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1
JOHN RUSKIN.
Sesame and Lilies
«
Zbixc Xectiuce
BY
JOilX KDSKIN
\
W. J. GAGE & COMPANY, Limited
TORONTO
1^^3345
M^l
JbJ
Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in
the office of the Minister of Agriculture, by The
W. J. Gage Company (Limited), in the yearI897.
I
II
(()\^TKNTS
I. Of Kings' Treasuries, .
II. Of Queens' Gardens, .
III. Of the Mystery of Life
PAGE
1
68
114
PREFACE.
Being now flfty-ono years old, and little likely to
ciiar.oe my mind hereafter on any important subj.it of
tliouoiit (unless tlirouoh weakness of age), I wish to
publish a connected series of such parts of my works
as now seem to me right, and likely to be of permanent
use. In doing so I shall omit much, but not attempt
to mend what I think worth reprinting. A young
man nccessardy writes otherwise than an old une, and
it would be worse than wasted time to try to recast
the juvenile language : nor is it lo be thougnt that I
am ashamed even of what 1 cancel; for great part of
my earlier work was rapidly wi'itten for temporary
purposes, and is now unnecessary, though true, even to
truism. What I wrote about religion, was, on the
contrary, pains-taking, and, I think, forcible, as com-
pared with most religious writing; especially in its
frankness and fearlessness : but it was wholly mis-
taken ; for I had been educated in the doctrines of a
narrow sect, and iuid read history as obliquely as
sectarians necessarily must.
Mingled among these either unnecessary or erroneous
I
a
iV
SESAME AND LILIES.
Statements, I find, indeed, some that might bo still of
value; but these, in my earher books, disfigured by
atFeeted hiuguage, i)artly thiough the desire to be
thought a line writer, and pirtly, as in the second
volume of Modmi F'tinters^ in the lotion of returning
as far as I could to what I thoight the bettei* style of
old English literature, (^s[)ecially to that of my then
favorite, in prose, Kichard Hooker.
For these reasons, thcjugh, ns respects eitl.er art,
policy, or morality as distinct from religion, 1 not only
still liokl, l)ut would even wisli strongly to reaifirm
the substance of what 1 said in my earliest books, I
shall reprint scarcely anything in this series out of the
first and second volumes of Modtni PaintevH 'y and
shall omit much of the Seven Lamps and Sionei^ of
Venice; but all ni}^ books written within the last
fifteen years will be re[)ublished without change, as
new editions of them are called fur, with here and
there perha[)s an acUlitional note, and having their
text divided, for convenient reference, into paragraplis
consecutive through each volume. I shall also throw
together the shorter fragments tliat bear on each
other, and fill in with such uprinted lectures or studies
as seem to me worth preserving, so as to keep the
volumes, on an average, composed of about a hundred
leaves each.
The first book of which a new edition is re-
quired chances to be Sesame and Lilies^ from
PREFACE.
i
which I now cleUich the old ])reface, about the
Alps, for use elsewhere ; and to wliich I iM a
lecture given in Ireland on a subject closely con-
nected with that of the book itself. I am glad
that it should be the Hrst of the complete series,
for many I'easons ; though in now looking over
these two lectures, I am painfully sti'uck by the
waste of good work in them. They cost me much
thought, and much strong emotion ; but it was fool-
ish to suppose that I could rouse my audiences in
a little while to any sympathy with the temper
into which I had brought myself by years of
thinking ovor subjects full of pain ; while, if I
missed my purpose at the time, it was little to
be hoped I could attain it afterward ; since phrases
written for oral delivery become ineffective when
quietly I'ead. Yet I should only take away what
good is in them if I tried to translate them into
the language of books ; nor, indeed, could I at all
have done so at the time of their delivery, my
thoughts then habitually and impatiently putting
themselves into forms fit only for emphatic speech :
and thus I am startled, in my review of them,
to find that, though there is much (forgive me the
impertinence) which seems to me accurately and en-
ergetically said, there is scarcely anything put in
a form to be generally convincing, or even easily
intelligible . and I can well imagine a reader lay-
vi
ISb:SAME AND LILIES.
iriir down the book without being at all moved
by it, still less guided, to any definite course of
action.
1 think, however, if I now say briefly and clearly
what 1 meant my liearers to understantl, and what I
wantiMl, and still wouUl fain have, tliem to do, there
nuiy ait(!r'ward be found soiiu' b<>ttt'r service in the
|)assiunately written text.
The first Lecture say«, or ti'ies to say, that, life
being very short, and tlie quiet hours of it few^,
we ouglit to waste non«5 of them in I'caihng value-
less l)ooks; and tluit vahaible books should, in a
civilized countrv, be widiin the reach of everv one,
printed in excellent form, for a just price: but not
m any vile, vulgar, or, by reason of smallness of type,
plu'sically injurious form, at a vile price. Yov we
none of us need many books, and those which we
need ought to be clearly printed, on the best paper,
and strongly bound And though we are, indeed,
now, a wretclied and poverty-struck nation, and
hardly able to keep soul and body together, still,
as no person in decent circumstances would put
on his table confessedly bad wine, or bad leat
without being ashamed, so he need not have on
his shelves ill-printed or loosely and wretchedly-
stitched books; for, though few can be rich, yet
every man who honestly exerts himself may, I
think, still provide, for himself and his family,
I
PREFACE
Til
%
good shoes, good gloves, strong luirness fov his
cart or caiTia.fj^e horses, and stout leather hindinii: for
liis books. And I would urge upoK every young man,
as ihc beginning of his due and wise j)rovision I'or his
household, to obtain as soon as he can, by the severest
econoni3% a restricted, serviceable, and steadily -how-
ever slowly — increasing, series of boolvs, foi' us<;
tiirough life; maiving his litthi library, of all the furni-
(ui'e in his room, the most studied and decorative
piece; every volume having its assigned ])lacc, like a
little statue in its niche, and on(i of the earliest and
strictest lessons to the children of the house being how
to turn the pages of their own literary possessions
lightly and delib( ately, with no chance of tcai'ing or
t logs' ears.
That IS my notion of the founding of Kings' Treas-
ui'ies; and the first Lecture is intended to show some-
what the use and preciousnes.-; of their treasures : but
the two following ones have wider scope, ])eing written
in the ho])e of awakening the youth of England, so far
as my poor words might have any power with them,
to take some thought of the pur[)oses of the life into
which they nre entering, and the nature of the world
they have to conquer.
These two lectures are fragmentary and ill-arranged,
but not, I think, diifuse or much compressible. The
entire gist and conclusion of them, however, is in the
last six paragraphs, 185 to the end, of the third lecture,
I' ill
Vlll
SI^SAME AND LILIES,
whicli r would be^^ the reader to look over not once
nor twice (rather than any other ])art of the book\ tor
thev^ contain the best exi)r(?ssi(jn I have yet been able
to put iu words of what, so far as is within my power,
I mean henceforward botli to do myself, and to plead
witii all over whom i have any influence, to do also
accordini*: to their means: the letters be^^fun on the
first day of this yeai', to the workmen of England,
havini;' the object of origiiKiting, if possible, this move-
ment auiong them, in true aUiance with whatever
trustwortliy element of help they can find in the
higher classes. After these paragraplis, let me ask
you to read, by the fiery light of recent events, the
fable at ]>. 135 (.^ lit), and then §§ 129-131 ; and ob-
serve, my statement res|)ectiiig the famine at Orissa is
not rhetorical, but certifieil by official documents as
within the truth. Five hundred thousand persons, at
least died l)y star\'ation in our British dominions,
wholly in consequence of carelessness and want of
forethought. Keep that well in your memory; and
note it as the best possible illustration of modern
political economy in true practice, and of the relations
it has accom])lishal 'between Supply and Demand.
Then begin the second lecture, and all will read clear
c>ugh, I think, to the end ; only, since that second
lecture was written, (juestions have arisen respecting
the education and claims of women which have greatly
troubled simple minds and excited restless ones. I am
i
I
'i-
4
PREFACE,
IX
I
sometimes asked mv^ tlioiifj^hts on this matter, and I
suppose tliat some girl readers of the second lecture
may at tiie end of it desire to be told summarily what
[ would have them do and desire in the present state
ot things. This, then, is what T would say to any girl
who had confidence enough in me to believe what I
told her, or do what I ask her.
First, be quite sure of one thing, that, however
much you ukiv k.iow, and whatever advanta^i^es you
may possess, and however good you may be, you have
not been singled out, by the God wiio made you, from
all llie other girls in the world, to be esj)ecially in-
formed respecting His own natui'e and character.
You have not been born in a luminous point upon the
surface of the globe, wliere a perfect theology might
be expounded to you from your youth up, and where
everything you were taught would be true, and every-
thiuij: tliat was enforced upon vou, right. Of all the
insolent, all the foolish persuasions that by any chance
could enter and hold your empty little heart, this
is the proiulest and foolishest — that you have been so
much the darling of the Heavens, and favorite of the
Fates as to be born in the very nick of time, and in the
punctual [)lace, when and where pure ^)ivine truth
had been sifted from the errors of the Nations; and
that your papa had been providentially disposed to buy
a house in the convenient niMghborhood of the steeple
under which that Immaculate and Unal verity woui*^
f,''i
:fl
SESAME AND LILIES.
be beautifully prociiiluied. Do not think it, child ; it
is not so. This, on the contrary, is the fact — un-
pleasant you may think it; pleasant, it seems to me —
that you, with all your pretty dresses, and daint\^ looks
and kindly thoughts, and saintly aspirations, are not
one whit more thought of or loved by the great IVfaker
and Master than any poor littlo red, black, or blue
savage, running wild in the pestilent woods, or naked
on the hot sands of the earth : and tlnit, of the two,
you probably know loss about God tlian she does ; the
only dilference being that she thinks little of 11 ini that
is riu^ht, and vou much that is wron^^
That, then, is the iirst thing to make sure of — that
you are not yet perfectly well informed on the most
abstruse of all possible subjects, and that, if you care
to behave with modesty or propriety, you had better
be silent about it.
The second thing which you may make sure of is,
that however good you may be, you have faults;
that however dull you may be, you can fiud out what
some of them are; and that however slight they may
be, yuu had better make some — not too j>ainful, but
patient— effort to get quit of them. Ami so far as you
have confidence in me at all, trust me for tliis, that
how many soever you may find or fancy your faults to
be, there are only two tiiat are of real consequence-
Idleness aiul Cruelty. IVrhaps yon may be proud.
Well, we can get nmch good out of pjide, if only it be
t
ill
PREFACE.
XI
not religions. Perhaps you may be vain: it is highly
probable ; Jind very pleasant for tiie people who like to
praise you. Perhaps you are a little envious : that is
really very shocking ; but then — so is everybody else.
Perhaps, also, you are a little malicious, which 1 am
truly concerned to hear, but should probably only the
more, if I knew you, enjoy your conversation. But
whatever else you may be, you must not be useless,
and you must not be cruel. If there is any one point
which, in six thousand years of thinking about right
and wrong, wise and good men have agreed upon, or
successively by experience discovered, it is that God
dislikes idle and cruel people more than any others;
that His first order is, "Work while you have light;"
and His second, ''He merciful while you have mLrc3^"
" York while you have light," especially whil-e you
have the light of morning. There are few things
more wonderful to me tha;i that old people never tell
young ones how ijrecious their youth is. They some-
times sentimentally regret their own earlier days;
sometimes t)rudentlv foro-et them : often foolishly re-
buke the young, often more foolishly indulge, often
most foolishly thwart and restrain, but scarcely ever
warn or ^vatch tliem. Hemcmbcr, then, that I, at
least, have warned you, that the happiness of your
life, and its power, and its })art and rank in earth or in
heaven, depend on the way you pass your days now.
They are not to be sud days ; far from that, the lii^t
xu
SESAME AND LILTE8.
duty of 3'onng people is to be delighted and delightful;
but they are to be in the deepest sense solemn days.
There is no solemnity so deep, to a rightly-thinking
creature, as tliat of dawn. But not only in that
beautiful sense, but in ail their character and method,
they are to be solemn (hiys. Take your Latin diction-
ary, and look out "sollennis," and fix the sense of the
word n'ell in your mind, and remember that every day
of your early life is ordaining irrevocably, for good or
evil, the custom and practice of your soul ; ordaining
either sacred customs of dear and lovely recurrence, or
trenching deeper and deeper the furrows for seed of
sorrow. Now, therefore, see that no day |)asses in
which you do not nudve Aourself a somewhat better
creature : and in order to do that, iind out, first, what
you are now. JDo not think va^'uelv about it : take
pen and paper, and write down as accurate a descrip-
tion of yourself as you can, witli the date to it. If
you dare not do so, find out why you dare not, and try
to get strength of heart enough to look yourself fairly
in the face, in mind as well as body. I do not doubt
but that the mind is a less pleasant thing to look at
than the face, and for that very reason it needs more
looking at ; so always have two mirrors on your toilet-
table, and see that witli ])roper care you dress body
and mind before them laily. After the dressing is
once over for the day, think no more about it : as your
hair will blow about your ears, so your temper and
PREFACE.
• t •
Xlll
V
•J
is
thouf^hts will get ruffled with the day's work, and
may need, sometimes, twice dressing; hut I don't want
you to carry ahout a mental pocket-comh; only to be
smooth-braided always in the morninc!:.
Write down then, frankly, whjit you are, or, at
least, what you tliink yourself, not dwelling- upon
those inevitable faults which I have just told you
are of little consequence, and which the action of a
right life will shake or smooth away ; but that you
may determine to tlie best of 3^our intelligence what
you are good for, and can be made into. Vou will find
that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest
desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and
delicatest ways, improve yourself. Thus, from the be-
ginning, consider all your accomplishments as means
of assistance to others ; read attentively, in this vol-
ume, paragraphs 74, 75, 19, and 79, and you will un-
derstand what I mean, with respect to languages and
music. In music especially you will soon find what
personal benefit there is in being serviceable: it is
probable that, however limited your powers, 3'ou have
voice and ear enouoh to sustain a note of moderate
compass in a concerted piece — that, then, is the first
thing to make sure you can do. Get your voice disci-
plined and clear, and think onlv of accuracy ; never of
c^ifect or expression : if you have any soul worth ex-
pressing it will show itself in your singing; but most
likely there are very few feelings in you, at present,
XIV
SESAME ANB LILIES.
needing any particular expression ; and the one thing
vou have to do is to make a clear-voiced httle instru-
ment of yonrsell, which otlier people can entirely de-
pend upon for tlie note wanted. So, in drawing, as
soon as you can set down the right shape of anything,
and thereby explain its character to another person,
or nudve the look of it clear and interesting to a child,
you will begin to enjoy the art vividly for its own
sake, and all your habits of luind and powers of mem-
ory will gain precision: but if you only try to make
showy drawings for praise, or pretty ones for amuse-
ment, your (h'awing will liave little or no real interest
for vou, and no educational power whatev^er.
Then, besides this more delicate work, resolve to do
every day some that is useful iji the vulgar sense.
Learn first thoroughly the economy of the kitchen ;
the good nnd bjul qualities of eveiy common article of
food, and the simplest and best modes of their prepara-
tion : when you have time, go and help in the cooking
of pnoi'er families, nnd shov/ them hovf to make as
much of everything as possible, and how to make little,
nice: coaxing and tempting them into tidy and pretty
ways, and pleading for well-folded table-cloths, how-
ever coarse, and for a flower or two out of the garden
to strew on them. If you manage to get a clean table-
cloth, bright ])lates on it, ai.d a good dish in the middle,
of your own cooking, you may ask leave to say a short
grace; and let your religious ministries be confined to
th;it much for the present*
m.
I
PRPJFACE.
XV
as
le,
13 \v-
f
>i
to
^;^Min, let a certain part of your day (as little tis you
choose, but not to be broken in upon) l)e set apart for
making strono; and pretty dresses for tlie poor. Learn
the sound qualities of all useful stutVs, and make every-
thing of the best you can get, whatever its price. 1
liave many reasons for desii'ing you to do this — too
many to be told just now — trust me, and be sure you
get everything as good as can be : and if, in the vil-
lainous state of modern trade, you cannot get it good
at any price, buy its raw material, and set some of the
poor women about y(Ai to spin and weave, till you ha ve
got stuff that can be trusted: and then, every (hiy,
make some little piece of useful clothing, sewn with
your own fingers as strongly as it can be stitched ; and
embroider it or otherwise beautify it moderately with
line needlework^ such as a girl may be proud of having
done. And accumulate these things by you until you
hear of some honest persons in need of clothing, which
may often too sorrowfully be ; and, even though you
should bo deceived, and give them to the dishonest,
jind lienr of their being at once taken to the pawn-
broker's, never mind that, for the pawnbroker must
sell them to some one who has need of them. That is
no business of yours ; Avhat concerns you is only that
when you see a half-naked child, you should have good
and fresh clothes to give it, if its parents will let it be
taught to wear them. If they will not, consider how
they came to be of such a mind, wiiich it will be whole'
XVI
SESAME AND LILIES,
some for you beyond most subjects of inquiry to
ascertain. And after you bave gone on doing this a
bttle wliile, you will begin to undei-stand the meaning
of at least one chapter of your Bible, Proverbs xxxi.,
without need of any labored comment, sermon, or
meditation.
In these, then (and of course in all minor ways, ba-
sides, that you can discover in your own household),
you must be to the best of your strength usefully em-
ployed during the greater part of the day, so that you
may be able tit the end of it to say, as proudly as any
peasant, that you have *)ot euten the bread of idleness.
Then, secondly, I said, you are not to be cruel. Per-
haps, you think there is no chance of your being so ;
and indeed I hope it is not likely that xow should be
deliberately unkind to any creature ; but unless you
are deliberately kind to every creature, you will often
be cruel to many. Cruel, partly through want of im-
agination (a far rarer and weaker faculty in women
than men), and yet more, at the present day, through
the subtle encouragement of your selfishness by the
religious doctrine that all which we now suppose to be
evil will be brought to a good end ; doctrine practically
issuing, not in less earnest efforts that the immediate
unpleasantness may be averted from ourselves, but in
our remaining satisfied in the contemplation of its ul-
timate objects, when it is inflicted on others.
It is not likely that the more accurate methods of
1
/J
i
i>i -,-
10
)e
P
Ite
lin
il
lof
I
PRKFACK.
XV 11
recent mental education will now long permit young
people to grow up in the ])ersuasion that, in any danger
or distress, they may expect to be themselves saved
by the providence of God, while those around them
are lost by His Improvidence : but they may be yet
long restrained from rightly kind action, and long ac-
customed to endure both their own pain occasionally,
and the pain of othei's always, with an unwise patience,
bv misconception of the eternal and incurable nature
of real evil. Observe, therefore, carefully in this mat-
ter: there are degrees of jjain, as degrees of faultful-
noss, which are altogether conquerable, and which
seem to be merely forms of wholesome trial or disci-
pline. Your fingers tingle when you go out on a
frosty morning, and are all the warmer afterward ;
your limbs are weary with wholesome work, and lie
down in the pleasanter rest; you are tried for a little
while by having to wait for some promised good, and
it is all the sweeter when it comes. But you cannot
carry the trial past a certain point. Let the cold fasten
on 3^our liand in an extreme degree, and your fingers
will molder from their sockets. Fatigue yourself,
but once, to utter exhaustion, and to the end of life
you shall not recover the former vigor of your frame.
Let heart-sickness pass beyond a certain bitter point,
and the heart loses its life forever.
Kow, the very definition of evil is in this irremedi
ableness. It means sorrow, or sin, which end in
XVIll
8E8AMF, AI^D LIIJh:8.
death ; and assuredly, as far as we know, or can con
ceive, there are iiianv conditions hotli of iKiin and sin
wliich cannot hut so end. Of course we are ignorant
and hhnd creatures, juid we cannot know what seeds
of good may he \\\ present suffering, or ])resent crime;
but with what we cannct know, we ar'e not concerned
It is conceivable that murderers and liars may in some
distant world he exalted into a higher humanity than
they could have reached without liomicido or false
hood ; but the contingency is not one by which our
actions should be guided. There is, indeed, a better
hope that the beggar, who lies at our gates in misery,
m.'iy, witiiin gntes of pearl, bo comforted, but the
JMaster, whose words are our only authority for think-
ing so, never Iiimself inflicted disease as a blessing,
nor sent away the hun«n*v unfed, or the wounded un-
healed.
Beheve mo, then, tho only right principle of action
here, is to consider <''<;od and evil as defined hv our
natural sense of })oth ; and to strive to promote the
one, and to conquer the other, with as hearty endeavor
as if there were, indeed, no other world than this.
Above all, get (]uit of the absurd idea that Heaven will
interfere to correct great errors, while allowing its
laws to take their course in punishing small ones. If
you prepare a dish of food carelessly, you do not ex-
pect Providence to make it palatable; neither if,
through years of folly, you misguide your own life,
PREFACE.
XIX
I.
;his.
its
If
ex-
if,
life,
i-i
need you expect Divine interf(3rence to bring round
everything jit last for the best. I tell you, positively,
the world io not so constitiiteil : the C()iise(|uences of
great mistakes are just as sure jis those of small ones,
and the happiness of your whole life, and of all the
lives over which you have power, depends as literally
on yoiii* own common sense atul discretion as the ex-
cellence and order of the feast of a day.
Think carefully and bravely over these things, and
vou will find them true: having found them so, think
also carefully over your own position in life. I assume
that you belong to the middle or upper classes, and
that vou would shrink from descending into a lower
sphere. You may fancy you would not : nay, if you
are vei'y good, strong-hearted, and romantic, [)erhaps you
reallv would not; but it is not wrong that vou should.
You have tlien, 1 suppose, g«jod food, pretty rooms to
live in, pretty dresses to wear, power of obtaining every
rational and wholesome pleasure ; you are, moreover,
probably gentle and grateful, and in the habit of
every day thanking (iod for these things. But why
do you tiiank II im^ Is it because, in these matters,
as well as in vour religious knowledge, vou think He
has nuule a favorite of you. Is the essential meaning
of your thanksgiving, '' Lord, I thank thee that I am
not as other girls ai'e, not in that I fast twice in the
week while they feast, but in that I feast seven times
a week, while they fast," and are you quite sure this
'1
5Fb
XX
SKSAMfS AND IJLTK8.
isa plciisin^r form of tlmnks^nvin^;' to your TToavonly
Fatlior? Sii|)j)oso you saw ouo of your own truo
earthly sisters, Lucy or Kinily, cast out of your luortal
father's house, starving, helpless, heart-broken ; and
that every niornint,' when you went into your father's
room, you said to iiim, '' How good you are, father,
to give me what you don't give Lucy," are you sure
that, whatever anger your parent might have just cause
for, against your sister, he would be pleased by that
thanksgiving, or Mattered by that })raise^ Xay, are
you even sure that you are so mucli the favorite: sup^
pose that, all this while, he loves poor Lucy just as
well as you, and is only trying you through her pain,
and perlia{)s not angry with her in anywise, but deeply
angry with you, and all the nicjre for your thanks-
givings 'i Would it not l)e well that you should think,
and earnestlv too, over this standing of yours; and all
the more if you wish to believe that text, which clergy-
men so much dislike preaching on, '' LJow hardly shall
thev that have riches enter into the Kingdom of CxodV
You do not believe it now, or you would be less com-
placent in your state; and you cannot believe it at all,
until you know that the Kingdom of God means —
"not meat and drink, but justice, peace, and joy in the
Holy Ghost," nor until you know also that such joy is
not by any means, necessarily, in gomg to church, or
in singing hymns; bur may be joy in a dance, or joy in
a jest, or joy in anything you have deserved to possess,
I
PRKFACE,
xxi
all
I
or that you aro willinf^ to g\vo\ but joy in notliing
thai sc«i)iirates you, as by any sti'an;^o favor, from your
fellow-creatures, that exalts vou through th«Mr (h'irrachi-
tion — exempts you from their toil —or iiululges you in
time of their distress.
Think, then, and sonu^ day, T believe, you will feel
also — no morbid passion of pity such as would turn you
into a black Sister of Charity, but the stejidy fire of
perpetual kindness which will make you a bright oac.
I speak in nodispara<^«Mnentof them ; I know wc^ll how
good the Sisters of Charity are, and how much we owe
to them; but all these ])rofessional pieties (excerpt so
far as distinction or association may bo necessary for
effectiveness of work), are in their spirit wrong, and in
practice merely plaster the sores of disease that ought
never have been permitted to exist ; encouraging at the
same time the herd of less excellent women in frivolity,
by leading them to think that they must either be
good up to the black standard, or cannot be good for
anything. Wear a costume, by all means, if you like ;
but let it be a cheerful and becoming one ; and be in
your heart a Sister of Charity alwa^^s, without either
veiled or voluble declaration of it.
As I pause, before ending my preface — thinking of
one or two more points that are diflicult to write of —
I find a letter in The Times, from a French lady, which
says all I want so beautifully, that I will print it just
as it stands :
If
xxu
SESAME AND LILIES.
Sir — It is often said that one example is worth many sermons.
Shall I be judged presuni])tuouH if I point out one, which seems to
me so striking just now, that, however painful, I cannot help dwell-
ing upon it?
It is tlio share, the sad and large share, that French society and
i*s recent habits of luxury, of expenses, of dress, of indulgence in
every kind of extravagant dissipation, has to lay to its own door in
its actual crisis of ruin, misery, and humiliation. If our metiagerea
cau he cited as an example to English housewives, so, alas! can other
classes of our sficicty ]>« set up as an example — not to be followed.
Bitter must l)e the feelings of many a French woman whose days
of luxury and expensive habits are at an end, and whose bills of by-
gone s}>l('ndor lie with a heavy weight on her conscience, if not on
her purse!
With us the evil has spread high and low. Everywhere have the
examples given by the higheijt ladies in the laud been followed but
too successfully.
Every year did dress become more extravagant, entertainments
more costly, exi)enses of every kind more considerable. Lower and
lower became the tone of society, its good breeding, its delicacy.
More and more were nw.^te and duni-uioitde associated in newspaper
accounts of fashionable doings, in scandalous g(jssii), on race-
courses, in premieres representations, in imitation of each other's
costumes, mohilicrs and ilang.
Living l)eyond one's means became habitual — almost necessary —
for every one to keep up with, if not to go beyond, every one else.
What the result of all this has been we now see in the wreck of
our ])rosperity, in the downfall of all tbat seemed brightest and
highest.
Deeply and fearfully impressed by what my own country has in-
curred and is suffering, I cannot help feeling sorrowful when I see
in England signs of our besetting sins appearing also. Paint and
chignons, slang and vaudevilles, knowing "Anonymas" by name,
and reading doubtfully moral novels, are in them.selves small
■=#
PREFACE.
xxui
offenses, although not many years ago they would have appeared
very heinous ones, yet they are quick and tempting conveyances on a
very dangerous high-road.
I would that all Englishwomen knew how they are looked up to
from abroad — what a high opinion, what honor and reverence wo
foreigners have for their principles, their truthfulness, the fresh and
pure innocence of their daughters, the healthy youthfulness of their
lovely children.
May I illustrate this by a short example which happened very near
me? During the days of the emcutes of 1848, all the houses in I-^aris
were being searched for fire-arms by the mob. The one I was living
in contained none, as the master of the house repeatedly assured the
furious and incredulous Republicans. They were going to lay vio-
lent hands on him, when his wife, an English lady, hearing the loud
discussion, came bravely forward and assured them that no arms
were concealed. " Vous etes anglaise, nous vous croyoiis; lea
anglaises disent toujours la verite," was tlu^ iu. mediate an^wfr, and
the rioters quietly left.
Now, sir, shall I be accused of unjust criticism if loving and al-
miring your country, as these lines will prove, certain new features
strike me as painful discrepancies in English life?
Far be it from me to preach the contempt of all that can make life
iovable and wholesomely pleasant. I love nothing better than to see
a woman nice, neat, elegant, looking her best in the i)rettiest dress
that her taste and purse can aiT n'd, or your bright, fresh young girls
fearlessly and perfectly sitting their horses or adorning their houses
as pretty [sic; it is not quite grammar, but it is better than if it were;]
as care, trouble, and refinement can make them.
It is the degree beyond that which to us has proved so fatal, and
that I would our example could warn you from, as a small repay-
ment for your hospitality anil frieMdliness to us in our days of trouble.
May Englishwomen accept this in a kindly spirit as a nevv-year'a
wish from
m
lit
i
A FiiENCu Lady.
December 29.
XXIV
SESAME AND LTLTES,
That, then, is the substance of what I would fain say
convincingly, if it niiglit be, to my ^iii friends; at
all events with certainty in my own mind that I
was thus far a safe guide to them.
For other and older readers it is needful I should
write a few words more, respecting what o})portunity I
have had to judge, or riglit I have to speak, of such
things ; for, ind-^ed, too much of what I have said
about women has been said in faith only. A wise and
lovelv Eno-lish lady told mo, when Sesame and Lilies
first appeared, that slie was sure the Sesame "vvoukl
be useful, but tluit in the Lilies I had been writing of
what I knew nothinsr about. Which was in a measure
too true, and also that it is more partial than my
writings are usually : for as Ellesmere spoke his speech
on the intervention, not indeed otherwise than he
felt, but vet altoo-ether for the sake of Gretchen, so I
wrote the Lilies to please one girl ; and were it not
for what I remember of her, Jind of few besides, should
now perhaps recast sotne of the sentences in the Lilies
in a very different tone : for as years have fjrone by, it
has chanced to me, untowardly in some respects, fort'
unalely in others (because it enables me to read his-
tory more clearly), to see the utmost evil that is in
women, while I have had but to believe the utmost
good. The best women are indeed necessarily the
most difficult to know; they are recognized chiefly
in the happiness of their Imsbands and the nobleness
I
PREFAOE.
XXV
I (
I I
1
of their cliiklren; they are only to be divined, not dis-
cerned, by the stranger ; and, sometimes, seem almost
nelpless except in their homes ; yet without the help
of one of them, to whom this book is dedicated, the
day would ])robably have come before now, when I
should have written and thouo^ht no more.
On the other hand, tlie fasliion of the time renders
whatever is forward, coarse, or senseless, in feminine
nature, too palpable to all men — the weali picturesque-
ness of my earlier writings brought me acquainted
with much of their emptiest enthusiasm ; and the
chances of later life gave me opportunities of watching
v/omen in states of degradation and vindictiveness
which opened to me the gloomiest secrets of Greek
and Syrian tragedy. I have seen them betray their
household charities to lust, their pledged love to devo-
tion ; I have seen mothers dutiful to their children, as
Medea ; and children dutiful to their parents, as the
daui^hter of Ilerodias : but mv trust is still unmoved
in the ])reciousness of the natures that are so fatal in
their error, and 1 leave the words of the Lille>i un-
changed ; believing, yet, that no man ever liv^ed a right
life who had not been chastened by a woman's luve,
strengthened by her courage, and guided by her dis-
cretion.
Wliat I might myself have been so helped, 1 rarely
indulge in the idleness of thinking; but what I am
since I take on me the function of a teacher, it is wel/
"i;.
ill
i
XXVI
SESAME AND LTLTjiK
that the reader should know, as far as I can tell
him.
Kot an unjust person ; not an unkind one ; not a
false one ; a lover of order, labor, and peace. That, it
seems lo me, is enough to give me right to say ail I
care to say on ethical subjects : more, I could only tell
delinitely througli details of autobiography such as
none but prosperous and (in the simple sense of the
word) faultless, lives could justify — and mine has been
neither. Yet, if any one, skilled in reading the torn
manuscripts of the luiman soul, cares for more intimate
knowledge of me, he nuiy have it by knowing with
what persons in ])ast history I have most sympathy.
I will name three.
In all that is strongest and deepest in me — that fits
me for my work, and gives light or shadow to my be-
ing, I have sympatliy with Guido Guinicelli.
In my constant natural temper, and thoughts of
things and of people, witli Mar'nontel.
In my enforced and accidental temper, and thoughts
of things and of people, with Dean Swift.
Any one who can understand the natures of those
three men, can understand mine ; and having said so
much, I am content to leave both life o.nd work to be
remembered or forgotten, as their uses may deserve.
Denmark Hill,
1st January, 1S71.
I
SESAME AND LILIES.
•\ (■
i
LECTUEE I.-SESAME.
OF kings' treasuries.
"You shall each have a cake of yesame — and ten pound."
— Lucia n: 2 he Fisherman.
I BELIEVE, ladies and gentlemen, that my first \\xiy
this evening is to ask your pardon for the ambiguity
of title under which the subject of lecture has been
jinnounced ; and for having endeavored, as you may
ultimately think, to obtain your audience under false
pretenses. For indeed I am not going to talk of
idngs, known as regnant, nor of treasuries, understood
to contain wealth ; but of qnite another order of roy-
alty, and material of riclies, than those usually ac-
knowledoed. And I had even intended to ask vour
attention for a little while on trust, and (as sometimes
one contrives in taking a friend to see a favorite piece
of scenery) to hide what I wanted most to show, with
such imperfect cunning as I might, until we had unex-
pectedly reached the best point of view by winding
paths. But since my good plain-spoken friend, Canon
' n
It*
^il
.'i ' I
< m
J
2
SESAME AND LILIES.
Anson, has already partly anticipated my reserved
"trot for the avenue" in his first advertised title of
subject, " Plow and What to Eead " — and as also I
have heard it said, by men practiced in public address,
that hearers are never so much fatigued as by the en-
deavor to follow a speaker who gives them no clew
to his purpose, I will take the slight mask off at once,
and tell you plainly that I want to speak to you about
books; and about the way we read them, and could,
or should read them. A grave sul»ject, you will say ;
and a wide one! Yes; so wide that 1 sliall make no
effort to touch the compass of it. I will try only to
bring before you a few smiple thoughts about reading,
Avhicli press themselves upon me every day more
deeply, as I watch the course of the ])ublic mind with
respect to our daily enlarging- means of education, and
the answeringly wider spreading, on the levels, of the
ii-rigation of literature. It happens that I have prac-
tically some connection with schools for different
classes of youth ; and I receive many letters from
parents respecting ihe education of their children. In
the mass of these letters, I am always struck by the
precedence which the idea oi a "position in life "takes
above all other thoughts in the parents' — more espe-
cially in the mothers'— minds. 'The education befit-
ting such and such a station in Z/f^"— this is the
phrase, this the object, always. They never seek, as
far as I can make out, an education good in itself; the
1
I
■IH ^->-,.-
OF KTNOS' TREASURIES
\
conception of abstract rightness in training rarelv
seems reached by the writers. But an education
" which shall keep a good coat on my son's back — an
education which shall enable him to ring with confi-
dence the visitors' bell at double-belled doors — educa-
tion which shall result ultimatel}^ in establishment of
a double-belled door to his own house; in a word,
which shall lead to advancement in life." It never
seems to occur to the parents that there may be an ed-
ucation which, in itself is advancement in Life — that
any other than that may perhaps be advancement in
Death ; and that this essential education might be
more easily got, or given, than they fancy if they set
about it in the right way ; while it is for no price, and
by no favor, to be got, if they set about it in the wrong.
Indeed, among the ideas most prevalent and effective
in the mind of this busiest of countries, I suppose the
first — at least that which is confessed with the greatest
frankness, and put forward as the fittest stimulus to
youthful exertion — is this of "Advancement in life."
My main purpose this evening is to determine, with
you, what this idea practically includes, and what it
should include.
Practically, then, at present,, "advancement in life"
means becoming conspicuous in life — obtaining a posi-
tion which shall be acknowled<^ed bv others to be
respectable or honorable. We do not understand, by
this advancement, in general, the mere making of
y\
I If
-ii
4 SESAME AND LI LIES.
mon(3y, })iit the being known to have made it; not the
ncconiplishnient of any o^reat aim, but the being seen
to have accomplished it. In a word, we mean tl)e
gratificaiion of our thirst for applause. That thirst, if
the last inlirmity of noble minds, is also the lirst in-
firmity of weaiv on(.'S ; and on the whole, the strongest
impulsive influence of averjige humanity : the greatest
efTorts of the race have always been traceable to the
love of praise, as its greatest catastrophes t" the love
of pleasure.
1 am not about to attack '>!■ <it;fend this impulse. X
want you only to feel how it lies at the root of effort ;
especially of all modern effort. It is the gratification
of vanity which is, with us, the stimulus of toil, and
balm of repose ; so closely does it touch the very
springs of life, that the wounding of our vanity is
always spoken of (and truly) as in its measure 7nortal ;
we call it " mortification," using the same expression
which we should apply to a gangrenous and incurable
bodily hurt. And although few of us may be phy-
sicians enough to recognize the variour effect of this
passion upon health and energy, I believe most honest
men know and would at once acknowledo:e, its
leading power with them as a motive. The seaman
does not commonly desire to be made captain only be-
cause he knows he can manage the ship better than
any other sailor on board. lie wants to be made
captain that he may be called captam. The clergy-
f
OF KINGS' TltEASUnib:s. 5
man does not uaujilly want to be made a bishop only
because lie believes that n< other hand can, as firmlv
as his, direct the diocese throui^di its dilflculties. Flo
wants to })e made l)ishop primarily that he may be
called " AEy Lord." And a princ;e does not usually de-
sire to enlarge, or a subject to gain, a kingdom because
he believes that no one else can as well serve the state
upon the throne; but, briefly, because he wishes to be
addi'essed as " Your Majesty," by as many lips as may
be brought to such utterance.
This, thcMi, l)eiug the main idea of advancement in
life, the force of it applies, for all of us, according to
our station, particularly to that secondary result oT
such advancement which we call "i>-etting into n-ood
society." We want to get into good society, not that
we may have it, but that we may be seen in it ; and
our notion of its goodness depends primarily on its
conspicuousness.
Will you pardoii me if I pause for a moment to put
Avhat T fear you may think an iujpertinent question?
I never can <?:o on with an address unless f feel, or
know, that my audience are either with me or against
me (I do not much care which, in beginning); but I
must knov/ where they are ; and I would fain find out,
at this instant, whether you think I am puttmg the
motives of popular action too low. I am resolved to-
night, to state them low enough to be admitted as
probable ; for whenever m my writings on Political
> I
a:
6
8ESAMPJ AND LlfJFS.
Econom}', I assume that a Jittle honesty, or generosity
— or what used to be called "virtue" — may be calcu-
lated upon ns a human motive of actu)n, people always
ansvvor m(^, sayin/^*, " You must not cnlculate on that;
that is not in human nature : you must not assume
anything to bo common to nu-^u but acquisitiveness
and jealousy ; no other feeling ever has influence on
them, except accidentally, and in matters out of the
way of business." I l>egin accordingly to-night low
down in the sc-ale of motives ; but 1 must know if you
think me riglit iu doing so. Therefore, let me ask
those who admit the love of praise to be usually
the strongest motive in men's minds in seeking ad-
vancement, and the honest desire of doing any kind of
duty to be an entirely secondary one, to hold up their
hands. {Ahojtt a <i 0.101 of hand, s held up — the audience
pd/'thj not hchi<j sure the lecturer is serious^ and iiartly
shy of express) na opinion.) I am quite serious — I
really do want to knovr what you think; however, I
can judge by putting the reverse question. Will those
who thinix tiiat duty is generally the first, and love of
praise the second motive, hold up their hands ? {One
hand reported to have been held up, hehind the lecturer^
Very good : I see you are with me, and that you think
I have not begun too near tlie ground. Xow, without
teasing you by putting further question, I venture to
assume that you will admit dutv as at least a second-
ary or tertiary I'lotive. You tiiiiik tluit the desiro of
I
of
i
I
OF KINGS' TRPJASURUuS.
of
doing something usoful, or obtaining some real good, is
indeed an existent collateral idea, though a secondary
one, in most men's desire of advancement. You will
grant that moderately hcmest men desire place and
office, at least in some measure for the sake of thc^ir
beneficent power; and would wish to associate rather
with scmsible and well-informed persons than with
fools and ignorant persons, whether they are seen in
the company of t!ie sensible ones or not. And linally,
without being troubled by repetition of any conmion
truisms about the preciousness of friends, and the in-
fluence of companions, you will admit, doubtless, that
according to the sincerity of our desire that our friends
may be true, and our companions wise — and in ])ro-
portion to the earnestness and discretion with which
we choose both, will be the general chances of our
li.i])pines3 and usefulness.
Tkit, granting that we had both the will and the
sense to choose our friends well, how few of us have
the power! or, at least, how limited, for most, is the
sphere of choice ! Nearly all our associations are de-
termined by chance or necessity; and restricted within
a narrow circle. We cannot know whom we would;
and those whom we know, we cannot have at our side
when we most need them. All the higher circles of
human intelligence are, to those beneath, only mo-
mentarily and partially open. AVe may, by good fort-
une, obtain a glimpse of a great poet, and hear the
'i
1}>A
i'
! "W
8
tiicsA Mi: A yn 1. 1 1. iks.
soiui'l of his voice; or put ii (|iu>stioii to a man oi
science, juul he answered jL^ood Inniioredly. We ni9,y
intrude ten minutes' talk on a cahinet niinistor, an-
swered j)i'ol)al)ly with words worse tliati sihnico, l)eing
decej)live ; or snatch, oncM^ oi* twice in (mu* lives, the
]M'ivile;;e of tiirowin;^' a, l)oU(|uet in the ])ath of a Prin-
cess, or arresting- the Uind ghmce of a Queen. And
vet these niomentai'v chances we covet : and si)end our
years, and pas.nons, and powers in ])ursuit of little
more than these; while, meantime, there is a society
contiiuuilly open to us, of people who v/ill tallc to us as
lont^ as we like, wliatever our raid< or occupation —
tallc to us in the best words they can choose, and with
thanks if we listen to them. And this societv% because
it is so numerous and so gentle — and can be ke[)t wait-
ing round us all day long, not to grant audience, but
to gain it — Idngs and statesmen lingering ])a,tiently in
those pkiiniy furnisheil and narrow anterooms, our
l)ook-case shelves — we ma f^ no account of that com-
pany— perhaps never listen to a word they would say,
alldavlouij:!
Yoi: ]]iay tell me, perhaps, or think within yourselveKS,
that the apathy with which we regard this company
of the noble, vrho are ])raying us to listen to them, and
the passi(m with which we })ursue the conipan}^ prob-
ably of the ignoble, who despise us, or who have noth-
ing to teach us, are grounded in this — that we can see
ino faces of tiio living men, and it iti themselves, and
!
1*1
I
OF KINGS' THKAtiUniHS. Q
not tluv.r savin;!s, witli which \\\^ <lesiro to hocoino
t'ain.iiiar. l>iiL it is not so. Siqiposu yuii iiuvur woro
to soo thoii' faces — siij))>(>so you coiihl l)o put In.'liiiwl a
sci'oen in tlio stalusitmirrf ca!)inut, of ihe prince's
chaml)er, would you not hi' <»liHl to listen to their
words, thoug'i you \ver(} I'oi'hicKh'ii to advance heyond
the screen? Ai.d when the sci'cen is only a little less,
folded in tw«), instead of I'oui', jiiid you c;(n 1x3 hidden
hehind the cover of the two honrds that hind ;i hoo!:,
and list Ml, all dav h^nij^, not to the casual t;dk, hut to
the studied, dettii'iained, chosen addresses of the wisest
of men — this station of audieiic;.', [UkI honorable; privy
council, you des[)iso !
Ijiit })<'rha})s you will say that it is l^ecauso the liv"-
ing- people talk of thini;'s that are passing-, and are of
iniinedi;.*o) interest to vou, that you desi:'e to hear
them, ^ay; that cannot be so, for the living ]K'ople
will themselves tell you idjout passiufi' matters, much
better in their writings than in their careless talk.
But I admit tiiat this motive does influence you. so far
as you prefer those ra])id and ephemeral writings to
slow ami enduring writings — books, ])ro])erly so called.
For all books are divisible into two classics, the books
of the liour, and the books of all t'me. Mark this dis-
tinction— it is not one of qualitv only. It is not
merely the bad book tliat does not last, and the go(jd
one that does. It is a distinction of species. There
are g(^od books for the hour, and good ones for all
1
!'tf
■ ■\\
10
tiEtiAME A^JJ LILIE;:].
time; bad books for t!ie hour, and l)ad ones for all
time. I mi;st deline the two knids Ijefore I go further.
Tiie f>"ood book of the hour, tlion — T do not speak of
tlio had ones — is simply the useful or ])leasant talk of
some pei'sou vhom you cannot otherwise converse
with, printed for you. ^^ery useful often, telhng you
what V(iU need to know ; verv ])lcasant often, as a
sensible friend's present t;dk would l»e. These bright
accounts of travels ; go(xl humored and witty discus-
sions of question ; lively or pntlictic storytellingin the
form of novel; llrm fact-tellini!^, bv the real ii,s>'ents
concerned in tlie events of passing liistory — jdl these
books of the hour, multiplying among us as education
becoines more general, area pecuhar characteristic and
possession of the |)resent age: we ought to be entirely
thankful for them, and entirely ashatned of ourselves
if we moke no good use of thetn. But we make the
worst possible use, if we allow them to usurp the
place of true books : for, strictly speaking, they are
r.ot Ijooks at all, but merely letters or newspapers in
good print. Our friend's lettei' uu\y l.>e delightful, or
necessary, to-day: whether worth keeping or not, is
to be considei'ed. The newspaper may be entirely
proper at breakfast-time, but assuredly it is not rc;iding
for ail day. So, though bound up in a volume, the
long letter which gives you so ])leasant an account of
the inns, and roads, and v; eat her last year at such a
place, or which tells y(;u that amusing story, or gives
I
Lie
re
in
or
is
'es
OF KmaS' TREA S UIiIK8.
n
you the real circumstances of such and such events,
however valuable for occasional reference, may not be,
in the real sense of the woi'd, a '' book" at all, nor, in
the real sense, to be '' read.'' A book is essentially not
a talked tiling, but a written thing; and written, not
with the view of n.ere comniunication, but of perma-
nence. The book of talk is printed only because its
author cannot s[)eak to thousands of people at once ;
if he could, he Avould — the volume is mere multiplica'
tion of his voice. You c;,nnot talk to your friend in
India; if you could, you would; you write instead:
tljat is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is
written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry
it merely, but to ])reserve it. The author has some-
thing to say which he perceives to be true and useful,
or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has
yet said it ; so far as he knows, no one else can say it.
He is bound to say it, clearly aiul melodiously if he
may ; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life ho
finds this to be the thing, or gi'oup of things, manifest
to him ; this the piece of true knowledge, or sight
which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted
liim to seize. He would fain set it down forever; en-
grave it on rock, if he could ; saying, ''This is the best
of me; for the i^est, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved,
and hated, like another ; my life was as the vapor, and
is not ; but this I saw and knew : this, if anything of
mine, is worth your memory." That is his *• writing;"
:■
I -< >
!::S
%
A'\
rz
SESAME AND LILIES.
it is, in his small liumaji way, and with whatever de-
gree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or
scripture. Tiiat is a " Book."
Perlia{)s you tliink no books were ever so written?
But, again, I ask you, do you at all believe in
honesty, or at all in kindness ( or do you think there is
never any honesty or benevolence in wise people?
None of ns, I hope, are so unha})py as to think that.
Well, whatever bit of a wise man's work is honestly
and benevoleiiily done, tliat bit is his book, or his
piece of art. It is mixed always with evil fragments
— ill-done, redundant, aflected work. But if you. read
rightly, you will easily discover the true bits, and
those are tlie l)ook.
Now books of this kind have been wriUen in all
ages by their greatest men ; by great leatlers, great
statesmen, and great thinkers. These are all at your
choice; and life is short. You have lieard as much be-
fore; yet have you measured and mapped out this
short life and its possibilities? Do you know, if you
read this, tliat you cannot read that — that what you
lose to-dav vou cannot gain to-morrow ? Will vou o>o
and gossip witii your housemaid, or your stable-boy,
when you may talk with (pieens and kings; or flatter
yourselves that it is witli anv worthy consciousness of
your own chiims to respect that you jostle with the
common ci'owd for entree here, and audience there,
when all the v;hile tiiis eternal court is open to you,
OF KINGS' TlihJASUlUES,
13
)U.
with its society wido as tbe world, maltitudinous as its
days, the chosen, and the ini^-lity, of every place and
time? Into that you may enter always; in that you
may take fellowship and rank according to your wish;
from that, once entered into it, you can never ])e out-
cast but by your own fault ; by your aristoci'acy of
companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy
will be assuredly tested, and the motives with Vvhich
you strive to take lii<^h place in the society (A'
the livino^, measured, as to all the truth and sin-
cerity that are in them, by the place you desire
to take in this company of the Dead.
"The place you desire," and the place you Jit
yourself fot\ I must also say ; because, observe,
this 30urt of the past ditfers from all living aris-
tocracy in this -it is open to labor and to merit,
but to nothing- else. No wealth will bribe, no name
overawe, no artilice deceive, the guardian of those
Klysian gates. In the deep sense, no vile or vid-
gar person ever enters there. At the jiortieres of
that silent Faubourg St. Germain, there is but brief
question, " Do you deserve to enter C '' Pass. Do
vou ask to be the coniDanion of nobles? i\[ake
yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long
for the conversation of the vrise? Learn to under-
stand it, and you shall hear it. Dut on other
terms? — no. Jf 3^ou will not rise to us, we cannot
stoop to you. The living lord may assume court
i; M
I' !>|
!i;
14
SESAME AND LILIES.
esy, the living philosopher explains his thought to
you with considerable pain ; but hero we neither
feign nor interpret ; you must rise to tlie level of
our thoughts if y.>u wouhl be ghuhUnied by them,
and share our feelings, if ytni would I'ecognize our
presence."
Tliis, then, is Avhat you have to do, and I ad-
mit that it is much. Vou must in a word, love
these peo})le, if you a>'6 to be among them. No
ambition is of any use. They scorn your ambi-
tion. You must love them, and show your love
in tiiese two followini>- wavs.
1.-— First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and
to enter into their thouohts. To enter into theirs, ob-
serve; not to find your own expressed by them.
If tlie person who wrote the book is not. wiser
than you, yon need not read it; if he be, he will
think differently from you in many respects.
Very ready we are to say of a book', "How
good this is— thafs exactly wdiat I think!" But
th
e rioht
feel
ing is, " How strann-e that is ! I
never thought of tliat before, and yet I see it
true: or if I d
IS
o not now, I hope I shall, some
day." But whether thus submissively or not, at
least be sure that you go to the autlior to get
at ///.s' meaning, not to iind yours. Judge it after-
ward, if you think yourself qualih'ed to do so,
but ascertain it fii'st. And be sure also, if the author
OF KINGS' TIlEASUIiIE8.
15
is worth anything, that you will not get at his meaning
all at once — nay, that at his whole meaning you will
not for a loi.^* time arrive in any wise. I^ot that he
does not say what he means and in strong words too ;
but he cannot say it all; and wiiat is more strange,
will not, hut ill a hidden way and in parables, in order
that he may be sure vou want it. 1 cannot niHte see
the reason of this, nor analyze that ci'uel reticence in
the Ui'casts of wise njen which makes them always hide
their deeper thought. They do not give it you by way
of h(}lp, but of reward, and will make tliemselves sure
tlird you deserve it before they allow you to reach it.
Jjut it is the s:une with the physical type of wisdom,
trohl. There seems, to v<'U and me, no rea.soii whv the
electric forces of the earth shoulvl not carry whatever
there is of gold within it at once to the mountain tops,
so that kings and people might know that all tlie gold
thev could vyX was tliere; and without anv ti'ouble of
digging, or anxiety, or ciiance, or \vaste of time, cut it
avrav, ami coin as much as thev needed. But Nature
does not manage it so. She puts it in little iissures in
the earth, nobody knows where : you may dii>' long
and find none; vou mustdio^ i^ainfully to lind any.
And it is just the same with men's best wisdom.
When you come to a good b(^ok, you must ask your-
self, ''Am I inclined to work as an Austi'alian miner
would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order,
and am I in good trim m\ seil', my sleeves well up to
■ ;!5
ill
' '1:
■ ■■ £
■^
!
16
SESAME ANh LILIES.
the el!)()\v, and my hreafli good, and my temper?"
And, keeping tlie figure ii little longer, even at cost of
tiresomeness, for it is a thoronglily useful one, the
metal yuu are in search of being the nuthor's mind or
meaning, I lis words are as the rock which you have to
crush and smelt in order to get at it. x\nd j^our pick-
axes are vour own cai'e, wit, and learnino:; your smelt-
ing-fui'nace is your own thoughtful soul. Do nothopo
to get at any gtjod author's meaning without those
tools and th:it fire; often you will need sharj)est, tiniest
chiseling, and })atientest fusing, before you can gjither
one grain of the metal.
And, therefore, lirsi; of all, I tell you, earnestly and
authoriiativelv ([ hioto I am rifj^lit in this), vou must i>"et
into the habit of looking intei.selv at \vords, and assur-
ing yourself of tluMr meaning, syllabhj by syllable — •
nay, letter by letter. For tiioagh it is only by reason
of the opposition of letters in the function of si^'us,
to sounds in function of signs, that tlie study of books
is called ''literature," and that a man versed m it
is called, by the consent of nations, a man of letters
instead of a man of books, or of words, you may ye\;
connect with that accidental nomenclature this real
principle— that you might read all the books in
the British Museum (if you could live lonir enouo'h\
and remain an utterly " dliterate,'' uneducated per-
son ; but that if vou read ten pao-es of a irood
book, letter by letter— that is to say, with real
OF KINGS' TRKAtiURIKS
17
ii«
accuracv^ — vou are forevonnoro in 9>ome ineasiuo
an oducatod person. Tlie entire difference between
education and non-edncation (as regards tiie merely in-
tellectual ])art of it), consists in this accuracy. A well-
educated o-entleman niav not know many lano^uaijcs —
may not be able to s])eak any but bis own — may have
read very few books. But whatever lanfj^u^jge ho
knows, he knows precisely ; whatever word he pro-
nounces he pronounces rightly ; above all, he is learned
in the jKcrcKje of words; knows the words of true de-
scent and ancient blo(jd, at a glance, from words of
modern canaille ; remembers all their ancestry — their
intermarriages, distantest relationships, and the extent
to wliich they were admitted, and offices they held,
among the national noblesse of words at any time, and
in any country. But an uneducated person may know
by memory any number of languages, and talk them
all, and yet truly know not a word of any- -not a word
even of his own. An ordinarily clever and sensible
seaman will be able to make his way ashore at most
ports ; yet he has only to sj)eak a sentence of any
lano-uaive to be known for an illiterate person : so also
the accent, or turn of expression oi a single sentence
will at once mark a scholar. And this is so strongly
felt, so conclutuvely admitted by educated persons, that
a false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough, in the
parliament of any c'vilized nation, to assign to a man
a certain degree of inferior standing forever. And
I*
!|)]
m
IS
SESAME /1A7) LILIES.
this is v'v^ht ; but it is a pity that tlie accuracy insisted
on is not oi'cater, and re(juir(Ml lo a serious purpose.
It is ri<^-ht liiat a false Latin (piaiitity should excite a
smile in llie IIous(i of Commons ; hut it is wrong that
ji false English meaning should iwt excite a fiowii
there. L(>t the accent of words be watclicd, by all
means, hut let th(Mr meaning be watched more ejosely
still, and fewer will do the work. A few woi'ds well
chosen and well distil. ^'uished, will do work that i
thousand cannot, when everyone is acting, eciuivocailv,
in the function of another. Yes; and words, if they
are not watched, will do deadlv work sometimes.
There are masked words droning and skidking about
us in Eui'ope just now — (there never wei'e so many,
owing to the spread of a shallow, blotching, blunder-
ing, infectious '• inf<jrmation," or I'ather deformation,
everywhere, and to the teaching of catechisms and
phrases at schools instead of human meanings)~there
are masked words abroad, 1 say, which nobody under-
stands, })ut Avhich everybody uses, and niost people
will also fight for, hve for, or even die for, fancying
they mean this or that, or the otlier, of things dear to
them : for such words wear chameleon cloaks —
"gr(jund-lion" cloaks, of the color of the ground of any
man's fancv : on that ground they lie in wait, and rend
him with a spring from it. There were never creatures
of \)Y('\ s<^) mischievous, never di)»lomatists so cunning,
never })oisoners so deadly, as these masked words;
I
I
OF KINGS' TliEASURlKS.
19
they are the unjust Ktownrds of all luon's ideas : wliat-
ever fanev (»r fav<ji'ile instinct a man most cherishes,
he ^ives to iiis favorite masked woi'd to takecai'eof for
him ; the word at last comes to have an inhnit*' jiower
over him — 3'ou cannot <.;et tit him hut by its ministry.
And in languages so mongrel m breed as the Englisli,
there is a fatrd powe;' of e(|ui vocation put into men's
hands, almost whether they will or no, in being able to
use Greek or Latin forms for a wcM'd when thev want
it to be respectal , and iSaxon or otherwise common
forms vrhen they want to discredit it. What a singu-
lar and salutary effect, for instance, would be })roduccd
on the minds of people who are in the liabit of taking
the Form of the words thev live bv, for the Power of
which those words tell them, if we alwavs either re-
tained, or refused, the Greek form '' biblos," or "bib<
lion," as the right expression for ''book" — instead of
employing it only in the one instance in which we
wish to give dignity to the idea, and translating it
everywhere else. How wholesome it would be for the
man}^ simple persons who w^orship the Letter of God's
Word instead of its Spirit (just as other idolators wor-
ship His picture instead of Ilis presence), if, in such
places (for instance) as Acts xix. 19 we retained the
Greek expression, instead of translating it, and chej
had to read — "Many of them also which used curious
arts, brought their bibles together, and burnt them be-
fore all men ; and they counted the price of them, and
{}
1.
.■rii'fl
i^a
i l;^"i
II!
J
■ ■ id
. m
'ii
%0
SKSAMK AND LILIES.
found it at'ty thousaiul pieces of silver!" Or if. on
tlie (»llior hand, we translated instead of retaining' it,
and always spoke of "The Holy IJook," instead of
"IJolv Hible,'' it miiiiit come into more heads than it
does at present that the Word of Ood, by which the
heavens wei-e, of old, and by which they are now
kept in store,"^" cunnot be nia<le a present of to any-
1)0(1 V in nir»rocco binding-; nor sown on any wayside
by help either of steam-plow or steam-press; but is
nevertheless l)eing ofl'ered to us daily, and by us with
contumely refused ; and sown in us daily, and by us as
instantly as may be, choked.
So, a<:ain, consider what effect has been ])roduced on
the £ng:lish vulgar mind by the use of the sonorous
Latin form 'ulamno," in translating the Greek
haraHfji'yco, vvdicu jicople charitably wish to make it
forcTole; and the substitution of the temperate "con-
demn " for it, when they choose to keep it gentle.
And what notable sermons have been preached by
iliitenite clergymen on — "Ho that believeth not shall
be damned :*' though thev would shrink with horror
from translating Ileb. xi. 7, "The saving of his house,
bv which he damned tlie world." or John viii. 12,
"Wonuni, hatli no man damned thee? She saith, ]^o
man, Lord. Jesus answered her, Keither do I damn
thee; go and sin no more." And divisions in the mind
I.
*2 Pe;er iii. 5-7.
le.
OF KINGS' TIIEASUHUCS.
21
of Europe, which have cost seas of blood, and in the de-
fense of which the noblest souls of nuMi have been cast
away in frantic desolation, countless as f<^)i*cst leaves —
though, in the heart of them, founded on deeper
causes — have nevertheless been rendered ])racticably
possible, mainly, by the European adoption of the
(J reek word for a public meeting, to give peculiar re-
spectability to such meetings, when held for religious
])urposGS : and other collateral equivocations, such as
the vulgar English one of using the word " priest" as
a contraction for '' presbyter."
Now, in oi'der to deul with words rightl3% this
is the habit you must form. jS'early every word
in your language has been first a word of some
other language — of Saxon, German, French, Latin,
or Greek (not to speak of eastern and primitive
dialects). And many words have been all these —
that is to say, have been Greek first, Latin next,
French or German next, and English last: under-
going a certain change of sense and use on the
lips of each nation ; but retaining a deep vital mean-
ing which all good scholars feci in employing them,
even at this dav. If vou do not know the Greek
alphal)et, learn it ; 3'oung or old — girl or boy —
whoever you may be, if 3'ou think of reading seri-
ously (which, of course, implies that you have
some leisure at command), learn your Greek alpha-
bet; then get good dictionaries of all these Ian-
i,;l
I
i
m
m
22
si:sAMi': AND rrrjFs.
f!:nji_i;f's, and wliciun'or you aio in doubl about a
^V(H•(1, hunt it down juilicntly. Kcad Max Miiller's
Irctuics tli(M'(»nL!,hlv, to hv^ln witli ; Jind, after that
cwv h't a woi'd escape you thiit looks suspicious.
II
It
IS smcro w
ork ; but vou will llnd it, even at
(irsl, intei'cstiii.i;', and at lasl, endlessly aniusin<^.
And the genei'al i^^ain to your character, in powtu*
and precision, will be (|U!l(» iiicalculMble.
^lind, this tloes not ini[)ly knowing-, or tryin^; to
know, (iieek, oi' L;d in, or French. It takes a wholo
lite to learn unv l:inuuM<re ])erfcctlv. J^ut you can
(\isilv ascertain the nieaniniis thiouo-h which the
Kn»^lish word has ])asse(l ; and tliosc which in a
good writ(M''s work it must still bear.
And now, merely for example's sake, I Vv^ill,
with your j)ermission, J'ead a few lines of a true
book \virh Vou, carefullv; imd see what will come
out of th(Mn. I will take a book perfectly known
to vou all; no Eniilish wo''ds are more familiar
to US, yet nothino- pei'haps has been less read with
sinceritv. 1 will take these few following; lines of Ly-
cidas.
*• L.Hst came, iuiil lust diil go.
The pilot c^f tlu' lialiloun lake;
Two i\iaj^sy kt\vs he boro t>f tnetals twain
(Tlie iToltl'-'ii t^pes, the iidu shuts amain),
lie ><luu^k his mitred locks, and strrn bespake,
Hdw woll iMiih' 1 have spar\i for thee, vouujj swain.
a
OF KINGS* TUIwiSUIlllia.
Enow of .such ns for their bcllie.s' sake
rrecp und intrude, unM crniib into the foldl
1)1 othfr cjirc tlicy littli- nciionin^'' nmke,
Tliaii li'ivv to scrniiil<]t' itt tho slieurers' foast,
Ami sliovt' away tlic, wortliy bidden ^uest;
Dlind mouths! tliut scurco themselves know how to hold
A sheep hook, or have icarn'd uught else, the hjast
'I'liut to the faith. !'ul herdsman's art belongsl
^^'hat recks it them? What need tliey? They are h\m\^
And when they list, their lean and (lashy won^s
Cilrato on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Kot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides "hat the grim wolf with privy paw
Daiiv devours apace, and nothing said."
n
i.lV
m
y-
I
Let us til ink over this passage, and examine its
words.
First, is it not sinmilar to find Milton assifi^nino: to
St. Peter, not only his full episcopal function, but the
voi'v types of it which Protestants usuallv^ refuse most
nassionatelv ? His "mitercd'' locks! Milton Avas no
Bishop-lover; how comes St. Peter to be "mitercdr'
^'Two massy keys he bore." Is this, then, the power
of the keys claimed by the Bishops of Pome, and is it
aclmowledged here by Milton only in a poetical license,
for the sake of its picturesqueness, that he may get the
f;-lcam of the golden keys to help his effect? Do not
think it. Great men do not play stage tricks with
doctrines of life and death: only little men do that.
M
24
SKSAMK AND LILIES.
Milton means what he Fays; and means it with his
mif,^ht too— is going to put tlie whole strength of his
spirit presently into the saying of it. For though not
a lover of false bishops, he waii a lover of true ones ;
and the Lake ])ilot is here, in his thoughts, the type
and head of true episcopal power. For Milton reads
that text, "I will give unto thee the keys of the king-
dom of Heaven*' quite honestly. Puritan though he
be, he would not blot it out of the book because thei*e
have been bad bishoj^s; nay, in order to understand
him, ve must understand that verse first; it will not
do to eye it askance, or whisper it under our breath,
as if it were a weapon of an adverse sect. It is a
solemn, universal assertion, deejily t( be kept in mind
by all sects. But perhaps we shall be better able to
reason on it if we go on a little further, and come back
to it. For clearly, this marked insistanco on the
power of the 1 rue episcopate is to make us feel more
weightily what is to be charged against the false
claimants of episcopate; or generally against false
claimants of power and rank in the body of the
clergy ; they who, '• for th(^ir bellies' sake, creep, and
intrude, and climb into the fold."
Do not think Milton uses those three vv^ords to fill
up his verse, as a loose writer would. Jle needs all
the tliree ; speciidly those tiiree, and no more than
those — "creep,'' and '• intrude," and "climb;'' no
otlier words would or could serve the turn, and no
*
OF KINGS' TR FAS CRIES.
21
more could bo added. For tliev^ exhaustively comi)re-
hend the three classes, correspoudeat to the three
characters, of men wlio dishonestly seek ecclesiastical
power. First, those who ^' crefjj'" into tlie t'ohl ; who
do not care for oHice, nor naniu, but for secret influ-
ence, and do all tilings occultly and cunnino-ly, con-
senting to any servility of olHce or conduct, so only
that they may intimately discern, and unawares direct,
the minds of men. Then those who " intrude"' (thrust,
that i^^) themselves into the fold, \\'\u) by natui'al in-
solence of heart, and stout eloquence of tongue, and
fearlessly perseverant self-assertion, obtain heai'ing
and authority v>'ith the common crowd. Lastlv, those
who "climb," who, by labor and learning, both stout
and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their
own ambition, gain high dignities and Muthorities, and
))ecome " h^rds over the heritage," though not "en-
samples to the Hock/*
Now go on :
" Of other care they little reckoning: inalie,
Than luiw to scramble at the hhearers' feast
Blind iiKHithis — "
T pause again, for this is a strange, expression ; a
broken metaphor, one might think, careless and un-
scholarly.
No>t so: its very audacity and pithiness ai-e intended
to make us look close at the ])lirase and i-emember it.
These two monosyllables express the precisely accurate
I
i--
0
'I
. w
i\\\
{(
26
SESAME AND LILIES.
contraries of riglit character, in the two great offices
of the Churcli — those of bishop and ])astor.
A Bishop means a person who sees.
A Pastor means one who feeds.
The most nnbishopl}^ character a man can have is
therefore to be Bhnd.
The most nnpastoral is, instead of feeding, to want
to be fed — to be a ^Fouth.
Take the two reverses together, and you have
"blind mouths/' We may advisably follow out this
idea a httle. Xearlv all the evils in the Chui'ch liave
arisen from bishops desiring ^v^/yxw more than //V////.
They want authority, not outlook'. Whereas their real
office is not to rule; though it may be vigorously to
exhort and rebuke ; it is the king's office to rule ; the
bishop/s office is to <)W)',see the flock; to number it,
sheep l)y sli"(»p ; to be ready always to give full ac-
count of it. Xow it is clear he cannot give account of
the souls, if he has not so much as numbered the bod-
ies of his tlock. The first thinir. therefore, that a
bishop has to do is at least to [)ut himself in a })osition
in which, at any moment, Ik; can obtain the history
from childhood of (n^ery liviu!'" soul in his diocese, and
of its present st;il(\ Down in that back street, I^ill,
and TS'ancy, knocking each otlun-'s teeth out! —
does the bishop know all about it? Has he his
eye u])on them ^ Has he hmJ his e^'e upon them ^
Can he cii'cumstantially explain to us how Bill
'
OF KINGS' Tl ''JA.SCJil/iJS.
27
got into the habit of hoiiting Xancy about the
head? If he caiuiot, ho is no bishop though he
had a initer as liigh as Sa]is])uiy stee{)le ; he is
no bishop — lie has sought to bo at tlie hehn in-
stead of the masthead ; lie has no sight of things.
"Xay/' you say, it is not his duty to look after
Bill in the bar],-; street. What ! the fat sheep that
have full fleeces — you think it is only tliose he
should look after, while (go back to your Milton)
" the hungry sliee]") look up, and are not fed, be-
sides what the grim wolf, with privy paw " (bish-
ops knowing nothing about it) "daily devours apace,
and nothing sr.id T'
"lUit that's not our idea of a bishop." Perhaps
not ; but it was St. Paul's: and it was ^lilton's. Thev
may be righ I, or we may be; but we must not think
we are reading either one or the other b}' putting our
meaning into their words. I go on.
" But swollen with wind, and the rank inist they draw."
'!!l
);• jii
This is to meet the vulgar answei* that "if th(i ])oor
are not looked after in their bodies, thev are in their
souls ; they have spiritual food."
Aiul Milton says, "They have no such thing as
spiritual food; they a»'{3 only swollen with wind."
At lirst you ma}^ think that is a coarse type, and an
obscure one. 13ut again, it is a quite literally accurate
one. Take up your Latin and (xreek dictionaries, and
i
'A
28
SESAMhJ AND LTLlF.l
find out the iiioanin<^ of '"Spirit." It is only a con-
traction of the Latin word " Ijrcath," and an indistinct
translation of the (ircek word for " wind/' The same
word is used in writing, " Tlie wind blowcth where it
hsteth ;" and in wi'iting, " So is every one tljat is born
of the Spirit ;" hoi'n of the In'ralh, that is ; for it means
the breatli of God, in soul and bod v. We have tlie
true sense of it in our words ''inspiration" and
"expire/' Xow, there are two kinos of breath with
wliich the Mock may be iiiled ; Ciod's breath, and
man's. The breatli of God is health, and life, and
peace to them, as the air of heaven is to the flocks on
the hills; batman's l>reath — the word which he calls
spiritual — is disease Jind contagion to them, as the fog
of the fen. They rot inwardly with it; the}' are
puffed up by it, as a dead body by the vapoi's of its
own decomposition. This is lit<'i';dly true of all false
religious teaching; the first, and last, and fatalest sign
of it is that "])ulling uj)." Your converted children,
who teach theii- parents ; your converted convicts, who
teach honest men ; your converted dunces who, having
lived in cn^tinous stupefactiim half their lives, suddenly
awaking to the fact of there being a (iod, fancy them-
selves therefore His peculiar people and messengers;
your sectarians of every species, small and great,
Catholic or Protestant, of high church or low, in so far
as they think themselves exclusively in the right and
other's wrong; and pre-eminently, in every sect, those
OF KINGS' TJiEASUlilES.
29
who hold that men can be saved bv tirmkin;r rio-htlv
instead of doing rightly, by word instead of act, and
wish instead of work — these are the true fog cliiklren—
clouds, these, without water ; bodies, tliese, of putrescent
vapor and skin, without blood or flesh : blown bag-
pipes for the fiends to pipe with — corrupt and corrupt-
ing— " Swollen with wind, and the rank mist they
draw."
Lastly, let us return to tljo lines respecting the
power of the keys, for now we can understand tlieni.
Note the diffei'ence between Milton and Dant^^ in their
interpretation of this power : for once, the latter is
weaker in thought; he supposes loth the keys to be of
the gate of heaven; one is of gold, the other of silver:
they are given by St. Peter to the sentinel angel ; and
it is not easy to determine the meaning either of the
substances of the three steps of the gate, or of the tAvo
keys. But ^lilton makes one, of gold, the key of
heaven ; the other, of iron, the key of the prison, in
which the wicked teachers are to be bound who "have
taken away the key of knowledge, yet entered not in
themselves."
We have sivn that the duties of bisho]) and ])astor are
to see, and feed; and, of all who do so, it is said, ^' lla
that watereth, sliall be watered also himself." But
the reverse is truth also, lie that watereth not, shall
be loithered himself, and he that seeth not, sliall him-
self he shut out of sight — shut into the perpetual pris-
i;
K'tl
1.1
!i;t
ii II
30
SESAMh: AND LILIES.
on-house. And tliat ])risori opens liei'e, iis well as here-
aft()': ho wiio is to be bound in hLiiveii must ih'st be
bound oil earth. That couunand to the strong angels,
of which the rock-apostle is the image, "Take him, and
bind him hand and foot, and cast him out,"' issues, in
its measure, against the teaclier, for every help Avith-
hehi, and foi' ^iw^vy truth refused, and for every false-
liood enforced; so that he is more strictly fettered the
more he fettei's, and further outcast^ as he more and
more misleads, till at last the bars of tlie iron cage
close upon hiiii, and as '' tlie gohlen opes, the iron
shuts amain.-'
We have got something out of the hues, I think,
and much more is yet to be found in them ; but we
have done enough by way of example of the kind of
word-by-word examination of your author which is
rightly called "reading;" watching every accent
and expression, and ])utting ourselves always in the
author's ])h'ce, annihilating our own personahty,
and seeking to enter into his, so as to be able assuredly
to say, " Thus Milton thought," not '' Thus I thought,
in misreading Milton.'' And by this process you
will gradually come to attach less Aveight to your
own "Thus T thought" at other times. You will
l)egin to perceive that what you thought was a
matter of no serious importance — that your thoughts
on any subject are not ]iei'haps the clearest and
wisest that could bo arrived at thereupon in fact,
i
M
!''
jre-
OF RJXGS' TUEASUniES. 81
that unless you arc a \Qvy sin^i^ular person, yow can-
not be said to have any '* thoughts '' at all ; that you
have no materials for theiii, in any serious nuitters; *
-no : f»ht to "think," but onlv to try to le
\x\\
more of the facts. uSay, most probal)ly all your
life (unh'ss, as I said, you are a singular ])er-
son) you will have no legitiniate right to an '' opin-
ion" an anv business, except that instantly under
your hand. AVhat must of necessity be done, you
can always lind out, beyond (piestion, how to do.
Have you a house to keep in order, a commodity
to sell, a Held to plow, a ditch to cleansed Thei'e
need be no two opinions about these proceedings; it is
at your peril if you have not much nu)i'e than nn
'* opinion'' on the way to manage such matters. And
also, outside of your own business, thei'e are one or two
subjects on which 3'ou are bound to have but one opin-
ion. That roguery and lying are objectionable, and
are instantly to be floo'fred out of the way whenever dis-
covered — that covetousness and love of (juarreling are
dangerous dispositions even in children, and deadly dis-
])ositions in men and nations — that in the end, the God
of heaven and earth loves active, modest, and kind peo-
ple, and hates idle, proud, greedy, and cruel ones — on
these general facts you are bound to have but one, and
*. Modern " Fxlucation " for the Tiiost part sitrnifies p-iving- people
tlie faculty of thinking wrong on every oouceivabie subject of ixu
portance to them.
i'fi
3,ii
m
fi'
32
sicsajVe and LrUES.
that a ver}^ stronp^ opinion. For the rest, respecting
religions, governments, sciences, arts, you will find
that, on the whole, you can know nothing — judge
nothing; tliat tlie best you can do, even though you
may be a well-educated person, is to be sihnit, and
strive to bo wiser everv dav, and to understand a little
more (jf tiie thoughts of others, which so soon as you
trv to do honestly, vou will discover tliatthe thoughts
even of tlie wisest are XQvy little more tluin pertinent
questions. To put the difficulty into a clear shape, and
exhibit to you the grounds for v?Klecision, that is all
they can generally do for you ! — and well for them
and for us, if indeed thev are able "to mix the music
with our thoughts, and sadden us with heavenly
doubts." This writer, from whom I have been read-
ing to you, is not among the first or wisest : he sees
shrewdly as far as he s(^es, and therefore it is easy to
find out his full meaning, but with the greater men,
you cannot fathom their meaning ; they do not even
wholly measure it themselves — it is so wide. Suppose
I had asked you, for instance, to seek for Shakespeare's
opinion, instead of Milton's, on this matter of Church
authority ? — or for Dante's i Have anv of you, at this
instant, the least idea what eith.er thought about it?
Have you ever balanced the scene with the bishops in
Itichard III against the character of T'ranmer? the de-
scription of St. Francis and St. Dominic against that
of him who made Virgil wonder to gaze upon him — •
\
OF KLNQ8' TREAISURIEa.
33
"distcso, tanto vilineiito, nell' otcrrio esilio ; " or of him
whom JJante stood besido, "come'l fruto che coni'essa
lo perlido assassin i ■''^' Shak( spearo and Alighieri
knew men l)etter than most of us., I |)r<'sumei They
were l)oth in the midst ot tlio main struggle between
the temporal and spiritual powers. Tiiey had an opin-
ion, we may guess? But where is it? Bring it into
court! But Shakespeare's or Dante's creed into arti-
cles, and send tluit uj) into the Ecclesiastical Courts !
You will not ho ab'e, I tell vou as^ain, for many and
many a day, to come at the real purposes and teaching
of these great inci ; but a very little hono'^'t study of
them will enable you to perceive that what you took for
your own "judgment " was mere chance prejudice, and
drifted, helpless, entangled weed of castaway thought •
nay, you will see that most men's minds are indeed
little belter than rough heath wilderness, rieglected
and stu.bborn, ]){irtly barren, partly overgro^,vn wHh
pestilent brakes and venomous wind-sown herbage of
evil surmise; tliot the first thing 3^ou have to do for
tiiem, and yourself, is eagerly and scornfully to set fire
to tlih I burn all the jungle into wholesome ash-heaps,
and then plow and sow. All the true literary work
befoi'e you, for life, must begin with ob'^Mence to inai
order. '• Break up your fallow-ground, and mm not
among thorns P
11. — Having then faithfully listened to the great
*Inf. xix. 71 ; xxiii. 117.
I
r^fi
34
fil^:SA}n^J AM) LILIES.
teacliors, tliat vou iiiiiv enter ir.to tlioir Tliou'T^lits, von
hiivo yet this liii;li(M' advaiiee to makt? — y<»u liiive to
enter into their I!e«irts. As you jU'o to ih.eui ilrst for
clear siiiht, so v(HI must stav with them tliat you may
sliare at last, their jusl jind mighty Passion. Passion,
or '•sensation."' I ;iiii not alVaid of the word; still less
of the thing'. ^ Ou have heard many outcries against
sensation latelv; l-)i!t, I can tell you, it is not less sensa-
tion we \v;)nt. hut more. The ennol^ling diil'erenco
hetween one man ;ind anofher — hetween one animal
andaiioMuM- — is precis* ly in this, th;it cne feels more
than anothei". if we were spongfs, perha])s sensation
mij^ht not beeasilvii'ot for us; if we were earth-worms,
liable at every insta'' to be cut in two by the spade,
perhaps too much sensation might not be good for ns.
]:)Ut, being human creatui'es, it /s* good for us ; nay, we
are only human in so far as we iwa sensitixe, and our
honor is precisely in pro{)ortion to om* ])assi()n.
You know I s'lid of that gi'eat and pui'e society of
the dead, that it woidd allov/ "no vain f-r vulgar per-
son to enter there/' What do vou think I liieant by a
"vulgar" person^ What do you yourselves mean by
" vulgarity f You will lind it a fruitful sid)ject of
thought; l)ut, ln'iedy, the essence of all vulgarit}^ lies
in v^.r.it of sensation. Sim])le and innocent vultrJiritv
is merely an untrained and undeveloped bhmtness of
hovlv anvl mind; but in true inbred vul^aritv, there
is 'o. deathtul callousness, wiiichj in extremity-, boconit^s
OF KINGS' TRKASURTES.
V^
capable of cvory sort of bestial habit and crime, with-
out fear, without pleasui'e, wilh(Hit horror, and with-
out ))ity. It is in the l^hnit h:md and the d«,'ad heart,
in the diseased habit, in the h;ii'<!ened conscience tliat
men become vul«^ai' ; they are foi-ever vulgjir. ])recise]y
in ])i'oportion as they arc incapal)le of sympathy — ol
quick understanding — of all that, in deep insistancc^ on
the common, but most accurate term, inav Ix^ called
the "tact"' or touch faculty of body and soul: that tact
which the ^limosa has in trees, whicli tlu? pure woman
has above all creatures — fineness and fullness of s(?nsa-
tion, beyond reason — the guide and sanctifler of reason
itself. Reason can but determine what is true — it is
the God-given passion of humanity which alone can
recognize what God has made good.
We come then to that great concourse of the I)ead,
not merely to know fj'om them what is Tru(\ hut
chiefly to feel with them wliat is Rii:'hteous. ±\o\\, to
feel witli them, we must be like them ; and none of us
can become that without pains. As the ti'iie knowl-
edge is disciplined an<l tested knowledge — not the first
thought that con.ies — so the true passion is disciplined
and tested passion — not the first passion tliat comes.
The first that come are the vain, the false, the treach-
erous; if you yield to them they will lead you wildly
aiid far, in vain pursuit, in hollow enthusiasm, till you
have no true purpose and no true ])assion left. Xot
that any feeling possible to humanity is in itself,
Nj
) %..
w
\
:]n
BNSAMH AND LILIES.
't
wrong, l)utonly wronij^ wIhmi imdisciplinod. Its nobility
is in its foi'c«! und j'lsticc.' ; it is wroii;: wlicm it is we.'ik,
jind iVlt for jniltry ciiusi;. Tli«?ro is Ji moan wonder iis
of a child who sees a juggler tossing' golden hidls, and
this is l)as<^, if yoii will. I'lit do you thiidv that the
wonder is ignoble, or tiie sensation less, with which
ove^ry human soul is (ailed to watch the golden balls
of lu.'aviMi tossed through the night by the lliind that
mad(» them' Thei'o is a nu^an curiosity, ;is of a child
op(Miiiig a, forhidden dooi', or a, servant prying into her
master's l)usin<'ss— and a nohle cm'iosily, (piestioning,
in the front; of danger, tin.* source of the great river
beyond the sajid -tlu^ j)la('(» of th(3 great continents
beyond the sea— a nuh!')' eui'iosity still, which ques-
tions of vhe soui'ce of tlu'! River of Life, and of the
space (jf the ('i)ntinent of Heaven — things which "the
angels desii'e to look into." So the, aiixietv is i<»:noble,
with uhich yon iino-ei* ov(^r the coursi^ and catastro])he
of an idle tah^ ; but do you think the anxiety is less,
oi" gi'('a.t(>r, with which you watch, ov oinjhf to watch,
the dcaliiiij's of fate and <lestiuv with the life of an
agonized nation? Alas', it is the narrowness sellish-
ness, minuteni.\ss, of vour sensation that vou have to
deplore in JCiigland at tliis day — sensation Avhich
spends itself in l;;;n(.;uets and speeches; in revelings
jind junketings; in sham tights and gay puppet
shows, while you can look on and see noble nations
murdered, man by man, v,<vna!i by woman, child by
child, without an eii'ort, or a tear.
HI
OF K[NGS' rUKA.HUniKS.
37
I said, " ininntonoss" and '' st'llisliness'' of sensation,
but HI a woni, I minlit to havci said ^'injustice;'' or
'' uiu'i<'httM)iisii('ss" of S(3iisati()ii. For us in notliin<j: is
a <r(nitI(Mnan l)elt('r to Ixi discMM'ntMl from a vultfar
])orson, so in nothini^ isa;u;ontl() nation (such nations
have been) better to bo (bscerned fi-oni a mob, than in
tliis — that their feehngs are constant and just, r(\sults
of due contemphition, and of ecjual tliou^lit. Vou can
talk a mob into anything ; its feeling': may be -usually
are — on the wliolo generous and right; but it has nci
foundation for them, no liohl of them: vou mav teasG
or tickle it into anv, at your nk'asure; it thinks by in-
fection, for the most part, catching Ji piission like a
cold, and there is nothing so little that it will not roar
itself wild about, when the lit is on ; nothing s(j great
but it will forget in an hour, when the fit is past. IJut
a gentleman's, or a gentle nation's, passions are just,
measured, and continuous. A great nation, i'or in-
stance, does not s])end its entire national wits for a
couple of months in weighing evidence of a, single
rulKan's having done a single murder; and for a
couple of 3'ears, see its own children murder each
other by their thousands or tens of thousands a day,
considering only what the effect is likely to be on the
price of cotton, and caring nowise to determine which
side of battle is in the wrong. Neither does a great
nation send its poor little boys to jail for stealing six
walnuts, and allow its bankrupts to steal their
I
i
; ? -
'V
m
m
38
SESAME AND LILIES.
hundreds of thousands with a bow, and its bankers,
rich with poor men's savings, to close their doors
" under circumstances over wiiich they have no con-
trol," witii a "l)V vour leave :" and laroe landed
estates to be boii<^ht by men vviio have made their
nu)nev bv ijroini^ \\it!i armed steamers up and down
the China Seas, seUing <)j)iuui at the cannon's mouth,
and altering, for the betieiit of the foreign nation, the
common hit^hwav man's (h^mand of "vour nu)nev
or vour life," into tluit of "vour money and vour
life." Xeitiier does a <?;reat n.'ition abow the lives of
its innocent poor to !•<' j)ai-ch(Ml out of them by fog
fever, and I'l.^ttcd out of them by dunghill plague,
foi' the sake of sixpence a life extra per week
to its landlords ;'^' and then deUite, with driveling
* See the oviclencc in th(^ Medical officer's report to the Privy
Council, just puhlisiied. There are suggestions in M.i preface which
will malce some stir among us. I fancy, respc^cting which let me note
these points following. There aic two theories on the Hul)ject of
hind now abroad, and in contention; both fals(\ The first is that by
Heavenly law, then^ have always existtni, and must continue to
exist, a certain number of hereditarily sa"red p(»rsons, to whom the
earth, air, and water of the Aorld bcdong, as personal property; of
which eartli, air, and water tlx'se ]>ersons may, at their pleasure, per-
mit, or forbid, tlie rest of tiie human race to eat, to breathe, or to
drink. This theory is not for Miany years longer tenable. The ad-
vers(! theory is that a division of the land of the world among the
mob of tlie world would iuimediately elevate tlu^ said mob into
siicred personage--; fliat houses would then build themselves, and
com grow of itMlf; and that everybody would be able to live, without
doing any work for hi^ living. This theory would also be found
highly untenable in practice. It will, howi^ver, reipiire some rough
experiments, and rougb.er catastrophes, even in this magnesium-
OF KfNfjS' 'nii:AsunjEs.
3U
tears, nnd diabolical sympathies, whether it ought not
piously to save, and nursiugly cherisii. the lives ot its
niurderei'S. Also, a *j;roat luitiou having made up its
mind that hanging is (piite the \vh(;lesonu^st pi'ocess
for its homicides in fieneral, can vet with nui'cv dis-
tinguish between the degrees of guilt in homicides;
and does not yelp like a pack of frost-piuciied wolf-
cubs on the blood track of an unhappy crazed boy, or
gra3^-liaired clod-pate Othello, "perplexed T the ex-
treme," at the very moment that it is sending a Min-
ister of the Crown to nud^e p(>lite speeches to a man
who is l>avonetin<i' voung I'-ii'ls m their father's siiiiit,
liii^htpd cpocl), boforo tlie gonorality of persons will l)f> convinced that,
no law concerning anything, least of all conc«'rning land, for either
liolding or dividing it, or renting it high, or renting it low, would he
of the smallest ultimate use to the peopU», so long as the general
contest for life, and for the means of life, remains one of nusre brutal
competition. Tliat contest, in an unprincii»led nation, will take one
deai'ly form or another, whatever laws you make for it. For in-
stan(^e, it would be an entirely wlndesome law for Knuland, if it
could 1)(! cjirried, that maximum limits should he assigneil to jnf!f)mes,
according to classes; and t'nat every nobleman's incomes should be
paid to him as a fixed salary or pensioii by the nation; and not
s(piee/,ed by liim in a varialde sum, at iliscretion, out of the tenants
of Ills land. Hut if you could get such a law passed to-morrow; and
if, which would be further necessary, you could fix the value of the
asfiigned incomes by making a given weight of ))ure wheat-tlour legal
tender for a given sum, a i\V(dv(>m(»nth would not pass b(»fore
another currency would liave been tacitly estnbiished, and the power
of !,reumulaTive wealth would nave n>asserted itself in some other
article, or som(> imaginary sign. Forbid men to buy each otlu^r'.s
lh<'s for sovereigns, and they will for shells, or slates. There is only
one cure for public distress — and that is jmblic education, directed to
make men thoughtful, merciful, and just. There are, indeed, many
■;ii
'■« ■%'.
!»
I
)'
40
SESAME AND LILIES.
and Ivilliiiir noble youths in cold blood, faster than a
country btitcher kilis lambs in spring. And, lastly, a
great nation does not mock Heaven and its Powers, by
pretcMiding belief in a revelation which asserts the love
of inonev to be the loot of all evil, and declaring, at
the same time, that it is actuated, and intends to bo
actuated, in all chief national (XiiiiiX^ and measures, by
no othei' \ove.
My friends, I do not know why any of us should
talk about reading. AVe want some sharper discipline
than that of r(?ad-ing; but, at all events, be assured,
we cannot read. No reading is possible for a people
laws confcivahlo whicli wotilil grnduiilly hctuir and strengthen tlio
national triiipci-; Imt, lor tlu> most part, they are such as tlu; national
temper iimsl l»e much hettered Itefore it would beai. A nation in its
youth may !)(! hel,M;d by laws, as a weak child by backboards, but
when it is old, it cannot that way straighten its crooked spine. And
Itesides, the problem of land, at its worst, is a by one; distribute the
earth as you will, the principai (piestion renuiins inexorablt^ — Who is
to dig it? \Vhi<'h of us, in l)rief words, is to do th(! hard and dirty
work for tlie rest — and for what pay? Who is to do the pleasant and
clean work, and t'or what pay? \\ ho is to do no worlc, and for what
l>iiy? Anvl there are curious moral and religious nuestions connected
with these. How fur is it lawful to suck a portion of the soul out of
a great many persons, in order to ])ut the abstracted psychical (pianti-
ties together, and nudosone very beautiful or ideal soul? If we had
to (leal with mere blood, instead of spirit, and the thing might liter-
ally be done (as it has been done with infants before now) so that it
wen; ()ossibl(>, by taking a certain (pianlity of blood from the arms of
a givi'n number of the mol>, and putting it all into one person, to
make a more azurebloodeil gentie'uan of him, the thing would of
course be managed; but secretly, I should conceive. Hut now be-
cause it is brain and soul that we abstract, not visible Idood, it can be
done (luite openly; aud w« live, we gentlemen, ou deiicatest prey,
Vb' KINGS' TREASURIES.
41
fi
with its mind in tliis state. No sentence of any great
writer is intelligible to them. It is simply and sternly
impossible for the English public, at this moment, to
understand anv thou<^litful writin<»- — so incapable of
thought has it become in its insanity of avarice. Ilap
pily. our disease is, as yet, little woi-se than tliis in-
capacity of tlnjught ; it is not corruption of the inner
nature: we riu"- true still, when anvthin<>' strikes luyme
tons; and thou<i'h the idea tlwit evcrvthini'' should
'^pay" has inlected our every [)urposo so deeply, that
even when we would play the i^ood ^amai'itan,
we never take out our twopenci* and give tiiem to
the host, without saying, ''AVlien I come again,
thou shalt give me fourpence,'' there is a capac-
ity of noble passion left in our hearts' core.
We show it in our work — in our war — even
in those nnjust domestic aifections which make
after tlu* iiuuuu'r of weasels; that is to say, we keep a certain iiumlxT
of clowns digging and ditcliing, and generally stupefied, in order that
we, being fed gratis, may have all the thinking and feeling to our-
selves. Yet there is a great deal to he said for this. A highly-bred
and trained English, French, Austrian, or Italian gentleman (much
more a lady) is a great production; a better production than most
statues; being beautifully colored us well as shaped, and ])lus all the
brains; a glorious thing to look at, a wonderful thing to talk to; and
you cannot have it, any more tlian a ])yramid or a church, but by
sacrifice of much contributed life. And it is, ])erhai)s, bett<'r to 1)uild
a Ix'autiful liuman crf^atun; thaji a beautiful donu^ or steeple, and
more delightful to look u]) reverently to a creature far above us, than
to a wall; onlv the beautiful liuman creature will hnve some (bities
to do in return— duties of living belfry and ranq-art — of which
|)reseiitly.
42
SESAME AND LlLllfS.
US furJous at a small private wmn^', uiiile we are
polite to a boundless public one; we are still indus-
trious to the last hour of the day, though we add the
gambler's fury to the laboi'er's patience: we are still
brave to the death, thcnigh inea[)able of discerning true
cause for battle, ajid are still ti'ue m affection to our
own Hesh, to tli«^ death, as the sea-monsters are, and
the rock' eagles. And ther«; is hope foj* a nati(jn while
this can lie sti'l said of it. As long as it holds its life
in its hand, rcmdy to give it for its honor (though a
focjlish honor), for its love (though ti selllsh love), and
for its business (though a base business , there is ho[)e
for it. I)Ut hope only ; lor this instinctive, I'cckless
virtue cannot last. Ko nation can last, which has
inade a mob of itself, however generous at heart. It
must discipline its passions, and direct them, or they
will discipline it, one day, with scorpion whips. Above
:lII, a nation cannot last as a mone3'-making mob : it
cannot with impunity — it cannot with existence — go
on despising literature, des[)ising science, despising art,
desj)ising nature, despising compassion, and concen-
trating its soul on Penc'. Do you think these are
harsh or wild woi'ds ^ IIav<' patience with me but a
little longer. I will prove their truth to you, clause
by clause.
T. — I say first we have despised literatur^e. What do
we, as a nation, care alxjut books? How much do you
think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or
OF KINOS' TUEASUIURSf.
43
It
nrivate, as compannl with whi.t w(^ sj)end on our
horses? If a nuin spends lavislilv on liis librar^^ voii
call liini inad— a bihlio-maniae. Ihit voii never call
any on(5 a horse-maniac, though uicii ruin tln'inselves
every day by th(iir horses, and you do not hear of ])eo])lG
ruining- themselves by their books. Or, to go lower
still, how much do v<^u think tlu^. contents of the book-
shelves of the United Kingdom, |)ui)lic and ])iivate^
would fetch, as compared with tlui contents of its
wine-cellars? What position would its ex[)enditure on
literature take, as compared with its expend itui'e on
luxurious eating ? We talk of food for the mind, tis of
food for the body : now a e-ood book contains such
food inexhaustibly; it is a provision for life, and for
the best part of us; yet how long most people would
look at the best book before they would give the piice
of a laro^e turfcot h)r it ! Thou^^h there have been men
who have pinched "eir stomachs and bared their
backs to buy a book, whose libraries vrere cheaper to
them, I think, in the end, than most mens dinners
are. We are few of us put to such trial, and more the
pity; for, indeed, a precious thing is all the more
precious to us if it has ueen won by woi'k or (K'onomy ;
and if public libraries were half as cosily as public
dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what bracelets
do, even foolish men and women might sometimes sus-
pect there was good in reading, as wi^U as in munching
and sparkling ; whereas the very 'jheapness of litera-
i
j^i
I ^
\i
SI
W
i
n
i;
M
44
SESAME AND LILIES.
ture is making* even wise people forget that if a book
is worth reading, it is worth buying. Xo book is
worth anytliing which is not woi'th much j nor is it
serviceable, until it has been I'ead, and reread, and
loved, and loved agiiin ; and marked, so that you can
refer to the passages you want in it, as a soldier can
seize the weapon he needs in an armory, or a house -
wife bi'ing tlie s])ice she needs from ii(;r store. Bi'ead
of ll(jui' is good ; but tliei'e is bread, sweet as honey, if
we would eat it, in a good \nn)\i ; and the family must
be ])oor inileed which, once in their lives, cannot, for
such multi|)lial)le barleydoaves, pay their baker's bill.
We call oui'selves a rich nation, and we are filthy and
foolish enough to thumb each other's books out of
circulating libraries !
II. — I say we have despised science. " AVhat!" (you
exclaim) *• are W(i not foi'cMuost in all discovery, and is
not the whole world giddy by reason, or unreason, of
our inventions r' Ves; but do you suppose that is
national work ^ That W(jrk is all done in spite of the
nation ; by private peoj)le's zeal and money. Wc are
glad enough, indeed, to nuike our pn^ht of science;
we snap up anvthing in the wav of a scientilic bone
that has meat on it, eagei-ly enough; but if the
scientific man conies for a bone or a crust to us^ that is
another story. AVhat have we publicly done for
science^ AVe are obligxMl to know what o'clock it is,
for the safety of our ships, and tliereforo we pay for
? jl*
OF KINGS' TRlCASUnrES.
45
n
an observatory ; and we allow ourselves, in the person
of our Parliament, to bo annually tormented into do-
ing something, in a slovenly way, for the British
Museum ; sullenly apprehending that to be a ])lace for
keeping stuffed birds in, to amuse our children. It
anybody will ])ay for tlieir own telesco})e, and resolve
another nebula, we cackle over the discernment as if it
were our own ; if one in ten tiiousand of oiii' liimling
S(juires suddenly perceives that tluj eailh was indeed
nuide to be something else than a portion for foxes,
and burrows in it himself, and tells us wliere the gold
is, and where the coals, wa undeistand that there is
some use in that; and very properly knight him: but
is the accident of iiis havini^ fouiul out how to einolov
himself usefully any credit to //.v / (The negati(jn of
such discovery among his br<>ther S(|uires may per-
haps be some ^//.scredit to us, if we would consider of
it.) But if you doubt these generalities, here is one
fact for us all to meditate u))on, illusti*ati\'e of our love
of science. Two years ago there was a collection of
the fossils of Soleidiofen to be sold in Bavaria; iho
best in existence, containing many si)ecimens uni(|uc;
f(jr perfectness, and one, unique as Jin example of a
species (a whole kingdom of unknown living creatures
being announced by that fossd). This colh^'tion, ol
whieli the mere mai'ket wortl), among piivate buyei-s,
would probably have been some thous;ind or twelve
hundred pounds, was offered to the English nation for
?'
i)]
ii
A:
t^
46
8KSAME AND LILIK.S.
seven hundred : but we would not <;ive seven hundred,
iuid tlie whole series would luive been in tlie ^lunich
museum at this moment, if Professor Owen ''' imd
not with loss of his own time, juid patient tor-
mentiii<3^ of the British j)ublic in person of its repre-
sentatives, <^()t leave U) give four hundred [)ounds at
once and hniiself become answerable for the other
thre* ' V. i leh the said public will doubtless pay him
event: •' ''ut sullcily, and carin<^ nothing about the
matter all tii.. while: only alwavs readv to cackle if
any credit co'uc.4 of it. Consider, I beg of you, arith-
metically, what this fact means. Your annual expend-
iture for public purposes (a third of it for mihtary
a})paratus) is at least 50 millions. Now £700 is to
£'50.000,000 roughly, as seven ])ence to two thousand
])oun(ls. Su|)pose then, a gentleman of unknown in-
come, but whose wealth was to be conjectured from
the fact that he s])ent two thousand a year on his park
walls antl footmen only, pnjfesses himself fond of sci-
ence; and that one of his servants comes eagerly to
tell him that a uni(]ue collection of fossils, giving
clew to a new era of ci'eaticjn, is to be had for the sum
of seven pence stei'ling; and that the gentleman, who
is fond of science, and s))eiuls two thousand a year on
his park, answers, after keeping his servant waiting
* I state tins fact without Professor Owen's permission: wliicL of
course he could not with propriety have g^ranted, had I asked it; but
1 consider it so iuijHjrtant that the public should be aware of the fact,
tJiat I tlu what seems to me right, tlujugli rude.
\
OF KINtJS' TRKASURTES.
47
V-
several inontbs, "Well! I'll ;L^ive you four ponce for
tlieui, if you will he answcrtiblo for the extra three
])ence yourself, till next year ! "
III. — I say you have despised art ! " What ! " you
a<;aiii answer, ''have we not art exhibiti<.v. miles
lon^'^ and do we not ])ay thousands of })oundb for sin-
gle pictiu'es'^ and have we not art schools and institu-
tions, nujre than ever nation had before T' Ves, truly,
lilt all that is for the sake (jf the shop. Vou would
fain sell canvas as well as coals, and crocker}' ms well
as iron ; you would take . ^ 'M\v other nation's bread
out of its mouth if vou - )ul ''^ nt)t beinir able to do
that, your ideal of life i- io "tand in the thoroughfares
of the world, like Lud<^atw apprentices, screaming* to
every passei'by, '' Whii v"ye lack T' Vou know noth-
ing of your own faculties or circumstances ; you fancy
that, among your dam]), flat, fat lields of clay, you
can have as (piick art-fancy as tho Frenchman among
his bronzed vines, or the Italian under his volcanic
cliffs- -that art may be learned as book-keeping is, and
when learncMl, will give you more books to keep. You
ciire for ])ictures, absolutely, no more than you do for
the bills ])asted on your dead-walls. There is always
room on the wall for the bills to be read — never for
the pictures to be seen. You do not know what pict-
*Tli8it Avas our real idea of "Free Trade." "All tlio trade to
myself." You find now that by "competition" other people can
nianaj^e to sell something a.s well as you — and now we call for Pro-
tection auain. Wretches.'
•i
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' 1
• 4
u
i
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48
SKSAMN AND J AUKS.
iires you have (by repute) in the country, nor whether
they are false or true, nor whether they are taken care
of or not ; in foreign countries, you cahnly see the
nol)l('st existing" pictures in tlie world rotting in aban-
doned wreck — (nnd, in Venice, with the Austrian guns
deliijerately pointed at the palaces containing tliein),
and if you heard that all tlu^ Titians in Europe were
made sand-bans to niori'ow on the Ansti'ian forts, it
would not trouble you so much a;; the clwuice of a
brace or two of iianie less in your own ba<'s in a day's
shootintj:. 'J'hat is your national love of art.
IV, — You haye des[)ised nature; that is to say, all
the deep aini sacred sensations of naturnl scenery.
The Fi'eneh i'<n'olationists made stables of the cathe-
drals of France; you haye nuide race-courses of the
cathedi-als of the earth. Vouiv>y<f' conception of pleas-
ure is t(; drive in I'ailroad cari'iages I'ound their aisles,
and eat off tiieir altars."^* Vou haye ])ut a railroaa
bridge oyer the fall of Scliaflhausen. You haye tun-
neled the clilfs of Lucerne by Tell's chapel; you haye
destroyed the (-larens shore of the Lake of Geneya ;
there is not a quiet yalley in England that you haye
not filled with bellowing lire; there is no partichi left
of English land which you haye not trampled coal
*I ipcant tliat tlio beautil'iil i»luc«'.s of the world — Switzerland,
Italy, South (ierniany, jiiul soon — trr, iiidccd, the truest cathedraLs
— places to be reverent in, and to wo.'ship in; and tluit we only care
to drive through theiu; and to eat and drink at their most sacred
places.
OF KINGS' TRFJA8URIE8.
49
'0
it
a
s
ill
ashes into— no? any forci/^n city in which the spread
of your ])re8encc is not marked among its fair old
streets and happy gardens by a consuming white lep-
rosy of new hotel* and perfumers' shops: Hk^ Alps
themselves, which >"onr own poets used to love so rev-
erently, 3'ou look I'pon as soaped poles in a beai'-gnr-
den, which you so*; yourselves to climb, and slide down
jignin, with "shrieks of delight." When you are p;ist
shriekiu'^ having no human articulate voice tosav you
are glad witli, you iill the quietude of their valleys
with gunpowdcM" blasts, and rush hoirie, red witii
cutaneous eruption of conceit, and voluble with con-
vulsive hiccoujrh of self-satisfaction. I thiidc nearly
the tw^o sorrowful lest spectacles I have ever seen in
humanity, taking the deep inner significance of them,
are the English mobs in the vallev of Chamouni, amus-
ing themselves with firing rusty howitzers; and the
Swiss vintagers of Zurich expressing their Christian
thanks for the gift of the vine, by assembling in knots
in the '' towers of the vinev.ards," and slowlv loading:
and tiring h()rs('-})istols from morning till evening. It
is pitiful to have dim conceptions of duty ; mo!'e piti-
ful, it seems to me, to have conceptions like these, of
mirth.
Lastly. You despise compassion. There is no need
of words of mine for proof of this. I will merely print
one of the newspa[)er pai*agra})]is which 1 am in the
habit of cutting out and throwing into my store-
«;.
mi
m
50
8KHAMF. AND LTFJES.
(Iniwer; iinrn is one from a I)<iihj TrhgvaiA of an
early (late this yojir; dato which thoiioh by mo carelessly
l(^ft iirimarkod, is (easily discovorablo, for on tlu3 hack of
the slip, there is thcaMn()nnccm(3ntlhiit ''yesterday the
seventh of the s[)ecial s"rvices of tins year was per-
fornuil hy the JJishoj) of Ripon in St. Paul's;" an<l
there is a pretty pie(;e of modej-n political economy
besides, wortli preservin<T note of, I think, so I ])rint it
in the note belo v.'^' But mv business is with the main
paragraph, relatiny' one of such facts as ha])pen now
daily, which, by chance, has taken a form in which it
came before the coi'oner. 1 will print the ])araoraph
in red.f l>e sure, the facts themselves ai'e written in
that color, in a book which we shall all of us, literate
or illiterate, have to read our pa<,^e of, some day.
"An inquiry was held on Friday by ^Ir. Kichards,
deputy coroner, at the White Horse Tavern, Christ
Church, Spitalfiekis, res]iecting the death of Michael
Collins, aged 58 years. Mary Collins, a miserable-
looking woman, said that she lived with the deceased
* It is nnnounced tbat an arrangeuient has been coiu'liuled be-
tween the Ministry of Finance and tlie Bank of Credit for the pay-
ment of the eleven millions which the State has to pay to the
National Bank by the 14th inst. This sum will b<» raised as follows:
The eleven commercial members of the committee of tlie Bank of
Credit will each borrow a million of florins for thn^e months of this
bank, wliich will acce])t their bilU, which afjain will be discounted
by the National Bank. By this arrangenu^nt tlie National Bank will
itself farninh the funds idth which it will be paid.
I The following extract was printed in red in the English edition.
I' 1
OF KiNuh" Tit/usunrm
ol
and liis son In a room ar 2 Colil/s court, Christ Churcli.
Deceased was a ' ti'anslator ' of h(K)ts. Witness went
out and bought old boots; deceased aiul his son nuule
them into good ones, and then witness sold them for
what she could get at th(,» sliops, whicli was very little
indeed. Deceased and his son us«hI to work ninht and
(lay to try and get a little bread aiul tea, and pay for
the room (2.v. a week), so as t(^ keep the home together.
On Friday night week deceased got up from his bench
and l)e<»'an to shiver. lie threw down the boots, say-
ing, ' iS(jmebody else must iinish them when I am
gone, for I can do no more.' There was no fire, and
he said, 'I would be better if T was warm.' AVitness
therefore took two ])airs of translated boots^ to S(;ll at
the shop, but she could only get 14</. for the two pairs,
for the people at the shop said, 'We must have our
profit.' Witness got 14 pounds of coal, and a little tea
and bread. Her son sat up the whole night to make
the translations ' to get money, but deceased died on
Saturday moiming. The famdy never had enough to
eat. Coroner : ' It seems to me deplorable that you
did not go into the work-house.' Witness: 'We
wanted the comforts of our little home.' A juror
asked what the comforts w^ere, for iie only saw a little
straw in the corner of the room, the windows of which
* One of the things winch we must very fcsohitoly enfoice, for
the good of aU chisses, in our future arrangements, must be that tVcy
wear no " translated" articles of dress. See the piolace.
'1 i .2
(1 t.
m
■Kl
52
SESAMK ANT) IJlTKFi,
worn brokc^n. Tlu* witiKr.s l)('<,''iin to cry, find said that
they lijul a (juilt and oIIht litih; tliin^^s. Tlie dcicojised
s.'iid luuKiver would ;;•(» into tlicwoik-lioMso. Insmnmer,
wlHMitlie season was ifood, 'Aws sometimes made as much
as 1(».v. profit ill tin* we«^k. Tliey llicn always sav(»d to-
\\ard the next, we(^lc, which was <jrem^rally a had one. In
wiulei* thev made not half so much. For thrcM; veai's
thev had Ixmmi •'•ettinij: fi'om had to worse, (^)rneliu.s
Collins said lliat \\(\ had assisted his leather since J847.
The\' used to woi'k so I'ar into tiu; ni<;ht that both
nej'.rly lost their eyesight. Witness now had a film
over Ins e\ «»s. Five years ae(> decu'ased a|)|>lied to
the pai'ish for aid. '\\\(' relieving,'' ollicer ^^ave liim a
fourp'und lo;!f, and told him if he camea^ain ho
should '<^(5t the stones.'* 'I'hat dis;^usted deceased,
and iic would hav»; iiotliin;:,'' to do with them since.
'^I'hey iiot worse and woi'sc; until last Friday week,
when thev had n<>t cncu a half-pcnnv to buy a candle.
* 'IMnMilil)n»viatiiiii of tlit- penalty of iisrloss labor is curiously
«'f»i!i<i(lfiit in vrrl)al li'im with u ciitairi |<assaL:<f which homu> <tf us
may rcniciiilxT. It may iKihaps Im well to ])rcs('rvn l)^^si(l('s thin
pafa;/!.'!])!! anothf-r ciittini,' out of iny ,<t(irc <ita\\ tr, Iroin tlu! Morniiuj
Pout, of a))out a panilh'l (late. Friday, March lOih, iSfir): " Tho
,sii^'>ii,<i ni' .Mini'. (' , wiiodi'l tlic hoiiurswith ••lever imitative /ifnK'n
and e'ej.Mince, \von» cnjwded wii!i juir.ces, dukes, maniuiscs, imd
<'ounts — in fact, with tlm same i/mlc company as one iiwets ut tlu!
partie^ of the Princess Metternich and Mathmm Drouyii de LhuyH.
Soiiu' Fn^rli'^li jM'ers and memliers of I'arliament wen^ present, and
appeared to enjoy the aniinateij ami da//-linj,^ly improper sct'iio. On
the second Moor the supj)er-t,il)h\s were loaded with every delicncy of
the season. That your remjcrs nuiy form somc! idea of tluuhiinty fare
of tho I'luihiau demi-Uioiide, 1 copy the mcuu. of the Kupper, which
I
OB' KINGS' TliKASlJKIKS.
53
Doconsed then lay down on tlio straw, and said ho
could not live till luornino-, A juror: Vou are dyin<^
of starvation yourself, and you ought to go into tho
liouso until the suninioi". Witness: If we went in wo
siiould die. When we conio o-it in the summer we
should be iiko people dropj)ed from i!u^ fsky. No one
would know us, and we would not have even a, room.
1 could work now if I had food, for mv si<»iit would
get better. Dr. (J. \\ ^V'.\\krv said deceased died
from syncoj)e, from (exhaustion from want of for-d.
The deceased had had no bedclothes. For four
months ho hfivl had nothing but brejid to eat. There
was not a particle of fat in tiie body. There was no
<liseas<% but if there had Ix'en medical attendance, Int
might have surviv(Ml the synco[)e or fainting. Tl;e
coroner having remai'ked U[)on tlm painful nature of
(he (-ase, tho jury i*(»tui'ned the following verdict,
'That deceased died from exhaustion from want of
vvRM sjM'vtHl to nil tlio piiosts (sil)()ut 200) Hi'Ht(^(l lit fouF o'clorlc. Choice
V(|ii«Mii, lohannisluT^, Lallitt*', 'rokuy, and ('liniii|>a>rn<* of tlic linoKt
viiita^»'s wen; Horvcd most luvislHy tlirouf;liout llio morniii;;. After
hii|>|)«'r tlanciii^ was n'HuiiuMl witli "mcn'a.Hcd adim.itioii, ami tlm hall
trrn'iiiaf''(| with a r/tniiie (/itfholu/ne niid a cd/irdii d'luj) r at Hovon in
lli<' niortim^. (Moriiini,'' service — ' Kre tho fresh liiwns a|)pearod,
under the opetiiii^^ eyelids of the Morn. — ') Ih re is tho menu:— •
' ("oii.sommo d(* vohiilhi a hi M;ii,n'uti.)n; !(} hors-d'(i«iivres varies.
Moiirliees a la Talleynuid. Saiunons froids, sauce l{uvi^n)te. Fileta
de hoMif en li«'lleviie, timl)aies milanaises chati(lfn»id de g-ihier.
hindes trutT«'es. PAfes de foi«'s ^ras, Imissons d'ecrevisses, sahi.h^s
vem'tiennoH. ^•(di'es hlanches mix fruits, pateaux mancini, parisieua
I't jiarisiennes. Froniay;es places Aimiuls. J)e)isurt."'
'^1
I
u
m
I
k
54
8E8AMK AND HUE 8.
T'od ,i:i<l ilic conmioii iiecessurios of life; also through
\v;!nt of medical aid.' "
"Why would wiliioss not iro into t ho work-house?"
you ask. ^\^'ll, the j)oor seem lo liavo a prejudice
aiiaiust the uoik-housf whicli the rich have not; for
of course every one who takes a pension fi'oni (iovern-
ment goes into the '.vork-house on a «,n'and scale: only
the work-lujuses for the ricii do not inviUve the idea of
work, and should he called j)lay-houses. P>ut the poor
lik(i to die ind: peiulcntly, it nppears; perhaps if wo
made tin; ])lay-iio!ises foi' tiiem pretty and pleasant
enougli, or gave them theii* pcMisions at home, and ah
lowed them a little iiiti'cxhictory pccuhitions with the
pii!>lie money, their minds might he reconciled to it.
]\reantim««, h<M'e ai'e \\\i\ facts : we mak(^ our relief
either so msulting to them, oi' so j^ainful, that they
rather da; than take it at our hands; oi', for third al-
terruitive, we leave them so untaught and foolish that
thev starve like hrute creatin'<'s, wild and dumh, not
knowing what to do, or what to !isk. T say, you de-
spises compassion ; if you ditl not, su(;h a newspaper
paragraph would he as nupossihle in a Christian coun-
h'v as a (leli))erate assassination oeruntted in its puhlic
&t
I'eetj
pui
C'hi'istiair' did I sav^ Alas, if we were
*I nin licnrtily ^hul to sc*' such a paper as tlie Pall Mall Gazette
vistalilislu'd; for ilx' pnwj-r of the j)n'?^s in tlio hands of highly-
(Mhu-ntcd men, in indcjtciKh'nf ]i<)siti(»n, and of honest purpose, may
indrccl Lrcon^.e all thii' it lias been liithorto vainlv vaunted to he. Its
editor will therefore, I douhtnot, pardon lue, in that, l»y very reason
OF KINGS* ruEAsunrKS.
55
bill, wliolosonioly un-Cliristian, it would bo ini])ossihlo :
it is o;ir ima'^inarv^ Christianity tliat helps us to coui-
mit th«'SO criinc^s, for wo rovol and luxuriali^ in our
faith, [or the h'wd sc^nsation of it; (lressin<>" it up,
liU<^ cvci'vthin^ else, in fiction. Tho di'ainMJic ( 'hris-
ti;initv of tho orLiJin jind aisle, of dawn-stM'vice and twi-
hji'ht-revival- the (hi'istianitv which \v(^ do not fc.irto
mix tli(5 niockei'v of, ])ictorially, with our ])lay about
the devil, in our Satanellas — IJoberts — Fausts, chanting
of my rcspcrt for iIk- joiirueJ, I do not let paiss unnotircd nil nrtirlc in
its tliird ir.inil' r, ]':i;^(' 5, whicli was vror.tr in every word of it, with
tlie intense wron!a;ness wliicli only an honest iMun can aelneve w lio
has taken 11 false turn of tliouj^lit in tlie outset and is foliowin^Mt,
reLcardless of consecjuonces. It rontahied at tho end this notable pas-
hap': " 'I'he bread of alliiction, jind the water (»f aillletion — ay, and
flie Itedsfciids and blankets ef alliiction, are the very utmost that the,
law ou^ht in ^'lYO. \o (nifr<i.H/.-i t/ii )■:/// ii'< 1111,'rtisfs." I merely put be-
hside this expression of tlie p'ntlemanly mind of l']n<rland in IHC)!'), n
part of th(! mesj-a,;-e which Isaiali was ord<'r<'d to " lift up his voi'-e
like a trumpet" in de'dnrin^ to the gentlemen of his day: " Ve fast
for strife, and to . -smite witli the fist of wickedness. Is not this the
fast that I have ehosjm, to deal thy ])nad to the hunury, and lluit
thou brin^' tlie ]»oor f/ni/ inr I'tfxf out, (niar^jfin 'alliictedi to Hi;f
house." 'riie i'alsehood on whieh the writer had mentally fi und'M!
himself, as previously stated bv him, wi«s tbis: "To coufound the
functions of the dispensers of the poor rates with those of the dis-
pensers of a ( haritable institution is a great and p'Tnicious error."
'I'his .sentence is so accurately and exrpii.sitely wrong, that its sub-
stance inu.-t b(! thus reversed In our minds before we can deal witli
any existing prolilem of national distress. " To understand that tho
dispen»<(>rs of tlu^ ])oor-rates are the almonei-s of the nation, and
should distribute its alms with a gentleness and freedom of luind as
much grt'ater and franker than that possible to individual charity, as
tlie collective national wisdom and i)ower nup- l)e !;uppo>.ed greater
'ban those of any single person, is the fuundaiiou of ail law respect-
ing pauperism."
1.1
op
56
t^KSAME AND LILIKS.
hyiinis throu;;li tra('CF'i(Ml windows foi* hackfrround
effect, and artistically nuxlulatin^j^ the " Dio" tlirou<4li
variation on variation of niimickcd ))!'ay(M* (wliil(5 we
disti'il)ute tracts, nivxt day, for the IxMicfit of unculti-
vated swearers, upon what we suppose to Ix^ Ihe sifr-
nilication of ihc^ Third ( 'oiiiinandincnt) — this (^nis
lig-htcd, and i^as inspii'cd, ( hristianiry, wt^ are triunipli-
ant in, and draw hack' the hem i>[ our I'ohes fi'oiu the
toucli of the heretics who (hspiito it. IJut t()(h) ii piece
of conmion Christian righteousness in ; plain English
word or i\vi'(\ ; to make ( "liristiaii law any rule of life,
and found oneJSational actor hope; thereon — W(} know
too well what oiii* faith comes to f<'r tl.it! Vou might
soonei* get lightning out of mcrnse sirioke than true
action (»• j)assion out of your mochiii Knglish religion.
Von had hetter i.Tt I'id of the smok^., and the oriran-
pijM'S, hoth : leave theiu, and i i. (ioiliic windows, and
the painted glass, t the propei'ly-man ; give up your
carl)Ui'et< d hydf >g;en ;host in one healthy expii'ation,
and look after La /.a r us at the door-step. For there is
a true (1iur(;lMvherever one hand meets aiiothei* help-
i'ldlwaiid that is tlie onlv iiolv or Mother (."hurcii
which ever was, oi' (^'ei* shail he.
All these pleasures, then, luid all these virtues, T i*(5-
peat, you nationally despise. V<.ii have, indeed, men
among you wluj do not; hy whose? woi'k. hy whose
strength, hy whose life, hy whose death, you live, and
never thank them. ^ Our wealth, your amusement,
OF KINOH' THIiASURlliS.
57
!!l
!!l'
your pridr, would all hi' iiliko impossible, hut for those
wlioui you scorn or forget. Th-j policeuiau, who is
walking up and down the black lane all night to
watch the guilt you liave created tluM'e, and may
have his brains beaten out and b(i miiinu'd for hfe
at any moment, and never be thanked ; the sailor
wrestling with the sea^s rag(^ ; the (piiet stu(k'nt
])oi'ing ovei' his book or his vial; the common
worker, without ])raise, and nearly witliout bread,
fultilhiig his task as your hoi'ses (h'lig your cuj'ts,
ho])eless, aiul sj)urncd of all: these are the men by
whom England lives; but they are not the nation;
thev are oidv the Ixxly and nei'vous force of it, act-
ing still fi'om old. habit in a convulsive perseverance,
whil<3 tln' mind is gon(». Our Nati'yral mind and
pui'j)ose are to be amused; owr National reliirion, the
pei'formance of churcli ceremoni«'s, an 1 preaciimg of
soporific ti'uths (or untruths) to k(M?p the ir.)! (juietly
at W(>rk, while we amuse ourselv(^s; und the nc^ceS'
sitv for this amus(»ment is fastoniji*'' .hi us as Ji fevcnv
ous disease of pai'ched th )at and watui(M'irig eyes —
senseless, dissolute, mcveii ss. When mew are rightly
occupied, their amusenu-nt grows out of their work,
us the color-p,(!tals out of a fruitful Jlower : when
they are faithfully l.«4pful and compassionuti^ all
their emotions becojue steady, deep, perpetual, and
vivifying to the soul as the natural ]»ulse to the Ixtdy.
l)Ut now, having no true business, we ])our our whole
I I
^^1
HI
oy
SI<:SAME AND LILim.
niasciillne en('i<iT into tho false business of money-
niakiiur; and iiaviiiLi: no true emotion, wo must have
fah;e einorioii>^ drcssiMl up for ns to j)l;)y witii, not in-
iioceiiily, ns cliiKireii with dolls, but guiltily and
darldy, as the idolatrous .bnvs with their pietur-es on
cavern walls, whieU men had to dig* to det(*ct. Tho
justiet^ we do not (\\ecute, we minnc in tho novel and
on llie static; for tiii^ beaut v wo destrov in nature, wo
sul)stilut(^ the metanu>rphosis of the pantomime, and
(the liiiman nature oi us impei'ativ.^ly rerpiii'lni;- awo
an<l sorrow <»r somr kind) foi' tin* noble grief \\(\ shoidd
have boi'ue witii our fello^vs, and th(5 ])Ur'e teai's wo
slujuld have wept witii tliem, we gloat over tho ])athoa
of the police court, and gather tho night-dew of tho
grave.
k is dillieult to estimat(^ the trut; signifieance of
these things; tiie I'.u'ts ar(.' fi'ightl'ul enough — tha
measure o{ national faidi involved in them is perhajis
not as great as it wouM ttl liist seem. We ]>ei'mit, or
cause, tluHtsands of deailis daily, but we mean net
harm ; we s<'t fire to houses, and ravage ))easants*
ti(*lds ; vet we should be soi'iv to find we had injured
anyljody. Wo are s^iU kind at heart; still capable ot
viilue, but only as chihlren are. riudnun's, at tlu^ end
ol" his long lite, having had much power with the pub-
lic, being pl;igu(!d in souu' sei-ioiis matter by a I'efer-
enc(M() " pul)lic opinion," uttered th<^ impatient oxcln-
nuition, '' Th(; public is just a great bab^ !" And the
OF KINGS' TRKASURIES.
59
Hi|
reason that I have nllc^wcd all theso graver subjects oi
thought to mix tliemselves up witli an iiujuiiy into
methods of reading, is that, the more I see of our na-
tional faults or miseries, tiie moi-e they resolve them-
selves into conditions of childish illitcrateness, and want
of education in the most ordinarv habits of thoui^ht.
It is, I repeat, not vice, not selfishness, not dullness of
brain, which we have to lament ; but an unreachable
school-boy's I'ecklessness, only dilfering from the ti'ue
school-boy's in its incapacity of being helped, l)ecause
it acknowledges no master. Thei'e is a cui'ious typcj
of us given in one of the lovely, neglected works of the
last of our great painter's. It is a drawing of Kirby
Lonsdale cimrch-yai'd, and of its brook, anci Valley, and
hills, and folded morning sky beyond. And unmind-
ful alike of these, and of the dead who have left these
for other valleys and for other skies, a group of school-
boys have piled their little books upon a grave, to
strike them off with stones. So do we play with the
words of the dead that would teach us, and strike them
far from us with our bitter, reckless will, little thinking
that those leaves which the wind scatters had been
piled, not only upon a grave-stcme, but ujmn the seal of
an enchanted vault — nay, the gate of a great city of
sleeping kings, who would awake for us, and walk
with us, if we knew but how to call them by their
names. IIow often, even if we lift the marble entrance
gate, do we but wander among those old kings in their
iti
l"i
60
SPJSA3rfJ AND LILIES.
repose, and finf,^er tlio I'obcs they lie in, and stir the
crowns on tlieir i'orelieads; and still tliey are silent to
us, and seem hut a dust}'' inia<^ery ; because we know
not the incantation of tho heart tliat would wako
them — whicli, if they once lieard, they wouhl start up
to mei't us in llieir |)ower of lon^^ j«go, nai'rowly to
look upon us, and consider us; and, as tlie falh^n kings
of IFiKh'S meet the newly falh>n, saying, '* Art thou
also IxH'ome weidc as Ave— a?'t tliou also become one of
us?" so would tiieso kings, with their undimmed, un-
shaken diadems, meet us saying, "Art thou also be-
come j)uro and mighty of heart as we '\ art thou also
become one of us?^'
Mighty f>f iieart, miglity of mind — " magnanimous "
- — to be th.s, is indeed b) l)e great in lib); to become
this increasingly, is, indeed, to "advance in life" — in
hie itself — not in the triippings of it. My friends, do
you remember that old Hcythian custom, when tho
head of a house died ? How he was dressed in his
finest dress, and set in his chariot, and carried about to
his friends' houses ; and each of tiiem ])lacedi him at
bis table's l»ea(l, and all feasted in liis presence?
Suppose it were offered to you, in i)lain words, as it in
offered to you in dire facts, tiiat you should gain this
Scythian honoi', gradually, v/hile you yet thought
yourself alive. Suppose the olfer were this: "You
shall die slowly; your blood shall daily grow cold,
your Uesh p(itrily, you!' heai't beat at last (jnly as u
^.■iJl']
OF KINGti' TREASURIES.
61
up
to
)J
'a'
You
rusted group of iron valves. Your life sliall fiule from
you, and sink tlirough tlie earth into tiie ice of Caina;
but, day by day, your body shall be dressinl more
gayly, and set in liighcr ciiariots, and have moi'e orders
on its breast — crowns on its head, if you will. !Men
sliall bow before it, stai'e and shout round it, crowd
after it up and down the streets; build palaces for it,
feast with it at their tables' heads nil the niyht louir;
your soul shall stay enough within it to kuow^ what
they do, and feel the weight of the golden dress on its
shoulders, and the fui'row of the cj'own-edgti on the
skull — no more." Would you take the offer, verbally
nuide bv the death-an«i-el i Would the meanest amonir
us take it, think you 'i Y(?t })ractically and vcn'ily we
grasp at it, every one <jf us, in a measure ; many of us
gi'asp at it in its fullness of hoi'ror. Every num
accepts it, who desires to advance in life without
knowing what life is; who means only that \\{\ is to
g(;t more horses, and more f(xjtnien, and moi-e fortune,
and more public honor, and — not more ])ersonal soul,
lie onlv is a(lvancin<^ in life, whose heart is '•vttin<''
softer, whose blood warnun', whose brain (juicker,
whose spirit is entering into Living ])eace. And the
men who have this life in them ai'e the true lords or
kings of the earth — they, and they only. All other
kingships, so far as they are true, are only the practi-
cal issue and expression of theirs; if less than this,
they are either dramatic royalties — costly shows, with
4 1
is
.11
»;'
• M
1(
63
SKSAMh' AND LILIKS.
real jcnvcl.-; inst(^;i(1 of tinsel — tln^ toys of nations ; or
else, tliL'N are no royaltic^s at all, hut tvrannies, or tlio
more artivo and })ractic*al issue of national folly; for
wliicli reason I have said of them elsewiien*, "Visihle
governments are the toys of some nations, the diseases
of others, tin; harness of some, the burdens of more."
Out T have no words for the wonder with which T
hear Kin<:;hood still spoken of, even among thoughtful
men, as if governed nations were a pei'sonal property,
and might be hought and sold, or otherwise acquired,
as sheep, of Avhose llesli their king was to feed, and
whose ileeee he was to gather; as ji Achilles' indig-
nant epithet of base kings, '' people-eating," were the
constant and proper title of all monarehs ; and en-
lai'gement of a king's dominion meant the same thing
as the increase) of a ])rivate man's estate! Kings who
think so, however powerful, can no more be the true
kings of tiuMiat ion than gad-Hies are the kings of a
horse ; they suck it, and nujy drive it wild, l)ut do not
guide it. 'i hey, are the courts, and their armies are,
if one could see clearly, only a large species of marsh
mosquito, Vvith bayonet proboscis and melodious, band-
mastered, trum[)eting in the summer air; the twilight
being, ])e)'ha[)s, sotnetimes faircM', but hardly more
' .'some, for its ii'litterinii' mists of midirecomi
o
ipani
The ti'ue kings, meanwhile, rule quietly if at all, and
hate ruling; to(. man v of them make "il n'ran retiuto ;"
•n '
and if they du not, the mob, as soou as they are likely
OF KINGS' TliEA8Unih:S.
iVS
or
liO
[or
)le
. »
to become usol'iil to it, is ])rett} sur(3 to make its "gran
i'(,'lirito '' of iJh Hi.
Yet the visible king may also be a true one, some da v,
if (!vei' a, (lav comes when he will estimate his domin-
ion by the f<H'(r of it — not the geographical bound-
ai'ies. Tt matters verv little whether Trent eiits
you a cantel out here, or Uhino rouiuls you a cas-
lle less there. Hut it does matter to you, kingijf men,
whether you can verily say to this man, "Go,"
and lu; goeth; anil to another, ''Come," and he
conu'th. Whether you can turn your pecjple as
you can Trent- and where it is that you bid
them come, and where go. It matters to you,
king of men, whether your people hate you,
nd die by y(ju, or love you, and live by you.
AOu mav measure your dominion bv multitudes better
than by miles; and count degrees of hn^e latitude, not
from, !)ut to, a wonderfully warm and infinite e(|uator.
]V[(^asui'e! nay you cannot measure. Who shall meas-
ure the difference between the power of those who
"do and teach," and who are greatest in the kingdoms
of earth, as of heaven — and the power of those who
undo, and consume — whose power, at the fullest, is
ordy the power of the moth and tiu^ rust ^ Strange!
to think how the ^loth-kings lay up treasui'es for the
moth, aiul the liust-kings, who are to their })eople's
strength, as rust to armoi', lay up ti'easures for the
rust; and the Uobbcr-kings, treasures ft)r the robber;
i>|«
I i
I
IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)
/.
// ^,/°^^j
1.0
I.I
'-IM IIIM
ul IM II 2.2
:t ii£ IIIM
1.8
1.25
1.4
1.6
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6" —
►
V]
<^
/}.
'<^.
7
V
/A
Photographic
Sciences
Corporation
23 WEST MAIN STREET
WEBSTER, NY. 14580
(716) 872-4503
fA
64
SESAME AND LILIES.
but how few kings have ever laid up treasures that
needed no guarding — treasures ol \vhich the more
thieves there were, the better ! Broidered robe, only
to be rent — helm and sword, only to be dimmed ;
jewel and gold, only to be scattered — there have been
three kinds of kings who have gathered these. Sup-
pose there ever should arise a Fourth order of kings,
Avlio had read, in some obscure writing of long ago,
tliat there was a Fourth kind of treasure, which the
jewel and gold could not equal, neither slioukl it be
valued with ]iure gold. A web more fair in the weav-
ing, by Athena's shuttle; an armor, forged in diviner
fire by Yulcanian force — a gold oidy to be mined in
the sun's red heart, where he sets over the Delpliian
cliffs — deep-pictured tissue, impenetrable armor, potable
gold — tlie three great Angels of C^onduct, Toil, and
Thought, still calling to us, and waiting at the posts of
our doors, to lead us, if we would, with their winged
power, and guide us, with their inescapable eyes, by
the path which no fowl knoweth, and which the
vulture's e3'e has not seen ! Suppose kings should ever
arise, who heard and believed tliis word, and at last
gathered and brought forth treasures of — Wisdom —
for their people ?
Think what an amazing business tJait would be!
IIow inconceivable, in the state of our present national
wisdom. That we should bring up our peasants to a
book exercise instead of a bayonet exercise — organize,
OF KINGS' TREASURIES,
65
ze.
drill, maintain with pay, and good generalsliip, armies
of thinkers, instead of armies of stabbers — find national
amusement in reading-rooms as well as rifle-grounds;
ffive prizes for a fair shot at a fact, as well as for a
leaden splash on a target. What an absurd idea it
seems, put fairly in words, that the wealth of the
capitalists of civilized nations should ever come to sup-
port literature instead of w^ar! Have yet patience
with me, while I read you a single sentence out of the
only book, properly to be called a book, tliat I have
yet written myself, the one tliat Avill stand (if anythmg
stand) surest and longest of all work of mine.
" It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe
that it is entirely capitalists' wealth which sujjports unjust wars.
Just wars do not need so much money to suppoH them; for most of
the men who wage such, wage them gratis; hut for an unjust war,
men's l)odies and souls have hoth to be bought; and tlie best tools of
war for them besides, which makes such war cf)stly to the maximum;
not to speak of the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, between
nations which have? not grace nor honesty enough in all their nuilti
Tudes to buy an hour's peace of mind with; as, at present France and
England, purchasing of each other ten millions' sterling worth of
consternation, annually (a remarkably light crop, half thorns and
half aspen leaves, sown, reaped, and granaried by the ' science ' of
the modern political economist, teaching covetousness instead of
truth). And, all unjust war being supportable, if not by j)illage of
the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these loans are nq)aid by
subsequent taxation of the people, who appear to have no will in the
matter, the capitalists' will being the primary root of the war; but
its real root is the covetousness of the whole nation, rendering it in-
capable of faith, frankness, or justice, and bringing about, therefore,
in due time, his own separate loss and punishment to each person."
ll
irt
m
%:
tv
66
SESAME AND LILIES.
France and Englantl literally, observe, l)uy panic, of
each other ; tliey pay, each of them, for ten thousand
thousand pounds' worth of terror, a year. Now sup-
pose, instead of buying these ten millions' worth of
panic annually, they made up their minds to be at
peace with each other, and buy ten millions' worth
of knowledge annually ; and that each nation spent
its ten thousand tliousand pounds a year in founding
royal libraries, royal art-galleries, royal museums,
ro3^al gardens, and places of rest. Might it not be
better somewhat for both French and English ?
It will be long, yet, before that comes to pass.
Nevertheless, I hope it will not be long before royal or
national libraries will be founded in every considerable
city, with a royal series of books in them ; the same
series in every one of them, chosen books, the best in
every kind, prepared for that national series in the
most perfect way possible ; their text printed all on
leaves of equal size, broad of margin, and divided into
pleasant volumes, light in the hand, beautiful, and
strong, and thorough as examples of binders' work ;
and that these great libraries will be accessible to all
clean and orderly persons at all times of the day and
evening ; strict law being enforced for this cleanliness
and quietness.
I could shape for you otlier plans, for art-galleries,
and for natural-history galleries, and for many
precious, many, it seems to me, needful things ; but
OF KTNOS' TREASURTES.
67
this book plan is the easiest and needfullest, and would
prove a considerable tonic to what we call our British
constitution, which has fallen dropsical of late, and has
an evil thirst, and evil hunger, and wants healthier
feeding. You have got its corn laws repealed for it ;
try if you cannot get corn laws established for it,
dealing in a better bread ; bread made of that old en-
chanted Arabian grain, the Sesame, which opens
doors ; doors, not of robbers', but of Kings' Treasuries.
Friends, the treasuries of true kings are the streets
of their cities; and the gold they gather, which for
others is as the mire of tlie streets, changes itself, for
them and their people, into a crystalline pavement for-
evermore.
v\
LECTURE IL— LTLIES.
OF queens' cakdp:ns.
•' Be thou glad, oh thirsting Desert; let the desert be made cheer
ful and bloom as the lily; and the barren i)laces of Jordan shall run
wild with wood,"— Isaiah 35, i. (Septuagint.)
It will, perhaps, be well, as this Lecture is the
sequel of one previously given, that I should shortly
stale to you my genei'al intention in both. The
questions specially proposed to you in the first,
namely. How and What to Read, rose out of a far
deeper one, which it was m}^ endeavor to make you
propose earnestly to yourselves, namely. Why to Read.
I want you to feel, Avith me, tliat whatever advantages
we possess in the present day in the diffusion of edu-
cation and of literature, can only be rightly used by
anv of us when we have apprehended clearly what
education is to lead to, and literature to teach. I wish
you to see that both well-directed moral training and
well-chosen reading lead to the possession of a power
over the ill-guided and illiterate, which is, according to
the measure of it, in the truest sense, kingh/ ; con-
ferring indeed the purest kingship that can exist
OF QUEERS' GARDENS.
69
iges
amorif^ mon : too many other kingships (however dis-
tinguished by visible insignia or material power) being
either spectral, or tyrannous ; special — that is to say,
aspects and shadows only of royalty, hollow as death,
and which only the " Likeness of a kingly crown have
on ;" or else tyrannous — that is to say, substituting
their own will for the law of justice and love by which
all true kings rule.
There is, then, I repeat — and as I want to leave this
idea with you, I begin with it, and shall end with it —
only one pure kind of kmgship ; an inevitable and
eternal kind, crowned or not: the kingship, namely,
which consists in a stronger moral state, and a truer
thoughtful state, than that of others; enabling yoii,
therefore, to guide, or to raise them. Observe that
word " State ;" we have got into a loose way of using
it. It means literally the standing and stability of a
thing ; and you have the full force of it in the derived
word "statue" — "the immovable thing." A king's
majesty or " state," then, and the right of his kmgdom
to be called a state, depends on the movelessness of
both: without tremor, without quiver of balance;
established and enthroned upon a foundation of eternal
law which nothing can alter nor overthrow.
Believing that all literature and all education are
only useful so far as they tend to confirm this calm,
beneficent, and therefore kingly, power- -first, over our-
selves, and, through ourselves, over all around us, I am
i
%
V
I
7(»
iil':SAMK AND LILIES.
now going to ask yon to consider with me further,
wliiit speciiil portion or kind of this royal authority,
arising out of noMe education, may riglitly be pos-
sessed l)y women; and how far they also are called
to a true queenly power. Not in their households
merely, but over all within their sphere. And in what
sens(% if they riglitly understood and exercised this
royal or gracious influence, the order and beauty in-
duced by such benignant power would justify us in
speaki>!g of the territories over which each of them
reigncil, as "Queens' Gardens."
And here, in the ver}^ outset, we are met by a far
deeper que3ti(m, wliich — strange though this may seem
— remains among many of us yet quite undecided, in
spite of its in Unite importance.
We cannot determine what the queenly power of
women should be, until we are agreed what their
ordinary power should be. We cannot consider how
education may fit tliem for any widely extending duty,
until we are agreed what is their true constant duty.
And there never was a time \\\\q\]. wilder words were
spoken, or more vain imagination permitted, respect-
ing this question — quite vital to all social happiness.
The relations of the womanly to the manly nature,
their different capacities of intellect or of virtue, seem
never to have been yet njeasured with entire consent.
We hear of the mission and of the rights of Woman,
as if these could ever be separate from the mission
s-
0 F Q UEKNH ' G A RD ENS.
?l
ision
and the rights of Man ; ns if v\\q, and her lord wore
creatures of independent kind and of irreconcihible
claim. This, at least, is wrong. And not less wrong
— perhaps even more foohshly wrong (for I will antici
pnte thus far wiiat I ho])e to prove) — is the idea that
woman is only the shadow and attendant image of her
lord, owing him a thoughtless and servile obedience,
and supported altogether in lier weakness by the pre-
eminence of his fortitude.
This, I say, is the most foolish of all ei'rors r(^-
r;pecting her who was made to be the helpmate
of man. As if he could be helped effectively by
a shadow, or worthily by a slave !
Let us try, then, whether we cannot get at some
clear and harmonious idea (it mus! be harmonious
if it is true) of what womanly mind and virtue
arc in power and office, with respect to man's;
and how their relations, rightly accepted, aid, and
increase, the vigor, and honor, and authority of both.
And now^ I must repeat one thing I said in the
last lecture: namelv, that the first use of education
was to enable us to consult with the wisest and
the greatest men on all points of earnest diffi-
culty. That to use books rightly, w^as to go to
them for help: to appeal to them, when our own
knowledge and power of thought failed; to be led
by them into wilder sight, purer conce]-»/tion than
our own, and receive from them the united sen-
;l
liffl
.1
,*
4 <v
SrCSAyfFJ AND LILTED,
!i s
tence of the jndi^rs jind councils of all time, against
our solitary and unstable opinion.
Let us do this now. Let us see whether the
oTcatest, the wisest, the purest-hearted of all ages
are agreed in any wise on this point : let us hear
the testiiriony th(\y have left respecting what they
]ield to be the true dignity of woman, and her
mode of help to man.
And first let us take Shakespeare.
Note broadly in the outset, Shakespeare has no
heroes — he has onlv heroines. There is not one
entirely heroic figure in all his plaj^s, except the
slight sketch of Henry the Fifth, exaggerated for
the purposes of the stage; and the still slighter
Valentine in the Two Gentlemen of Verona. In
his labored and perfect plays you have no hero.
Othello would have been one, if his simplicity had
not been so great as to leave him the prey of
every base practice round him ; but he is the onl}''
example even approximating to the heroic type.
Coriolanus — Ca.^sar — Antony, stand in flawed strength,
and fall bv their vanities — Uamlet is indolent, and
drowsily speculative ; Romeo, an impatient boy ; the
Merchant of Venice languidly submissive to ad-
verse fortune; Kent, in King Lear, is entirely no-
ble at heart, but too rough and unpolished to be
of true use at the critical time, and he sinks into
ohe office of a servant onlv. Orlando, no less no-
OF q UEEN.'i ' a A HDENH.
7»
no
ono
the
for
hter
In
ero.
had
of
ype.
and
the
ad-
no-
be
into
no-
ble, is yet the despairing toy of chance, followed,
comforted, saved, by Kosalind. Whereas there is
hardly a play that has not a perfect \vo!nari in
it, steadfast in grave hoj)e, and errorless piii-pose;
Cordelia, Dosdeniona, Isabella, llerniione, Imogen,
Queen Kathei'ine, Perditi, Sylvia, V^iola, Rosaline!,
Helena, and last, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are
all faultless ; conceived in the highest heroic type
of humanity.
Then observe, secondly.
The catasti'o[)lie of every play is caused always by
the folly or fault of a man ; the redemption, if there
be any, is by the wisdom and virtue of a woman, and,
failing that, there is none. The catastrophe of King
Lear is owing to his own want of judgment, his im-
patient vanity, his misunderstanding of his children;
the virtue of his one true daughter would have saved
him from all the injuries of the others, unless he had
cast her away from him ; as it is, she all but saves him.
Of Othello I need not trace the tale — nor the one
weakness of his so mighty love ; nor the inferiority of
his perceptive intellect to that even of the second
woman character in the play, the Emilia who dies in
wild testimony against his error — " Oh, murderous
coxcomb ! What should such a fool do with so good
a wife?"
In Romeo and Juliet, the wnse and entirely brave
stratagem of the w^ife is brought to ruinous issue by
..a,i<
j !
i
74
f^KSAMK a:m) LlLir.S.
the rocklf'ss inipatience of her husband. Tn AVinUir's
Tale, and in (Jymlx'line, the ha})j)iness and existencuof
two princely liouseholds, lost thi'ou«^'h long years, and
imperiled to the death by the folly and obstinacy of
the husbands, are I'edeenied at last by the queenly
patience and \visd(jni of the wivt'S. In Measure for
Measure, the injustice of the judges, and the corru[)t
cowardice of the brother, are o[)posed to the victorious
truth and adamantine purity of a woman. In Coi'iolanus,
the mother's counsel, acted upon in time, would have
saved her son from all evil; his momentary for^etful-
ness of it is his ruin ; her prayer at last granted, saves
him — not, indeed, from death, but from the curse of
living as the destroyer of his country.
And what shall I say of Julia, constant against the
fickleness of a lover vrho is a mere wicked child? — of
Helena, against the petulance and insult of a careless
youth ? — of the patience of Hero, the passion of Beat-
rice, and the calmly devoted wisdom of the " unles-
soned girl," who apj)ears among the helplessness, the
blindness, and the vindictive passions of men, as a
gentle angel, to save merely by her presence, and de-
feat the worst intensities of crime by '^ smile?
Observe, further, among all the principal figures in
Shakespeare's plays, tliere is only one weak woman —
Ophelia ; and it is because she fails Hamlet at the crit-
ical moment, and is not, and cannot in her nature be,
a guide to him when he needs her most, thiit all the
»
M'
OF Q,UKb:NS' GARDENS.
15
as a
de-
^es in
I an —
crit-
-e be,
II the
bitter Ral-astroplii' foll(iws. Finally, thoi"'^ there are
throe wiekod womhmi anion:*- the principal figures, Lady
Macbeth, iiegan, and Gcjnerial, they are felt at once to
be frightful exeeplions to the ordinj»,ry laws of life;
fatal in their inlhience also in proportion to the power
for good which they have abandoned.
Such, in broad liglit, is Shakespeare's testimony t<i
the position and character of women in human lite.
lie represents them as infallibly faithful and wise
counselors — incorruptibly just and pure examples —
always strong to sanctify, even v/hen they cannot save.
Not as in any wise comparable in knowledge of the
nature of man — still less in his understanding of the
causes an<^ courses of fate — but onlv as tlie writer who
has given us the broadest view of the conditions and
modes of ordinary thought in modern sc^ciety, I ask
vou next to receive the witness of Walter Scott.
I put aside his merely romantic prose writings as of
no value : and though the early romantic poetry is
very beautiful, its testimony is of no weight, other
than that of a bov's ideal. But his true works,
studied from Scottish life, bear a true witness, and in
the whole range of these there are but three men who
reach the heroic t3^pe* — Dandie Dinmont, Rob Koy,
*I ought, in order to make this assertion fully understood, to
have noted the various weaknesses which lower the ideal of other
great characters of men in the Waverley Novels — the selfishness and
narrowness of thought in Redgauntlet, the weak religious enthusiasm
in Edward Glendenning, and the like; and I ought to have noticed
•■'4
\^
Si
\i
»
70
SESAME AND LILIES.
and Claverhouse : of these, one is a border farmer ;
another a freebooter ; the third a soldier in a bad
cause. And these touch the ideal of heroism only in
their courage, and faith, together with a strong, but
uncultivated, or mistakenly applied, intellectual power ;
while his younger men are the gentlemanly playthings
of fantastic fortune, and only by aid (or accident) of
that fortune, survive, not vanquish, the trials they in-
voluntarily sustain. Of any disciplined, or consistent
character, earnest in a purpose wisely conceived, or
dealing with forms of hostile evil, definitely challenged,
and resolutely subdued, tliere is no trace in his con-
ceptions of men. Whereas in his imaginations of
women — in the characters of Ellen Douglas, of Flora
Maclvor, Rose Bradwardine, Catharine Seyton, Diana
Vernon, Lilias Redgauntlet, Alice Bridgenorth, Alice
Lee, and Jeanie Deans — with endless varieties of
grace, tenderness, and intellectual power, we find in
all a quite infallible and inevitable sense of dignity and
justice ; a fearless, instant, and untiring self-sacrifice
to even the appearance of duty, much more to its real
claims ; and, finally, a patient wisdom of deeply re-
strained affection, which does infinitely more than
protect its objects from a momentary error; it grad-
tliat there are several quite perfect characters sketched sometimes in
tlie backgrounds; three — let us accept joyously this courtesy to Eng-
land and her soldiers — are English officers; Colonel Gardiner, Colonel
Talboc, and Colonel Maiiucniig.
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
77
ually forms, animates and exalts the characters of the
unworthy lovers, until, at the close of tlie tale, we are
just able, and no more, to take patience, in hearing of
their unmerited success.
So that in all cases, with Scott as with Shakespeare,
it is the woman who watches over, teaches and guides
the youth ; it is never, by any chance, the youth who
watches over or educates his mistress.
Next, t:.ke, tliough more briefly, graver and deeper
testimony — that of the great Italians and (f reeks.
You know well the plan of Dante's great poem-—
that it is a love-poem to his dead lady, a song of })raise
for her watch over his soul. Stooping only to pity,
never to love, she vet saves him from destruction—
saves him from hell. He is going eternall}^ astray in
despair ; she comes down from heaven to his help,
and throughout the ascents of Paradise is his teacher,
interpreting for him the most difficult truths, divine
and human ; and leading him, with rebuke upon I'c
buke, from star to star.
I do not insist upon Dante's conception ; if I
began I could not cease : besides, you might think
this a wild imagination of one poet's heart. So I
will rather read to vou a few verses of the delib-
erate writing of a kniglit of Pisa to his living
lady, wholly characteristic of the feeling of all the
noblest men of the thirteenth century, preserved
among many other such records of knightly honor
-i I
\A
m
y
M
>;t
^
78
SESAME AND LILIES.
and love, which Dante Eossetti has 'gathered for us
from among the early Italian poets.
For lo! thy law is passed
Tliat tbis my love should manifestly be
To serve and honor thee:
And so I do; and my delight is full,
Accepted for the servant of thy rule.
Witho': f.lmost, I am a!! rapturous,
►Since thus my will was set
• To serve, thou flower of joy, thine ex.cellence:
Nor ever seems it anything- could rouse
A pain or regret,
But on thee dwells mine every thou<^ht and sense.
Considering that from thee all virtues spread
As from a fountain head —
That in th// (jift i.s inHdom's best avail,
And honor intJi out fail;
With whom each sovc'eign good dwells separate,
Fulfilling the perfection of thy state.
Lady, since I conceived
Thy pleasurable aspect in my heart,
My life Jim been apart
In shining hncjhtness and the place of truth;
Which till that time, good sooth.
Groped among shadows in a dcjlvoa'd place.
Where many hours and ctays
It hardly ever had remember'd good.
But now my servitude
Is thine, and I am full of jov and rest.
A man from a wild beast
Thou madest me, since for thv love I lived.
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
79
You may think, perhaps, a Greek knight v.'ould
have had a lower estimate of women than this
Christian lover. His own spiritual su])jection to
them was indeed hot so absolute ; but as regards
^heir own personal cliaracter, it was only because
you could not have followed me so easily, that I
did not take tlie Greek women instead of Shake-
speare's; and instance, for chief ideal types of hu-
man beauty and faith, the simple mother's and
wife's heart of Andromache; the divine, yet re-
jected wisdom of Cassandi'a ; the playful kindness
und simple princess-life of happy Nausicaa ; the
housewifely calm of that of Penelope, with its watch
upon the sea ; the ever patient, fearless, hopelessly
devoted piety of the sister, and daug'.iter, in Anti-
gone; the bovring down of Iphigenia, lamb-like and
silent; and, finally, the expectation of the resurrec-
tion, made clear to the soul of the Greeks in the
return from her grave of that Alcestis, who, to
save her husband, had passed calmly through the
bitterness of death.
Now I could multiply witness upon witness of this
kind upon you if 1 had time. I would take
Chaucer, and show you why he wrote a Legend of
Good Women ; but no Legend of Gootl ]\Ien. I
would take Spenser, and show you how all his
fairy knights are sometimes deceived and some-
times vanquished; but the soul of Un? is never
■'•'•4
■^V
' mi
• i
!. 1
80
SESAME AND LILIES.
darkened, and the spear of Britomart is never
broken. Nay, I coukl go back into tlie mythical
teaching of the most ancient times, and show you
how the great people — by one of wliose princesses
it Avas appointed that the Law-giver of all the
earth should be educated, rather than by his own
kindred — how that great Egyptian people, wisest
then of nations, gave to their Spirit of Wisdom
the form of a woman ; and into her hand, for a
symbol, the weaver's shuttle : and how the name
and the form of that spirit, adopted, believed, and
obeyed by tlie Greeks, became that Athena of the
olive-helm, and cloudy shield, to whose faith you
owe, down to this date, whatever vou hokl most
precious in art, in literature, or in types of na-
tional virtue.
But I will not wander into this distant and
mythical element ; I will only ask you to give its
legitimate vahie to the testimony of these great
poets and men of the world — consistent as you
see it is on this head. I will ask you whether
it can be supposed that these men, in the main
work of their lives, are amusing themselves Avith
a lictitious and idle view of the relations between
man and woman — nay, worse than fictitious or idle;
for a thing may be imaginary, yet desirable, if it
were possible ; but this, their ideal of women, is,
according to our common idea of the marriage
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
81
M
relation, wholly undesirable. The woman, we say,
is not to guide, nor even to think, for herself.
The man is always to be the wiser; he is to
be the thinker, the ruler, the superior in knowl-
edge and discretion, as in power. Is it not some-
what important to make up our minds on this
matter ? Are all these great men mistaken, or are we ?
Are Shakespeare and ^]schylus, Dante and Homer,
merely dressing dolls for us ; or, worse than dolls, un-
natural visions, the realization of which, were it possi-
ble, would bring anarchy into all households and ruin
into all affections ? Nay, if you could suppose this,
take lastly the evidence of facts, given by the human
heart itself.
In all Christian ages which have been remarkable
for their purity or progress, there has been absolute
yielding of obedient devotion, by the lover, to his
mistress. I say obedient — not merely enthusiastic
and worshiping in imagination, but entirely subject,
receiving from the beloved woman, however young,
not only the encouragement, the praise, and the re-
ward of all toil, but, so far as any choice is open, or
any question difliicult of decision, the direction of all
toil. That chivalry, to the abuse and dishonor of which
are attributable primarily whatever is cruel in war, un-
just in peace, or corrupt and ignoble in dom.estic rela-
tions; and to the original purity and power of which
we owe the defense alike of faith, of law, and of love
m
:
^i
82
SESAME AND LILIES.
— that chivalry, I say, in its very first conception of
honorable life, assumes the subjection of the young
knight to the command — should it even be the com-
mand in caprice — of his lady. It assumes this, because
its masters knew that the lirst and necessary impulse
of every truly tauglit and knightly heart is this of
blind service to its hul v ; that where that true faith and
captivity are not, all wayward and wicked ])assion
must be; and that in this rapturous obedience to the
single love of his youth, is the sanctiiication of all
man's strength, and the continuance of all his pur-
poses. And this not because such obedience would be
safe, or honorable, were it ever rendered to the un-
worthy ; but because it ought to be impossible for
every noble youth — it is impossible for every one
rightly trained — to love any one whose gentle counsel
he cannot trust, or whose prayerful command he can
hesitate to obey.
I do not insist by any further argument on this, for
I think it should commend itself at once to your
knowledge of what has been and to your feeling of
what should be. You cannot think that the buckling
on of the knight's armor by his lad3^'s hand was a mere
caprice of romantic fashion. It is the type of an eter-
nal truth — that the soul's armor is never well set to
the heart unless a woman's hand has braced it ; and it
is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of
manhood fails. Know you not those lovely lines — I
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
83
I'
m
1 be
un-
lor
one
inscl
can
for
\
would they were learned by all youthful ladies of
England :
* Ah wasteful woman! she who may
On her sweet seilf set her own price,
Knowing he cainiot choose but pay —
How has she cheapcn'd Paradise!
How given for nauglit lier priceless gift,
How spoiled the bread and spill'd the wine,
Which, spent with due, respective thrift,
Had made brutes men, and men divine!" ■'^'
Thus much, then, rcsi)ecting the relations of lovers
I believe you will accept. But what we too often
doubt is the fitness of the continuance of such a
relation throughout the whole of liunian life. We think
it right in the lover and mistress, not in the husband
and wife. That is to sav, we think that a reverent
and tender duty is due to one whose affection we still
doubt, and whose character w^e as yet do but partially
and distantlv discern : and that this reverence and
duty are to be withdrawn when the affection has be-
come Avholly and limitlessly our own, and tlie charac-
ter has been so sifted and tried that we fear not to in-
trust it with the happiness of our lives. Do you not
see how ignoble this is, as well as how unreasonable?
Do you not feel that marriage — vrhen it is marriage at
all — is onl}^ the seal w4iich nuirks the vowed transition
of temporary into untiring service, and of fitful into
eternal love ?
* r.
Coventry Patmore.
.' f
(;
'm
m
Vii
I
84
SESAME AND LILIES.
But how, you will ask, is the idea of this guiding
function of the woman reconcilable with a true wifely
subjection? Simply in that it is a gvAdiny^ not a
determining, function. Let me try to show you briefiy
how these powers seem to be rightly distinguishable.
We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speak-
ing of the "superiority'' of one sex to the other, as if
they could be compared in similar things. Each has
what the other has not : each completes the other, and
is completed by the other: they are in nothing alike,
and "the happiness and perfection of both depends on
each asking and receiving from the other what the
other only can give.
Now their separate characters are briefly these.
The man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He
is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the
defender. Plis intellect is for speculation and inven-
tion; his energy for adventure, for war, and for con-
quest, wherever war is just, wherever conquest
necessary. But the woman's power is for rule, not for
battle — and her intellect is not for invention or
creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and
decision. She sees the qualities of things, their claims
and their places. Her great function is Praise ; she
enters into no contest, but infallibly judges the crown
of contest. By her office, and place, she is protected
from all danger and temptation. The man in his
rough work in open world, must encounter all peril and
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
85
^il
iding
ifely
Lot a
riefly
lable.
peak-
, as if
h has
r, and
alike,
ids on
at the
these.
3. He
er, the
inven-
)r con-
nquest
not for
on or
it, and
claims
e; she
crown
tected
in his
ril and
trial : to him, therefore, the failure, the offense, the mevi-
table error ; often ho must be wouncted, or subdued,
often misled, i\m[(c/icuf/.'< hardened. But he guards tlio
woman from all this; within his house, as ruled by
her, unless she herself has soiig'lit it, need enter no
danger, no temjitation, no cause of error or olfense.
This is the true nature of home— it is the place of
Peace; the shelter, not oidy from all injur\', but from
lA terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not
this, it is not hoi\ie; so far as tlie anxieties of theouter
life penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-minded,
unknown, unloved, or hostile society of theouter world
is allowed by either husband or wife to cross the
threshold, it ceases to be home ; it is then only a part
of that outer world which vou have roofed over, and
lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred place, a
vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watclied over by
Househokl Gods, before whose faces none mav come
but those whom they can receive with iove — so far as
it is this, and roof and lire are types only of a nobler
shade and light — shade as of the rock in a weary land,
and lio^ht as of ^he Pharos in the stormy sea — so far it
vindicates the name, and fulfills the praise, of home.
And wherever a true wife comes, this home is
always round her. The stars only mav be over her
head ; the glow-worm in the night-cold grass may
be the only lire at her foot : but home is vet wherever
' she is '■ and for a noble woman it stretches far round
n
SESA ME AND LILIES.
her, better than ceiled witli cedar, or painted with
vermilion, shedding its quiet liglit far, for those who
else were homeless.
This, then, I believe to be — will you not admit it to
be — the woman's true place and power? But do not
vou see that to fulfill this, she must — as far as one can
use such terms of a human creature — be incapable of
error? So far as she rules, all must be right, or noth-
ing IS. She must be enduringly, incorruptibly good;
instinctively, int'tiUibly wise — wise, not for self-develop-
ment, but for self-renunciation : wise, not that she may
set herself above her husband, but that she may never
fail from his side: wise, not with the narrowness of
insolent and loveless pride, but with the passionate
gentleness of an infinitely variable, because infinitely
applicable, modesty of service — the true changefulness
of woman. In that great sense — "La donna e mobile,"
not " Qual pium al vento;'' no, nor yet "Variable as
the shade, by the light quivering aspen made ;" but
variable as the light, manifold in fair and serene
division, that it may take the color of all that it falls
upon, and exalt it.
II. — I have been trying, thus far, to show you what
should be the place, and what the power of woman.
Now, secondly, we ask, What kind of education is to
fit her for these ?
And ]f you indeed think this a true conception of
her office and dignity, it will not be difficult to trace'
with
who
it to
) not
) can
lie of
noth-
yood ;
k'elop-
emav
never
ess of
ionate
nitely
ilness
bile,"
)le as
but
erene
t falls
what
Oman,
is to
.'>
OF q UEENfi ' GATi D r:xs.
87
iho course of education which would tit her for the
one, and raise her to tiie other.
The first of our duties to lier -no thoughtful persons
now doubt this — is to secure for her such ])liysical
training and exercise as may confirm her health, and
perfect her beauty; the highest refinement of that
beauty being un;ittainable without splendor of activity
and of delicate strength. To perfect her beauty, 1 say,
and increase its po'."?r; it cannot be too powerful, nor
slied its sacred light too far; only remember that all
])liysical freedom is vain to ])roduce beauty without a
corresponding freedom of heart. There are two pas-
sages of that poet who is distinguished, it seems to me,
from all others — not by power, but by exquisite rig/it-
ness— -which point you to the source, and describe to
you, in a fcNV syllables, the completion of womanly
beauty. I will read tlie introductorv stanzas, but the
last is the one I wish vou speciallv to notice:
" Tlireo years she grew in sun and shower,
Tlien Nature said, a lovrlior tlower
On earth was never sown.
This child I to mvself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.
** Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse; and witn inft
The gir'i, in rock and piain.
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall f"el an overseeing power
To kindle, or restrain.
'1
t'
L
88 SF.t^AMb: AND LILIES.
"The floatinpf cIoiuIh tlioir state nhall leud
To her, for linr the willow bend;
N->r shall Him fa'l to shh
Even in tlie juotioiis of the stonii,
Grace that shull mold the uiuidea'b form
By Hilont Hynipalhy
" And ntitl fveUiHji* of delight
Shall rear ber .''orm to stately heigh*;— •
Her -Mrgln boHom swell.
Such tJwiifjhtH to Lucy I will gi"e,
^Vh'le she and T together live,
Here in this happy dell."
" Vital feelings of delight," observe. There are
deadly feelings of delight; but the natural ones are
vital, necesary to very life.
And they must be feelings of delight, if they are to
be vital. Do not think you can make a girl lovely, if
you do not make her happy. Tliere is not one restraint
you put on a good girl's nature — there is not one
check you give to her instincts of affection or of effort —
which will not bo indelibly written on her features,
with a hardress ^vhich is all the more painful because
it takes away the brightness from the eyes of inno-
cence, and the charm from the brow of virtue.
This for the means : now note the end. Take from
the same poet, in two lines, a perfect description of
womanly beauty —
*' A countenance in which did meet
{Sweet recorda, promises as sweet."
OF qUMICNti' QAHDimS.
89
'e are
les are
are to
vely, if
straint
)t one
fort-
itures,
)ecause
iiino-
e from
ion of
The perfect loveliness of a womsiii's countenance can
only consist in tliat majestic peace, which is lounded
in the memory of happy and useful ycai's — full of
sweet records ; and froui the joinin*^- of this witli that
yet more majestic chiklishness, wliicii is still full of
change and [)romise — opening; always — modest at once,
and bright, with hope of bettei' things to b'» won, and
to be bestowed. There is no old {i<^t^ where there is
still that promise — it is eternal youth.
Thus, then, you have fii'st to in(>M 3'our physical
frame, and then, as the strength she gains will j^ermit
you, to fill and temper her mind with all knowledge
and thoughts which tend to confirm its natural in-
stincts of justice, and refine its natural tact of love.
All such knowledge should be given her as may en-
able her to understand, and even to aid, the work of
men : and yet it should be given, not as knowledge —
not as if it were, or could be, for her an object to
know ; but only to feel, and to judge. It is of no mo-
ment, as a matter of pride or perfectness in herself,
whether she knows manv lano^ua^es or one ; but it is
of the utmost, that she should be able to show kind-
ness to a stranger, and to understand the sweetness of
a stranger's tongue. It is of no moment to her own
worth or dignity that she should be acquainted with
this science or that ; but it is of the highest that she
should be trained in habits of accurate thought ; that
she should understand the meaning, the inevitableness,
90
SKSAMt: AND LILIES.
and the loveliness of natural laws, and follow at least
some one path of scientitic attainment, as far as to tho
threshold of that bitter Valley of Humiliation, into
which only the wisest and bravest of men can descend,
ownino^ themselves forever children, gathcrino^ pebbles
on a boundless shore. It is of little consequence how
many positions of cities she knows, or how many
dates of events, or ho^v many names of celebrated per-
sons— it is not the object of education to turn a vronian
into a dictionary ; but it is deeply necessary that she
should be taught to enter witli her whole personality
into the history she reads ; to picture the pas-
sages of it vitally in her own bright imagination ;
to apprehend, with her fine instincts, the pa-
thetic circumstances and dramatic relations, which
the historian too often only ecli})ses b}^ his rea-
soning, '»iid disconnects by his arrangement : it is
for her to trace tlie hidden equities of divine re-
ward, and catch sight, through the darkness, of the
fateful threads of woven fire that connect error with
its retribution. But, chiefly of all, she is to be taught
to extend the limits of her sym])athy with respect to
that history which is beung forever determined, as the
moments })ass in wliich she draws her peaceful breath ;
and to the contemporary calamity which, were it but
rightly mourned by her, would recur no more here-
after. She is to exercise herself in imagining what
would be the effects upon her mind and conduct, if sho
^^
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
91
were daily brought into the presence of the suffering
which is not the less real because shut from her ^mhi.
She is to be taught somewhat to uriderstand the noth-
ingness of the proportion which that little world in
which she lives and loves, bears to the world in which
God lives and loves ; and solemnly she is to be taught
to strive that her thoughts of piety may not be feeble
in proportion to the number they embrace, nor her
prayer more languid than it is for the momentar^r
relief from pain of her husband or her child, when it is
uttered for the multitudes of those who have none to
love them — and is " for all who are desolate and op-
pressed."
Thus far, I think, I hc^^e had your concurrence;
perhaps you will not be with me in what I believe is
most needful for me to say. There is one dangerous
science for women — one which let them indeed beware
how the}^ profanely touch — that of theology. Strange,
and miserably strange, that while they are modest
enough to doubt their powers, and pause at tlie thresh-
old of scienceF> where every step is demonstrable and
sure, they will plunge headlong, and without one
thought of incompetency, into that science m which
the greatest men have trembled, and the wiset erred.
Strange, that they will complacently and pridefully
bind up whatever vice or folly there is in them, what-
ever arrogance, petulance, or blind inconiprehensive-
ness, into one bitter bundle of consecrated myrrh.
'*2
. ^1
\m
^ W
92
SESAME AND
^JES.
Strange, in creatures born to be Love visible, that
whore they can know least, they will condemn first,
and think to recommend themselves to their Master
by scrambling up the steps of Ilis judgment-throne, to
divide it with Him. Most strano^e, that thev should
think they were led by the Spirit of the Comforter
into habits of mind whicli have become in them the
unmixed elements of home discomfort ; and that they
dare to turn the Ilouseliold Gods of Christianity into
ugly idols of their own — spiritual dolls, for them to
dress according to their caprice; and from which their
husbands must turn away in grieved contempt, lest
they should be shrieked at for breaking them.
I believe, then, with this exception, that a girl's
education should be nearlv, in its course and material
of study, tlie same as a boy's ; but quite differently
directed. A woman in any rank of life, ought to know
whatever her husband is likely to know, but to know
it in a different wa}^. ilis command of it should be
foundational and progressive, hers, general and accom-
plished for daily and helpful use. Not bat that it
would often be wiser in men to learn things in a
womanly sort of way, for present use, and to seek for
the discipline and training of their mental powers in
such branches of studv as will be afterward fittest for
social service ; but, speaking broadh^ a man ought to
know any language or science he learns, thoroughly,
while a woman ought to know the same language, or
that
first,
faster
ne, to
hould
forter
m the
they
y into
3m to
I their
t, lest
girl's
arterial
rentlv
know
know
lid be
iccom-
hat it
s in a
!ek for
ers in
;st for
ght to
ughly,
ige, or
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
93
science, only so fai as may enable her to sympathize
in her husband's pleasures, and in those of his best
friends.
Yet, observe, with exquisite accuracy as far as
she reaches. There is a wide difference between
elementary knowledge and superficial knowledge —
between a firm beginning, and a feeble smatter-
ing. A woman may always help Iier husband by
what she knows, however little ; by what she half-
knows, or mis-knows, she will o^dy teaze him.
And, indeed, if there were to be any diil'erence
between a girl's education and a boy's, I should
sa»y that of the two the girl should be earlier led,
as her intellect ripens faster, into deep and seri-
ous subjects ; and that her range of literature should
be, not more, but less frivolous, calculated to add
the qualities of patience and seriousness to her
natural poignancy of thought and quickness of
wit ; and also to keep her in a lofty and pure
element of thought. I enter not now into any ques-
tion of choice of books ; only be sure tiiat her
books are not heaped up in her lap as they fail
out of the package of the circulating library, wet
with the last and lightest spray of the fountain
of follv.
Or even of the fountain of wit; for with respect
to that sore temptation of novel-reading, it is not
the badness of a novel that we should dread, but
UM
t ^1
< f^ jl
■ 5/
94
SESAME AND LILIES.
its overwrought interest. The weakest roinance is
not so stupefying as the lower forms of religious
exciting literature, and the worst romance is not
so corrupting as false history, false philosophy, or
false political essays. But the bt^st romance be-
comes dangerous, if, by its excitement, it renders
the ordinary course of life uninteresting, and in-
creases the morbid thirst for useless acquaintance
with scenes in which we shall never be called
upon to act.
I speak therefore of good novels only ; and cur
modern literature is particularly rich in types of
such. Well read, indeed, these books have serious
use, being nothing less than treatises on moral
anatomy and chemistr}^ ; studies of human nature
in the elements of it. But I attach little weight
to this function ; they are hardly ever read with
earnestness enough to permit them to fulfill it.
The utmost they usually do is to enlarge some-
what the charity of a kind reader, or the bitter-
ness of a malicious one; for each will gather, from
the novel, food for her own disposition. Those
who are natural!}^ proud and envious will learn
from Thackeray to despise humanity; those who
are naturally gentle, to pity it; those who are nat-
urally shallow, to laugh at it. So, also, there might
be a serviceable power in novels to bring before us,
in vividness, a human truth which we had before
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
95
dimly conceived; bnt the temptation to picturesque-
ness of statement is so great, that often the best
writers of fiction cannot resist it ; and our views
are rendered so violent and one sided, that their vi-
tality is rather a harm than good.
Without, however, venturing here on any attempt at
decisi(m how much novel-reading should be allowed,
let me at least clearly assert this, that whether novels,
or poetry, or history be read, they should be chosen,
not for what is out of them, but for what is 171 them.
The chance and scattered evil that mav here and there
haunt, or hide itself in, a powerful book, never does
any harm to a noble girl ; but the emptiness of an
author oppresses her, and his amiable folly degrades
her. And if she can have access to a good li brary of
old and classical books, there need be no choosing at
all. Keep tlie modern magazine and novel out of your
mvVs wav : turn her loose into the old librarv everv wet
day, and let her alone. She will find what is good for
her; you cannot: for there is just this difference be-
tween the makmg of a girl's character and a boy's —
you may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock,
or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as
you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer
a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does —
she will wither without sun; she will decay in her
sheath, as the narcissus does, if you do not give her air
enough ; she may fall and defile her head in dust, if
..«-
h''
n
06
SESAME AND LTLTKS.
you leave her without help at some moments of her
life ; but you cannot fetter her ; slie must take her
own fair form and way, if she takes any, and in mind
as in body, must have always
" Her household motions light and free
And steps of virgin liberty."
Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in
a field. It knows the bad weeds twenty times better
than you ; and the good ones too, and will eat some
bitter and prickly ones, good for it, which yor. had
not the slightest thought were good.
Then, in art, keep the finest models before her, and
let her practice in all accomplishments be accurate and
thorough, so as to enable her to understand more than
she accomplishes. I say the finest models — that is to
say, the truest, simplest, usefuUest. Note those
epithets; they will range through all the arts. Try
them in music, where you might think them the least
applicable. I say the truest, that in which the notes
most closely and faithfully express the meanmg of the
words, or the character of intended emotion ; again,
the simplest, that in which the meaning and melody
are attained with the fewest and most significant notes
possible ; and, finally, the usefullest, that music which
makes the best words most beautiful, which enchants
them in our memories each with its own glory of
sound, and which applies them closest to the heart at
the moment we need them.
OF qUKKNS' GARDENS.
97
And not only in the material and in the course, but
yet more earnestly in the spirit of it, let a girl's educa-
tion bo as serious as a boy s You bring up your girls
as if they were meant for sidel)oard ornaments, and
then complain of their frivolity. Give thorn the same
advantages that yoa give their brothers — appeal to
the same grand instincts of virtue in them ; teacii them
also that courage and tru^h are the pillars of their be-
ing : do you think that they would not answer that
appeal, brave arid true as they are even now, when you
know that there is hardly a girl's school in this Chris-
tian kingdom where the children's courage or sincerity
would be thought of half so much importance as their
way of coming in at a door; and when the whole
system of society, as respects the mode of establishing
them in life, is one rotten plague of cowardice and im-
posture— cowardice, in not daring to let them live, op
love, except as their neighbors choose ; and imposture,
in bringing, for the purpose of our own pride, the full
glow of the world's worst vanity upon a girl's eye, at
the very period when the whole happiness of her
future existence depends upon her remaining undazzled?
And give them, lastly, not only noble teachings, but
noble teachers. You consider somewhat, before you
send your boy to school, what kind of a man the mas-
ter is — whatsoever kind of man he is, you at least give
him full autliority over your son, and show some re-
spect to him yourself ; if becomes to dine with you, you
' f fl
^
villi
I '
I r*5|
98
SESAME AJS/JJ LILIES.
do not put him at a side table ; you know also that,
at bis college, your child's immediate tutor will be
under the direction of some still higher tutor, for whom
vou have absolute reverence. You do not treat the
Dean of Christ Church or the Master of Trinity as
your inferiors.
liut what teachers do you give your girls, and what
reverence do you show to the teachers you have
chosen? Is a girl likely to thin i her own conduct, or
her own intellect, of much importance, when you trust
the entire formation of her character, moral and intel-
lectual, to a person whom you let 3'our servants treat
with less res})ect than they do your housekeeper (as
if the soul of your child were a less charge than jams
and groceries,) and whom you yourself think you con-
fer an honor upon them by letting her sometimes sit
in the drawing-room in the evening?
Thus, then, of literature as her help, and thus of art.
There h one more help which she cannot do without
—one which, alone, has sometimes done more than all
other influences besides — t'le help of wild and fair nat-
ure. Hear this of the education of Joan of Arc :
" The education of tliis poor girl was meant according to he present
standard; was iueiTably grand, according to a purer pliilosophic
Btandard, and only not good for our age, because for us it would be
unattainable. ...
" Next after her spiritual advantages, she owed most to the ad-
vantages of her situation. The fountain of Domremy was on the
brink of a boundless forest; and it waa haunted to that degree by
»■
, I
OF Q UEENS ' GA HI) ENS.
99
fairies, that the parish priest {cure) was obliged to read mass there
once a year, in order to keej) them in any decent bounds. . . .
" But the forests of Domremy — those were the gluries of the land,
for in them abode mysterious powers and ancient secrets that tow-
ered into tragic strength. 'Abbeys there were, and abbey windows'
— ' like Moorish temples of the Hindoos,' that exercised even princely
power both in Touraine and in tlie German Diets. These had their
fiweet bells that pierced the forests for many a league at matins or
vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. Few enouv-ifli, and scat-
tered enough, were these abbeys, so as in no degree to disturb the
I'.eep solitude of the region; yet many enough to spread a net- work or
awning of Christian sanctity over what else might have seemed a
heathen wilderness."*
Now, 3'ou cannot, indeed, have here in England,
woods eighteen miles deep to the center ; but you
can, perhaps, keep a fairy or two for your chil-
dren yet, if you wish to keep them. But do you
wish it? Suppose you had each, at the back of
your house, a garden, large enough for your chil-
dren to play in, with just as much lawn as would give
them room to run — no more — and that you could
not change your abode; but that, il you chose,
you could double your income, or quadruple it, by
digging a coal-shaft in the middle of the lawn,
and turning the flower-beds into heaps of coke.
Would vou do it? I think not. I can tell vou,
you would be wrong if you did, though it gave
you income sixty fold instead of fourfold.
*"Joan of Arc: in reference to M. Michelet's History of
France." De Quincey's Works. Vol. iii. p. 217.
m
m
100
SbJSAMh: AND LILIES.
Yet tbis is what you arc doin<T with all Eng
land. The wh()l(3 coiintry is but a little garden,
not more than enou<^h for vour cliildren to run
on the lawns of, if you would let them a/l run
there. And this little gardoii you will turn into
furnace-ground, and fill with heaps of cinders, if
you can; and those children of yours, not you,
will suffer for it. For the fairies will not be all
bjmished ; there are fairies of the furnace as of
tlie wood, and their lirst gifts seem to be "sharp
arrows of the mighty;" but their last gifts are
"coals of juniper."
And yet I cannot — though there is no part of
my subject that I feel more — press this upon you;
for we made so little use of the power of nature
while we had it that we shall hardly feel what
we have lost. Just on the other side of the Mersey
yoa have your Snowdon, and your Menai Straits,
and that mighty granite rock beyond the moors
of Anglesea, splendid m its heathery crest, and foot
planted in the dee]) sea, once thought of as sacred
— a divine promontory, looking westward ; the Holy
Head or Headland, still not without awe when
its red light glares first through storm. These are
the hills, and these the bays und blue inlets, which
among the Greeks, would have been always loved,
alwavs fateful in influence on the national mind.
That Snowdon is your Parnassus; but where are its
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
101
^f
Eng-
irclen.
0 run
7 run
1 into
jrs, if
be all
as of
' sharp
s are
art of
I you;
nature
what
lersey
traits,
moors
1 foot
sacred
Holv
when
ise are
which
loved,
mind.
re its
I
Muses? That Iloiyiiead mountain is your Island of
^Egina, but wbero is its Temple to Minerva'iJ
Shall 1 read you what the Christian ^Finerva had
achieved uiuler the sliadow of our Parnassus, up to
the vear 1848? Here is a little account of a Welsh
school, from page 201 of the TJeport on Wales, pub-
lished by the C'ommittee of Council on Education.
This is a school close to a tov/n containing 5,000
[)ersons :
" I then called up a lar/j;('r class, most of whom had reecutiy come
to the school. Three girls repeatedly declared they had never heard
of Christ, and two that they had never heard of Ood. Two out of
six thought Christ was on earth now (' they might have had a worse
thought, perhaps'), three knew nothing about the crucifixion. Four
out of seven did not know the names of the numths, nor the number
of days in a year. They had nonotion whatever (,{ addition be-
yond two and two, or three and three; their minds were perfect
blanks."
Oh ye women of England ! from the Princess
of that Wales to the simplest of you, do not
think your own children can be brou<]:lit into
their true fold of rest Avhile these are scattered
on tiie hills, as sheep having no shepherd. And
do not think your daughters can be trained to
the truth of their own human beautv, while the
pleasant places, which God made at once for their
school-room and their play-ground, lie desolate and
defiled. You cannot baptize them rightly in those
I ,|
i'tA
102
ShJ.SAMK AND LlUb'S.
inch-dopp fonts of yours, unless you baptizo thoiu
also in the sweet watei-s which the great Law-
giver strikes fortii forever fr(Mn the rocks of your
native hind — waters which a Pagan would have
worshiped in their purity, and you only worship
with pollution. You cannot lead your children faith-
fully to those narrow ax-hewn church altars of
vours, while the dark azure altars in heaven — the
mountains that sustain vour island throne — mount-
ains on whi(;li a Pagan would have seen the pow-
ers of heaven rest in every wreathed cloud — remain
for you without inscription ; altars built, not to, but
by, an Unknown God.
III. — Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of
the teaching, of woman, and thus of her household
office, and queenliness. We come now to our last,
our widest question : What is her queenly office with
respect to the state?
Generally, we are under an impression that a man's
duties are public^ a\\([ a woman's private. But this
is not altogether so. A man has a personal work
or duty, relating to his own home, and a public work
or duty, which is the expansion of the other, relat-
ing to the state. So a woman has a personal
Work or duty, relating to her own home, and a
public work and duty, which is also the expansion of
that.
Now the man's work for his own home is, as has
OF Q UKKNS ' GA li hRK8,
103
man s
t this
work
work
relat-
sonal
nd a
on of
been sai<l, to sociiro its innintoiuinc*', j)rooToss, nnd de-
fense ; the wonuin's to secure its oi'der, comfort, and
loveliness.
Expand both these functions. The man's <luty as a
nifMuber of a eomnioinveMlth, is to assist in the main
tenance, in tlie advance, in tlie d(;fense (►f the states
The woman's dutv, as a member of the common wealtii,
is to assist in the ordering, in the comforting, and in
the beautiful adornment of the state.
"What the man is at his own gat(>, defend iig it, if
need be, against insult and sj)oil,that also, TK^t in a less,
but in a more devoted measure, he is to be at the gate
of his country, leaving his home, if need be, even to
the s])oiler, to do his more incumbent woi'k there.
And, in like manner, what the woman is to be
within her gates, as the center of order, the balm of
distress, and the mirror of beauty ; that she is also to
be without her gates, where order is more ditficult,
distress more imminent, loveliness more rare.
And as within the human heart there is alwavs -»t
an instinct for all its real duties — an instinct wli < h
3^ou cannot quench, but only warp and coi'rupt if you
withdraw it from its true purpose ; as there is the in-
tense instinct of love, which, rightl}^ disciplined, main-
tains all the sanctities of life and, misdirected, under-
mines them ; and .mist do either the one or the other;
so there is in the human lieart an inextinguishable in-
stinct, the love of power, which, rightly directed,
,?r.
104
SESAME AND LILIES.
maintains all the majesty of law and life, and mis-
directed, wrecks them.
Deep rooted in the innermost life of the heart o/
man, and of the heart of woman, God set it there, and
(Tod keeps it there. Vainly, as falsely, you blame or
rebuke tlie desire of power ! P'or Heaven's sake, and
for IMjin's sake, desire it all you can. But ivhat power?
That is ail the ipiestion. Power to destroy ? the lion's
limb, and the dragon's breath? Not so. Power to
heal, to redeem, to guide and to guard. Power of the
scepter and shield ; the power of the royal hand that
heals in toucliing — that binds the fiend and looses
the captive ; the throne that is founded on the rock
of Justice, and descended from only by steps of
mercy. Will you not covet such power as this, and
seek such throne as this, and be no more house-
wives, but queens ?
It is now long since the women of England arro
gated univers.'illy. a title which once belonged to
nobility only, and, having once been in the habit of
accepting the simple title of gentlewoman, as corre-
spondent to that of gentleman, insisted on the privilege
of assuming tlie title of " Lady,"* which properly
corresponds only to the title of " Lord."
* I wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for our
English youth of certain ranks, in which both boy and girl should
receive, at a given age, tlieir knighthood and ladyhood by true title;
atljainable only by certain probation and trial both of character and
accomplishment; and to be forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, o '
OF QUEENS' GAliDENS.
105
mis-
art of
e, Jind
me or
e, and
»ower ?
; lion's
*ver to
of the
id that
looses
le rock
eps of
is, and
house-
ll arro
ored to
labit of
corre-
ivilege
i'operly
for oar
|l should
rue title;
icter and
Ipeers, o'
n\
1 do not blame them for this; but onlv for their
narrow motive in this. I would have them desire and
claim the title of Lady, provided they claim, not
merely the title, but the ollice and duty signified by it.
Lady means "bread giver ^' or "loaf-giver," and Lord
means "maintainer of laws," and botli titles have
I'efereiice, not to the law which is maintained in the
house, nor to the bread which is given to the house-
hold; but to law maintained for the multitude, aiu! to
bread broken among the multitude. So that a Loi'd
has legal claim only to his title in so fai' as he is the
maintainer of the justice of the Lord of Lords ; and a
Lady has legal claim to her title, only so far as she
communicates that help to the poor representatives of
her Master, which women once, ministering to Ilim
of their substance, were permitted to extend to that
Master Himself; and wiien slie is known, as He Him-
self once was, in breaking of bread.
And this beneficent and legal dominion, this power
of the Dominus, or House Lvord, and of the Doniina, or
House-Lady, is great and venerable, not in the number
of those through whom it has lineally descended, but
in the number of those whom it grasps within its
sway; it is always regarded with reverent worship
wheT'ever its dynasty is founded on its (.hity, and its
any dishonorable act. Such an institution would he entin^ly, and
with all noble results, possil)l<\ in a nation which loved honor. That
it would not be possible among us is not to the discredit of the
scheme.
U
>l,
I:
106
SESAME AND LILIES.
ambition co-relative with its beneficence. Your fancy
is pleased with the thought of being noble ladies, with.
a train of vassals. Be it so ; you cannot be too noble,
and your train cannot be too great; but see to it that
your train is of vassals w^honi you serve and feed, not
merel}^ of slaves who serve and feed you j and that
the multitude wiiich obevs you is of those whom you
have comforted, not oppi'essed — whom you have r^
deemed, not led into captivity.
And this, which is true of tlie lower or household
dominion, is equally true of the queenly dominion ;
that highest dignity is open to you, if you will also
accept that highest duty. Rex et Eegina — Roi et
Reine — " ^/^A^doers ;" they differ but from the Lady
and Lord, in that tlieir power is supreme, over the
mind as over the person — tliat thej^ not only feed and
clothe, but direct and teach. And whether con-
sciously or not, you must be, in many a heart en-
throned : there is no putting by that crown ;
queens you must ahva3's be ; queens to your lovers ;
queens to your husbands and your sons ; queens of
higher mystery to the world beyond, which bows
itself, and will forever bow, before the myrtle crown,
and the stainless scepter, of v/onianhood. But, alas !
you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at
majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in
the greatest ; and leaving misrule and violence to work
their will among men, in defiance of the power, which,
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
107
r fancy
)s, with
3 nobie,
> it that
^ed, not
nd that
om you
lave rt>
)iisehold
nninion ;
will also
— Roi et
.he Lady
3ver the
'eed and
ler con-
eart en-
crown ;
r lovers;
ueens of
;h bows
e crown,
ut, alas 1
sping at
late it in
to work
r, which,
holding straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace,
the wicked among you betray, and the good forget.
" Prince of Peace." Note that name. AVlicn kings
rule in that name, and nobles, and the judges of the
earth, they also, in their narrow place, and mortal
measure, receive the power of it. There are no other
rulers than they : other rule than theirs is but mis-
rule ; they who govern verily " Dei gratia " are all
princes, yes, or princesses, of peace. There is not a
war in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you women
are answerable for it; not in that you have pro'-oked,
but in that you have not hindered. Men, b}" their nat-
ure, are prone to fight ; they will fight for any cause, or
for none. It is for vou to choose their cause for them,
and to forbid them when there is no cause. There is
no suffering, no injustice, no misery in the earth, but
the guilt of it lies lastly with yow.. Men can bear the
sight of it, but you should not be able to bear it. Men
may tread it down without sympathy in their own
struggle ; but men are feeble in sympathy, and con-
tracted in hope ; it is j^ou only who can feel the depths
of pain ; and conceive the w'ay of its heahngs. In-
stead of trying to do this, you turn away from it ; you
shut yourselves within your park walls and garden
gates ; and you are content to know that there is be-
vond them a whole world in wilderness — a workl of
secrets which you dare not penetrate ; and of suffering
which you dare not conceive.
'■-ifl
108
SESAME AND LILIES.
I tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing
among the phenomena of iiumanity. I am surprised
at no depths to which, when once warped from its
honor, that humanity can be degraded. I do not
wonder at the miser's death, with his hands, as thev
relax, dropping gold. I do not wonder at the sensual-
ist's life, witl] t!ie shroud wrapped about his feot. I do
not \vonder at the single-handed nmrder of a single
victim, done bv the assassin in the darkness of the rail-
way, or reed-shadow of the marsh. I do not even
wonder at the mvriad-handed murder of multitudes,
done boastfully in the (hiylight, by the frenzy of
nations, and the immeasurable, unimaginable guilt,
heaped up from hell to heaven, of their priests and
kings. But this is wonderful to me — oh, how wonder-
ful!— to see the tender and delicate woman among you,
with her child at her breast, and a power, if she would
wield it, over it, and over its father, purer than the air
of heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth — nay, a
magnitude of blessing which her husband would not part
v/ith for all that earth itself, though it Vv'ere made of
one entire and perfect clirysolite — to see her abdicate
this majesty to play at precedence with her next-door
neighbor! This is wonderful — oh, wonderful ! — to see
her, with every innocent feeling fresh within her,
go out in the morning into her garden to play with the
fringes of its guarded flowers, and lift their heads
when they ar<d drooping, with her happy smile upoii
OF QUEENS'' GARDENS.
109
Jl
lazmg
prised
in its
o not
; thev
?nsual-
Ido
single
le rail-
b even
itudes,
nzy of
guilt,
ts and
^onder-
would
he air
nay, a
ot part
ide of
xlicate
t-door
-to see
n her,
ith the
heads
UptJli
her face, and no cloud upon her brow, because there is
a little wall around her place of peace : and yet she
knows, in her heart, if she would only look for its
knowledge, that, outside of that little rose-covered
wall, the wild grass, to the horizon, is torn up by the
agony of men, and beat level by the drift of tlieir
lil!e-blood.
Have you ever considered what a deep under mean-
ing there lies, or at least, may be read, if we choose, in
our custom of strewing fio\v^ers before tliose whom we
think most happy ? Do you suppose it is merely to
deceive them into the hope that happiness is alwiiys to
fall thus in showers at their feet if— that wherever thev
pass they will tread on herbs of sweet scent, and that
the rough ground will be made smooth for them by
depth of roses ? So surely as they believe that, they
wmII have, instead, to walk on bitter herbs and thorns ;
and the only softness to their feet Avill be of snow.
But it is not thus intended they should believe tiiere is
a better meaning in that old custom. The path of a
good woman is indeed strewn with flowers ; but they
rise behind her steps, not before them. '' Her feet
have touched the meadows, and left the daises rosy."
You think that only a lover's fancy ; false and vain !
How if it could be true ? You think this also, perhaps,
only a poet's fancy :
•' Even the light harebell raised its head
Elastic from her airy tread."
m
110
SESA ME A ND L IL TES.
But it is little to say of a woman, tliat she only does
not destroy where she ])asses. She should revive ; the
harebells should bloom, not stoop, as she passes. You
think I am going into wikl hyperbole? Pardon me,
not a whit — 1 mean what I say in cahn English,
spoken in resolute truth. You have heard it said
— and I believe there is more than fancy even in that
saying; but let it ])ass for a fanciful one — that flowers
only flourish rightly in the garden of some one who
loves them. I know you would like that to be true;
you would think it a pleasant magic if you could flush
your flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon
them : nay, more, if your look had the power, not
onl}^ to clieer, but to guard them — if you could bid
the black blight turn away, and the knotted cater-
pillar spare — if you could bid the dew fall upon
them in the drought, and say to the south
wind, in frost — '' Come, thou south, and breathe
upon my garden, that the spices of it may flow out."
This you would think a i:^VGi\t things And do vou
think it not a greater thing, that all this (and how
much more than this ') you can do, for fairer flowers
than these — flowers that could bless you for having
blessed them, and will love you for having loved them ;
flowers that have eves like vours, and ihoiifi^hts like
yours, and lives like yours; which, once saved, you
save forever? Is this only a little power? Far among
the moorlands and the rocks — far in the darkness of
I
ilv does
ve ; the
3. You
Ion me,
English,
it said
in that
flowers
)ne Avho
bo true ;
lid flush
ok upon
rer, not
)uld bid
d cater*
11 upon
south
breathe
w out."
do vou
nd how
flowers
having
them ;
its like
ed, vou
among
:ness of
\
OF QUEENS' GARDENS.
Ill
the terrible streets — these feeble florets are lying, with
all their fresh leaves torn, and their stems broken —
will you never go down to them, nor set them in order
m their little fragrant beds, nor fence them in their
shuddering from the fierce wind? Shall morning
follow morning, for you, but not for them ; and the
dawn rise to watch, far away, those frantic Dances of
Death ;* but no dawn rise to breathe upon these living
banks of wild violet, and woodbine, and rose; nor call
to you, through your casement — call (not giving you
the name of the English poet's lady, but the name of
Dante's great Matilda, who, on the edge of happy
Lethe, stood, wreathing flowers with flowers), saying:
" Come into tlie garden, Maud,
For tlie black bat, night, has flown,
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad
And the musk of the roses blown? "
"Will you not go down among them? — among
those sweet living things, whose new courage,
sprung from the earth with the deep color of
heaven upon it, is starting up in strength of
goodly spire ; and Avhose purity, washed from the
dust, is opening, bud by bud, into the flower of
promise — and still they turn to you, and for you,
*'The Larkspur listens — I hear, I hear! And the
Lily whispers — I wait."
Did vou notice that I missed two lines when I
m
* See note, p. 210.
112
SESAME AND LILIES.
read you that first stanza ; and think that I had
forgotten them ? Hear them now :
"Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown;
Come into the garden, Muud,
I ara here at the gate, alone."
Who is it, think you, who stands at tho gate
of this sweeter garden, alone, waiting for you?
Did you ever hear, not of a REaude, but of u Mad-
eleine, who went down to her garden i' the dawn,
and found one waiting at the gate, wiioin she sup-
posed to be the gardener? Have you not sought
Him often — sought Him in vain, all through the
night — sought Him in vain, at the gate of that old
garden where the fiery sword is set ? He is never
there; but at the gate of this garden He is w^ait-
ing always — waiting to take your hand — ready to go
down to see the fruits of the valley, to see whether the
vine has flourished, and the pomegranate budded.
There you shall see with Him the little tendrils
of the vines that His hand is guiding — there you
shall see the pomegranate springing where His hand
cast the sanguine seed — more : you shall see the
troops of the angel-keepers that, with their wings,
wave away the hungry birds from the pathsides
where He has sown, and call to each other be-
tween the vineyard rows, " Take us the foxes, the
little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines
; *
had
OF qUEKNS' GAR Dims.
113
have tender grapes." Oh— you queens— you queens I
among the hills and happy oreenwood of this land
of yours, shall the foxes have Ik^Ics, and tiie birds
of the air have nests ; and, in y(nir cities, shall
the stones cry out against you, that thev are the
only pillows where the Son of Man can lay His
head ?
n
the
11
ij
II
LECTURE IIL
THE MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS.
Lecture delivered in the theater of the Royal College of Science,
Dublin, 1868.
96. When I accepted the privilege of address-
ing you to-day, I was not aware of a restriction
with respect to the topics of discussion which may
be brought before this Society *— a restriction which,
though entirely wise and right under the circum-
stances contemplated in its mtroduction, would nec-
essarily have disabled me, thinking as I think, from
preparing any lecture for you on the subject of
art in a form which might be permanently useful.
Pardon me, therefore, in so far as I must trans-
gress such limitation; for indeed my infringement
will be of the letter— not of the spirit— of your
commands. In whatever I may say touching the
religion which has been the foundation of art, or
the policy which has contributed to its power, if I
offend one, I shall offend ail ; for I shall take no
note of any separations in creeds, or antagonisms in
* That DO reference should be made to religious questions.
MTtiTERT OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS.
115
parties: neither do I fo.ir that ultimatelv T shall
olTend any, by |)rovin<^' — or at least statiiif^ as ca-
pal)le of positive ])roof — tiie connection of all that
is b(3st in the crafts and arts of man, with the
simplicity of his faith, and the sincerity of his
l^atriotisni.
97. l>iit T speak to you under another disadvantage,
by which I am checked in frankness of utterance, n(4,
here only, but everywhere; namelv, that I am never
fully aware how far my au(nences are disposed to give
me credit for real knowledge of my subject, or how far
they grant me attention only because I have been
sometimes thought an ingenious or ])leasant essayist
upon it For I have had what, in many respects, T
boldly call the misfortune, to set my words sometimes
prettily together; not without a foolish vanity in the
poor knaclv that I had of doing so ; until I was heavily
punished for this pride, by finding that numy people
thouo'ht of the words onlv, and cared notbiuix for their
meaning. Happily, therefore, the power of using
such pleasant language — if indeed it ever were mine —
is passing away from me ; and whatever I am now
able to sav at all, I find mvself forced to sav with
great plainness. For my thoughts have changed also,
as my words have ; and whereas in earlier life, what
little influence I obtained was due perhaps chiefly to
the enthusiasm with wdiich I w^as able to dwell on the
beauty of the physical clouds, and of their colors in
,'• I
115
SKSAMhl AND /JIJPJS.
tho sky ; so Jill tlio influenco I now dosirc to rotiiin
must 1)0 duo to tlie earnestness with which I am en-
deavoring to tr.'K'O tho form and hojiuty of anotli(;r
kind of cloud than those; the bright cloud, of which it
is written —
" Wliat is your life ? It is even as a vapor, that ap-
pcaroth for a little time, and then vanisheth avray/'
98. 1 suppose few people reach the middle or latter
period of their age, without having, at some moment
of change or disappointment, felt tho truth of those
bitter words; and been startled by tho fading of the
sunshine from the cloud of their life, into tlie sudden
affonv of the knowlodsfo that tho fabric of it was as
fragile as a dream, and the endurance of it as transient
as the dew. But it is not always that, even at such
times of melancholy surprise, we can enter into any
true perception that this human life shares, in the nat-
ure of it, not only the evanescence, but the mystery
of the cloud ; that its avenues are wreathed in dark-
ness, and its forms and courses no less fantastic, than
spectral and obscure : so that not only in the vanity
which we cannot grasp, but in the sliadow which we
cannot pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of ours, that
"man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth him-
self in vain."
99. And least of all, whatever may have been the
eagerness of our passions, or the height of our
pride, are we able to understand in its depths the
MY8Ti:iiV OF LIFE AND ITS AliTiS.
117
retain
m (;n-
lothor
hich it
nat ap-
i.v
i»
latter
loinent
f those
of the
sudden
was as
•ansient
at such
to any
he nat-
nystery
dark-
le, than
vanity
lich we
rs, that
th him-
een the
of our
)ths the
third and most solemn cliarncter in which our life is
like those clouds of heaven ; tliat to it hclouirs not only
their ti'ansien(*e, not only their mystery, hut also tlieir
power ; that in the cloud of the imman soul there is a
flro stronger than the light nin*^^ and a grace more
precious than the rain; and that though of tlui good
and evil it shall one day l)e said alike, that the place
that knew them knows them no more, tiiere is an in-
linite separation between those whose brief presence
had there l)een a blessing, like the mist of Eden that
went up from the earth to water tiu^ garden, and
those whose place knew them only as a drifting and
changeful shade, of whom the heavenly sentence is
that thev are " wells without water; clouds that {'"e
carried with a tempest, to wlioui tlie mist of darkness
is reserved forever i "
100. To those among us, liowever, who have lived
long enough to form some just estimate of the rate of
the changes which are, h(jur by hour in accelerating
catastrophe, manifesting tliemselves in the laws,
the arts, and the creeds of men, it seems to me, that
now at least, if never at any former time, the thoughts
of the true nature of our life, and of its powers and
responsibilities, should present themselves with abso-
lute sadness and sternness.
And although I know that this feeling is n^uch
deepened in my own mind by disappointment, winch,
by chance, has attended the greater number of my
118
SESAME AND LILIES.
cherished purposes, I do not for that reason distrust
the feehng itself, though I am on my guard against an
exaggerated degree of it : nay, I rather believe that in
periods of new effort and violent change, disappoint-
ment is a wholesome medicine ; and that in the secret
of it, as in the twilight so beloved by Titian, we may
see the colors of things with deeper truth than in the
most dazzling sunshine. And because these truths
about the works of men, which I want to bring to-day
before you, are most of them sad ones, though at the
same time helpful ; and because also I believe that
your kind Irish hearts will answer more gladl}^ to the
truthful expression of a personal feehng, than to the
exposition of an abstract ] "inciple, I will permit my-
self so much unreserved speaking of my own causes of
regret, as may enable you to make just allowance for
what, according to your sympathies, you will call
either the bitterness, or the insight, of a mind which
has surrendered its best hopes, and been foiled in its
favorite aims.
101. I snent the ten strongest years of my
life (from twenty to thirty), in endeavoring to
show the excellence of the work of the man
whom I believed, and rightly believed, to be
the greatest painter of the schools of England
since Reynolds. I had then perfect faith in the
power of every great truth or beauty to prevail
ultimately, and take its right place in usefulness and
^*.
itrust
St an
lat in
point- .
secret
! may
n the
truths
to-day
h,t the
e that
to the
to the
lit my-
uses of
ice for
1 call
which
I ill its
of my
ng to
le man
to be
Ingland
m the
prevail
less and
MYSTERY OF LIFE A. YD ITS ARTS.
119
honor ; and I strove to brin«^' the painter's work into
this due place, wiiile tlie painter wiis vi t alive. But
ne knew, better tlian I, tlie uselessness of talking
about what people could not see for themselves. He
always discouraged me scornfully, even when he
thanked me — and he died before even the superiicial
effect of niv work was visible. I went on, however,
thinking I c(Mdd at least be of use to the publi(\ if not
to him, in proving his power. My books got trdked
aljout II little. The pi'ices of modern pictures, ge:^er-
ally, rose, and I was beginning to take some pleasure
in a sense of gradual victory, wlien, fortunately or nn-
fortunatel}', an o[)portunity of perfect trial undeceived
me at once, and forever. The Trustees of the National
Gallerv commissioned me to arrange the Turner draw-
ings there, and permitted me to prepare three hundred
examples of his studies from nature, for exhibition at
Kensington. At Kensington they Avere and are,
placed for exhib'.tion ; but they are not exhibited, for
the room in which tliev hano* is ahvavs eniptv.
102. AYell — this showed me at once, that those ten
velars of my life had been, in their chief purpose, lost.
['or that, I did not so ^^luch care; I had, at least,
learn^Hl mv own husiness tlioroui>"hlv, and should be
able, as I fondly supposed, after such a lesson, now to
use my knowledge with better effect. T>ut what I did
care for, was the — to me frightful — discovery, that the
most splendid genius in the arts might be permitted by
m
V
120
SKSAME AND LILIES.
Providence to labor and perish uselessl}' ; that in the
ver}^
lence
fineness of it th(3t'e iiiiirlit be somethinir render-
ing^ it invisible to ordinarv eves; but, that with this
strange excellence, faults might be mingled which
would be as deadly as its virtues were vain ; that the
glory of it was perishable, as well as invisible, and the
jrift and irnice of it miirht be to us, as snow in summer.
and as rain in harvest.
But,
lOo. Tiiat was the first mystery of life to me.
while my best energy was given to the study of paint-
ing, I had put collateral oifort, more prudent, if less
enthusiastic, into that of architecture ; and in this I
could not complain of meeting with no sympathy.
Among several personal reasons which caused me to
desire that I might give this, m}^ closing lecture on the
subject of art here, in Ii'cland, one of the chief was,
that in reading it, I should stand near the beautiful
building — the engineers' school of your college —
which was the first realization I had the joy to see, of
the ])rinciples I hnd, until then, been endeavoring to
teach ; but which alas! is now, to me, no more than the
richly canopied monument of one of the most earnest
souls that ever gave itself to the arts, and one of
my truest and most loving friends, Benjamin Wood-
ward. Nor was it here in Ireland only that I
received the help of Irish sympathy and genius.
AVhen, to nnother friend, Sir Thomas Deane, with
Mr. AVoodward, was intrusted the building of the
in the
ender-
h this
which
lat the
.nd the
immer,
. But,
' piiint-
, if less
I tliis I
npathy.
d me to
e on the
ef was,
eautiful
allege —
> see, of
)rini:^ to
CD
ban the
earnest
one of
Wood-
that I
gem us.
MTSTEUJ OF LIF/'J AND ITS ARTS.
Vl\
le.
with
of the
museum at Oxford, the best details of the work
were executed by sculptors who had been born
and trained here; and the first window of tlici fa-
gade of the building, in which was inaugurated
the study of natural science in Enoland, in true
fellowship with literature, was carved from my de-
sign by an Irish sculptor.
104. Yon may perhaps think that no man ought
to speak of disappointment, to whom, even in one
branch of labor, so much success was granted.
Had Mr. Woodward now been beside me, I had
not so spoken; but his gentle and passionate spirit
was cut off from the fullillment of its purposes,
and the work we did together is now become
vain. It mav not be so in future; but the archi-
tecture we endeavored to introduce is inconsist-
ent alike with the reckless luxury, tlie deform-
ing mechanism, and the squalid misery of moderr
cities; amon^: the formative fashions of the duv
aided, es[)ecial]y in England, by ecclesiastical senti-
ment, it indeed obtained notoriety ; and sometimes"
l)ehind an engine furnace, or a railroad bank, you
may detect the pathetic discord of its momentary
grace, and, with toil, decipher its floral carvings
cliokod with soot. I felt answerable to the schools
T loved, only for their injury. I perceived that this
new portion of mv strength had also licen spent
in vain ; and from amid streets of iron, and pal-
:i>:
t'
1^3
SPJSAItT.^ AJ^D LILIES.
aces of crystal, shrunk back at last to the carving
of the mountain and color of the flower.
105. And sUU I could tell of failure, and failure
repeated, as years went on ; but I have trespassed
enoutrh on your patience to show you, in part,
the causes of my discouragement. Now let me
more deliberately tell you its results. You know
there is a tendency in the minds of many men,
when they ai'e heayily disappointed in the main
purposes of their life, to feel, and perhaps in warn-
ino^, perhaps in mockery, to declare, that life itself
is a vanity. Because it has disappointed them, they
think its nature is of disappointment always, or at
best, of pleasure that can be grasped by imagina-
tion only ; that the cloud of it has no strength
nor fire within ; but is a painted cloud only, to be
delighted in, yet dos[)ised. You know how beauti-
fully Pope has ex})ressed this particular phase of
thought :
" Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays.
These painted clouds that beautify our days;
Each want of happiness by hope supplied.
And each vacuity of sense, by pride.
Hope builds as fusv as Knowledge can destroy;
In Folly's cup, still laughs the bubble joy.
One pleasure past, another still we gain
And not a vanity is given in vain."
But the effect of failure upon my own mind has been
MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS AUTS.
123
3arving
failure
spassed
1 part,
let me
I know
y men,
e main
1 warn-
'e itself
an, they
s, or at
magina-
trength
^, to be
beaut i-
>hase of
as been
just the reverse of this. The more that my life disap-
pointed me, the more solemn and wouderful it became
to me. It seemed, oontrarily to Pope's sayin^^, that
the vanity of it was indeed given in vain ; but that
there was something behind the veil of it, which was
not vanity. It became to me not a painted cloud, but
a terrible and impenetrable one : not a mirage, which
vanished as I drew near, but a pillar of darkness, to
which I was forbidden to draw near. For I saw that
both my own failure, and such success in potty things
as in its poor triumph seemed to me worse than failure,
came from the want of sufficiently earnest effort to
understand the whole law and meaning of existence,
and to bring it to noble and due end ; as, on the other
hand, I saw more and more clearly that all enduring
success in the arts, or in any other occupation, had
come from the ruling of lower purposes, not by a con-
viction of their nothingness, but by a solemn faith in
the advancing power of human nature, or in the
promise, however dimly apprehended, that the mortal
part of it would one day be swallowed up in immortal-
ity; and that, indeed, the arts themselves never had
reached any vital strength or honor but in the effort
to proclaim this immortality, and in the service either
of great and just religion, or of soine unselfish patriot-
ism, and law of such national life as must be the
foundation of religion.
106. Nothing that I have ever said is more true or
:Jl
124
SKBAME AND LILIES.
necessary — nothing has been more misunderstood or
ui isapplied — than my strong assertion, that the arts can
never be right themselves, unless their motive is right.
It is misunderstood this way : weak painters, who have
never learned their business, and cannot lay a true
line, continually come to me, crying out — " Look at
this picture of mine ; it i/inst be good, I had such a
lovely motive. I have put my whole heart into it, and
taken years to think over its treatment." Well, the
only answer for these poo])le is — if one had the cruelty
to make it — "Sir, you cannot think over anyihmg in
any number of years — you haven't the head to do it ;
and though you had fine motives, strong enough to
make you burn yourself in a slow fire, if only first you
could paint a picture, you can't paint one, nor half an
inch of one ; and you haven't the hand to do it."
But, far more decisivelv we have to sav to the men
who do know" their business, or may know it if they
choose — " Sir, you have this gift, and a mighty one ;
see that you serve your nation faithfully with it. It is
a greater trust than ships and armies : you might cast
them aw\ay, if you were their captain, with loss treason
to your people than in casting your own glorious
power away, and serving the devil with it instead of
men. Ships and armies you may replace if they are
lost, but a great intellect, once abused, is a curse to the
earth forever."
107. This, then, I meant by saying that the arts
3od or
rts can
; right,
o have
a true
ook at
such a
it, and
ell, the
cruelty
I'mg in
do it ;
>ugh to
rst you
lalf an
le men
if they
y one;
It is
ht cast
treason
glorious
tead of
ley are
to the
he arts
MYSTERY OF LTFE AND ITS ARTS.
125
must have noble motive. This also I said respecting
them, that they never had prospered, nor could
prosper, but when t.' ey had such true purpose, and
were devoted to the proclamation of divine truth or
law. And yet I said also that they had always failed
in this proclamation — that poetry, and sculpture, and
painting, though only great when they strove to teach
us something about the gods, never had taught us any-
thing trustwortliy a])0ut the gods, but had always
betrayed their trust in thy crisis of it, and, with their
powers at the full reach, became ministers to pride and
to lust. And I felt also, with increasing amazement,
the unconquerable apathy in ourselves -^nd heai'ors, no
less than in these the teachers; and that, while the
wisdom and riojhtness of everv act and art of life could
only be consistent with a right understanding of tiie
ends of life, we were all plunged as in a languid dream
— our heart fat, and our eyes heavy, and our ears
closed, lest the inspiration of hand and voice should
reach us— lest we should see with our eyes, and under-
stand with our hearts, and be healed.
108. This intense apathy in all of us is tlie iirst great
mystery of life; it stands in the way of every percep-
tion, every virtue. There is no making ourselves feel
enough astonishment at it. That the occupations or
pastimes of life should have no motive, is understand-
able; but that life itself should have no motive —
that we neither care to find out what it inav lead to.
m
m
126
.SESAME AND LILIES.
nor to guard agains^, its being forever taken
away from us — liere is a mystery indeed. For,
just suppose I were able to call at this moment to
anv^ one in this audience bv name, and to tell him
positively that I knew a large estate had been lately
left to him on some curious conditions; l^ut that,
thougli I knew it was large, I did not know how
large, nor even where it was — whether in the
East Indies or the West, or in England, or at
the Antipodes. I only knew it was a vast estate,
and that there was a chance of his losing it altogether
if he did not soon find out on what terms it had been
left to him. Suppose I were able to say this positively
to any single man in this audience, and he knew that I
did not speak without warrant, do you think that he
would rest content with that vague knowledge, if it
were an v wise ])ossible to obtain more ? AYould he not
give every energy to find some trace of the facts, and
nevr rest till he had ascertained where this place was,
and what it was like? And suppose he were a young
man, and all he could discover by his best endeavor
was, that the estate was never to be his at all, unless
he persevered, during certain years of probation, in an
orderly and industrious life; but that, according to the
Tightness of his conduct, the portion of the estate
assigned to him would be greater or less, so that it
literally depended on his Lehavior from day to day
whether he got ten thousand a year, or thirty thousand
MTSTEJIY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS.
127
taken
For,
lent to
11 him
lately
) that,
^ how
n the
or at
estate,
•get her
1 been
iitively
that I
lat he
^e, if it
he not
ts, and
;e was,
young
deavor
unless
in an
to the
estate
that it
o day
3usand
a year, or nothing whatever— would you not think it
strange if the youth never troubled himself to satisfy
the conditions in any way, nor even to know wliat was
required of hnn, but lived exactly as he chose, and
never inquired whether his chances of the estate
were increasing or passing away ? Well, you know
that this is actually and literally so with the greater
number of the educated persons now living in Chris-
tian countries. Nearly every man and woman, in any
com})any such as this, outwardly professes to believe —
and a large number unquestionably think they believe
— much more than this; not only th.'»<^ a quite unlimited
estate is in prospect for them if they please the Holder
of it, but that the infinite contrary of such a possession
— an estate of perpetual misery, is in store for them if
they displease this great Land-II older, this great
Heaven-Holder. And yet there is not one in a thou-
sand of these human souls that cares to think, for ten
minutes of the day, where this estate is, or how
beautiful it is, or what kind of life thev are to lead in
it, or what kind of life they must lead to obtain it.
109. You fancy that you care to know this : so little
do you care that, probably, at this moment many of
yo'u are displeased with me for talking of the matter !
You came to hear about the Ait of this world, not
about the Life of the next, and you are provoked
with me for talking of what you can hear any
Sunday in church. But do not be afraid. I will
^1'
M
1C8
SESAME AND LJLIES.
tell you something before you go about pictures,
and carvings, and pottery, and what else you would
like better to hear of than the other world. Nay, per-
haps you say, "We want you to talk of pictures
and pottery, because we are sure that you know
something of them, and you know nothing of the
other world." Well — I don't. That is quite true.
But the very strangeness and mystery of which I
urge you to take notice is in this — that I do not ;
nor you either. Can you answer a single bold ques-
tion unflinchingly about that other world — Are you
sure there is a heaven? Sure there is a hell? Sure
that men are dropping before your faces through
the pavements of these streets into eternal fire, or
sure tha they are not? Sure that at your own
death you are going to be delivered from all sor-
row, to be endowed with all virtue, to be gifted
with all felicity, and raised into perpetual com-
panionship with a King, compared to whom the
kings of the earth are as grasshoppers, and the
nations as the dust of His feet? Are you sure of
this ? or, if not sure, do any of us so much as
care to make it sure? and, if not, how can anything
that we do be right — how can anything we think
be wise; what honor can there be in the arts that
amuse us, or what prohi in the possessions that
please ?
Is not this a mystery of life?
MrSTEUY OF LIFE AAD ITS ARTS.
Ud
110. But further, you UKiy, perhaps, think it a
benellcent ordinance for tlie m>ncrtditv of men that
they do not, witli earnestness or anxiety, dwell on
such questions of the future; because the business
of the day could not be done if this kind of
thought were taken by all of us for tlie morrow.
Be it so: but at least wo mi^ht antici|):ite that
the greatest and wisest of us, who were evidently
the appointed teachers of the rest, would set ihem-
selves apart to seek out whatever could be surely
known of the future destinies of their race ; and
to teach this in no rhetorical or ambiguous man-
ner, but in ihe plainest and most severely earnest
words.
Now, the highest representatives of men who
have thus endeavored, during the Christian era, to
search out these deep things, and relate them, are
Dante and Milton. There is none who for ear
nestness of thought, for mastery of word, can be
classed with these. 1 am not at present, mind you,
speaking of persons set apart in any priestly or
pastoral oHlce, to deliver creeds to us, or doctrines;
but of men who try to discover and set forth, as
far as by human intellect is pov!;sible, the facts of
the other world. Divines may perhajrs teach us
how to arrive there, but only these two poets have
in any powerful manner striven to discover, or in
any definite words professed to tell, what we shall
i'l
130
SrS^AMIi: AND LILIK^.
see and become there: or how these upper and
nether worhls are, and liave been, inhabited.
111. And what have thev told us? ^Jilton's ac-
count of the most important event in liis whole
system of the universe, the fall of tiic an<^els, is
evidently unbelievable to himself; and the more so.
that it is wholly founded on, and in a great part spoiled
and dep:raded from, Ilesiod's account of tljc decisive
war of the younger Gods witii the Titans. The rest
of his poem is a ])icturesque drama, in which every arti-
fice of invention is visibly and consciously em{)loyed,
not a single fact being, for an instant, conceived as
tenable by any living faith. Dante's conception is far
more intense, and, by himself, for the time, not to be
escaped from ; it is indeed a vision, but a vision only,
and that one of the wildest that ever entranced a soul
— a dream in which every grotesque type or phantasy
of heathen tradition Is renewed, and adorned ; and the
destinies of the Christian Church, under their most
sacred symbols, become literally subordinate to the
praise, and are only to be understood by the aid, of
one dear Florentine maiden.
112. I tell you truly that, as I strive more with this
strange letharg}' and trance in myself, and awake to
the meaning and power of life, it seems daily more
amazing to ma that men such as these should dare to
play with the most precious truths (or the most
deadly untruths), by which the whole human race
MYSTintY OF LIFE AND FIH ARTS.
131
)Y and
11 's ac-
wholo
^els, is
ore so.
spoiled
lecisive
he rest
ry arti-
[)loyed,
ved as
1 is far
- to bo
1 onlv,
a soul
antasy
nd the
most
to the
aid^ of
h this
ake to
more
are to
most
1 rscp
listening to them could be infonued or deceived — all
tiie world their audiences forever, with pleased ear,
and passionate heart — and yet, to tliis submissive iii-
fnutude of souls, and evermore succeeding and succeed-
ing multitude, hungry for bi-ead of life, they do but
play upon sweetly modulated pipes; with p()m[)()us
nomenclature adorn the councils of hell ; touch a
troubadour's guitar to the courses of the suns ; and lill
the openings of eternity, before which propliets have
veiled their faces, and which angels desire to look
into, with idle puppets of their scholastic imagination,
and meU'ncholy lights of frantic faith in their lost
mortal love.
Is not this a mystery of life?
113. But more. AVe have to remember that these
two great teachers were l)oth of them warped in their
temper, and thwarted in their search for truth.
They were men of intellectual v.ar, unalle, through
darkness of controversy, or stress ot personal grief, to
discern where their own ambition modified their ut-
terances of the moral law ; or their own agony
mingled with their anger at its violation. But greater
men than these have been — innocent-hearted — too
great for contest. Men, like Homer and Shakespeare,
of so unrecognized personality, that it disappears in
future ages, and becomes ghostly, like the tradition of
a lost heathen god. Men, therefore, to whose un-
offended, uncondemning sight, the whole of iiuman
' 11
132
SESAAf/J AND LI LIES.
nature reveals itself in a patlietic weakness, with
which tliey will not strive ; or in mournful and transi-
tory strength, which they (hire not praise. And all
Pagan and Christian civilization thus becomes subject
to them. It does not matter how little, or how much,
any of us have read, either of Homer or Shakespeare;
everything round ns, in substance, or in thought, has
been molded by them. All Greek gentlemen were
educated under Homer. All lloman gentlemen, by
Greek literature. All Italian, and French, and English
gentlemen, by Roman literature, and by its principles.
Of the sco])e of Shakespeare, I will say only, that the
intellectual measure of every man since born, in the
domains of creative thought, may be assigned to him,
according to the degree in wliicli he has been taught
by Shakespeare. Well, what do these two men, centers
of moral intelligence, deliver to us of conviction re-
specting what it most behooves that intelligence to
grasp? What is their hope ; their crown of rejoicing i?
what manner of exhortation have they for us, or of
rebuke? what lies next their own hearts, and dictates
their undying words ? Have they any peace to
promise to oui* unrest — an}' redemption to our misery 'i
114. Take Homer first, and think if there is
any sadder image of human fate than the great
Homeric storv. The main features in the charac-
ter of Aciiilles are its intense desire of justice,
and its tenderness of affection. And in that bit-
MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS.
133
ter song of the Iliad, this man, though aided con-
tinually by the wisest of t)ie gods, and burning
with the desire of justice in his heart, becomes
yet, through ill-governed passion, the most unjust
of men : and, full of the deepest tenderness in his
heart, Ix.^comes yet, through ill-governed passion,
the iiKjst ci'uel of men. Intense alike in h-ve and
in friendship, he loses, first his mistress, and then
his friend; for the sake of the one, he surrenders
to death the armies of his own land; for the sake
of the other, he surrenders all. Will a man lay
dow^n his life for his friend ? Yea — even for his
(Jmd friend, this Achilles, though goddess-born, and
goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom, his country,
and his life — casts alike the innocent and guilty,
with himself, into one gulf of slaughter, and dies
at last by the hand of the basest of his adversa-
ries. Is not tiiis a mystery of life?
115. But what, then, is the message to us of
our own poet, and searcher of hearts, after fif-
teen hundred years of Christi;;ii faith have been
numbered over the graves of men ^ Are his woi'ds
more cheerful than the heatlien's--is his hope
more near — his trust more sure — his reading of
fate more happy? Ah, no! He differs from the
Heathen poet chiefly in this — that he recognizes,
for deliverance, no gods nigh at hand; and that,
by petty chance- -by momentary folly — by broken
134
SESAME AND LILIES.
message — by fool's tyranny — or traitor's snare, the
strongest and must righteous are brought to their
ruin, and perish without word of hope. He in-
deed, as part of his rendering of character, as-
cribes the power and modesty of habitual devotion,
to the gentle and the just. The death-bed of Kath-
arine is bright with visions of angels ; and the great
soldier-king, standing by his few dead, acknowledges
the presence of the hand that can save alike by
many or by few. But observe that from those who
with deepest spirit, meditate, and with deepest pas-
sion, mourn, there are no such words as these ; nor
in their hearts are any such consolations. Instead
of the perpetual sense of the helpful presence of
the Deity, which, through all heathen tradition, is
the source of heroic strength, in battle, in exile,
and in the valley of the shadow of death, we find
only in the great Christian poet, the consciousness
of a moral law, through which "the gods are just,
and of our pleasant vices make instruments to
scourge us ;" and of the resolved arbitration of
the destinies, that conclude into precision of doom
what we feebly and blindly began ; and force us,
when our indiscretion serves us, and our deepest
plots do pall, to tlie confession, that "there's a di-
vinity that shapes our end, rough hew them how
we wmII."
Is not tills a mystery of life?
MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS AUTS.
ioj
110. Be it so then. About this human li/o
that is to be, or tluit is, the wise reii«^i(jus men
tell us nothing that we can trust; and the wise
contemplative men, nothing that can give us
peace. JJut there is 3'et a third class, to whom
we may turn — the wise practical men. AVe liave
sat at the feet of tlie poets Avho sung of heaven,
and tliey have told us their dreams. We iiave
listened to tlie poets who sung of earth, and they
have chanted to us dirges, and words of despair.
But there is one class of men more -men, not
capable of vision, nor sensitive to sorrow, but
firm of purpose — practiced in business; learned in
all that can be (by handling) known. ^len,
whose hearts and hopes are wholly in this present
world, from whom, therefore, we mav surel\'
learn, at least, how, at present, conveniently to
live in it. AVhat will they say to us, or show
us by example? These kings — these councilors—
these statesmen and builders of kingdoms —
these capitalists and men of business, who weigh
the earth, and the dust of it, in a balance.
They know the world, surely ; and what is the
mystery of life to us, is none to them. They can
surely shovr us how to live, while we live, and
to gather out of the present world what is best.
117. I think I can best tell you their answer,
by telling you a drc^am I had once. For though
130
ISEkiAME AND LILIES.
I am no poet, I have dreams soniotiinos : I dreamed
I was at a child's May -day part}', in wliich every
means of entertainment had been provided for
them, by a wise and kind host. It was in a
stately house, 'th beautiful gardens attached to
it ; and the children had been set free in the
rooms and gardens, with no care whatever but
how to pass tlieir afternoon rejoicingly. They
did not, indeed, know much about what was tv^
happen next day ; and s<^me of them, I thought,
were a little frightened, because there was a
chance of their being sent to a new school where
there were examinations; but they kept the thoughts
of that out of their heads as well as they could,
and resolved to enjoy themselves. The house, I
said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the gar-
den were all kinds of flowers ; sweet grassy banks
for rest ; and smooth lawns for play ; and pleas-
ant streams and woods; and rocky places for climb-
ing. And the children were happy for a little
while, but presently they separated themselves into
parties; and then each party declared, it Avould
have a piece of the garden for its own, and that
none of the others should have anything to do
with that piece. Next, they quarreled violently,
which pieces they would have; and at last the boys
took up the thing, as boys sliould do, "practically,"
and fought in the ilower-beds till there was
MYSTEilT OF LIFE AND JT^ ARTS.
1:3?
earned
every
id for
in a
led to
in tlie
er but
They
bought,
was a
where
houghts
could,
ouse, I
e gar-
banka
pleas-
climb-
littlo
es into
would
id that
to do
:>lently,
e boys
ically,"
m was
hardly a flower left standing-; then thoy tniniploil
down each other's bits of the f;:ii(l!'ii o-ii of spite,
and the girls cried till they could cry no more;
and so they all lay down at last breathless in the
ruin, and waited for the time when they were to
V)e taken homo in the evening.'^
118. Meanwhile, the chil<h*en in the house had
been making themselves ha})j)y also in their man-
ner. For them, there had ])een provided every
kind of in-door ])leasure: thei'e was music for
them t'j dance to; and the libi'ary was ojhmi, with
all manner of amusing books; and there was a mu-
seum, full of the most curious shells, ami animals,
and birds; and there was a workshop, wiih lather
and carpenter's tools, for the ingenious hoys; and
there were pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls t(/
dress in; and thei'e were mici'osci^pes, and kaleido-
scopes; and wli'iicvoi' toys a cliiM could fancy; and
a table, in tin .lining-room, loaded with everything
nice to eat.
But, in the midst of all this, it struck two or
three <3f the more " practical " children, that they
would like soniv of the brass-headcMl nails that
studded the chairs; and so they set to work to pull
them out. Presently, the otliers, who were reading,
* I have .sometimes been asked what tliis iiH-uns. I "mtfiHlcd it
to set forth the wisdom of men in war conten<ling for kingdoms, and
what foUows to set forth their wisdom in peace, conteuiiiug foi
wealth.
138
SESAME AND LILIES.
or looking at shells, took a fancy to do the like ;
and, in a little while, all the children, nearly,
were spraining tlieir lingers, in pulling out brass-
headed nails. With all that they could ])nll out,
they were not satisfied ; and tlien, everybody wanted
some of somebody else's. And at last, the really
practical and sensible ones declared, that nothing
was of any real consecpience, tliat afternoon, ex-
cept to get plenty (jf brass-headed nails; and that
the books, and the cakes, and i\w, inicrosco{)es, were
of no use at all in themselves, but oidy, if they
could be exchanged for nail-heads. And, at last, they
began to fight for nail-heads, as the others fouglit for
the bits of garden. Only here and there, a despised
one shrunk away into a corner, and ti'ied to get a little
quiet with a book, in the midst of the noise; but
all the ])ractical ones thought of nothing else but
counting nail-heads all the afternoon — even though
they knew they would not be allowed to carry
so much as one brass knob awav with them.
But no — it was — " who has most nails ? I have a
hundred, and you have fifty; or, I have a thouvsand
and you have two. I must have as many as you
before I leave the house, or I cannot possiblv go
home in peace." At last, they made so much
noise that I awoke, and thought to myself, " What
a false dream that is, of chUdrenP The child is
the father of the man ; and wiser. Children never
do such foohsh things. Only men do.
MYHTKllY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS.
139
119. But there is yet one last class of persons to
be interrogated. The wise religious incMi we have
asked in vain; the wise contemplative men, m vain;
the wise worldly men, in vain. But there is an-
other group yet. In the midst of this vanity of
empty religion — of tragic contem})lati<)n— of wrath-
ful and wretched ambition, and dispute for dust,
there is yet one great group of peis(ms, by whom
all these disputers live — the persons wiio have de-
termined, or have had it by a l)ene(icent Provi-
dence determined for them, that thev will do
something useful ; that whatever may be pr'>pai'ed
for them hereafter, or ha])j)ens to them here,
they will, at least, deserve the food that Ciod gives
them by winning it honorably ; and that, howevei
fallen from the purity, or far from the peace, of
Eden, they will carry out the duty of human do-
minion, though they htvve lost its felicity ; and
dress and keep the wilderness, though they no
more can dress or keep the garden.
These — hewers of wood, and drawers of water —
these bent under burdens, or torn of scourges — these
that dig and weave — that plant and build; workers
in wood, and in marble, and in iron — by whom all
food, clothing, habitation, furniture, and means of
delight are produced, for themselves, and for ad
men besides ; men, whose deeds ai e good, though
their words may be few ; men, whose lives are serv-
140
SESAME AND LILIES.
iceable, be they never so short, and worthy of honor,
be they never so humble — from these, surely at
least, we may receive some clear message of teach-
ing: and pierce, for an instant, into the mystery of
life, and of its arts.
120. Yes ; from these, at last, we do receive a les-
son. But I grieve to say, or rather — for that is
the deeper truth of the matter — T rejoice to say —
i-hia message of theirs can only be received by join-
hig them — not by thinking about them.
You "sent for me to talk to you of art ; and I have
obeyed you in coming. But the main thing I have to
tell you is — that art must not be talked about. The
fact that there is talk about it at all, signifies that it
is ill done, or cannot be done. No true painter ever
speaks, or ever has spoken, much of his art. The
greatest speak nothing. Even Reynolds is no ex-
ception, for he wrote of all that he could not himself
do, and was utterly silent respecting all that he him-
self did.
The moment a man can really do his work, he be-
comes speechless about it. All words become idle to
him — all theories.
121. Does a bird need to theorize about building
its nest, or boast of it when built? All good work is
essentially done that way — without hesitation, with-
out difficulty, without boasting; and in the doers of
the best, there is an inner and involuntary power
MTiSTKRY OF LIFE A2^D I7'S ARTS.
141
which approximates literally to tin; instinct of an
animal — nay, I am certain that in the most perfect
human artists, reason does vot supersede instinct,
but is added to an instinct as mucli mo* 3 divine tiian
that of the lower animals as the hum.. . oody is more
beautiful than theirs ; that a great singer sings not
with less instinct than the nightingale, hut with
more — only more various, applicable, and govern-
able; that a great architect does not build with less
mstinct than the beaver or the bee, but with more
— with an innate ( nning of proportion that em-
braces all beauty, a.K' a divine ingenuity of skill
that improvises r- construction. But be that as it
raav — be the instlnt % less or more than that of in-
ferior animals — I ' or unlike theirs, still the human
art is dependent on that first, and then upon an
amount of practice, of science — and of imagination
disciplined hy thought, which the true possessor of
it knows to bo incommunicable, and the true critic
of it, inexplicable, except through long process of
laborious 3'ears. The journey of life's conquest, in
which hills over hills, and Alps on x\lps arose, and
sunk — do you think you can make another trace
it painlessly, by talking? Why, you cannot ovan
carry us up an Alp, by talking. Vou can guide
us up it, step by step, no otherwise— even so, best
silently. You girls, wiio jiave been among the
hills, know how the bad guide chatters and gestic-
U3
SESAME AAD LILIES.
ulates, and it is "put your foot lier(>/' and "mind
liow you l)alancc yourself there;" but the good
guide walks on quietly, without a word, only with
his eyes on you when need is, and his arm like
an iron bar, if need be.
122. In that slow way, fdso, art can be taught —
if you Iwiye hiith in your i>uide, and will let his arm
be to you as an iron bar when need is. But in what
teacher of art liaye you such faith? Certainly not
in nie ; for, as 1 told you at lirst, 1 know well
enough it is only because yon think I can talk,
not because you think I know" my business, tha^
you let me s[)eak to you at all. If I were to
tell you anything that seemed to you strange, you
woukl not belieye it, and yet it would only be in
telling 3^ou strange things that L could be of use
to you. 1 could be of great use to 3'ou — infinite
use, with brief saying, if you would believe it;
but you would not, just because the thing that
would be of real use would displease you. You
are all wild, for instance, with admiration of Gus-
tave Dore. Well, suppose I were to tell 3^ou, in
the strongest terms I could use, that Gustave
Bore's art was bad — bad, not in weakness — not in
failure — but bad with dreadful ])ower — the power
of the Furies and the Harpies mingled, enraging,
and polluting ; that lo long as you looked at it,
no perception of pure or beautiful art was possible
MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS A JUS.
U3
for you. Suppose I ^vere to tell y(/U that? What
would bo the use? Would you lo(.k at (Justavc
Doro less? Rather, more, I fancy. On the othcM*
hand, I could soon put you into good humor with
me, if I ciiose. 1 know well cnonn-h what you
like, and how to praise it to your better likintr.
I could talk to you about moonlight, and twi-
light, and spring flowers, and autumn leaves, and
the Madonnas of Raphael — how motherly! and the
Sibyls of Michael Angelo — how majestic;! and the
Saints of Angelico — iiow pious! and the Cherubs
of Correggio — how delicious! Old as I am, I could
play you a tune on the harp yet, that you would
dance to. But neither vou nor 1 should be a bit
the better or wiser; or, if we were, our ir.cri>asfHl
Avisdom could be of no practical effect. For, in-
deed, the arts, as regards teachableness, (hlfer fi'om
the sciences also in this, that their powei' is
founded not merely on facts whicli can be com-
niunicated, but on dispositions which retpiire to be
created. Art is neither to bo achieved by effort
of thinking, nor explained by accuracy of speak-
inir. It is the instinctive and necessarv result of
powers wiiich can oidy be developed througli the
mind of successive generations, and which finally
burst into liie under social conditions as slow of
growth as the faculties thev rcMrulate. AVholc eras
of mighty history are summed, and the passions
114
SKSAMM AND LI LIES.
of (lead myriads are concentrated, in the exist-
ence of a noble art; and if lluit noble Jirt were
anion;^ us, we should fc^el it iind rejoice; not carin<]j
in the least to hear lectures on it; and sii.ce it is
not anion;^ iiSj bo assni'ed we have to <;•() back to
the root of it, or, at least, to the place where
the stoclc of it is yet alive, and tlu; branches Ixj-
<j^an to die.
12^]. And now, may I have your pardon for
])ointing out, partly with reference to matters
which are at this tinuj of <^i'<?ater moment than
tlie arts — that if we undertook such recession to
the vital germ of national arts that have decayed,
we should find a more singular arrest of their
[)ower in Ireland than in any other Kuro|)ean
country. For in the eighth century, Irclar.vl [as-
sessed a school of art in her manuscripts and
sculpture, which, in many of its qualities — a]>par-
ently in all essential (pialities of decorative inven-
tion— was quite without rival; seeming as if it
might have advanced to the highest triumphs in
architecture and in ])ain(ing. But there was one
fatal flaw in its nature, by which it was stayed,
and stayed v/itli a conspicuousness of ])ause to
which there is no parallel : so that, long ago, in
tracing the progress of European schools from in-
fancy to strength, I chose for the students of
Kensington, in a lecture since published, two charac-
MYSTKUY OF LIFK AM) IT:< ARTS.
14.-)
peun
poS"
and
ppar-
ivon-
i it
s in
ono
yed,
to
in
in-
of
lirae-
tei'istic oxanipJL'S »)f early art, of «Minal sUill ; but
m the Olio case, skill \vlii{'!i was p»'()<^r('ssiv«) — in
tho otluM', skill which was at paii:i(\ In the (n\v.
case, it was worlc recc[)tivo of correction-- hunL,n'y
for correction -and in the other, \v(>i'!v which in-
herently rejected coi'recUon. I chose for tliem a
corrigible Evo, and an incoi'ri^^ibh; An;^'cl, and I
grieve to say that the incorrigible Angel was ahio
an Irish Angel!
124-. And the fatal dilFerenco lav wholly in
this. In both pieces of art there was an ecjual
falling short of the needs . *' fact ; but the Lom-
bardic Evo knew she was in tho wrong, and the Irish
Angel thought himself all right. The eager Loiid)ar(lic
sculptor, though firmly insistijig on his childish idea,
vet showed in the irre<^ular broken touches of the
features, and the imperfect struggle for softer lines
in the form, a perception of beauty and law that
he could not render; there was a strain of effort,
uuder conscious imperfection, in every line. I'ut
the I'Msh missal-painter had drawn his angel with
no sense of failure, in happy complacency, and put
red dots into the palms of each hand, and rounded
the eyes into perfect circles, and, I regret to say,
left the mouth out altogether, Avith perfect satis-
faction to himself.
125. May I without ofToiise ask you to consider
whocher this mode of arrest in aacient Irish art
146
SESAME ANP LILIES.
may not be indicative of points of chai-'acter whicii
even yet, in some measure, arrest your national
power? I have seen much of Irish character, and
have watched it close! v, for I have also much
loved it. And I tiiink the form of failure to
which it is most liable is this, that being gener-
ous-hearted, and wholly intending always to d(>
right, it doL'S not attend to the external laws of
right, but til inks it must necessarily do right be-
cause it means to do so, and therefore does wrong
without finding it out; and then when the con-
sequences of its wrong come upon it, or upon
others connected with it, it cannot conceive that
the wrong is in anywise of its causing or of its
doin"', but flies into wrath, and a straniie aijfonv of
desire for justice, as feeling itself wholly iniujcent,
which leads it further astrav, uni'! there is notli-
ing that it is not capable of doing with a good
conscience.
\2iK Lut mind, I do not mean to sav that, in
past or ])resent relations between Ireland and
England, you hav(i been wrijiig, and we right.
Far from that, I believe that in ail gi-eat (pies-
tions of j)rinciple, and in all details of adminis-
tration of law, vou have lieen usuallv rii^lit, and
we wrong; sometimes in misunderstanding you,
sometimes in resolute ini(|iiity to you. XeveiM he-
less, in all disputes between states, though the
MYSTERY OF LIFE A^'D Fl'S AllT.S.
147
good
it, in
siiul
-lit.
([iies-
iiiinis-
iiiul
vou,
;rl lu3-
tlic
strongest is nearly alwiivs niaiii]\' in iho ^vr()n^^
the weaker is often so in a minor degree; and \
think wo sonietinies admit tin' i)()ssihilitv oi' our
being in error, and you never do.
127. And now, I'eluriiirig to the broader cucstion,
what these arts and lai)oi's of lilV; have to teach
us of its mystery, this is the first of iheir lessons
— that the more beautiful iIk^ ait, I lie more it is
essentially the woi'k of pivjple \\\n) f< , I /f;< ms, I r,H
wromj — who ai'e stri\in;^^ for tia; full'diii:* n1 of a
law, and tlu^ gi'as[) of a loveliness, which tlie\'
have not Act attained, which thev feel e\<Mi fur
ther and further fi'om jtitaiinng, th(^ moi-e thev
strive for it. And yet, in si ill deeper sense, ii is
tlie woi'k of peoples who know also that thev are
ri;i:ht. The verv sense of inevitable erroi* fi-oiu
their pni'pose marks tlu^ perfect ness of th;it pur
pose, and the continued sense of f;iilur(! arises from
the continued openifig of tlu^ eyes more clearly to
all the sacredest h.ws of truth.
12S. This is one lesson. The second is a very
plain, and greatly precious one, namel\ : that when-
1 laboi's of life arc fullllled in
ever tlui arts aiK
<mig
this spirit of striviii'4" against misrulr, jiud d
whatevtu' we ha\'(^ to do, honorably and perfectly,
thev invai'iablv briim' hiinpiness, as much as seems
]>ossible to the nature^ of luan. In all olliei' p;iths,
by which that ha})pin»'ss is pursued, there is disa[)-
Ii8
SfSSAMhJ AND LILIKH.
pointment, or destruction ; for ambition and for
juission tiiere is no rest — no fruition ; the fairest
pleasures of youtii perish in a darkness greater
than tlxMi' past li<j;ht; and the h)ftiest and purest
love too often does but inflame the cloud of Hfe
with en<lloss lire of ))ain. But, ascending from low-
est to highest, through every scale of liuman indus-
try, that industry worthily followed, gives peace.
Ask the laborer in the field, at the forge, or in
the min;;; ask the patient, delicate-lingered artisan,
or the strong-armed, liery-hearted worker in bronze,
and in marble, and with the coloi's of light ; and
none of these, wlio are true workmen, will ev^er
tell you, that tht'V have found the law of heaven
an unkind one — that in the sweat of their face they
should eat bread, till they return to the ground;
nor that they ever found it an unrewanled obedi-
ence, if, indeed, it was rendei'c^d faithfully to the
(command — "Whatsoever thy hand iindeth to do —
do it with tliy might."
12!>. These are the two great and constant lessons
which our laborers teach us of the mystery of
life. r>ut there is another, and a sadder one, winch
thev cannot teach us, which we must read on their
toml)stones.
"Do it with thv might/' There have been myriads
upon iuyria,<ls of huninii (;reatur(^s wiio have obeyed
this law— -who have [)ut every breath and nerve of
AlVSTERV OF LIFh: AND ITS ARTS.
U9
id for
fairest
[greater
purest
of life
►m low-
ind US-
peace.
, (n* in
irtisan,
brtnize,
it ; and
11 ever
heaven
ce they
ri'ound ;
obodi-
to the
«) do —
lessons
ery of
wiiich
11 their
iivriads
ol)eve(l
erve of
their hoin^^ into its toil— who havo devoted every
liour, and exiiausted everv facultv — who have be-
queatlu.'d their unaccoMi})lis}ied thoughts at dentli — -
\vJio being dead, have yet spoken, by niajosty of
memory, and strengtii of example. And, at last,
what has all this ''Might'' of humanity accomplislH.'d,
in six thousand years of labor and sorrow^ What
has it (hn\ef Take the thi't.'e chief occu[)ations and
arts of m(Mi, one by one, and count their achieve-
ments. i>egiu with the first — the lord of them all —
agi'iculturji. Six thousand years have passed since
we were set to till the gi'ound, from which we were
taken. How much of it is tilled^ How much of
that which is, wisely or welH In the very center
and chief gai'den of Eui'ojie — wIkm'c the two forms
of parent Christianity have had their fortresses —
where the noble Catholics of the F(jrest Cantons,
and the noble Protestants of the Vaudois valh^ys,
have maintained, for dateless ages, their faiths and
liberties — there the unchecked Alpine rivers yet run
wild in devastation ; and the mai'shes, which a few
hundred men could redeem with a year's labor, still
blast their helpless inliabitants into fevered idiotism.
That IS so, in the center of Europe I AVhile, on the
near coast of Africa, once the (rarden of the lles-
perides, an Arab woman, l)ut a few sunsets since, ate
her child, for famine. And, with all the treasures
of the East at our feet, we, in our own dominion,
150
SESAME AND LILldS.
could not find a fo\\' grains of rice, for a people that
asked of us no more; but stood by, and saw five
hundred thousand of thorn perish of hunger.
130. Tlien, after agriculture, the art of kings, take
the next head of human arts — weaving ; the art of
queens, honored of all nobh^ Heathen women, in
the person of their virgin goddess — honored of all
Hebrew women, by the word of their wisest king —
*'She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands
hold the distaif; she stretcheth out her hand to
the poor. She is not afraid of the snow for her
household, for all her household are clothed with
scarlet. She maketh herself covering of tapestry,
her clothing is silk and purpl\ She maketh line
linen, and sellcth it, and delivi reth girdles to the
merchant.'' What have v;e done in all these
thousands of vears with tins })ri«rht art of Greek
maid and Christian mr-tron • Six thousand vearr>
of weaving, and have we learned to weave?
Might not vvery naked wall h.ive been purple with
tapestry, i;M;i ^\av\ feeble breast fenced with sweet
colors from the cold ? What have v.'e done '\ Oar
fingers are too few, it seems, to twist together
some poor covering for our bodies. We set our
streams to work for us, and choke tlie air with
fire, to turn our si)inn!nir-wheels — and — arc we
yet
dothiidf Are not the streets of the c.Mj)itals of
Europe foul with salt' of cast clouts and rotten
MYSTKRY OF LlFh: AND ITS ARTS.
151
! that
' five
, take
irt of
in, in
L>f all
ling-
hands
nd to
)r her
with
)estrv,
1 line
;o the
these
Greek
vean
cave?
w it'll
sweet
Our
rether
our
with
we yet
Is of
'otteu
rags? Is not the beautv of your sweet chil(h'en
* ■* 4 1
!(^ft in wictcliediiess of disgi-aco, whii(», with h«'tt(M*
honor, nature; clothes the brood of th(! bird m its nest,
and the suckling of the wolf in her den '. And
(iocs not evci-y wintei''s snow robe wiiat nou liavc;
not rob(Ml, and shroud what vou have i.ol, stir(»u<lcd :
and iiwvy winter's wind bear \\\) to iicavm lis
wasted souls, to witness auainst voa hereaftci-, bv
tin; voice of tlicir ( lirisL --" 1 was naked, an<l \i\
clothed nn' no| T'
i:U. Lastly- take the Art of Huildiiig- the;
stronLi'Ost - ni'oudest — most ordcM'ly — most endui'in*'*
of tin; arts of man, thai, of which the jn'oduce
is in tlu; surt;st manner accumidative, and need not
perish, or b.' i'<'))lac(Ml ; but if once well done, wid
stand more; sti-ongly than thv' ujibaianced r-ocks
moi'c prevalently thai' tin erumblmt^ hills. TIk?
art which is associated with aii c \ !' pride and
saci'cd principle, with \vhich ttten recfM-d their
jiowei* satisfv iheii" entliusias'.i— make sure th(Mr
defense; (jeline ami make; (h'ar their habitat ion.
And, in six thousai yeai's of i)udding, wli;it liave
we done'^ Ol' the -i-cater part of all tliat sk'ill and
streiiL!,'th, //^' veslii:- is left, bnl fallen stonr^s. that in-
cumber tlie Ileitis id impede; the streams. Hut. fre)m
this waste* of elisoreleT, anel of tiim*, and e»r rage, wljat
/.vhifttous^ (^)nst rui;tive anel j)i'ogre'ssive» ere^atures,
that we are, with I'uling brains, and forming iiujids,
152
SESAME A'KD LILIES.
capabl(3 of fellowsliij), and thirsting for fame, can wo
not contend, in comfort, with the insects of the for-
est, or, in achievement, with the worm of the sea.
The \vhite surf rages in vain against tiie ramparts
built liy poor atoins of scarcely nascent life ; but
only ridges of formless ruin mark the ])laces where
once dwell our noblest multitudes. The ant and the
moth have cells for o;ich of tiieir young, but our little
ones lie in festering heaps, in homes that consume
them like graves; and nigiit by night, from the cor-
ners of our streets, rises up th 3 cry of the homeless —
" I was a stranger, and ye took me not in."
132. Must it be always thus? Is our life for-
ever to be without profit — without possession i
Shall the strength of its generations be as barrcii
as death ; or cast away their labor, as the wild
fig-tree casts her untimely figs i Is it all a dream
then— the desire of the eyes and the pride of life
— or, if it be, ujight we not live in nobler dream
than this? The poets and ])rophets, the wise men,
and tlit3 scribes, thougii they have told us noth-
ing ab;)ut a life to come, have told us much
about the life tluit is now. TIk'v h.ive had — they
also — their dreams, and we have laughed at them.
They have dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they
have dreamed of j)eace and good-will; they have
dreanuxl of labor undisappointed, and of rest un-
disturbed ; they have dreamed of fullness in harvest,
MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS
loo
f life
ream
men,
noth-
much
-they
them,
they
liavo
t im-
rvest,
and ovorflowing in stoi-e ; they have (h'enmed of
wisdum in council, and of providence in law; of
gladness of parents, and strengtii of children, and
^dory of gray hairs. And at these visions of theirs
we have mocked, and held them for i<lle niid vain,
unreal and unaccomplishable. Whjit have we accom-
plished with our realities^ Is tiiis what has come
of our worldly wisdom, tried a^^ainst tlieir folh' {
this, our mightiest p<()ssil)l(\ auainst their inii)ot<!it
ideal i or, have we oidy wandei'cd among the specti'a
of a baser felicity, and chased |)hantonis of tiie
tond)S, instead of visions of the Almio-iiiv; and
walked after the imaginations of our evil iiearts,
instead of after the counsels of Eternity, until our
lives — not \\i the likeness of the cloud "f heaven,
but of tiie smoke of hell — have become ''as a vapor,
that appeareth for a liitle Lime, and then vanisheth
away
00
.00.
Jhhs it vanish tiien ^ Are von sui-e of that?
--sure, that the nothiuii'ness of the 'vrave will I
»e
rest from this ii'oubhHl nothinii'ne
and thai the
coiling shadow, which disquiets itsi^lf in vain, cannot
change intt> the smoke of the torment tliat ascends
forever f \\'ill any answer that th<\' <7/v sure of it,
nd that there is no feai', noi' hone, nor desire.
ii
V
nor labor, whitlier thev iioi Ik) it so; will you
' * CD V
not, then, ma,k<* as sui-o of the lile that now
IS, as y
ou
are of the Deiilh that is to come?
164
SKbAME AND LILIES,
Your hearts are wliolly in this world — will you
not "five tlieui to it wiselv, as well as ixn'rectlv ^
And see, lirst of all, that you /nirr hearts, and
sound hearts, too, to <^ive. Dd'ausc you have no
heaven to look foi\ is that any r-eason that vou
should reuuiin i«^norant of this wondei'ful and in-
finite earth, which is lirndv and instantly o-iven
you in possession^ Althou^^li your days ai'o nuni-
hcred, and the following* (hirkness sui'e, is it neces-
sai'N' that you should share the (h^fjradation of the
hrute, because max are condenuu'd to its mortality:
or live the life of the nu)lh, and of the worm, be-
cause you are to companion them in the dust ^
Not so: we may have but a few thousands of days
to spend, perhaps liundi'eds oidy — perhaps, tens; nay,
the lonf^est of our time and best, lookcnl back on,
will be but as a nu)m(^nt, as the tw inkliuL'" <>f an
eye; still, we ai'e nuMi, not insects; \v(» are livinp^-
spirits, not passing clouds. " lie nudveth the winds
His messengers; the nu>mentary lire, His minister;"
and shall we do less than ffu'^t: ? Let us <lo the
work of men while we bear the form of tiuMii :
and, as we snatch our narrow portion of tinu^ out
of Eternity, snatch also our nariow inh(!i'itance of
passion out of Immortality — even though our lives
he as a vapor, that appeai'eth for a little time, and
then
van IS
hetl
1 away
134. But there are some of you who believe not
MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS.
155
this — who think this ch)ucl of hfo lias no sudi close
— that it is to Ihxit, rcvejilcd und illuniin(Hl, upon
the floor of huiiN'en, in tlie day when Ho coineth
with clouds, and every eye shall see ITim. Sonio
day, you believe, within these five, or ten or twenty
years, for every one of us the judgment will be set,
and the books opened. If that be true, far more
than that must be true. Is there but one day of
judgment? Why, for us every day is a day of
judgment — every day is a Dies Irae, and writes its
irrevocable verdict in the flame of its West. Think
you that judgment waits till tiie doors of the grave
are opened i It waits at the doors of your houses —
it waits at the corners of your streets ; we are in
the midst of judgment — the insects that we crush
are our judges — the moments we fret away are our
judges — the elements that feed us, judge, as they
minister — and the [)leasure3 that deceive us, judge,
as they in(lulg(\ Let us, for our lives, do the
W(jrk of Men while we bear the Form of them,
if indeed those lives are Kot as a vapor, and do
^"^ot vanish awav.
135. ''The work of men" — and what is that ^
Well, we nuiy any of us know very (juickly, on
the condition of being wholly nmdy to do it.
But many of us are for the most part thinking,
not of what we are to do, but of wiiat we are to
get; and the best of us are sunk hdo the sin of
156
SESAME AND LILIES,
Ananias, and it is a mortal one — we want to keep
back part of the price ; and we continually talk
of taking up our cross, as if the onh barm in a
cross was the weight of it — as if it was only a
thing to be carried, instead of to be — crucified
upon. "They that are His have crucified the flesh,
with the affections and lusts." .Does that mean,
think you, that in time of national distress, of
religious trial, of crisis for every interest and
hope of humanity — none of us will cease jesting,
none cease idling, none ])ut themselves to any
wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of lace
off their footmen's coats, to save the world ? Or does
it rather mean, that they are ready to leave houses,
lands, and kindreds — yes, and life, if need be? Life?
— some of us are ready enough to throw that away,
joyless as we have made it. But '^station in Life"
how many of us are ready to quit that f Is it not
always the great objection, where there is question
of finding somethmg useful to do — " We cannot leave
our stations in Life ?"
Those of us who really cannot — that is to say,
who can only maintain themselves by continuing
in some business or salaried office, have already
something to do; and all that they have to see to,
is that they do it honestly and with all their might.
But with most people who use that apologv, "re-
maining in the station of life to which Providence
MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS.
1
ot
light.
u
re-
deiice
hfis cjilli'd thcin," means kcepin^^ all tlu; carriages, and
all tlio footmen cind large housrs they ean ])nssil>ly
pay for; and, once for all, 1 say that if ever i'rovi-
dence rZ/VZ put them into stations of that sort — which
is not at all a matter of certaintv — I'rovidonce is
just now very distinctlv calling: them out ji'mIh.
Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; mid
Peter's, the shore of Galihio; and Paul's, the ante-
chambers of the High Priest — wliii^h "station in
life" each had to leave, with hi'ief notice.
And, whatever our station in lii'e may he, at this
crisis, (hose of us who mean to fullill oui* duly ought,
first, to live on as little as we can ; and, scvoudly, to
do all the wholesome work for it we can, Jiiul to
spend all we can spare in doing all the sure good
we can.
And sure good is first in feeding peoj)le, then in
dressing people, then in lodging ])eople, and lastly
in rightly pleasing people, with arts, or sciences, or
any other subject of thought.
136. I say first in feeding; and, once for all, do
not let yourselves be deceived by any of the com-
mon talk of '* indiscriminate charitv.*' The order to
us is not to feed the deserviuiy huufirv, nor the in-
dustrious hunijrv, nor the amiabh^ and well-intentioned
hungry, but simply to feed the hungry. It is quite
true, mfalliblv true, that if anv man will not work,
neither should he eat — think of that, and every time
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158
SESAME AND LILIES.
(>'i '
you sit down to your dinner, ladies and gentlemen,
say solemnly, before you ask a blessing, " ITow
much work have I done to-day for my dinner?"
But the proper way to enforce that order on those
below you, as well as on yourselves, is not to leave
vagabonds and honest people to starve together, but
very distinctly to discern and seize your vagabond ;
and shut your vagabond up out of honest people's
way, and \evy sternly then see that, until he has
worked, he does not eat. But the first thing is to be
sure you have the food to give; and, therefore, to
enforce the orgiuiization of vast activities in agri-
culture and in commerce, for the production of the
wholesomest food, and proper storing and distribution
of it, so that no famine shall any more be possible
among civilized beings. There is plenty of work in
this business alone, and at once, for any number of
people who like to engage in it.
137. Secondly, dressing people — that is to say,
urging eveiy one witliin reach of your influence to
be always neat and clean, and giving them means
of being so. In so far as they absolutely refuse,
you must give up the effort with respect to them,
only taking care that no children within your
sphere of influence shall any more be brought up
with such habits; and that every person who is
willing to dress with propriety shall have encourage-
ment to do so. And the first absolutely necessary
MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS.
159
Step toward this is the gradual adoption of a con-
sistent dress for different ranks of persons, so that
their raidc shall be known by their dress ; and the
restriction of tlie changes of fashion within certain
limits. All which appears for the present quite
impossible; but it is only so far as even difficult
as it is difficult to conquer our vanity, frivolitv,
and desire to appear what we are not. And it is
not, nor ever shall be, creed of mine, tliat these
mean and shallow vices are unconquerable by Chris-
tian women.
138. And then, thirdly, lodging people, which you
may think should have been put first, but I put
it third, because we must feed and clothe people
\v^here we find them, and lodge them afterward.
And providing lodgment for them means a great
deal of vigorous legislation, and cutting down of
vested interests that stand in the way, and after
that, or before that, so far as we can get it,
tfiorough sanitary and remedial action in the houses
that we have ; and then the building of more,
strongly, beautifully, and in groups of limited ex-
tent, kept in proportion to their streams, and walled
round, so that there may be no festering and
wretched suburb anywhere, but clean and busv
streets within, and the open country without, with
a belt of beautiful garden and orchard round the
walls, so that from any part of the city perfectly
160
SESAMhJ AND LILIEti.
>ii
fresh air and grass, and sight of far horizon might
be reachable in a few minutes' walk. This is the
final aim : but in immediate action ev^ery minor and
possible good to bo instantly done, when, and as,
we can ; roofs mended that have holes in them —
fences patched that have gaps in tliom — walls but-
tressed that totter — and floors propped that shake;
cleanliness and order enforced with our own hands
and eyes, till wo are breatliless, every day. And
all the fine arts will healthily follow. I myself
have washed a flight of stone stairs all down,
with bucket and broom, in a Savoy inn, where they
ha(hi't waslied their stairs since they first went
up them? and I never made a better sketch than
that afternoon.
139. These, then, are the three first needs of civ-
ilized life ; and the law for every Christian man and
woman is, that they shall be in direct service toward one
of these tliree needs, as far as is consistent v.'ith their
own special occupation, and if tliey have no special
business, then wholly in one of tlie?/^ services. And
out of such exertion in plain duty all other good will
come ; for in this direct contention with material evil,
you will find out the real nature of all evil ; you will
discern by the various kinds of resistance, what is
really the fault and main antagonism to good ; also
you will find the most unexpected helps and profound
lessons given, and truths will come thus down to us
MrSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS.
161
which the R|>eciihition of nil our livis would mr<vx
have raised us up to. You will find nearly every
edueational problem solved, as soon as you truly want
to do something; everybody will become of use in
their own littest way, and will learn what is best for
them to ivHow in that use. Competitive examinalion
will then, and not till then, bo wholesome, because it
will be daily, and calm, and in practice ; and on IIk^sq
i'amiliar nrts, and minute, but certain auvd serviceable
knowledges, will be surel}^ edified and sustained the
greater arts and splendid theoretical sciences.
140. Jjut much more than this. On such holy and
simple practice will be founded, indeed, at last, an
infallible religion. The greatest of all the mysteries
of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption of even
the sincerest i*eligion, which is not daily ioundcd on
ratiomd, effective, humble, and helpful action. Ilel[)-
ful action, observe! for there is just one law, which
obeyed, keeps all religions pure — forgotten, makes
them all false. Whenever in any religious faith,
dark or bright, we allow our minds to dwell upon the
points in which we differ from other people, we are
wrong, and in tlie devil's power. That is the essence
of tlie Pharisee's thanksgiving — " Lord, I thank thee
that 1 am not as other men are." At every moment
of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in
what we differ with other people, but in what we
afirree with tlio::i ; and the moment we find we can
162
SESAME AND LILIES.
agree as to anything that should be done, kind oi
good (and who but fools couldn't ?), tlien do it ; push
at it together ; you can't quarrel in a side-by-side
push ; but the moment that even the best men stop
pushing, and begin talking, they mistake their ])ug-
nacity for piety, and it's all over. I will not speak of
the crimes which in past times have been committed
in the name of Christ, noi* of the follies which are
at this hour held to be consistent with obedience
to Him ; but I will spoak of the morbid cor-
ruption and waste of vital power in religious sen-
timent, by which the pure strength of that which
should be the guiding soul of every nation, the
splendor of its youthful manhood, and spotless light
of its maidenhood, is averted or cast away. You may
see continually girls who have never been taught to do
a single useful thing thoroughly ; who cannot sew,
who cannot cook, who cannot cast an account, nor
prepare a medicine, whose w^iole life has been
passed either in play or in pride; you will find
girls like these, when they are earnest-hearted, cast
all their innate passion of religious spirit, which
was meant by God to support them through the
irksomeness of daily toil, into grievous and vain
meditation over the meanmg of the great Book, ol
which no syllable was ever yet to be understood
but through a deed ; all the instinctive wisdom and
mercy of their womanhood made vain, and the glory
MYSTERY OF LIFE AXI) ITS ARTS.
163
of their pure consciences wiirpod into fruitless agony
concerning questions which the laws of common
serviceable life would have either solved for them
m an instant, or ke])t out of their way. Give such
a girl any true work that will make her nctive in
the dawn, and weary at night, with the conscious-
ness tliat her fellows-creatures have indeed been the
better for her day, and tlio powerless sorrow of lier
enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of
radiant and beneficent peace.
So with our youths. AVo once taught thern to
make Laun verses, and called them eilucated ; now
we teach them to leap and to row, to hit a ball
with a bat, and call them educated. Can tliey
plow, can they sow, can tLoy plant at the riglii
time, or build with a steady tiand? Is it the elToit
of their lives to be chaste. Knightly, faithful, holy
in thouo^ht, lovelv in word and deed? Indeed it is
with some, nay with many, and the strengtli of
England is in them, and the hope; but we have to
turn their courage from the tod of war to the toil
of mercy ; and their intellect from dispute of words
to discernment of things; and their knighthood from
the errantry of adventure to the state and fidelity
of a kingly power. And then, indeed, shall abide,
for them, and for us an incorruptible felicity, and an
infallible religion ; shall abide for us Faith, no more
to bo assailed by temptation, no more to be de-
164
ShJSAAFK AND LILIES.
fended by wrath and by fear— shall abide with us
Hope, no more to bo quenched by the years that
overwhelm, or made ashamed hy the shadows that
betray— shall abide for us, and with us, the greatest
of these; the abidint^ will, tlie abiding name, of our
Father. For the greatest of these, is Charity.
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