashesteil number of 'Fors' reaches me as I
complete certain notes on the relationship of Scott to Mungo
Park, which will form part of a History of Ettrick Forest, which I
hope to publish in 1884. This much in explanation of my pre-
sumption in writing you at all.
" Having now had all the use of them I mean to take, I send
you copies of three letters taken by myself from the originals
— and never published until last year, in an obscure local
print : —
" 1. Letter from Mungo Park to his sister. 2. Letter from Scott
to Mrs. Laidlaw, of Peel (close to Ashesteil), written after the
bankruptcy of a lawyer brother of the African traveller had in-
volved his entire family circle in ruin. The * merry friend ' is
Archibald Park, brother of Mungo (see ' Lockhart,' ch. xiii.) It is
he Sir Walter refers to in his story about the hot hounds entering
Loch Katrine (see Introd. ' Lady of Lake.' 3. Letter to young
Mungo Park, on the death of his father, the above Archibald.
" I send you these because I know the perusal of letter No. 2
will give you deep pleasure, and I owe you much. Nothing in
Sir Walter's career ever touched me more.
" May I venture a word for Mungo Park ? He brought my
wife's aunt into this world in the course of his professional practice
at Peebles j and I have heard about his work there. He was one
of the most devoted, unselfish men that stood for Scott's hero —
Gideon Gray. Apropos of which, a story. Park, lost on the
Fors Clavigera. 277
moors one wild night in winter, directed his horse to a distant
light, which turned out to be the candle of a hill-shepherd's cot-
tage. It so happened that the doctor arrived there in the nick of
time, for the shepherd's wife was on the point of confinement. He
waited till all was well over, and next morning the shepherd
escorted him to where he could see the distant road. Park,
noticing the shepherd lag behind, asked him the reason, on which
the simple man replied — ' 'Deed sir, my wife said she was sure
you must be an angel, and I think sa tae ; so I'm just keeping
ahint, to be sure I'll see you flee up.' This I have from the
nephew of Park's wife, himself a worthy old doctor and ex-
provost of Selkirk. The first motive of Park's second journey
may have been fame ; I am disposed to think it was. But I am
sure if auri fames had anything to do with it, it was for his wife
and children that he wanted it. Read his letters home, as I
have done, and you will concede to the ill-fated man a character
higher than last ' Fors ' accords him.
" If you place any value on these letters, may I venture to ask
you to discharge the debt by a copy of last F. C. with your
autograph ? I am not ashamed to say I ask it in a spfrit of blind
worship.
" I shall not vex you by writing for your own eyes how much I
honour and respect you ; but shall content myself with professing
myself your obedient servant,
" T. Craig-Brown."
8th May, 1881.
Copy of letters lent to me by Mr. Blaikie, Holydean, and taken
by him from boxes belonging to late Miss Jane Park, niece of
Mungo Park.
1. Original letter from Mungo Park to his sister, Miss Bell
Park, Hartwoodmires, near Selkirk. "Dear Sister, — I have
not heard from Scotland since I left it, but I hope you are
278 Fors Clavigera.
all in good health, and I attribute your silence to the hurry of
harvest. However, let me hear from you soon, and write how
Sandy's marriage comes on, and how Jeany is, for I have heard
nothing from her neither. I have nothing new to tell you. I am
very busy preparing my book for the press, and all friends here
are in good health. Mr. Dickson is running about, sometimes in
the shop and sometimes out of it. Peggy is in very good health,
and dressed as I think in a cotton gown of a bluish pattern ; a
round-eared much, (sic, — properly mutch,) or what they call here a
cap, with a white ribbon ; a Napkin of lawn or muslin, or some
such thing; a white striped dimity petticoat. Euphy and bill
(Bell or Bill ?) are both in very good health, but they are gone out
to play, therefore I must defer a description of them till my next
letter. — I remain, your loving brother, Mungo Park. — London,
Sept. 21st, 1795. P.S. — Both Peggy and Mr. Dickson have been
very inquisitive about you and beg their compliments to you."
2. (Copy.) Letter from (Sir) Walter Scott to Mrs. Laidlaw, of
Peel. (See 'Lockhart's Life,' chap, xvii., p. 164.) "My dear
Mrs. Laidlaw, — Any remembrance from you is at all times most
welcome to me. I have, in fact, been thinking a good deal about
Mr. Park, especially about my good merry friend Archie, upon
whom such calamity has fallen. I will write to a friend in
London likely to know about such matters to see if possible to
procure him the situation of an overseer of extensive farms in
improvements, for which he is so well qualified. But success in
this is doubtful, and I am aware that their distress must be
pressing. Now, Waterloo has paid, or is likely to pay me a
great deal more money than I think proper to subscribe for the
fund for families suffering, and I chiefly consider the surplus as
dedicated to assist distress or affliction. I shall receive my
letter in a few days from the booksellers, and I will send Mr.
Laidlaw care for £50 and three months, the contents to be
applied to the service of Mr. Park's family. It is no great
Fors Clavigera. 279
sum, but may serve to alleviate any immediate distress ; and you
can apply it as coming from yourself, which will relieve Park's
delicacy upon the subject. I really think I will be able to hear
of something for him ; at least it shall not be for want of asking
about, for I will lug him in as a postscript to every letter I write.
Will you tell Mr. Laidlaw with my best compliments — not that I
have bought Kaeside, for this James will have told him already,
but that I have every reason to think I have got it ^600 cheaper
than I would at a public sale ? Mrs. Scott and the young people
join in best compliments, and I ever am, dear Mrs. Laidlaw, very
truly yours, Walter Scott. — Edinburgh, 20th Nov. (1815)."
3. Letter (original) from Sir Walter Scott to Mr. Mungo Park,
Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Oban. "Sir, — I was favoured with your
very attentive letter conveying to me the melancholy intelligence
that you have lost my old acquaintance and friend, your worthy
father. I was using some interest to get him placed on the
Superannuated Establishment of the Customs, but God has been
pleased to render this unnecessary. A great charge devolves on
you, sir, for so young a person, both for the comfort and support
of his family. If you let me know your plans of life when settled,
it is possible I may be of use to you in some shape or other,
which I should desire in the circumstances, though my powers are
very limited unless in the way of recommendation. I beg my
sincere condolence may be communicated to your sister, who I
understand to be a very affectionate daughter and estimable young
person. I remain very much your obedient servant, Walter
Scott. — Edinburgh, 17th May, 1820."
I am greatly obliged to Mr. Brown for his own letter,
and for those which I have printed above ; but have
only to answer that no " word for Mungo Park " was
the least necessary in reply to what I said of him, nor
could any word in reply lessen its force, as far as it
280 Fors Clavigera.
goes. I spoke of him as the much regretted friend
of Sir Walter Scott, and as a man most useful in his
appointed place of a country physician. How useful,
and honoured, and blessed that function was, nothing
could prove more clearly than the beautiful fact of the
shepherd's following him as an angel ; and nothing
enforce more strongly my blame of his quitting that
angel's work by Tweedside to trace the lonely brinks of
useless rivers. The letter to his sister merely lowers
my estimate of his general culture ; a common servant's
letter home is usually more interesting, and not worse
spelt. A ' sacred ' one to his wife, published lately by
a rabid Scot in reply to the serene sentences of mine,
which he imagines ' explosive ' like his own, need not be
profaned by ' Fors' ' print. I write letters with more
feeling in them to most of my good girl-friends,
any day of the year, and don't run away from them to
Africa afterwards.
A letter from Miss Russell to the Scotsman, written
soon after last ' Fors ' was published, to inform Scotland
that Ashesteil was not a farm house, — (it would all,
with the latest additions, go inside a Bernese farmer's
granary) — that nobody it belonged to had ever done
any farming, or anything else that was useful, — that
Scott had been greatly honoured in being allowed a
lease of it, that his study had been turned into a
passage in the recent improvements, and that in the
dining-room of it, Mrs. Siddons had called for beer,
Fors Clavigera. 281
may also be left to the reverential reading of the sub-
scribers to the Scotsman ; — with this only question, from
me, to the citizens of Dun Edin, What good is their
pinnacle in Prince's Street, when they have forgotten
where the room was, and corridor is, in which Scott
wrote ' Marmion ' ?
FORS CLAVIGERA.
SECOND SERIES.
"yea, thp: work of our hands, establish thou it."
LETTER THE 96th. (terminal.)
ROSY VALE.
" QT. DAVID, having built a monastery near Meneira,
which is from him since called St. David's, in a
place called the Rosy Valley, (Vallis Rosina,) gave this
strict rule of monastical profession, — ' That every monk
should labour daily with his hands for the common
good of the Monastery, according to the Apostle's say-
ing, He that doth not labour, let him not eat. For
those who spend their time in idleness debase their
minds, which become unstable, and bring forth impure
thoughts, which restlessly disquiet them.' The monks
there refused all gifts or possessions offered by unjust
men ; they detested riches ; they had no care to ease
their labour by the use of oxen or other cattle, for
every one was instead of riches and oxen to himself
and his brethren. They never conversed together by
talking but when necessity required, but each one per-
formed the labour enjoined him, joining thereto prayer,
2ND SERIES.] 20,
284 Fo7's Clavigera.
or holy meditations on Divine things : and having
finished their country work, they returned to their
monastery, where they spent the remainder of the day,
till the evening, in reading or writing. In the evening,
•at the sounding of a bell, they all left their work and
immediately repaired to the church, where they remained
till the stars appeared, and then went all together to
their refection, eating sparingly and not to satiety, for
any excess in eating, though it be only of bread, occa-
sions luxury. Their food was bread with roots or herbs,
seasoned with salt, and their thirst they quenched with
a mixture of water and milk. Supper being ended,
they continued about three hours in watching, prayers,
and genuflexions. After this they went to rest, and at
-cock-crowing they arose again, and continued at prayer
till day appeared. All their inward temptations and
thoughts they discovered to their superior. Their cloth-
ing was of the skins of beasts. Whosoever desired to
be admitted into their holy convocation was obliged to
remain ten days at the door of the monastery as an
offcast, unworthy to be admitted into their society, and
there he was exposed to be scorned ; but if, during
that time, he patiently endured that mortification, he
was received by the religious senior who had charge of
the gate, whom he served, and was by him instructed.
In that condition he continued a long time, exercised
in painful labours, and grievous mortifications, and at
last was admitted to the fellowship of the brethren.
Fors Clavigera. 285
" This monastery appears to have been founded by
St. David, some time after the famous British synod
assembled in the year 519, for crushing of the Pelagian
heresy, which began again to spread after it had been
once before extinguished by St. Germanus, Bishop of
Auxerre, and St. Lupus, Bishop of Troyes. This
monastery is not taken notice of in the Monasticon,
any more than the other two above, and for the same
reason, as not coming within any of the orders after-
wards known in England, and having had but a short
continuance ; for what became of it, or when it finished,
is not known."
I chanced on this passage in the second volume of
Dugdale's ' Monasticon,' as I was choosing editions of
it at Mr. Ouaritch's, on one of the curious days which
I suppose most people recognize as ■ white ' among the
many-coloured ones of their lives ; that is to say, the
days when everything goes well, by no management of
their own. About the same time I received the following
letter from a very old and dear friend : —
"In an old 'Fors' you ask for information about
Nanterre. If you have not had it already, here is
some. As you know, it is in the plain between
Paris, Sevres, and Versailles — a station on the Versailles
line ; a little station, at which few persons ' descend,'
and fewer still ascend ; the ladies of the still some-
what primitive and rather ugly little village being
286 Fors Clavigera.
chiefly laundresses, and preferring, as I should in their
place, to go to Paris in their own carts with the clean
linen. Nanterre has, however, two notable transactions
in its community. It makes cakes, sold in Paris as
1 Gateaux de Nanterre,' and dear to childhood's souk
And — now prick up your ears — it yearly elects a
Rosiere. Not a high-falutin' aesthetic, self-conscious
product, forced, and in an unsuitable sphere ; but a real
Rosiere — a peasant girl, not chosen for beauty, or
reading or writing, neither of which she may possibly
possess ; but one who has in some signal, but simple,
unself-conscious way done her duty in the state of life
unto which it has pleased God to call her, — done it in
the open, fresh air, and under the bright sun, in the
1 fierce white light ' of village public opinion ; who is
known to young and old, and has been known all
her life.
"She is crowned with roses in May, and has a portion
of rather more than 1,000 francs. She is expected
soon to marry, and carry on into, the higher functions
of wife and mother the promise of her maidenhood."
And with this letter came another, from Francesca,.
giving me this following account of her servant
Edwige's * native village.
" I have been asking her about ' Le Rose ; ' she says
it is such a pretty place, and the road has a hedge of
* See ' Roadside Songs of Tuscany,' No. II., p.k8o.
Fors Clavigera. 287
beautiful roses on each side, and there are roses about
all the houses But now I can hardly finish my
letter, for since she has begun she cannot stop running
on about her birthplace, and I am writing in the midst
of a long discourse about the chestnut-trees, and the high
wooded hill, with the chapel of the Madonna at its
summit, and the stream of clear water where she used
to wash clothes, and I know not what else ! She has
a very affectionate recollection of her childhood, poor
as it was ; and I do think that the beautiful country
in which she grew up gave a sort of brightness to her
life. I am very thankful that her story is going to be
printed, for it has been a help to me, and will be, I
think, to others."
Yes, a help, and better than that, a light, — as also this
that follows, being an account just sent me by Francesca,
of a Rosy Vale in Italy, rejoicing round its Living Rose.
The Mother of the Orphans.
" In the beautiful city of Bassano, on the Brenta, between
the mountains and the plain, Signora Maria Zanchetta
has passed the eighty-five years of her busy, happy, and
useful life, bringing a blessing to all who have come
near her, first in her own family, and afterwards, for the
last forty-five years, to one generation after another of
poor orphan girls, to whom she has been more than a
mother. She always had, from childhood, as she herself
288 Fors Clavigera.
told me, a wish to enter a religious life, and her voca-
tion seems to have been rather for the active than for
the contemplative side of such a life. She belongs
to an honourable family of Bassano, and appears to
have had an especial love and reverence for her parents,
whom she would never leave as long as they lived.
After their death she continued to live with an invalid
sister, Paola, whom she remembers always with great
tenderness, and who is spoken of still, by those who
knew her, as something very near a saint.
" I have often wondered how much of Signora Maria's
sweet and beautiful Christian spirit, which has brought
comfort into hundreds of lives, may be owing to the
influence of the saintly elder sister, whose helpless con-
dition must have made her seem, to herself and others,
comparatively useless in the world, but who lived always
so very near to heaven ! After Paola died, Maria, being
no longer needed at home, resolved to. give herself entirely
to some charitable work, and her mind turned to the
Girls' Orphan Asylum, close to her own house. Her
brother and other relations would have preferred that
she should have become a nun in one of those convents
where girls of noble families are sent for education, con-
sidering that such a life was more honourable,* and better
suited to her condition. She told me this part of her
* Let me earnestly pray the descendants of old Catholic families to think
how constantly their pride, the primary mortal sin, has been the ruin of all
they had most confidently founded it on, and all they strove to build on
such foundation.
Fors Clavigera. 289
story herself, and added, ' In the convent I should have
been paid for my work, but I wanted to serve the Lord
without recompense in this world, and so I came here
to the orphans.' There she has lived ever since, wear-
ing the same dress as the poor girls* living their life,
entering into all their pleasures, and troubles ; overseeing
the washing, giving a hand to the mending, leading a
humble, laborious life, full, one would think, of weari-
some cares and burdens. A mother's burdens, without
a mother's instinct to support them ; but still, if one may
judge by her face, she has lived in perpetual sunshine.
And how young she looks still ! She must have been
a delicate blonde beauty in her youth, and she still
retains a complexion like a sweet-briar rose, and her
kind blue eyes are as clear and peaceful as an infant's.
Her hair, still abundant as in youth, is quite white, and
yet not like snow, unless it be snow with the evening
sunshine upon it ; one sees in a moment that it has
once been golden, and it is finer than anything that I
ever saw, excepting thistledown. Her dress is of the
poorest and plainest, and yet I cannot feel that she
would be more beautiful in any other. A blue cotton
dress, and cap of the same, with a handkerchief and
* The good Superiora's example, comparing what we are told of the dress
of the girls themselves at page 301, may well take the place of all I had
to say in this last Fors, about dress, summed in the simple advice to all
women of rank and wealth, — Till you can dress your poor beautifully, dres.s
yourselves plainly ; till you can feed all your poor healthily, live yourselves
like the monks of Vallis Rosina, and the message of Fors is ended.
290 Fors Clavigera.
apron, such as are worn by the contadine, nothing else ;
but all arranged with scrupulous neatness. There is
nothing monastic in the dress, nor in the life. Signora
Maria is free to stay or go as she will ; she is bound
by no vow, belongs to no order ; there has been nothing
but the love of God, and of the poor children, to hold
her to her place all these long years. She has some
property, but she leaves the use of it to her family,
taking for herself only just what is sufficient for her
own maintenance in the asylum, that she may not take
anything from the orphans. I had long wished to know
this good Signora Maria, and finally, last May, I had
the great pleasure of seeing her. I had sent to ask at
what hour she could see me, to which she replied, ' Any
time after six in the morning,' which I thought was
pretty well for eighty-five !
" When, the next morning, I went with Edwige to the
orphan asylum, and we entered the very modest little
bottega, as they call it, with its low ceiling and counter,
where they sell artificial flowers, and certain simple
medicines of their own preparing, in which the Bassano
people have great faith ; and where also they receive
orders for ornamental laundry-work, and for embroidery
of a religious description,* — when, as I was saying, we
entered this room, half-a-dozen elderly women were
standing talking together, all in the same old-fashioned
* I should be inclined considerably to modify these directions of industry,
in the organization of similar institutions here.
Fors Clavigera. 291
blue dresses. I asked if I could see the superiora, at
which this very pretty and young-looking lady came
forward ; and I, not dreaming that she could be the
aged saint for whom I was looking, repeated my
question. ' A servirla ! ' she replied. I was obliged to
explain the astonishment, which I could not conceal,
by saying, that I had expected to see a much older
Jady. ' I am old,' she answered, ' but I have good
health, thank the Lord ! ' And then she led us through
the room where a number of girls were doing the
peculiar laundry-work of which I have spoken, — one
•cannot call it ironing, for no iron is used about it ;*
but with their fingers, and a fine stick kept for the
purpose, they work the starched linen into all kinds of
delicate patterns. They all rose and bowed politely as
we passed, and then the old lady preceded us up the
stone staircase (which she mounted so rapidly that she
left us some way behind her), and conducted us to a
pleasant upper chamber, where we all sat down together.
On this day, and on those following when I was taking
her portrait, I gathered many particulars of her own life,
and also about the institution, which I must write down
one by one as I can remember them, for I find it
impossible to arrange them in any order. She told me
that they were in all seventy-five, between women and
* I italicize here and there a sentence that might otherwise escape notice
I might italicize the whole text, if I could so express my sympathy with
:all it relates.
292 Fors Clavigera.
girls. Every girl taken into the institution has a right
to a home in it for life, if she will ; and many never
choose to leave it, or if they do leave it they return to
it ; but others have married, or gone to service, or to
live with their relations. Once, many years ago, she
had seven little slave girls, put temporarily under her
care by a good missionary who had bought them in
Africa. She seems to have a peculiar tenderness in
her remembrance of the poor little unbaptized savages.
' The others call me Superiora,' she said, ' but they
used to call me Mamma Maria.' And her voice softened
to more than its usual gentleness as she said those
words.
" And now I must leave the dear old lady for a
moment, to repeat what Silvia told me once about those
same little slave girls. It was a warm summer's evening,
and Silvia and I were sitting, as we often do, on the broad
stone steps of the Rezzonico Palace, between the two
immense old stone lions that guard the door ; and watch-
ing the sunset behind the mountains. And Silvia was
telling me how, when she was a very small child, those
little African girls were brought to the house, and what
wild black faces they had, and what brilliant eyes. As
they were running about the wide lawn behind Palazzo
Rezzonico (which stands in a retired country place about
a mile from the city), they caught sight of those stone
lions by the door, and immediately pressed about them,,
and fell to embracing them, as if they had been dear
Fors Clavigera. 293
friends, and covered them with tears and kisses ; * and
Silvia thought that they were thinking of their own
country, and perhaps of lions which they had seen in
their African deserts. I asked Signora Maria if she knew
what had become of those poor girls. She said that she
had heard that two of them afterwards entered a convent ;
but she had lost sight of them all for many years ; and,
indeed, they had only remained in Bassano for five months.
" While I was drawing the old lady's portrait, a tall,
strong, very pleasant-looking woman of fifty or so
came in and stood beside me. She wore the same
dress as the Superiora, excepting that she had no cap,
nor other covering for her wavy black hair, which was
elaborately braided, and knotted up behind, in the
fashion commonly followed by the contadine in this
part of the country. She had very bright eyes, in
which a smile seemed to have taken up its permanent
abode, even when the rest of her face was serious. Her
voice was soft, — there seems to be something in the
atmosphere of that orphanage which makes everybody's
voice soft ! — but her movements were rapid and ener-
getic, and she evidently had a supply of vigour and
spirit sufficient for half-a-dozen, at least, of average
women. She was extremely interested in the progress
of the picture, (which she said was as much like the
* This is to me the most lovely and the most instructive fact I ever heard, in
its witness to the relations that exist between man and the inferior intelligences
of creation.
294 • Fors Clavigera.
Superiora as anything could be that was sitting still),
but it was rather a grievance to her that the old
lady would be taken in her homely dress. ' Come
now, you might wear that other cap ! ' she said,
bending over the little fair Superiora, putting her
strong arm very softly around her neck, and speaking
coaxingly as if to a baby ; then looking at me : ' She
has such a pretty cap, that I made up for her myself,
and she will not wear it ! ' ' I wear it when I go
out,' said Signora Maria, 'but I would rather have
my likeness in the dress that I always wear at home.'
I, too, said that I ' would rather draw her just as she
was. ' I suppose you are right/ said the younger
woman, regretfully, ' but she is so much prettier in
that cap ! ' I thought her quite pretty enough in the
old blue cap, and kept on with my work. Meanwhile
I asked some questions about the institution. Signora
Maria said that it was founded in the last century by
a good priest, D. Giorgio Pirani, and afterwards farther
endowed by D. Marco Cremona, whom she had herself
known in his old age. How old this D. Marco was
she could not remember ; a cast of his face, which
she afterwards showed me, and which she told me was
taken after his death, represented a very handsome,
benevolent-looking man, of about seventy, but I imagine
(judging from the rest of the conversation) that he
must have been much older. She told me that the
founder, D. Giorgio, having inherited considerable pro-
Fors Clavigera. % 295
perty, and having no relations that needed it, had
bought the land and three or four houses, which he
had thrown into one ; and had given it all for poor
orphan girls of Bassano.
"The place accommodates seventy-five girls and women,
and is always full. Thirty centimes a day are allowed
for the maintenance of each girl, and were probably
sufficient in D. Giorgio's time, but times have changed
since then. However, they do various kinds of work,
principally of a religious or ecclesiastical nature, making
priests' dresses, or artificial flowers for the altar, or
wafers to be used at the communion ; besides sewing,
knitting, and embroidery of all kinds ; and the women
work for the children, and the whole seventy- five live
together in one affectionate and united family. The old
lady seemed very fond of her ' tose,' as she calls the
girls, and said that they also loved her, — which I
should think they would, for a more entirely loveable
woman it would be hard to find.
" She has the delightful manners of an old-fashioned
Venetian, full of grace, sweetness, and vivacity, and
would think that she failed in one of the first Christian
duties if she did not observe all the laws of politeness.
She never once failed, during our rather frequent visits at
the institution, to come downstairs to meet us, receiving
me always at the outside door with a kiss on both
cheeks ; and when we came away she would accompany
us into the cortile, and stand there, taking leave, with
296 , Fors Clavigera.
the sun on her white hair. When, however, she found
this last attention made me rather uncomfortable, she
desisted ; for her politeness being rather of the heart
than of etiquette, she never fails in comprehending
and considering the feelings of those about her.
"But to return to our conversation. The woman
with the black, wavy hair, whose name was, as I found
out, Annetta, remarked, with regard to the good Don
Giorgio Pirani, that ' he died so young, poor man ! '
As it seemed he had accomplished a good deal in his
life, I was rather surprised, and asked, ' How young ? '
To which she replied, in a tone of deep compassion,
i Only seventy-five, poor man ! But then he had worn
himself out with the care of the institution, and he had
a great deal of trouble.' Annetta calculated age in the
Bassano fashion ; in this healthy air, and with the
tisually simple habits of life of the people, longevity is
the rule, and not the exception. The portrait of Don
Giorgio's mother hangs beside his in the refectory,
with an inscription stating that it was painted ' in the
year of her age eighty-nine ' ; also that her name was
Daciana Pirani, and that she assisted her two sons,
Giorgio and Santi, in their charitable work for the
orphans. The picture itself bears the date 1774, and
represents a fresh-coloured, erect, very pleasant-looking
lady, with bright, black eyes, very plainly dressed in a
long-waisted brown gown and blue apron, with a little
dark-coloured cap, which time has rendered so indistinct
Fors Clavigera. 297
that I cannot quite make out the fashion of it. A plain
handkerchief, apparently of fine white linen, is folded
over her bosom, and her arms are bare to the elbows,
with a fine Venetian gold chain wound several times
around one of them, — her only ornament, excepting her
little round earrings. She is .standing by a table, on
which are her crucifix, prayer-book, and rosary. The
Superiora told me that when Don Giorgio was engaged
in building and fitting up his asylum, sometimes at the
table his mother would observe that he was absent and
low-spirited, and had little appetite, at which she would
ask him anxiously, ' What ails you, my son ? ' and he
would reply, ' I have no more money for my workmen.'
At this she always said, ' Oh, if that is all, do not be
troubled ! I will see to it!' And, rising from the table,
she would leave the room, to return in a few minutes
with a handful of money, sufficient for the immediate
expenses. Don Giorgio himself must have had, if his
portrait tells the truth, a singularly kind, sensible, and
cheerful face, with more regular beauty than Don Marco
Cremona, but less imposing, with dark eyes and white
curling hair. Of Santi Pirani I could learn nothing,
excepting that he was a priest, an excellent man, and
his brother's helper.
"But to return to what I was saying about the Bassano
fashion of reckoning age. It is not long since a Bassano
gentleman, himself quite a wonderful picture of vigorous
health, was complaining to me that the health of the
Fors Clavigera.
cb
city was not what it used to be. ' Indeed,' he said,
with the air of one bringing forward an unanswerable
proof of his assertion, ' at this present time, among all
my acquaintances, I know only one man past a hundred I
My father knew several ; but now they all seem to drop
off between eighty and ninety.' And he shook his head
sadly. I asked some questions about his centenarian
friend, and was told that he was a poor man, and lived,
on charity. ' We all give to him,' he said ; ' he always-
worked as long as he could, and at his age we do not
think it ought to be expected of him.'
" As nearly as I can understand, people here begin to
be considered elderly when they are about eighty, but
those who die before ninety are thought to have died
untimely. Signora Maria's family had an old servant,
by name Bartolo Mosca, who lived with them for seventy-
two years. He entered their service at fourteen, and left
it (for a better world, I hope) at eighty-six. He was
quite feeble for some time before he died, and his master
kept a servant expressly to wait upon him. A woman
servant, Maria Cometa, died in their house of nearly the
same age, having passed all her life in their service.
" I was much interested in observing Annetta's be-
haviour to her Superiora ; it was half reverential, half
caressing. I could hardly tell whether she considered
the old lady as a patron saint or a pet child. Anxious
to know what was the tie between them, I asked
Annetta how long she had been in the place. She did
Fors Clavigera. 299
a little cyphering on her fingers, and then said, ' Forty
years.' In answer to other questions, she told me that
her father and mother had both died within a few weeks
of each other, when she was a small child, the youngest
of seven ; and her uncle, finding himself left with the
burden of so large a family on his shoulders, had thought
well to relieve himself in part by putting the smallest
and most helpless ' with the orphans.' ( She has been
my mother ever since/ she said, dropping her voice, and
laying her hand on the little old lady's shoulder. She
added that some of her brothers had come on in the
world, and had wished to take her home, and that she
had gone at various times and stayed in their families,
but that she had always come back to her place in the
institution, because she could never be happy, for any
length of time, anywhere else. I asked if the girls whom
they took in were generally good, and repaid their kind-
ness as they should do, to which the old lady replied,
1 Many of them do, and are a great comfort ; but others
give us much trouble. What can we do ? We must
have patience ; we are here on purpose.' ' Besides,'
said Annetta, cheerfully, ' it would never do for us to
have all our reward in this world ; if we did, we could
not expect any on the other side.'
" The Superiora told me many interesting stories about
the institution, and of the bequests that had been left to it
by various Bassano families, of which the most valuable
appeared to be sonie land in the country with one or two
2ND SERIES.] "2Q
300 Fors Clavigera.
contadine houses, where the girls are sent occasionally to
pass a day in the open air and enjoy themselves. Many
families had bequeathed furniture and pictures to the insti-
tution, so that one sees everywhere massive nutwood chairs
and tables, carved and inlaid, all of old republican* times.
One picture, of which I do not recollect the date, but it
is about two hundred years old, I should think, represents
a young lady with fair curls, magnificently dressed in
brocade and jewels, by name Maddalena Bernardi, who
looks always as if wondering at the simple unworldliness
of the life about her ; and beside her hangs the last of
her race (her son, I suppose, for he is much like her in
feature ; but no one knows now), a poor Franciscan
frate, ' Who did a great deal for the orphans,' Signora
Maria says. Next to the frate, between him and good
Don Giorgio, she showed me a Venetian senator, all
robe and wig, with a face like nobody in particular,
scarlet drapery tossed about in confusion, and a back-
ground of very black thunder-clouds. ' This picture,' she
said, 'was left us by the Doge Erizzo, and represents one
of his family. He left us also a hundred and twenty
staia of Indian corn and two barrels of wine yearly, and
we still continue to receive them.' She showed me also
a room where the floor was quite covered with heaps of
corn, saying, ' I send it to be ground as we need it ;
but it will not last long, there are so many mouths ! '
* Old stately times, Francesca means, when Bassano and Castelfranco,
Padua and Verona, were all as the sisters of Venice.
Fors Clavigera. 301
" During the many days that I visited Signora Maria,
I noticed several things which seemed to me different
from other orphan asylums which I have seen. To be
sure I have not seen a great many ; but from what
little I have been able to observe, I have taken an im-
pression that orphan girls usually have their hair cut
close to their heads, and wear the very ugliest clothes
that can possibly be obtained, and that their clothes are
made so as to fit no one in particular. Also I think
that they are apt to look dull and dispirited, with a
general effect of being educated by machinery, which is
not pleasant. Signora Maria's little girls, on the con-
trary, are made to look as pretty as is possible in the
poor clothes, which are the best that can be afforded
for them. Their cotton handkerchiefs are of the gayest
patterns, their hair is arranged becomingly, so as to
make the most of the light curls of one, or the heavy
braids of another, and most of them wear little gold
earrings. And if one speaks to them, they answer with
a pleasant smile, and do not seem frightened. I do
not think that the dear old lady keeps them under an
iron rule, by any means. Another thing which I noticed
was that while many of the younger children, who had
been but a little while in the place, looked rather sickly,
and showed still the marks of poverty and neglect, the
older girls, who had been there for several years, had,
almost without exception, an appearance of vigorous
health. It was my good fortune to be there once on
302 Fors Clavigera.
washing-day, when a number of girls, apparently from
fifteen to twenty years old, bare-armed (and some of
them bare-footed), were hanging out clothes to dry in
the cortile ; and such a picture of health and beauty
I have seldom seen, nor such light, strong, rapid move-
ments, nor such evident enjoyment of their work.
" Next to the room where I did most of my work was
a long narrow room where many of the women and
elder girls used to work together. An inscription in
large black letters hung on the wall, ' Silentium.' I
suppose it must have been put there with an idea of
giving an orderly conventual air to the place ; perhaps it
may have served that purpose, it certainly did no other !
The door was open between us, and the lively talking
that went on in that room was incessant. Once the old
lady by my side called to them, ' Tose ! ' and I thought
that she was calling them to order, but it proved that she
only wanted to have a share in the conversation. When
not sitting for her portrait she used to sew or knit, as
she sat beside me. She could do beautiful mending,
and never wore spectacles. She told me that she had
worn them until a few years before, when her sight had
come back quite strong as in yojttJi.
" But I must allow, in speaking of my friends of
the orphan asylum, that some of their religious obser-
vances are a little . . . peculiar. In the large garden,
on the side where Signora Maria has her flower border
(' We cannot afford much room for flowers,' Annetta
Fors Clavigera. 303
says, ' but they are the delight of the Superiora ! ')
is a long walk under a canopy of grape-vines, leading
to a niche where stands, under the thick shade, a large
wooden Madonna of the Immaculate Conception. She
is very ugly, and but a poor piece of carving ; a
stout, heavy woman in impossible drapery, and with
no expression whatsoever. The seven stars (somewhat
rusty and blackened by the weather) are arranged
on a rather too conspicuous piece of wire about the
head. The last time I saw her, however, she had
much improved, if not in beauty or sanctity, at least
in cleanliness of appearance, which Annetta accounted
for by saying complacently : ■ I gave her a coat of
white paint myself, oil paint ; so now she will look
well for a long time to come, and the rain will not
hurt her.' I observed that some one had placed a
rose in the clumsy wooden hand, and that her ears
were ornamented with little garnet earrings. Annetta
said, ' The girls put together a few soldi and bought those
earrings for the Madonna. They are very cheap ones,
and I bored the holes in her ears myself with a gimlet.'
Before this Madonna the girls go on summer afternoons
to sing the litanies, and apparently find their devotion
in no way disturbed by the idea of Annetta's tinkering.
She seems to do pretty much all the carpentering and
repairing that are wanted about the establishment, and
is just as well pleased to ' restore ' the Madonna as
anything else, I was very sorry, at last, when the time
304 Fors Clavigera.
came to say good-bye to the peaceful old house and
its inmates. The Superiora, on the occasion of her last
sitting, presented me with a very pretty specimen of
the girls' work — a small pin-cushion, surrounded with
artificial flowers, and surmounted by a dove, with
spread wings, in white linen, its shape, and even
feathers, quite wonderfully represented by means of
the peculiar starching process which I have tried to
describe. I can only hope that the dear old lady may
be spared to the utmost limit of life in Bassano, which
would give her many years yet, for it is sad to think
of the change that must come over the little community
when she is taken away. She is still the life of the
house ; her influence is everywhere. She reminds me
always of the beautiful promise, ' They shall yet bear
fruit in old age.' Once I was expressing to her my
admiration for the institution, and she said, 'It is a
happy institution.' And so it is, but it is she who has
made it so."
This lovely history, of a Jife spent in the garden of
God, sums, as it illumines, all that I have tried to
teach in the series of letters which I now feel that
it is time to close.
The " Go and do thou likewise," which every kindly
intelligent spirit cannot but hear spoken to it, in each
sentence of the quiet narrative, is of more searching
and all-embracing urgency than any appeal I have
Fors Clavioera. 305
dared to make in my own writings. Looking back
upon my efforts for the last twenty years, I believe
that their failure has been in very great part owing
to my compromise with the infidelity of this outer
world, and my endeavour to base my pleading upon
motives of ordinary prudence and kindness, instead of
on the primary duty of loving God, — foundation other
than which can no man lay. I thought myself
speaking to a crowd which could only be influenced
by visible utility ; nor was I the least aware how
many entirely good and holy persons were living in the
faith and love of God as vividly and practically
now as ever in the early enthusiasm of Christendom,
until, chiefly in consequence of the great illnesses which,
for some time after 1878, forbade my accustomed literary
labour, I was brought into closer personal relations
with the friends in America, Scotland, Ireland, and
Italy, to whom, if I am spared to write any record
of my life, it will be seen that I owe the best hopes
and highest thoughts which have supported and guided
the force of my matured mind. These have shown
me, with lovely initiation, in how many secret places
the prayer was made which I had foolishly listened
for at the corners of the streets ; and on how many
hills which I had thought left desolate, the hosts of
heaven still moved in chariots of fire.
But surely the time is come when all these faithful
armies should lift up the standard of their Lord, — not
306 Fors Clavigera.
by might, nor by power, but by His spirit, bringing
forth judgment unto victory. That they should no
more be hidden, nor overcome of evil, but overcome
evil with good. If the enemy cometh in like a flood,
how much more may the rivers of Paradise ? Are
there not fountains of the great deep that open to
bless, not destroy ?
And the beginning of blessing, if you will think of
it, is in that promise, " Great shall be the peace of
thy children." All the world is but as one orphanage,
so long as its children know not God their Father ;
and all wisdom and knowledge is only more bewildered
darkness, so long as you have not taught them the
fear of the Lord.
Not to be taken out of the world in monastic
sorrow, but to be kept from its evil in shepherded
peace ; — ought not this to be done for all the children
held at the fonts beside which we vow, in their name,
to renounce the world ? Renounce ! nay, ought we
not, at last, to redeem ?
The story of Rosy Vale is not ended ; — surely out
of its silence the mountains and the hills shall break
forth into singing, and round it the desert rejoice, and
blossom as the rose !
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