Q^A^Eimi 
 
 Book 
 
 i iylt 
 
 -^ 
 
Professor John Rusk in, M.A. 
 
Precious 
 Thoughts 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN 
 
 MM-CALDWELL 
 
 COMPANY 
 
 NEWyoRK 
 
 C 3 
 

 T.ans/er 
 Engineers School lAtXj^ 
 June 29,1931 
 
PREFATORY. 
 
 Much time is wasted by human beings, in 
 general, on establishment of systems; and it 
 often takes more labour to master the intricacies 
 of an artificial connexion, than to remember the 
 separate facts which are so carefully connected. 
 I suspect that system-makers, in general, are not 
 of much more use, each in his own domain, than, 
 in that of Pomona, the old women who tie cher- 
 ries upon sticks, for the more convenient port- 
 ableness of the same. To cultivate well, and 
 choose well, your cherries, is of some import- 
 ance; but if they can be had in their own wild 
 way of clustering about their crabbed stalk, it is 
 a better connexion for them than any other; 
 and, if they cannot, then, so that they be not 
 l)ruised, it makes to a boy of a practical dis- 
 position, not much difference whether he gets 
 them by hand f ids ^^ or in beaded symmetry on 
 the exalting stick. I purpose, therefore, hence- 
 
 Or baskctfuls i 
 
 iii 
 
IV 
 
 PREFA TOR Y. 
 
 torward to trouble myself little with sticks or 
 twine, but to arrange my chapters with a view 
 to convenient reference, rather than to any care- 
 ful division of subjects, and to follow out, in 
 any by-ways that may open, on right hand or 
 left, whatever question it seems useful at any 
 moment to settle. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Admiration, natural 206 
 
 Advancement 5 
 
 All carving and no meat 104 
 
 All things have their place, 31.^ 
 
 Alpine peasant, the 183 
 
 Angel of the sea, the, 9 
 
 Asceticism, 358 
 
 Associations of beauty, 46 
 
 Associations, human 78 
 
 Assimilation and individuality 339 
 
 Beauty, the Christian theory of, 239 
 
 Beauty, associations of 46 
 
 Be what nature intended, 75 
 
 Boyhoods, the two 444 
 
 Brotherhood, 145 
 
 Browning's appeal for Italy, Mrs., 246 
 
 Candid seeing, 162 
 
 Care for posterity, 423 
 
 Cathedrals, the old 309 
 
 Cheerfulness, 360 
 
 Church, the 42 
 
 Church, the true 104 
 
 Church, in the New Testament, the, 71 
 
 Church, members of the 101 
 
 v 
 
\'l CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Classical, the, 272 
 
 Clergymen, 43 
 
 Cloud-balancings, 107 
 
 Clouds as God's dwelling-place 388 
 
 Colour, the sanctity of, 77 
 
 Colour, the nobleness of, 142 
 
 Companionship with nature, 103 
 
 Concession and companionship, 286 
 
 Criticism, base, 67 
 
 Criticism, just 29 
 
 Craig Ellachie! stand fast, 413 
 
 Dante and Spenser, 248 
 
 Dark signs of the times, 55 
 
 Death, fear of, 118 
 
 Defenders of the dead 176 
 
 Development, 134 
 
 Downright facts plainly told i 
 
 Discernment of Christian character 102 
 
 Divine laws, 40 
 
 Discipline and interference, 312 
 
 Dissectors and the dreamers, the, 46 
 
 Division of labour, 279 
 
 Doers, 20 
 
 Doubts, pagan, 405 
 
 Dreamers, 306 
 
 Durer and Salvator, 412 
 
 Education, modern, 58 
 
 Education, the pagan system of, 468 
 
 Earth's children, the humblest of the, 17 
 
 Earth-veil, the 124 
 
 Emotion, ignoble, 264 
 
 Emotions excited by the imagination, 381 
 
 Entanglement, modern 203 
 
COXTEXI\S. Vl/ 
 
 pac;r 
 
 Facts, seeking for, 137 
 
 Faith, truth, and obedience, 2 
 
 Fancy and reality, 360 
 
 Fear of death, 118 
 
 Flowers, 106 
 
 Flowers, the love of 122 
 
 Food of the soul, the 277 
 
 Formative period, the, 177 
 
 Generalization, right, 176 
 
 Gentleman, the true, 209 
 
 Genius, the man of, 271 
 
 Gloom, 424 
 
 God's place in the human heart, loi 
 
 Goodness of God in creation, 331 
 
 Government, the Divine, 205 
 
 Government, the principles of good, 335 
 
 Good teaching, 180 
 
 Greatness and minuteness, 8 
 
 Gradation, 13S 
 
 Great results 5 
 
 Harvest is ripe, the, 146 
 
 Helpful or the Holy One, the, 25 
 
 Highlander, the, 373 
 
 How to live, 160 
 
 Household altar, the, 379 
 
 Human beings, three orders of, 205 
 
 Human heart, God's place in the, loi 
 
 Idolatry, 326 
 
 Infidelity, 430 
 
 Infidelity in England, 141 
 
 Infidel creed, the modern, 284 
 
 Influence of custom, 132 
 
 Infinity, 88 
 
Vlll cox TENTS, 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Intemperance 163 
 
 Involuntary instruments of good, 349 
 
 Individuality, assimilation and 339 
 
 Illustrations from the Bible, 45 
 
 Imagination, 187 
 
 Imagination, emotions excited by the 381 
 
 Imagination, excitement of the, 91 
 
 Imperfection 16 
 
 Italy, Mrs. Browning's appeal for, 246 
 
 Interference, Discipline and 312 
 
 Judgment, mercy, and truth, 19 
 
 Justice to the living, 174 
 
 Justice, mercy, and truth, 275 
 
 King's messengers, the 43 
 
 Knowledge, \h^. noble ends of, 389 
 
 Knowledge, partial, 28 
 
 Knowledge, practical 65 
 
 Knowledge, progressive, 261 
 
 Labour in little things, 54 
 
 Law or loyalty, obedience to, 328 
 
 Life, 341 
 
 Life, human, 357 
 
 Life and love, 148 
 
 Life never a jest, 383 
 
 Life, the type of strong and noble, 200 
 
 " Let alone" principle, the 310 
 
 Lessons from leaves, 13 
 
 Lessons from rocks, 3^5 
 
 Liberty, true, 9^ 
 
 Liberty, the best kind of, 242 
 
 Love and fear, 34^ 
 
 Love and trust, r • 140 
 
 Love of change, ,. . , 186, 267 
 
CONTENTS. iX 
 
 rA(,« 
 
 Love of Nature, 57 
 
 Loss, 245 
 
 Man the image of God 301 
 
 Man of genius, the 271 
 
 Man's delight in God's works 370 
 
 Man's nature, 161 
 
 Man's isolation 299 
 
 Manual labour 64 
 
 Men of gross minds 52 
 
 Mark, St., 27 
 
 Making a right choice, 178 
 
 Mercantile panics, 3S 
 
 Missing the mark 147 
 
 Modern entanglement 203 
 
 Modern greatness, 201 
 
 Mother-nation, the, 274 
 
 Mountain influence, 290 
 
 Mystery of clearness, the, 27 
 
 Mystery in language, 318 
 
 Mystery and unity, 14 
 
 Nature, love of 57 
 
 Nature, companionship with, 103 
 
 Nature, explaining, 120 
 
 Nation's place in history, a, 191 
 
 Nearness and distance, 89 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar curse, the 30 
 
 Novelty, 00 
 
 Obedience to law, or loyalty, 328 
 
 Obedience, faith, truth, and, 2 
 
 Opinions ^7 
 
 Pagan doubts, 405 
 
 Pagan system of education, the 468 
 
 Patronage of Art 103 
 
X cox TEXTS. 
 
 PAGl 
 
 Peace and war, 91 
 
 Pedestrians, 53 
 
 Perfect and partial truth 320 
 
 Pictures, the use of 158 
 
 Pines and the Swiss 153 
 
 Pine trees 12 
 
 Plagiarism 310 
 
 Pleasures of sight, the 94 
 
 Political economy, 70 
 
 Power of intellect, 258 
 
 Poor, oppression of the, 31 
 
 Poor ? who are the, 34 
 
 Posterity, care for, 423 
 
 P^salm, the nineteenth, 165 
 
 Practical knowledge, 65 
 
 Presence of God 366 
 
 Precipices, I57 
 
 Pre-eminence of the soul, the, 385 
 
 Pride 95 
 
 Prophetic designers, 276 
 
 Prophetic dreams, 407 
 
 Public favour, 68 
 
 Purist and the sensualist, the 193 
 
 Quietness, 209 
 
 Rainbow, the, 144 
 
 Recreation IT9 
 
 Reality, 320 
 
 Reality, fancy and 3C<j 
 
 Respect for the dead, 321 
 
 Respectability of artists, 47 
 
 Responsibility of a rich man, 60 
 
 Reformation, the, 207 
 
 Religion, influence of art on, 243 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Reverence, 3^7 
 
 Right generalization, 176 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, . . . . , 188 
 
 Sacrifice, the spirit of, 350 
 
 Sailors' superstitions, 76 
 
 St. Mark, 27 
 
 Satan, Milton's and Dante's, 368 
 
 Sanctification, 159 
 
 Science, 87 
 
 Science and art, the real use of, 135 
 
 Seeking for facts, 173 
 
 Seriousness and levity i8r 
 
 Self-government, » 161 
 
 Self-knowledge, want of, . , 60 
 
 Shamefacedness, 300 
 
 Sight, the pleasures oi, 94 
 
 Simplicity 266 
 
 Smoke and the whirlwmd, 203 
 
 Spenser, Dante and, 248 
 
 Spenser, theology of, 471 
 
 " Stand fast, Craig Ellachie !' 409 
 
 States of the forest, the, 467 
 
 Striving after perfection, 151 
 
 Speculations, 72 
 
 Sublimity, 16 
 
 Symbol of fear, the, 136 
 
 Symbolism, Christian 408 
 
 Thankfulness, 409 
 
 Theory of beauty, the Christian, 239 
 
 The thinker and the perceiver, 189 
 
 "Thy Kingdom come," 79 
 
 Tithes, 379 
 
 Towers of rock, 184 
 
Xll CONTE.YTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Trees and communities, 192 
 
 Trees, pine, 12 
 
 Trees, sacred associations with olive 265 
 
 Trifles, care for 411 
 
 True contentment, 6 
 
 Truth of truths, the, gg 
 
 Truth, nothing but, 427 
 
 Truth, symbols of, 150 
 
 Truth, perfect and partial, 320 
 
 Types, iig 
 
 Utilitarianism, 384 
 
 Unkindness, the memory of, 54 
 
 Visible and the tangible, the, 200 
 
 Virtues squared and counted, 227 
 
 Voluntarily admitted restraints 25g 
 
 Vulgarity 86 
 
 Vulgar fractions, it 
 
 War 4g 
 
 War, peace and 91 
 
 War, advantages of, 51 
 
 Wants of modern art, 61 
 
 Warning, a solemn 340 
 
 Wealth, ...» 53 
 
 Weak things made strong, 97 
 
 What use ? 404 
 
 Work and play, 460 
 
 Work, the necessity of, 48 
 
 vVorid a hostelry, this, . 388 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 DOWNRIGHT FACTS PLAINLY TOLD. 
 
 I HAVE been much impressed lately by one of 
 the results of the quantity of our books; namely, 
 the stern impossibility of getting anything under- 
 stood, that required patience to understand. I 
 observe always, in the case of my own writings, 
 that if ever I state anything which has cost me 
 any trouble to ascertain, and which, therefore, 
 will probably require a minute or two of reflec- 
 tion from the reader before it can be accepted, 
 — that statement will not only be misunderstood, 
 but in all probability taken to mean something 
 very nearly the reverse of what it does mean. 
 Now, whatever faults there may be in my 
 modes of expression, I know that the words I 
 use will always be found, by Johnson's diction- 
 ary, to bear, first of all, the sense I use them in; 
 and that the sentences, whether awkwardly 
 turned or not, will, by the ordinary rules of 
 
2 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 grammar, bear no other interpretation than that 
 I mean them to bear; so that the misunder- 
 standing of them must result, ultimately, from 
 the mere fact that their matter sometimes re- 
 quires a little patience. And I see the same 
 kind of misinterpretation put on the words of 
 other writers, whenever they require the same 
 kind of thought. 
 
 I was at first a little despondent about this; 
 but, on the whole, I believe it will have a good 
 effect upon our literature for some time to come; 
 and then, perhaps, the public may recover its 
 patience again. For certainly it is excellent dis- 
 cipline for an author to feel that he must say all 
 he has to say in the fewest possible words, or 
 his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plain- 
 est possible words, or his reader will certainly 
 misunderstand them. Generally, also, a down- 
 right fact may be told in a plain way; and we 
 want downright facts at present more than any- 
 thing else. 
 
 FAITH, TRUTH, AND OBEDIENCE. 
 
 In the pressing or recommending of any act 
 or manner of acting, we have choice of two sepa- 
 rate lines of argument: one based on represen- 
 tation of the expediency or inherent value of 
 the work, which is often small, and always dis- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 3 
 
 putable; the other based on proofs of its rela- 
 tions to the higher orders of human virtue, and 
 of its acceptableness, so far as it goes, to Him 
 who is the origin of virtue. The former is com- 
 monly the more persuasive method, the latter 
 assuredly the more conclusive; only it is liable 
 to give offence, as if there were irreverence in 
 adducing considerations so weighty in treating 
 subjects of small temporal importance. I be- 
 lieve, however, that no error is more thoughtless 
 than this. What is true of the Deity is equally 
 true of His Revelation. I have been blamed 
 for the familiar introduction of its sacred words. 
 I am grieved to have given pain by so doing; 
 but my excuse must be my wish that those 
 words were made the ground of every argument 
 and the test of every action. We have them 
 not often enough on our lips, nor deeply enough 
 in our memories, nor loyally enough in our lives. 
 The snow, the vapour, and the stormy wind fulfil 
 His word. Are our acts and thoughts lighter 
 and wilder than these— that we should forget 
 it? 
 
 I have therefore ventured, at the risk of giv- 
 ing to some passages the appearance of irrever- 
 ence, to take the higher line of argument wherever 
 it appeared clearly traceable; and this, I would 
 ask the reader especially to observe, not merely 
 because I think it the best mode of reaching 
 
4 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ultimate truth, still less because I think the sub- 
 ject of more importance than many others; but 
 because every subject should surely, at a period 
 like the present, be taken up in this spirit, or 
 not at all. The aspect of the years that ap- 
 proach us is as solemn as it is full of mystery; 
 and the weight of evil against which we have to 
 contend, is increasing like the letting out of 
 water. It is no time for the idleness of meta- 
 physics, or the entertainment of the arts. The 
 blasphemies of the earth are sounding louder, 
 and its miseries heaped heavier every day; and 
 if, in the midst of "the exertion which every good 
 man is called upon to put forth for their repres- 
 sion or relief, it is lawful to ask for a thought, 
 for a moment, for a lifting of the finger, in any 
 direction but that of the immediate and over- 
 whelming need, it is at least incumbent upon us 
 to approach the questions in which we would 
 engage him, in the spirit which has become the 
 habit of his mind, and in the hope that neither 
 his zeal nor his usefulness may be checked by 
 the withdrawal of an hour which has shown him 
 how even those things which seemed mechanical, 
 indifferent, or contemptible, depend for their 
 perfection upon the acknowledgment of the 
 sacred principles of faith, truth, and obedience, 
 for which it has been the occupation of his life 
 to contend. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ADVANCEMENT. 
 
 Between youth and age there will be found 
 differences of seeking, which are not wrong, nor 
 of false choice in either, but of different temper- 
 ament, the youth sympathizing more with the 
 gladness, fulness, and magnificence of things, 
 and the gray hairs with their completion, suffi- 
 ciency, and repose. And so, neither condemn- 
 ing the delights of others, nor altogether dis- 
 trustful of our own, we must advance, as we live 
 on, from what is brilliant to what is pure, and 
 from what is promised to what is fulfilled, and 
 from what is our strength to what is our crown, 
 only observing in all things how that which is 
 indeed wrong, and to be cut up from the root, 
 is dislike, and not affection. 
 
 GREAT RESULTS. 
 
 Men often look to bring about great results 
 by violent and unprepared effort. But it is only 
 in fair and forecast order, "as the earth bring- 
 eth forth her bud," that righteousness and praise 
 may spring forth before the nations. 
 
PRE CIO US 7 HO UGH TS. 
 
 TRUE CONTENTMENT. 
 
 The things to be desired for man in a healthy 
 state, are that he should not see dreams, but 
 realities; that he should not destroy life, but 
 save it; and that he should be not rich, but con- 
 tent. 
 
 Towards which last state of contentment I do 
 not see that the world is at present approximat- 
 ing. There are, indeed, two forms of discon- 
 tent; one laborious, the other indolent and com- 
 plaining. We respect the man of laborious 
 desire, but let us not suppose that his restless- 
 ness is peace, or his ambition meekness. It is 
 because of the special connexion of meekness 
 with contentment that it is promised that the 
 meek shall " inherit the earth." Neither covet- 
 ous men nor the Grave, can inherit anything;* 
 they can but consume. Only contentment can 
 possess. 
 
 The most helpful and sacred work, therefore^ 
 which can at present be done for humanity, is to 
 teach people (chiefly by example, as all best 
 teaching must be done) not how " to better 
 themselves," but how to "satisfy themselves." 
 
 * •• There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, 
 four things say not, It is enough: the grave; and the bar- 
 ren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the 
 fire, that saith not, It is enough !" 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGnrS. 7 
 
 It is the curse of every evil nation and evil 
 creature to eat, and not be satisfied. The words 
 of blessing are, that they shall eat and be satis- 
 fied. And as there is only one kind of water 
 which quenches all thirst, so there is only one 
 kind of bread which satisfies all hunger, the 
 bread of justice or righteousness; which hunger- 
 ing after, men shall always be filled, that being 
 the bread of Heaven; but hungering after the 
 bread, or wages, of unrighteousness, shall not be 
 filled, that being the bread of Sodom. 
 
 And, in order to teach men how to be satis- 
 fied, it is necessary fully to understand the art 
 and joy of humble life, — this, at present, of all 
 arts or sciences being the one most needing 
 study. Humble life — that is to say, proposing 
 to itself no future exaltation, but only a sweet 
 continuance; not excluding the idea of fore- 
 sight, but wholly of fore-sorrow, and taking no 
 troublous thought for coming days: so, also, not 
 excluding the idea of providence, or provision,* 
 but wholly of accumulation; — the life of domes- 
 tic affection and domestic peace, full of sensi- 
 tiveness to all elements of costless and kind 
 pleasure; — therefore, chiefly to the loveliness of 
 the natural world. . '' ^ 
 
 * A bad word, being only "foresight" again in Latin; 
 but we have no other good English word for the sense 
 into which it has been warped. 
 
8 PRECIOUS THOraUTS. 
 
 What length and severity of labour may be 
 ultimately found necessary for the procuring of 
 the due comforts of life, I do not know; neither 
 what degree of refinement it is possible to unite 
 with the so-called servile occupations of life: but 
 this I know, that right economy of labour will, 
 as it is understood, assign to each man as much 
 as will be healthy for him, and no more; and 
 that no refinements are desirable which cannot 
 be connected with toil. 
 
 GREATNESS AND MINUTENESS. 
 
 In one sense, and that deep, there is no such 
 thing as magnitude. The least thing is as the 
 greatest, and one day as a thousand years, in the 
 eyes of the Maker of great and small things. In 
 another sense, and that close to us and neces- 
 sary, there exist both magnitude and value. 
 Though not a sparrow falls to the ground un- 
 noted, there are yet creatures who are of more 
 value than many; and the same Spirit which 
 weighs the dust of the earth in a balance, 
 counts the isles as a little thing. 
 
 The just temper of human mind in this matter 
 may, nevertheless, be told shortly. Greatness 
 can only be rightly estimated when minuteness 
 is justly reverenced. Greatness is the aggrega- 
 
J'A'J:C7urs THOUGHTS. 9 
 
 tion of minuteness; nor can its sublimity be felt 
 truthfully by any mind unaccustomed to the 
 affectionate watching of what is least. 
 
 I have noticed lately, that some lightly-bud- 
 ding philosophers have depreciated true great- 
 ness; confusing the relations of scale, as they 
 bear upon human instinct and morality; reason- 
 ing as if a mountain were no nobler than a grain 
 of sand, or as if many souls were not of mightier 
 interest than one. To whom it must be shortly 
 answered that the Lord of power and life knew 
 which were His noblest works, when He bade 
 His servant watch the play of the Leviathan, 
 rather than dissect the spawn of the minnow; 
 and that when it comes to practical question 
 whether a single soul is to be jeoparded for 
 many, and this Leonidas, or Curtius, or Win- 
 kelried shall abolish — so far as abolishable — his 
 own spirit, that he may save more numerous 
 spirits, such question is to be solved by the 
 simple human instinct respecting number and 
 magnitude, not by reasonings on infinity. 
 
 THE ANGEL OF THE SEA. 
 
 The great Angel of the Sea — rain; — the Angel 
 observe, the messenger sent to a special place on 
 a special errand. Not the diffused perpetual 
 
lO PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 presence of the burden of mist, but the going 
 and returning of intermittent cloud. All turns 
 upon that intermittence. Soft moss on stone 
 and rock; — cave-fern of tangled glen; — wayside 
 well — perennial, patient, silent, clear; stealing 
 through its square font of rough-hewn stone; 
 ever thus deep — no more — ^which the winter 
 wreck sullies not, the summer thirst wastes not, 
 incapable of stain as of decline — where the fallen 
 leaf floats undecayed, and the insect darts un- 
 denling. Cressed brook and ever-eddying river, 
 lifted even in flood scarcely over its stepping- 
 stones, — but through all sweet summer keeping 
 tremulous music with harp-strings of dark water 
 among the silver fingering of the pebbles. Far 
 away in the south the strong river Gods have all 
 hasted, and gone down to the sea. Wasted and 
 burning, white furnaces of blasting sand, their 
 broad beds lie ghastly and bare; but here the 
 soft wings of the Sea Angel droop still with 
 dew, and the shadov/s of their plumes falter on 
 the hills: strange laughings, and glitterings of 
 silver streamlets, born suddenly, and twined 
 about the mossy heights in trickling tinsel, 
 answering to them as they wave. 
 
 Nor are those wings colourless. We habitually 
 think of the rain-cloud only as dark and gray; 
 not knowing that we owe to it perhaps the fair- 
 est, though not the most dazzling of the hues 
 
PRE CIO US 711 UGII TS. I T 
 
 of heaven. Often in our English mornings, llie 
 rain-clouds in the dawn form soft level fields, 
 which melt imperceptibly into the blue; or 
 when of less extent, gather into apparent bars, 
 crossing the sheets of broader cloud above; and 
 all these bathed throughout in an unspeakable 
 light of pure rose-colour, and purple, and amber, 
 and blue; not shining, but misty-soft; the barred 
 masses, when seen nearer, composed of clusters 
 or tresses of cloud, like floss silk; looking as if 
 each knot were a little swathe or sheaf of lighted 
 rain. No clouds form such skies, none are so 
 tender, various, inimitable. 
 
 For these are the robes of love of the Angel 
 of the Sea. To these that name is chiefly given, 
 the " spreadings of the clouds," from their ex- 
 tent, their gentleness, their fulness of rain. 
 Note how they are spoken of in Job, xxxvi. v. 
 29-31. "By them judgeth he the people; he 
 giveth meat in abundance. With clouds he 
 covereth the light. He hath hidden the light 
 in his hands, and commanded that it should re- 
 turn. He speaks of it to his friend; that it is his 
 possession, and that he may ascend thereto." 
 
 That, then, is the Sea Angel's message to 
 God's friends; that^ the meaning of those strange 
 golden lights and purple flushes before the 
 morning rain. The rain is sent to judge and 
 feed us; but the light is the possession of the 
 
12 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 friends of God, and they may ascend thereto, — 
 where the tabernacle veil will cross and part its 
 rays no more. 
 
 PINE TREES. 
 
 Magnificent! — nay, sometimes, almost terrible. 
 Other trees, tufting crag or hill, yield to the 
 form and sway of the ground, clothe it with soft 
 compliance, are partly its subjects, partly its flat- 
 terers, partly its comforters. But the pine rises 
 in serene resistance; self-contained; nor can I 
 ever without awe stay long under a great Alpine 
 cliff, far from all house or work of men, looking 
 up to its companies of pine, as they stand on the 
 inaccessible juts and perilous ledges of the enor- 
 mous wall, in quiet multitudes, each like the 
 shadow of the one beside it — upright, fixed, 
 spectral, as troops of ghosts standing on the walls 
 of Hades, not knowing each other — dumb for 
 ever. You cannot reach them, cannot cry to 
 them; — those trees never heard human voice; 
 they are far above all sound but of the winds. 
 No foot ever stirred fallen leaf of theirs. All 
 comfortless they stand, between the two eter- 
 nities of the Vacancy and the Rock: yet with 
 such iron will, that the rock itself looks bent and 
 shattered beside them — fragile, weak, inconsist- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHrS. 1 3 
 
 ent, compared to their dark energy of delicate 
 life, and monotony of enchanted pride: — unnum- 
 bered, unconquerable. 
 
 LESSONS FROM LEAVES. 
 
 We men, sometimes, in what we presume to be 
 humility, compare ourselves with leaves; but we 
 have as yet no right to do so. The leaves may 
 well scorn the comparison. We who live for 
 ourselves, and neither know how to use nor keep 
 the work of past time, may humbly learn, — as 
 from the ant, foresight, — from the leaf, reverence. 
 The power of every great people, as of every 
 living tree, depends on its not effacing, but con- 
 firming and concluding, the labours of its ances- 
 tors. Looking back to the history of nations, 
 we may date the beginning of their decline from 
 the moment when they ceased to be reverent in 
 heart, and accumulative in hand and brain; 
 from the moment when the redundant fruit of 
 age hid in them the hollowness of heart, whence 
 the simplicities of custom and sinews of tradi- 
 tion had withered away. Had men but guarded 
 the righteous laws, and protected the precious 
 works of their fathers, with half the industry 
 they have given to change and to ravage, they 
 would not now have been seeking vainly, in 
 millennial visions and mechanic servitudes, the 
 
14 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 accomplishment of the promise made to them 
 so long ago : " As the days of a tree are the days 
 of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the 
 work of their hands; they shall not labour in vain, 
 nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed 
 of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring 
 with them." 
 
 This lesson we have to take from the leaf's 
 life. One more we may receive from its death. 
 If ever, in autumn, a pensiveness falls upon us 
 as the leaves drift by in their fading, may we not 
 wisely look up in hope to their mighty monu- 
 ments? Behold how fair, how far prolonged, in 
 arch and aisle, the avenues of the valleys; the 
 fringes of the hills I So stately, — so eternal; 
 the joy of man, the comfort of all living creatures, 
 the glory of the earth, — they are but the monu- 
 ments of those poor leaves that flit faintly past 
 us to die. Let them not pass, without our un- 
 derstanding their last counsel and example: that 
 we also, careless of monmnent by the grave, may 
 build it in the world — monument by which men 
 may be taught to remember, not where we died, 
 but where we lived. 
 
 MYSTERY AND UNITY. 
 
 This system of braided or woven ornament 
 was not confined to the Arabs; it is universally 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1$ 
 
 pleasing to the instinct of mankind. 1 believe 
 that nearly all early ornamentation is full of it, — 
 more especially, perhaps, Scandinavian and An- 
 glo-Saxon; and illuminated manuscripts depend 
 upon it for their loveliest effects of intricate 
 colour, up to the close of the thirteenth century. 
 There are several very interesting metaphysical 
 reasons for this strange and unfailing delight, 
 felt in a thing so simple. It is not often that any 
 idea of utility has power to enhance the true im- 
 pressions of beauty; but it is possible that the 
 enormous importance of the art of weaving to 
 mankind may give some interest, if not actual 
 attractiveness, to any type or image of the inven- 
 tion to which we owe, at once, our comfort and 
 our pride. But the more profound reason lies in 
 the innate love of mystery and unity; in the joy 
 ';hat the human mind has in contemplating any 
 kind of maze or entanglement, so long as it can 
 discern through its confusion, any guiding clue 
 or connecting plan: a pleasure increased and 
 solemnized by some dim feeling of the setting 
 forth, by such symbols, of the intricacy, and al- 
 ternate rise and fall, subjection and supremacy, 
 Vf human fortune; the 
 
 "Weave the warp, and weave the woof," 
 of Fate and Time. 
 
1 6 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 IMPERFECTION. 
 
 Imperfection is in some sort essential to all 
 ■that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a 
 mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress 
 and change. Nothing that lives is, or can b^ 
 rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part na, 
 scent. The foxglove blossom, — a third part bud, 
 a third part past, a third part in full bloom, — 
 is a type of the life of this world. And in all 
 things that live there are certain irregularities 
 and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, 
 but sources of beauty. No human face is exact- 
 ly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf per- 
 fect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All 
 admit irregularity as they imply change; and to 
 banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to 
 check exertion, to paralyse vitality. All things 
 are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for 
 the imperfections which have been divinely ap- 
 pointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, 
 and the law of human judgment, Mercy. 
 
 SUBLIMITY. 
 
 Impressions of awe and sorrow being at the 
 root of the sensation of sublimity, and the beauty 
 of separate flowers not being of the kind which 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 7 
 
 connects itself with such sensation, there is a 
 wide distinction, in general, between flower-lov- 
 ing minds and minds of the highest order. 
 
 THE HUMBLEST OF THE EARTH-CHILDREN. 
 
 Lichen, and mosses (though these last in thei? 
 luxuriance are deep and rich as herbage, yet both 
 for the most part humblest of the green things 
 that live), — how of these? Meek creatures! the 
 first mercy of the earth, veiling with hushed 
 softness its dintless rocks; creatures full of pity, 
 covering with strange and tender honour the 
 scarred disgrace of ruin, — laying quiet finger on 
 the trembling stones, to teach them rest. No 
 words, that I know of, will say what these mosses 
 are. None are delicate enough, none perfect 
 enough, none rich enough. How is one to tell 
 of the rounded bosses of furred and beaming 
 green, — the starred divisions of rubied bloom, 
 fine-filmed, as if the Rock Spirits could spin 
 porphyry as we do glass, — the traceries of intri- 
 cate silver, and fringes of amber, lustrous, arbo- 
 rescent, burnished through every fibre into fitful 
 brightness and glossy traverses of silken change, 
 yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for 
 simplest, sweetest offices of grace. They will 
 
l8 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 not be gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet or 
 love-token; but of these the wild bird will make 
 its nest, and the wearied child his pillow. 
 
 And, as the earth's first mercy, so they are its 
 last gift to us. When all other service is vain, 
 from plant and tree, the soft mosses and gray 
 lichen take up their watch by the headstone. 
 The woods, the blossoms, • the gift-bearing 
 grasses, have done their parts for a time, but 
 these do service for ever. Trees for the builder's 
 yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, corn for 
 the granary, moss for the grave. 
 
 Yet as in one sense the humblest, in another 
 they are the most honoured of the earth-children. 
 Unfading, as motionless, the worm frets them 
 not, and the autumn wastes not. Strong in 
 lowliness, they neither blanch in heat nor pine 
 in frost. To them slow-fingered, constant- 
 hearted, is entrusted the weaving of the dark, 
 eternal, tapestries of the hills; to them, slow- 
 pencilled, iris-dyed, the tender framing of their 
 endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the 
 unimpassioned rock, they share also its endur- 
 ance; and while the winds of departing spring 
 scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted 
 snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow 
 the drooping of its cowslip-gold, — far above, 
 among the mountains, the silver lichen spots 
 rest, star-like on the stone, and the gathering 
 
PA'ECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 9 
 
 orange-Stain upon the edge of yonder western 
 peak, reflects the sunsets of a thousand years. 
 
 JUDGMENT, MERCY, AND TRUTH. 
 
 When people read," the law came by Moses, 
 but grace and truth by Christ," do they suppose 
 that the law was ungracious and untrue? The 
 law was given for a foundation; the grace (or 
 mercy) and truth for fulfilment; — the whole 
 forming one glorious Trinity of judgment, mercy, 
 and truth. And if people would but read the 
 text of their Bibles with heartier purpose of un- 
 derstanding it, instead of superstitiously, they 
 would see that throughout the parts which they 
 are intended to make most personally their own 
 (the Psalms) it is always the Law which is 
 spoken of with chief joy. The Psalms respect- 
 ing mercy are often sorrowful, as in thought of 
 what it cost; but those respecting the law are 
 always full of delight. David cannot contain 
 himself for joy in thinking of it, — he is never 
 weary of its praise: — " How love I thy law! it is 
 my meditation all the day. Thy testimonies 
 are my delight and my counsellors; sweeter, also, 
 than honey and the honeycomb." 
 
20 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 DOERS. 
 
 Men in their several professed employments, 
 looked at broadly, may be properly arranged 
 under five classes: — 
 
 1. Persons who see. These in modem lan- 
 guage are sometimes called sight-seers, that be- 
 ing an occupation coming more and more into 
 vogue every day. Anciently they used to be 
 called, simply, seers. 
 
 2. Persons who talk. These, in modern lan- 
 guage, are usually called talkers, or speakers, as 
 in the House of Commons, and elsewhere. They 
 used to be called prophets. 
 
 3. Persons who make. These, in modern lan- 
 guage, are usually called manufacturers. An- 
 ciently they were called poets. 
 
 4. Persons who think. There seems to be no 
 very distinct modern title for this kind of per- 
 son, anciently called philosophers; nevertheless 
 we have a few of them among us. 
 
 Of the first two classes I have only this to 
 note, — that we ought neither to say that a person 
 sees, if he sees falsely, nor speaks, if he speaks 
 falsely. For seeing falsely is worse than blind- 
 ness, and speaking falsely, than silence. A man 
 who is too dim-sighted to discern the road from 
 the ditch, may feel which is which; — but if the 
 ditch appears manifestly to him to be the road. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 21 
 
 and the road to be the ditch, what sliall l^ecome 
 of him? False seeing is unseeing, — on the nega- 
 tive side of blindness; and f:ilse speaking, un- 
 speaking, — on the negative side of silence. 
 
 To the persons who think, also, the same test 
 applies very shrewdly. Theirs is a dangerous 
 profession; and from the |^time of the Aristoph- 
 anes thought-shop to the great German estab- 
 lishment, or thought-manufactory, whose pro- 
 ductions have, unhappily, taken in part the place 
 of the older and more serviceable commodities 
 of Nuremberg toys and Berlin wool, it has been 
 often harmful enough to mankind. It should 
 not be so, for a false thought is more distinctly 
 and visibly no thought than a false saying is no 
 saying. But it is touching the two great produc- 
 tive classes of the doers and makers, that we 
 have one or two important points to note here. 
 
 Has the reader ever considered, carefully, 
 what is the meaning of the word " doing"? 
 When, accidentally or mechanically, events take 
 place without a purpose, we have indeed effects 
 or results, and agents or causes, but neither deeds 
 nor doers. 
 
 Now it so happens, as we all well know, that 
 by far the largest part of things happening in 
 practical life are brought about with no deliber- 
 ate purpose. There are always a number of 
 people who have the nature of stones; they fall 
 
22 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 on other persons and crush them. Some again 
 have the nature of weeds, and twist about other 
 people's feet and entangle them. More have the 
 nature of logs, and lie in the way, so that every- 
 one falls over them. And most of all have the 
 nature of thorns, and set themselves by waysides, 
 so that every passer-by must be torn, and all 
 good seed choked; or perhaps make wonderful 
 crackling under various pots, even to the extent 
 of practically boiling water and working pistons. 
 All these people produce immense and sorrowful 
 effect in the world. Yet none of them are 
 doers: it is their nature to crush, impede, and 
 prick: but deed is not in them.* 
 
 And farther, observe, that even when some 
 effect is finally intended, you cannot call it the 
 person's deed, unless it is what he intended. 
 
 If an ignorant person, purposing evil, acci- 
 dentally does good (as if a thief's disturbing a 
 family should lead them to discover in time that 
 their house was on fire); or vice versa if an igno- 
 rant person intending good, accidentally does evil 
 
 * We may, perhaps, expediently recollect as much of 
 our botany as to teach us that there may be sharp and 
 rough persons, like spines, who yet have good in them, 
 and are essentially branches, and can bud. But the true 
 thorny person is no spine, only an excrescence; rootless 
 evermore, — leafless evermore. No crown made of such 
 can ever meet glory of Angel's hand. (In Memoriam, 
 Ixviii.) 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 25 
 
 (as if a child should give hemlock to his com- 
 panions for celery), in neither case do you call 
 them the doers of what may result. So that in 
 order to a true deed, it is necessary that the 
 effect of it should be foreseen. Which, ulti- 
 mately, it cannot be, but by a person who knows, 
 and in his deed obeys, the laws of the universe, 
 and of its Maker. And this knowledge is in its 
 highest form, respecting the will of the Ruling 
 Spirit, called Trust. For it is not the knowl- 
 edge that a thing is, but that, according to the 
 promise and nature of the Ruling Spirit, a thing 
 will be. Also obedience in its highest form is 
 not obedience to a constant and compulsory law, 
 but a persuaded or voluntary yielded obedience 
 to an issued command. 
 
 And because in His doing always certain, and 
 in His speaking always true. His name who leads 
 the armies of Heaven is ''' Faithful and True," 
 and all deeds which are done in alliance with 
 those armies, be they small or great, are essen- 
 tially deeds oi faith ^ which therefore, and in this 
 one stern, eternal sense, subdues all kingdoms, 
 and turns to flight the armies of the aliens, and 
 is at once the source and substance of all human 
 deed, rightly so-called. 
 
 What, let us ask next, is the ruling character 
 of the person who produces — the creator or 
 maker, anciently called the poet? 
 
24 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 We have seen what a deed is. What then is a 
 " creation "? Nay, it may be replied, to " create " 
 cannot be said of man's labour. 
 
 On the contrary, it not only can be said, but 
 is and must be said continually. You certainly 
 do not talk of creating a watch, or creating a 
 shoe; nevertheless you do talk of creating a feel- 
 ing. Why is this? 
 
 Look back to the greatest of all creation, that 
 of the world. Suppose the trees had been ever 
 so well or so ingeniously put together, stem and 
 leaf, yet if they had not been able to grow, 
 would they have been well created? Or suppose 
 the fish had been cut and stitched finely out of 
 skin and whalebone; yet, cast upon the waters, 
 had not been able to swim? Or suppose Adam 
 and Eve had been made in the softest clay, ever 
 so neatly, and set at the foot of the tree of 
 knowledge, fastened up to it, quite unable to 
 fall, or do anything else, would they have been 
 well created, or in any true sense created at all? 
 
 It will, perhaps, appear to you, after a little 
 farther thought, that to create anything in reality 
 is to put life into it. 
 
 A poet, or creator, is therefore a person who 
 puts things together, not as a watchmaker steel, 
 or a shoemaker leather, but who puts life into 
 them. 
 
 His work is essentially tJiis: it is the gathering 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 2$ 
 
 and arranging of material by imagination, so as 
 to have in it at last the harmony or helpfulness 
 of life, and the passion or emotion of life. Mere 
 fitting and adjustment of material is nothing; 
 that is watchmaking. But helpful and passion- 
 ate harmony, essentially choral harmony, so- 
 called from the Greek word "rejoicing," is the 
 harmony of Apollo and the Muses; the word 
 Muse and Mother being derived from the same 
 root, meaning " passionate seeking," or love, of 
 which the issue is passionate finding, or sacred 
 INVENTION. For which reason I could not bear 
 to use any baser word than this of invention. 
 And if the reader will think over all these 
 things, and follow them out, as I think he may 
 easily with this much of clue given him, he will 
 not any more think it wrong in me to place in- 
 vention so high among the powers of man, 
 or any more think it strange that the 'Mast act 
 of the life of Socrates should have been to purify 
 himself from the sin of having negligently lis- 
 tened to the voice within him, which, through all 
 his past life, had bid him labour, and make 
 harmony." 
 
 THE HELPFUL, OR THE HOLY ONE. 
 
 When matter is either consistent, or living, we 
 call it pure, or clean; when inconsistent, or cor- 
 
26 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 rupting (unhelpful), we call it impure, or unclean. 
 The greatest uncleanliness being that which is 
 essentially most opposite to life. 
 
 Life and consistency, then, both expressing 
 one character (namely, helpfulness, of a higher 
 or lower order), the Maker of all creatures and 
 things, "by whom all creatures live, and all 
 things consist," is essentially and for ever the 
 Helpful One, or in softer Saxon, the " Holy" 
 One. 
 
 The word has no other ultimate meaning: 
 Helpful, harmless, undefiled: " living" or " Lord 
 of Life." 
 
 The idea is clear and mighty in the cherubim's 
 cry: " Helpful, helpful, helpful. Lord God of 
 Hosts;" i.e. of all the hosts, armies, and creatures 
 of the earth. 
 
 A pure or holy state of anything, therefore, is 
 that in which all its parts are helpful or consist- 
 ent. They may or may not be homogeneous. 
 The highest or organic purities are composed 
 of many elements in an entirely helpful state. 
 The highest and first law of the universe — and 
 the other name of life, is, therefore, "help." 
 The other name of death is "separation." 
 Government and co-operation are in all things 
 and eternally the laws of life. Anarchy and 
 competition eternally, and in all things, the laws 
 of death. 
 
PRECIOUS TJIOLGHTS. 2 J 
 
 ST. MARK. 
 
 " And so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto 
 Cyprus." If as the shores of Asia lessened upon 
 his sight, the spirit of prophecy had entered into 
 the heart of the weak disciple who had turned 
 back when his hand was on the plough, and who 
 had been judged, by the chiefest of Christ's 
 captains, unworthy thenceforward to go forth 
 with him to the work,* how wonderful would he 
 have thought it, that by the lion symbol in 
 future ages he was to be represented among 
 men! how woful, that the war-cry of his name 
 should so often reanimate the rage of the soldier, 
 on those very plains where he himself had failed 
 in the courage of the Christian, and so often dye 
 with fruitless blood that very Cypriot Sea, over 
 whose waves, in repentance and shame, he was 
 following the Son of Consolation! 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF CLEARNESS. 
 
 In an Italian twilight, when, sixty or eighty 
 miles away, the ridge of the Western Alps rises 
 in its dark and serrated blue against the crystal- 
 line vermilion, there is still unsearchableness, but 
 
 * Acts xiii. 13; XV. 38, 39. 
 
28 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 an unsearchableness without cloud or conceal- 
 ment, — an infinite unknown, but no sense of any 
 veil or interference between us and it: we are 
 separated from it not by any anger or storm, 
 not by any vain and fading vapour, but only by 
 the deep infinity of the thing itself. I find that 
 the great religious painters rejoiced in that kind 
 of unknowableness, and in that only; and I feel 
 that even if they had had all the power to do so, 
 still they would not have put rosy mists and 
 blue shadows behind their sacred figures, but 
 only the far-away sky and cloudless mountains. 
 Probably the right conclusion is that the clear 
 and cloudy mysteries are alike noble; but that 
 the beauty of the wreaths of frost mist, folded 
 over banks of greensward deep in dew, and 
 of the purple clouds of evening, and the wreaths 
 of fitful vapour gliding through groves of pine, 
 and irised around the pillars of waterfalls, is 
 more or less typical of the kind of joy which we 
 should take in the imperfect knowledge granted 
 to the earthly life, while the serene and cloudless 
 mysteries set forth that belonging to the re- 
 deemed life. 
 
 PARTIAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Our happiness as thinking beings must depend 
 on our being content to accept only partial 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 29 
 
 knowledge, even in those matters which chiefly 
 concern us. If we insist upon perfect intelligi- 
 bility and complete declaration in every moral 
 subject, we shall instantly fall into misery of un- 
 belief. Our whole happiness and power of en- 
 ergetic action depend upon our being able to 
 breathe and live in the cloud; content to see it 
 opening here and closing there; rejoicing to 
 catch, through the thinnest films of it, glimpses 
 of stable and substantial things; but yet per- 
 ceiving a nobleness even in the concealment, 
 and rejoicing that the kindly veil is spread where 
 the untempered light might have scorched us, 
 or the infinite clearness wearied. 
 
 JUST CRITICISM. 
 
 Men have commonly more pleasure in the 
 criticism which hurts than in that which is in- 
 nocuous, and are more tolerant of the severity 
 which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes, than of 
 that which falls impotently on the grave. 
 
 And thus well says the good and deep-minded 
 Richard Hooker: " To the best and wisest, 
 while they live, the world is continually a 
 froward opposite; and a curious observer of 
 their defects and imperfections, their virtues 
 afterwards it as much admireth. And for this 
 
30 rRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 cause, many times that which deserveth admira- 
 tion would hardly be able to find favour, if they 
 which propose it were not content to profess 
 themselves therein scholars and followers of the 
 ancient. For the world will not endure to hear 
 that we are wiser than any have been which 
 went before." — Book v. ch. vii. 3. He therefore 
 who would maintain the cause of contemporary 
 excellence against that of elder time, must have 
 almost every class of men arrayed against him. 
 The generous, because they would not find mat- 
 ter of accusation against established dignities; 
 the envious, because they like not the sound of 
 a living man's praise; the wise, because they 
 prefer the opinion of centuries to that of days; 
 and the foolish, because they are incapable of 
 forming an opinion of their own. Obloquy so 
 universal is not lightly to be risked, and the few 
 who make an effort to stem the torrent, as it is 
 made commonly in favour of th^ir own works, 
 deserve the contempt which is their only reward. 
 
 THE NEBUCHADNEZZAR CURSE. 
 
 Though God " hath made everything beauti- 
 ful in his time, also he hath set the world in 
 their heart, so that no man can find out the 
 work that God maketh from the beginning to 
 the end." 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 31 
 
 This Nebuchadnezzar curse, that sends us to 
 grass like oxen, seems to follow but too closely 
 on the excess or continuance of national power 
 and peace. In the perplexities of nations, in 
 their struggles for existence, in their infancy, 
 their impotence, or even their disorganization, 
 they have higher hopes and nobler passions. 
 Out of the suffering comes the serious mind; out 
 of the salvation, the grateful heart; out of the 
 endurance, the fortitude; out of the deliver- 
 ance, the faith; but now when they have learned 
 to live under providence of laws, and with 
 decency and justice of regard for each other; 
 and when they have done away with violent and 
 external sources of suffering, worse evils seem 
 arising out of their rest, evils that vex less and 
 mortify more, that suck the blood though they 
 do not shed it, and ossify the heart though they 
 do not torture it. 
 
 m 
 
 OPPRESSION OF THE POOR. 
 
 You cannot but have noticed how often 
 those parts of the Bible which are likely to be 
 oftenest opened when people look for guidance, 
 comfort, or help in the affairs of daily life, 
 namely, the Psalms and Proverbs, mention is 
 made of the guilt attaching to the 0[^prcssion of 
 
32 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 the poor. Observe: not the neglect of them, 
 but the Oppression of them; the word is as fre- 
 quent as it is strange. You can hardly open 
 either of those books, but somewhere in their 
 pages you will find a description of the wicked 
 man's attempts against the poor, such as — " He 
 doth ravish the poor when he getteth him into 
 his net." 
 
 " His mouth is full of deceit and fraud; in 
 the secret places doth he murder the innocent." 
 
 " They are corrupt, and speak wickedly con- 
 cerning oppression." 
 
 " Their poison is like the poison of a serpent. 
 Ye weigh the violence of your hands in the 
 earth." 
 
 Yes: " Ye weigh the violence of your hands;" 
 weigh these words as well. The last things we 
 usually think of weighing are Bible words. We 
 like to dream and dispute over them, but to 
 weigh them and see what their true contents are 
 — anything but that! Yet weigh them; for I 
 have purposely taken these verses, perhaps more 
 strikingly to you read in this connexion, than 
 separately in their places out of the Psalms, be- 
 cause, for all people belonging to the Estab- 
 lished Church of this country these Psalms are 
 appointed lessons, portioned out to them by their 
 clergy to be read once through every month. Pre- 
 sumably, therefore, whatever portions of Scrip- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 33 
 
 ture we may pass by or forget, these, at all 
 events, must be brought continually to our ob- 
 servance as useful for direction of daily life. 
 Now, do we ever ask ourselves what the real 
 meaning of these passages may be, and who 
 these wicked people are, who are " murdering 
 the innocent"? You know it is rather singular 
 language this! — rather strong language, we 
 might, perhaps, call it — hearing it for the first 
 time. Murder! and murder of innocent people!-. 
 — nay, even a sort of cannibalism. Eating peo- 
 ple, — yes, and God's people, too — eating My 
 people as if they were bread! swords drawn, 
 bows bent, poison of serpents mixed! violence 
 of hands weighed, measured, and trafficked with 
 as so much coin! where is all this going on? 
 Do you suppose it was only going on in the time 
 of David, and that nobody but Jews ever mur- 
 der the poor? If so, it would surely be wiser 
 not to mutter and mumble for our daily lessons 
 what does not concern us; but if there be any 
 chance that it may concern us, and if this de- 
 scription, in the Psalms, of human guilt is at all 
 generally applicable, as the descriptions in the 
 Psalms of human sorrow are, may it not be ad- 
 visable to know wherein this guilt is being com- 
 mitted round about us, or by ourselves? and 
 when we take the words of the Bible into out 
 mouths in a congregational way, to be sure 
 
34 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 whether we mean sincerely to chant a piece of 
 melodious poetry relating to other people (we 
 know not exactly whom) — or to assert our be- 
 lief in facts bearing somewhat astringently on 
 ourselves and our daily business. And if you 
 make up your minds to do this no longer, and 
 take pains to examine into the matter, you will 
 find that these strange words, occurring as they 
 do, not in a few places only, but almost in every 
 alternate psalm, and every alternate chapter of 
 Proverbs or prophecy, with tremendous reitera- 
 tion, were not written for one nation or one 
 time only, but for all nations and languages, for 
 all places and all centuries; and it is as true of 
 the wicked man now as ever it was of Nabal or 
 Dives, that "his eyes are set against the poor." 
 
 WHO ARE THE POOR? 
 
 May we not advisedly look into this matter a 
 little, and ask, ^ho are the poor? 
 
 No country is, or ever will be, without them: 
 that is to say, without the class which cannot, 
 on the average, do more by its labour than pro- 
 vide for its subsistence, and which has no ac- 
 cumulations of property laid by on any consid- 
 erable scale. Now there are a certain number 
 of this class whom we cannot oppress with much 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 35 
 
 severity. An able-bodied and intelligent work- 
 man — sober, honest, and industrious, will almost 
 always command a fair price for his work, and 
 lay by enough in a few years to enable him to 
 hold his own in the labour market. But all men 
 are not able-bodied, nor intelligent, nor indus- 
 trious; and you cannot expect them to be. 
 Nothing appears to me at once more ludicrous 
 and more melancholy than the way the people 
 of the present age usually talk about the morals 
 of labourers. You hardly ever address a labour- 
 ing man upon his prospects in life, without 
 quietly assuming that he is to possess, at start- 
 ing, as a small moral capital to begin with, the 
 virtue of Socrates, the philosophy of Plato, and 
 the heroism of Epaminondas. " Be assured, my 
 good man," — you say to him, — " that if you 
 work steadily for ten hours a day all your life 
 long, and if you drink nothing but water, or the 
 very mildest beer, and live on very plain food, 
 and never lose your temper, and go to church 
 every Sunday, and always remai^j content in the 
 position in which Providence has placed you, 
 and never grumble, nor swear, and always keep 
 your clothes decent, and rise early, and use 
 every opportunity of improving yourself, you 
 will get on very well, and never come to the par- 
 ish." 
 
 All this is exceedingly true; but before giving 
 
36 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 the advice so confidently, it would be well if we 
 sometimes tried it practically ourselves, and 
 spent a year or so at some hard manual labour, not 
 of an entertaining kind — ploughing or digging, 
 for instance, with a very moderate allowance of 
 beer; nothing but bread and cheese for dinner; 
 no papers nor muffins in the morning; no sofas 
 nor magazines at night; one small room for 
 parlour and kitchen; and a large family of chil- 
 dren always in the middle of the floor. If we 
 think we could, under these circumstances, en- 
 act Socrates or Epaminondas entirely to our 
 own satisfaction, we shall be somewhat justified 
 in requiring the same behaviour from our poorer 
 neighbours; but if not, we should surely consider 
 whether among the various forms of oppression 
 of the poor, we may not rank as one of the first 
 and likeliest — the oppression of expecting too 
 much from them. 
 
 But there will always be some in the world 
 who are not altogether intelligent and exem- 
 plary, and occasionally drunk on Saturday night, 
 and who like sleep on Sunday morning better 
 than prayers, and of unnatural parents who send 
 their children out to beg instead of to go to 
 school. 
 
 Now these are the kind of people whom you 
 can oppress, and whom you do oppress, and that 
 to purpose, — and with all the more cruelty and 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 37 
 
 the greater sting, because it is just their own 
 fault that puts them into your power. You 
 know the words about wicked people are, " He 
 doth ravish the poor when he getteth him into 
 his net'' This getting into the net is constantly 
 the fault or folly of the sufferer — his own heed- 
 lessness or his own indolence; but after he is 
 once in the net, the oppression of him, and mak- 
 ing the most of his distress, are ours. The nets 
 which we use against the poor are just those 
 worldly embarrassments which either their igno- 
 rance or their improvidence are almost certain 
 at some time or other to bring them into: then, 
 just at the time when we ought to hasten to help 
 them, and disentangle them, and teach them 
 how to manage better in future, we rush forward 
 to pillage them, and force all we can out of them 
 in their adversity. For, to take one instance 
 only, remember this is literally and simply what 
 we do, whenever we buy, or try to buy, cheap 
 goods — goods offered at a price which we know 
 cannot be remunerative for the labour involved 
 in them. Whenever we buy such goods, remem- 
 ber we are stealing somebody's labour. Don't 
 let us mince the matter. I say, in plain Saxon, 
 STEALING — taking from him the proper reward 
 of his work, and putting it into our own pocket. 
 You know well enough that the thing could not 
 have been offered you at that price, unless dis- 
 
38 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 tress of some kind had forced the producer to 
 part with it. You take advantage of this dis- 
 tress, and you force as much out of him as you 
 can under the circumstances. The old barons 
 of the middle ages used, in general, the thumb- 
 screw to extort property; we moderns, hunger 
 or domestic affliction, but the fact of extortion 
 remains precisely the same. Whether we force 
 the man's property by pinching his stomach or 
 pinching his fingers, makes some difference an- 
 atomically; morally, none whatever. We use a 
 form of torture of some sort in order to make 
 him give up his property. 
 
 MERCANTILE PANICS. 
 
 No merchant deserving the name ought to be 
 more liable to a " panic" than a soldier should; 
 for his name should never be on more paper than 
 he could at any instant meet the call of, happen 
 what will. I do not say this without feeling at 
 the same time how difficult it is to mark, in ex- 
 isting commerce, the just limits between the 
 spirit of enterprise and of speculation. Some- 
 thing of the same temper which makes the Eng- 
 lish soldier do always all that is possible, and 
 attempt more than is possible, joins its influence 
 with that of mere avarice in tempting the Eng- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 39 
 
 lish merchant into risks which he cannot justify, 
 and elTorts which he cannot sustain; and the 
 same passion for adventure which our travellers 
 gratify every summer on perilous snow wreaths, 
 and cloud-encompassed precipices, surrounds 
 with a romantic fascination the glittering of a 
 hollow investment, and gilds the clouds that 
 curl round gulfs of ruin. Nay, a higher and a 
 more serious feeling frequently mingles in the 
 motley temptation; and men apply themselves 
 to the task of growing rich, as to a labour of 
 providential appointment, from which they can- 
 not pause without culpability, nor retire without 
 dishonour. Our large trading cities bear to me 
 very nearly the aspect of monastic establishments 
 in which the roar of the mill-wheel and the crane 
 takes the place of other devotional music: and 
 in which the worship of Mammon and Moloch is 
 conducted with a tender reverence and an exact 
 propriety: the merchant rising to his Mammon 
 matins with the self-denial of an anchorite, and 
 expiating the frivolities into which he may be 
 beguiled in the course of the day by late attend- 
 ance at Mammon vespers. But, with every al- 
 lowance that can be made for these conscientious 
 and romantic persons, the fact remains the same, 
 that by far the greater number of the transac- 
 tions which lead to these times of commercial 
 embarrassment may be ranged simply under two 
 
40 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 great heads, — gambling and stealing; and both 
 of these in their most culpable form, namely, 
 gambling with money which is not ours, and 
 stealing from those who trust us. I have some- 
 times thought a day might come, when the na- 
 tion would perceive that a well-educated man 
 who steals a hundred thousand pounds, involving 
 the entire means of subsistence of a hundred 
 families, deserves, on the whole, as severe a pun- 
 ishment as an ill-educated man who steals zS 
 purse from a pocket, or a mug from a pantry. 
 
 DIVINE LAWS. 
 
 I am very sure that no reader who has given 
 any attention to the tendency of what I have 
 written, will suppose me to underrate the impor- 
 tance, or dispute the authority, of law. It has 
 been necessary for me to allege these again and 
 again, nor can they ever be too often or too en- 
 ergetically alleged, against the vast masses of 
 men who now disturb or retard the advance of 
 civilisation; heady and high-minded, despisers 
 of discipline, and refusers of correction. But 
 law, so far as it can be reduced to form and sys- 
 tem, and is not written upon the heart, — as it is, 
 in a Divine loyalty, upon the hearts of the great 
 hierarchies who serve and wait about the throne 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 4I 
 
 of the Eternal Lawgiver, — this lower and formal- 
 ly expressible law has, I say, two objects. It is 
 either for the definition and restraint of sin, or 
 the guidance of simplicity; it either explains, 
 forbids, and punishes wickedness, or it guides 
 the movements and actions both of lifeless things 
 and of the more simple and untaught among re- 
 sponsible agents. And so long, therefore, as sin 
 and foolishness are in the world, so long it will 
 be necessary for men to submit themselves pain- , 
 fully to this lower law, in proportion to their 
 need of being corrected, and to the degree of 
 childishness or simplicity by which they approach 
 more nearly to the condition of the unthinking 
 and inanimate things which are governed by law 
 altogether; yet yielding, in the manner of their 
 submission to it, a singular lesson to the pride of 
 man, — being obedient more perfectly in propor- 
 tion to their greatness. But, so far as men be- 
 come good and wise, and rise above the state of 
 children, so far they become emancipated from 
 this written law, and invested with the perfect 
 freedom which consists in the fulness and joyful- 
 ness of compliance with a higher aixi unwritten 
 law; a law so universal, so subtle, so glorious, 
 that nothing but the heart can keep it. 
 
 Now pride opposes itself to the observance of 
 this Divine law in two opposite ways: either by 
 brute resistance, which is the way of the rabble 
 
42 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 and its leaders, denying or defying law altogether, 
 or by formal compliance, which is the way of the 
 Pharisee, — exalting himself while he pretends to 
 obedience, and making void the infinite and 
 spiritual commandment by the finite and lettered 
 commandment. And it is easy to know which 
 law we are obeying: for any law which we mag- 
 nify and keep through pride, is always the law of 
 the letter; but that which we love and keep 
 through humility, is the law of the Spirit. And 
 the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Church is a body to be taught and fed, 
 not to teach and feed: and of all sheep that are 
 fed on the earth, Christ's Sheep are the most 
 simple (the children of this generation are wiser): 
 always losing themselves; doing little else in this 
 world but lose themselves; — never finding them- 
 selves; always found by Some One else; getting 
 perpetually into sloughs, and snows, and bramble 
 thickets, like to die there, but for their Shepherd, 
 who is for ever finding them and bearing them 
 back, with torn fleeces and eyes full of fear. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 43 
 
 CLERGYMEN. 
 
 As to the mode in which the officers of the 
 Church should be elected or appointed, I do not 
 feel it my business to say anything at present, 
 nor much respecting the extent of their author- 
 ity, either over each other or over the congrega- 
 tion, this being a most difficult question, the 
 right solution of which evidently lies between 
 two most dangerous extremes — insubordination 
 and radicalism on one hand, and ecclesiastical 
 tyranny and heresy on the other: of the two, in- 
 subordination is far the least to be dreaded — for 
 this reason, that nearly all real Christians are 
 more on the watch against their pride than their 
 indolence, and would sooner obey their clergy- 
 man, if possible, than contend with him; while 
 the very pride they suppose conquered often re- 
 turns masked, and causes them to make a merit 
 of their humility and their abstract obedience, 
 however unreasonable: but they cannot so easily 
 persuade themselves there is a merit in abstract 
 df/Vobedience. 
 
 THE KING S MESSENGERS. 
 
 The word ambassador has a peculiar ambigu- 
 ity about it, owing to its use in modern political 
 
44 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 affairs; and these clergymen assume that the 
 word, as used by St. Paul, means an Ambassador 
 Plenipotentiary; representative of his King, and 
 capable of acting for his King. What right have 
 they to assume that St. Paul meant this? St. 
 Paul never uses the word ambassador at all. He 
 says, simply, " We are in embassage from Christ; 
 and Christ beseeches you through us." Most 
 true. And let it further be granted, that every 
 word that the clergyman speaks is literally dic- 
 tated to him by Christ; that he can make no 
 mistake in delivering his message; and that, 
 therefore, it is indeed Christ Himself who speaks 
 to us the word of life through the messenger's 
 lips. Does, therefore, the messenger represent 
 Christ? Does the channel which conveys the 
 waters of the Fountain represent the Fountain 
 itself ? Suppose, when we went to draw water at 
 a cistern, that all at once the Leaden Spout 
 should become animated, and open its mouth and 
 say to us. See, I am Vicarious for the Fountain, 
 Whatever respect you ^how to the Fountain 
 show some part of it to me. Should we not an 
 swer the Spout, and say. Spout, you were set 
 there for our service, and may be taken away 
 and thrown aside if anything goes wrong with 
 you. But the Fountain will flow for ever. 
 
 Observe, I do not deny a most solemn au- 
 thority vested in every Christian messenger from 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 45 
 
 God to men. I am prepared to grant this to the 
 uttermost; and all that George Herbert says, in 
 the end of the Church-porch, I would enforce, 
 at another time than this, to the uttermost. 
 But the Authority is simply that of a King's 
 messe7igerj not of a King's Representative. 
 There is a wide difference; all the difference 
 between humble service and blasphemous usur- 
 pation. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE BIBLE. 
 
 You are not philosophers of the kind who 
 suppose that the Bible is a superannuated book; 
 neither are you of those who think the Bible is 
 dishonoured by being referred to for judgment in 
 small matters. The very divinity of the Book 
 seems to me, on the contrary, to justify us in 
 referring every thing to it, with respect to which 
 any conclusion can be gathered from its pages. 
 Assuming then that the Bible is neither super- 
 annuated now, nor ever likely to be so, it will 
 follow that the illustrations which the Bible 
 employs are likely to be clear and i7itelligible il- 
 lustrations to the end of time. I do not mean 
 that everything spoken of in the Bible histories 
 must continue to endure for all time, but that 
 the things which the Bible uses for illustration 
 
4^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 of eternal truths are likely to remain eternally- 
 intelligible illustrations. 
 
 THE DISSECTORS AND THE DREAMERS. 
 
 All experience goes to teach us, that among 
 men of average intellect the most useful mem- 
 bers of society are the dissectors, not the 
 dreamers. It is not that they love nature or 
 beauty less, but that they love result, effect, and 
 progress more; and when we glance broadly 
 along the starry crowd of benefactors to the 
 human race, and guides of human thought, we 
 shall find that this dreaming love of natural 
 beauty — or at least its expression — has been 
 more or less checked by them all, and subor- 
 dinated either to hard work or watching of 
 human nature. 
 
 ASSOCIATIONS OF BEAUTY. 
 
 Beauty has been appointed by the Deity to 
 be one of the elements by which the human soul 
 is continually sustained; it is therefore to be 
 found more or less in all natural objects, but in 
 order that we may not satiate ourselves with it, 
 and weary of it, it is rarely granted to us in its 
 utmost degrees. When we see it in those ut- 
 
PRFXIOUS THOUGHTS. 47 
 
 most degrees, we are attracted to it strongly, 
 and remember it long, as in the case of singular- 
 ly beautiful scenery, or a beautiful countenance. 
 On the other hand, absolute ugliness is ad- 
 mitted as rarely as perfect beauty; but degrees 
 of it more or less distinct are associated with 
 whatever has the nature of death and sin, just 
 as beauty is associated with what has the nature 
 of virtue and of life. 
 
 RESPECTABILITY OF ARTISTS. 
 
 I believe that there is no chance of art's truly 
 flourishing in any country, until you make it a 
 simple and plain business, providing its masters 
 with an easy competence, but rarely with any- 
 thing more. And I say this, not because I 
 despise the great painter, but because I honour 
 him; and I should no more think of adding to 
 his respectability or happiness by giving him 
 riches, than, if Shakespeare or Milton were alive, 
 I should think we added to their respectability, 
 or were likely to get better work from them, by 
 making them millionaires. 
 
 OPINIONS. 
 
 In many matters of opinion, our first and last 
 coincide, though on different grounds; it is the 
 
48 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 middle stage which is farthest from the truth. 
 Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble 
 fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot re- 
 tain, — which it is the pride of utmost age to 
 recover. 
 
 ! THE NECESSITY OF WORK. 
 
 By far the greater part of the suffering and 
 crime which exist at this moment in civilized 
 Europe, arises simply from people not under- 
 standing this truism — not knowing that produce 
 or wealth is eternally connected by the laws of 
 heaven and earth with resolute labour; but hop- 
 ing in some way to cheat or abrogate this ever- 
 lasting law of life, and to feed where they have 
 not furrowed, and be warm where they have not 
 woven. 
 
 I repeat, nearly all our misery and crime re- 
 sult from this one misapprehension. The law 
 of nature is, that a certain quantity of work is 
 necessary to produce a certain quantity of good, 
 of any kind whatever. If you want knowledge, 
 you must toil for it: if food, you must toil for 
 it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it. But men 
 do not acknowledge this law, or strive to evade 
 it, hoping to get their knowledge, and food, and 
 pleasure for nothing; and in this effort they 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 49 
 
 either fail of getting them, and remain ignorant 
 and miserable, or they obtain them by making 
 other men work for their benefit; and then they 
 are tyrants and robbers. Yes, and worse than 
 robbers. I am not one who in the least doubts 
 or disputes the progress of this century in many 
 things useful to mankind; but it seems to me a 
 very dark sign respecting us that we look with 
 so much indifference upon dishonesty and cru- 
 elty in the pursuit of wealth. In the dream 
 of Nebuchadnezzar it was only the feet that 
 were part of iron and part of clay; but many of 
 us are now getting so cruel in our avarice, that 
 it seems as if, in us, the heart were part of iron, 
 and part of clay. 
 
 WAR. 
 
 Wherever there is war, there 7nust be injustice 
 on one [side or the other, or on both. There 
 have been wars which were little more than trials 
 of strength between friendly nations, and in 
 which the injustice was not to each other, but 
 to the God who gave them life. But in a malig- 
 nant war of these present ages there is injustice 
 of ignobler kind, at once to God and man, which 
 7nust be stemmed for both their sakes. It may, 
 indeed, be so involved with national prejudices. 
 
50 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 or ignorances, that neither of the contending 
 nations can conceive it as attaching to their 
 cause; nay, the constitution of their govern- 
 ments, and the clumsy crookedness of their polit- 
 ical dealings with each other, may be such as 
 to prevent either of them from knowing the act- 
 ual cause for which they have gone to war. 
 
 For the cause of this quarrel is no dim, half- 
 avoidable involution of mean interests and er- 
 rors, as some would have us believe. There 
 never was a great war caused by such things. 
 There never can be. The historian may trace 
 it, with ingenious trifling, to a courtier's jest or 
 a woman's glance; but he does not ask — (and it 
 is the sum of questions) — how the warring 
 nations had come to found their destinies on the 
 course of the sneer, or the smile. If they have 
 so based them, it is time for them to learn, 
 through suffering, how to build on other founda- 
 tions; — for great, accumulated, and most right- 
 eous cause, their foot slides in due time; and 
 against the torpor, or the turpitude, of their 
 myriads, there is loosed the haste of the devour- 
 ing sword and the thirsty arrow. 
 
 But it is not altogether thus: we have not 
 been cast into this war by mere political misap- 
 prehensions, or popular ignorances. It is quite 
 possible that neither we nor our rulers may 
 clearly understand the nature of the conflict; 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 5 I 
 
 and that we may be dealing blows in the dark, 
 confusedly, and as a soldier suddenly awakened 
 from slumber by an unknown adversary. But I 
 believe the struggle was inevitable, and that the 
 sooner it came, the more easily it was to be met, 
 and the more nobly concluded. 
 
 THE ADVANTAGES OF WAR. 
 
 I believe that war is at present productive of 
 good more than of evil. I will not argue this 
 hardly and coldly, as I might, by tracing in past 
 history some of the abundant evidence that na- 
 tions have always reached their highest virtue, 
 and wrought their most accomplished works, in 
 times of straitening and battle; as, on the other 
 hand, no nation ever yet enjoyed a protracted 
 and triumphant peace without receiving in its 
 own bosom ineradicable seeds of future decline. 
 I will not so argue this matter; but I will appeal 
 at once to the testimony of those whom the war 
 has cost the dearest. I know what would be 
 told me, by those who have suffered nothing; 
 whose domestic happiness has been unbroken, 
 whose daily comfort undisturbed; whose experi- 
 ence of calamity consists, at its utmost, in the 
 incertitude of a speculation, the dearness of a 
 luxury, or the increase of demands upon their 
 
5? PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 fortune which they could meet fourfold without 
 inconvenience. 
 
 They are bound by new fidelities to all that 
 they have saved, — by new love to all for whom 
 they have suffered; every affection which seemed 
 to sink with those dim life-stains into the dust, 
 has been delegated, by those who need it no 
 more, to the cause for which they have expired; 
 and every mouldering arm, which will never 
 more embrace the beloved ones, has bequeathed 
 to them its strength and its faithfulness. 
 
 MEN OF GROSS MINDS. 
 
 During the last age lived certain men of high 
 intellect who had no love of nature whatever. 
 They do not appear ever to have received the 
 smallest sensation of ocular delight from any- 
 natural scene, but would have lived happily all 
 their lives in drawing-rooms or studies. And, 
 therefore, in these men we shall be able to de- 
 termine, with the greatest chance of accuracy, 
 what the real influence of natural beauty is, and 
 what the character of a mind destitute of its 
 love. Take, as conspicuous instances, Le Sage 
 and Smollett, and you will find, in meditating 
 over their works, that they are utterly incapable 
 of conceiving a human soul as endov/ed with 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 53 
 
 any nobleness whatever; their heroes are simply 
 beasts endowed with some degree of human in- 
 tellect; — cunning, false, passionate, reckless, un- 
 grateful, and abominable, incapable of noble joy, 
 of noble sorrow, of any spiritual perception or 
 hope. I said, "beasts with human intellect;" 
 but neither Gil Bias nor Roderick Random 
 reach, morally, anything near the level of dogs. 
 
 PEDESTRIANS. 
 
 To any person who has all his senses about 
 him, a quiet walk along not more than ten or 
 twelve miles of road a day, is the most amusing 
 of all travelling; and all travelling becomes dull 
 in exact proportion to its rapidity. Going by 
 railroad I do not consider as travelling at all; it 
 is merely " being sent " to a place, and very lit- 
 tle different from becoming a parcel; the next 
 step to it would of course be telegraphic trans- 
 port, of which, however, I suppose it has been 
 truly said by Octave Feuillet, 
 *^ II y aurait des gens assez betes pour trouver 5aamusant." 
 
 WEALTH. 
 
 Wealth is simply one of the greatest powers 
 which can be entrusted to human hands: a 
 
54 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 power, not indeed to be envied, because it sel- 
 dom makes us happy; but still less to be abdi- 
 cated or despised: while, in these days, and in 
 this country, it has become a power all the more 
 notable, in that the possessions of a rich man 
 are not represented, as they used to be, by 
 wedges of gold or coffers of jewels, but by masses 
 of men variously employed, over whose bodies 
 and minds the wealth, according to its direction, 
 exercises harmful or helpful influence, and 
 becomes, in that alternative, Mammon either 
 of Unrighteousness or of Righteousness. 
 
 LABOR IN LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 We have no right at once to pronounce our- 
 selves the wisest people because We like to do 
 all things in the best way. There are many lit- 
 tle things which to do admirably is to waste 
 both time and cost; and the real question is not 
 so much whether we have done a given thing as 
 well as possible, as whether we have turned a 
 given quantity of labour to the best account. 
 
 THE MEMORY OF UNKINDNESS. 
 
 He who has once stood beside the grave, to 
 look back upon the companionship which has 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 55 
 
 been forever closed, feeling how impotent there 
 are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, to give 
 one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or 
 atone in the lowest measure to the departed 
 spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely 
 ior the future incur that debt to the heart, 
 which can only be discharged to the dust. 
 
 DARK SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Indeed it is woful, when the young usurp the 
 place, or despise the wisdom, of the aged; and 
 among the many dark signs of these times, the 
 disobedience and insolence of youth are among 
 the darkest. But with whom is the fault? 
 Youth never yet lost its modesty where age had 
 not lost its honour; nor did childhood ever refuse 
 its reverence, except where age had forgotten 
 correction. The cry, " Go up thou bald head," 
 will never be heard in the land which remem- 
 bers the precept, " See that ye despise not one 
 of these little ones;" and although indeed youth 
 may become despicable, when its eager hope is 
 changed into presumption, and its progressive 
 power into arrested pride, there is something 
 more despicable still, in the old age which has 
 learned neither judgment nor gentleness, which 
 is weak without charity, and cold without dis- 
 cretion. 
 
56 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 VULGAR FRACTIONS. 
 
 * If you will not amuse, nor inform, nor help 
 anybody; you will not amuse, nor better, nor 
 inform yourselves; you will sink into a state in 
 which you can neither show, nor feel, nor see, 
 anything, but that one is to two as three is to 
 six. And in that state what should we call our- 
 selves? Men? I think not. The right name 
 for us would be — numerators and denominators. 
 Vulgar Fractions. 
 
 May we not accept this great principle — that, 
 as our bodies, to be in health, must be generally 
 exercised, so our minds, to be in health, must 
 be generally cultivated ? You would not call a 
 man healthy who had strong arms but was para- 
 lytic in his feet; nor one who could walk well, 
 but had no use of his hands; nor one who could 
 see well, if he could not hear. You would not 
 voluntarily reduce your bodies to any such par- 
 tially developed state. Much more, then, you 
 would not, if you could help it, reduce your 
 minds to it. Now, your minds are endowed 
 with a vast number of gifts of totally different 
 uses — limbs of mind as it were, which, if you 
 don't exercise, you cripple. One is curiosity; 
 that is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing; 
 which if you destroy, you make yourselves cold 
 and dull. Another is sympathy; the power of 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. S7 
 
 sharing in the feelings of living creatures; which 
 if you destroy, you make yourselves hard and 
 cruel. Another of your limbs of mind is admira- 
 tion; the power of enjoying beauty or ingenuity; 
 which if you destroy, you make yourselves base 
 and irreverent. Another is wit; or the power 
 of playing with the lights on the many sides of 
 truth; which if you destroy, you make your- 
 selves gloomy, and less useful and cheering to 
 others than you might be. So that in choosing 
 your way of work it should be your aim, as far 
 as possible, to bring out all these faculties, as 
 far as they exist in you; not one merely, nor 
 another, but all of them. And the way to bring 
 them out, is simply to concern yourselves at- 
 tentively with the subjects of each faculty. To 
 cultivate sympathy you must be among living 
 creatures, and thinking about them; and to cul- 
 tivate admiration, you must be among beautiful 
 things and looking ai them. 
 
 LOVE OF NATURE. 
 
 Though the absence of the love of nature is 
 not an assured condemnation, its presence is an 
 invariable sign of goodness of heart and justness 
 of m.ox2\ perception, though by no means of moral 
 practice; that in proportion to the degree in 
 
58 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 which it is felt, will probably be the degree in 
 which all nobleness and beauty of character will 
 also be felt; that when it is originally absent 
 from any mind, that mind is in many other re- 
 spects hard, worldly, and degraded; that where, 
 having been originally present, it is repressed by 
 art or education, that repression appears to have 
 been detrimental to the person suffering it; and 
 that wherever the feeling exists, it acts for good 
 on the character to which it belongs, though, as 
 it may often belong to characters weak in other 
 respects, it may carelessly be mistaken for a 
 source of evil in them. 
 
 MODERN EDUCATION. 
 
 What do you suppose was the substance of 
 good education, the education of a knight, in 
 the middle ages? What was taught to a boy as 
 soon as he was able to learn anything? First, 
 to keep under his body, and bring it into subjec- 
 tion and perfect strength; then to take Christ 
 for his captain, to live as always in his presence 
 and, finally, to do his devoir — mark the word — 
 to all men? Now, consider first, the difference 
 in their influence over the armies of France, 
 between the ancient word " devoir," and modern 
 word " gloire." And, again, ask yourselves what 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 59 
 
 you expect your own children to be taught at 
 your great schools and universities. Is it Chris- 
 tian history, or the histories of Pan and Silenus? 
 Your present education, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, denies Christ, and that is intensely and 
 peculiarly modernism. 
 
 Or, again, what do you suppose was the pro- 
 claimed and understood principle of all Chris- 
 tian govermnents in the middle ages? I do not 
 say it was a principle acted up to, or that the 
 cunning and violence of wicked men had not 
 too often their full sway then, as now; but on 
 what principles were that cunning and violence, 
 so far as was possible, restrained? By the con- 
 fessed fear of God, and confessed authority of His 
 law. You will find that all treaties, laws, trans- 
 actions whatsoever, in the middle ages, are 
 based on a confession of Christianity as the 
 leading rule of life; that a text of Scripture is 
 held, in all public assemblies, strong enough to 
 be set against an appearance of expediency; and 
 although, in the end, the expediency might 
 triumph, yet it was never without a distinct al- 
 lowance of Christian principle, as an efficient 
 element in the consultation. Whatever error 
 might be committed, at least Christ was openly 
 confessed. Now what is the custom of your 
 British Parliament in these days? You know 
 that nothing would excite greater manifestations 
 
6o PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 of contempt and disgust than the slightest at- 
 tempt to introduce the authority of Scripture in 
 a political consultation. That is denying Christ. 
 It is intensely and peculiarly modernism. 
 
 WANT OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Half the evil in this world comes from people 
 not knowing what they do like, not deliberately 
 setting themselves to find out what they really 
 enjoy. All people enjoy giving away money, 
 for instance: they don't know that^ — they rather 
 think they like keeping it; and they do keep it 
 under this false impression, often to their great 
 discomfort. Everybody likes to do good; but 
 not one in a hundred finds this out. 
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A RICH MAN. 
 
 A rich man ought to be continually examin- 
 ing how he may spend his money for the ad- 
 vantage of others; at present, others are contin- 
 ually plotting how they may beguile him into 
 spending it apparently for his own. The aspect 
 which he presents to the eyes of the world is 
 generally that of a person holding a bag of 
 money with a staunch grasp, and resolved to 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 6l 
 
 part with none of it unless he is forced, and all 
 the people about him are plotting how they may 
 force him; that is to say, how they may persuade 
 him that he wants this thing or that; or how 
 they may produce things that he will covet and 
 buy. One man tries to persuade him that he 
 wants perfumes; another that he wants jewel- 
 lery; another that he wants sugarplums; an- 
 other that he wants roses at Christmas. Any- 
 body who can invent a new want for him is 
 supposed to be a benefactor to society; and 
 thus the energies of the poorer people about 
 him are continually directed to the production 
 of covetable, instead of serviceable things; and 
 the rich man has the general aspect of a fool, 
 plotted against by all the world. Whereas the 
 real aspect which he ought to have is that of a 
 person wiser than others, entrusted with the 
 management of a larger quantity of capital, 
 which he administers for the profit of all, direct- 
 ing each man to the labour which is most 
 healthy for him, and most serviceable for the 
 community. 
 
 THE WANTS OF MODERN ART. 
 
 We don't want either the life or the decora- 
 tions of the thirteenth century back again; and 
 
62 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 the circumstances with which you must surround 
 your workmen are those simply of happy modern 
 English life, because the designs you have now 
 to ask for from your workmen are such as will 
 make modern English life beautiful. All that 
 gorgeousness of the middle ages, beautiful as it 
 sounds in description, noble as in many respects 
 it was in reality, had, nevertheless, for founda- 
 tion and for end, nothing but the pride of life — 
 the pride of the so-called superior classes; a 
 pride which supported itself by violence and 
 robbery, and led in the end to the destruction 
 both of the arts themselves and the States in 
 which they flourished. 
 
 The great lesson of history is, that all the fine 
 arts hitherto — having been supported by the 
 selfish power of the noblesse, and never having 
 extended their range to the comfort or the re- 
 lief of the mass of the people — the arts, I say, 
 thus practised, and thus matured, have only ac- 
 celerated the ruin of the States they adorned; 
 and at the moment when, in any kingdom, you 
 point to the triumphs of its greatest artists, you 
 point also to the determined hour of the king- 
 dom's decline. The names of great painters 
 are like passing bells; in the name of Velasquez, 
 you hear sounded the fall of Spain; in the name 
 of Titian, that of Venice; in the name of Leo- 
 nardo, that of Milan; in the name of Raphael, 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 63 
 
 that of Rome. And there is profound justice 
 in this; for in proportion to the nobleness of the 
 power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or 
 vile; and hitherto the greater the art, the more 
 surely has it been used, and used solely, for the 
 decoration of pride, or the provoking of sensual- 
 ity. Another course lies open to us. We may 
 abandon the hope — or if you like the words bet- 
 ter — we may disdain the temptation, of the 
 pomp and grace of Italy in her youth. For us 
 there can be no more the throne of marble — 
 for us no more the vault of gold — but for us 
 there is the loftier and lovelier privilege of bring- 
 ing the power and charm of art within the reach 
 of the humble and the poor; and as the magnifi- 
 cence of past ages failed by its narrowness and 
 its pride, ours may prevail and continue, by its 
 universality and its lowliness. 
 
 We want now, no more feasts of the gods, nor 
 martyrdoms of the saints; we have no need of 
 sensuality, no place for superstition, or for 
 costly insolence. Let us have learned and 
 faithful historical paintings; touching and 
 thoughtful representations of human nature in 
 dramatic paintings; poetical and familiar render- 
 ings of natural objects, and of landscape; and 
 rational, deeply-felt realizations of the events 
 which are the subjects of our religious faith. 
 And let these things we want, as far as possible, 
 
64 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 be scattered abroad, and made accessible to all 
 men. 
 
 MANUAL LABOUR. 
 
 How wide the separation is between original 
 and second-hand execution, I shall endeavour to 
 show elsewhere; it is not so much to our pur- 
 pose here as to mark the other and more fatal 
 error of despising manual labour when governed 
 by intellect; for it is no less fatal an error to 
 despise it when thus regulated by intellect, than 
 to value it for its own sake. We are always in 
 these days endeavouring to separate the two; we 
 want one man to be always thinking, and an- 
 other to be always working, and we call one a 
 gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas 
 the workman ought often to be thinking, and 
 the thinker often to be working, and both 
 should be gentlemen, in the best sense. As it 
 is, we make both ungentle, the one envying, the 
 other despising, his brother; and the mass of 
 society is made up of morbid thinkers, and mis- 
 erable workers. Now it is only by labour that 
 thought can be made healthy, and only by 
 thought that labour can be made happy, and 
 the two cannot be separated with impunity. It 
 would be well if all of us were good handicrafts- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 65 
 
 men in some kind, and the dishonour of manual 
 labour done away with altogether; so that 
 though there should still be a trenchant distinc- 
 tion of race between nobles and .commoners, 
 there should not, among the latter, be a trench- 
 ant distinction of employment, as between idle 
 and working men, or between men of liberal and 
 illiberal professions. All professions should be 
 liberal, and there should be less pride felt in 
 peculiarity of employment, and more in excel- 
 lence of achievement. And yet more, in each 
 several profession, no master should be too 
 proud to do its hardest work. The painter 
 should grind his own colours; the architect 
 work in the mason's yard with his men; the 
 master manufacturer be himself a more skilful 
 operative than any man in his mills; and the 
 distinction between one man and another be 
 only in experience and skill, and the authority 
 and wealth which these must naturally and 
 iustly abtain. 
 
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 In literary and scientific teaching, the great 
 point of economy is to give the discipline of it 
 through knowledge which will immediately bear 
 
66 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 on practical life. Our literary work has long 
 been economically useless to us because too 
 much concerned with dead languages; and our 
 scientific work will yet, for some time, be a good 
 deal lost, because scientific men are too fond or 
 too vain of their systems, and waste the student's 
 time in endeavouring to give him large views, 
 and make him perceive interesting connexions 
 of facts; when there is not one student, no, nor 
 one man, in a thousand, who can feel the beauty 
 of a system, or even take it clearly into his head; 
 but nearly all men can understand, and most 
 will be interested in, the facts which bear on 
 daily life. Botanists have discovered some won- 
 derful connexion between nettles and figs, which 
 a cowboy who will never see a ripe fig in his life 
 need not be at all troubled about; but it will be 
 interesting to him to know what effect nettles 
 have on hay, and what taste they will give to 
 porridge; and it will give him nearly a new life 
 , if he can be got but once, in a spring-time, to 
 look well at the beautiful circlet of the white 
 nettle blossom, and work out with his school- 
 master the curves of its petals, and the way it is 
 set on its central mast. So, the principle of 
 chemical equivalents, beautiful as it is, matters 
 far less to a peasant boy, and even to most sons 
 of gentlemen, than their knowing how to find 
 whether the water is wholesome in the back- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 6/ 
 
 kitchen cistern, or whether the seven-acre field 
 wants sand or chalk. 
 
 BASE CRITICISM. 
 
 It may perhaps be said that I attach too much 
 importance to the evil of base criticism; but 
 those who think so have never rightly under- 
 stood its scope, nor the reach of that stern say- 
 ing of Johnson's (Idler, No. 3, April 29, 1758): 
 " Little does he (who assumes the character of 
 a critic) think how many harmless men he in- 
 volves in his own guilt, by teaching them to be 
 noxious without malignity, and to repeat objec- 
 tions which they do not understand." And 
 truly, not in this kind only, but in all things 
 whatsoever, there is not, to my mind, a more 
 wofui or wonderful matter of thought than the 
 power of a fool. In the world's affairs there 
 is no design so great or good but it will take 
 twenty wise men to help it forward a few inches, 
 and a single fool can stop it; there is no evil soi 
 great or so terrible but that, after a multitude 
 of counsellors have taken means to avert it, a 
 single fool will bring it down. Pestilence, fam- 
 ine, aiid the sword, are given into the fool's 
 hand as the arrows into the hand of the giant: 
 and if iie wer2 fairly set forth in the right motley, 
 
6S PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 the web of it should be sackcloth and sable; the 
 bells on his cap, passing bells; his badge, a bear 
 robbed of her whelps; and his bauble, a sexton's 
 spade. 
 
 PUBLIC FAVOUR. 
 
 There is great difficulty in making any short 
 or general statement of the difference between 
 great and ignoble minds in their behaviour to 
 the " public." It is by no means universally the 
 case that a mean mind, as stated in the text, will 
 bend itself to what you ask of it; on the con- 
 trary, there is one kind of mind, the meanest of 
 all, which perpetually complains of the public, 
 contemplates and proclaims itself as a ** genius," 
 refuses all wholesome discipline or humble office, 
 and ends in miserable and revengeful ruin; also, 
 the greatest minds are marked by nothing more 
 distinctly than an inconceivable humility, and 
 acceptance of work or instruction in any form, 
 and from any quarter. They will learn from 
 everybody, and do anything that anybody asks 
 of them, so long as it involves only toil, or what 
 other men would think degradation. But the 
 point of quarrel, nevertheless, assuredly rises 
 some day between the public and them, respect- 
 ing some matter, not of humiliation, but of Fact. 
 Your great man always at last comes to see 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 69 
 
 something the public don't see. This something 
 he will assuredly persist in asserting, whether 
 with tongue or pencil, to be as he sees it, not as 
 they see it; and all the world in a heap on the 
 other side, will not get him to say otherwise. 
 Then, if the world objects to the saying, he may 
 happen to get stoned or burnt for it, but that 
 does not in the least matter to him: if the world 
 has no particular objection to the saying, he may 
 get leave to mutter it to himself till he dies, and be 
 merely taken for an idiot; that also does not mat- 
 ter to him — mutter it he will, according to what 
 he perceives to be fact, and not at all according 
 to the roaring of the walls of Red sea on the right 
 hand or left of him. Hence the quarrel, sure at 
 some time or other, to be started between the 
 public and him; while your mean man, though 
 he will spit and scratch spiritedly at the public, 
 while it does not attend to him, will bow to it 
 for its clap in any direction, and say anything 
 when he has got its ear, which he thinks will 
 bring him another clap; and thus, as stated in 
 the text, he and it go on smoothly together. 
 
 There are however, times when the obstinacy 
 of the mean man looks very like the obstinacy 
 of the great one; but if you look closely into the 
 matter, you will always see that the obstinacy of 
 the first is in the pronunciation of " I;" and of 
 the second, in the pronunciation of " It." 
 
50 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 A nation's labour, well applied, should be am- 
 ply sufficient to provide its whole population 
 with good food and comfortable habitation; and 
 not with those only, but with good education 
 besides, and objects of luxury, art treasures, such 
 as these you have around you now. But by 
 those same laws of Nature and Providence, if 
 the labour of the nation or of the individual be 
 misapplied, and much more if it be insufficient, 
 — if the nation or man be indolent and unwise, 
 — suffering and want result, exactly in propor- 
 tion to the indolence and improvidence, — to 
 the refusal of labour, or to the misapplication of 
 it. Wherever you see want, or misery, or de- 
 gradation, in this world about you, there, be 
 sure, either industry has been wanting, or indus- 
 try has been in error. It is not accident, it is 
 not Heaven-commanded calamity, it is not the 
 original and inevitable evil of man's nature, 
 which fill your streets with lamentation, and your 
 graves with prey. It is only that, when there 
 should have been providence, there has been 
 waste; when there should have been labour, 
 there has been lasciviousness; and wilfulness, 
 when there should have been subordination.* 
 
 * Proverbs xiii. 23," Much food is in the tillage of the 
 i3oor, but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment." 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 71 
 
 " THE church" in THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 The word occurs in the New Testament, one 
 hundred and fourteen times. In every one of 
 those occurrences, it bears one and the same 
 grand sense: that of a congregation or assembly 
 of men. But it bears this sense under four dif- 
 ferent modifications, giving four separate mean- 
 ings to the word. These are — 
 
 I. The entire Multitude of the Elect; other- 
 wise called the Body of Christ; and sometimes 
 the Bride, the Lamb's Wife; including the Faith- 
 ful in all ages; Adam, and the children of Adam, 
 yet unborn. 
 
 In this sense it is used in Ephesians v. 25, 27, 
 32; Colossians i. 18, and several other passages. 
 
 II. The entire multitude of professing believ- 
 ers in Christ, existing on earth at a given mo- 
 ment; including false brethren, wolves in sheep's 
 clothing, goats, and tares, as well as sheep and 
 wheat, and other forms of bad fish with good 
 in the net. 
 
 In this sense it is used in i Cor. x. 32; xv. 9; 
 Galatians i. 13; i Tim. iii. 5, etc. 
 
 III. The multitude of professed believers, liv- 
 ing in a certain city, place, or house. This is 
 the most frequent sense in which the word 
 occurs, as in Acts vii. 38; xiii. i; i Cor. I 
 2; xvi. 19, etc. 
 
72 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 IV. Any assembly of men: as in Acts xix. 32, 
 
 41. 
 
 That in a hundred and twelve out of the 
 hundred and fourteen texts, the word bears 
 some one of these four meanings, is indisputable. 
 But there are two texts in which, if the word had 
 alone occurred, its meaning might have been 
 doubtful. These are Matt. xvi. 18, and xviii. 17. 
 
 SPECULATIONS. 
 
 There are some speculations that are fair and 
 honest — speculations made with our own money, 
 and which do not involve in their success the 
 loss, by others, of what we gain. But generally 
 modern speculation involves much risk to others, 
 with chance of profit only to ourselves: even in 
 its best conditions it is merely one of the forms 
 of gambling or treasure-hunting; it is either 
 leaving the steady plough and the steady pil- 
 grimage of life, to look for silver mines beside 
 the way; or else it is the full stop beside thei 
 dice-tables in Vanity Fair — investing all the 
 thoughts and passions of the soul in the fall of 
 the cards, and choosing rather the wild accidents 
 of idle fortune than the calm and accumulative 
 rewards of toil. And this is destructive enough, 
 at least to our peace and virtue. But it is 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 73 
 
 usually destructive of far more than our peace, 
 or our virtue. Have you ever deliberately set 
 yourselves to imagine and measure the suffering, 
 the guilt, and the mortality caused necessarily by 
 the failure of any large-dealing merchant, or 
 largely-branched bank ? Take it at the lowest 
 possible supposition — count, at the fewest you 
 choosCf the families whose means of support 
 have been involved in the catastrophe. Then, 
 on the morning after the intelligence of ruin, let 
 us go forth amongst them in earnest thought; 
 let us use that imagination which we waste 
 so often on fictitious sorrow, to measure the 
 stern facts of that multitudinous distress; strike 
 open the private doors of their chambers, and 
 enter silently into the midst of the domestic 
 misery; look upon the old men who had reserved 
 for their failing strength some remainder of rest 
 in the evening-tide of life, cast helplessly back 
 into trouble and tumult; look upon the active 
 strength of middle age suddenly blasted into 
 incapacity — its hopes crushed and its hardly- 
 earned rewards snatched away in the same 
 instant — at once the heart withered and the 
 right arm snapped; look upon the piteous chil- 
 dren, delicately nurtured, whose soft eyes, now 
 large with wonder at their parents' grief, must 
 soon be set in the dimness of famine; and far 
 more than all this, look forward to the length of 
 
74 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 sorrow beyond — to the hardest labour of life now 
 to be undergone, either in all the severity of un- 
 expected and inexperienced trial, or else, mor^ 
 bitter still, to be begun again, and endured for 
 the second time, amidst the ruins of cherished 
 hopes and the feebleness of advancing years, 
 embittered by the continual sting and taunt of 
 the inner feeling that it has all been brought 
 about, not by the fair course of appointed 
 circumstance, but by miserable chance and wan- 
 ton treachery; and, last of all, look beyond this 
 — to the shattered destinies of those who have 
 faltered under the trial, and sunk past recovery 
 to despair. And then consider whether the 
 hand which has poured this poison into all the 
 springs of life be one whit less guiltily red with 
 human blood than that which literally pours the 
 hemlock into the cup, or guides the dagger 
 to the heart? We read with horror of the 
 crimes of a Borgia or a Tophana; but there 
 never lived Borgias such as live now in the 
 midst of us. The cruel lady of Ferrara slew 
 only in the strength of passion — she slew only a 
 few, those who thwarted her purposes or who 
 vexed her soul; she slew sharply and suddenly, 
 embittering the fate of her victims with no fore- 
 tastes of destruction, no prolongations of pain; 
 and, finally and chiefly, she slew, not without 
 remorse, nor without pity. But we, in no storm 
 
PRECIOUS TH0UGH2-S. 75 
 
 of passion — in no blindness of wrath, — we, in 
 calm and clear and untempted selfishness, pour 
 our poison — not for a few only, but for mul- 
 titudes; — not for those who have wronged us, or 
 resisted, — but for those who have trusted us and 
 aided; — we, not with sudden gift of merciful 
 and unconscious death, but with slow waste of 
 hunger and weary rack of disappointment and 
 despair; — we, last and chiefly, do our murder- 
 ing, not with any pauses of pity or scorching of 
 conscience, but in facile and forgetful calm of 
 mind, — and so, forsooth, read day by day, com- 
 placently, as if they meant any one else than 
 ourselves, the words that forever describe the 
 wicked: " The poison of asps is under their lips, 
 and their feet are swift to shed blood." 
 
 BE WHAT NATURE INTENDED. 
 
 Pure history and pure topography are most 
 precious things; in many cases more useful 
 to the human race than high imaginative work;* 
 and assuredly it is intended that a large majority 
 of all who are employed in art should never aim 
 at anything higher. It is o?ily vanity, never love, 
 nor any other noble feeling, which prompts men 
 to desert their allegiance to the simple truth, in 
 vain pursuit of the imaginative truth which has 
 
76 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 been appointed to be for evermore sealed to 
 them. 
 
 Nor let it be supposed that artists who possess 
 minor degrees of imaginative gift need be em- 
 barrassed by the doubtful sense of their own 
 powers. In general, when the imagination is at 
 all noble, it is irresistible, and therefore those 
 who can at all resist it ought to resist it. Be a 
 plain topographer if you possibly can; if Nature 
 meant you to be anything else, she will force 
 you to it; but never try to be a prophet; go on 
 quietly with your hard camp-work, and the 
 spirit will come to you in the camp, as it did to 
 Eldad and Medad, if you are appointed to have 
 it; but try above all things to be quickly percep- 
 tive of the noble spirit in others, and to discern 
 in an instant between its true utterance and the 
 diseased mimicries of it. In a general way, 
 remember it is a far better thing to find out 
 other great men, than to become one yourself: 
 for you can but become 07ie at best, but you may 
 bring others to light in numbers. 
 
 SAILORS SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 It is one notable effect of a life passed on 
 shipboard to destroy weak beliefs in appointed 
 forms of religion. A sailor may be grossly super- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. TJ 
 
 stitious, but his superstitions will be connected 
 with amulets and omens, not cast in systems. 
 He must accustom himself, if he prays at all, to 
 pray anywhere and anyhow. Candlesticks and 
 incense not being portable into the maintop, he 
 perceives those decorations to be, on the whole, 
 inessential to a maintop mass. Sails must be 
 set and cables bent, be it never so strict a saint's 
 day, and it is found that no harm comes of it. 
 Absolution on a lee-shore must be had of the 
 breakers, it appears, if at all, and they give it 
 plenary and brief, without listening to confes- 
 sion. 
 
 SANCTITY OF COLOUR. 
 
 I do not think that there is anything more 
 necessary to the progress of European art in the 
 present day than the complete understanding of 
 this sanctity of Colour. I had much pleasure 
 in finding it, the other day, fully understood 
 and thus sweetly expressed in a little volume of 
 poems by a Miss Maynard: 
 
 "For still in every land, though to Thy name 
 Arose no temple, — still in every age, 
 Though heedless man had quite forgot Thy praise, 
 We praise Thee; and at rise and set of sun 
 Did we assemble duly, and intone 
 
yS PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 A choral hymn that all the lands might hear. 
 
 In heaven, on earth, and in the deep we praised Thee, 
 
 Singly, or mingled in sweet sisterhood. 
 
 But now, acknowledged ministrants, we come, 
 
 Co-worshippers with man in this Thy house. 
 
 We, the Seven Daughters of the Light, to praise 
 
 Thee, Light of Light ! Thee, God of very God !" 
 
 A Dream of Fair Colours. 
 
 These poems seem to be otherwise remarkable 
 for a very unobtrusive and pure religious feel- 
 ing in subjects connected with art. 
 
 HUMAN ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 Put the fine dresses and jewelled girdles into 
 the best group you can; paint them with all 
 Veronese's skill: will they satisfy you? 
 
 Not so. As long as they are in their due 
 services and subjection — while their folds are 
 formed by the motion of men, and their lustre 
 adorns the nobleness of men — so long the lustre 
 and the folds are lovely. But cast them from 
 the human limbs ; — golden circlet and silken 
 tisstre are withered; the dead leaves of autumn 
 are more precious than they. 
 
 This is just as true, but in a far deeper sense, 
 of the weaving of the natural robe of man's 
 souk Fragrant tissue of flowers, golden circlets 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 79 
 
 of clouds, are only fair when they meet the 
 fondness of human thoughts, and glorify human, 
 visions of heaven. 
 
 THY KINGDOM COME. 
 
 So far as in it lay, this century has caused 
 every one of its great men, whose hearts were 
 kindest, and whose spirits most perceptive of 
 the work of God, to die without hope: — Scott, 
 Keats, Byron, Shelley, Turner. Great England, 
 of the Iron-heart now, not of the Lion-heart; 
 for these souls of her children an account may 
 perhaps be one day required of her. 
 
 She has not yet read often enough that old 
 story of the Samaritan's mercy. He whom he 
 saved was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho 
 — to the accursed city (so the old Church used 
 to understand it). He should not have left 
 Jerusalem; it was his own fault that he went 
 out into the desert, and fell among the thieves, 
 and was left for dead. Every one of these 
 English children, in their day, took the desert 
 bypath as he did, and fell among fiends — took 
 to making bread out of stones at their bidding, 
 and then died, torn and famished; careful Eng- 
 land, in her pure, priestly dress, passing by on 
 
80 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 the other side. So far as we are concerned, 
 hat is the account we have to give of them.* 
 
 So far as they are concerned, I do not fear for 
 them; — there being one Priest who never passes 
 by. The longer I live, the more clearly I see 
 how all souls are in His hand — the mean and 
 the great. Fallen on the earth in their base- 
 ness, or fading as the mist of morning in their 
 goodness; still in the hand of the potter as the 
 clay, and in the temple of their master as the 
 cloud. It was not the mere bodily death that 
 He conquered — that death had no sting. It 
 was this spiritual death which He conquered, 
 so that at last it should be swallowed up — mark 
 the word — not in life; but in victory. As the 
 dead body shall be raised to life, so also the de- 
 feated soul to victory, if only it has been fight- 
 ing on its Master's side, has made no covenant 
 with death; nor itself bowed its forehead for 
 his seal. Blind from the prison-house, maimed 
 from the battle, or mad from the tombs, their 
 souls shall surely yet sit, astonished, at His feet 
 who giveth peace. 
 
 Who giveth peace? Many a peace we have 
 made and named for ourselves, but the falsest 
 
 * It is strange that the last words Turner ever attached 
 to a picture should have been these : — 
 
 " The priest held the poisoned cup." 
 Compare the words of 1798 with those of 1850. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 8 1 
 
 is in that marvellous thought that we, of all gen- 
 erations of the earth, only know the right; and 
 that to us, at last, — and us alone, — all the 
 schemes of God, about the salvation of men, 
 has been shown. " This is the light in which 
 W€ are walking. Those vain Greeks are gone 
 down to their Persephone for ever — Egypt and 
 Assyria, Elam and her multitude, — uncircum- 
 cised, their graves are round about them — Pa- 
 thros and careless Ethiopia — filled with the 
 slain. Rome, with her thirsty sword, and poison 
 wine, how did she walk in her darkness! We 
 only have no idolatries — ours are the seeing 
 eyes; in our pure hands at last, the seven-sealed 
 book is laid; to our true tongues entrusted the 
 preaching of a perfect gospel. Who shall come 
 after us? Is it not peace? The poor Jew, 
 Zimri, who slew his master, there is no peace 
 for him: but, for us? tiara on head, may we 
 not look out of the windows of heaven?" 
 
 Another kind of peace I look for than this, 
 though I hear it said of me that I am hope- 
 less. 
 
 I am not hopeless, though my hope may be as 
 Veronese's: the dark-veiled. 
 
 Veiled, not because sorrowful, but because 
 blind. I do not know what my England desires, 
 or how long she will choose to do as she is doing 
 now; — with her right hand casting away the 
 
82 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 souls of men, and with her left the gifts of God. 
 
 In the prayers which she dictates to her chil- 
 dren, she tells them to fight against the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil. Some day, perhaps, it may 
 also occur to her as desirable to tell those chil- 
 dren what she means by this. What is the world 
 which they are to " fight with-" and how does it 
 differ from the world which they are to " get on 
 in?" The explanation seems to me the more 
 needful, because I do not, in the book we pro- 
 fess to live by, find anything very distinct about 
 fighting with the world. I find something about 
 fighting with the rulers of its darkness, and some- 
 thing also about overcoming it; but it does not 
 follow that this conquest is to be by hostility, 
 since evil may be overcome with good. But I 
 find it written very distinctly that God loved the 
 world, and that Christ is the light of it. 
 
 What the much used words, therefore, mean, 
 I cannot tell. But this, I believe, they should 
 mean. That there is, indeed, one world which 
 is full of care, and desire, and hatred: a world of 
 war, of which Christ is not the light, which in- 
 deed is without light, and has never heard the 
 great " Let there be." Which is, therefore, in 
 truth, as yet no world; but chaos, on the face of 
 which, moving, the Spirit of God yet causes men 
 to hope that a world will come. The better one, 
 they call it: perhaps they might, more wisely, 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 8 
 
 call it the real one. Also, I hear them speak 
 continually of going to it, rather than of its com- 
 ing to them; which, again, is strange, for in that 
 prayer which they had straight from the lips of 
 the Light of the world, and which He apparent- 
 ly thought sufficient prayer for them, there is not 
 anything about going to another world; only 
 something of another government coming into 
 this; or rather, not another, but the only govern- 
 ment, — that government which will constitute it 
 a world indeed. New heavens and new earth. 
 Earth, no more without form and void, but sown 
 with fruit of righteousness. Firmament, no 
 more of passing cloud, but of cloud risen out of 
 the crystal sea — cloud in which, as He was once 
 received up, so He shall again come with power, 
 and every eye shall see Him, and all kindreds of 
 the earth shall wail because of Him. 
 
 Kindreds of the earth, or tribes of it!* — the 
 " earth begotten," the Chaos children — children 
 of this present world, with its desolate seas and 
 its Medusa clouds: the Dragon children, merci- 
 less: they who dealt as clouds without water: 
 serpent clouds, by whose sight men were turned 
 into stone; — the time must surely come for their 
 wailing. 
 
 " Thy kingdom come," we are bid to ask then! 
 
 * Compare Matt. xxiv. 30 
 
84 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 But how shall it come? With power and great 
 glory, it is written; and yet not with observation, 
 it is also written. Strange kingdom! Yet its 
 strangeness is renewed to us with every dawn. 
 
 When the time comes for us to wake out of 
 the world's sleep, why should it be otherwise 
 than out of the dreams of the night? Singing of 
 birds, first, broken and low, as, not to dying 
 eyes, but eyes that wake to life, " the casement 
 slowly grows a glimmering square;" and then 
 the gray, and then the rose of dawn; and last 
 the light, whose going forth is to the ends of 
 heaven. 
 
 This kingdom it is not in our power to bring; 
 but it is, to receive. Nay, it has come already, 
 in part; but not received, because men love chaos 
 best; and the Night, with her daughters. That 
 is still the only question for us, as in the old 
 Elias days, " If ye will receive it." With pains 
 it may be shut out still from many a dark place 
 of cruelty; by sloth it may be still unseen for 
 many a glorious hour. But the pain of shutting 
 it out must grow greater and greater: — harder, 
 every day, that struggle of man with man in the 
 abyss, and shorter wages for the fiend's work. 
 But it is still at our choice; the simoom-dragon 
 may still be served if we will, in the fiery desert, 
 or else God walking in the garden, at cool of day. 
 Coolness now, not of Hesperus over Atlas, 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 85 
 
 Stooped endurer of toil; but of Heosphorus 
 over Sion, the joy of the earth.* The choice is 
 no vague or doubtful one. High on the des- 
 ert mountain, full descried, sits throned the 
 tempter, with his old promise — the kingdoms 
 of this world, and the glory of them. He still 
 calls you to your labour, as Christ to your rest; 
 — labour and sorrow, base desire, and cruel hope. 
 So far as you desire to possess, rather than to 
 give; so far as you look for power to command, • 
 instead of to bless; so far as your own prosperity 
 seems to you to issue out of contest or rivalry of 
 any kind, with other men, or other nations; so 
 long as the hope before you is for supremacy in- 
 stead of love; and your desire is to be greatest, 
 instead of least; — first, instead of last; — so long 
 you are serving the Lord of all that is last, and 
 least; — the last enemy that shall be destroyed — 
 Death; and you shall have death's crown, with 
 the worm coiled in it; and death's wages, with 
 the worm feeding on them; kindred of the earth 
 shall you yourself become; saying to the grave, 
 " Thou art my father;" and to the worm, " Thou 
 art my mother, and my sister." 
 
 I leave you to judge, and to choose, between 
 
 * Ps. xlviii, 2. — This joy it is to receive and to give, be- 
 cause its officers (governors of its acts) are to be Peace, 
 and its exactors (governors of its dealings), Righteousness 
 — Is. Ix. 17. 
 
86 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 this labour, and the bequeathed peace; this 
 wages, and the gift of the Morning Star; this 
 obedience, and the doing of the will which shall 
 enable you to claim another kindred than of the 
 earth, and to hear another voice than that of the 
 grave, saying, " My brother, and sister, and 
 mother." 
 
 VULGARITY. 
 
 There is, indeed, perhaps, no greater sign of 
 innate and real vulgarity of mind or defective 
 education than the want of power to understand 
 the universality of the ideal truth; the absence 
 of sympathy with the colossal grasp of those in- 
 tellects, which have in them so much of divine, 
 that nothing is small to them, and nothing large; 
 but with equal and unoffended vision they take 
 in the sum of the world, — Straw Street and the 
 seventh heavens, — in the same instant. A cer- 
 tain portion of this divine spirit is visible even 
 in the lower examples of all the true men; it is, 
 indeed, perhaps, the clearest test of their be- 
 longing to the true and great group, that they 
 are continually touching what to the multitude 
 appear vulgarities. The higher a man stands, the 
 more the word " vulgar" becomes unintelligible 
 to him. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 8/ 
 
 We may dismiss this matter of vulgarity in 
 plain and few words, at least as far as regards 
 art. There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, 
 however commonplace. It may be unimportant 
 or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is 
 only in concealment of truth, or in affectation. 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 The common consent of men proves and ac- 
 cepts the proposition, that whatever part of any 
 pursuit ministers to the bodily comforts, and 
 admits of material uses, is ignoble, and whatso- 
 ever part is addressed to the mind only, is noble; 
 and that geology does better in reclothing dry 
 bones and revealing lost creations, than in trac- 
 ing veins of lead and beds of iron; astronomy 
 better in opening to us the houses of heaven 
 than in teaching navigation; botany better in 
 displaying structure than in expressing juices; 
 surgery better in investigating organization than 
 in setting limbs; only it is ordained that, for 
 our encouragement, every step we make in the 
 more exalted range of science adds something 
 also to its practical applicabilities; that all the 
 great phenomena of nature, the knowledge of 
 which is desired by the angels only, by us partly, 
 as it reveals to farther vision the being and the 
 
88 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 glory of Him in whom they rejoice and we live, 
 dispense yet such kind influences and so much 
 of material blessing as to be joyfully felt by all 
 inferior creatures, and to be desired by them 
 with such single desire as the imperfection of 
 their nature may admit; that the strong torrents 
 which in their own gladness fill the hills with 
 hollow thunder and the vales with winding light, 
 have yet their bounden charge of field to feed 
 and barge to bear; that ,^he fierce flames to 
 which the Alp owes its uphe£t/al and the volcano 
 its terror, temper for us the metal vein and 
 quickening spring; and that for our incitement, 
 I say not our reward, for knowledge is its own 
 rev/ard, herbs have their healing, stones their 
 preciousness and stars their times. 
 
 INFINITY. 
 
 That which we foolishly call vastness is, 
 rightly considered, not more wonderful, not more 
 impressive, than that which we insolently call 
 littleness, and the infinity of God is not myste- 
 rious, it is only unfathomable, not concealed, 
 but incomprehensible: it is a clear infinity, the 
 darkness of the pure unsearchable sea. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 89 
 
 NEARNESS AND DISTANCE. 
 
 Are not all natural things, it may be asked, as 
 lovely near as far away? Nay, not so. Look at 
 the clouds, and watch the delicate sculpture of 
 their alabaster sides, and the rounded lustre of 
 their magnificent rolling. They are meant to be 
 beheld far away; they were shaped for their 
 place, high above your head; approach them, 
 and they fuse into vague mists, or whirl away in 
 fierce fragments of thunderous vapour. Look at 
 the crest of the Alp, from the far-away plains 
 over which its light is cast, whence human souls 
 have communion with it by their myriads. The 
 child looks up to it in the dawn, and the hus- 
 bandman in the burden and heat of the day, 
 and the old man in the going down of the sun, 
 and it is to them all as the celestial city on the 
 world's horizon; dyed with the depth of heaven, 
 and clothed with the calm of eternity. There 
 was it set, for holy dominion, by Him who 
 marked for the sun his journey, and bade the 
 moon know her going down. It was built for its 
 place in the far-off sky; approach it, and as the 
 sound of the voice of man dies away about its 
 foundations, and the tide of human life, shal- 
 lowed upon the vast aerial shore, is at last met 
 by the Eternal " Here shall thy waves be 
 stayed," the glory of its aspect fades into 
 
90 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 blanched fearfulness; its purple walls are rent 
 into grisly rocks, its silver fretwork saddened 
 into wasting snow; the storm-brands of ages are 
 on its breast, the ashes of its own ruin lie sol- 
 emnly on its white raiment. 
 
 NOVELTY. 
 
 ** Custom hangs upon us, with a weight 
 Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life." 
 
 And if we grow impatient under it, and seek 
 to recover the mental energy by more quickly 
 repeated and brighter novelty, it is all over with 
 our enjoyment. There is no cure for this evil, 
 any more than for the weariness of the imagina- 
 tion already described, but in patience and rest: 
 if we try to obtain perpetual change, change it- 
 self will become monotonous: and then we are 
 reduced to that old despair, " If water chokes, 
 what will you drink after it?" And the two 
 points of practical wisdom in this matter are, 
 first, to be content with as little novelty as pos- 
 sible at a time; and, secondly, to preserve, as 
 much as possible in the world, the sources of 
 novelty. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 EXCITEMENT OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 Remember that when the imagination and 
 feelings are strongly excited, they will not only 
 bear with strange things, but they will look into 
 minute things with a delight quite unknown in 
 hours of tranquillity. You surely must remem- 
 ber moments of your lives in which, under some 
 strong excitement of feeling, all the details of 
 visible objects presented themselves with a 
 strange intensity and insistance, whether you 
 would or no; urging themselves upon the mind, 
 and thrust upon the eye, with a force of fascina- 
 tion which you could not refuse. Now, to a cer- 
 tain extent, the senses get into this state when- 
 ever the imagination is strongly excited. Things 
 trivial at other times assume a dignity or signif- 
 icance which we cannot explain; but which is 
 only the more attractive because inexplicable: 
 and the powers of attention, quickened by the 
 feverish excitement, fasten and feed upon the 
 minutest circumstances of detail, and remotest 
 traces of intention. 
 
 PEACE AND WAR. 
 
 Both peace and war are noble or ignoble ac- 
 cording to their kind and occasion. No man 
 
92 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 has a profounder sense of the horror and guilt 
 ©f ignoble war than I have. I have personally- 
 seen its effects, upon nations, of unmitigated 
 evil, on soul and body, with perhaps as much 
 pity, and as much bitterness of indignation, as 
 any of those whom you will hear continually de- 
 claiming in the cause of peace. But peace may 
 be sought in two ways. One way is as Gideon 
 sought it, when he built his altar in Ophrah, 
 naming it, " God sent peace," yet sought this 
 peace that he loved, as he was ordered to seek 
 it, and the peace was sent, in God's way: — " the 
 country was in quietness forty years in the days 
 of Gideon." And the other way of seeking 
 peace is as Menahem sought it when he gave 
 the King of Assyria a thousand talents of silver, 
 that "his hand might be with him." That is, 
 you may either win your peace, or buy it: — win 
 it, by resistance to evil; — buy it, by compromise 
 with evil. You may buy your peace, with si- 
 lenced consciences; — you may buy it, with bro- 
 ken vows, — buy it, with lying words, — buy it, 
 with base connivances, — buy it, with the blood 
 of the slain, and the cry of the captive, and the 
 silence of lost souls — over hemispheres of the 
 earth, while you sit smiling at your serene 
 hearths, lisping comfortable prayers evening and 
 morning, and counting your pretty Protestant 
 beads (which are flat, and of gold, instead of 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 93 
 
 round, and of ebony, as the monk's once were), 
 and so mutter continually to yourselves, " Peace, 
 peace," when there is No peace; but only cap- 
 tivity and death, for you, as well as for those you 
 leave unsaved; — and yours darker than theirs. 
 
 I cannot utter to you what I would in this 
 matter; we all see too dimly, as yet, what our 
 great world-duties are, to allow any of us to try 
 to outline their enlarging shadows. But think 
 over what I have said, and in your quiet homes 
 reflect that their peace was not won for you by 
 your own hands; but by theirs who long ago 
 jeoparded their lives for you, their children; 
 and remember that neither this inherited peace, 
 nor any other, can be kept, but through the 
 same jeopardy. No peace was ever won from 
 Fate by subterfuge or agreement; no peace is 
 ever in store for any of us, but that which we 
 shall win by victory over shame or sin; — victory 
 over the sin that oppresses, as well as over that 
 which corrupts. For many a year to come, the 
 sword of every righteous nation must be whetted 
 to save or to subdue; nor will it be by patience of 
 others' suffering, but by the offering of your own, 
 that you will ever draw nearer to the time when 
 the great change shall pass upon the iron of the 
 earth; — when men shall beat their swords into 
 ploughshares, and their spears into pruning- 
 hooks; neither shall they learn war any more. 
 
94 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF SIGHT. 
 
 Had it been ordained by the Almighty that 
 the highest pleasures of sight should be those of 
 most difficult attainment, and that to arrive at 
 them it should be necessary to accumulate 
 gilded palaces tower over tower, and pile arti- 
 ficial mountains around insinuated lakes, there 
 would have been a direct contradiction between 
 the unselfish duties and inherent desires of 
 every individual. But no such contradiction 
 exists in the system of Divine Providence, which, 
 leaving it open to us, if we will, as creatures in 
 probation, to abuse this sense like every other, 
 and pamper it with selfish and thoughtless vani- 
 ties as we pamper the palate with deadly meats, 
 until the appetite of tasteful cruelty is lost in its 
 sickened satiety, incapable of pleasure unless, 
 Caligula-like, it concentrate the labour of a mil- 
 lion of lives into the sensation of an hour, leaves 
 it also open to us, by humble and loving ways, 
 to make ourselves susceptible of deep delight 
 from the meanest objects of creation, and of a 
 delight which shall not separate us from our fel- 
 lows, nor require the sacrifice of any duty or 
 occupation, but which shall bind us closer to 
 men and to God, and be with us always, har- 
 monized with every action, consistent with every 
 claim, unchanging and eternal. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 95 
 
 PRIDE. 
 
 Pride is base from the necessary foolishness 
 of it, because at its best, that is when grounded 
 on a just estimation of our own elevation or 
 superiority above certain others, it cannot but 
 imply that our eyes look downward only, and 
 have never been raised above our own measure, 
 for there is not the man so lofty in his standing 
 nor capacity but he must be humble in thinking 
 of the cloud habitation and far sight of the an- 
 gelic intelligences above him, and in perceiving 
 what infinity there is of things he cannot know 
 nor even reach unto, as it stands compared with 
 that little body of things he can reach, and of 
 which nevertheless he can altogether under- 
 stand not one: not to speak of that wicked and 
 fond attributing of such excellency as he may 
 have to himself, and thinking of it as his own 
 getting, which is the real essence and criminality 
 of pride, nor of those viler forms of it, founded 
 on false estimation of things beneath us and 
 irrational contemning of them: but taken at its 
 best, it is still base to that degree that there is 
 no grandeur of feature which it cannot destroy 
 and make despicable. 
 
9^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 TRUE LIBERTY. 
 
 Wise laws and just restraints are to a noble 
 nation not chains, but chain mail — strength and 
 defence, though something also of an incum- 
 brance. And this necessity of restraint, remem- 
 ber, is just as honorable to man as the necessity 
 of labour. You hear every day greater numbers 
 of foolish people speaking about liberty, as if it 
 were such an honourable thing: so far from being 
 that, it is, on the whole, and in the broadest 
 sense, dishonourable, and an attribute of the 
 lower creatures. No human being, however 
 great or powerful, was ever so free as a fish. 
 There is always something that he must, or 
 must not do; while the fish may do whatever he 
 likes. All the kingdoms of the world put to- 
 gether are not half so large as the sea, and all 
 the railroads and wheels that were ever, or will 
 be, invented are not so easy as fins. You will 
 find, on fairly thinking of it, that it is his Re- 
 straint which is honourable to man, not his Lib- 
 erty; and, what is more, it is restraint which is 
 honourable even in the lower animals. A butter- 
 fly is much more free than a bee; but you 
 honour the bee more, just because it is subject to 
 certain laws which fit it for orderly function in 
 bee society. And throughout the world, of the 
 two abstract things, liberty and restraint, re- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 9/ 
 
 straint is always the more honourable. It is true, 
 indeed, that in these and all other matters you 
 never can reason finally from the abstraction, 
 for both liberty and restraint are good when 
 they are nobly chosen, and both are bad when 
 they are basely chosen; but of the two, I re- 
 peat, it is restraint which characterizes the 
 higher creature, and betters the lower creature: 
 and, from the ministering of the archangel to 
 the labour of the insect, — from the poising of the 
 planets to the gravitation of a grain of dust, — 
 the power and glory of all creatures, and all 
 matter, consist in their obedience, not in their 
 freedom. The Sun has no liberty — a dead leaf 
 has much. The dust of which you are formed 
 has no liberty; its liberty will come — with its 
 corruption. 
 
 WEAK THINGS MADE STRONG, 
 
 Is not this a strange type, in the very heart 
 and height of these mysterious Alps — these 
 wrinkled hills in their snowy, cold, gray-haired 
 old age, at first so silent, then, as we keep quiet 
 at their feet, muttering and whispering to us 
 garrulously, in broken and dreaming fits, as it 
 were, about their childhood — is it not a strange 
 type of the things which "out of weakness are 
 
98 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 made strong!" If one of those little flakes of 
 mica-sand, hurried in tremulous spangling along 
 the bottom of the ancient river, too light to sink 
 to faint to float, almost too small for sight, could 
 have had a mind given to it as it was at last 
 borne down with its kindred dust into the 
 abysses of the stream, and laid (would it not 
 have thought?) for a hopeless eternity in the 
 dark ooze, the most despised, forgotten, and 
 feeble of all earth's atoms; incapable of any use 
 or change; not fit, down there in the diluvial 
 darkness, so much as to help an earth-wasp to 
 build its nest, or feed the first fibre of a lichen; 
 — what would it have thought, had it been told 
 that one day, knitted into a strength as of im- 
 perishable iron, rustless by the air, infusible by 
 the flame, out of the substance of it, with its fel- 
 lows, the axe of God should hew that Alpine 
 tower; that against //—poor, helpless, mica flake! 
 — the wild north winds should rage in vain; be- 
 neath //—low-fallen mica flake! — the snowy hills 
 should lie bowed like flocks of sheep, and the 
 kingdoms of the earth fade away in unregarded 
 blue; and around it — weak, wave-drifted mica 
 flake! — the great war of the firmament should 
 burst in thunder, and yet stir it not; and the 
 fiery arrows and angry meteors of the night fall 
 blunted back from it into the air; and all the 
 stars in the clear heaven should light, one by 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 99 
 
 one as they rose, new cressets upon the points of 
 snow that fringed its abiding-place on the im- 
 perishable spire! 
 
 THE TRUTH OF TRUTHS. 
 
 Truth is to be discovered, and Pardon to be 
 won for every man by himself. This is evident 
 from innumerable texts of Scripture, but chiefly 
 from those which exhort every man to seek after 
 Truth, and which connect knowing with doing. 
 We are to seek after knowledge as silver, and 
 search for her as for hid treasures; therefore, 
 from every man she must be naturally hid, and 
 the discovery of her is to be the reward only of 
 personal search. The kingdom of God is as 
 treasure hid in a field; and of those who profess 
 to help us to seek for it, we are not to put con- 
 fidence in those who say, — Here is the treasure, 
 we have found it, and have it, and will give you 
 some of it; but to those who say, — We think 
 that is a good place to dig, and you will dig 
 most easily in such and such a way. 
 
 Farther, it has been promised that if such 
 earnest search be made, Tnith shall be discov- 
 ered: as much truth, that is, as is necessary for 
 the person seeking. These, therefore, I hold, 
 for two fundamental principles of religion, — 
 
100 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 that, without seeking, truth cannot be known at 
 all; and that, by seeking, it may be discovered 
 by the simplest. I say, without seeking it can- 
 not be known at all. It can neither be declared 
 from pulpits, nor set down in Articles, nor in 
 any wise " prepared and sold " in packages, 
 ready for use. Truth must be ground for every 
 man by himself out of its husk, with such help as 
 he can get, indeed, but not without stern labour 
 of his own. In what science is knowledge to be 
 had cheap? or truth to be told over a velvet 
 cushion, in half an hour's talk every seventh 
 day? Can you learn chemistry so? — zoology? — 
 anatomy? and do you expect to penetrate the 
 secret of all secrets, and to know that whose 
 price is above rubies; and of which the depth 
 saith, — It is not in me, in so easy fashion? 
 There are doubts in this matter which evil 
 spirits darken with their wings, and that is true 
 of all such doubts which we were told long ago — 
 they can "be ended by action alone." 
 
 As surely as we live, this truth of truths can 
 only so be discerned: to those who act on what 
 they know, more shall be revealed; and thus, if 
 any man will do His will, he shall know the 
 doctrine whether it be of God. Any man: — not 
 the man who has most means of knowing, who 
 has the subtlest brains, or sits under the most 
 orthodox preacher, or lias his library fullest of 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. lOI 
 
 most orthodox books — but the man who strives 
 to know, who takes God at His word, and sets 
 himself to dig up the heavenly mystery, roots 
 and all, before sunset, and the night come, when 
 no man can work. Beside such a man, God 
 stands in more and more visible presence as he 
 toils, and teaches him that which no preacher 
 can teach — no earthly authority gainsay. By 
 such a man, the preacher must himself be 
 judged. 
 
 GOD S PLACE IN THE HUMAN HEART. 
 
 Anything which makes religion its second ob- 
 ject, makes religion no object. God will put up 
 with a great many things in the human heart, 
 but there is one thing He will not put up with 
 in it — a second place. He who offers God a 
 second place, offers Him no place. 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Men not in office in the Church suppose 
 themselves, on that ground, in a sort unholy; 
 and that, therefore, they may sin with more ex- 
 cuse, and be idle or impious with less danger, 
 than the Clergy: especially they consider them- 
 
102 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 selves relieved from all ministerial function, and 
 as permitted to devote their whole time and 
 energy to the business of this world. No mis- 
 take can possibly be greater. Every member of 
 the Church is equally bound to the service of 
 the Head of the Church; and that service is 
 preeminently the saving of souls. There is not 
 a moment of a man's active life in which he 
 may not be indirectly preaching; and through- 
 out a great part of his life he ought to be direct- 
 ly preaching, and teaching both strangers and 
 friends; his children, his servants, and all who 
 in any way are put under him, being given to 
 him as especial objects of his ministration. 
 
 DISCERNMENT OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 
 
 If we hear a man profess himself a believer in 
 God and in Christ, and detect him in no glaring 
 and wilful violation of God's law, we speak of 
 him as a Christian; and, on the other hand, if 
 we hear him or see him denying Christ, either 
 in his words or conduct, we tacitly assume him 
 not to be a Christian. A mawkish charity pre- 
 vents us from outspeaking in this matter, and 
 from earnestly endeavouring to discern who are 
 Christians and who are not; and this I hold to 
 be one of the chief sins of the Church in the 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. I03 
 
 present day; for thus wicked men are put to no 
 shame; and better men are encouraged in theij 
 failings, or caused to hesitate in their virtues, by 
 the example of those whom, in false charity, 
 they choose to call Christians. 
 
 PATRONAGE OF ART. 
 
 As you examine into the career of historical 
 painting, you will be more and more struck with 
 the fact 1 have stated to you, — that none was 
 ever truly great but that which represented the 
 living forms and daily deeds of the people among 
 whom it arose; — that all precious historical 
 work records, not the past but the present. Re- 
 member, therefore, that it is not so much in 
 buying pictures, as in being pictures, that you 
 can encourage a noble school. The best patron- 
 age of art is not that which seeks for the pleas- 
 ures of sentiment in a vague ideality, nor for 
 beauty of form in a marble image; but that 
 which educates your children into living heroes, 
 and binds down the flights and the fondnesses of 
 che heart into practical duty and faithful devo- 
 tion. 
 
 COMPANIONSHIP WITH NATURE. 
 
 To the mediaeval knight, from Scottish moor 
 to Syrian sand, the world was one great exercise 
 
104 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ground, or field of adventure; the staunch pac- 
 ing of his charger penetrated the pathlessness 
 of outmost forest, and sustained the sultriness 
 of the most secret desert. Frequently alone, — 
 or, if accompanied, for the most part only by re- 
 tainers of lower rank, incapable of entering into 
 complete sympathy with any of his thoughts, — 
 he must have been compelled often to enter into 
 dim companionship with the silent nature around 
 him, and must assuredly sometimes have talked 
 to the wayside flowers of his love, and to the 
 fading clouds of his ambition. 
 
 ALL CARVING AND NO MEAT. 
 
 The divisions of a church are much like the 
 divisions of a sermon; they are always right so 
 long as they are necessary to edification, and al- 
 ways wrong when they are thrust upon the at- 
 tention as divisions only. There may be neat- 
 ness in carving when there is richness in feast- 
 ing; but I have heard many a discourse, and seen 
 many a church wall, in which it was all carving 
 and no meat. 
 
 THE TRUE CHURCH. 
 
 ' The Church which is composed of Faithful 
 men, is the one true, indivisible and indiscerni- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. IO5 
 
 ble Church, built on the foundation of Apostles 
 and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the 
 chief corner-stone. It includes all who have 
 Ever fallen asleep in Christ, and all yet unborn, 
 who are to be saved in Him; its Body is as yet 
 imperfect; it will not be perfected till the last 
 saved human spirit is gathered to its God. 
 
 A man becomes a member of this Church only 
 by believing in Christ with all his heart; nor is 
 he positively recognizable for a member of it, 
 when he has become so, by any one but God, 
 not even by himself. Nevertheless, there are 
 certain signs by which Christ's sheep may be 
 guessed at. Not by their being in any definite 
 Fold — for many are lost sheep at times: but 
 by their sheep-like behaviour; and a great many 
 are indeed sheep which, on the far mountain side, 
 in their peacefulness, we take for stones. To 
 themselves, the best proof of their being Christ's 
 sheep is to find themselves on Christ's shoulders; 
 and, between them, there are certain sympathies 
 (expressed in the Apostles' Creed by the term 
 "communion of Saints"), by which they may in 
 a sort recognize each other, and so become veri- 
 ly visible to each other for mutual comfort. 
 
I06 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 FLOWERS. 
 
 Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordi- 
 nary humanity; children love them; quiet, ten- 
 der contented ordinary people love them as they 
 grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in 
 them gathered: They are the cottager's treasure; 
 and in the crowded town, mark, as v/ith a little 
 broken fragment of rainbow, the windows of the 
 workers in whose heart rests the covenant of 
 peace. Passionate or religious minds contem- 
 plate them with fond, feverish intensity; the af- 
 fection is seen severely calm in the works of 
 many old religious painters, and mixed with 
 more open and true country sentiment in those 
 of our own pre-Raphaelites. To the child and 
 the girl, the peasant and the manufacturing op- 
 erative, to the grisette and the nun, the lover 
 and monk they are precious always. But to the 
 men of supreme power and thoughtfulness, pre- 
 cious only at times; symbolically and pathetically 
 often to the poets, but rarely for their own sake. 
 They fall forgotten from the great workmen's 
 and soldiers' hands. Such men will take, in 
 thankfulness, crowns of leaves, or crowns of 
 thorns— not crowns of flowers. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 10/ 
 
 THE CLOUD-BALANCINGS. 
 
 When the earth had to be prepared for the 
 habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of interme- 
 diate being was si)read between him and its 
 darkness, in which were joined, in a subdued 
 measure, the stability and insensibility of the 
 earth, and the passion and perishing of man- 
 kind. 
 
 But the heavens, also, had to be prepared for 
 his habitation. 
 
 Between their burning light, — their deep 
 vacuity, and man, as between the earth's gloom 
 of iron substance, and man, a veil had to be 
 spread of intermediate being; which should ap- 
 pease the unendurable glory to the level of hu- 
 man feebleness, and sign the changeless motion 
 of the heavens with a semblance of human vicis- 
 situde. 
 
 Between earth and man arose the leaf. Be- 
 tween the heaven and man came the cloud. His 
 life being partly as the falling leaf, and partly as 
 the flying vapour. 
 
 Has the reader any distinct idea of what clouds 
 are? We had some talk about them long ago, 
 and perhaps thought their nature, though at that 
 time not clear Co us, would be easy enough un- 
 derstandable when we put ourselves seriously 
 
I08 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 to make it out. Shall we begin with one or two 
 easiest questions? 
 
 That mist which lies in the morning so softly 
 in the valley, level and w^hite, through which the 
 tops of the trees rise as if through an inundation 
 — why is // so heavy? and why does it lie so low, 
 being yet so thin and frail that it will melt away 
 utterly into splendour of morning, when the sun 
 has shone on it but a few moments more. 
 Those colossal pyramids, huge and firm, with 
 outlines as of rocks, and strength to bear the 
 beating of the high sun full on their fiery flanks 
 ■ — why are they so light, — their bases high over 
 our heads, high over the heads of Alps? why will 
 these melt away, not as the sun rises, but as he 
 descends, and leave the stars of twilight clear, 
 while the valley vapour gains again upon the 
 earth like a shroud? 
 
 Or that ghost of a cloud, which steals by 
 yonder clump of pines; nay, which does not 
 steal by them, but haunts them, wreathing yet 
 round them, and yet — and yet, sloAvly: now 
 falling in a fair waved line like a woman's veil; 
 now fading, now gone: we look away for an 
 instant, and look back, and it is again there. 
 What has it to do with that clump of pines, that 
 it broods by them and weaves itself among their 
 branches, to and fro? Has it hidden a cloudy 
 treasure among the moss at their roots, which it 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. IO9 
 
 watches thus? Or has some strong enchanter 
 charmed it into fond returning, or bound it fast 
 within those bars of bough? And yonder filmy 
 crescent, bent like an archer's bow above the 
 snowy summit, the highest of all the hill, — that 
 white arch which never forms but over the 
 supreme crest, — how is it stayed there, repelled 
 apparently from the snow — nowhere touching it, 
 the clear sky seen between it and the mountain 
 edge, yet never leaving it — poised as a white 
 bird hovers over its nest? 
 
 Or those war-clouds that gather on the hori- 
 zon, dragon-crested, tongued with fire; — how is 
 their barbed strength bridled? what bits are 
 these they are champing with their vapourous 
 lips; flinging off flakes of black foam? Leagued 
 leviathans of the Sea of Heaven, out of their 
 nostrils goeth smoke, and their eyes are like the 
 eyelids of the morning. The sword of him that 
 layeth at them cannot hold the spear, the dart, 
 nor the habergeon. Where ride the captains of 
 their armies? Where are set the measures of 
 their march? Fierce murmurers, answering each 
 other from morning until evening — what rebuke 
 is this which has awed them into peace? what 
 hand has reined them back by the way by which 
 they came? 
 
 I know not if the reader will think at first that 
 questions like these are easily answered. So far 
 
no PRECIOUS TJI OUGHTS. 
 
 from it, I rather believe that some of the mys- 
 teries of the clouds never will be understood by 
 us at all. " Knowest thou the balancings of the 
 clouds?" Is the answer ever to be one of pride? 
 " The wondrous works of Him which is perfect 
 in knowledge?" Is our knowledge ever to be so? 
 
 It is one of the most discouraging conse- 
 quences of the varied character of this work of 
 mine, that I am Avholly unable to take note of 
 the advance of modern science. What has con- 
 clusively been discovered or observed about 
 clouds, I know not; but by the chance inquiry 
 possible to me I find no book which fairly states 
 the difficulties of accounting for even the ordi- 
 nary aspects of the sky. I shall, therefore, be 
 able in this section to do little more than suggest 
 inquiries to the reader, putting the subject in a 
 clear form for him. All men accustomed to in- 
 vestigation will confirm me in saying that it is a 
 great step when we are personally quite certain 
 what we do 7iot know. 
 
 First, then, I believe we do not know what 
 makes clouds float. Clouds are water, in some 
 fine form or another: but water is heavier than 
 air, and the finest form you can give a heavy 
 thing will not make it float in a light thing. On 
 it, yes; as a boat: but i?i it, no. Clouds are not 
 boats, nor boat-shaped, and they float in the air, 
 not on the top of it. " Nay, but though unlike 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, III 
 
 boats, may they not be like feathers? If out of 
 quill substance there may be constructed eider- 
 down, and out of vegetable tissue, thistle-down, 
 both buoyant enough for a time, surely of water- 
 tissue may be constructed also water-down, 
 which will be buoyant enough for all cloudy 
 purposes." Not so. Throw out your eider- 
 plumage in a calm day, and it will all come 
 settling to the ground: slowly indeed, to aspect; 
 but practically so fast that all our finest clouds 
 would be here in a heap about our ears in 
 an hour or two, if they were only made of water 
 feathers. " But may they not be quill feathers, 
 and have air inside them? May not all their 
 particles be minute little balloons?" 
 
 A balloon only floats when the air inside it is 
 either specifically, or by heating, lighter than the 
 air it floats in. If the cloud-feathers had warm 
 air inside their quills, a cloud would be warmer 
 than the air about it, which it is not (I believe). 
 And if the cloud-feathers had hydrogen inside 
 their quills, a cloud would be unwholesome for 
 breathing, which it is not — at least so it seems to 
 me. 
 
 " But may they not have nothing inside their 
 quills?" Then they would rise, as bubbles do 
 through water, just as certainly as, if they were 
 solid feathers, they would fall. All our clouds 
 
112 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 would go up to the top of the air, and swim in 
 eddies of cloud-foam, 
 
 " But is not that just what they do?" No. 
 They float at different heights, and with definite 
 forms, in the body of the air itself. If they rose 
 like foam, the sky on a cloudy day would look 
 like a very large flat glass of champagne seen 
 from below, with a stream of bubbles (or clouds) 
 going up as fast as they could to a flat foam- 
 ceiling. 
 
 " But may they not be just so nicely mixed out 
 of some thing and nothing, as to float where they 
 are wanted?" 
 
 Yes: that is just what they not only may, but 
 must be only this way of mixing something and 
 nothing is the very thing I want to explain 
 or have explained, and cannot do it, nor get it 
 done. 
 
 Except thus far. It is conceivable that mi- 
 nute hollow spherical globes might be formed of 
 water, in which the enclosed vacuity just bal- 
 anced the weight of the enclosing water, and 
 that the arched sphere formed by the watery film 
 was strong enough to prevent the pressure of the 
 atmosphere from breaking it in. Such a globule 
 would float like a balloon at the height in the 
 atmosphere where the equipoise between the 
 vacuum it enclosed, and its own excess of weight 
 above that of the air, was exact. It would. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. II3 
 
 probably, approach its companion globules by 
 reciprocal attraction, and form aggregations 
 which might be visible. 
 
 This is, I believe, the view usually taken by 
 meteorologists I state it as a possibility, to be 
 taken into account in examining the question — 
 a possibility confirmed by the scriptural words 
 which I have taken for the title of this chapter. 
 
 Nevertheless, I state it as a possibility only, 
 not seeing how any known operation of physical 
 law could explain the formation of such mole- 
 cules. This, however, is not the only difficulty. 
 Whatever shape the water is thrown into, it 
 seems at first improbable that it should lose its 
 property of wetness. Minute division of rain, as 
 in " Scotch mist," makes it capable of floating 
 farther, or floating up and down a little, just as 
 dust will float, though pebbles will not; or gold- 
 leaf, though a sovereign will not; but minutely 
 divided rain wets as much as any other kind, 
 whereas a cloud, partially always, sometimes en- 
 tirely, loses its power of moistening. Some low 
 clouds look, when you are in them, as if they 
 were made of specks of dust, like short hairs; 
 and these clouds are entirely dry. And also 
 many clouds will wet some substances, but 
 not others. So that we must grant farther, if we 
 are to be happy in our theory, that the spherical 
 molecules are held together by an attraction 
 
114 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 which prevents their adhering to any foreign 
 body, or perhaps ceases only under some peculiar 
 electric conditions. 
 
 The question remains, even supposing their 
 production accounted for, — What intermediate 
 states of water may exist between these spherical 
 hollow molecules and pure vapour? 
 
 Has the reader ever considered the relations 
 of commonest forms of volatile substance? The 
 invisible particles which cause the scent of a 
 rose-leaf, how minute, how multitudinous, pass- 
 ing richly away into the air continually! The 
 visible cloud of frankincense — why visible? Is 
 it in consequence of the greater quantity, or 
 larger size of the particles, and how does the 
 heat act in throwing them off in this quantity, 
 or of this size? 
 
 Ask the same questions respecting water. It 
 dries, that is, becomes volatile, invisibly, at 
 (any?) temperature. Snow dries, as water does. 
 Under increase of heat, it volatilizes faster, so 
 as to become dimly visible in large mass, as a 
 heat-haze. It reaches boiling point, then be- 
 comes entirely visible. But compress it, so that 
 no air shall get between the watery particles — 
 it is invisible again. At the first issuing from 
 the steam-pipe the steam is transparent; but 
 opaque, or visible, as it diffuses itself. The 
 water is indeed closer, because cooler, in tha-t 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. II5 
 
 diffusion; but more air is between its particles. 
 Then this very question of visibility is an end- 
 less one, wavering between form of substance 
 and action of light. The clearest (or least visi- 
 ble) stream becomes brightly opaque by more 
 minute division in its foam, and the clearest 
 dew in hoar-frost. Dust, unperceived in shade, 
 becomes constantly visible in sunbeam; and 
 watery vapour in the atmosphere, which is itself 
 opaque, when there is promise of fine weather, 
 becomes exquisitely transparent; and (question- 
 ably) blue, when it is going to rain. 
 
 Questionably blue: for besides knowing very 
 little about water, we know what, except by 
 courtesy, must, I think, be called Nothing — 
 about air. Is it the watery vapour, or the air it- 
 self, which is blue.'* Are neither blue, but only 
 white, producing blue when seen over dark 
 spaces? If . either blue, or white, why, when 
 crimson is their commanded dress, are the most 
 distant clouds crimsonest? Clouds close to us 
 may be blue, but far off golden, — a strange re- 
 sult, if the air is blue. And again, if blue, why 
 are rays that come through large spaces of it red; 
 and that Alp, or anything else that catches far- 
 away light, why coloured red at dawn and sunset? 
 No one knows, I believe. It is true that many 
 substances, as opal, are blue, or green, by re- 
 flected light, yellow by transmitted; but air, if 
 
1 1 PRE CIO US ■ THO UGHTS. 
 
 blue at all, is blue always by transmitted light. 
 I hear of a wonderful solution of nettles, or other 
 unlovely herb, which is green when shallow, — 
 red when deep. Perhaps some day, as the mo- 
 tion of the heavenly bodies by help of an apple, 
 their light by help of a nettle,' may be explained 
 to mankind. 
 
 But farther: these questions of volatility, and 
 visibility, and hue, are all complicated with those 
 of shape. How is a cloud outlined? Granted 
 whatever you choose to ask, concerning its ma- 
 terial, or its aspect, its loftiness and luminous- 
 ness, — how of its limitation? What hews it into 
 a heap, or spins it into a web? Cold is usually 
 shapeless, I suppose, extending over large spaces 
 equally, or with gradual diminution. You can- 
 not have, in the open air, angles, and wedges, 
 and coils, and cliffs of cold. Yet the vapour 
 stops suddenly, sharp and steep as a rock, or 
 thrusts itself across the gates of heaven in like- 
 ness of a brazen bar; or braids itself in and out, 
 and across and across, like a tissue of tapestry; 
 or falls into ripples, like sand; or into waving 
 shreds and tongues, as fire. On what anvils and 
 wheels is the vapour pointed, twisted, hammered, 
 whirled, as the potter's clay? By what hands is 
 the incense of the sea built up into domes of 
 marble? 
 
 And, lastly, all these questions respecting sub- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 11/ 
 
 Stance, and aspect, and shape, and line, and di- 
 vision, are involved with others as inscrutable, 
 concerning action. The curves in which clouds 
 move are unknown; — nay, the very method of 
 their motion, or apparent motion, how far it is 
 by change of place, how far by appearance in 
 one place and vanishing from another. And 
 these questions about movement lead partly far 
 away into high mathematics, where I cannot 
 follow them, and partly into theories concerning 
 electricity and infinite space, where I suppose at 
 present no one can follow them. 
 
 What, then, is the use of asking the questions? 
 
 For my own part, I enjoy the mystery, and 
 perhaps the reader may. I think he ought. He 
 should not be less grateful for summer rain, or 
 see less beauty in the clouds of morning, because 
 they come to prove him with hard questions; to 
 which, perhaps, if we look closely at the heav- 
 enly scroll,* we may find also a syllable or two 
 of answer illuminated here and there. 
 
 * There is a beautiful passage in Sartor Resarttis con- 
 cerning this old Hebrew scroll, in its deeper meanings, 
 and the child's watching it, though long illegible for him, 
 yet " with an eye to the gilding." It signifies in a word 
 or two nearly all that is to be said about clouds. 
 
Il8 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 FEAR OF DEATH. 
 
 For, exactly in proportion as the pride of 
 life became more insolent, the fear of death 
 became more servile; and the difference in the 
 manner in which the men of early and later 
 days adorned the sepulchre, confesses a still 
 greater difference in their manner of regard- 
 ing death. To those he came as the comforter 
 and the friend, rest in his right hand, hope in 
 his left; to these as the humiliator, the spoiler, 
 and the avenger. And, therefore, we find the 
 early tombs at once simple and lovely in adorn- 
 ment, severe and solemn in their expression; 
 confessing the power, and accepting the peace, 
 of death, openly and joyfully; and in all their 
 symbols marking that the hope of resurrection 
 lay only in Christ's righteousness; signed always 
 with this simple utterance of the dead, " I will 
 lay me down in peace, and take my rest; for it 
 is thou, Lord, only that >makest me dwell in 
 safety." But the tombs of the later ages are a 
 ghastly struggle of mean pride and miserable 
 terror: the one mustering the statues of the Vir- 
 tues about the tomb, disguising the sarcophagus 
 with delicate sculpture, polishing the false pe- 
 riods of the elaborate epitaph, and filling with 
 strained animation the features of the portrait 
 statue; and the other summoning underneath, 
 
PRE CIO US THO UGII TS. I 1 9 
 
 out of the niche or from behind the curtain, the 
 frowning skull, or scythed skeleton, or some 
 other more terrible image of the enemy in whose 
 defiance the whiteness of the sepulchre had been 
 set to shine above the whiteness of the ashes. 
 
 RECREATION. 
 
 It is one thing to indulge in playful rest, and 
 another to be devoted to the pursuit of pleasure: 
 and gaiety of heart during the reaction after hard 
 labour, and quickened by satisfaction in the ac- 
 complished duty or perfected result, is altogether 
 compatible with, nay, even in some sort arises 
 naturally out of, a deep internal seriousness of 
 disposition. 
 
 TYPES. 
 
 I trust that some day the language of Types 
 will be more read and understood by us than it 
 has been for centuries; and when this language, 
 a better one than either Greek or Latin, is again 
 recognized amongst us, we shall find, or remem- 
 ber, that as the other visible elements of the uni- 
 verse — its air, its water, and its flame — set forth, 
 in their pure energies, the life-giving, purifying. 
 
I20 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 and sanctifying influences of the Deity upon His 
 creatures, so the earth, in its purity, sets forth 
 His eternity and His Truth. I have dwelt 
 above on the historical language of stones; let us 
 not forget this, which is their theological lan- 
 guage; and, as we w^ould not wantonly pollute 
 the fresh waters when they issue forth in their 
 clear glory from the rock, nor stay the mountain 
 winds into pestilential stagnancy, nor mock the 
 sunbeams with artificial and ineffective light; so 
 let us not by our own base and barren falsehoods, 
 replace the crystalline strength and burning col- 
 our of the earth from which we were born, and 
 to which we must return; the earth which, like 
 our own bodies, though dust in its degradation, 
 is full of splendour when God's hand gathers its 
 atoms; and which was for ever sanctified by Him, 
 as the symbol no less of His love than of His 
 truth, when He bade the high priest bear the 
 names of the Children of Israel on the clear 
 stones of the Breastplate of Judgment. 
 
 EXPLAINING NATURE. 
 
 The sea was meant to be irregular! Yes, and 
 were not also the leaves, and the blades of grass; 
 and, in a sort, as far as may be without mark of 
 sin, even the countenance of man? Or would it 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 121 
 
 be pleasanter and better to have us all alike, and 
 numbered on our foreheads, that we might be 
 known one from the other? 
 
 Is there, then, nothing to be done by man's 
 art? Have we only to copy, and again copy, for 
 ever, the imagery of the universe? Not so. We 
 have work to do upon it; there is not any one 
 of us so simple, nor so feeble, but he has work to 
 do upon it. But the work is not to improve, but 
 to explain. This infinite universe is unfathom- 
 able, inconceivable, in its whole; every human 
 creature must slowly spell out, and longcontem- 
 l)late, such part of it as may be possible for him 
 lo reach; then set forth what he has learned of 
 it for those beneath him; extricating it from in- 
 finity, as one gathers a violet out of grass; one 
 does not improve either violet or grass in gather- 
 ing it, but one makes the flower visible; and then 
 the human being has to make its power upon his 
 own heart visible also, and to give it the honour 
 of the good thoughts it has raised up in him, and 
 to write upon it the history of his own soul. 
 And sometimes he may be able to do more than 
 this, and to set it in strange lights, and display 
 it in a thousand ways before unknown: ways es- 
 pecially directed to necessary and noble purposes, 
 for which he had to choose instruments out of 
 the wide armoury of God. All this he may do: 
 and in this he is only doing what every Christian 
 
122 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 has to do with the written, as well as the created 
 word, " rightly dividing the word of truth." Out 
 of the infinity of the written word, he has also to 
 gather and set forth things new and old, to 
 choose them for the season and 'the work that 
 are before him, to explain and manifest them to 
 others, with such illustration and enforcement as 
 maybe in his power, and to crown them with the 
 history of what, by them, God has done for his 
 soul. And, in doing this, is he improving the 
 Word of God? 
 
 THE LOVE OF FLOWERS. 
 
 Perhaps it may be thought, if we understood 
 flowers better, we might love them less. 
 
 We do not love them much, as it. is. Few 
 people care about flowers. Many, indeed, are 
 fond of finding a new shape of blossom, caring 
 for it as a child cares about a kaleidoscope. 
 Many, also, like a fair service of flowers in the 
 greenhouse, as a fair service of plate on the table. 
 Many are scientifically interested in them, though 
 even these in the nomenclature rather than the 
 flowers. And a few enjoy their gardens; but I 
 have never heard of apiece of land, which would 
 let well on a building lease, remaining unlet be- 
 cause it was a flowery piece. I have never 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 23 
 
 heard of parks being kept for wild hyacinths, 
 though often of their being kept for wild beasts. 
 And the blossoming time of the year being prin- 
 cipally spring, I perceive it to be the mind of 
 most people, during that period, to stay in 
 towns. 
 
 A year or two ago, a keen-sighted and eccen- 
 trically minded friend of mine, having taken it 
 into his head to violate this national custom, 
 and go to the Tyrol in spring, was passing 
 through a valley near Landech, with several simi- 
 larly headstrong companions. A strange moun- 
 tain appeared in the distance, belted about its 
 breast with a zone of blue, like our English 
 Queen. Was it a blue cloud? A blue horizon- 
 tal bar of the air that Titian breathed in youth, 
 seen now far away, which mortal might never 
 breathe again? Was it a mirage — a meteor? 
 Would it stay to be approached? (ten miles of 
 winding road yet between them and the foot of 
 its mountain.) Such questioning had they con- 
 cerning it. My keen-sighted friend alone main- 
 tained it to be substantial: whatever it might be, 
 it was not air, and would not vanish. The ten 
 miles of road were overpassed, the carriage left, 
 the mountain climbed. It stayed patiently, ex- 
 panding still into richer breadth and heavenlier 
 glow — a belt of gentians. Such things may ver- 
 ily be seen among the Alps in spring, and in 
 
124 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 spring only. Which being so, I observe most 
 people prefer going in autumn. 
 
 THE EARTH-VEIL. 
 
 To dress it and to keep it." 
 That, then, was to be our work. Alas! what 
 work have we set ourselves upon instead! How 
 have we ravaged the garden instead of kept it — 
 feeding our war-horses with its flowers, and splin- 
 tering its trees into spear-shafts! 
 
 " And at the East a flaming sword." 
 Is its flame quenchless? and are those gates 
 that keep the way indeed passable no more? or 
 is it not rather that we no more desire to enter? 
 For what can we conceive of that first Eden 
 which we might not yet win back, if we chose? 
 It was a place full of flowers, we say. Well: the 
 flowers are always striving to grow wherever we 
 suffer them; and the fairer, the closer. There 
 may indeed have been a Fall of Flowers, as a 
 Fall of Man; but assuredly creatures such as we 
 are can now fancy nothing lovelier than roses 
 and lilies, which would grow for us side by side, 
 leaf overlapping leaf, till the Earth was white 
 and red with them, if we cared to have it so. 
 And Paradise was full of pleasant shades and 
 fruitful avenues Well: what hinders us from 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 125 
 
 covering as much of the world as we Hke with 
 pleasant shade and pure blossom, and goodly 
 fruit? Who forbids its valleys to be covered 
 over with corn, till they laugh and sing? Who 
 prevents its dark forests, ghostly and uninhabit- 
 able, from being changed into infinite orchards, 
 wreathing the hills with frail-floretted snow, far 
 away to the half-lighted horizon of April, and 
 flushing the face of all the autumnal earth with 
 glow of clustered food? But Paradise was a 
 place of peace, we say, and all the animals were 
 gentle servants to us. Well: the world would 
 yet be a place of peace if we were all peace- 
 makers, and gentle service should we have of its 
 creatures if we gave them gentle mastery. But 
 so long as we make sport of slaying bird and 
 beast, so long as we choose to contend rather 
 with our fellows than with our faults, and make 
 battle-field of our meadows instead of pasture — 
 so long, truly, the Flaming Sword will still turn 
 every way, and the gates of Eden remain barred 
 close enough, till we have sheathed the sharper 
 flame of our own passions, and broken down the 
 closer gates of our own hearts. 
 
 I have been led to see and feel this more and 
 more, as I considered the service which the 
 flowers and trees, which man was at first ap- 
 pointed to keep, were intended to render to him 
 in return for his care; and the services they still 
 
126 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 render to him, as far as he allows their influence, 
 or fulfils his own task towards them. For what 
 infinite wonderfulness there is in this vegetation, 
 considered, as indeed it is, as the means by 
 which the earth becomes the companion of man 
 — his friend and his teacher! In the conditions 
 which we have traced in its rocks, there could 
 only be seen preparation for his existence; — the 
 characters which enable him to live on it safely, 
 and to work with it easily — in all these it has 
 been inanimate and passive; but vegetation is 
 to it as an imperfect soul, given to meet the soul 
 of man. The earth in its depths must remain 
 dead and cold, incapable except of slow crystal- 
 line change; but at its surface, which human be- 
 ings look upon and deal with, it ministers to 
 them through a veil of strange intermediate be- 
 ing; which breathes, but has no voice; moves, 
 but cannot leave its appointed place; passes 
 through life without consciousness, to death 
 without bitterness; wears the beauty of youth, 
 without its passion; and declines to the weak- 
 ness of age, without its regret. 
 
 And in this mystery of intermediate being, en- 
 tirely subordinate to us, with which we can deal 
 as we choose, having just the greater power as 
 we have the less responsibility for our treatment 
 of the unsuffering creature, most of the pleasures 
 which we need from the external world are gath- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 12/ 
 
 ered, and most of the lessons we need are writ- 
 ten, all kinds of precious grace and teaching be- 
 ing united in this link between the Earth and 
 Man: wonderful in universal adaptation to his 
 need, desire, and discipline; God's daily prepa- 
 ration of the earth for him, with beautiful 
 means of life. First a carpet to make it soft for 
 him; then, a coloured fantasy of embroidery 
 thereon; then, tall spreading of foliage to shade 
 him from sun-heat, and shade also the fallen 
 rain, that it may not dry quickly back into the 
 clouds, but stay to nourish the springs among 
 the moss. Stout wood to bear this leafage: 
 easily to be cut, yet tough and light, to make 
 houses for him, or instruments (lance-shaft, or 
 plough-handle, according to his temper); useless 
 it had been, if harder; useless, if less fibrous; 
 useless, if less elastic. Winter comes, and the 
 shade of leafage falls away, to let the sun warm 
 the earth; the strong boughs remain, breaking 
 the strength of winter winds. The seeds which 
 are to prolong the race, innumerable according 
 to the need, are made beautiful and palatable, 
 varied into infinitude of appeal to the fancy of 
 man, or provision for his service; cold juice, or 
 glowing spice, or balm, or incense, softening oil, 
 preserving resin, medicine of styptic, febrifuge, 
 or lulling charm: and all these presented in 
 forms of endless change. Fragility or force, 
 
128 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 softness and strength, in all degrees and aspects; 
 unerring uprightness, as of temple pillars, or un- 
 divided wandering of feeble tendrils on the 
 ground; mighty resistances of rigid arm and 
 limb to the storms of ages, or wavings to and fro 
 with faintest pulse of summer streamlet. Roots 
 cleaving the strength of rock, or binding the 
 transience of the sand; crests basking in sun- 
 shine of the desert, or hiding by dripping spring 
 and lightless cave; foliage far tossing in entan- 
 gled fields beneath every wave of ocean — cloth- 
 ing with variegated, everlasting films, the peaks 
 of the trackless mountains, or ministering at 
 cottage doors to every gentlest passion and sim- 
 plest joy of humanity. 
 
 Being thus prepared for us in all ways, and 
 made beautiful, and good for food, and for build- 
 ing, and for instruments of our hands, this race 
 of plants, deserving boundless affection and ad- 
 miration from us, become, in proportion to their 
 obtaining it, a nearly perfect test of our being in 
 right temper of mind and way of life; so that no 
 one can be far wrong in either who loves the 
 trees enough, and every one is assuredly wrong 
 in both, who does not love them, if his life has 
 brought them in his way. It is clearly possible 
 to do without them, for the great companionship 
 of the sea and sky are all that sailors need; and 
 many a noble heart has been taught the best it 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 29 
 
 had to learn between dark stone walls. Still if 
 human life be cast among trees at all, the love 
 borne to them is a sure test of its purity. And 
 it is a sorrowful proof of the mistaken ways of 
 the world that the " country," in the simple 
 sense of a place of fields and trees, has hitherto 
 been the source of reproach to its inhabitants, 
 and that the words " countryman, rustic, clown, 
 paysan, villager," still signify a rude and un- 
 taught person, as opposed to the words " towns- 
 man," and " citizen." We accept this usage of 
 words, or the evil which it signifies, somewhat 
 too quietly; as if it were quite necessary and 
 natural that country-people should be rude, and 
 towns-people gentle. Whereas I believe that the 
 result of each mode of life may, in some stages 
 of the world's progress, be the exact reverse; 
 and that another use of words may be forced 
 upon us by a new aspect of facts, so that we 
 may find ourselves saying: " Such and such a 
 person is very gentle and kind — he is quite rus- 
 tic; and such and such another person is very 
 rude and ill-taught — he is quite urbane." 
 
 At all events, cities have hitherto gained the 
 better part of their good report through our 
 evil ways of going on in the world generally; — 
 chiefly and eminently through our bad habit of 
 fighting with each other. No field, in the mid- 
 dle ages, being safe from devastation, and every 
 
IjO PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 country lane yielding easier passage to the 
 marauders, peacefully-minded men necessarily 
 congregated in cities, and walled themselves in, 
 making as few cross-country roads as possible: 
 while the men who sowed and reaped the har- 
 vests of Europe were only the servants or slaves of 
 the barons. The disdain of all agricultural pur- 
 suits by the nobility, and of all plain facts by the 
 monks, kept educated Europe in a state of mind 
 over which natural phenomena could have no 
 power; body and intellect being lost in the prac- 
 tice of war without purpose, and the meditation 
 of words without meaning. Men learned the 
 dexterity with sword and syllogism, which they 
 mistook for education, within cloister and tilt- 
 yard; and looked on all the broad space of the 
 world of God mainly as a place for exercise of 
 horses, or for growth of food. 
 
 There is a beautiful type of this neglect of the 
 perfectness of the Earth's beauty, by reason of 
 the passions of men, in that picture of Paul 
 Uccello's of the battle of Sant' Egidio, in which 
 the armies meet on a country road beside a 
 hedge of wild roses; the tender red flowers toss- 
 ing above the helmets, and glowing between the 
 lowered lances. For in like manner the whole 
 of Nature only shone hitherto for man between 
 the tossing of helmet-crests; and sometimes I 
 cannot but think of the trees of the earth as 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. I3I 
 
 capable of a kind of sorrow, in that imperfect 
 life of theirs, as they opened their innocent 
 leaves in the warm spring-time, in vain for men; 
 and all along the dells of England her beeches 
 cast their dappled shade only where the outlaw 
 drew his bow, and the king rode his careless 
 chase; and by the sweet French rivers their long 
 ranks of poplar waved in the twilight, only to 
 show the flames of burning cities, on the horizon, 
 through the tracery of their stems; amidst the 
 fair defiles of the Apennines, the twisted olive- 
 trunks hid the ambushes of treachery; and on 
 their valley meadows, day by day, the lilies 
 which were white at the dawn were washed with 
 crimson at sunset. 
 
 And indeed I had once purposed, in this work, 
 to show what kind of evidence existed respect- 
 ing the possible influence of country life on men; 
 it seeming to me, then, likely that here and there 
 a reader would perceive this to be a grave ques- 
 tion, more than most which we contend about, 
 political or social, and might care to follow it out 
 with me earnestly. 
 
 The day will assuredly come when men will 
 see that it is a grave question; at which period, 
 also, I doubt not, there will arise persons able 
 to investigate it. 
 
132 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF CUSTOM. 
 
 Custom has a twofold operation: the one to 
 deaden the frequency and force of repeated im- 
 pressions, the other to endear the familiar object 
 to the affections. Commonly, where the mind 
 is vigorous, and the power of sensation very per- 
 fect, it has rather the last operation than the 
 first; with meaner minds, the first takes place in 
 the higher degree, so that they are commonly 
 characterised by a desire of excitement, and 
 the want of the loving, fixed, theoretic power. 
 But both take place in some degree with all men, 
 so that as life advances, impressions of all kinds 
 become less rapturous owing to their repetition. 
 It is however beneficently ordained that repul- 
 siveness shall be diminished by custom in a far 
 greater degree than the sensation of beauty, so 
 that the anatomist in a little time loses all sense 
 of horror in the torn flesh and carious bone, 
 while the sculptor ceases not to feel to the close 
 of his life, the deliciousness of every line of the 
 outward frame. So then as in that with which 
 we are made familiar, the repulsiveness is con- 
 stantly diminishing, and such claims as it may 
 be able to put forth on the affections are daily 
 becoming stronger, while in what is submitted 
 to us of new or strange, that which may be re- 
 pulsive is felt in its full force, while no hold is 
 
PRECIOUS riiouGiirs. 133 
 
 as yet laid on the affections, there is a very strong 
 preference induced in most minds for that to 
 which they are accustomed over that they know 
 not, and this is strongest in those which are 
 least open to sensations of positive beauty. 
 But however far this operation may be carried, 
 its utmost effect is but the deadening and ap- 
 proximating th*i sensations of beauty and ugli- 
 ness. It never mixes nor crosses, nor in any way 
 alters them; it has not the slightest connexion 
 with nor power over their nature. By tasting 
 two wines alternately, we may deaden our per- 
 ception of their flavour; nay, we may even do 
 more than can ever be done in the case of sight, 
 we may confound the two flavours together. 
 But it will hardly be argued therefore that cus- 
 tom is the cause of either flavour. And so, 
 though by habit we may deaden the effect of 
 ugliness or beauty, it is not for that reason to be 
 affirmed that habit is the cause of either sensa 
 tion. We may keep a skull beside us as long as 
 we please, we may overcome its repulsiveness, 
 we may render ourselves capable of perceiving 
 many qualities of beauty about its lines, we may 
 •contemplate it for years together if we will, it 
 and nothing else, but we shall not get ourselves 
 to think as well of it as of a child's fair face. 
 
134 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 I believe an immense gain in the bodily health 
 and happiness of the upper classes would follow- 
 on their steadily endeavouring, however clumsily, 
 to make the physical exertion they now neces- 
 sarily take in amusements, definitely serviceable. 
 It would be far better, for instance, that a gen- 
 tleman should mow his own fields than ride over 
 other people's. 
 
 Again, respecting degrees of possible refine- 
 ment, I cannot yet speak positively, because no 
 effort has yet been made to teach refined habits 
 to persons of simple life. 
 
 The idea of such refinement has been made 
 to appear absurd, partly by the foolish ambition 
 of vulgar persons in low life, but more by the 
 worse than foolish assumption, acted on so often 
 by modern advocates of improvement, that "edu- 
 cation" means teaching Latin, or algebra, or 
 music, or drawing, instead of developing or 
 " drawing out" the human soul. 
 
 It may not be the least necessary that a peas- 
 ant should know algebra, or Greek, or drawing, 
 But it may, perhaps, be both possible and expe^ 
 dient that he should be able to arrange hia 
 thoughts clearly, to speak his own language in- 
 telligibly, to discern between right and wrong, 
 to govern his passions, and to receive such pleas- 
 
PRECIOUS 7V/0UGIITS. 135 
 
 iii"es of ear or sight as his life may render ac- 
 cessible to him. I would not have him taught 
 the science of music; but most assuredly I 
 would have him taught to sing. I would not 
 teach him the science of drawing; but certainly 
 I would teach him to see; without learning a 
 single term of botany, he should know accurately 
 the habits and uses of every leaf and flower in 
 his fields; and unencumbered by any theories of 
 moral or political philosophy, he should help his 
 neighbour, and disdain a bribe. 
 
 THE REAL USE OF SCIENCE AND ART. 
 
 All effort in social improvement is paralysed, 
 because no one has been bold or clear-sighted 
 enough to put and press home this radical ques- 
 tion: '' What is indeed the noblest tone and 
 reach of life for men; and how can the possi- 
 bility of it be extended to the greatest num- 
 bers?" It is answered broadly and rashly, that 
 wealth is good; that knowledge is good; that 
 art is good; that luxury is good. Whereas none 
 of them are good in the abstract, but good only 
 if rightly received. Nor have any steps what- 
 ever been yet securely taken, — nor otherwise 
 than in the resultless rhapsody of moralists, — 
 to ascertain what luxuries and what learning it 
 
13^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 is either kind to bestow, or wise to desire. This, 
 however, at least we know, shown clearly by the 
 history of all time, that the arts and sciences, 
 ministering to the pride of nations, have invari- 
 ably hastened their ruin; and this, also, without 
 venturing to say that I know, I nevertheless 
 firmly believe, that the same arts and sciences 
 will tend as distinctly to exalt the strength and 
 quicken the soul of every nation which employs 
 them to increase the comfort of lowly life, and 
 grace with happy intelligence the unambitious 
 courses of honourable toil. 
 
 THE SYMBOL OF FEAR. 
 
 I might devote half a volume to a description 
 of the fantastic and incomprehensible arrange- 
 ment of the rocks and their veins; but all 
 that is necessary for the general reader to know 
 or remember, is this broad fact of the undula- 
 tion of their whole substance. For there is 
 something, it seems to me, inexpressibly marvel- 
 lous in this phenomenon, largely looked at. 
 They have nothing of the look of dried earth 
 about them, nothing petty or limited in the dis- 
 play of their bulk. Where they are, they seem to 
 form the world; no mere bank of a river here, 
 or of a lane there peeping out among the hedges 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 3/ 
 
 or forests: but fro»i the lowest valley to the 
 highest clouds, all is theirs — one adamantine 
 dominion and rigid authority of rock. We yield 
 ourselves to the impression of their eternal, un- 
 conquerable stubbornness of strength; their 
 mass seems the least yielding, least to be soft- 
 ened, or in any wise dealt with by external force, 
 of all earthly substance. And, behold, as we 
 look farther into it, it is all touched and troubled, 
 like waves by a summer breeze; rippled, far 
 more delicately than seas or lakes are rippled; 
 they only undulate along their surfaces— this 
 rock trembles through its every fibre, like the 
 chords of an Eolian harp — like the stillest air of 
 spring with the echoes of a child's voice. Into 
 the heart of all those great mountains, through 
 every tossing of their boundless crests, and deep 
 beneath all their unfathomable defiles, flows 
 that strange quivering of their substance. 
 Other and weaker things seem to express their 
 subjection to an Infinite power only by momen- 
 tary terrors: as the weeds bow down before the 
 feverish wind, and the sound of the going in the 
 tops of the taller trees passes on before the 
 clouds, and the fitful opening of pale spaces on 
 the dark water as if some invisible hand were 
 casting dust abroad upon it, gives warning of the 
 anger that is to come, we may well imagine that 
 there is indeed a fear passing upon the grass, 
 
138 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 and leaves, and waters, at the presence of some 
 great spirit commissioned to let the tempest 
 loose; but the terror passes, and their sweet rest 
 is perpetually restored to the pastures and the 
 waves. Not so to the mountains. They, which 
 at first seemed strengthened beyond the dread 
 of any violence or change, are yet also ordained 
 to bear upon them the symbol of a perpetual 
 Fear: the tremor which fades from the soft lake 
 and gliding river is sealed, to all eternity, upon 
 the rock; and while things that pass visibly 
 from birth to death may sometimes forget their 
 feebleness, the mountains are made to possess a 
 perpetual memorial of their infancy, — that in- 
 fancy which the prophet saw in his vision: "I 
 beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form 
 and void, and the heavens, and they had no 
 light. I beheld the mountains, and lo, they 
 trembled; and all the hills moved lightly'' 
 
 GRADATION. 
 
 There is a marked likeness between the virtue 
 of man and the enlightenment of the globe he 
 inhabits — the same diminishing gradation in 
 vigour up to the limits of their domains, the 
 s,ame essential separation from their contraries 
 — the same twilight at the meeting of the two: 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 39 
 
 a something wider belt than the line where the 
 world rolls into night, that strange twilight of 
 the virtues; that dusky debateable land, where- 
 in zeal becomes impatience, and temperance be- 
 comes severity, and justice becomes cruelty, 
 and faith superstition, and each and all vanish 
 into gloom. 
 
 Nevertheless, with the greater number of 
 them, though their dimness increases gradually, 
 we may mark the moment of their sunset; and, 
 happily, may turn the shadow back by the way 
 by which it had gone down: but for one, the 
 line of the horizon is irregular and undefined; 
 and this, too, the very equator and girdle of 
 them all — Truth; that only one of which there 
 are no degrees, but breaks and rents continually; 
 that pillar of the earth, yet a cloudy pillar; that 
 golden and narrow line, which the very powers 
 and virtues that lean upon it bend, which policy 
 and prudence conceal, which kindness and 
 courtesy modify, which courage overshadows 
 with his shield, imagination covers with her 
 wings, and charity dims with her tears. How 
 difficult must the maintenance of that authority 
 be, which, while it has to restrain the hostility 
 of all the worst principles of man, has also to 
 restrain the disorders of his best — which is con- 
 tinually assaulted by the one and betrayed by 
 the other, and which regards with the same 
 
HO PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 severity the lightest and the boldest violations 
 of its law! 
 
 LOVE AND TRUST. 
 
 My dear friend and teacher, Lowell, right as 
 he is in almost everything, is for once wrong in 
 these lines, though with a noble wrongness: — 
 
 " Disappointment's dry and bitter root, 
 Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool 
 Of the world's scorn, are the right mother-milk 
 To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind." 
 
 They are not so; love and trust are the only 
 mother-milk of any man's soul. So far as he 
 is hated and mistrusted, his powers are de- 
 stroyed. Do not think that with impunity you 
 can follow the eyeless fool, and shout with the 
 shouting charlatan; and that the men you thrust 
 aside with gibe and blow, are thus sneered and 
 crushed into the best service they can do you. 
 I have told you they will not serve you for pay. 
 They cannot serve you for scorn. Even from 
 Balaam, money-lover though he be, no useful 
 prophecy is to be had for silver or gold. From 
 Elisha, saviour of life though he be, no saving of 
 life — even of children's who "knew no better," 
 — is to be got by the cry. Go up, thou bald-head. 
 No man can serve you either for purse or curse; 
 
rRKCIOUS 7^ II OUGHTS. I4I 
 
 neither kind of pay will answer. No pay is, in- 
 deed, receivable by any true man; but power is 
 receivable by him, in the love and faith you give 
 him. So far only as you give him these can he 
 serve you; that is the meaning of the question 
 which his Master asks always, " Believest thou 
 that I am able? " And from every one of His 
 servants — to the end of time — if you give them 
 the Capernaum measure of faith, you shall have 
 from them Capernaum measure of works, and 
 no more. 
 
 Do not think that I am irreverently compar- 
 ing great and small things. The system of the 
 world is entirely one; small things and great are 
 alike part of one mighty whole. As the flower 
 is gnawed by frost, so every human heart is 
 gnawed by faithfulness. And as surely, — as ir- 
 revocably, — as the fruit-bud falls before the east 
 wind, so fails the power of the kindest human 
 heart, if you meet it with poison. 
 
 INFIDELITY IN ENGLAND. 
 
 The form which the infidelity of England, es- 
 pecially, has taken, is one hitherto unheard of 
 in human history. No nation ever before de- 
 clajed boldl}-, by print and word of mouth, that 
 
142 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 its religion was good for show, but " would not 
 work." Over and over again it has happened 
 that nations have denied their gods, but they 
 denied them bravely. The Greeks in their de- 
 cline jested at their religion, and frittered it away 
 in flatteries and fine arts; the French refused 
 theirs fiercely, tore down their altars and brake 
 their carven images. The question about God 
 with both these nations was still, even in their 
 decline, fairly put, though falsely answered. 
 "Either there is or is not a Supreme Ruler; we 
 consider of it, declare there is not, and proceed 
 accordingly." But we English have put the 
 matter in an entirely new light: "There is a 
 Supreme Ruler, no question of it, only He can- 
 not rule. His orders won't work. He will be 
 quite satisfied with euphonious and respectful 
 repetition of them. Execution would be too 
 dangerous under existing circumstances, which 
 He certainly never contemplated." 
 
 THE NOBLENESS OF COLOUR. 
 
 The fact is, we none of us enough appreciate 
 the nobleness and sacredness of colour. Noth- 
 ing is more common than to hear it spoken of as 
 a subordinate beauty, — nay, even as the mere 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 143 
 
 source of a sensual pleasure; and we might al- 
 most believe that we were daily among men who 
 
 " Could strip, for aught the pro£;:>ect yields 
 To them, their verdure from the fields ; 
 And take the radiance from the clouds 
 With which the sun his setting shrouds." 
 
 But it is not so. Such expressions are used for 
 the most part in thoughtlessness; and if the 
 speakers would only take the pains to imagine 
 what the world and their own existence would 
 become, if the blue were taken from the sky, and 
 the gold from the sunshine, and the verdure 
 from the leaves, and the crimson from the blood 
 which is the life of man, the flush from the cheek, 
 the darkness from the eye, the radiance from the 
 hair, — if they could but see for an instant, white 
 human creatures living in a white world, — they 
 would soon feel what they owe to colour. The 
 fact is, that, of all God's gifts to the sight of 
 man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the 
 most solemn. We speak rashly of gay colour, 
 and sad colour, for colour cannot at once be 
 good and gay. All good colour is in some de- 
 gree pensive, the loveliest is melancholy, and 
 the purest and most thoughtful minds are those 
 which love colour the most. 
 
144 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 THE RAINBOW. 
 
 In that heavenly circle which binds the stat- 
 utes of colour upon the front of the sky, when 
 it became the sign of the covenant of peace, the 
 pure hues of divided light were sanctified to the 
 human heart for ever; nor this, it would seem, 
 by mere arbitrary appointment, but in conse- 
 quence of the fore-ordained and marvellous con- 
 stitution of those hues into a sevenfold, or, more 
 strictly still, a threefold order, typical of the 
 Divine nature itself. Observe also, the name 
 Shem, or Splendour, given to that son of Noah 
 in whom this covenant with mankind was to be 
 fulfilled, and see how that name was justified by 
 every one of the Asiatic races which descended 
 from him. Not without meaning was the love 
 of Israel to his chosen son expressed by the coat 
 " of many colours;" not without deep sense of 
 the sacredness of that symbol of purity, did the 
 lost daughter of David tear it from her breast: — 
 " With such robes were the king's daughters that 
 were virgins apparelled." * We know it to have 
 been by Divine command that the Israelite, res- 
 cued from servitude, veiled the tabernacle with 
 its rain of purple and scarlet, while the under 
 sunshine flashed through the fall of the colour 
 from its tenons of gold. 
 
 * 2 Samuel xiii. i8. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 145 
 
 BROTHERHOOD. 
 
 Whether, indeed, derived from the quarteiings 
 of the knights' shields, or from what other source, 
 I know not; but there is one magnificent attri- 
 bute of the colouring of the late twelfth, the 
 whole thirteenth, and the early fourteenth cen- 
 tury, which I do not find definitely in any pre- 
 vious work, nor afterwards in general art, though 
 constantly, and necessarily, in that of great col- 
 ourists, namely, the union of one colour with 
 another by reciprocal interference: that is to 
 say, if a mass of red is to be set beside a mass of 
 blue, a piece of the red will be carried into the 
 blue, and a piece of the blue carried into the 
 red; sometimes in nearly equal portions, as in a 
 shield divided into four quarters, of which the 
 uppermost on one side will be of the same colour 
 as the lowermost on the other; sometimes in 
 smaller fragments, but, in the periods above 
 named, always definitely and grandly, though in 
 a thousand various ways. And I call it a mag- 
 nificent principle, for it is an eternal and univer- 
 sal one, not in art only, but in human life. It 
 is the great principle of Brotherhood, not by 
 equality, nor by likeness, but by giving and re- 
 ceiving; the souls that are unlike, and the na- 
 tions that are unlike, and the natures that are 
 unlike, being bound into one noble whole 
 
14^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 by each receiving something from, and of, 
 the others' gifts and the others' glory. I have 
 not space to follow out this thought, — it is of 
 infinite extent and application, — but I note it for 
 the reader's pursuit, because I have long be- 
 lieved, and the whole second volume of " Modern 
 Painters" was written to prove, that in whatever 
 has been made by the Deity externally delightful 
 to the human sense of beauty, there is some 
 type of God's nature or of God's laws; nor are 
 any of His laws, in one sense, greater than the 
 appointment that the most lovely and perfect 
 unity shall be obtained by the taking of one 
 nature into another. I trespass upon too high 
 ground; and yet I cannot fully show the reader 
 the extent of this law, but by leading him thus 
 far. And it is just because it is so vast and so 
 awful a law, that it has rule over the smallest 
 things; and there is not a vein of colour on the 
 lightest leaf which the spring winds are at this 
 moment unfolding in the fields around us, but it 
 is an illustration of an ordainment to which the 
 earth and its creatures owe their continuance, 
 and their Redemption. 
 
 THE HARVEST IS RIPE. 
 
 " Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe." 
 The word is spoken in our ears continually to 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 14/ 
 
 Other reapers than the angels — to the busy- 
 skeletons that never tire for stooping. When 
 the measure of iniquity is full, and it seems that 
 another day might bring repentance and re- 
 demption, — " Put ye in the sickle." When the 
 young life has been wasted all away, and the 
 eyes are just opening upon the tracks of ruin, 
 and faint resolution rising in the heart for 
 nobler things, — " Put ye in the sickle." When 
 the roughest blows of fortune have been borne 
 long and bravely, and the hand is just stretched 
 to grasp its goal, — " Put ye in the sickle." 
 And when there are but a few in the midst of 
 a nation, to save it, or to teach, or to cherish; 
 and all its life is bound up in those few 
 golden ears, — " Put ye in the sickle, pale reap- 
 ers, and pour hemlock for your feast of harvest 
 home." 
 
 MISSING THE MARK. 
 
 Perhaps, some day, people will again begin to 
 remember the force of the old Greek word for 
 sin; and to learn that all sin is in essence — 
 " Missing the mark;" losing sight or conscious- 
 ness of heaven; and that this loss may be 
 various in its guilt: it cannot be judged by us. 
 It is this of which the words are spoken so 
 
I4S PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 sternly, "Judge not;" which words people 
 always quote, I observe, when they are called 
 upon to " do judgment and justice." For it is 
 truly a pleasant thing to condemn men for their 
 wanderings; but it is a bitter thing to acknowl- 
 edge a truth, or to take any bold share in work- 
 ing out an equity. So that the habitual modern 
 practical application of the precept, " Judge 
 not," is to avoid the trouble of pronouncing 
 verdict, by taking, of any matter, the pleasant- 
 est malicious view which first comes to hand; 
 and to obtain licence for our own convenient 
 iniquities, by being indulgent to those of others. 
 
 These two methods of obedience being just 
 the two which are most directly opposite to the 
 law of mercy and truth. 
 
 "Bind them about thy neck." I said, but 
 now, that of an evil tree men never gathered 
 good fruit. 
 
 LIFE AND LOVE. 
 
 I must not enter here into the solemn and 
 f^-reaching fields of thought which it would be 
 necessary to traverse, in order to detect the 
 mystical connexion between life and love set 
 forth in that Hebrew system of sacrificial relig- 
 ion to which we may trace most of the received 
 
PRECIOUS TJI OUGHTS. 1 49 
 
 ideas respecting sanctity, consecration, and puri- 
 fication. This only I must hint to the reader — 
 for his own following out — that if he earnestly 
 examines the original sources from which our 
 heedless popular language respecting the wash- 
 ing away of sins has been borrowed, he will find 
 that the fountain in which sins are indeed to be 
 washed away, is that of love, not of agony. 
 
 But, without approaching the presence of this 
 deeper meaning of the sign, the reader may rest 
 satisfied with the connexion given him directly 
 in written words, between the cloud and its bow. 
 The cloud, or firmament, as we have seen, sig- 
 nifies the ministration of the heavens to man. 
 That ministration may be in judgment or mercy 
 — in the lightning, or the dew. But the bow, or 
 colour, of the cloud, signifies always mercy, the 
 sparing of life; such ministry of the heaven, as 
 shall feed and prolong life. And as the sun- 
 light, undivided, is the type of the wisdom and 
 righteousness of God, so divided, and softened 
 into colour by means of the firmamental min- 
 istry, fitted to every need of man, as to every 
 delight, and becoming one chief source of 
 human beauty, by being made part of the flesh 
 of man; — thus divided, the sunlight is the type 
 of the wisdom of God, becoming sanctification 
 and redemption. Various in work — various in 
 beauty — various in power. 
 
150 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 Colour is, therefore, in brief terms, the type 
 of love. Hence it is especially connected with 
 the blossoming of the earth; and again, with its 
 fruits; also, with the spring and fall of the leaf, 
 and with the morning and evening of the day, in. 
 order to show the waiting of love about the 
 birth and death of man. 
 
 SYMBOLS OF TRUTH. 
 
 The fact seems to be that strength of religious 
 feeling is capable of supplying for itself what- 
 ever is wanting in the rudest suggestions of art, 
 and will either, on the one hand, purify what is 
 coarse into inoffensiveness, or, on the other, 
 raise what is feeble into impressiveness. Prob- 
 ably all art, as such, is unsatisfactory to it; and 
 the effort which it makes to supply the void will 
 be induced rather by association and accident 
 than by the real merit of the work submitted to 
 it. The likeness to a beloved friend, the corre- 
 spondence with a habitual conception, the free- 
 dom from any strange or offensive particularity, 
 and, above all, an interesting choice of incident, 
 will win admiration for a picture when the 
 noblest efforts of religious imagination would 
 otherwise fail of power. How much more, when 
 to the quick capacity of emotion is joined a 
 
PRECIOUS 7 HO UGH TS. 15I 
 
 childish trust that the picture does indeed rep- 
 resent a fact! It matters Httle whether the fact 
 be well or ill told; the moment we believe the 
 picture to be true, we complain little of its being 
 ill-painted. Let it be considered for a moment, 
 whether the child, with its coloured print, in- 
 quiring eagerly and gravely which is Joseph, and 
 which is Benjamin, is not more capable of re- 
 ceiving a strong, even a sublime, impression from 
 the rude symbol which it invests with reality by 
 its own effort, than the connoisseur who admires 
 the grouping of the three figures in Raphael's 
 "Telling of the Dreams;" and whether also, 
 when the human mind is in right religious tone, 
 it has not always this childish power — I speak 
 advisedly, this power — a noble one, and pos- 
 sessed more in youth than at any period of after 
 life, but always, I think, restored in a measure 
 by religion — of raising into sublimity and reality 
 the rudest symbol which is given to it of ac- 
 credited truth. 
 
 STRIVING AFTER PERFECTION. 
 
 The modern English mind has this much in 
 common with that of the Greek, that it intensely 
 desires, in all things, the utmost completion or 
 perfection compatible with their nature. This 
 
152 pr^mcious thoughts. 
 
 is a noble criaractcr :ii the abstract, but becomes 
 ignoble when it causes us to forget the relative 
 dignities of that nature itself, and to prefer the 
 perfectness of the lower nature to the imperfec- 
 tion of the higher; not considering that as 
 judged by such a rule, all the brute animals 
 would be preferable to man, because more per- 
 fect in their functions and kind, and yet are 
 always held inferior to him, so also in the works 
 of man, those which are more perfect in their 
 kind are always inferior to those which are, in 
 their nature, liable to more faults and short- 
 comings. For the finer the nature, the more 
 flaws it will show through the clearness of it; 
 and it is a law of this universe, that the best 
 things shall be seldomest seen in their best form. 
 The wild grass grows well and strongly, one 
 year with another; but the wheat is, according 
 to the greater nobleness of its nature, liable to 
 the bitterer blight. And therefore, while in all 
 things that we see, or do, we are to desire per- 
 fection, and strive for it, wd are nevertheless 
 not to set the meaner thing, in its narrow ac- 
 complishment, above the nobler thing, in its 
 mighty progress; not to esteem smooth minute- 
 ness above shattered majesty; not to prefer 
 mean victory to honourable defeat; not to lower 
 the level of our aim, that we may the more sure- 
 ly enjoy the complacency of success. But, 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. I 53 
 
 above all, in our dealings with the souls of other 
 men, we are to take care how we check by se- 
 vere requirement or narrow caution, efforts 
 which might otherwise lead to a noble issue; 
 and, still more, how we withhold our admiration 
 from great excellences, because they are mingled 
 with rough faults. 
 
 THE PINES AND THE SWISS. 
 
 Amidst the delicate delight of cottage and 
 field, the young pines stand delicatest of all, 
 scented as Avith frankincense, their slender stems 
 straight as arrows, and crystal white, looking as 
 if they would break with a touch, like needles; 
 and their arabesques of dark leaf pierced through 
 and through, by the pale radiance of clear sky, 
 opal blue, where they follow each other along 
 the soft hill-ridges, up and down. 
 
 I have watched them in such scenes with the 
 deeper interest, because of all trees they have 
 hitherto had most influence on human charac- 
 ter. The effect of other vegetation, however 
 great, has been divided by mingled species; elm 
 and oak in England, poplar in France, birch in 
 Scotland, olive in Italy and Spain, share their 
 power with inferior trees, and with all the chang- 
 ing charm of successive agriculture. But the 
 
154 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 tremendous unity of the pine absorbs and moulds 
 the life of a race. The pine shadows rest upon 
 a nation. The Northern peoples, century after 
 century, lived under one or other of the two 
 great powers of the Pine and the Sea, both in- 
 finite. They dwelt amidst the forests, as they 
 wandered on the waves, and saw no end, nor 
 any other horizon; — still the dark green trees. 
 or the dark green waters, jagged the dawn with 
 their fringe, or their foam. And whatever ele- 
 ments of imagination, or of warrior strength, or 
 of domestic justice, were brought down by the 
 Norwegian and the Goth against the dissolute- 
 ness or degradation of the South of Europe, 
 were taught them under the green roofs and 
 wild penetralia of the pine. 
 
 I do not attempt, delightful as the task would 
 be, to trace this influence (mixed with super- 
 stition) in Scandinavia, or North Germany; but 
 let us at least note it in the instance which we 
 speak of so frequently, yet so seldom take to 
 heart. There has been much dispute respecting 
 the character of the Swiss, arising out of the 
 difficulty which other nations had to understand 
 their simplicity. They were assumed to be 
 either romantically virtuous, or basely merce- 
 nary, when in fact they were neither heroic nor 
 base, but were true-hearted men, stubborn with 
 more than any recorded stubbornness; not much 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 155 
 
 regarding their lives, yet not casting them cause- 
 lessly away; forming no high ideal of improve- 
 ment, but never relaxing their grasp of a good 
 they had once gained; devoid of all romantic 
 sentiment, yet loving with a practical and patient 
 love that neither wearied nor forsook; little 
 given to enthusiasm in religion, but maintaining 
 their faith in a purity which no worldliness 
 deadened and no hypocrisy soiled; neither chiv- 
 alrously generous nor pathetically humane, yet 
 never pursuing their defeated enemies, nor suffer- 
 ing their poor to perish: proud, yet not allowing 
 their pride to prick them into unwary or unwor- 
 thy quarrel; avaricious, yet contentedly render- 
 ing to their neighbour his due; dull, but clear- 
 sighted to all the principles of justice; and pa- 
 tient, without ever allowing delay to be prolonged 
 by sloth, or forbearance by fear. 
 
 This temper of Swiss mind, while it animated 
 the whole confederacy, was rooted chiefly in one 
 small district which formed the heart of theii 
 country, yet lay not among its highest moun- 
 tains. Beneath the glaciers of Zermatt and 
 Evolena, and on the scorching slopes of the 
 Valais, the peasants remained in an aimless tor- 
 por, unheard of but as the obedient vassals of 
 the great Bishopric of Sion. But where the 
 lower ledges of calcareous rock were broken by 
 the inlets of the Lake Lucerne, and bracing 
 
15^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 winds penetrating from the north forbade the 
 growth of the vine, compelling the peasantry 
 to adopt an entirely pastoral life, was reared 
 another race of men. Their narrow domain 
 should be marked by a small green spot on every 
 map of Europe, It is about forty miles from 
 east to west; as many from north to south: yet 
 on that shred of rugged ground, while every 
 kingdom of the world around it rose or fell in 
 fatal change, and every multitudinous race min- 
 gled or wasted itself in various dispersion and 
 decline, the simple shepherd dynasty rem.ained 
 changeless. There is no record of their origin. 
 They are neither Goths, Burgundians, Romans, 
 nor Germans. They have been for ever Hel- 
 vetii, and for ever free. Voluntarily placing 
 themselves under the protection of the House 
 of Hapsburg, they acknowledged its supremacy, 
 but resisted its oppression; and rose against the 
 unjust governors it appointed over them, not to 
 gain, but to redeem their liberties. Victorious 
 in the struggle by the Lake of Egeri, they stood 
 the foremost standard-bearers among the nations 
 of Europe in the cause of loyalty and life — loy- 
 alty in its highest sense, to the laws of God's 
 helpful justice, and of man's faithful and broth- 
 erly fortitude. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 157 
 
 PRECIPICES. 
 
 Precipices are among the most impressive as 
 well as the most really dangerous of mountain 
 ranges; in many spots inaccessible with safety 
 either from below or from above; dark in colour* 
 robed with everlasting mourning, for ever totter- 
 ing like a great fortress shaken by war, fearful as 
 iiuch in their weakness as in their strength, and 
 /et gathered after every fall into darker frowns 
 and unhumiliated threatening; for ever incapable 
 of comfort or of healing from herb or flower, nour- 
 ishing no root in their crevices, touched by no 
 hue of life on buttress or ledge, but, to the ut- 
 most, desolate: knowing no shakmg of leaves in 
 the wind, nor of grass beside the stream, — no 
 motion but their own mortal shivering, the 
 deathful crumbling of atom from atom in their 
 corrupting stones; knowing no sound of living 
 voice or living tread, cheered neither by the kid's 
 bleat nor the marmot's cry; haunted only by 
 uninterpreted echoes from far off, wandering 
 hither and thither among their walls, unable to 
 escape, and by the hiss of angry torrents, and 
 sometimes the shriek of a bird that flits near the 
 face of them, and sweeps frightened back from 
 under their shadow into the gulf of air: and, 
 sometimes, when the echo has fainted, and the 
 wind has carried the sound of the torrent away. 
 
158 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 and the bird has vanished, and the mouldering 
 stones are still for a little time, — a brown moth, 
 opening and shutting its wings upon a grain of 
 dust, may be the only thing that moves, or feels, 
 in all the waste of weary precipice, darkening 
 five thousand feet of the blue depth of heaven. 
 
 It will not be thought that there is nothing in 
 a scene such as this deserving our contempla- 
 tion, or capable of conveying useful lessons, if it 
 were fitly rendered by art. 
 
 THE USE OF PICTURES. 
 
 We should use pictures not as authorities, but 
 as comments on nature, just as we use divines, 
 not as authorities, but as comments on the 
 Bible. Constable, in his dread of saint-worship, 
 excommunicates himself from all benefit of the 
 Church, and deprives himself of much instruc- 
 tion from the Scripture to which he holds, be- 
 cause he will not accept aid in the reading of it 
 from the learning of other men. Sir George Beau- 
 mont, on the contrary, furnishes, in the anecdotes 
 given of him in Constable's life, a melancholy in- 
 stance of the degradation into which the human 
 mind may fall, when it suffers human works to in- 
 terfere between it and its Master. The recom- 
 mending the colour of an old Cremona fiddle for 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 59 
 
 the prevailing tone of everything, and the vapid 
 inquiry of the conventionalist, " Where do you 
 put your brown tree?" show a prostration of in- 
 tellect so laughable and lamentable, that they are 
 at once, on all, and to all, students of the gallery, 
 a satire and a warning. Art so followed is the 
 most servile indolence in which life can be 
 wasted. There are then two dangerous extremes 
 to be shunned, — forgetfulness of the Scripture, 
 and scorn of the divine — slavery on the one hand, 
 free-thinking on the other. The mean is nearly 
 as difficult to determine or keep in art as in re- 
 ligion, but the great danger is on the side of 
 superstition. He who walks humbly with Na- 
 ture will seldom be in danger of losing sight of 
 Art. He will commonly find in all that is truly 
 great of man's works, something of their original, 
 for which he will regard them with gratitude, 
 and sometimes follow them with respect; while 
 he who takes Art for his authority may entirely 
 lose sight of all that it interprets, and sink at 
 once into the sin of an idolater, and the degra- 
 dation of a slave. 
 
 SANCTIFICATION. 
 
 All the divisions of humanity are noble or 
 brutal, immortal or mortal, according to the de- 
 
l6o PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 gree of their sanctification; and there is no part 
 of the man which is not immortal and divine 
 when it is once given to God, and no part of 
 him which is not mortal by the second death, 
 and brutal before the first, when it is withdrawn 
 from God. For to what shall we trust for our 
 distinction from the beasts that perish? To our 
 higher intellect? — yet we are not bidden to be 
 wise as the serpent, and to consider the ways of 
 the ant? — or to our affections? nay; these are 
 more shared by the lower animals than our in- 
 telligence. Hamlet leaps into the grave of his 
 beloved, and leaves it, — a dog had stayed. Hu- 
 manity and immortality consist neither in rea- 
 son, nor in love; nor in the body, nor in the 
 animation of the heart of it, nor in the thoughts 
 and stirrings of the brain of it, — but in the dedi- 
 cation of them all to Him who will raise them 
 up at the last day. 
 
 HOW TO LIVE. 
 
 It surely is a subject for serious thought, 
 whether it might not be better for many of us, 
 if, on attaining a certain position in life, we de- 
 termined, with God's permission, to choose a 
 home in which to live and die, — a home not to 
 be increased by adding stone to stone and field 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. l6l 
 
 to field, but which, being enough for all our 
 wishes at that period, we should resolve to be 
 satisfied with for ever. Consider this; and also, 
 whether we ought not to be more in the habit of 
 seeking honour from our descendants than our 
 ancestors; thinking it better to be nobly remem- 
 bered than nobly born; and striving so to live, 
 that our sons, and our sons' sons, for ages to 
 come, might still lead their children reverently 
 to the doors out of which we had been carried ^ 
 to the grave, saying, '' Look: This was his house: 
 This was his chamber." 
 
 MAN S NATURE. 
 
 Now the basest thought possible concerning 
 man is, that he has no spiritual nature; and the 
 foolishest misunderstanding of him possible is, 
 that he has or should have, no animal nature. 
 For his nature is nobly animal, nobly spiritual — 
 coherently and irrevocably so; neither part of 
 it may, but at its peril, expel, despise, or defy 
 the other. 
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 There are more people who can forget them- 
 selves than govern themselves. 
 
l62 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 CANDID SEEING. 
 
 Some years ago, as I was talking of the cur- 
 vilinear forms in a piece of rock to one of our 
 academicians, he said to me, in a somewhat 
 despondent accent, " If you look for curves, you 
 will see curves; if you look for angles, you will 
 see angles." 
 
 The saying appeared to me an infinitely sad 
 one. It was the utterance of an experienced 
 man; and in many ways true, for one of the 
 most singular gifts, or, if abused, most singular 
 weaknesses, of the human mind is its power of 
 persuading itself to see whatever it chooses; — a 
 great gift, if directed to the discernment of the 
 things needful and pertinent to its own work and 
 being; a great weakness, if directed to the dis- 
 covery of things profitless or discouraging. In 
 all things throughout the world, the men who 
 look for the crooked will see the crooked, and 
 the men who look for the straight will see the 
 straight. But yet the saying was a notably sad 
 one; for it came of the conviction in the 
 speaker's mind that there was in reality no 
 crooked and no straight; that all so-called dis- 
 cernment was fancy, and that men might, with 
 equal rectitude of judgment, and good-deserving 
 of their fellow-men, perceive and paint whatever 
 was convenient to them. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 63 
 
 Whereas things may always be seen truly by 
 candid people, though never co7npletely. No 
 human capacity ever yet saw the whole of a 
 thing; but we may see more and more of it the 
 longer we look. Every individual temper will 
 see something different in it: but supposing the 
 tempers honest, all the differences are there. 
 Every advance in our acuteness of perception 
 will show us something new; but the old and 
 first discerned thing will still be there, not falsi- 
 fied, only modified and enriched by the new per- 
 ceptions, becoming continually more beautiful 
 in its harmony with them and more approved as 
 a part of the Infinite truth. 
 
 INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 Men are held intemperate {^otKoXacT'toi) only 
 when their desires overcome or prevent the ac- 
 tion of their reason, and they are indeed intem- 
 perate in the exact degree in which such preven- 
 tion or interference takes place, and so are actu- 
 ally aKoXaaroi^ in many instances, and with 
 respect to many resolves, which lower not the 
 world's estimation of their temperance. But 
 when it is palpably evident that the reason can- 
 not have erred, but that its voice has been dead- 
 ened or disobeyed, and that the reasonable crea- 
 
164 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ture has been dragged dead round the walls o£ 
 his own citadel by mere passion and impulse, — 
 then, and then only, men are of all held intem- 
 perate. And this is evidently the case with re- 
 spect to inordinate indulgence in pleasures of 
 touch and taste, for these, being destructive in 
 their continuance not only of all other pleasures, 
 but of the very sensibilities by which they them- 
 selves are received, and as this penalty is actu- 
 ally known and experienced by those indulging 
 in them, so that the reason cannot but pro- 
 nounce right respecting their perilousness, there 
 is no palliation of the wrong choice; and the 
 man, as utterly incapable of will, is called in- 
 temperate, or aKoXacrroi. 
 
 It would be well if the reader would for him- 
 self follow out this subject, which it would be 
 irrelevant here to pursue farther, observing how 
 a certain degree of intemperance is suspected 
 and attributed to men with respect to higher 
 impulses; as, for instance, in the case of anger, 
 or any other passion criminally indulged, and 
 yet is not so attributed, as in the case of sensual 
 pleasures; because in anger the reason is sup- 
 posed not to have had time to operate, and to 
 be itself affected by the presence of the passion, 
 which seizes the man involuntarily and before 
 he is aware; whereas, in the case of the sensual 
 pleasures, the act is deliberate, and determined 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 65 
 
 on beforehand, in direct defiance of reason. 
 Nevertheless, if no precaution be taken against 
 immoderate anger, and the passions gain upon 
 the man, so as to be evidently wilful and unre- 
 strained, and admitted contrary to all reason, 
 we begin to look upon him as, in the real sense 
 of the word, intemperate, or aKoXaGtoi^ and 
 assign to him, in consequence, his place among 
 the beasts, as definitely as if he had .yielded to 
 the pleasurable temptations of touch or taste. 
 
 THE I9TH PSALM. 
 
 Take up the 19th Psalm and look at it verse 
 by verse. Perhaps to my younger readers one 
 word may be permitted respecting their Bible- 
 reading in general. The Bible is, indeed, a deep 
 book, when depth is required; that is to say, for 
 deep people! But it is not intended, particu- 
 larly, for profound persons; on the contrary, 
 much more for shallow and simple persons. 
 And therefore the first, and generally the main 
 and leading idea of the Bible, is on its surface, 
 written in plainest possible Greek, Hebrew, or 
 English, needing no penetration, nor amplifica- 
 tion, needing nothing but what we all might give 
 — attention. 
 
1 66 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 But this, which is in every one's power, and is 
 the only thing that God wants, is just the last 
 thing any one will give Him. 
 
 We are delighted to ramble away into day- 
 dreams, to repeat pet verses from other places^ 
 suggested by chance words; to snap at an ex- 
 pression which suits our own particular views, 
 or to dig up a meaning from under a verse, 
 which we should be amiably grieved to think 
 any human being had been so happy as to find 
 before. But the plain, intended, immediate, 
 fruitful meaning, which every one ought to find 
 always, and especially that which depends on 
 our seeing the relation of the verse to those near 
 it, and getting the force of the whole passage, 
 in due relation — this sort of significance we do 
 not look for; — it being, truly, not to be discov- 
 ered, unless we really attend to what is said, in- 
 stead of to our own feelings. 
 
 It is unfortunate also, but very certain, that 
 in order to attend to what is said, we must go 
 through the irksomeness of knowing the mean- 
 ing of the words. And the first thing that chil- 
 dren should be taught about their Bibles is, to 
 distinguish clearly between words that they 
 understand and words that they do not; and to 
 put aside the words they do not understand, and 
 verses connected with them, to be asked about, 
 or for a future time; and never to think they 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGIirs. 1 6/ 
 
 are reading the Bible when they are merely re- 
 peating phrases of an unknown tongue. 
 
 Let us try, by way of example, this 19th 
 Psalm, and see what plain meaning is uppermost 
 in it. 
 
 " The heavens declare the glory of God." 
 
 What are the heavens? 
 
 The word occurring in the Lord's Prayer, and 
 the thing expressed being what a child may, 
 with some advantage, be led to look at, it might 
 be supposed among a schoolmaster's first duties 
 to explain this word clearly. 
 
 Now there can be no question that in the 
 minds of the sacred Avriters, it stood naturally 
 for the entire system of cloud, and of space be- 
 yond it, conceived by them as a vault set with 
 stars. But there can, also, be no question, as 
 we saw in previous inquiry, that the firmament, 
 which is said to have been " called " heaven, at 
 the creation, expresses, in all definite use of the 
 word, the system of clouds, as spreading the 
 power of the water over the earth; hence the 
 constant expressions dew of heaven, rain of 
 heaven, etc., where heaven is used in the singu- 
 lar; while the " heavens," when used plurally, 
 and especially when in distinction, as here, from 
 the word "firmament," remained expressive of 
 the starry space beyond. 
 
 But whatever different nations had called 
 
1 68 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 them, at least I would make it clear to the child's 
 mind that in this 19th Psalm, their whole power 
 being intended, the two words are used which 
 express it: the Heavens, for the great vault or 
 void, with all its planets, and stars, and cease- 
 less march of orbs innumerable; and the Firma- 
 ment, for the ordinance of the clouds. 
 
 These heavens, then, declare " the glory of 
 God;" that is, the light of God, the eternal: 
 glory, stable and changeless. As their orbs fail* 
 not, but pursue their course forever to give light 
 upon the earth — so God's glory surrounds man 
 for ever — changeless, in its fulness insupportable 
 — infinite. 
 
 "And the firmament showeth his handiwork^ 
 The clouds, prepared by the hands of God for 
 the help of man, varied in their ministration — 
 veiling the inner splendour — show, not His eter- 
 nal glory, but His daily handiwork. So He 
 dealt with Moses. I will cover thee " with my 
 hand " as I pass by. Compare Job, xxxvi. 24. 
 
 " Remember that thou magnify His work, 
 which men behold. Every man may see it." 
 Not so the glory — that only in part; the courses 
 of these stars are to be seen imperfectly, and 
 but by a few. But this firmament, every man 
 may see it; man may behold it " afar off." 
 " Behold, God is great, and we know him not. 
 For he maketh small the drops of water: they 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 69 
 
 pour down rain according to the vapour there- 
 of." 
 
 " Day unto day uttereth speech, and night un- 
 to night sheweth knowledge. They have no 
 speech nor language, yet without these their 
 voice is heard. Their rule is gone out through- 
 out the earth, and their words to the end of the 
 world." 
 
 Note that. Their rule throughout the earth, 
 whether inhabited or not — their law of right is , 
 thereon; but their words, spoken to human 
 souls, to the end of the inhabited world. 
 
 " In them hath He set a tabernacle for the 
 sun," etc. Literally, a tabernacle, or curtained 
 tent, with its veil and its hangings; also of the 
 colours of His desert tabernacle — blue, and pur- 
 ple, and scarlet. 
 
 Thus far the Psalm describes the manner of 
 this great heaven's message. 
 
 Thenceforward, it comes to the matter of 
 it. 
 
 Observe, you have the two divisions of the 
 declaration. The heavens (compare Psalm viii.) 
 declare the eternal glory of God before men, and 
 the firmament the daily mercy of God towards 
 men. And the eternal glory is in this — that the 
 law of the Lord is perfect, and His testimony- 
 sure, and His statutes right. 
 
 And the daily mercy in this — that the com- 
 
I/O PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 mandment of the Lord is pure, and His fear is 
 clean, and His judgments true and righteous. 
 
 There are three oppositions:— 
 
 Between law and commandment. 
 
 Between testimony and fear. 
 
 Between statute and judgment. 
 
 I. Between law and commandment. 
 
 The law is fixed and everlasting; uttered once, 
 abiding for ever, as the sun, it may not be 
 moved. It is "perfect, converting the soul:" 
 the whole question about the soul being, whether 
 it has been turned from darkness to light, ac- 
 knowledged this law or not, — whether it is godly 
 or ungodly? But the commandment is given 
 momentarily to each man, according to the need. 
 It does not convert: it guides. It does not con- 
 cern the entire purpose of the soul; but it en- 
 lightens the eyes, respecting a special act. The 
 law is, " Do this always;" the commandment, 
 " Do thou this noiv:'' often mysterious enough, 
 and through the cloud; chilling, and with 
 strange rain of tears; yet always pure (the law 
 converting, but the commandment cleansing): 
 a rod not for guiding merely, but for strength- 
 ening, and tasting honey with. " Look how mine 
 eyes have been enlightened, because I tasted a 
 little of this honey." 
 
 II. Between testimony and fear. 
 
 The testimony is everlasting: the true promise 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 17I 
 
 of salvation. Bright as the sun beyond all the 
 earth-cloud, it makes wise the simple; all wis- 
 dom being assured in perceiving it and trusting 
 it; all wisdom brought to nothing which does 
 not perceive it. 
 
 But the fear of God is taught through special 
 encouragement and special withdrawal of it, ac- 
 cording to each man's need — by the earth-cloud 
 — smile and frown alternately: it also, as the 
 commandment, is clean, purging and casting out 
 all other fear, it only remaining for ever. 
 
 III. Between statute and judgment. 
 
 The statutes are the appointments of the 
 Eternal justice: fixed and bright, and con- 
 stant as the stars; equal and balanced as their 
 courses. They " are right, rejoicing the heart." 
 But the judgments are special judgments of given 
 acts of men. " True," that is to say, fulfilling 
 the warning or promise given to each man; 
 "righteous altogether," that is, done or executed 
 in truth and righteousness. The statute is right, 
 in appointment. The judgment righteous alto- 
 gether, in appointment and fulfilment; — yet not 
 always rejoicing the heart. 
 
 Then, respecting all these, comes the expres- 
 sion of passionate desire and of joy; that also 
 divided with respect to each. The glory of 
 God, eternal in the Heavens, is future, " to be 
 desired more than gold, than much fine gold " — • 
 
1/2 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 treasure in the heavens that faileth not. But 
 the present guidance and teaching of God are 
 on earth; they are now possessed, sweeter than 
 all earthly food — " sweeter than honey and the 
 honeycomb. Moreover by them" (the law and 
 the testimony) " is Thy servant warned " — 
 warned of the ways of death and life. 
 
 " And in keeping them" (the commandments 
 and the judgments) " there is great reward;" 
 pain now and bitterness of tears, but reward un- 
 speakable. 
 
 Thus far the Psalm has been descriptive and 
 interpreting. It ends in prayer. 
 
 *' Who can understand his errors?" (wander- 
 ings from the perfect law.) " Cleanse thou me 
 from secret faults; from all that I have done 
 against Thy will, and far from Thy way in the 
 darkness. Keep back Thy servant from pre- 
 sumptuous sins" (sins against the command- 
 ment) " against Thy will when it is seen and di- 
 rect, pleading with heart and conscience. So 
 shall I be undefiled and innocent from the 
 great trangression " — the transgression that 
 crucifies afresh. 
 
 " Let the words of my mouth (for I have set 
 them to declare Thy law), and the meditation 
 of my heart (for I have set it to keep Thy com- 
 mandments), be acceptable in Thy sight, whose 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 73 
 
 glory is my strength, and whose work my re- 
 demption; my Strength and my Redeemer." 
 
 SEEKING FOR FACTS, 
 
 He who habituates himself, in his daily life, 
 to seek for the stern facts in whatever he hears 
 or sees, will have these facts again brought be- 
 fore him by the involuntary imaginative power 
 in their noblest associations; and he who seeks 
 for frivolities and fallacies, will have frivoli- 
 ties and fallacies again presented to him in 
 his dreams. Thus if, in reading history for 
 the purpose of painting from it, the painter 
 severely seeks for the accurate circumstances 
 of every event; as, for instance, determining the 
 exact spot of ground on which his hero fell, 
 the way he must have been looking at the mo- 
 ment, the height the sun was at (by the hour 
 of the day), and the way in which the Hght must 
 have fallen upon his face, the actual number 
 and individuality of the persons by him at the 
 moment, and such other veritable details, ascer- 
 taining and dwelling upon them without the 
 slightest care for any desirableness or poetic 
 propriety in them, but for their own truth's 
 sake; then these truths will afterwards rise up 
 and form the body of his imaginative visi^" 
 
174 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 perfected and united as his inspiration may- 
 teach. But if, in reading the history, he does 
 not regarci these facts, but thinks only how it 
 might all most prettily, and properly, and impres- 
 sively have happened, then there is nothing but 
 prettiness and propriety to form the body of his 
 future imagination, and his whole ideal becomes 
 false. So, m the higher or expressive part of 
 the work, the whole virtue of it depends on his 
 being able to quit his own personality, and enter 
 successively into the hearts and thoughts of 
 each person; and in all this he is still passive: 
 in gathering the truth he is passive, not deter- 
 mining what the truth to be gathered shall be; 
 and in the after vision he is passive, not deter- 
 mining, but as his dreams will have it, what the 
 truth to be represented shall be; only according 
 to his own nobleness is his power of entering in- 
 to the hearts of noble persons, and the general 
 character of his dream of them. 
 
 JUSTICE TO THE LIVING. 
 
 It would be well for us if we could quit our 
 habit of thinking that what we say of the dead 
 is of more weight than what we say of the living. 
 The dead either know nothing, or know enough 
 to despise both us and our insults, or adulp^^'^*' 
 
PI^ECIOUS 7710 UGH TS. 175 
 
 " Well, but," it is answered, "there will always 
 be this weakness in our human nature; we shall 
 for ever, in spite of reason, take pleasure in doing 
 funereal honour to the corpse, and writing sacred- 
 ness to memory upon marble." Then if you are 
 to do this, — if you are to put off your kindness 
 until death, — why not, in God's name, put off 
 also your enmity? and if you choose to write your 
 lingering affections upon stones, wreak also your 
 dielayed anger upon clay. This would be just, 
 and, in the last case, little as you think it, gener- 
 ous. The true baseness is in the bitter reverse 
 — the strange iniquity of our folly. Is a man to 
 be praised, honoured, pleaded for? It might do 
 harm to praise or plead for him while he lived. 
 Wait till he is dead. Is he to be maligned, dis- 
 honoured, and discomforted? See that you do it 
 while he is alive. It would be too ungenerous to 
 slander him when he could feel malice no more; 
 too contemptible to try to hurt him when he was 
 past anguish. Make yourselves busy, ye unjust, 
 ye lying, ye hungry for pain! Death is near. 
 This is your hour, and the power of darkness. 
 Wait, ye just, ye merciful, ye faithful in lovel 
 Wait but for a little while, for this is not your 
 rest. 
 
1/6 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 THE DEFENDERS OF THE DEAD. 
 
 " Is it not, indeed, ungenerous to speak ill of 
 the dead, since they cannot defend themselves?" 
 
 Why should they? If you speak ill of them 
 falsely, it concerns you, not them. Those lies of 
 thine will " hurt a man as thou art," assuredly 
 they will hurt thyself; but that clay, or the 
 delivered soul of it, in no wise. Ajacean shield, 
 seven-folded, never stayed lance-thrust as that 
 turf will, with daisies pied. What you say of 
 those quiet ones is wholly and utterly the world's 
 affair and yours. The lie will, indeed, cost its 
 proper price, and work its appointed work; you 
 may ruin living myriads by it, — you may stop 
 the progress of centuries by it, — you may have 
 to pay your own soul for it, — but as for ruffling 
 one corner of the folded shroud by it, think it 
 not. The dead have none to defend them! 
 Nay, they have two defenders, strong enough for 
 the need — God, and the worm. 
 
 RIGHT GENERALIZATION. 
 
 To see in all mountains nothing but similar 
 heaps of earth; in all rocks, nothing but similar 
 concretions of soUd matter; in all trees, nothing 
 but similar accumulations of leaves, is p^«Wt- -< 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1/7 
 
 high feeling or extended thought. The more we 
 know, and the more we feel, the more we sepa- 
 rate; we separate to obtain a more perfect unity. 
 Stones, in the thoughts of the peasant, lie as 
 they do on his field, one is like another, and 
 there is no connexion between any of them. 
 The geologist distinguishes, and in distinguishing 
 connects them. Each becomes different from 
 its fellow, but in differing from, assumes a rela- 
 tion to its fellow; they are no more each the 
 repetition of the other, — they are parts of a 
 system, and each implies and is connected with 
 the existence of the rest. That generalization 
 then is right, true, and noble, which is based on 
 the knowledge of the distinctions and observ- 
 ance of the relations of individual kinds. That 
 generalization is wrong, false, and contemptible, 
 which is based on ignorance of the one, and dis- 
 turbance of the other. It is indeed no general- 
 ization, but confusion and chaos; it is the gener- 
 alization of a defeated army into indistinguish- 
 able impotence — the generalization of the ele- 
 ments of a dead carcass into dust. 
 
 THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. 
 
 The common plea that anything does to " ex- 
 ercise the mind upon," is an utterly false one. 
 
1/8 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 The human soul, in youth, is not a machine of 
 which you can polish the cogs with any kelp or 
 brickdust near at hand; and, having got it into 
 working order, and good, empty, and oiled 
 serviceableness, start your immortal locomotive 
 at twenty-five years old or thirty, express from 
 the Strait Gate, on the Narrow Road. The 
 whole period of youth is one essentially of for- 
 mation, edification, instruction, I use the words 
 with their weight in them; intaking of stores, 
 establishment in vital habits, hopes, and faiths. 
 There is not an hour of it but is trembling with 
 destinies, — not a moment of which, once past, 
 the appointed work can ever be done again, or 
 the neglected blows struck on the cold iron. 
 Take your vase of Venice glass out of the 
 furnace, and strew chaff over it in its trans- 
 parent heat, and recover that to its clearness and 
 rubied glory when the north wind has blown 
 upon it; but do not think to strew chaff over 
 the child fresh from God's presence, and to bring 
 the heavenly colours back to him — at least in 
 this world. 
 
 MAKING A RIGHT CHOICE. 
 
 A single knot of quartz occurring in a flake of 
 slate at the crest of the ridge may alter the 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 79 
 
 entire destinies of the mountain form. It may- 
 turn the little rivulet of water to the right or 
 left, and that little turn will be to the future 
 direction of the gathering stream what the touch 
 of a finger on the barrel of a rifle would be to 
 the direction of a bullet. Each succeeding year 
 increases the importance of every determined 
 form, and arranges in masses yet more and more 
 harmonious, the promontories shaped by the 
 sweeping of the eternal waterfalls. 
 
 The importance of the results thus obtained 
 by the slightest change of direction in the infant 
 streamlets, furnishes an interesting type of the 
 formation of human characters by habit. Every 
 one of those notable ravines and crags is the ex- 
 pression, not of any sudden violence done to the 
 mountain, but of its little habits, persisted in 
 continually. It was created with one ruling 
 instinct; but its destiny depended nevertheless, 
 for effective result, on the direction of the small 
 and all but invisible tricklings of water, in which 
 the first shower of rain found its way down its 
 sides. The feeblest, most insensible oozings of 
 the drops of dew among its dust were in reality 
 arbiters of its eternal form; commissioned, with 
 a touch more tender than that of a child's finger, 
 — as silent and slight as the fall of a half-checked 
 tear on a maiden's cheek, — to fix for ever the 
 forms of peak and precipice, and h*^w those 
 
l8o PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 leagues of lifted granite into the shapes that 
 were to divide the earth and its kingdoms. 
 Once the little stone evaded, — once the dim 
 furrow traced, — and the peak was for ever in- 
 vested with its majesty, the ravine for ever 
 doomed to its degradation. Thenceforward, 
 day by day, the subtle habit gained in power; 
 the evaded stone was left with wider basement; 
 the chosen furrow deepened with swifter-sliding 
 wave; repentance and arrest were alike impossi- 
 ble, and hour after hour saw written in larger 
 and rockier characters upon the sky, the history 
 of the choice that had been directed by a drop 
 of rain, and of the balance that had been turned 
 by a grain of sand. 
 
 GOOD TEACHING. 
 
 If we have the power of teaching the right to 
 anybody we should teach them the right; if we 
 have the power of showing them the best thing, 
 we should show them the best thing; there will 
 always, I fear, be enough want of teaching and 
 enough bad teaching, to bring out very curious 
 erratical results if we want them. So, if we are 
 to teach at all, let us teach the right thing, and 
 ever the right thing. There are many attractive 
 qualities inconsistent with rightness; — do not let 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. l8l 
 
 us teach them, — let us be content to waive them. 
 There are attractive qualities in Burns, and 
 attractive qualities in Dickens, which neither of 
 those writers would have possessed if the one 
 had been educated, and the other had been 
 studying higher nature than that of cockney- 
 London; but those attractive qualities are not 
 such as we should seek in a school of literature. 
 If we want to teach young men a good manner 
 of writing, we should teach it from Shakspeare, 
 ^not from Burns; from Walter Scott, — and not 
 from Dickens. 
 
 SERIOUSNESS AND LEVITY. 
 
 There is no essential reason, because we live 
 after the fatal seventeenth century, that we 
 should never again be able to confess interest in 
 sculpture, or see brightness in embroidery; nor, 
 because now we choose to make the night deadly 
 with our pleasures, and the day with our labours, 
 prolonging the dance till dawn, and the toil to 
 twilight, that we should never again learn how 
 rightly to employ the sacred trusts of strength, 
 beauty, and time. Whatever external charm 
 attaches itself to the past, would then be seen 
 in proper subordination to the brightness of 
 present life; and the elements of romance would 
 
1 82 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 exist, in the earlier ages, only in the attraction 
 which must generally belong to whatever is 
 unfamiliar; in the reverence which a noble 
 nation always pays to its ancestors; and in the 
 enchanted light which races, like individuals, 
 must perceive in looking back to the days of 
 their childhood. 
 
 Again: the peculiar levity with which natural 
 scenery is regarded by a large number of modern 
 minds cannot be considered as entirely charac- 
 teristic of the age, inasmuch as it never can 
 belong to its greatest intellects. Men of any 
 high mental power must be serious, whether in 
 ancient or modern days: a certain degree of 
 reverence for fair scenery is found in all our 
 great writers without exception, — even the one 
 who has made us laugh oftenest, taking us to the 
 valley of Chamouni, and to the sea beach, there 
 to give peace after suffering, and change revenge 
 into pity. It is only the dull, the uneducated, 
 or the worldly, whom it is painful to meet 
 on the hill sides; and levity, as a ruling charac- 
 ter, cannot be ascribed to the whole nation, but 
 only to its holiday-making apprentices, and its 
 House of Commons. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 83 
 
 THE ALPINE PEASANT. 
 
 A slight incident which happened to myself, 
 is singularly illustrative of the religious character 
 of the Alpine peasant when under favourable 
 circumstances of teaching. I was coming down 
 one evening from the Rochers de Naye, above 
 Montreux, having been at work among the lime- 
 stone rocks, where I could get no water, and 
 both weary and thirsty. Coming to a spring at 
 a turn of the path, conducted, as usual, by the 
 herdsmen into a hollowed pine-trunk, I stooped 
 to it and drank deeply: as I raised my head, 
 drawing breath heavily, some one behind me 
 said, "Celui qui boira de cette eau-ci, aura 
 encore soif." I turned, not understanding for 
 the moment what was meant; and saw one of 
 the hill-peasants, probably returning to his chalet 
 from the market-place at Vevay or Villeneuve. 
 As I looked at him with an uncomprehending 
 expression, he went on with the verse: — " Mais 
 celui qui boira de I'eau que je lui donnerai, 
 n'aura jamais soif." 
 
 I doubt if this would have been thought of, 
 or said, by even the most intelligent lowland 
 peasant. The thought might have occurred to 
 him, but the frankness of address, and expecta- 
 tion of being at once understood without a 
 word of preparative explanation, as if the Ian- 
 
1 84 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 guage of the Bible were familiar to all men, 
 mark, I think, the mountaineer. 
 
 TOWERS OF ROCK. 
 
 I can hardly conceive any one standing face 
 to face with one of these towers of central rock, 
 and yet not also asking himself. Is this indeed 
 the actual first work of the Divine Master on 
 which I gaze? Was the great precipice shaped 
 by His finger, as Adam was shaped out of 
 the dust? Were its clefts and ledges carved 
 upon it by its Creator, as the letters were on the 
 Tables of the Law, and was it thus left to bear 
 its eternal testimony to His beneficence among 
 these clouds of heaven ? Or is it the descendant 
 of a long race of mountains, existing under ap- 
 pointed laws of birth and endurance, death and 
 decrepitude? 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the answer. 
 The rock itself answers audibly by the murmur 
 of some falling stone or rending pinnacle. It is 
 not as it was once. Those waste leagues around 
 its feet are loaded with the wrecks of what 
 it was. On these, perhaps, of all mountains, the 
 characters of decay are written most clearly; 
 around these are spread most gloomily the 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 85 
 
 memorials of their pride, and the signs of their 
 humiliation. 
 
 " What then were they once?" 
 
 The only answer is yet again, — " Behold the 
 cloud." 
 
 Their form, as far as human vision can trace 
 it, is one of eternal decay. No retrospection 
 can raise them out of their ruins, or withdraw 
 them beyond the law of their perpetual fate. 
 Existing science may be challenged to form, 
 with the faintest colour of probability, any con- 
 ception of the original aspect of a crystalline 
 mountain: it cannot be followed in its elevation, 
 nor traced in its connexion with its fellows. 
 No eyes ever " saw its substance, yet being im- 
 perfect;" its history is a monotone of endurance 
 and destruction: all that we can certainly know 
 of it, is that it was once greater than it is now, 
 and it only gathers vastness, and still gathers, as 
 it fades into the abyss of the unknown. 
 
 Yet this one piece of certain evidence ought 
 not to be altogether unpursued; and while with 
 all humility we shrink from endeavouring to 
 theorize respecting processes which are con- 
 cealed, we ought not to refuse to follow, as far 
 as it will lead us, the course of thought which 
 seems marked out by conspicuous and consist- 
 ent phenomena. 
 
1 86 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 LOVE OF CHANGE. 
 
 In subjects of the intellect, the chief delight 
 they convey is dependent upon their being 
 newly and vividly comprehended, and as they 
 become subjects of contemplation they lose their 
 value, and become tasteless and unregarded, ex- 
 cept as instruments for the reaching of others, 
 only that though they sink down into the 
 shadowy, effectless, heap of things indifferent, 
 which we pack, and crush down, and stand upon, 
 to reach things new, they sparkle afresh at in- 
 tervals as we stir them by throwing a new stone 
 into the heap, and letting the newly admitted 
 lights play upon them. And both in subjects 
 of the intellect and the senses it is to be remem- 
 bered, that the love of change is a weakness and 
 imperfection of our nature, and implies in it the 
 state of probation, and that it is to teach us that 
 things about us here are not meant for our con- 
 tinual possession or satisfaction, that ever such 
 passion of change was put in us as that " custom 
 lies upon us with a weight, heavy as frost, and 
 deep almost as life," and only such weak back 
 and baby grasp given to our intellect as that 
 " the best things we do are painful, and the ex- 
 ercise of them grievous, being continued with- 
 out intermission, so as in those very actions 
 whereby we are especially perfected in this life 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 8/ 
 
 we are not able to persist." And so it will be 
 found that they are the weakest-minded and the 
 hardest-hearted men that most love variety and 
 change, for the weakest-minded are those who 
 both wonder most at things new, and digest 
 worst things old, in so far that everything they 
 have lies rusty, and loses lustre for want of use; 
 neither do they make any stir among their pos- 
 sessions, nor look over them to see what may be 
 made of them, nor keep any great store, nor are 
 householders with storehouses of things new 
 and old, but they catch at the new-fashioned 
 garments, and let the moth and thief look after 
 the rest; and the hardest-hearted men are those 
 that least feel the endearing and binding power 
 of custom, and hold on by no cords of affection 
 to any shore, but drive with the waves that cast 
 up mire and dirt. 
 
 IMAGINATION. 
 
 We all have a general and sufficient idea of 
 imagination, and of its work with our hands and 
 in our hearts: we understand it, I suppose, as 
 the imaging or picturing of new things in our 
 thoughts; and we always show an involuntary 
 respect for this power, wherever we can recog- 
 nise it, acknowledging it to be a greater power 
 
1 88 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 than manipulation, or calculation, or observa- 
 tion, or any other human faculty. If we see an 
 old woman spinning at the fireside, and distrib- 
 uting her thread dexterously from the distaff, we 
 respect her for her manipulation — if we ask her 
 how much she expects to make in a year, and 
 she answers quickly, we respect her for her cal- 
 culation — if she is watching at the same time 
 that none of her grandchildren fall into the fire, 
 we respect her for her observation — yet for all 
 this she may still be a commonplace old woman 
 enough. But if she is all the time telling her 
 grandchildren a fairy tale out of her head, we 
 praise her for her imagination, and say, she must 
 be a rather remarkable old woman. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 Do you recollect the evidence respecting the 
 character of this man, — the two points of bright 
 peculiar evidence given by the sayings of the 
 two greatest literary men of his day, Johnson 
 and Goldsmith? Johnson, who, as you know, 
 was always Reynolds' attached friend, had but 
 one complaint to make against him, that he 
 hated nobody: — " Reynolds," he said, " you 
 hate no one living; I like a good hater!" Still 
 more significant is the little touch in Goldsmith's 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 89 
 
 " Retaliation." You recollect how in that poem 
 he describes the various persons who met at one 
 of their dinners at St. James's Coffee-house, 
 each person being described under the name of 
 some appropriate dish. You will often hear the 
 concluding lines about Reynolds quoted — 
 
 " He shifted his trumpet," etc.; — 
 
 less often, or at least less attentively, the precede 
 ing ones, far more important — 
 
 " Still born to improve us in every part — 
 His pencil our faces, his vianners our heart/" 
 
 and never, the most characteristic touch of all, 
 
 near the beginning: — 
 
 " Our dean shall be venison, just fresh from the plains ; 
 Our Burke shall be tongue, with a garnish of brains ; 
 To make out the dinner, full certain I am, 
 That Rich is anchovy, and Reynolds is lamb.** 
 
 THE THINKER AND THE PERCEIVER. 
 
 He who, having journeyed all day beside the 
 Leman Lake, asked of his companions, at even- 
 ing, where it was,* probably was not wanting in 
 sensibility; but he was generally a thinker, not 
 a perceiver. And this instance is only an ex- 
 treme one of the effect which, in all cases, 
 
 * St. Bernard. 
 
1 90 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 knowledge, becoming a subject of reflection, 
 produces upon the sensitive faculties. It must 
 be but poor and lifeless knowledge, if it has no 
 tendency to force itself forward, and become 
 ground for reflection, in despite of the succession 
 of external objects. It will not obey their suc- 
 cession. The first that comes gives it food 
 enough for its day's work; it is its habit, its 
 duty, to cast the rest aside, and fasten upon 
 that. The first thing that a thinking and know- 
 ing man sees in the course of the day, he will 
 not easily quit. It is not his way to quit any- 
 thing without getting to the bottom of it, if pos- 
 sible. But the artist is bound to receive all 
 things on the broad, white, lucid field of his soul, 
 not to grasp at one. For instance, as the know- 
 ing and thinking man watches the sunrise, he 
 sees something in the colour of a ray, or the 
 change of a cloud, that is new to him; and this 
 he follows out forthwith into a labyrinth of 
 optical and pneumatical laws, perceiving no 
 more clouds nor rays all the morning. But the 
 painter must catch all the rays, all the colours 
 that come, and see them all truly, all in their 
 real relations and succession; therefore, every 
 thing that occupies room in his mind he must 
 cast aside for the time, as completely as may be. 
 The thoughtful man is gone far away to seek; 
 but the perceiving man must sit still, and open 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. I9I 
 
 his heart to receive. The thoughtful man is 
 knitting and sharpening himself into a two-edged 
 sword, wherewith to pierce. The perceiving 
 man is stretching himself into a four-cornered 
 sheet wherewith to catch. And all the breadth 
 to which he can expand himself, and all the 
 white emptiness into which he can blanch him- 
 self, will not give him the intelligence God has 
 to give him. 
 
 A NATION S PLACE IN HISTORY. 
 
 A nation may produce a great effect, and take 
 up a high place in the world's history, by the 
 temporary enthusiasm or fury of its multitudes, 
 without being truly great; or, on the other hand, 
 the discipline of morality and common sense 
 may extend its physical power or exalt its well- 
 being, while yet its creative and imaginative 
 powers are continually diminishing. And again: 
 a people may take so definite a lead over all the 
 rest of the world in one direction, as to obtain 
 a respect which is not justly due to them if 
 judged on universal grounds. Thus the Greeks 
 perfected the sculpture of the human body; 
 threw their literature into a disciplined form, 
 which has given it a peculiar power over certain 
 conditions of modern mind; and were the most 
 
192 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 carefully educated race that the world has seen; 
 but a few years hence, I believe, we shall no 
 longer think them a greater people than either 
 the Egyptians or Assyrians. 
 
 TREES AND COMMUNITIES. 
 
 There is a strange coincidence between trees 
 and communities of men. When the community 
 is small, people fall more easily into their places, 
 and take, each in his place, a firmer standing 
 than can be obtained by the individuals of a 
 great nation. The members of a vast com- 
 munity are separately weaker, as an aspen or 
 elm leaf is thin, tremulous, and directionless, 
 compared with the spear-like setting and firm 
 substance of a rhododendron or laurel leaf. 
 The laurel and rhododendron are like the 
 Athenian or Florentine republics; the aspen like 
 England — strong-trunked enough when put to 
 proof, and very good for making cartwheels of, 
 but shaking pale with epidemic panic at every 
 breeze. Nevertheless, the aspen has the better 
 of the great nation, in that if you take it bough 
 by bough, you shall find the gentle law of re- 
 spect and room for each other truly observed by 
 the leaves in such broken way as they can man- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 93 
 
 age it; but in the nation you find every one 
 scrambling for his neighbour's place. 
 
 THE PURIST AND THE SENSUALIST. 
 
 In saying that nearly everything presented to 
 us in nature has mingling in it of good and evil, 
 I do not mean that nature is conceivably im- 
 provable, or that anything that God has made 
 could be called evil, if we could see far enough 
 into its uses, but that, with respect to immediate 
 effects or appearances, it may be so, just as the 
 hard rind or bitter kernel of a fruit may be an 
 evil to the eater, though in the one is the pro- 
 tection of the fruit, and in the other its contin- 
 uance. The Purist, therefore, does not mend 
 nature, but receives from nature and from God 
 that which is good for him; while the Sensual- 
 ist fills himself " with the husks that the swine 
 did eat." 
 
 The three classes may, therefore, be likened 
 to men reaping wheat, of which the Purists take 
 the fine flour, and the Sensualists the chaff and 
 straw, but the Naturalists take all home, and 
 make their cake of the one, and their couch of 
 the other. 
 
 For instance. We know more certainly every 
 day that whatever appears to us harmful in the 
 
194 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 universe has some beneficent or necessary opera- 
 tion; that the storm which destroys a harvest 
 brightens the sunbeams for harvests yet unsown, 
 and that the volcano which buries a city pre- 
 serves a thousand from destruction. But the 
 evil is not for the time less fearful, because we 
 have learned it to be necessary; and we easily 
 understand the timidity or the tenderness of the 
 spirit which would withdraw itself from the 
 presence of destruction, and create in its imagi- 
 nation a world of which the peace should be 
 unbroken, in which the sky should not darken 
 nor the sea rage, in which the leaf should not 
 change nor the blossom wither. That man is 
 greater, however, who contemplates with an 
 equal mind the alternations of terror and of 
 beauty; who, not rejoicing less beneath the 
 sunny sky, can bear also to watch the bars of 
 twilight narrowing on the horizon; and, not less 
 sensible to the blessing of the peace of nature, 
 can rejoice in the magnificence of the ordinances 
 by which that peace is protected and secured. 
 But separated from both by an tinmeasurable 
 distance would be the man who delighted in 
 convulsion and disease for their own sake: who 
 found his daily food in the disorder of nature 
 mingled with the suffering of humanity; and 
 watched joyfully at the right hand of the Angel 
 whose appointed work is to destroy as well as to 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 95 
 
 accuse, while the corners of the House of feast- 
 ing were struck by the wind from the wilderness. 
 And far more is this true, when the subject 
 of contemplation is humanity itself. The pas- 
 sions of mankind are partly protective, partly 
 beneficent, like the chaff and grain of the corn; 
 but none without their use, none without noble- 
 ness when seen in balanced unity with the rest 
 of the spirit which they are charged to defend. 
 The passions of which the end is the continu- 
 ance of the race; the indignation which is to 
 arm it against injustice, or strengthen it to re- 
 sist wanton injury; and the fear * which lies at 
 the root of prudence, reverence, and awe, are 
 all honourable and beautiful, so long as man is 
 regarded in his relations to the existing world. 
 The religious Purist, striving to conceive him 
 withdrawn from those relations, effaces from the 
 countenance the traces of all transitory passion, 
 illumines it with holy hope and love, and seals 
 it with the serenity of heavenly peace; he con- 
 ceals the forms of the body by the deep-folded 
 garment, or else represents them under severely 
 chastened types, and would rather paint them 
 emaciated by the fast, or pale from the torture 
 than strengthened by exertion, or flushed by 
 
 * Not selfish fear, caused by want of trust in God, or 
 of resolution in the soul. 
 
196 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 emotion. But the great Naturalist takes the 
 human being in its wholeness, in its mortal as 
 well as its spiritual strength. Capable of sound- 
 ing and sympathising with the whole range of 
 its passions, he brings one majestic harmony out 
 of them all; he represents it fearlessly in all its 
 acts and thoughts, in its haste, its anger, its sen- 
 suality, and its pride, as well as in its fortitude 
 or faith, but makes it noble in them all; he casts 
 aside the veil from the body, and beholds the 
 mysteries of its form like an angel looking dowt 
 on an inferior creature; there is nothing which 
 he is reluctant to behold, nothing that he is 
 ashamed to confess; with all that lives, triumph- 
 ing, falling, or suffering, he claims kindred, 
 either in majesty or in mercy, yet standing, in a 
 sort, afar off, unmoved even in the deepness of 
 his sympathy; for the spirit within him is too 
 thoughtful to be grieved, too brave to be ap- 
 palled, and too pure to be polluted. 
 
 How far beneath these two ranks of men shall 
 we place, in the scale of being, those whose 
 pleasure is only in sin or in suffering; who 
 habitually contemplate humanity in poverty or 
 decrepitude, fury or sensuality; whose works are 
 either temptations to its weakness, or triumphs 
 over its ruin, and recognise no other subjects 
 for thought or admiration than the subtlety of 
 the robber, the rage of the soldier, or the joy of 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 97 
 
 the Sybarite. It seems strange, vrhen thus 
 definitely stated, that such a school should ex- 
 ist. Yet consider a little what gaps and blanks 
 would disfigure our gallery and chamber walls, 
 in places that we have long approached with 
 reverence, if every picture, every statue, were 
 removed from them, of which the subject was 
 either the vice or the misery of mankind, pour- 
 trayed without any moral purpose: consider the 
 innumerable groups having reference merely to 
 various forms of passion, low or high; drunken 
 revels and brawls among peasants, gambling or 
 fighting scenes among soldiers, amours and in- 
 trigues among every class, brutal battle-pieces, 
 banditti subjects, gluts of torture and death in 
 famine, wreck, or slaughter, for the sake merely 
 of the excitement, — that quickening and sup- 
 pling of the dull spirit that cannot be gained for 
 it but by bathing it in blood, afterward to wither 
 back into stained and stiffened apathy; and 
 then that whole vast false heaven of sensual 
 passion, full of nymphs, satyrs, graces, goddesses, 
 and I know not what, from its high seventh 
 circle in Correggio's Antiope, down to the 
 Grecized ballet-dancers and smirking Cupids of 
 the Parisian upholsterer. Sweep away all this, 
 remorselessly, and see how much art we should 
 have left. 
 
 And yet these are only the grossest manifesta- 
 
198 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 tions of the tendency of the school. There are 
 subtler, yet not less certain, signs of it in the 
 works of men who stand high in the world's list 
 of sacred painters. I doubt not that the reader 
 was surprised when I named Murillo among the 
 men of this third rank. Yet, go into the Dul- 
 wich Gallery, and meditate for a little over that 
 much celebrated picture of the two beggar boys^ 
 one eating lying on the ground, the other stand- 
 ing beside him. We have among our own paint- 
 ers one who cannot indeed be set beside Murillo 
 as a painter of Madonnas, for he is a pure Nat- 
 uralist, and, never having seen a Madonna, does 
 not paint any; but who, as a painter of beggar 
 or peasant boys, may be set beside Murillo, or 
 any one else, — W. Hunt. He loves peasant 
 boys, because he finds them more roughly and 
 picturesquely dressed, and more healthily col- 
 oured, than others. And he paints all that he 
 sees in them fearlessly; all the health and 
 humour, and freshness, and vitality, together 
 with such awkwardness and stupidity, and what 
 else of negative or positive harm there may be 
 in the creature; but yet so that on the whole we 
 love it, and find it perhaps even beautiful, or if 
 not, at least we see that there is capability of 
 good in it, rather than of evil; and all is lighted 
 up by a sunshine and sweet colour that makes 
 the smock frock as precious as cloth of gold. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 1 99 
 
 But look at those two ragged and vicious va- 
 grants that Murillo has gathered out of the 
 street. You smile at first, because they are eat- 
 ing so naturally, and their roguery is so complete. 
 But is there anything else than roguery there, 
 or was it well for the painter to give his time to 
 the painting of those repulsive and wicked chil- 
 dren? Do you feel moved with any charity 
 towards children as you look at them? Are we 
 the least more likely to take any interest in 
 ragged schools, or to help the next pauper child 
 that comes in our way, because the painter has 
 shown us a cunning beggar feeding greedily. 
 Mark the choice of the act. He might have 
 shov/n hunger in other ways, and given interest 
 to even this act of eating, by making the face 
 wasted, or the eye wistful. But he did not care 
 to do this. He delighted merely in the disgust- 
 ing manner of eating, the food filling the cheek: 
 the boy is not hungry, else he would not turn 
 round to talk and grin as he eats. 
 
 But observe another point in the lower figure. 
 It lies so that the sole of the foot is turned 
 towards the spectator; not because it would 
 have lain less easily in another attitude, but that 
 the painter may draw, and exhibit, the grey dust 
 engrained in the foot. Do not call this the 
 painting of nature: it is mere delight in foulness. 
 The lesson, if there be any, in the picture, is not 
 
2(X) PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 one whit the stronger. We all know that a 
 beggar's bare foot cannot be clean; there is no 
 need to thrust its degradation into the light, as 
 if no human imagination were vigorous enough 
 for its conception. 
 
 THE TYPE OF STRONG AND NOBLE LIFE. 
 
 Great Art is nothing else than the type of 
 strong and noble life; for, as the ignoble person, 
 in his dealings with all that occurs in the world 
 about him, first sees nothing clearly, — looks 
 nothing fairly in the face, and then allows him- 
 self to be swept away by the trampling torrent, 
 and unescapable force, of the things that he 
 would not foresee, and could not understand: so 
 the noble person, looking the facts of the world 
 full in the face, and fathoming them with deep 
 faculty, then deals with them in unalarmed 
 intelligence and unhurried strength, and be- 
 comes, with his human intellect and will, no un- 
 conscious nor insignificant agent, in consum- 
 mating their good, and restraining their evil. 
 
 THE VISIBLE AND THE TANGIBLE. 
 
 Of no other source than the tangible and the 
 visible can we, by any effort in our present con- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 201 
 
 dition of existence, conceive. For what revela- 
 tions have been made to humanity inspired, or 
 caught up to heaven of things to the heavenly 
 region belonging, have been either by unspeaka- 
 ble words which it is not lawful for a man to 
 utter, or else by their very nature incommunica- 
 ble, except in types and shadows; and ineffable 
 by words belonging to earth, for of things differ- 
 ent from the visible, words appropriated to the 
 visible can convey no image. How different 
 from earthly gold that clear pavement of the city 
 might have seemed to the eyes of St. John, we 
 of unreceived sight cannot know; neither of 
 that strange jasper and sardine can we conceive 
 the likeness which he assumed that sat on the 
 throne above the crystal sea; neither what seem- 
 ing that was of slaying that the Root of David 
 bore in the midst of the elders; neither what 
 change it was upon the form of the fourth 
 of them that walked in the furnace of Dura, that 
 even the wrath of idolatry knew for the likeness 
 of the Son of God. 
 
 MODERN GREATNESS. 
 
 The simple fact, that we are, in some strange 
 way, different from all the great races that have 
 existed before us, cannot at once be received as 
 
202 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 the proof of our own greatness; nor can it 
 be granted, without any question, that we have 
 a legitimate subject of complacency in being 
 under the influence of feelings, with which 
 neither Miltiades nor the Black Prince, neither 
 Homer nor Dante, neither Socrates nor St. 
 Francis, could for an instant have sympathized. 
 Whether, however, this fact be one to excite 
 our pride or not, it is assuredly one to excite our 
 deepest interest. The fact itself is certain. For 
 nearly six thousand years the energies of man 
 have pursued certain beaten paths, manifesting 
 some constancy of feeling throughout all that 
 period, and involving some fellowship at heart, 
 among the various nations who by turns suc- 
 ceeded or surpassed each other in the several 
 aims of art or policy. So that, for these thou- 
 sands of years, the whole human race might be 
 to some extent described in general terms. Man 
 was a creature separated from all others by his 
 instinctive sense of an Existence superior to his 
 own, invariably manifesting this sense of the 
 being of a God more strongly in proportion 
 to his own perfectness of mind and body; and 
 making enormous and self-denying efforts, in 
 order to obtain some persuasion of the im- 
 mediate presence or approval of the Divinity, 
 
PRECIOUS TH OUGHTS. 203 
 
 SMOKE AND THE WHIRLWIND. 
 
 Much of the love of mystery in our romances, 
 our poetry, our art, and, above all, in our meta- 
 physics, must come under that definition so 
 long ago given by the great Greek, " speaking 
 ingeniously concerning smoke." And much of 
 the instinct, which, partially developed in paint- 
 ing, may be now seen throughout every mode of 
 exertion of mind, — the easily encouraged doubt, 
 easily excited curiosity, habitual agitation, and 
 delight in the changing and the marvellous, as 
 opposed to the old quiet serenity of social cus- 
 tom and religious faith, is again deeply defined 
 in those few words, the " dethroning of Jupiter," 
 the "coronation of the whirlwind." 
 
 MODERN ENTANGLEMENT. 
 
 The vain and haughty projects of youth for 
 future life; the giddy reveries of insatiable self-x 
 exaltation; the discontented dreams of what 
 might have been or should be, instead of the 
 thankful understanding of what is; the casting 
 about for sources of interest in senseless fiction, 
 instead of the real human histories of the people 
 round us; the prolongation from age to age of 
 
204 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 romantic historical deceptions instead of sifted 
 truth; the pleasures taken in fanciful portraits 
 of rural or romantic life in poetry and on the 
 stage, without the smallest effort to rescue the 
 living rural population of the world from its 
 ignorance or misery; the excitement of the feel- 
 ings by laboured imagination of spirits, fairies, 
 monsters, and demons, issuing in total blindness 
 of heart and sight to the true presences of benefi- 
 cent or destructive spiritual powers around us; 
 in fine, the constant abandonment of all the 
 straightforward paths of sense and duty, for fear 
 of losing some of the enticement of ghostly 
 joys, or trampling somewhat " sopra lor vanita, 
 che par persona;" all these various forms of false 
 idealism have so entangled the modern mind, 
 often called, I suppose ironically, practical, that 
 truly I believe there never yet was idolatry 
 of stock or staff so utterly unholy as this our 
 idolatry of shadows; nor can I think that, of 
 those who burnt incense under oaks, and poplars, 
 and elms, because '' the shadow thereof was 
 good," it could in any wise be more justly 
 or sternly declared than of us — " The wind hath 
 bound them up in her wing, and they shall be 
 ashamed because of their sacrifices." * 
 
 *Hosea, chap. iv. 12, 13, and 19. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 20$ 
 
 THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 All human government is nothing else than 
 the executive expression of Divine authority. 
 The moment government ceases to be the prac- 
 tical enforcement of Divine law, it is tyranny; 
 and the meaning which I attach to the words, 
 " paternal government," is, in more extended 
 terms, simply this — " The executive fulfilment, 
 by formal human methods, of the will of the 
 Father of mankind respecting His children." 
 
 THREE ORDERS OF HUMAN BEINGS. 
 
 The apathy which cannot perceive beauty is 
 very different from the stern energy which dis- 
 dains it; and the coldness of heart which re- 
 ceives no emotion from external nature, is not 
 to be confounded with the wisdom of purpose 
 which represses emotion in action. In the case 
 of most men, it is neither acuteness of the rea- 
 son, nor breadth of humanity, which shields them 
 from the impressions of natural scenery, but 
 rather low anxieties, vain discontents, and mean 
 pleasures; and for one who is blinded to the 
 works of God by profound abstraction or lofty 
 purpose, tens of thousands have their eyes sealed 
 
206 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 by vulgar selfishness, and their intelligence 
 crushed by impious care. 
 
 Observe, then: we have, among mankind in 
 general, the three orders of being; — the lowest, 
 sordid and selfish, which neither sees nor feels; 
 the second, noble and sympathetic, but which 
 sees and feels without concluding or acting; the 
 third and highest, which loses sight in resolu- 
 tion, and feeling in work. 
 
 NATURAL ADMIRATION. 
 
 Examine well the channels of your admiration, 
 and you will find that they are, in verity, as un- 
 changeable as the channels of your heart's 
 blood; that just as by the pressure of a band- 
 age, or by unwholesome and perpetual action of 
 some part of the body, that blood may be wasted 
 or arrested, and in its stagnancy cease to nour- 
 ish the frame, or in its disturbed flow affect it 
 with incurable disease, so also admiration itself 
 may, by the bandages of fashion, bound close 
 over the eyes and the arteries of the soul, be ar- 
 rested in its natural pulse and healthy flow; but 
 that wherever the artificial pressure is removed, 
 it will return into that bed which has been traced 
 for it by the finger of God. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 20/ 
 
 THE REFORMATION. 
 
 The Strength of the Reformation lay entirely 
 in its being a movement towards purity of prac- 
 tice. 
 
 The Catholic priesthood was hostile to it in 
 proportion to the degree in which they had been 
 false to their own principles of moral action, 
 and had become corrupt or worldly in heart. 
 
 The Reformers indeed cast out many absurdi- 
 ties, and demonstrated many fallacies, in the 
 teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. But 
 they themselves introduced errors, which rent 
 the ranks, and finally arrested the march of the 
 Reformation, and which paralyse the Protestant 
 Church to this day. Errors of which the fatal- 
 ity was increased by the controversial bent which 
 lost accuracy of meaning in force of declama- 
 tion, and turned expressions, which ought to be 
 used only in retired depth of thought, into 
 phrases of custom, or watchwords of attack. 
 Owing to which habits of hot, ingenious, and 
 unguarded controversy, the Reformed churches 
 themselves soon forgot the meaning of the word 
 which, of all words, was oftenest in their mouths. 
 They forgot that nicjrii is a derivative of 
 Tieido^ai, not of niarevoj, and that " fides," 
 closely connected with "fio" on one side, and 
 
208 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 with " confido" on the other, is but distantly re- 
 lated to " credo." * 
 
 By whatever means, however, the reader may 
 himself be disposed to admit, the Reformation 
 was arrested; and got itself shut up into chan- 
 cels of cathedrals in England (even those, gen- 
 erally too large for it), and into conventicles 
 everywhere else. Then rising between the in- 
 fancy of Reformation, and the palsy of Catholi- 
 cism; — between a new shell of half -built religion 
 on one side daubed with untempered mortar, 
 and a falling ruin of outworn religion on the 
 other, lizard-crannied and ivy-grown; — rose, on 
 its independent foundation, the faithless and ma- 
 terialized mind of modern Europe — ending in the 
 rationalism of Germany, the polite formalism of 
 England, the careless blasphemy of France, and 
 the helpless sensualities of Italy; in the midst 
 of which, steadily advancing science, and the 
 charities of more and more widely extended 
 
 * None of our present forms of opinion are more curious 
 than those which have developed themselves from this 
 verbal carelessness. It never seems to strike any of our 
 religious teachers, that if a child has a father living, it 
 either knows it has a father, or does not: it does not " be- 
 lieve" it has a father. We should be surprised to see an 
 intelligent child standing at its garden gate, cryinc; out to 
 the passers-by : "I believe in my father, because be built 
 this house;" as logical people proclaim that they b<elieve 
 in God, because He must have made the world. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 209 
 
 peace, are preparing the way for a Christian 
 church, which shall depend neither on ignorance 
 for its continuance, nor on controversy for 
 its progress; but shall reign at once in light and 
 love. 
 
 QUIETNESS. 
 
 The refusal or reserve of a mighty painter 
 cannot be imitated; it is only by reaching the 
 same intellectual strength that you will be able 
 to give an equal dignity to your self-denial. No 
 one can tell you beforehand what to accept, or 
 what to ignore; only remember always, in paint- 
 ing as in eloquence, the greater your strength, 
 the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer 
 your words; and in painting, as in all the arts 
 and acts of life, the secret of high success will 
 be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, 
 but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim. 
 
 THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Two great errors, colouring, or rather discolour- 
 ing, severally, the minds of the higher and lower 
 classes, have sown wide dissension, and wider 
 misfortune, through the society of modern days. 
 
210 PRELiuUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 These errors are in our modes of interpreting 
 the word " gentleman." 
 
 Its primal, literal, and perpetual meaning is 
 " a man of pure race;" well bred, in the sense 
 that a horse or dog is well bred. 
 
 The so-called higher classes, being generally 
 of purer race than the lower, have retained the 
 true idea, and the convictions associated with 
 it; but are afraid to speak it out, and equivocate 
 about it in public; this equivocation mainly pro- 
 ceeding from their desire to connect another 
 meaning with it, and a false one; — that of " a 
 man living in idleness on other people's labour:'* 
 with which idea the term has nothing whatever 
 to do. 
 
 The lower classes, denying vigorously, and 
 with reason, the notion that a gentleman means 
 an idler, and rightly feeling that the more any 
 one works, the more of a gentleman he becomes, 
 and is likely to become, — have nevertheless got 
 little of the good they otherwise might, from the 
 truth, because, with it, they wanted to hold a 
 falsehood, — namely, that race was of no conse- 
 quence. It being precisely of as much conse- 
 quence in man as it is in any other animal. 
 
 The nation cannot truly prosper till both these 
 errors are finally got quit of. Gentlemen have 
 to learn that it is no part of their duty or privi- 
 lege to live on other people's toil. They have 
 
PRECrO us 7 110 UGII TS. 2 I I 
 
 to learn that there is no degradation in the hard- 
 est manual, or the humblest servile, labour, when 
 it is honest. But that there is degradation, and 
 that deep, in extravagance, in bribery, in indo- 
 lence, in pride, in taking places they ate not fit for, 
 or in coining places for which there is no need. 
 It does not disgrace a gentleman to become an 
 errand boy, or a day labourer ; but it disgraces 
 him much to become a knave, or a thief. And 
 knavery is not the less knavery because it in- 
 volves large interests, nor theft the less theft 
 because it is countenanced by usage, or accom- 
 panied by failure in undertaken duty. It is an 
 incomparably less guilty form of robbery to cut 
 a purse out of a man's pocket, than to take it 
 out of his hand on the understanding that you 
 are to steer his ship up channel, when you do 
 not know the soundings. 
 
 On the other hand, the lower orders, and all 
 orders, have to learn that every vicious habit and 
 chronic disease communicates itself by descent; 
 and that by purity of birth the entire system of 
 the human body and soul may be gradually ele- 
 vated, or by recklessness of birth, degraded; un- 
 til there shall be as much difference between 
 the well-bred and ill-bred human creature (what- 
 ever pains be taken with their education) as be- 
 tween a wolf-hound and the vilest mongrel cur. 
 And the knowledge of this great fact ought to 
 
212 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 regulate the education of our youth, and the 
 entire conduct of the nation.* 
 
 Gentlemanliness, however, in ordinary par- 
 lance, must be taken to signify those qualities 
 which are usually the evidence of high breeding, 
 
 *We ought always in pure English to use the term 
 " good breeding" literally; and to say "good nurture'* 
 for what we usually mean by good breeding. Given the 
 race and make of the animal, you may turn it to good or 
 bad account; you may spoil your good dog or colt, and 
 make him as vicious as you choose, or break his back at 
 once by ill-usage; and you may, on the other hand, make 
 something serviceable and respectable out of your poor 
 cur or colt if you educate them carefully; but ill-bred they 
 will both of them be to their lives' end; and the best you 
 will ever be able to say of them is, that they are useful, 
 and decently behaved ill-bred creatures. An error, which 
 is associated with the truth, and which makes it always 
 look weak and disputable, is the confusion of race with 
 name; and the supposition that the blood of a family 
 must still be good, if its genealogy be unbroken and its 
 name not lost, though sire and son have been indulging 
 age after age in habits involving perpetual degeneracy of 
 race. Of course it is equally an error to suppose that, 
 because a man's name is common, his blood must be 
 base; since his family may have been ennobling it by 
 pureness of moral habit for many generations, and yet 
 may not have got any title or other sign of nobleness at- 
 tached to their names. Nevertheless, the probability is 
 always in favour of the race which has had acknowledged 
 supremacy, and in which every motive leads to the en- 
 deavour to preserve their true nobility. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 213 
 
 and which, so far as they can be acquired, it should 
 be every man's effort to acquire; or, if he has 
 them by nature, to preserve and exalt. Vulgar- 
 ity, on the other hand, will signify qualities 
 usually characteristic of ill-breeding, which, ac- 
 cording to his power, it becomes every person's 
 duty to subdue. We have briefly to note what 
 these are. 
 
 A gentleman's first characteristic is that fine- 
 ness of structure in the body, which renders it \ 
 capable of the most delicate sensation; and of 
 structure in the mind which renders it capable 
 of the most delicate sympathies — one may say, 
 simply " fineness of nature." This is, of course, 
 compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental 
 firmness; in fact heroic strength is not conceiv- 
 able without such delicacy. Elephantine strength 
 may drive its way through a forest and feel no 
 touch of the boughs; but the white skin of 
 Homer's Atrides would have felt a bent rose- 
 leaf, yet subdue its feelings in glow of battle, 
 and behave itself like iron. I do not mean to 
 call an elephant a vulgar animal; but if you 
 think about him carefully, you will find that his 
 non-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is 
 possible to elephantine nature; not in his insen- 
 sitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot; but in the 
 way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; 
 and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensi- 
 
214 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 tive mind, and capability of pique on points of 
 honour. 
 
 And, though Tightness of moral conduct is ul- 
 timately the great purifier of race, the sign of 
 nobleness is not in this Tightness of moral con- 
 duct, but in sensitiveness. When the make of 
 the creature is fine, its temptations are strong, 
 as well as its perceptions ; it is liable to all kinds 
 of impressions from without in their most vio- 
 lent form; liable therefore to be abused and 
 hurt by all kinds of rough things which would 
 do a coarser creature little harm, and thus to 
 fall into frightful wrong if its fate will have it so. 
 Thus David, coming of gentlest as well as roy- 
 alest race, of Ruth as well as of Judah, is sensi- 
 tiveness through all flesh and spirit; not that his 
 compassion will restrain him from murder when 
 his terror urges him to it; nay, he is driven to 
 the murder all the more by his sensitiveness to 
 the shame which otherwise threatens him. But 
 when his own story is told him under a disguise, 
 though only a lamb is now concerned, his pas- 
 sion about it leaves him no time for thought. 
 " The man shall die" — note the reason — " be- 
 cause he had no pity." He is so eager and in- 
 dignant that it never occurs to him as strange 
 that Nathan hides the name. This is the true 
 gentleman. A vulgar man would assuredly have 
 been cautious, and asked " who it was?" 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 21$ 
 
 Hence it will follow that one of the probable 
 signs of high-breeding in men generally, will be 
 their kindness and mercifulness; these always 
 indicating more or less fineness of make in the 
 mind; an-d miserliness and cruelty the contrary; 
 hence that of Isaiah: " The vile person shall no 
 more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be 
 bountiful." But a thousand things may prevent 
 this kindness from displaying or continuing it- 
 self; the mind of the man may be warped so as 
 to bear mainly on his own interests, and then all 
 his sensibilities will take the form of pride, or 
 fastidiousness, or revengefulness; and other 
 wicked, but not ungentlemanly tempers; or, far- 
 ther, they may run into utter sensuality and 
 covetousness, if he is bent on pleasure, accom- 
 panied with quite infinite cruelty when the pride 
 is wounded or the passions thwarted; — until your 
 gentleman becomes Ezzelin, and your lady, the 
 deadly Lucrece; yet still gentleman and lady, 
 quite incapable of making anything else of them- 
 selves, being so born. 
 
 A truer sign of breeding than mere kind- 
 ness is therefore sympathy; a vulgar man 
 may often be kind in a hard way, on princi- 
 ple, and because he thinks he ought to be; 
 whereas, a highly-bred man, even when cruel, 
 will be cruel in a softer way, understanding and 
 feeling what he inflicts, and pitying his vie- 
 
2l6 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 tim. Only we must carefully remember that 
 the quantity of sympathy a gentleman feels can 
 never be judged of by its outward expression, 
 for another of his chief characteristics is appar- 
 ent reserve. I say "apparent" reserve; for the 
 sympathy is real, but the reserve not: a perfect 
 gentleman is never reserved, but sweetly and en- 
 tirely open, so far as it is good for others, or 
 possible, that he should be. In a great many re- 
 spects it is impossible that he should be open ex- 
 cept to men of his own kind. To them, he can 
 open himself, by a word, or syllable, or a glance; 
 but to men not of his kind he cannot open him- 
 self, though he tried it through an eternity of 
 clear grammatical speech. By the very acute- 
 ness of his sympathy he knows how much of 
 himself he can give to anybody; and he gives 
 that much frankly; — would always be glad to 
 give more if he could, but is obliged, neverthe- 
 less, in his general intercourse with the world, 
 to be a somewhat silent person; silence is to 
 most people, he finds, less reserve than speech. 
 Whatever he said, a vulgar man would misinter- 
 pret: no words that he could use would bear the 
 same sense to the vulgar man that they do to 
 him; if he used any, the vulgar man would go 
 away saying, " He had said so and so, and meant 
 so and so" (something assuredly he never meant) ; 
 but he keeps silence, and the vulgar man goes 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 21/ 
 
 away saying, " He didn't know what to make ot 
 him." Which is precisely the fact, and the only 
 fact which he is anywise able to announce to the 
 vulgar man concerning himself. 
 
 There is yet another quite as efficient cause 
 of the apparent reserve of a gentleman. His 
 sensibility being constant and intelligent, it will 
 be seldom that a feeling touches him, however 
 acutely, but it has touched him in the same way 
 often before, and in some sort is touching him 
 always. It is not that he feels little, but that 
 he feels habitually; a vulgar man having some 
 heart at the bottom of him, if you can by talk 
 or by sight fairly force the pathos of anything 
 down to his heart, will be excited about it and 
 demonstrative; the sensation of pity being 
 strange to him, and wonderful. But your gentle- 
 man has walked in pity all day long; the tears 
 have never been out of his eyes; you thought 
 the eyes were bright only; but they were wet. 
 You tell him a sorrowful story, and his counte- 
 nance does not change; the eyes can but be wet 
 still; he does not speak neither, there being, in 
 fact, nothing to be said, only something to be 
 done; some vulgar person, beside you both, 
 goes away saying, " How hard he is!" Next 
 day he hears that the hard person has put good 
 end to the sorrow he said nothing about; — and 
 
2l8 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 then he changes his wonder and exclaims, " How 
 reserved he is!" 
 
 Self-command is often thought a characteris- 
 tic of high breeding: and to a certain extent it 
 is so, at least it is one of the means of forming 
 and strengthening character; but it is rather a 
 way of imitating a gentleman than a character- 
 istic of him; a true gentleman has no need of 
 self-command; he simply feels rightly on all oc- 
 casions: and desiring to express only so much 
 of his feeling as it is right to express, does not 
 need to command himself. Hence perfect ease 
 is indeed characteristic of him; but perfect ease 
 is inconsistent with self-restraint. Nevertheless 
 gentlemen, so far as they fail of their own ideal, 
 need to command themselves, and do so; while, 
 on the contrary, to feel unwisely, and to be un 
 able to restrain the expression of the unwise 
 feeling, is vulgarity; and yet even then, the vul- 
 garity, at its root, is not in the mistimed expres- 
 sion, but in the unseemly feeling; and when we 
 find fault with a vulgar person for " exposing 
 himself," it is not his openness, but clumsiness; 
 and yet more the want of sensibility to his own 
 failure, which we blame; so that still the vul- 
 garity resolves itself into want of sensibility. 
 Also, it is to be noted that great pov/ers of self- 
 restraint may be attained by very vulgar persons, 
 when it suits their purposes. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 219 
 
 Closely, but strangely, connected with this 
 openness is that form of truthfulness which is op- 
 posed to cunning, yet not opposed to falsity ab- 
 solute. And herein is a distinction of great im- 
 portance. 
 
 Cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of 
 over-reaching accompanied with enjoyment and 
 a sense of superiority. It is associated with small 
 and dull conceit, and with an absolute want of 
 sympathy or affection. Its essential connexion 
 with vulgarity may be at once exemplified by the 
 expression of the butcher's dog in Landseer's 
 ^'Low Life." Cruikshank's "Noah Claypole," 
 in the illustrations to Oliver Twist, in the inter- 
 view with the Jew, is, however, still more char- 
 acteristic. It is the intensest rendering of vul- 
 garity absolute and utter with which I am ac- 
 quainted.* 
 
 The truthfulness which is opposed to cunning 
 ought, perhaps, rather to be called the desire of 
 truthfulness; it comes more in unwillingness to 
 
 * Among the reckless losses of the right service of in- 
 tellectual power with which this century must be charged, 
 very few are, to my mind, more to be regretted than that 
 which is involved in its having turned to no higher purpose 
 than the illustration of the career of Jack Sheppard, and of 
 the Irish Rebellion, the great, grave (I use the words de- 
 liberately and with large meaning), and singular genius of 
 Cruikshank. 
 
220 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 deceive than in not deceiving, — and unwilling- 
 ness implying sympathy with and respect for the 
 person deceived; and a fond observance of truth 
 up to the possible point, as in a good soldier's 
 mode of retaining his honour through a ruse-de- 
 guerre. A cunning person seeks for opportuni- 
 ties to deceive; a gentleman shuns them. A 
 cunning person triumphs in deceiving; a gentle- 
 man is humiliated by the success, or at least by 
 so much of the success as is dependent merely 
 on the falsehood, and not on his intellectual su- 
 periority. 
 
 The absolute disdain of all lying belongs 
 rather to Christian chivalry than to mere high 
 breeding; as connected merely with this latter, 
 and with general resolution and courage, the ex- 
 act relations of truthfulness may be best studied 
 in the well-trained Greek mind. The Greeks 
 believed that mercy and truth were co-relative 
 virtues — cruelty and falsehood, co-relative vices. 
 But they did not call necessary severity, cruelty; 
 nor necessary deception, falsehood. It was 
 needful sometimes to slay men, and sometimes 
 to deceive them. When this had to be done, it 
 should be done well and thoroughly; so that to 
 direct a spear well to its mark, or a lie well to 
 its end, was equally the accomplishment of a 
 perfect gentleman. Hence, in the pretty dia- 
 mond-cut-diamond scene between Pallas and 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 221 
 
 Ulysses, when she receives him on the coast of 
 Ithaca, the goddess laughs delightedly at her 
 hero's good lying, and gives him her hand upon 
 it; she feels herself then in her woman's form, 
 as just a little more than his match. " Subtle 
 would he be, and stealthy, who should go beyond 
 thee in deceit, even were he a god, thou many- 
 witted! What! here in thine own land, too, 
 wilt thou not cease from cheating? Knowest 
 thou not me, Pallas Athena, maid of Jove, who 
 am with thee in all thy labours, and gave thee 
 favour with the Phaeacians, and keep thee, and 
 have come now to weave cunning with thee?" 
 But how completely this kind of cunning was 
 looked upon as a part of a man's power, and not 
 as a diminution of faithfulness, is perhaps best 
 shown by the single line of praise in which the 
 high qualities of his servant are summed up by 
 Chremulus in the Plutus — " Of all my house 
 servants, I hold you to be the faithfullest, and 
 the greatest cheat (or thief)." 
 
 Thus, the primal difference between honour- 
 able and base lying in the Greek mind lay in 
 honourable purpose. A man who used his 
 strength wantonly to hurt others was a monster; 
 so, also, a man who used his cunning wantonly 
 to hurt others. Strength and cunning were to 
 be used only in self-defence, or to save the weak, 
 and then were alike admirable. This was their 
 
222 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 first idea. Then the second, and perhaps the 
 more essential difference between noble and 
 ignoble lying in the Greek mind, was that the 
 honourable lie — or, if we may use the strange, 
 yet just, expression, the true lie — knew and 
 confessed itself for such — was ready to take the 
 full responsibility of what it did. As the sword 
 answered for its blow so the lie for its snare. 
 But what the Greeks hated with all their heart 
 was the false lie; the lie that did not know itself, 
 feared to confess itself, which slunk to its aim 
 under a cloak of truth, and sought to do liars' 
 work, and yet not take liars' pay, excusing itself 
 to the conscience by quibble and quirk. Hence 
 the great expression of Jesuit principle by 
 Euripides, " The tongue has sworn, but not the 
 heart," was a subject of execration throughout 
 Greece, and the satirists exhausted their arrows 
 on it — no audience was ever tired hearing (to 
 EvpiTtiSeiov €K€ivo) "that Euripidian thing" 
 brought to shame. 
 
 And this is especially to be insisted on in the 
 early education of young people. It should be 
 pointed out to them with continual earnestness 
 that the essence of lying is in deception, not in 
 words; a lie may be told by silence, by equivo- 
 cation, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance 
 of the eye attaching a peculiar significance to a 
 sentence: and all these kinds of lies are worse 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 22$ 
 
 and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly 
 worded; so that no form of blinded conscience 
 is so far sunk as that which comforts itself 
 for having deceived, because the deception was 
 by gesture or silence, instead of utterance, and, 
 finally, according to Tennyson's deep and tren- 
 chant line, " A lie which is half a truth is ever 
 the worst of lies." 
 
 Although, however, ungenerous cunning is 
 usually so distinct an outward manifestation 
 of vulgarity, that I name it separately from 
 insensibility, it is in truth only an effect of 
 insensibility, producing want of affection to 
 others, and blindness to the beauty of truth. 
 The degree in which political subtlety in men 
 such as Richelieu, Machiavel, or Metternich, 
 will efface the gentleman, depends on the self- 
 ishness of political purpose to which the cunning 
 is directed, and on the base delight taken in its 
 use. The command, "Be ye wise as serpents, 
 harmless as doves," is the ultimate expression of 
 this principle, misunderstood usually because the 
 word "wise" is referred to the intellectual power 
 instead of the subtlety of the serpent. The ser- 
 pent has very little intellectual power, but ac- 
 cording to that which it has, it is yet, as of old, 
 the subtlest of the beasts of the field. 
 
 Another great sign of vulgarity is also, when 
 traced to its root, another phase of insensibility. 
 
224 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 namely, the undue regard to appearances and 
 manners, as in the households of vulgar persons, 
 of all stations, and the assumption of behaviour, 
 language, or dress unsuited to them, by persons 
 in inferior stations of life. I say " undue" re- 
 gard to appearances, because in the undueness 
 consists, of course, the vulgarity. It is due and 
 wise in some sort to care for appearances, in 
 another sort undue and unwise. Wherein lies 
 the difference? 
 
 At first one is apt to answer quickly: the 
 vulgarity is simply in pretending to be what you 
 are not. But that answer will not stand. A 
 queen may dress like a waiting-maid, — perhaps 
 succeed, if she chooses, in passing for one; but 
 she will not, therefore, be vulgar; nay, a waiting- 
 maid may dress like a queen, and pretend to be 
 one, and yet need not be vulgar, unless there is 
 inherent vulgarity in her. In Scribe's very 
 absurd but very amusing Reine (Twi jour^ a 
 milliner's girl sustains the part of a queen for a 
 day. She several times amazes and disgusts her 
 courtiers by her straightforwardness; and once 
 or twice very nearly betrays herself to her maids 
 of honour by an unqueenly knowledge of sewing; 
 but she is not in the least vulgar, for she is sen- 
 sitive, simple, and generous, and a queen could 
 be no more. 
 
 Is the vulgarity, then, only in trying to play a 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 22$ 
 
 part you cannot play, so as to be continually de- 
 tected? No; a bad amateur actor may be con- 
 tinually detected in his part, but yet continually 
 detected to be a gentleman: a vulgar regard 
 to appearances has nothing in it necessarily 
 of hypocrisy. You shall know a man not to be 
 a gentleman by the perfect and neat pronuncia- 
 tion of his words: but he does not pretend to 
 pronounce accurately; he does pronounce ac- 
 curately, the vulgarity is in the real (not assumed) 
 scrupulousness. 
 
 It will be found on farther thought, that 
 a vulgar regard for appearances is, primarily, a 
 selfish one, resulting, not out of a wish to give 
 pleasure (as a wife's wish to make herself beau- 
 tiful for her husband), but out of an endeavour 
 to mortify others, or attract for pride's sake; — 
 the common "keeping up appearances" of 
 society, being a mere selfish struggle of the vain 
 with the vain. But the deepest stain of the 
 vulgarity depends on this being done, not self- 
 ishly only, but stupidly, without understanding 
 the impression which is really produced, nor the 
 relations of importance between oneself and 
 others, so as to suppose that their attention is 
 fixed upon us, when we are in reality cyphers in 
 their eyes — all which comes of insensibility. 
 Hence pride simple is not vulgar (the looking 
 down on others because of their true inferiority 
 
226 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 to us), nor vanity simple (the desire of praise), 
 but conceit simple (the attribution to ourselves 
 of qualities we have not), is always so. In 
 cases of over-studied pronunciation, etc., there 
 is insensibility, first, in the person's thinking 
 more of himself than of what he is saying; and, 
 secondly, in his not having musical fineness 
 of ear enough to feel that his talking is uneasy 
 and strained. 
 
 Finally, vulgarity is indicated by coarseness of 
 language or manners, only so far as this coarse- 
 ness has been contracted under circumstances 
 not necessarily producing it. The illiterateness 
 of a Spanish or Calabrian peasant is not vulgar, 
 because they had never an opportunity of acquir- 
 ing letters; but the illiterateness of an English 
 school-boy is. So again, provincial dialect is 
 not vulgar; but cockney dialect, the corruption, 
 by blunted sense, of a finer language continually 
 heard, is so in a deep degree; and again, of this 
 corrupted dialect, the worst which consists, not 
 in the direct or expressive alteration of the form 
 of a word, but in an unmusical destruction of it 
 by dead utterance and bad or swollen formation 
 of lip. There is no vulgarity in — 
 
 " Blythe, blythe, blythe was she, 
 Blythe was she, but and ben, 
 And weel she liked a Hawick gill, 
 And leugh to see a tappit hen;" 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 22/ 
 
 but much in Mrs. Gamp's inarticulate " bottle 
 on the chumley-piece, and let me put my lips to 
 it when I am so dispoged." 
 
 So also of personal defects, those only are 
 vulgar which imply insensibility or dissipation. 
 
 There is no vulgarity in the emaciation of 
 Don Quixote, the deformity of the Black Dwarf, 
 or the corpulence of Falstaff; but much in the 
 same personal characters as they are seen in 
 Uriah Heep, Quilp, and Chadband. 
 
 Disorder in a drawing-room is vulgar; in an 
 antiquary's study, not; the black battle-stain on 
 a soldier's face is not vulgar, but the dirty face 
 of a housemaid is. 
 
 And lastly, courage, so far as it is a sign of 
 race, is peculiarly the mark of a gentleman or a 
 lady: but it becomes vulgar if rude or insensi- 
 tive, while timidity is not vulgar, if it be a char- 
 acteristic of race or fineness of make. A fawn 
 is not vulgar in being timid, nor a crocodile " gen- 
 tle" because courageous. 
 
 VIRTUES SQUARED AND COUNTED. 
 
 It was not possible to measure the waves of 
 the water of life, but it was perfectly possible to 
 measure the bricks of the Tower of Babel; and 
 
228 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 gradually, as the thoughts of men were with- 
 drawn from their Redeemer, and fixed upon 
 themselves, the virtues began to be squared, and 
 counted, and classified, and put into separate 
 heaps of firsts and seconds; some things being 
 virtuous cardinally, and other things virtuous 
 only north-north-west. It is very curious to put 
 in close juxtaposition the words of the Apostles 
 and of som.e of the writers of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury touching sanctification. For instance, hear 
 first St. Paul to the Thessalonians: "The very 
 God of peace sanctify you wholly: and I pray 
 God your whole spirit and soul and body be 
 preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, 
 who also will do it." And then the following 
 part of a prayer which I translate from a MS. of 
 the fifteenth century: " May He (the Holy 
 Spirit) govern the five Senses of my body; may 
 He cause me to embrace the Seven Works of 
 Mercy, and firmly to believe and observe the 
 Twelve Articles of the Faith and the Ten Com- 
 mandments of the Law, and defend me from 
 the Seven Mortal Sins, even to the end." 
 
 This tendency, as it affected Christian ethics, 
 was confirmed by the Renaissance enthusiasm 
 for the works of Aristotle and Cicero, from 
 whom the code of the fifteenth century virtues 
 was borrowed, and whose authority was then 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 229 
 
 infinitely more revered by all the Doctors of the 
 Church than that either of St. Paul or St. Peter. 
 
 Although, however, this change in the tone of 
 the Christian mind was most distinctly mani- 
 fested when the revival of literature rendered 
 the works of the heathen philosophers the lead- 
 ing study of all the greatest scholars of the pe- 
 riod, it kad been, as I said before, taking place 
 gradually from the earliest ages. It is, as far as 
 I know, that root of the Renaissance poison- 
 tree, which, of all others, is deepest struck; 
 showing itself in various measures through the 
 writings of all the Fathers, of course exactly in 
 proportion to the respect which they paid to 
 classical authors, especially to Plato, Aristotle, 
 and Cicero. The mode in which the pestilent 
 study of that literature affected them may be 
 well illustrated by the examination of a single 
 passage from the works of one of the best of 
 them, St. Ambrose, and of the mode in which 
 that passage was then amplified and formulized 
 by later writers. 
 
 Plato, indeed, studied alone, would have done 
 no one any harm. He is profoundly spiritual 
 and capacious in all his views, and embraces the 
 small systems of Aristotle and Cicero, as the 
 solar system does the Earth. He seems to me 
 especially remarkable for the sense of the great 
 Christian virtue of Holiness, or sanctification; 
 
230 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 and for the sense of the presence of the Deity 
 in all things, great or small, which always runs 
 in a solemn undercurrent beneath his exquisite 
 playfulness and irony; while all the merely 
 moral virtues may be found in his writings de- 
 fined in the most noble manner, as a great 
 painter defines his figures, without outlines. But 
 the imperfect scholarship of later ages seems to 
 have gone to Plato, only to find in him the sys- 
 tem of Cicero; which indeed was very definitely 
 expressed by him. For it having been quickly 
 felt by all men who strove, unhelped by Chris- 
 tian faith, to enter at the strait gate into the 
 paths of virtue, that there were four characters 
 of mind which were protective or preservative 
 of all that was best in man, namely. Prudence, 
 Justice, Courage, and Temperance,* these were 
 afterwards, with most illogical inaccuracy, called 
 cardinal virtues., Prudence being evidently no 
 virtue, but an intellectual gift: but this inaccu- 
 racy arose partly from the ambiguous sense of 
 the Latin word " virtutes," which sometimes, -in 
 mediaeval language, signifies virtues, sometimes 
 powers (being occasionally used in the Vulgate 
 
 *This arrangement of the cardinal virtues is said to 
 have been first made by Archytas. See D'Ancarville's 
 illustration of the three figures of Prudence, Fortitude, and 
 Charity, in Selvatico's " Cappellina degli Scrovegni," 
 Padua, 1836. 
 
PRECIOUS Til OUGHTS. 23! 
 
 for the word " hosts," as m Psahii ciii. 21, cxlviii. 
 2, etc., while " fortitudines" and " exercitus" are 
 used for the same word in other places), so that 
 Prudence might properly be styled a power, 
 though not properly a virtue; and partly from 
 the confusion of Prudence with Heavenly Wis- 
 dom. The real rank of these four virtues, if so 
 they are to be called, is however properly ex- 
 pressed by the term " cardinal." They are vir- 
 tues of the compass, those by which all others 
 are directed and strengthened; they are not the 
 greatest virtues, but the restraining or modify- 
 ing virtues; thus Prudence restrains zeal. Jus- 
 tice restrains mercy. Fortitude and Temperance 
 guide the entire system of the passions; and, 
 thus understood, these virtues properly assumed 
 their peculiar leading or guiding position in 
 the system of Christian ethics. But in Pagan 
 ethics, they were not only guiding, but compre- 
 hensive. They meant a great deal more on the 
 lips of the ancients, than they now express to 
 the Christian mind. Cicero's Justice includes 
 charity, beneficence, and benignity, truth, and 
 faith in the sense of trustworthiness. His For- 
 titude includes courage, self-command, the scorn 
 of fortune and of all temporary felicities. His 
 Temperance includes courtesy and modesty. So 
 also, in Plato, these four virtues constitute the 
 sum of education. I do not remember any more 
 
232 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 simple or perfect expression of the idea, than in 
 the account given by Socrates, in the " Alcibiades 
 I.," of the education of the Persian kings, for 
 whom, in their youth, there are chosen, he says, 
 four tutors from among the Persian nobles; 
 namely, the Wisest, the most Just, the most 
 Temperate, and the most Brave of them. Then 
 each has a distinct duty: " the Wisest teaches 
 the young king the worship of the gods, and the 
 duties of a king (something more here, observe, 
 than our * Prudence!'); the most Just teaches 
 him to speak all truth, and to act out all truth, 
 through the whole course of his life; the most 
 Temperate teaches him to allow no pleasure to 
 have the mastery of him, so that he may be 
 truly free, and indeed a king; and the most 
 Brave makes him fearless of all things, showing 
 him that the moment he fears anything, he be- 
 comes a slave." 
 
 All this is exceedingly beautiful, so far as it 
 reaches; but the Christian divines were griev- 
 ously led astray by their endeavours to reconcile 
 this system with the nobler law of love. At first, 
 as in the passage I am just going to quote from 
 St. Ambrose, they tried to graft the Christian 
 system on the four branches of the Pagan one; 
 but finding that the tree would not grow, they 
 planted the Pagan and Christian branches side 
 by side; adding, to the four cardinal virtues, the 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 233 
 
 three called by the schoolmen tlieological, 
 namely, Faith, Hope, and Charity: the one 
 series considered as attainable by the Heathen, 
 but the other by the Christian only. Thus 
 Virgil to Sordello: 
 
 ' • Loco e laggiu, non trislo da martiri 
 Ma di tenebre solo, ove i lamenti 
 Non suonafi come guai, ma son sospiri 
 
 Quivi sto io, con quel che le tre sante 
 Virtii non si vestiro, e senza vizio 
 Conobber 1' altre, e seguir, tutte quante." 
 
 " There I with those abide 
 
 Who the Three Holy Virtues put not on, 
 But understood the rest, and witb'^ut blame 
 Followed them all." 
 
 Gary. 
 
 This arrangement of the virtues was, however, 
 productive of infinite confusion and error: in 
 the first place, because Faith is classed with its 
 own fruits, — the gift of God, which is the root 
 of the virtues, classed simply as one of them; in 
 the second, because the words used by the 
 ancients to express the several virtues had always 
 a different meaning from the same expressions in 
 the Bible, sometimes a more extended, some- 
 times a more limited one. Imagine, for instance, 
 the confusion which must have been introduced 
 into the ideas of a student who read St. Paul and 
 Aristotle alternately; considering that the word 
 
2^4 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 which the Greek writer uses for Justice, means, 
 with St. Paul, Righteousness. And lastly, it 
 is impossible to overrate the mischief produced 
 in former days, as well as in our own, by the 
 mere habit of reading Aristotle, whose system is 
 so false, so forced, and so confused, that the 
 study of it at our universities is quite enough to 
 occasion the utter want of accurate habits of 
 thought which so often disgraces men otherwise 
 well-educated. In a word, Aristotle mistakes 
 the Prudence or Temperance which must regu- 
 late the operation of the virtues, for the essence 
 of the virtues themselves; and, striving to show 
 that all virtues are means between two opposite 
 vices, torments his wit to discover and dis- 
 tinguish as many pairs of vices as are necessary 
 to the completion of his system, not disdaining 
 to employ sophistry where invention fails him. 
 
 And, indeed, the study^ of classical literature, 
 in general, not only fostered in the Christian 
 writers the unfortunate love of systematizing, 
 which gradually degenerated into every species; 
 of contemptible formulism, but it accustomed 
 them to work out their systems by the help of 
 any logical quibble, or verbal subtlety, which 
 could be made available for their purpose, and 
 this not with any dishonest intention, but in a 
 sincere desire to arrange their ideas in systemati- 
 cal groups, while yet their powers of thought 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 235 
 
 were not accurate enough, nor their common 
 sense stern enough, to detect the fallacy, or 
 disdain the finesse, by which these arrangements 
 were frequently accomplished. 
 
 Thus St. Ambrose, in his commentary on 
 Luke vi. 20, is resolved to transform the four 
 Beatitudes there described into rewards of the 
 four cardinal Virtues, and sets himself thus 
 ingeniously to the task: 
 
 " 'Blessed be ye poor.' Here you have Tem- 
 perance. ' Blessed are ye that hunger now.' 
 He who hungers, pities those who are an-hun- 
 gered; in pitying, he gives to them, and in 
 giving he becomes just (largiendo fit Justus). 
 ' Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall 
 laugh.' Here you have Prudence, whose part it 
 is to weep, so far as present things are concerned, 
 and to seek things which are eternal. 'Blessed 
 are ye when men shall hate you.' Here you 
 have Fortitude." 
 
 As a preparation for this profitable exercise of 
 wit, we have also a reconciliation of the Beati- 
 tudes as stated by St. Matthew, with those 
 of St. Luke, on the ground that " in those eight 
 are these four, and in these four are those 
 eight;" with sundry remarks on the mystical 
 value of the number eight, with which I need 
 not trouble the reader. With St. Ambrose, 
 however, this puerile systematization is quite 
 
236 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 subordinate to a very forcible and truthful ex- 
 position of the real nature of the Christian life. 
 But the classification he employs furnishes 
 ground for farther subtleties to future divines; 
 and in a MS. of the thirteenth century I find 
 some expressions in this commentary on St. 
 Luke, and in the treatise on the duties of 
 bishops, amplified into a treatise on the " Steps 
 of the Virtues: by which every one v/ho perse- 
 veres may, by a straight path, attain to the 
 heavenly country of the Angels." (" Liber de 
 Gradibus Virtutum: quibus ad patriam angelo- 
 rum supernam itinere recto ascenditur ab omni 
 perseverante.") These Steps are thirty in num- 
 ber (one expressly for each day of the month), 
 and the curious mode of their association ren- 
 ders the list well. worth quoting: — 
 
 Primus gradus 
 
 est Fides Recta. 
 
 Unerring faith. 
 
 Secundus 
 
 " 
 
 Spes firma. 
 
 Firm hope. 
 
 Tertius 
 
 " 
 
 Caritas perfecta. 
 
 Perfect charity. 
 
 4 
 
 " 
 
 Patientia vera. 
 
 True patience. 
 
 5 
 
 << 
 
 Humilitas sancta. 
 
 Holy humility. 
 
 6 
 
 " 
 
 Mansuetudo. 
 
 Meekness. 
 
 7 
 
 <( 
 
 Intelligentia. 
 
 Understanding. 
 
 8 
 
 (( 
 
 Compunctio cor- 
 dis 
 
 Contrition of heart 
 
 9 
 
 (( 
 
 Oratio. 
 
 Prayer. 
 
 10 
 
 " 
 
 Confessio pura. 
 
 Pure confession. 
 
 II 
 
 " 
 
 Penitentia digna. 
 
 Fitting penance.* 
 
 * Or Penitence : but I rather think this is understood 
 only in Compunctio cordis. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 237 
 
 12 
 
 gradus 
 
 est Abstinentia. 
 
 Abstinence (fasting). 
 
 13 
 
 << 
 
 Timor Dei 
 
 Fear of God. 
 
 14 
 
 (( 
 
 Virginitas. 
 
 Virginity. 
 
 15 
 
 " 
 
 Justicia. 
 
 Justice. 
 
 16 
 
 " 
 
 Misericord ia. 
 
 Mercy. 
 
 17 
 
 <i 
 
 Elemosina. 
 
 Almsgiving. 
 
 18 
 
 " 
 
 Hospitalitas. 
 
 Hospitality. 
 
 19 
 
 
 Honor paren- 
 tum. 
 
 Honouring of parents 
 
 20 
 
 « 
 
 Silencium. 
 
 Silence. 
 
 21 
 
 '* 
 
 Consilium bo- 
 num. 
 
 Good counsel. 
 
 22 
 
 " 
 
 Judicium rectum. 
 
 Right judgment. 
 
 23 
 
 << 
 
 Exemplum bo- 
 num. 
 
 Good example. 
 
 24 
 
 '* 
 
 Visitatio infirmo- 
 rum. 
 
 Visitation of the sick. 
 
 25 
 
 <( 
 
 Frequentatio 
 
 Companying with 
 
 
 
 sanctorum 
 
 saints. 
 
 26 
 
 " 
 
 Oblatio justa. 
 
 Just oblations. 
 
 27 
 
 <i 
 
 Decimas Deo 
 solvere. 
 
 Paying tithes to God. 
 
 28 
 
 «• 
 
 Sapientia. 
 
 Wisdom. 
 
 29 
 
 << 
 
 Voluntas bona. 
 
 Goodwill. 
 
 30 
 
 << 
 
 Perseverantia 
 
 Perseverance. 
 
 The reader will note that the general idea of 
 Christian virtue embodied in this list is true, ex- 
 alted, and beautiful; the points of weakness be- 
 ing the confusion of duties with virtues, and the 
 vain endeavour to enumerate the various offices 
 of charity as so many separate virtues; more 
 frequently arranged as seven distinct works of 
 
238 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 mercy. This general tendency to a morbid ac- 
 curacy of classification was associated, in later 
 times, with another very important element of 
 the Renaissance mind, the love of personifica- 
 tion; which appears to have reached its greatest 
 vigour in the course of the sixteenth century, 
 and is expressed to all future ages, in a consum- 
 mate manner, in the poem of Spenser. It is to 
 be noted that personification is, in some sort, the 
 reverse of symbolism, and is far less noble. 
 Symbolism is the setting forth of a great truth 
 by an imperfect and inferior sign (as, for in- 
 stance, of the hope of the resurrection by the 
 form of the phoenix); and it is almost always 
 employed by men in their most serious moods of 
 faith, rarely in recreation. Men who use sym- 
 bolism forcibly are almost always true believers 
 in what they symbolize. But Personification is 
 the bestowing of a human or living form upon 
 an abstract idea: it is, in most cases, a mere re- 
 creation of the fancy, and is apt to disturb the 
 belief in the reality of the thing personified. 
 Thus symbolism constituted the entire system 
 of the Mosaic dispensation: it occurs in every 
 word of Christ's teaching; it attaches perpetual 
 mystery to the last and most solemn act of His 
 life. But I do not recollect a single instance of 
 personification in any of his words. And as we 
 watch, thenceforward, the history of the Church, 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 239 
 
 we shall find the declension of its faith exactly 
 marked by the abandonment of symbolism,* and 
 the profuse employment of personification, — 
 even to such an extent that the virtues came, at 
 last, to be confused with the saints; and we find 
 in the later Litanies, St. Faith, St. Hope, St. 
 Charity, and St. Chastity, invoked immediately 
 after St. Clara and St. Bridget. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the hands of its early and 
 earnest masters, in whom fancy could not over- 
 throw the foundations of faith, personification is 
 often thoroughly noble and lovely; the earlier 
 conditions of it being just as much more spiritual 
 and vital than the later ones, as the still earlier 
 symbolism was more spiritual than they. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN THEORY OF BEAUTY. 
 
 As it is necessary to the existence of an idea 
 of beauty, that the sensual pleasure which may 
 be its basis, should be accompanied first with 
 joy, then with love of the object, then with the 
 perception of kindness in a superior Intelligence, 
 finally with thankfulness and veneration towards 
 
 * The transformation of a symbol into a reality, observe, 
 as in transubstantiation, is as much an abandonment of 
 symbolism as the forgetfulness of symbolic meaning al- 
 together. 
 
240 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 that Intelligence itself, and as no idea can be at 
 all considered as in any way an idea of beauty, 
 until it be made up of these emotions, any more 
 than we can be said to have an idea of a letter 
 of which we perceive the perfume and the fair 
 writing, without understanding the contents of 
 it, or intent of it; and as these emotions are in 
 no way resultant from, nor obtainable by, any 
 operation of the intellect, it is evident that the 
 sensation of beauty is not sensual on the one 
 hand, nor is it intellectual on the other, but is 
 dependent on a pure, right, and open state of 
 the heart, both for its truth and for its intensity, 
 insomuch that even the right after action of the 
 intellect upon facts of beauty so apprehended, is 
 dependent on the acuteness of the heart feeling 
 about them; and thus the Apostolic words come 
 true, in this minor respect as in all others, that 
 men are alienated from the life of God, through 
 the ignorance that is in them, having the under- 
 standing darkened because of the hardness of 
 their hearts, and so being past feeling, give 
 themselves up to lasciviousness; for we do in- 
 deed see constantly that men having naturally 
 acute perceptions of the beautiful, yet not re- 
 ceiving it with a pure heart nor into their hearts 
 at all, never comprehend it, nor receive good 
 from it, but make it a mere minister to their de- 
 sires, and accompaniment and seasoning of lower 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 24 1 
 
 sensual pleasures, until all their emotions take 
 the same earthly stamp, and the sense of beauty 
 sinks into the servant of lust. 
 
 Nor is what the world commonly understands 
 by the cultivation of taste, anything more or 
 better than this, at least in times of corrupt and 
 over-pampered civilization, when men build 
 palaces and plant groves and gather luxuries, 
 that they and their devices may hang in the cor- 
 ners of the world like fine-spun cobwebs, with 
 greedy, puffed-up, spider-like lusts in the mid- 
 dle. And this, which in Christian times is the 
 abuse and corruption of the sense of beauty, was 
 in that Pagan life of which St. Paul speaks, lit- 
 tle less than the essence of it, and the best they 
 had; for I know not that of the expressions of 
 affection towards external nature to be found 
 among Heathen writers, there are any of which 
 the balance and leading thought cleaves not to- 
 wards the sensual parts of her. Her beneficence 
 they sought, and her power they shunned, her 
 teaching through both, they understood never. 
 The pleasant influences of soft winds and ring- 
 ing streamlets; and shady coverts; of the violet 
 couch, and plane-tree shade,* they received, per- 
 haps, in a more noble way than we, but they 
 found not anything except fear, upon the bare 
 
 * Plato, Phaedrus, § 9. 
 
242 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 mountain, or in the ghostly glen. The Hybla 
 heather they loved more for its sweet hives than 
 its purple hues. But the Christian theoria seeks 
 not, though it accepts, and touches with its own 
 purity, what the Epicurean sought, but fmds its 
 food and the objects of its love everywhere, in 
 what is harsh and fearful, as well as what is kind, 
 nay, even in all that seems coarse and common- 
 place; seizing that which is good, and delighting 
 more sometimes at finding its table spread in 
 strange places, and in the presence of its ene- 
 mies, and its honey coming out of the rock, than 
 if all were harmonized into a less wondrous 
 pleasure; hating only what is self-sighted and 
 insolent of men's work, despising all that is not 
 of God, unless reminding it of God, yet able to 
 find evidence of him still, where all seems for- 
 getful of him, and to turn that into a witness of 
 his working which was meant to obscure it, and 
 so with clear and unoffended sight beholding 
 him for ever, according to the written promise, 
 — Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
 see God. 
 
 THE BEST KIND OF LIBERTY. 
 
 Men may be beaten, chained, tormented, 
 yoked like cattle, slaughtered like summer flies, 
 
precious; thoughts. 243 
 
 and yet remain in one sense, and that the best 
 sense, free. But to smother their souls within 
 them, to make the flesh and skin, which, after 
 the worms work on it, is to see God, into leath- 
 ern thongs to yoke machinery with — this is to 
 be slave-masters indeed ; and there might be 
 more freedom in England, though her feudal 
 lords' lightest words were worth men's lives, and 
 though the blood of the vexed husbandman 
 dropped in the furrows of her fields, than there 
 is while the animation of her multitudes is sent 
 like fuel to feed the factory smoke, and the 
 strength of them is given daily to be wasted in 
 the fineness of a web, or racked in the exact- 
 ness of a line. 
 
 I know not if a day is ever to come when the 
 nature of right freedom will be understood, and 
 when men will see, that to obey another man, to 
 labour for him, yield reverence to him or to his 
 place, is not slavery. It is often the best kind 
 of liberty, — liberty from care. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF ART ON RELIGION. 
 
 Much attention has lately been directed to 
 the subject of religious art, and we are now in 
 possession of all kinds of interpretations and 
 classifications of it, and of the leading facts of 
 
244 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 its history. But the greatest question of all 
 connected with it remains entirely unanswered, 
 What good did it do to real religion? There is 
 no subject into which I should so much rejoice 
 to see a serious and conscientious inquiry insti- 
 tuted as this; an inquiry, neither undertaken in 
 artistical enthusiasm nor in monkish sympathy, 
 but dogged, merciless, and fearless. I love the 
 religious art of Italy as well as most men, but 
 there is a wide difference between loving it as a 
 manifestation of individual feeling, and looking 
 to it as an instrument of popular benefit. I 
 have not knowledge enough to form even the 
 shadow of an opinion on this latter point, and I 
 should be most grateful to any one who would 
 put it in my power to do so. There are, as it 
 seems to me, three distinct questions to be con- 
 sidered: the first. What has been the effect of 
 external splendour on the genuineness and ear- 
 nestness of Christian worship? the second, What 
 the use of pictorial or sculptural representation 
 in the communication of Christian historical 
 knowledge, or excitement of affectionate im- 
 agination? the third, What the influence of the 
 practice of religious art on the life of the artist? 
 In answering these inquiries, we should have 
 to consider separately every collateral influence 
 and circumstance; and, by a most subtle analy- 
 sis, to eliminate the real effect of art from the 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 245 
 
 effects of the abuses with which it was associated. 
 This could be done only by a Christian; not a 
 man who would fall in love with a sweet colour 
 or sweet expression, but who would look for 
 true faith and consistent life as the object of all. 
 It never has been done yet, and the question 
 remains a subject of vain and endless contention 
 between parties of opposite prejudices and tem- 
 peraments. 
 
 LOSS. 
 
 There is no subject of thought more melan- 
 choly, more wonderful, than the way in which 
 God permits so often His best gifts to be trodden 
 under foot of men. His richest treasures to be 
 wasted by the moth, and the mightiest influi? 
 ences of His Spirit, given but once in the world's 
 history, to be quenched and shortened by mis- 
 eries of chance and guilt. I do not wonder at 
 what men Suffer, but I wonder often at what 
 they Lose. We may see how good rises out of 
 pain and evil; but the dead, naked, eyeless loss, 
 what good comes of that? The fruit struck to 
 the earth before its ripeness; the glowing life and 
 goodly purpose dissolved away in sudden death; 
 the words, half spoken, choked upon the lips 
 with clay for ever; or, stranger than all, the 
 
246 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 whole majesty of humanity raised to its fulness, 
 and every gift and power necessary for a given 
 purpose, at a given moment, centred in one 
 man, and all this perfected blessing permitted to 
 be refused, perverted, crushed, cast aside by 
 those who need it most, — the city which is Not 
 set on a hill, the candle that giveth light to 
 None that are in the house: — these are the 
 heaviest mysteries of this strange world, and, it 
 seems to me, those which mark its curse the 
 most. 
 
 MRS. BROWNING S APPEAL FOR ITALY. 
 
 I have seen, when the thunderclouds came 
 down on those Italian hills, and all their crags 
 were dipped in the dark, terrible purple, as if the 
 winepress of the wrath of God had stained their 
 mountain-raiment — I have seen the hail fall in 
 Italy till the forest branches stood stripped and 
 bare as if blasted by the locust; but the white 
 hail never fell from those clouds of heaven as 
 the black hail will fall from the clouds of hell, 
 if ever one breath of Italian life stirs again in 
 the streets of Verona. 
 
 Sad as you will feel this to be, I do not say 
 that you can directly prevent it; you cannot 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 24/ 
 
 drive the Austrians out of Italy, nor prevent 
 them from building forts where they choose.* 
 
 * The reader can hardly but remember Mrs. Brown- 
 ing's beautiful appeal for Italy made on the occasion of 
 the first great Exhibition of Art in England: — 
 O Magi of the east and of the west, 
 Your incense, gold, and myrrh are excellent ! — 
 What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest ? 
 Your hands have worked well. Is your courage spent 
 In handwork only? Have you nothing best, 
 Which generous souls may perfect and present. 
 And He shall thank the givers for ? no light 
 Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor, 
 Who sit in darkness when it is not night ? 
 No cure for wicked children? Christ, — no cure, 
 No help for women, sobbing out of sight 
 . Because men made the laws? — no brothel-lure 
 Burnt out by popular lightnings ? Hast thou found 
 No remedy, my England, for such woes ? 
 No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound, 
 No call back for the exiled ? no repose, 
 Russia, for knouted Poles worked under ground, 
 And gentle ladies bleached among the snows ? 
 No mercy for the slave, America? 
 No hope for Rome, free France, chivalric France? 
 Alas, great nations have great shames, I say. 
 No pity, O world ! no tender utterance 
 Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way 
 For poor Italia, baffled by mischance ? 
 O gracious nations, give some ear to me ! 
 You all go to your Fair, and I am one 
 Who at the roadside of humanity 
 Beseech your alms, — God's justice to be done, 
 So prosper ! 
 
243 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 DANTE AND SPENSER. 
 
 By the form or name of opposed vice, we may 
 often ascertain, with much greater accuracy than 
 would otherwise be possible, the particular idea 
 of the contrary virtue in the mind of the writer 
 or painter. Thus, when opposed to Prudence, 
 or Prudentia, on the one side, we find Folly, or 
 Stultitia, on the other, it shows that the virtue 
 understood by Prudence, is not the mere guiding 
 or cardinal virtue, but the Heavenly Wisdom,* 
 opposed to that folly which " hath said in its 
 heart, there is no God;" and of which it is said, 
 " the thought of foolishness is sin;" and again, 
 " Such as be foolish shall not stand in thy sight." 
 This folly is personified, in early painting and 
 illumination, by a half-naked man, greedily eating 
 an apple or other fruit, and brandishing a club; 
 showing that sensuality and violence are the two 
 principal characteristics of Foolishness, and lead 
 into atheism. The figure, in early Psalters, al- 
 ways forms the letter D, which commences the 
 fifty-third Psalm, '''' Dixit insipiens'' 
 
 In reading Dante, this mode of reasoning from 
 contraries is a great help, for his philosophy of 
 the vices is the only one which admits of classi- 
 
 * Uniting the three ideas expressed by the Greek philos- 
 ophers under the terms (ppovijai'i aocpia, and e7n<T- 
 Trffj.rj; and part of the idea of oroacppoavvi^ 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 249 
 
 fication; his descriptions of virtue, while they 
 include the ordinary formal divisions, are far too 
 profound and extended to be brought under 
 definition. Every line of the " Paradise" is full 
 of the most exquisite and spiritual expressions 
 of Christian truth; and that poem is only less 
 read than the " Inferno" because it requires far 
 greater attention, and, perhaps, for its full enjoy- 
 ment, a holier heart. 
 
 His system in the " Inferno" is briefly this. 
 The whole nether world is divided into seven 
 circles, deep within deep, in each of which, ac- 
 cording to its depth, severer punishment is in- 
 flicted. These seven circles, reckoning them 
 downwards, are thus allotted: 
 
 1. To those who have lived virtuously, but 
 knew not Christ. 
 
 2. To Lust. 
 
 3. To Gluttony. 
 
 4. To Avarice and Extravagance. 
 
 5. To Anger and Sorrow. 
 
 6. To Heresy. 
 
 7. To Violence and Fraud. 
 
 This seventh circle is divided into two parts; of 
 which the first, reserved for those who have been 
 guilty of Violence, is again divided into three, 
 apportioned severally to those who have com- 
 mitted, or desire to commit, violence against 
 
250 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 their neighbours, against themselves, or against 
 God. 
 
 The lowest hell, reserved for the punishment 
 of Fraud, is itself divided into ten circles, where- 
 in are severally punished the sins of, — 
 
 I. 
 
 Betraying women. 
 
 
 
 2. 
 
 Flattery. 
 
 
 
 3. 
 
 Simony. 
 
 
 
 4. 
 
 False prophecy. 
 
 
 
 5- 
 
 Peculation. 
 
 
 
 6. 
 
 Hypocrisy. 
 
 
 
 7- 
 
 Theft. 
 
 
 
 8. 
 
 False counsel. 
 
 
 
 9- 
 
 Schism and Imposture. 
 
 
 
 10. 
 
 Treachery to those who 
 
 repose 
 
 entire trust 
 
 in the traitor. 
 
 
 
 There is, perhaps, nothing more notable in 
 this most interesting system than the profound 
 truth couched under the attachment of so 
 terrible a penalty to sadness or sorrow. It is 
 true that Idleness does not elsewhere appear in 
 the scheme, and is evidently intended to be in- 
 cluded in the guilt of sadness by the word 
 "accidioso;" but the main meaning of the poet 
 is to mark the duty of rejoicing in God, accord- 
 ing both to St. Paul's command, and Isaiah's 
 promise, " Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 25 I 
 
 worketh righteousness." * I do not know words 
 that might with more benefit be borne with us, 
 and set in our hearts momentarily against the 
 minor regrets and rebelliousnesses of life, than 
 these simple ones: 
 
 " Tristi fummo 
 Nel aer dolce, che del sol s' allegra. 
 Or ci attristiam, nella belletta negra." 
 
 " We once were sad, 
 In the sweet air, made gladsome by the sun, 
 Now in these murky settlings are we sad."f Cary. 
 
 The virtue usually opposed to this vice of 
 sullenness is Alacritas, uniting the sense of activ- 
 ity and cheerfulness. Spenser has cheerfulness 
 simply, in his description, never enough to be 
 loved or praised, of the virtues of Womanhood, 
 first, feminineness or womanhood in specialty; 
 then, — 
 
 '• Next to her sate goodly Shamefastnesse, 
 Ne ever durst her eyes from ground upreare, 
 Ne ever once did looke up from herdesse,^ 
 
 * Isa. Ixiv. 5. 
 
 f I hardly think it necessary to point out to the 
 reader the association between sacred cheerfulness and 
 solemn thought, or to explain any appearance of contra- 
 diction between passages in which I have had to oppose 
 sacred pensiveness to unholy mirth, and those in which I 
 have to oppose sacred cheerfulness to unholy sorrow. 
 
 X " Desse," seat. 
 
2^2 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 As if some blame of evill she did feare 
 That in her cheekes made roses oft appeare : 
 And her against sweet Cherefulnesse was placed. 
 Whose eyes, like twinkling stars in evening cleare, 
 Were deckt with smyles that all sad humours chacea. 
 
 • *' And next to her sate sober Modestie, 
 Holding her hand upon her gentle hart; 
 And her against, sate comely Curtesie, 
 That Jinto every person knew her part; 
 And her before was seated overthwart 
 Soft Silence, and Submisse Obedience, 
 Both linckt together never to dispart," 
 
 Another notable point in Dante's system is the 
 intensity of uttermost punishment given to trea- 
 son, the peculiar sin of Italy, and that to which, 
 at this day, she attributes her own misery with 
 her own lips. An Italian, questioned as to the 
 causes of the failure of the campaign of 1848, 
 always makes one answer, "We were betrayed;" 
 and the most melancholy feature of the present 
 state of Italy is principally this, that she does 
 not see that, of all causes to which failure might 
 be attributed, this is at once the most disgrace- 
 ful, and the most hopeless. In fact, Dante seems 
 to me to have written almost prophetically, for 
 the instruction of modern Italy, and chiefly so in 
 the sixth canto of the " Purgatorio." 
 
 The system of Spenser is unfinished, and ex- 
 ceedingly complicated, the same vices and vir- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 253 
 
 tues occurring under different forms in different 
 places, in order to show their different relations 
 to each other. I shall not therefore give any- 
 general sketch of it, but only refer to the particu- 
 lar personification of each virtue.* The peculiar 
 superiority of his system is in its exquisite setting 
 forth of Chastity under the figure of Britomart; 
 not monkish chastity, but that of the purest Love. 
 In completeness of personification no one can 
 approach him; not even in Dante do I remember 
 anything quite so great as the description of the 
 Captain of the Lusts of the Flesh: 
 
 "As pale and wan as ashes was his looke; 
 
 His body lean and meagre as a rake; 
 
 And skin all withered like a dryed rooke ; 
 
 Thereto as cold and drery as a snake ; 
 
 That seemed to tremble evermore, and quake: 
 
 All in a canvas thin he was bedight. 
 
 And girded with a belt of twisted brake : 
 
 Upon his head he wore an helmet light, 
 
 Made of a dead mans skull." 
 
 He rides upon a tiger, and in his hand is a bow, 
 bent; 
 
 " And many arrows under his right side, 
 Headed with flint, and fethers bloody dide." 
 
 *The "Faerie Queen," like Dante's "Paradise," is 
 only half estimated, because few persons take the pains to 
 think out its meaning. No time devoted to profane litera- 
 ture will be better rewarded than that spent earnestly on 
 Spenser. 
 
254 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 The horror and the truth of this are beyond 
 everything that I know, out of the pages of In- 
 spiration. Note the heading of the arrows with 
 flint, because sharper and more subtle in the 
 edge than steel, and because steel might con- 
 sume away with rust, but flint not; and consider 
 in the whole description how the wasting away 
 of body and soul together, and the coldness of 
 the heart, which unholy fire has consumed into 
 ashes, and the loss of all power, and the kindling 
 of all terrible impatience, and the implanting of 
 thorny and inextricable griefs, are set forth by the 
 various images, the belt of brake, the tiger steed, 
 and the light helmet, girding the head with death. 
 
 Spenser's Faith (Fidelia) is spiritual and noble: 
 
 **She was araied all in Hlly white, 
 
 And in her right hand bore a cup of gold, 
 
 With wine and water fild up to the hight. 
 
 In which a serpent did himselfe enfold, 
 
 That horrour made to all that did behold ; 
 
 But she no whitt did chaunge her constant mood: 
 
 And in her other hand she fast did hold 
 
 A booke, that was both signd and seald with blood; 
 
 Wherein darke things were writt, hard to be understood." 
 
 Spenser's Gluttony is more than usually fine: 
 
 " His belly was upblowne with luxury. 
 
 And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne, 
 And like a crane his necke was long and fyne, 
 Wherewith he swallowed up excessive feast, 
 For want whereof poore people oft did pyne." 
 
PREVIOUS THOUGHTS. 255 
 
 The Envy of Spenser is fine; joining the idea 
 of fury, in the wolf on which he rides, with that 
 of corruption on his lips, and of discolouration or 
 distortion in the whole mind: 
 
 " Malicious Envy rode 
 Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw 
 Between his cankred teeth a venemous tode. 
 That all the poison ran about his jaw. 
 All in a kirtle of discolourd say 
 He clothed was, ypaynted full ofeies, 
 And in his bosome secretly there lay 
 An hatefull snake, the which his taile uptyes 
 In many folds, and mortall sting implyes." 
 
 Spenser has analysed this vice (Pride) with 
 great care. He first represents it as the Pride of 
 life; that is to say, the pride which runs in a deep 
 under current through all the thoughts and acts 
 of men. As such, it is a feminine vice, directly 
 opposed to Holiness, and mistress of a castle 
 called the House of Pryde, and her chariot is 
 driven by Satan, with a team of beasts, ridden by 
 the mortal sins. In the throne chamber of her 
 palace she is thus described: 
 
 " So proud she shyned in her princely state. 
 Looking to Heaven, for Earth she did disdayne; 
 And sitting high, for lowly she did hate: 
 Lo, underneath her scornefull feete was layne 
 A dreadfuU dragon with an hideous trayne; 
 And in her hand she held a mirrhour bright, 
 Wherein her face she often vewed fayne." 
 
256 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 KNOWING AND DOING. 
 
 Some years ago, in conversation with an artist 
 whose works, perhaps, alone, in the present day, 
 unite perfection of drawing with resplendence of 
 colour, the writer made some inquiry respecting 
 the general means by which this latter quality 
 was most easily to be attained. The reply was 
 as concise as it was comprehensive — " Know 
 what you have to do, and do it " — comprehen- 
 sive, not only as regarded the branch of art to 
 which it temporarily applied, but as expressing 
 the great principle of success in every direction 
 of human effort; for I believe that failure is less 
 frequently attributable to either insufficiency of 
 means or impatience of labour, than to a con- 
 fused understanding of the thing actually to be 
 done; and therefore, while it is properly a sub- 
 ject of ridicule, and sometimes of blame, that men 
 propose to themselves a perfection of any kind, 
 which reason, temperately consulted, might have 
 shown to be impossible with the means at their 
 command, it is a more dangerous error to permit 
 the consideration of means to interfere with our 
 conception, or, as is not impossible, even hinder 
 our acknowledgment of goodness and perfection 
 in themselves. And this is the more cautiously 
 to be remembered; because, while a man's sense 
 and conscience, aided by Revelation, are always 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 257 
 
 enough, if earnestly directed, to enable him to 
 discover what is right, neither his sense, nor con- 
 science, nor feeling, are ever enough, because 
 they are not intended, to determine for him what 
 is possible. He knows neither his own strength, 
 nor that of his fellows, neither the exact depend- 
 ence to be placed on his allies nor resistance to 
 be expected from his opponents. These are 
 questions respecting which passion may warp his 
 conclusions, and ignorance must limit them; but 
 it is his own fault if either interfere with the ap- 
 prehension of duty, or the acknowledgment of 
 right. And, as far as I have taken cognizance of 
 the causes of the many failures to which the ef- 
 forts of intelligent men are liable, more especially 
 in matters political, they seem to me more largely 
 to spring from this single error than from all 
 others, that the inquiry into the doubtful, and in 
 some sort inexplicable, relations of capability, 
 chance, resistance, and inconvenience, invariably 
 precedes, even if it do not altogether supersede, 
 the determination of what is absolutely desirable 
 and just. Nor is it any wonder that sometimes 
 the too cold calculation of our powers should 
 reconcile us too easily to our shortcomings, and 
 even lead us into the fatal error of supposing 
 that our conjectural utmost is in itself well, or, 
 in other words, that the necessity of offences 
 renders them inoffensive. 
 
258 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 THE POWER OF INTELLECT. 
 
 The temperament which admits the pathetic 
 fallacy is that of a mind and body in some sort 
 too weak to deal fully with what is before them 
 or upon them; borne away, or over-clouded, 
 or over-dazzled by emotion; and it is a more or 
 less noble state, according to the force of the 
 emotion which has induced it. For it is no 
 credit to a man that he is not morbid or inac- 
 curate in his perceptions, when he has no 
 strength of feeling to warp them; and it is 
 in general a sign of higher capacity and stand in 
 the ranks of being, that the emotions should be 
 strong enough to vanquish, partly, the intellect, 
 and make it believe what they choose. But it is 
 still a grander condition when the intellect also 
 rises, till it is strong enough to assert its rule 
 against, or together with, the utmost efforts 
 of the passions; and the whole man stands in an 
 iron glow, white hot, perhaps, but still strong, 
 and in no wise evaporating; even if he melts, 
 losing none of his weight. 
 
 So, then, we have the three ranks: the man who 
 perceives rightly, because he does not feel, and 
 to whom the primrose is very accurately the 
 primrose, because he does not love it. Then, 
 secondly, the man who perceives wrongly, be- 
 cause he feels, and to whom the primrose is any- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 259 
 
 thing else than a primrose: a star, or a sun, or 
 a fairy's shield, or a forsaken maiden. 
 
 VOLUNTARILY ADMITTED RESTRAINTS. 
 
 The highest greatness and the highest wisdom 
 are shown, the first by a noble submission to, the 
 second by a thoughtful providence for, certain 
 voluntarily admitted restraints. Nothing is more 
 evident than this, in that supreme government 
 which is the example, as it is the centre of all 
 others. The Divine Wisdom is, and can be, 
 shown to us only in its meeting and contending 
 with the difficulties which are voluntarily, and 
 for the sake of that contest, admitted by the 
 Divine Omnipotence: and these difficulties, 
 observe, occur in the form of natural laws or 
 ordinances which might, at many times and in 
 countless ways, be infringed with apparent ad- 
 vantage, but which are never infringed, whatever 
 costly arrangements or adaptations their observ- 
 ance may necessitate for the accomplishment of 
 given purposes. The example most apposite to 
 our present subject is the structure of the bones 
 of animals. No reason can be given, I believe, 
 why the system of the higher animals should not 
 have been made capable, as that of the Infu- 
 soria is, of secreting flint, instead of phosphate of 
 
26o PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 lime, or more naturally still, carbon; so framing 
 the bones of adamant at once. The elephant or 
 rhinoceros, had the earthy part of their bones 
 been made of diamond, might have been as agile 
 and light as grasshoppers, and other animals 
 might have been framed far more magnificently 
 colossal than any that walk the earth. In other 
 worlds we may, perhaps, see such creations; a 
 creation for every element, and elements infinite. 
 But the architecture of animals here^ is appointed 
 by God to be a marble architecture, not a flint 
 nor adamant architecture; and all manner of 
 expedients are adopted to attain the utmost 
 degree of strength and size possible under that 
 great limitation. The jaw of the ichthyosaurus 
 is pieced and riveted, the leg of the megatherium 
 is a foot thick, and the head of the myodon has 
 a double skull; we, in our wisdom, should, 
 doubtless^ have given the lizard a steel jaw, and 
 the myodon a cast-iron head-piece, and forgot- 
 ten the great principle to which all creation 
 bears witness, that order and system are nobler 
 things than power. But God shows us in Him- 
 self, strange as it may seem, not only authorita- 
 tive perfection, but even the perfection of Obe- 
 dience — an obedience to His own laws: and in 
 the cumbrous movement of those unwieldiest of 
 His creatures we are reminded, even in His 
 divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 26 1 
 
 the human creature "that sweareth to his own 
 hurt and changeth not." 
 
 PROGRESS IN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 If we consider that, till within the last fifty 
 years, the nature of the ground we tread on, of 
 the air we breathe, and of the light by which we 
 see, were not so much as conjecturally con- 
 ceived by us; that the duration of the globe, and 
 the races of animal life by which it was inhab- 
 ited, are just beginning to be apprehended; and 
 that the scope of the magnificent science which 
 has revealed them, is as yet so little received by 
 the public mind, that presumption and ignorance 
 are still permitted to raise their voices against it 
 unrebuked; that perfect veracity in the repre- 
 sentation of general nature by art has never been 
 attempted until the present day, and has in the 
 present day been resisted with all the energy of 
 the popular voice;* that the simplest problems 
 of social science are yet so little understood, as 
 that doctrines of liberty and equality can be 
 openly preached, and so successfully as to affect 
 the whole body of the civilized world with 
 apparently incurable disease; that the first prin- 
 
 * In the works of Turner and the Pre-Raphaclites 
 
262 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ciples of commerce were acknowledged by the 
 English Parliament only a few months ago, in its 
 free-trade measures, and are still so little under- 
 stood by the million, that no nation dares to 
 abolish its custom-houses;* that the simplest 
 principles of policy are still not so much as 
 stated, far less received, and that civilized 
 nations persist in the belief that the subtlety 
 and dishonesty which they know to be ruinous 
 in dealings between man and man, are servicea- 
 ble in dealings between multitude and multitude; 
 finally, that the scope of the Christian religion, 
 which we have been taught for two thousand 
 years, is still so little conceived by us, that we 
 suppose the laws of charity and of self-sacrifice 
 
 * Observe, I speak of these various principles as self- 
 evident, only under the present circumstances of the 
 world, not as if they had always been so, and I call them 
 now self-evident, not merely because they seem so to my- 
 self, but because they are felt to be so likewise by all the 
 men in whom I place most trust. But granting that they 
 are not so, then their very disputability proves the state of 
 infancy above alleged, as characteristic of the world. For 
 I do not suppose that any Christian reader will doubt the 
 first great truth, that whatever facts or laws are important 
 to mankind, God has made ascertainable by mankind ; and 
 that as the decision of all these questions is of vital im- 
 portance to the race, that decision must have been long 
 ago arrived at, unless they were still in a state of child- 
 hood. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 263 
 
 bear upon individuals in all their social rela- 
 tions, and yet do not bear upon nations in any 
 of their political relations; — when, I say, we 
 thus review the depth of simplicity in which the 
 human race are still plunged with respect to all 
 that it most profoundly concerns them to know, 
 and which might, by them, with most ease have 
 been ascertained, we can hardly determine how 
 far back on the narrow path of human progress 
 we ought to place the generation to which we 
 l)elong, how far the swaddling clothes are un- 
 wound from us, and childish things beginning to 
 be put away. 
 
 On the other hand, a power of obtaining 
 veracity in the representation of material and 
 tangible things, which, within certain limits and 
 conditions, is unimpeachable, has now been 
 placed in the hands of all men,* almost without 
 labour. The foundation of every natural science 
 is now at last firmly laid, not a day passing with- 
 
 * I intended to have given a sketch in this place (above 
 referred to) of the probable results of the daguerreotype 
 and calotype within the next few years, in modifying the 
 application of the engraver's art, but I have not had time 
 to complete the experiments necessary to enable me to 
 speak with certainty. Of one thing, however, I have little 
 doubt, that an infinite service will soon be done to a large 
 body of our engravers ; namely, the making them 
 draughtsmen. 
 
264 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 out some addition of buttress and pinnacle to 
 their already magnificent fabric. Social theo- 
 rems, if fiercely agitated, are therefore the more 
 likely to be at last determined, so that they 
 never can be matters of question more. Human 
 life has been in some sense prolonged by the in- 
 creased powers of locomotion, and an almost 
 limitless power of converse. Finally, there is 
 hardly any serious mind in Europe but is occu- 
 pied, more or less, in the investigation of the 
 questions which have so long paralysed the 
 strength of religious feeling, and shortened the 
 dominion of religious faith. And we may there- 
 fore at least look upon ourselves as so far in a 
 definite state of progress, as to justify our cau- 
 tion in guarding against the dangers incident to 
 every period of change, and especially to that 
 from childhood into youth. 
 
 Those dangers appear, in the main, to be two- 
 fold; consisting partly in the pride of vain 
 knowledge, partly in the pursuit of vain pleasure. 
 
 IGNOBLE EMOTION. 
 
 A Turk declares that " God is great," when he 
 means only that he himself is lazy. The " heaven 
 is bright " of many vulgar painters, has precisely 
 the same amount of signification, it means that 
 
PRFXIOUS THOUGHTS. 265 
 
 they know nothing — will do nothing — are without 
 thought — without care — without passion. They 
 will not walk the earth, nor watch the ways of 
 it, nor gather the flowers of it. They will sit in 
 the shade, and only assert that very perceptible, 
 long-ascertained fact, " heaven is bright." And 
 as it may be asserted basely, so it may be accepted 
 basely. Many of our capacities for receiving 
 noblest emotion are abused, in mere idleness, for 
 pleasure's sake, and people take the excitement 
 of a solemn sensation as they do that of a strong 
 drink. Thus the abandoned court of Louis XIV. 
 had on fast days its sacred concerts, doubtless 
 entering in some degree into the religious ex- 
 pression of the music, and thus idle and frivo- 
 lous women at the present day will weep at an 
 oratorio. 
 
 SACRED ASSOCIATIONS WITH OLIVE-TREES. 
 
 I do not want painters to tell me any scientific 
 facts about olive-trees. But it had been well for 
 them to have felt and seen the olive-tree; to 
 have loved it for Christ's sake, partly also for the 
 helmed Wisdom's sake which was to the heathen 
 in some sort as that nobler Wisdom which stood 
 at God's right hand, when He founded the earth 
 and established the heavens. To have loved it, 
 
266 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 even to the hoary dimness of its delicate foliage, 
 subdued and faint of hue, as if the ashes of the 
 Gethsemane agony had been cast upon it for 
 ever; and to have traced, line by line, the 
 gnarled writhing of its intricate branches, and 
 the pointed fretwork of its light and narrow 
 leaves, inlaid on the blue field of the sky, and 
 the small, rosy-white stars of its spring blossom- 
 ing, and the beads of sable fruit scattered by 
 autumn along its topmost boughs — the right, in 
 Israel, of the stranger, the fatherless, and the 
 widow, — and, more than all, the softness of the 
 mantle, silver grey, and tender like the down on 
 a bird's breast, with which, far away, it veils the 
 undulation of the mountains. 
 
 SIMPLICITY. 
 
 It Is far more difficult to be simple than to be 
 complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill 
 and cease exertion in the proper place, than to 
 expend both indiscriminately. We shall find, in 
 the course of our investigation, that beauty and 
 difficulty go together; and that they are only 
 mean and paltry difficulties which it is wrong or 
 contemptible to wrestle with. Be it remembered 
 then — Power is never wasted. Whatever power 
 has been employed, produces excellence in pro- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 267 
 
 portion to its own dignity and exertion; and the 
 faculty of perceiving this exertion, and appreci- 
 ating this dignity, is the faculty of perceiving 
 excellence. 
 
 LOVE OF CHANGE. 
 
 We must note carefully what distinction there 
 's between a healthy and a diseased love of 
 change; for as it was in healthy love of change 
 that the Gothic architecture rose, it was partly 
 in consequence of diseased love of change that 
 it was destroyed. In order to understand this 
 clearly, it will be necessary to consider the dif- 
 ferent ways in which change and monotony are 
 presented to us in nature; both having their use, 
 like darkness and light, and the one incapable 
 of being enjoyed without the other: change 
 being most delightful after some prolongation of 
 monotony, as light appears most brilliant after 
 the eyes have been for some time closed. 
 
 I believe that the true relations of monotony 
 and change may be most simply understood by 
 observing them in music. We may therein no- 
 tice, first, that there is a sublimity and majesty 
 in monotony which there is not in rapid or fre- 
 quent variation. This is true throughout all 
 nature. The greater part of tlie sublimity of 
 
268 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 the sea depends on its monotony; so also that 
 of desolate moor and mountain scenery; and 
 especially the sublimity of motion, as in the 
 quiet, unchanged fall and rise of an engine beam. 
 So also there is sublimity in darkness which 
 there is not in light. 
 
 Again, monotony, after a certain time, or be- 
 yond a certain degree, becomes either uninterest- 
 ing or intolerable, and the musician is obliged to 
 break it in one or two ways: either while the air 
 or passage is perpetually repeated, its notes are 
 variously enriched and harmonised; or else, 
 after a certain number of repeated passages, an 
 entirely new passage is introduced, which is more 
 or less delightful according to the length of the 
 previous monotony. Nature, of course, uses 
 both these kinds of variation perpetually. The 
 sea-waves, resembling each other in general 
 mass, but none like its brother in minor divis- 
 ions and curves, are a monotony of the first 
 kind; the great plain, broken by an emergent 
 rock or clump of trees, is a monotony of the 
 second. 
 
 Farther: in order to the enjoyment of the 
 change in either case, a certain degree of pa- 
 tience is required from the hearer or observer. 
 In the first case, he must be satisfied to endure 
 with patience the recurrence of the great masses 
 of sound or form, and to seek for entertainment 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 269 
 
 in a careful watchfulness of the minor details. 
 In the second case, he must bear patiently the 
 infliction of the monotony for some moments, 
 in order to feel the full refreshment of the 
 change. This is true even of the shortest musi- 
 cal passage in which the element of monotony 
 is employed. In cases of more majestic monot- 
 ony, the patience required is so considerable 
 that it becomes a kind of pain, — a price paid for 
 the future pleasure. 
 
 Again: the talent of the composer Is not in 
 the monotony, but in the changes: he may show 
 feeling and taste by his use of monotony in cer- 
 tain places or degrees; that is to say, by his 
 various employment of it; but it is always in the 
 new arrangement or invention that his intellect 
 is shown, and not in the monotony which re- 
 lieves it. 
 
 Lastly: if the pleasure of change be too often 
 repeated, it ceases to be delightful, for then 
 change itself becomes monotonous, and we are 
 driven to seek delight in extreme and fantastic 
 degrees of it. This is the diseased love of 
 change of which we have above spoken. 
 
 From these facts we may gather generally 
 that monotony is, and ought to be, in itself 
 painful to us, just as darkness is; that an archi- 
 tecture which is altogether monotonous is a 
 dark or dead architecture; and, of those who 
 
270 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 love it, it may be truly said, " they love dark- 
 ness rather than light." But monotony in cer- 
 tain measure, used in order to give value to 
 change, and, above all, that transparent monot- 
 ony which, like the shadows of a great painter, 
 suffers all manner of dimly suggested form to be 
 seen through the body of it, is an essential in 
 architectural as in all other composition; and 
 the endurance of monotony has about the same 
 place in a healthy mind that the endurance of 
 darkness has: that is to say, as a strong intellect 
 will have pleasure in the solemnities of storm 
 and twilight, and in the broken and mysterious 
 lights that gleam among them, rather than in 
 mere brilliancy and glare, while a frivolous mind 
 will dread the shadow and storm; and as a great 
 man will be ready to endure much darkness of 
 fortune in order to reach greater eminence of 
 power or felicity, while an inferior man will not 
 pay the price; exactly in like manner a great 
 mind will accept, or even delight in, monotony 
 which would be wearisome to an inferior intel- 
 lect, because it has more patience and power of 
 expectation, and is ready to pay the full price 
 for the great future pleasure of change. But in 
 all cases it is not that the noble nature loves 
 monotony, any more than it loves darkness or 
 pain. But it can bear with it, and receives a high 
 pleasure in the endurance or patience, a pleas- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 27I 
 
 ure necessary to the well-being of this world^, 
 while those who will not submit to the tem- 
 porary sameness, but rush from one change to 
 another, gradually dull the edge of change itself, 
 and bring a shadow and weariness over the 
 whole world from which there is no more es- 
 cape. 
 
 THE MAN OF GENIUb. 
 
 His science is inexpressibly subtle, directly 
 taught him by his Maker, not in anywise com- 
 municable or imitable. Neither can any written 
 or definitely observable laws enable us to do any 
 great thing. It is possible, by measuring and ad- 
 ministering quantities of colour, to paint a room 
 wall so that it shall not hurt the eye; but there 
 are no laws by observing which we can become 
 Titians. It is possible so to measure and ad- 
 minister syllables, as to construct harmonious 
 verse; but there are no laws by which we can 
 write Iliads. Out of the poem or the picture, 
 once produced, men may elicit laws by the vol- 
 ume, and study them with advantage, to the 
 better understanding of the existing poem or 
 picture; but no more write or paint another, 
 than by discovering laws of vegetation they can 
 make a tree to grow. And therefore, wheresoever 
 we find the system and formality of rules much 
 
2/2 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 dwelt upon, and spoken of as anything else than 
 a help for children, there we may be sure that 
 noble art is not even understood, far less reached. 
 And thus it was with all the common and pub- 
 lic mind in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 
 The greater men, indeed, broke through the 
 thorn hedges; and, though much time was lost 
 by the learned among them in writing Latin 
 verses and anagrams, and arranging the frame- 
 work of quaint sonnets and dexterous syllogisms, 
 still they tore their way through the sapless 
 thicket by force of intellect or of piety; for it 
 was not possible that, either in literature or in 
 painting, rules could be received by any strong 
 mind, so as materially to interfere with its origi- 
 nality; and the crabbed discipline and exact 
 scholarship became an advantage to the men who 
 could pass through and despise them; so that in 
 spite of the rules of the drama we had Shake- 
 speare, and in spite of the rules of art we had 
 Tintoret, — both of them, to this day, doing per- 
 petual violence to the vulgar scholarship and 
 dim-eyed proprieties of the multitude. 
 
 THE CLASSICAL. 
 
 On the absence of belief in a good supreme 
 Being, follows, necessarily, the habit of looking 
 to ourselves for supreme judgment in all mat- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 273 
 
 fers, and for supreme government. Hence, 
 first, the irreverent habit of judgment instead of 
 admiration. It is generally expressed under the 
 justly degrading term " good taste." 
 
 Hence, in the second place, the habit of re- 
 straint or self-government (instead of impulsive 
 and limitless obedience), based upon pride, and 
 involving, for the most part, scorn of the help- 
 less and weak, and respect only for the orders of 
 men who have been trained to this habit of self- 
 government. Whence the title classical, from 
 the Latin classicus. 
 
 The school is, therefore, generally to be char- 
 acterized as that of taste and restraint. As the 
 school of taste, everything is, in its estimation, 
 beneath it, so as to be tasted or tested; not 
 above it, to be thankfully received. Nothing 
 was to be fed upon as bread; but only palated 
 as a dainty. This spirit has destroyed art since 
 the close of the sixteenth century, and nearly 
 destroyed French literature, our English litera- 
 ture being at the same time severely depressed, 
 and our education (except in bodily strength) 
 rendered nearly nugatory by it, so far as it af- 
 fects common-place minds. It is not possible 
 that the classical spirit should ever take posses- 
 sion of a mind of the highest order. Pope is, 
 as far as I know, the greatest man who ever fell 
 strongly under its influence; and though it 
 
2/4 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 spoiled half his work, he broke through it contin- 
 ually into true enthusiasm and tender thought.* 
 Again, as the school of reserve, it refuses to al- 
 low itself in any violent or " spasmodic" pas- 
 aon; the schools of literature which have been 
 in modern times called " spasmodic," being re- 
 actionary against it. The word, though an ugly 
 one, is quite accurate, the most spasmodic books 
 in the world being Solomon's Song, Job, and 
 Isaiah. 
 
 THE MOTHER-NATION. 
 
 I believe that no Christian nation has any 
 business to see one of its members in distress 
 without helping him, though, perhaps, at the 
 same time punishing him: help, of course — in 
 nine cases out of ten — meaning guidance, much 
 more than gift, and, therefore, interference 
 with liberty. When a peasant mother sees 
 one of her careless children fall into a ditch, 
 her first proceeding is to pull him out; her 
 second, to box his ears; her third, ordinarily, to 
 lead him carefully a little way by the hand, or 
 
 * Cold-hearted, I have called him. He was so in writ- 
 ing the Pastorals, of which I then spoke, but in after life 
 his errors were those of his time, his wisdom was his own; 
 it would be well if we also made it ours. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 2/5 
 
 send him home for the rest of the day. The 
 child usually cries, and very often would clearly 
 prefer remaining in the ditch; and if he under- 
 stood any of the terms of politics, would certainly 
 express resentment at the interference with his 
 individual liberty: but the mother has done her 
 duty. Whereas the usual call of the mother- 
 nation to any of her children, under such circum- 
 stances, has lately been nothing more than the 
 foxhunter's, — " Stay still there; I shall clear 
 you." And if we always could clear them, their 
 requests to be left in muddy independence might 
 be sometimes allowed by kind people, or their 
 cries for help disdained by unkind ones. But 
 we can't clear them. The whole nation is, in 
 fact, bound together, as men are by ropes on a 
 glacier — if one falls, the rest must either lift him 
 or drag him along with them as dead weight, not 
 without much increase of danger to themselves. 
 And the law of right being manifestly in this, as, 
 whether manifestly or not, it is always, the law 
 of prudence, the only question is, how this whole- 
 some help and interference are to be admin- 
 istered. 
 
 JUSTICE, MERCY, AND TRUTH. 
 
 Every person who tries to buy an article for 
 less than its proper value, or who tries to sell it 
 
276 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 at more than its proper value — every consumer 
 who keeps a tradesman waiting for his money, 
 and every tradesman who bribes a consumer to 
 extravagance by credit, is helping forward, ac- 
 cording to his own measure of power, a system 
 of baseless and dishonourable commerce, and 
 forcing his country down into poverty and shame. 
 And people of moderate means and average 
 powers of mind would do far more real good by 
 merely carrying out stern principles of justice 
 and honesty in common matters of trade, than 
 by the most ingenious schemes of extended phi- 
 lanthropy, or vociferous declarations of theolog- 
 ical doctrine. There are three weighty matters 
 of the law — justice, mercy, and truth; and of 
 these the Teacher puts truth last, because that 
 cannot be known but by a course of acts of 
 justice and love. But men put, in all their 
 efforts, truth first, because they mean by it their 
 own opinions; and thus, while the world has 
 many people who would suffer martyrdom in the 
 cause of what they call truth, it has few who 
 will suffer even a little inconvenience in that of 
 justice and mercy. 
 
 PROPHETIC DESIGNERS. 
 The nations whose chief support was in the 
 chase, whose chief interest was in the battle. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 2// 
 
 whose chief pleasure was in the banquet, would 
 take small care respecting the shapes of leaves 
 and flowers; and notice little in the forms of the 
 forest trees which sheltered them, except the 
 signs indicative of the wood which would make 
 the toughest lance, the closest roof, or the clear- 
 est fire. The affectionate observation of the 
 grace and outward character of vegetation is the 
 sure sign of a more tranquil and gentle existence, 
 sustained by the gifts, and gladdened by the 
 splendour, of the earth. In that careful distinc- 
 tion of species, and richness of delicate and un- 
 disturbed organization, which characterize the 
 Gothic design, there is the history of rural and 
 thoughtful life, influenced by habitual tenderness, 
 and devoted to subtle inquiry; and every dis- 
 criminating and delicate touch of the chisel, as 
 it rounds the petal or guides the branch, is a 
 prophecy of the development of the entire body 
 of the natural sciences, beginning with that of 
 medicine, of the recovery of literature, and the 
 establishment of the most necessary principles 
 of domestic wisdom and national peace. 
 
 THE FOOD OF THE SOlTL. 
 
 That sentence of Genesis, " I have given thee 
 every green herb for meat," like all the rest of 
 
2/8 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 the book, has a profound symbolical as well as 
 a literal meaning. It is not merely the nourish- 
 ment of the body, but the food of the soul, that 
 is intended. The green herb is, of all nature, 
 that which is most essential to the healthy 
 spiritual life of man. Most of us do not need 
 fine scenery; the precipice and the mountain 
 peak are not intended to be seen by all men, — 
 perhaps their power is greatest over those who 
 are unaccustomed to them. But trees, and fields, 
 and flowers were made for all, and are necessary 
 for all. God has connected the labour which is 
 essential to the bodily sustenance, with the 
 pleasures which are healthiest for the heart; and 
 while He made the ground stubborn. He made 
 its herbage fragrant, and its blossoms fair. The 
 proudest architecture that man can build has no 
 higher honour than to bear the image and recall 
 the memory of that grass of the field which is, at 
 once, the type and the support of its existence; 
 the goodly building is then most glorious when 
 it is sculptured into the likeness of the leaves of 
 Paradise; and the great Gothic spirit, as we 
 showed it to be noble in its disquietude, is also 
 noble in its hold of nature; it is, indeed, like the 
 dove of Noah, in that she found no rest upon 
 the face of the waters, — but like her in this also, 
 
 " LO, IN HER MOUTH WAS AN OLIVE BRANCH, 
 PLUCKED OFF." 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 2/9 
 
 DIVISION OF LABOUR. 
 
 Let me not be thought to speak wildly or ex- 
 travagantly. It is verily this degradation of the 
 operative into a machine, which, more than any 
 other evil of the times, is leading the mass of 
 the nations everywhere into vain, incoherent, 
 destructive struggling for a freedom of which 
 they cannot explain the nature to themselves. 
 Their universal outcry against wealth, and against 
 nobility, is not forced from them either by the 
 pressure of famine, or the sting of mortified pride. 
 These do much, and have done much in all ages; 
 but the foundations of society were never yet 
 shaken as they are at this day. It is not that 
 men are ill fed, but that they have no pleasure 
 in the work by which they make their bread, and 
 therefore look to wealth as the only means of 
 pleasure. It is not that men are pained by the 
 scorn of the upper classes, but they cannot en- 
 dure their own; for they feel that the kind of 
 labour to which they are condemned is verily a 
 degrading one, and makes them less than men. 
 Never had the upper classes so much sympathy 
 with the lower, or charity for them, as they have 
 at this day, and yet never were they so much 
 hated by them: for, of old, the separation be- 
 tween the noble and the poor was merely a wall 
 built by law; now it is a veritable difference in 
 
28o PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 level of standing, a precipice between upper and 
 lower grounds in the field of humanity, and there 
 i^ pestilential air at the bottom of it. I know 
 not if a day is ever to come when the nature of 
 right freedom will be understood, and when men 
 will see that to obey another man, to labour for 
 him, yield reverence to him or to his place, is 
 not slavery. It is often the best kind of liberty, 
 — liberty from care. The man who says to one, 
 Go, and he goeth, and to another. Come, and he 
 cometh, has, in most cases, more sense of re- 
 straint and difficulty than the man who obeys 
 him. The movements of the one are hindered 
 by the burden on his shoulder; of the other, by 
 the bridle on his lips: there is no way by which 
 the burden may by lightened; but we need not 
 suffer from the bridle if we do not champ at it. 
 To yield reverence to another, to hold ourselves 
 and our lives at his disposal^ is not slavery; 
 often, it is the noblest state in which a man can 
 live in this world. There is, indeed, a reverence 
 which is servile, that is to say, irrational or sel- 
 fish: but there is also noble reverence, that is to 
 say, reasonable and loving; and a man is never 
 so noble as when he is reverent in this kind; 
 nay, even if the feeling pass the bounds of mere 
 reason, so that it be loving, a man is raised by 
 it. Which had, in reality, most of the serf na- 
 ture in him, — the Irish peasant who was lying 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 28 1 
 
 in wait yesterday for his landlord, with his mus- 
 ket muzzle thrust through the ragged hedge; or 
 that old mountain servant who, 200 years ago, 
 at Inverkeithing, gave up his own life and the 
 lives of his seven sons for his chief ?* — and as 
 each fell, calling forth his brother to the death, 
 " Another for Hector!" And therefore, in all 
 ages and all countries, reverence has been paid 
 and sacrifice made by men to each other, not 
 only without complaint, but rejoicingly; and 
 famine, and peril, and sword, and all evil, and 
 all shame, have been borne willingly in the causes 
 of masters and kings; for all these gifts of the 
 heart ennobled the men who gave, not less than 
 the men who received them, and nature 
 prompted, and God rewarded the sacrifice. But 
 to feel their souls withering within them, un- 
 thanked, to find their whole being sunk into an 
 unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a 
 heap of mechanism, numbered with its wheels, 
 and weighed with its hammer strokes; — this na- 
 ture bade not, — this God blesses not, — this hu- 
 manity for no long time is able to endure. 
 
 We have much studied and much perfected, 
 of late, the great civilised invention of the di- 
 vision of labour; only we give it a false name. 
 It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is di- 
 
 * Vide Preface to " Fair Maid of Perth." 
 
282 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 vided; but the men: — Divided into mere seg- 
 ments of men — broken into small fragments and 
 crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of in- 
 telligence that is left in a man is not enough t| 
 make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in mak- 
 ing the point of a pin, or the head of a nail. 
 Now it is a good and desirable thing, truly, to 
 make many pins in a day; but if we could only 
 see with what crystal sand their points were pol- 
 ished, — sand of human soul, much to be magni- 
 fied before it can be discerned for what it is, — 
 we should think there might be some loss in it 
 also. And the great cry that rises from all our 
 manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace 
 blast, is all in very deed for this, — that we manu- 
 facture everything there except men; we blanch 
 cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and 
 shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to 
 refine, or to form a single living spirit, never 
 enters into our estimate of advantages. And all 
 the evil to which that cry is urging our myriads 
 can be met only in one way: not by teaching 
 nor preaching, for to teach them is but to show 
 them their misery, and to preach to them, if we 
 do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. 
 It can be met only by a right understanding, on 
 the part of all classes, of what kinds of labour 
 are good for men, raising them and making them 
 happy; by a determined sacrifice of such conve- 
 
rRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 283 
 
 nience, or beauty, or cheapness as is to be got 
 only by the degradation of the workman; and by 
 equally determined demand for the products 
 and results of healthy and ennobling labour. 
 
 And how, it will be asked, are these products 
 to be recognized, and this demand to be regu- 
 lated? Easily: by the observance of three broad 
 and simple rules: 
 
 1. Never encourage the manufacture of any 
 article not absolutely necessary, in the produc- 
 tion of which Invention has no share. 
 
 2. Never demand an exact finish for its own 
 sake, but only for some practical or noble end. 
 
 3. Never encourage imitation or copying of 
 any kind, except for the sake of preserving 
 record of great v/orks. 
 
 The second of these principles is the only 
 one which directly rises out of the considera- 
 tion of our immediate subject; but I shall 
 briefly explain the meaning and extent of the 
 first also, reserving the enforcement of the third 
 for another place. 
 
 I. Never encourage the manufacture of any- 
 thing not necessary, in the production of which 
 invention has no share. 
 
 For instance. Glass beads are utterly unnec- 
 essary, and there is no design or thought em- 
 ployed in their manufacture. They are formed 
 by first drawing out the glass into rods; these 
 
2S4 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 rods are chopped up into fragments of the size 
 of beads by the human hand, and the fragments 
 are then rounded in the furnace. The men who 
 chop up the rods sit at their work all day, their 
 hands vibrating with a perpetual and exquisitely 
 timed palsy, and the beads dropping beneath 
 their vibration like hail. Neither they, nor the 
 men who draw out the rods or fuse the frag- 
 ments, have the smallest occasion for the use of 
 any single human faculty; and every young lady, 
 therefore, who buys glass beads is engaged in the 
 slave-trade, and in a much more cruel one than 
 that which we have so long been endeavouring 
 to put down. 
 
 But glass cups and vessels may become the 
 subject of exquisite invention; and if in buying 
 these we pay for the invention, that is to say, for 
 the beautiful form, or colour, or engraving, and 
 not for mere finish of execution, we are doing 
 good to humanity. 
 
 THE MODERN INFIDEL CREED. 
 
 Co-relative with the assertion, " There is a 
 foolish God," is the assertion, " There is a brut- 
 ish man." • " As no laws but those of the Devil 
 are practicable in the world, so no impulses but 
 those of the brute " (says the modern political 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 285 
 
 economist) " are appealable to in the world. 
 Faith, generosity, honesty, zeal, and self-sacrifice 
 are poetical phrases. None of these things can, 
 in reality, be counted up#n; there is no truth in 
 man which can be used as a moving or produc- 
 tive power. All motive force in hira is essen- 
 tially brutish, covetous, or contentious. His 
 power is only power of prey: otherwise than the 
 spider, he cannot design; otherwise than the 
 tiger, he cannot feed." This is the modern in- 
 terpretation of that embarrassing article of the 
 Creed, " the communion of saints." 
 
 It has always seemed very strange to me, not 
 iindeed that this creed should have been adopted, 
 it being the entirely necessary consequence of 
 the previous fundamental article; — but that no 
 one should ever seem to have any misgivings 
 about it; — that, practically, no one had seen how 
 strong work was done by man; how either for 
 hire, or for hatred, it never had been done; and 
 that no amount of pay had ever made a good 
 soldier, a good teacher, a good artist, or a good 
 workman. You pay your soldiers and sailors so 
 many pence a day, at which rated sum, one will 
 do good fighting for you; another, bad fighting. 
 Pay as you will, the entire goodness of the fight- 
 ing depends, always, on its being done for noth- 
 ing; or rather, less than nothing, in the expecta- 
 tion of no pay but death. Examine the work of 
 
2^6 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 your spiritual teachers, and you will find the sta- 
 tistical law respecting them is, " The less pay, the 
 better work." Examine also your writers and art- 
 ists : for ten pounds you shall have a Paradise Lost, 
 and for a plate of figs, a Durer drawing; but for 
 a million of money sterling, neither. Examine 
 your men of science: paid by starvation, Kepler 
 will discover the law of the orbs of heaven for 
 you; — and, driven out to die in the street, 
 Swammerdam shall discover the laws of life for 
 you — such hard terms do they make with you, 
 these brutish men, who can only be had for 
 hire. 
 
 Neither is good work ever done for hatred, 
 any more than hire — but for love only. 
 
 CONCESSION AND COMPANIONSHIP. 
 
 The leaves, as we shall see immediately, are 
 the feeders of the plant. Their own orderly 
 habits of succession must not interfere with 
 their main business of finding food. Where the 
 sun and air are the leaf must go, whether it be 
 out of order or not. So, therefore, in any 
 group, the first consideration with the young 
 leaves is much like that of young bees, how to 
 keep out of each other's way, that every one 
 may at once leave its neighbours as much free- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 28/ 
 
 air pasture as possible, and obtain a relative 
 freedom for itself. This would be a quite sim- 
 ple matter, and produce other simply balanced 
 forms, if each branch, with open air all round 
 it, had nothing to think of but reconcilement 
 of interests among its own leaves. But every 
 branch has others to meet or to cross, sharing 
 with them, in various advantage, what shade or 
 sun or rain is to be had. Hence every single 
 leaf-cluster presents the general aspect of a 
 little family, entirely at unity among themselves, 
 but obliged to get their living by various shifts, 
 concessions, and infringements of the family 
 rules, in order not to invade the privileges of 
 other people in their neighbourhood. 
 
 And in the arrangement of these concessions 
 there is an exquisite sensibility among the leaves. 
 They do not grow each to his own liking, till 
 they run against one another, and then turn 
 back sulkily; but by a watchful instinct, far 
 apart, they anticipate their companions* courses, 
 as ships at sea, and in every new unfolding of 
 their edged tissue, guide themselves by the sense 
 of each other's remote presence, and by a watch- 
 ful penetration of leafy purpose in the far future. 
 So that every shadow which one casts on the 
 next, and every glint of sun which each reflects to 
 the next, and every touch which in toss of storm 
 each receives from the next, aid or arrest the 
 
288 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 development of their advancing form, and 
 direct, as will be safest and best, the curve of 
 every fold and the current of every vein. 
 
 And this peculiar character exists in all the 
 structures thus developed, that they are always 
 visibly the result of a volition on the part of the 
 leaf, meeting an external force or fate, to which 
 it is never passively subjected. Upon it, as on 
 a mineral in the course of formation, the great 
 merciless influences of the universe, and the 
 oppressive powers of minor things immediately 
 near it, act continually. Heat and cold, gravity 
 and the other attractions, windy pressure, or 
 local and unhealthy restraint, must, in certain 
 inevitable degrees, affect the whole of its life. 
 But it is life which they affect; — a life of prog- 
 ress and will, — not a merely passive accumula- 
 tion of substance. This may be seen by a single 
 glance. The mineral, — suppose an agate in the 
 course of formation — shows in every line noth- 
 ing but a dead submission to surrounding force. 
 Flowing, or congealing, its substance is here re- 
 pelled, there attracted, unresisting to its place, 
 and its languid sinuosities follow the clefts of 
 the rock that contains them, in servile deflexion 
 and compulsory cohesion, impotently calculable, 
 and cold. But the leaf, full of fears and affec- 
 tions, shrinks and seeks, as it obeys. Not 
 thrust, but awed into its retiring; not dragged, 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 289 
 
 but won to its advance; not bent aside, as by a 
 bridle, into new courses of growth: but per- 
 suaded and converted through tender continu- 
 ance of voluntary change. 
 
 The mineral and it differing thus widely in 
 separate being, they differ no less in modes of 
 companionship. The mineral crystals group 
 themselves neither in succession, nor in sym- 
 pathy; but great and small recklessly strive for 
 place, and deface or distort each other as they^ 
 gather into opponent asperities. The confused 
 crowd fills the rock cavity, hanging together in a 
 glittering, yet sordid heap, in which nearly 
 every crystal, owing to their vain contention, is 
 imperfect, or im.pure. Here and there one, at 
 the cost and in defiance of the rest, rises into 
 unwarped shape or unstained clearness. But 
 the order of the leaves is one of soft and sub- 
 dued concession. Patiently each awaits its ap- 
 pointed time, accept its prepared place, yields its 
 required observance. Under every oppression 
 of external accident, the group yet follows a 
 law laid down in its own heart; and all the 
 members of it, whether in sickness or health, in 
 strength or languor, combine to carry out this 
 first and last heart law; receiving, and seeming 
 to desire for themselves and for each other, only 
 life which they may communicate, and ioveli- 
 ness which they may reflect. 
 
290 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 MOUNTAIN INFLUENCE. 
 
 AVe have found mountains, invariably, calcu- 
 lated for the delight, the advantage, or the 
 teaching of men; prepared, it seems, so as to 
 contain, alike in fortitude or feebleness, in kind- 
 liness or in terror, some beneficence of gift, or 
 profoundness of counsel. We have found that 
 where at first all seemed disturbed and acciden- 
 tal, the most tender laws were appointed to 
 produce forms of perpetual beauty; and that 
 where to the careless or cold observer it seemed 
 severe or purposeless, the well-being of man has 
 been chiefly consulted, and his rightly directed 
 powers, and sincerely awakened intelligence, 
 may find wealth in every falling rock, and wis- 
 dom in every talking wave. 
 
 It remains for us to consider what actual ef- 
 fect upon the human race has been produced by 
 the generosity, or the instruction of the hills; 
 how far, in past ages, they have been thanked, 
 or listened to; how far, in coming ages, it may 
 be well for us to accept them for tutors, or ac- 
 knowledge them for friends. 
 
 What they have already taught us may, one 
 would think, be best discerned in the midst of 
 them, — in some place where they have had their 
 own way with the human soul; where no veil has 
 been drawn between it and them, no contradict- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 2gi 
 
 ing voice has confused their ministries of sound, 
 or broken their pathos of silence: where war 
 has never streaked their streams with bloody- 
 foam, nor ambition sought for other throne 
 than their cloud - courtiered pinnacles, nor 
 avarice for other treasure than, year by year, 
 is given to their unlaborious rocks, in budded 
 jewels, and mossy gold. 
 
 I do not know any district possessing a more . 
 pure or uninterrupted fulness of mountain char- 
 acter (and that of the highest order), or which 
 appears to have been less disturbed by foreign 
 agencies, than that which borders the course of 
 the Trient between Valorsine and Martigny. 
 The paths which lead to it out of the valley of 
 the Rhone, rising at first in steep circles among 
 the walnut trees, like winding stairs among the 
 pillars of a Gothic tower, retire over the shoul- 
 ders of the hills into a valley almost unknown, 
 but thickly inhabited by an industrious and 
 patient population. Along the ridges of the 
 rocks, smoothed by old glaciers into long, dark, 
 billowy swellings, like the backs of plunging 
 dolphins, the peasant watches the slow colouring 
 of the tufts of moss and roots of herb which, 
 little by little, gather a feeble soil over the iron 
 substance; then, supporting the narrow strip of 
 clinging ground with a few stones, he subdues it 
 to the spade; and in a year or two a little crest 
 
292 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 of corn is seen waving upon the rocky casque. 
 The irregular meadows run in and out like inlets 
 of lake among these harvested rocks, sweet with 
 perpetual streamlets, that seem always to have 
 chosen the steepest places to come down, for 
 the sake of the leaps, scattering their handfuls of 
 crystal this way and that, as the wind takes 
 them, with all the grace, but with none of 
 the formalism, of fountains; dividing into fanci- 
 ful change of dash and spring, yet with the seal 
 of their granite channels upon them, as the 
 lightest play of human speech may bear the seal 
 of past toil, and closing back out of their spray 
 to lave the rigid angles, and brighten with silver 
 fringes and glassy films each lower and lower 
 step of sable stone; until at last, gathered alto- 
 gether again, — except, perhaps, some chance 
 drops caught on the apple-blossom, where it has 
 budded a little nearer the cascade than it did 
 last spring, — they find their way down to the 
 turf, and lose themselves in that silently; with 
 quiet depth of clear water furrowing among the 
 grass blades, and looking only like their shadow, 
 but presently emerging again in little startled 
 gushes and laughing hurries, as if they had 
 remembered suddenly that the day was too 
 short for them to get down the hill. 
 
 Green field, and glowing rock, and glancing 
 Streamlet, all slope together in the sunshine 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 293 
 
 towards the brows of the ravines, where the 
 pines take up their own dominion of saddened 
 shade; and with everlasting roar in the twihght, 
 the stronger torrents thunder down pale from the 
 glaciers, filling all their chasms with enchanted 
 cold, beating themselves to pieces against the 
 great rocks that they have themselves cast 
 down, and forcing fierce way beneath their 
 ghastly poise. 
 
 The mountain paths stoop to these glens in 
 forky zigzags, leading to some grey and narrow 
 arch, all fringed under its shuddering curve with 
 the ferns that fear the light; a cross of rough- 
 hewn pine, iron-bound to its parapet, standing 
 dark against the lurid fury of the foam. Far up 
 the glen, as we pause beside the cross, the sky is 
 seen through the openings in the pines, thin with 
 excess of light; and, in its clear, consuming 
 flame of white space, the summits of the rocky 
 mountains are gathered into solemn crowns and 
 circlets, all flushed in that strange, faint silence 
 of possession by the sunshine which has in it so 
 deep a melancholy; full of power, yet as frail as 
 shadows; lifeless, like the walls of a sepulchre, 
 yet beautiful in tender fall of crimson folds, like 
 the veil of some sea spirit, that lives and dies as 
 the foam flashes; fixed on a perpetual throne, 
 stern against all strength, lifted above all sorrow, 
 and yet effaced and melted utterly into the air 
 
294 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 by that last sunbeam that has crossed to them 
 from between the two golden clouds. 
 
 High above all sorrow: yes; but not unwit- 
 nessing to it. The traveller on his happy 
 journey, as his foot springs from the deep turf 
 and strikes the pebbles gaily over the edge 
 of the mountain road, sees with a glance of 
 delight the clusters of nut-brown cottages that 
 nestle among those sloping orchards, and glow 
 beneath the boughs of the pines. Here, it may 
 well seem to him, if there be sometimes hardship, 
 there must be at least innocence and peace, and 
 fellowship of the human soul with nature. It is 
 not so. The wild goats that leap along those 
 rocks have as much passion of joy in all that fair 
 work of God as the men that toil among them. 
 Perhaps more. Enter the street of one of those 
 villages, and you will find it foul with that 
 gloomy foulness that is suffered only by torpor, 
 or by anguish of soul. Here, it is torpor — not 
 absolute suffering, — not starvation or disease, 
 but darkness of calm enduring; the spring known 
 only as the time of the scythe, and the autumn 
 as the time of the sickle, and the sun only as a 
 warmth, the wind as a chill, and the mountains 
 as a danger. They do not understand so much 
 as the name of beauty, or of knowledge. They 
 understand dimly that of virtue. Love, patience, 
 hospitality, faith, — these things they know. To 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 295 
 
 glean their meadows side by side, so happier; to 
 bear the burden up the breathless mountain 
 flank, unmurmuringly; to bid the stranger drink 
 from their vessel of milk; to see at the foot of 
 their low deathbeds a pale figure upon a cross, 
 dying also, patiently; — in this they are different 
 from the cattle and from the stones, but in all 
 this unrewarded as far as concerns the present 
 life. For them, there is neither hope nor pas- 
 sion of spirit; for them neither advance nor ex- 
 ultation. Black bread, rude roof, dark night, 
 laborious day, weary arm at sunset; and life 
 ebbs away. No books, no thoughts, no attain- 
 ments, no rest; except only sometimes a little 
 sitting in the sun under the church wall, as the 
 bell tolls thin and far in the mountain air; 
 a pattering of a few prayers, not understood, by 
 the altar rails of the dimly gilded chapel, and so 
 back to the sombre home, with the cloud upon 
 them still unbroken — that cloud of rocky gloom, 
 born out of the wild torrents and ruinous stones, 
 and unlightened, even in their religion, except 
 by the vague promise of some better thing un- 
 known, mingled with threatening, and obscured 
 by an unspeakable horror, — a smoke, as it were, 
 of martyrdom, coiling up with the incense, and, 
 amidst the images of tortured bodies and lament- 
 ing spirits in hurtling flames, the very cross, for 
 
296 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 them, dashed more deeply than for others, with 
 gouts of blood. 
 
 Do not let this be thought a darkened picture 
 of the life of these mountaineers. It is literal 
 fact. No contrast can be more painful than 
 that between the dwelling of any well conducted 
 English cottager, and that of the equally honest 
 Savoyard. The one, set in the midst of its dull 
 flat fields and uninteresting hedgerows, shows in 
 itself the love of brightness and beauty; its^ 
 daisy-studded garden beds, its smoothly swept 
 brick path to the threshold, its freshly sanded 
 floor and orderly shelves of household furniture, 
 all testify to energy of heart, and happiness in 
 the simple course and simple possessions of daily 
 life. The other cottage, in the midst of an in- 
 conceivable, inexpressible beauty, set on some 
 sloping bank of golden sward, with clear foun- 
 tains flowing beside it, and wild flowers, and 
 noble trees, and goodly rocks gathered round 
 into a perfection as of Paradise, is itself a dark 
 and plague-like stain in the midst of the gentle 
 landscape. Within a certain distance of its 
 threshold the ground is foul and cattle-trampled; 
 its timbers are black with smoke, its garden 
 choked with weeds and nameless refuse, its 
 chambers empty and joyless, the light and wind 
 gleaming and filtering through the crannies of 
 their stones. All testifies that to its inhabitant 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 297 
 
 the world is labour and vanity; that for him 
 neither flowers bloom, nor birds sing, nor foun- 
 tains glisten; and that his soul hardly differs 
 from the grey cloud that coils and dies upon his 
 hills; except in having no fold of it touched by 
 the sunbeams. 
 
 Is it not strange to reflect, thai hardly an even- 
 ing passes in London or Paris but one of those 
 cottages is painted for the better amusement of 
 the fair and idle, and shaded with pasteboard 
 pines by the scene-shifter ; and that good and 
 kind people, — poetically minded, — delight them- 
 selves in imagining the happy life led by peasants 
 who dwell by Alpine fountains, and kneel to 
 crosses upon peaks of rock? that nightly we lay 
 down our gold to fashion forth simulacra of 
 peasants, in gay ribands and white bodices, sing- 
 ing sweet songs, and bowing gracefully to the 
 picturesque crosses ; and all the while the veri- 
 table peasants are kneeling, songlessly, to veri- 
 table crosses, in another temper than the kind and 
 fair audiences dream of, and assuredly with an- 
 other kind of answer than is got out of the opera 
 catastrophe; an answer having reference, it may 
 be, in dim futurity, to those very audiences 
 themselves? If all the gold that has gone to 
 paint the simulacra of the cottages, and to put 
 new son;;;s in the mouths of the simulacra of the 
 peasants, had gone to brighten the existent cot- 
 
298 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 tages, and to put new songs into the mouths of 
 the existent peasants, it might in the end, per- 
 haps, have turned out better so, not only for the 
 peasants, but for even the audience. For that 
 form of the False Ideal has also its correspond- 
 ent True Ideal, — consisting not in the naked 
 beauty of statues, nor in the gauze flowers and 
 crackling tinsel of theatres, but in the clothed 
 and fed beauty of living men, and in the lights 
 and laughs of happy homes. Night after night, 
 the desire of such an ideal springs up in every 
 idle human heart; and night after night, as far 
 as idleness can, we work out this desire in costly 
 lies. We paint the faded actress, build the lath 
 landscape, feed our benevolence with fallacies of 
 felicity, and satisfy our righteousness with poet- 
 ry of justice. The time will come when, as the 
 heavy-folded curtain falls upon our own stage of 
 life, we shall begin to comprehend that the jus- 
 tice we loved was intended to have been done in 
 fact, and not in poetry, and the felicity we sym- 
 pathized in, to have been bestowed and not 
 feigned. We talk much of money's worth, yet 
 perhaps may one day be surprised to find that 
 what the wise and charitable European public 
 gave to one night's rehearsal of hypocrisy, — to 
 one hour's pleasant warbling of Linda or Lucia, 
 — ^would have filled a whole Alpine Valley with 
 
rKECious riiouGin^s. 299 
 
 happiness, and poured the waves of harvest over 
 the famine of many a Lammermoor. 
 
 MAN S ISOLATION. 
 
 Let man stand in his due relation to other 
 creatures, and to inanimate things — know them 
 all and love them, as made for him, and he for 
 them; — and he becomes himself the greatest 
 and holiest of them. But let him cast off this 
 relation, despise and forget the less creation 
 around him, and instead of being the light of the 
 world, he is as a sun in space — a fiery ball, spotted 
 with storm. 
 
 All the diseases of mind leading to fatalest 
 ruin consist primarily in this isolation. They 
 are the concentration of man upon himself, 
 whether his heavenly interests or his worldly in- 
 terests, matters not ; it is the being his oivn in- 
 terests which makes the regard of them so mor- 
 tal. Every form of asceticism on one side, of 
 sensualism on the other, is an isolation of his 
 soul or of his body; the fixing his thoughts upon 
 them alone: while every healthy state of nations 
 and of individual minds consists in the unselfish 
 presence of the human spirit everywhere, ener- 
 gizing over all things; speaking and living 
 through all things. 
 
300 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 It is a matter of the simplest demonstration, 
 that no man can be really appreciated but by 
 his equal or superior. His inferior may over- 
 estimate him in enthusiasm; or, as is more com- 
 monly the case, degrade him, in ignorance; but 
 he cannot form a grounded and just estimate. 
 Without proving this, however — which it would 
 take more space to do than I can spare — it is 
 sufficiently evident that there is no process of 
 amalgamation by which opinions, wrong individ- 
 ually, can become right merely by their multi- 
 tude. 
 
 SHAMEFACEDNESS. 
 
 If it were at this moment proposed to any of 
 us, by our architects, to remove the grinning 
 head of a satyr, or other classical or Palladian 
 ornament, from the keystone of the door, and 
 to substitute for it a cross, and an inscription 
 testifying our faith, I believe that most persons 
 would shrink from the proposal with an obscure 
 and yet overwhelming sense that things would 
 be sometimes done, and thought, within the 
 house which would make the inscription on its 
 gate a base hypocrisy. And if so, let us look to 
 it, whether that strong reluctance to utter a 
 definite religious profession, which so many of 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 3OI 
 
 US feel, and which, not very carefully examining 
 into its dim nature, we conclude to be modesty, 
 or fear of hypocrisy, or other such form of ami- 
 ableness, be not, in very deed, neither less nor 
 more than Infidelity; whether Peter's " I know 
 not the man" be not the sum and substance of 
 all these misgivings and hesitations; and whether 
 the shamefacedness which we attribute to sincer- 
 ity and reverence, be not such shamefacedness 
 as may at last put us among those of whom the 
 Son of Man shall be ashamed. 
 
 MAN THE IMAGE OF GOD. 
 
 The directest manifestation of Deity to man 
 is in His own image, that is, in man. 
 
 " In his own image. After His likeness." Ad 
 itnaginetfi et si?nilitudtnem Suavi. I do not know 
 what people in general understand by those 
 words. I suppose they ought to be understood. 
 The truth they contain seems to lie at the foun- 
 dation of our knowledge both of God and man; 
 vet do we not usually pass the sentence by, in 
 dull reverence, attaching no definite sense to it 
 at all? For all practical purpose, might it not as 
 well be out of the text? 
 
 I have no time, nor much desire, to examine 
 the vague expressions of belief with which the 
 
302 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 verse has been encumbered. Let us try to find 
 its only possible plain significance. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that the bodily shape of 
 man resembles or resembled any bodily shape in 
 Deity. The likeness must therefore be, or have 
 been, in the soul. Had it wholly passed away, 
 and the Divine soul been altered into a soul bru- 
 tal or diabolic, I suppose we should have been 
 told of the change. But we are told of nothing 
 of the kind. The verse still stands as if for our 
 use and trust. It was only death which was to 
 be our punishment. Not chaiige. So far a? we 
 live, the image is still there; defiled, if you will; 
 broken, if you will; all but effaced, if yon will, 
 by death and the shadow of it. But not changed. 
 We are not made now in any other image than 
 God's. There are, indeed, the two states of this 
 image — the earthly and the heavenly, but both 
 Adamite, both human, both the same likeness; 
 only one defiled, and one pure. So that the soul 
 Df man is still a mirror, wherein may be seen, 
 darkly, the image of the mind of God. These 
 may seem daring words. I am sorry that they 
 do; but I am helpless to soften them. Discover 
 any other meaning of the text if you are able; — 
 but be sure that it is a meaning — a meaning in 
 your head and heart, — not a subtle gloss, nor 
 a shifting of one verbal expression into another, 
 both idealess. I repeat, that, to me, the verse 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 303 
 
 has, and can have, no other signification than 
 this — that the soul of man is a mirror of the 
 mind of God. A mirror dark, distorted, broken, 
 use what blameful words you please of its state; 
 yet in the main, a true mirror, out of which 
 alone, and by which alone, we can know anything 
 of God at all. " How?" the reader, perhaps, 
 answers indignantly. " I know the nature of 
 God by revelation, not by looking into myself." 
 
 Revelation to what? To a nature incapable 
 of receiving truth? That cannot be; for only 
 to a nature capable of truth, desirous of it, dis- 
 tinguishing it, feeding upon it, revelation is pos- 
 sible. To a being undesirous of it, and hating 
 it, revelation is impossible. There can be none 
 to a brute, or fiend. In so far, therefore, as you 
 love truth, and live therein, in so far revelation 
 can exist for you; — and in so far your mind is 
 the image of God's. 
 
 But consider farther, not only to what, but by 
 what is the revelation. By sight? or word? If 
 by sight, then to eyes which see justly. Other- 
 wise, no sight would be revelation. So far, then, 
 as your sight is just, it is the image of God's 
 sight. 
 
 If by words, — how do you know their mean- 
 ings? Here is a short piece of precious word- 
 revelation, for instance. " God is love." 
 
 Love ! yes. But what is thatl The revelation 
 
304 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 does not tell you that, I think. Look into the 
 mirror, and you will see. Out of your own heart 
 you may know what love is. In no other possi- 
 .ble way, — by no other help or sign. All the 
 words and sounds ever uttered, all the revela= 
 tions of cloud, or flame, or crystal, are utterly 
 powerless. They cannot tell you, in the small- 
 est point, what love means. Only the broken 
 mirror can. 
 
 Here is more revelation. " God is just !" 
 Just! What is that? The revelation cannot 
 help you to discover. You say it is dealing 
 equitably or equally. But how do you discern 
 the equality? Not by inequality of mind; not 
 by a mind incapable of weighing, judging, or 
 distributing. If the lengths seem unequal in the 
 broken mirror, for you they are unequal; but if 
 they seem equal, then the mirror is true. So far 
 as you recognize equality, and your conscience 
 tells you what is just, so far your mind is the 
 image of God's: and so far as you do not dis- 
 cern this nature of justice or equality, the words 
 " God is just" brings no revelation to you. 
 
 " But His thoughts are not as our thoughts." 
 No; the sea is not as the standing pool by the 
 wayside. Yet when the breeze crisps the pool, 
 you may see the image of the breakers, and a 
 likeness of the foam. Nay, in some sort, the 
 same foam. If the sea is for ever invisible to 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 305 
 
 you, something you may learn of it from the 
 t)Ool. Nothing, assuredly, any otherwise. 
 
 "But this poor miserable Me! Is this, then, 
 all the book I have got to read about God in?" 
 Yes, truly so. No other book, nor fragment of 
 book, than that, will you ever find; — no velvet- 
 bound missal, nor frankincensed manuscript; — 
 nothing hieroglyphic nor cuneiform; papyrus 
 and pyramid are alike silent on this matter; — 
 nothing in the clouds above, nor in the earth be- 
 neath. That flesh-bound volume is the only 
 revelation that is, that was, or that can be. In 
 that is the image of God painted; in that is the 
 law of God written; in that is the promise of 
 God revealed. Know thyself; for through thy- 
 self only thou canst know God. 
 
 Through the glass, darkly. But, except 
 through the glass, in nowise. 
 
 A tremulous crystal, waved as water, poured 
 out upon the ground; — you may defile it, despise 
 it, pollute it at your pleasure, and at your peril; 
 for on the peace of those weak waves must all 
 the heaven you shall ever gain be first seen; and 
 through such purity as you can win for those 
 dark waves, must all the light of the risen Sun 
 of righteousness be bent down, by faint refrac- 
 tion. Cleanse them, and calm them, as you love 
 your life. 
 
 Therefore it is that all the power of nature 
 
306 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 depends on subjection to the human soul. Man 
 is the sun of the world; more than the real sun. 
 The fire of his wonderful heart is the only light 
 and heat worth gauge or measure. Where he is, 
 are the tropics; where he is not, the ice- world. 
 
 THE DREAMERS. 
 
 Newton, probably, did not perceive whether 
 the apple which suggested his meditations on 
 gravity was withered or rosy; nor could Howard 
 be affected by the picturesqueness of the archi- 
 tecture which held the sufferers it was his occu 
 pation to relieve. 
 
 This wandering away in thought from the 
 thing seen to the business of life is not, however, 
 peculiar to men of the highest reasoning powers 
 or the most active benevolence. It takes place, 
 more or less, in nearly all persons of average 
 mental endowment. They see and love what is 
 beautiful, but forget their admiration of it in fol- 
 lowing some train of thought which it suggested, 
 and which is of more personal interest to them. 
 
 Suppose that three or four persons come in 
 sight of a group of pine-trees, not having seen 
 pines for some time. One, perhaps an engineer, 
 is struck by the manner in which their roots hold 
 the ground, and sets himself to examine their 
 jibres, in a few minutes retaining little more con- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 307 
 
 sciousness of the beauty of the trees than if he 
 were a ropemaker untwisting the strands of a 
 cable; to another, the sight of the trees calls up 
 some happy association, and presently he forgets 
 them, and pursues the memories they sum- 
 moned; a third is struck by certain groupings of 
 their colours, useful to him as an artist, which 
 he proceeds to note mechanically for future use 
 with as little feeling as a cook setting down the 
 constituents of a newly-discovered dish; and a 
 fourth, impressed by the wild wailing of boughs 
 and roots, will begin to change them in his fancy 
 into dragons and monsters, and lose his grasp 
 of the scene in fantastic metamorphosis; while 
 in the mind of the man who has most the power 
 of contemplating the thing itself, all these per- 
 ceptions and ideas are partially present, not dis- 
 tinctly, but in a mingled and perfect harmony. 
 He will not see the colours of the tree so well as 
 the artist, nor its fibres so well as the engineer; 
 he will not altogether share the emotion of the 
 sentimentalist, nor the trance of the idealist; 
 but fancy, and feeling, and perception, and im- 
 agination, will all obscurely meet and balance 
 themselves in him, and he will see the pine-trees 
 somewhat in this manner: 
 
 " Worthier still of note 
 Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale, 
 Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; 
 
308 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth 
 Of intertwisted fibres serpentine 
 Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; 
 Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks 
 That threaten the profane; a pillared shade, 
 Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, 
 By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged 
 Perennially, — beneath whose sable roof 
 Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked 
 With unrejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes 
 May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope, 
 Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton, 
 And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate, 
 As in a natural temple scattered o'er 
 With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, 
 United worship." 
 
 The power, therefore, of thus fully perceim'ng 
 any natural object depends on our being able to 
 group and fasten all our fancies about it as a 
 centre, making a garland of thoughts for it, in 
 which each separate thought is subdued and 
 shortened of its own strength, in order to fit it 
 for harmony with others ; the intensity of our 
 enjoyment of the object depending, first, on its 
 own beauty, and then on the richness of the 
 garland. And men who have this habit of clus- 
 tering and harmonising their thoughts are a 
 little too apt to look scornfully upon the harder 
 workers who tear the bouquet to pieces to 
 examine the stems. This was the chief narrow- 
 ness of Wordsworth's mind : he could not under- 
 
pnECiors THOUGHTS. 309 
 
 stand that to break a rock with a hammer in 
 search of crystal may sometimes be an act not 
 disgraceful to human nature, and that to dissect 
 a flower may sometimes be as proper as to dream 
 over it ; whereas, ail experience goes to teach 
 us that among men of average intellect, the 
 most useful members of society are the dissec- 
 tors, not the dreamers. It is not that they love 
 nature or beauty less, but that they love result, 
 effect, and progress more. 
 
 THE OLD CATHEDRALS. 
 
 Men say their pinnacles point to heaven. 
 Why, so does every tree that buds, and every 
 bird that rises as it sings. Men say their aisles 
 are good for worship. Why, so is every moun- 
 tain glen, and rough sea-shore. But this they 
 have of distinct and indisputable glory, — that 
 their mighty walls were never raised, and never 
 shall be, but by men who love and aid each 
 other in their weakness ; — that all their interlac- 
 ing strength of vaulted stone has its foundation 
 upon the stronger arches of manly fellowship, 
 and all their changing grace of depressed or 
 lifted pinnacle owes its cadence and complete- 
 ness to sweeter symmetries of human soul. 
 
3IO PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 PLAGIARISM. 
 
 Touching plagiarism in general, it is to be 
 remembered that all men who have sense and 
 feeling are being continually helped : they are 
 taught by every person whom they meet and 
 enriched by everything that falls in their way. 
 The greatest is he who has been oftenest aided ; 
 and, if the attainments of all human minds could 
 be traced to their real sources, it would be found 
 that the world had been laid most under contri- 
 bution by the men of most original power, and 
 that every day of their existence deepened their 
 debt to their race, while it enlarged their gifts to 
 it. The labour devoted to trace the origin of 
 any thought, or any invention, will usually issue 
 in the blank conclusion that there is nothing 
 new under the sun ; yet nothing that is truly 
 great can ever be altogether borrowed ; and 
 he is commonly the wisest, and is always the 
 happiest, who receives simply, and without en- 
 vious question, whatever good is offered him, 
 with thanks to its immediate giver. 
 
 PRINCIPLE. 
 
 A nation's labour, well applied, is amply suffi- 
 cient to provide its whole population with good 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGriTS. 31I 
 
 food, comfortable clothing, and pleasant luxury 
 But the good, instant, and constant application 
 is everything. We must not, when our strong 
 hands are thrown out of work, look wildly about 
 for want of something to do with them. If ever 
 we feel that want, it is a sign that all our house- 
 hold is out of order. Fancy a farmer's wife, to 
 whom one or two of her servants should come 
 at twelve o'clock at noon, crying that they had 
 got nothing to do ; that they did not know what 
 to do next : and fancy still farther, the said 
 farmer's wife looking hopelessly about her rooms 
 and yard, they being all the while considerably 
 in disorder, not knowing where to set the spare 
 hand-maidens to work, and at last complaining 
 bitterly that she had been obliged to give them 
 their dinner for nothing. Would you not at once 
 assert of such a mistress that she knew nothing 
 of her duties ? and would you not be certain, 
 if the household were rightly managed, the mis- 
 tress would be only too glad at any moment 
 to have the help of any number of spare hands ; 
 that she would know in an instant what to set 
 them to ; — in an instant what part of to-morrow's 
 work might be most serviceably forwarded, what 
 part of next month's work most wisely provided 
 for, or what new task of some profitable kind 
 undertaken ? and when the evening came, and 
 she dismissed her servants to their recreation 
 
312 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 or their rest, or gathered them to the reading 
 round the work-table, under the eaves in the 
 sunset, would you not be sure to find that none 
 of them had been overtasked by her, just be- 
 cause none had been left idle ; that everything 
 had been accomplished because all had been 
 employed ; that the kindness of the mistress had 
 aided her presence of mind, and the slight 
 labour had been entrusted to the weak, and the 
 formidable to the strong ; and that as none had 
 been dishonoured by inactivity, so none had 
 been broken by toil ? Now the precise counter- 
 part of such a household would be seen in a 
 nation in which political economy was rightly 
 understood. 
 
 jDISCipline and interference. 
 
 Fo/ half an hour every Sunday we expect a 
 man in a black gown, supposed to be telling us 
 truth, to address us as brethren, though we 
 should be shocked at the notion of any brother- 
 hood existing among us out of church. And 
 we can hardly read a few sentences on any politi- 
 cal subject without running a chance of crossing 
 the phrase " paternal government," though we 
 should be utterly horror-struck at the idea of 
 governments claiming anything like a father's 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 313 
 
 authority over us. Now, I believe those two 
 formal phrases are in both instances perfectly- 
 binding and accurate, and that the image of the 
 farm and its servants which 1 have hitherto 
 used, as expressing a wholesome national organi- 
 zation, fails only of doing so, not because it is 
 too domestic, but because it is not domestic 
 enough ; because the real type of a well-organ- 
 ized nation must be presented, not by a farm 
 cultivated by servants who wrought for hire, 
 and might be turned away if they refused to 
 labour, but by a farm in which the master was a 
 father, and in which all the servants were sons ; 
 which implied, therefore, in all its regulations, 
 not merely the order of expediency, but the 
 bonds of affection and responsibilities of rela- 
 tionship ; and in which all acts and services 
 were not only to be sweetened by brotherly con- 
 cord, but to be enforced by fatherly authority. 
 Observe, I do not mean in the least that we 
 ought to place such an authority in the hands 
 of any one person, or of any class, or body of 
 persons. But I do mean to say that as an 
 individual who conducts himself wisely must 
 make laws for himself which at some time or 
 other may appear irksome or injurious, but 
 which, precisely at the time they appear most 
 irksome, it is most necessary he should obey, so 
 a nation which means to conduct itself wisely, 
 
314 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 must establish authority over itself, vested 
 either in kings, councils, or laws, which it must 
 resolve to obey, even at times when the law or 
 authority appears irksome to the body of the 
 people, or injurious to certain masses of it. 
 And this kind of national law has hitherto been 
 only judicial; contented, that is, with an endeav- 
 our to prevent and punish violence and crime; but 
 as we advance in our social knowledge, we shall 
 endeavour to make our government paternal as 
 well as judicial; that is, to establish such laws 
 and authorities as may at once direct us in our 
 occupations, protect us against our follies, and 
 visit us in our distresses: a government which 
 shall repress dishonesty, as now it punishes 
 theft; which shall show how the discipline of 
 the masses may be brought to aid the toils of 
 peace, as discipline of the masses has hitherto 
 knit the sinews of battle; a government which 
 shall have its soldiers of the ploughshare as well 
 as its soldiers of the sword, and which shall dis- 
 tribute more proudly its golden crosses of in- 
 dustry—golden as the glow of the harvest, than 
 now it grants its bronze crosses of honour — 
 bronzed with the crimson of blood. 
 
 I have not, of course, time to insist on the 
 nature or details of government of this kind; only 
 I wish to plead for your several and future con- 
 sideration of this one truth, that the notion of 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 315 
 
 Discipline and Interference lies at the very root 
 of all human progress or power; that the *' Let 
 alone " principle is, in all things which man has to 
 do with, the principle of death; that it is ruin to 
 him, certain and total, if he lets his land alone — 
 if he lets his fellow-men alone — if he lets his own 
 soul alone. That his whole life, on the contrary, 
 must, if it is healthy life, be continually one of 
 ploughing and pruning, rebuking and helping, 
 governing and punishing; and that therefore it is 
 only in the concession of some great principle of 
 restraint and interference in national action that 
 he can ever hope to find the secret of protection 
 against national degradation. 
 
 LESSONS FROM ROCKS. 
 
 There is one lesson evidently intended to be 
 taught by the different characters of these rocks, 
 which we must not allow to escape us. We 
 have to observe, first, the state of perfect pow- 
 erlessness, and loss of all beauty, exhibited in 
 those beds of earth in which the separated 
 pieces or particles are entirely independent of 
 each other, more especially in the gravel whose 
 pebbles have all been rolled t?ito one shape: sec- 
 ondly, the greater degree of permanence, power, 
 and beauty possessed by the rocks whose com- 
 
3l6 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ponent atoms have some affection and attraction 
 for each other, though all of one kind; and, 
 lastly, the utmost form and highest beauty of 
 the rocks in which the several atoms have all 
 different shapes^ characters, and offices; but are 
 inseparably united by some fiery process which 
 has purified them all. 
 
 It can hardly be necessary to point out how 
 these natural ordinances seem intended to teach 
 us the great truths which are the basis of all 
 political science; how the polishing friction 
 which separates, the affection which binds, and 
 the affliction that fuses and confirms, are ac- 
 curately symbolized by the processes to which 
 the several ranks of hills appear to owe their 
 present aspect; and how, even if the knowledge 
 of those processes be denied to us, that present 
 aspect may in itself seem no imperfect image of 
 the various states of mankind; first, that which 
 is powerless through total disorganization; sec- 
 ondly, that which, though united, and in some 
 degree powerful, is yet incapable of great effort 
 or result, owing to the too great similarity and 
 confusion of offices, both in ranks and individ- 
 uals; and finally, the perfect state of brother- 
 hood and strength in which each character is 
 clearly distinguished, separately perfected, and 
 employed in its proper place and office. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 317 
 
 REVERENCE. 
 
 When the flowers and grass were regarded as 
 means of life, and therefore (as the thoughtful 
 labourer of the soil must always regard them) 
 with the reverence due to those gifts of God 
 which were most necessary to his existence; al- 
 though their own beauty was less felt, their pro- 
 ceeding from the Divine hand was more serious- 
 ly acknowledged, and the herb yielding seed, 
 and fruit tree yielding fruit, though in them- 
 selves less admired, were yet solemnly connected 
 in the heart with the reverence of Ceres, Po- 
 mona, or Pan. But when the sense of these 
 necessary uses was more or less lost, among the 
 upper classes, by the delegation of the art of 
 husbandry to the hands of the peasant, the 
 flower and fruit, whose bloom or richness thus 
 became a mere source of pleasure, were re- 
 garded with less solemn sense of the Divine gift 
 in them; and were converted rather into toys 
 than treasures, chance gifts for gaiety, rather 
 than promised rewards of labour; so that while 
 the Greek could hardly have trodden the formal 
 furrow, or plucked the clusters from the trellised 
 vine, without reverent thoughts of the deities of 
 field and leaf, who gave the seed to fructify, and 
 the bloom to darken, the mediaeval knight 
 plucked the violet to wreathe in his lady's hair, 
 
3l8 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 or strewed the idle rose on the turf at her feet, 
 with little sense of anything in the nature that 
 gave them, but a frail, accidental, involuntary 
 exuberance; while also the Jewish sacrificial 
 system being now done away, as well as the 
 Pagan mythology, and, with it, the whole con- 
 ception of meat offering or firstfruits offering, 
 the chiefest seriousness of all the thoughts con- 
 nected with the gifts of nature faded from the 
 minds of the classes of men concerned with art 
 and literature; while the peasant, reduced to 
 serf level, was incapable of imaginative thought, 
 owing to his want of general cultivation. 
 
 MYSTERY IN LANGUAGE. 
 
 All noble language-mystery is reached only by 
 intense labour. Striving to speak with utter- 
 most truth of expression, weighing word against 
 word, and wasting none, the great speaker, ^or 
 writer, toils first into perfect intelligibleness, 
 then, as he reaches to higher subject, and still 
 more concentrated and wonderful utterance, ha 
 becomes ambiguous — as Dante is ambiguous, — 
 half a dozen different meanings lightening out 
 in separate rays from every word, and, here and 
 there, giving rise to much contention of critics 
 as to what the intended meaning actually was. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 3I9 
 
 But it is no drunkard's babble for all that, and 
 the men who think it so, at the third hour of 
 the day, do not highly honour themselves in the 
 thought. 
 
 ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR PLACE. 
 
 Many plants are found alone on a certain soil 
 or subsoil in a wild state, not because such soil 
 is favourable to them, but because they alone 
 are capable of existing on it, and because all 
 dangerous rivals are by its inhospitality removed. 
 Now if we withdraw the plant from this position, 
 which it hardly endures, and supply it with the 
 earth, and maintain about it the temperature 
 that it delights in; withdrawing from it at the 
 same time all rivals which, in such conditions, 
 nature would have thrust upon it; we shall in- 
 deed obtain a magnificently developed example 
 of the plant, colossal in size, and splendid in or- 
 ganization, but we shall utterly lose in it that 
 moral ideal which is dependent on its right ful- 
 filment of its appointed functions. It was in- 
 tended and created by the Deity for the cover- 
 ing of those lonely spots where no other plant 
 could live; it has been thereto endowed with 
 courage, and strength, and capacities of endur- 
 ance unequalled; its character and glory are not 
 
320 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 therefore in the gluttonous and idle feeling of 
 its own over-luxuriance, at the expense of other 
 creatures utterly destroyed and rooted out for 
 its good alone, but in its right doing of its hard 
 duty, and forward climbing into those spots of 
 forlorn hope where it alone can bear witness to 
 the kindness and presence of the Spirit that cut- 
 teth out rivers among the rocks, as it covers the 
 valleys with corn. 
 
 PERFECT AND PARTIAL TRUTH. 
 
 At least, in the midst of its malice, misery, and 
 baseness, it is often a relief to glance at the 
 graceful shadows, and take, for momentary com- 
 panionship, creatures full only of love, gladness^ 
 and honour. But the perfect truth will at last 
 vindicate itself against the partial truth; the 
 help which we can gain from the unsubstantial 
 vision will be only like that which we may some- 
 times receive, in weariness, from the scent of a 
 flower or the passing of a breeze. 
 
 THE REALITY. 
 
 Whatever delight we may have been in the 
 habit of taking in pictures, if it were but truly 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 321 
 
 offered to us, to remove at our will the canvas 
 from the frame, and in lieu of it to behold, fixed 
 for ever, the image of some of those mighty 
 scenes which it has been our way to make mere 
 themes for the artist's fancy; if, for instance, 
 we could again behold the Magdalene receiving 
 her pardon at Christ's feet, or the disciples sit- 
 ting with Him at the table of Emmaus; and 
 this not feebly nor fancifully, but as if some 
 silver mirror, that had leaned against the wall 
 of the chamber, had been miraculously com- 
 manded to retain for ever the colours that had 
 flashed upon it for an instant, — would we not 
 part with our picture — Titian's or Veronese's 
 though it might be? 
 
 RESPECT FOR THE DEAD. 
 
 Our respect for the dead, when they are/wj/ 
 dead, is something wonderful, and the way we 
 show it more wonderful still. We show it with 
 black feathers and black horses; we show it with 
 black dresses and bright heraldries; we show it 
 with costly obelisks and sculptures of sorrow, 
 which spoil half of our most beautiful cathedrals. 
 We show it with frightful gratings and vaults, 
 and lids of dismal stone, in the midst of the 
 quiet grass; and last, not least, we show it by 
 
322 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 permitting ourselves to tell any number of lies 
 we think amiable or credible, in the epitaph. 
 This feeling is common to the poor as well as 
 the rich; and we all know how many a poor 
 family will nearly ruin themselves, to testify their 
 respect for some member of it in his coffin, whom 
 they never much cared for when he was out of 
 it; and how often it happens that a poor old 
 v/oman will starve herself to death, in order that 
 she may be respectably buried. 
 
 Now, this being one of the most complete and 
 special ways of wasting money;— no money 
 being less productive of good, or of any percent- 
 age whatever, than that which we shake away 
 from the ends of undertakers' plumes — it is of 
 course the duty of all good economists, and kind 
 persons, to prove and proclaim continually, to 
 the poor as well as the rich, that respect for 
 the dead is not really shown by laying great 
 stones on them to tell us where they are laid; 
 but by remembering where they are laid without 
 a stone to help us; trusting them to the sacred 
 grass and saddened flowers; and still more, that 
 respect and love are shown to them, not by 
 great monuments to them which we build with 
 our hands, but by letting the monuments stand, 
 which they built with their own. And this is 
 the point now in question. 
 
 Observe, there are two great reciprocal duties 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 323 
 
 concerning industry, constantly to be exchanged 
 between the living and the dead. We, as we 
 live and work, are to be always thinking of those 
 who are to come after us; that what we do may be 
 serviceable, as far as we can make it so, to them, 
 as well as to us. Then, when we die, it is the 
 duty of those who come after us to accept this 
 work of ours with thanks and remembrance, not 
 tlirusting it aside or tearing it down the moment 
 they think they have no use for it. And each 
 generation will only be happy or powerful to the 
 pitch that it ought to be, in fulfilling these two 
 duties to the Past and the Future. Its own work 
 Avill never be rightly done, even for itself — never 
 good, or noble, or pleasurable to its own eyes — 
 if it does not also prepare it for the eyes of gen- 
 erations yet to come. And its own possessions 
 v.ill never be enough for it, unless it avails itself 
 gratefully and tenderly of the treasures and wis- 
 dom bequeathed to it by its ancestors. For, be 
 assured, that all the best things and treasures 
 of this world are not to be produced by each 
 generation for itself; but we are all intended, 
 not to carve our work in snow that will melt, but 
 each and all of us to be rolling a great white 
 gathering snowball, — higher and higher, larger 
 and larger — along the Alps of human power. 
 Thus the science of nations is to be accumula- 
 tive from father to son; the history and poetry 
 
324 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 of nations is to be accumulative; each genera- 
 tion treasuring the history and the songs of its 
 ancestors, adding its own history and its own 
 songs; and the art of nations is to be accumula- 
 tive, — the work of living men not superseding, 
 but building itself upon the work of the past. 
 Nearly every great and intellectual race of the 
 world has produced, at every period of its career, 
 with some peculiar and precious character about 
 it wholly unattainable by any other race, and at 
 any other time, and the intention of Providence 
 concerning that art is evidently that it should 
 all grow together into one mighty temple; the 
 rough and the smooth all finding their place, 
 and rising, day by day, in richer and higher pin- 
 nacles to heaven. 
 
 Now just fancy what a position the world 
 would have been in by this time, if it had in 
 the least understood this duty or been capable 
 of it. Fancy what we should have had around 
 us now if, instead of quarrelling and fighting 
 over their work, the nations had aided each 
 other in their work, or if even in their conquests, 
 instead of effacing the memorials of those they 
 succeeded and subdued, they had guarded the 
 spoils of their victories. Fancy what Europe 
 would be now, if the delicate statues and tem- 
 ples of the Greeks, — if the broad roads and 
 massy walls of the Romans, — if the noble and 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 325 
 
 pathetic architecture of the middle ages, had 
 not been ground to dust by mere human rage. 
 You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth 
 of Time: I tell you. Time is scytheless and tooth- 
 less; it is we who gnaw like the worm — we who 
 smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abol- 
 ish — ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, 
 and the flame, and the soul of man is to its own 
 work as the moth, that frets when it cannot fly, 
 and as the hidden flame that blasts where it 
 cannot illumine. All these lost treasures of hu- 
 man intellect have been wholly destroyed by 
 human industry of destruction ; the marble 
 would have stood its two thousand years as well 
 in the polished statue as in the Parisian cliff; 
 but we men have ground it to powder, and mixed 
 it with our own ashes. The walls and the 
 ways would have stood — it is we who have left 
 not one stone upon another, and restored its 
 pathlessness to the desert; the great cathedrals 
 of old religion would have stood — it is we who 
 have dashed down the carved work with axes 
 and hammers, and bid the mountain-grass bloom 
 upon the pavement, and the sea-winds chaunt 
 in the galleries. 
 
326 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 IDOLATRY. 
 I do not intend, in thus applying the word 
 ** Idolatry" to certain ceremonies of Romanist 
 worship, to admit the propriety of the ordinary 
 Protestant manner of regarding those ceremonies 
 as distinctively idolatrous, and as separating the 
 Romanist from the Protestant Church by a gulf 
 across which we must not look to our fellow- 
 Christians but with utter reprobation and dis- 
 dain. The Church of Rome does indeed dis- 
 tinctively violate the i-^r^^^ commandment; but 
 the true force and weight of the sin of idolatry 
 are in the violation of the first, of which we are 
 all of us guilty, in probably a very equal degree, 
 considered only as members of this or that com- 
 munion, and not as Christians or unbelievers. 
 Idolatry is, both literally and verily, not the 
 mere bowing down before sculptures, but the 
 serving or becoming the slave of any images or 
 imaginations which stand between us and God, 
 and it is otherwise expressed in Scripture as 
 "walking after the Imagination'' of our own 
 hearts. And observe also that while, at least on 
 one occasion, we find in the Bible an indulgence 
 granted to the mere external and literal violation 
 of the second commandment, " When I bow 
 myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord par- 
 don thy servant in this thing," we find no indul- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 32'' 
 
 gence in any instance, or in the slightest degree, 
 granted to " covetousness, which is idolatry" 
 (Col. iii. 5; no casual association of terms, ob- 
 serve, but again energetically repeated in Ephe- 
 sians v. 5, " No covetous man, who is an idola- 
 ter, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of 
 Christ"); nor any to that denial of God, idolatry 
 in one of its most subtle forms, following so 
 often on the possession of that wealth against 
 which Agur prayed so earnestly, " Give me 
 neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and 
 deny thee, and say, * Who is the Lord? ' " 
 
 And in this sense, which of us is not an idola- 
 ter? Which of us has the right, in the fulness of 
 that better knowledge, in spite of which he nev- 
 ertheless is not yet separated from the service of 
 this world, to speak scornfully of any of his 
 brethren, because, in a guiltless ignorance, they 
 have been accustomed to bow their knees before 
 a statue? Which of us shall say that there may 
 not be a spiritual worship in their apparent idol- 
 atry, or that there is not a spiritual idolatry in 
 our own apparent worship I 
 
 For indeed it is utterly impossible for one 
 man to judge of the feeling with which another 
 bows down before an image. From that pure 
 reverence in which Sir Thomas Brown wrote, 
 ** I can dispense with my hat at the sight of a 
 cross, but not with a thought of my Redeemer," 
 
328 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 to the worst superstition of the most ignorant 
 Romanist, there is an infinite series of subtle 
 transitions; and the point where simple rever- 
 ence and the use of the image merely to render 
 conception more vivid, and feeling more in- 
 tense, change into definite idolatry by the attri- 
 bution of Power to the image itself, is so diffi- 
 cultly determinable that we cannot be too cau- 
 tious in asserting that such a change has actu- 
 ally taken place in the case of any individual. 
 
 OBEDIENCE TO LAW, OR LOYALTY. 
 
 In one of the noblest poems,* for its imagery 
 and its music, belonging to the recent school of 
 
 * " Ye Clouds! that far above me float and pause, 
 Whose pathless march no mortal may control! 
 Ye Ocean-Waves! that wheresoe'er ye roll, 
 Yield homage only to eternal laws! 
 Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds singing, 
 
 Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, 
 Save when your own imperious branches swinging, 
 
 Have made a solemn music of the wind! 
 Where, like a man beloved of God, 
 Through glooms, which never woodman trod. 
 
 How oft, pursuing fancies holy, 
 My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound. 
 
 Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, 
 By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGH rs. 329 
 
 our literature, the writer has sought in the aspect 
 of inanimate nature the expression of that liberty 
 which, having once wooed, he had seen among 
 men in its true dyes of darkness. But with what 
 strange fallacy of interpretation! since in one 
 noble line of his invocation he has contra- 
 dicted the assumptions of the rest, and acknowl- 
 edged the presence of a subjection, surely not 
 less severe than eternal. How could he other- 
 
 O ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high? 
 And O ye Clouds that far above me soared . 
 
 Thou rising Sun ! thou blue rejoicing Sky J 
 Yea, everything that is and will be free ,' 
 Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, 
 With what deep worship I have still adored 
 The spirit of div'inest Liberty." — Coleridge. 
 
 Noble verse, but erring thought: contrast George Her- 
 bert:— 
 
 " Slight those who say amidst their sickly healths, 
 
 Thou livest by rule. What doth not so but man ? 
 
 Houses are built by rule and Commonwealths. 
 
 Entice the trusty sun, if that you can, 
 
 From his ecliptic line; beckon the sky. 
 
 Who lives by rule then, keeps good company. 
 
 " Who keeps no guard upon himself is slack. 
 And rots to nothing at the next great thaw; 
 Man is a shop of rules, a well-truss'd pack 
 Whose every parcel underwrites a law. 
 Lose not thyself, nor give thy humours way; 
 God gave them to thee under yuck and key." 
 
330 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 wise? since if there be any one principle more 
 widely than another confessed by every utter- 
 ance, or more sternly than another imprinted on 
 every atom of the visible creation, that princi- 
 ple is not Liberty, but Law. 
 
 Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind of 
 freedom, else it would become mere subjugation, 
 but that freedom is only granted that obedience 
 may be more perfect; and thus, while a measure 
 of license is necessary to exhibit the individual 
 energies of things, the fairness and pleasantness 
 and perfection of them all consist in their Re- 
 straint. Compare a river that has burst its banks 
 with one that is bound by them, and the clouds 
 that are scattered over the face of the whole 
 heaven with those that are marshalled into ranks 
 and orders by its winds. So that though re- 
 straint, utter and unrelaxing, can never be 
 comely, this is not because it is in itself an evil, 
 but only because, when too great, it overpowers 
 the nature of the thing restrained, and so counter- 
 acts the other laws of which that nature is itself 
 composed. And the balance wherein consists 
 the fairness of creation is between the laws of 
 life and being in the things governed and the laws 
 of general sway to which they are subjected; and 
 the suspension or infringement of either kind of 
 law, or, literally, disorder, is equivalent to, and 
 synonymous with, disease; while the increase of 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 33 ^ 
 
 both honour and beauty is habitually on the side 
 of restraint (or the action of superior law) rather 
 than of character (or the action of inherent law). 
 The noblest word in the catalogue of social vir- 
 tue is " Loyalty," and the sweetest which men 
 have learned in the pastures of the wilderness is 
 "Fold." 
 
 Nor is this all; but we may observe, that ex- 
 actly in proportion to the majesty of things in 
 the scale of being, is the completeness of their 
 obedience to the laws that are set over them. 
 Gravitation is less quietly, less instantly obeyed' 
 by a grain of dust than it is by the sun and moon; 
 and the ocean falls and flows under influences 
 which the lake and river do not recognize. So 
 also in estimating the dignity of any action or oc- 
 cupation of men, there is perhaps no better test 
 than the question " are its laws strait?" For their 
 severity will probably be commensurate with the 
 greatness of the numbers whose labour it concen- 
 trates or whose interest it concerns. 
 
 THE GOODNESS OF GOD IN CREATION. 
 
 There is this difference between the positions 
 held in creation by animals and plants, and 
 thence in the dispositions with which we regard 
 them; that the animals, being for the most part 
 locomotive, are capable both of living where 
 
332 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 they choose, and of obtaining what food they 
 want, and of fulfilling all the conditions neces- 
 sary to their health and perfection. For which 
 reason they are answerable for such health and 
 perfection, and we should be displeased and 
 hurt if we did not find it in one individual as 
 well as another. 
 
 But the case is evidently different with plants. 
 They are intended fixedly to occupy many places 
 comparatively unfit for them, and to fill up all 
 the spaces where greenness, and coolness, and 
 ornament, and oxygen are wanted, and that with 
 very little reference to their comfort or conven- 
 ience. Now it would be hard upon the plant if, 
 after being tied to a particular spot, where it is 
 indeed much wanted, and is a great blessing, but 
 where it has enough to do to live, whence it can- 
 not move to obtain what it wants or likes, but 
 must stretch its unfortunate arms here and there 
 for bare breath and light, and split its way 
 among rocks, and grope for sustenance in un- 
 kindly soil; it would be hard upon the plant, I 
 say, if under all these disadvantages, it were 
 made answerable for its appearance, and found 
 fault with because it was not a fine plant of the 
 kind. And so we find it ordained that in order 
 that no unkind comparisons may be drawn be- 
 tween one and another, there are not appointed 
 to plants the fixed number, position, and pro- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 333 
 
 portion of members which are ordained in animals 
 (and any variation from which in these is un- 
 pardonable), but a continually varying number 
 and position, even among the more freely grow- 
 ing examples, admitting therefore all kinds of 
 license to those which have enemies to contend 
 with, and that without in any way detracting 
 from their dignity and perfection. 
 
 So then there is in trees no perfect form which 
 can be fixed upon or reasoned out as ideal; but 
 that is always an ideal oak which, however 
 poverty-stricken, or hunger-pinched, or tempest- 
 tortured, is yet seen to have done, under its ap- 
 pointed circumstances, all that could be expected 
 of oak. 
 
 And herein, then, we at last find the cause of 
 that fact, that the exalted or seemingly improved 
 condition, whether of plant or animal, induced 
 by human interference, is not the true but artis- 
 tical idea of it.* It has been well shown by Dr, 
 
 * I speak not hereof those conditions of vegetation 
 A^hich have especial reference to man, as of seeds and 
 fruits, whose sweetness and farina seem in great measure 
 given, not for the plant's sake but for his, and to which 
 therefore the interruption in the harmony of creation of 
 which he was the cause is extended, and their sweetness 
 and larger measure of good to be obtained only by his 
 redeeming labour. His curse has fallen on the corn and 
 the vine, and the wild barlev misses of its fulness, that he 
 may eat bread by the sweat of his brow. 
 
334 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 Herbert, that many plants are found alone on a 
 certain soil or sub-soil in a wild state, not because 
 such soil is favourable to them, but because they 
 alone are capable of existing on it, and because 
 all dangerous rivals are by its inhospitality re- 
 moved. Now if we withdraw the plant from this 
 position, which it hardly endures, and supply it 
 with the earth, and maintain about it the tem- 
 perature that it delights in; withdrawing from it 
 at the same time all rivals which, in such condi- 
 tions, nature would have thrust upon it, we shall 
 indeed obtain a magnificently developed example 
 of the plant, colossal in size, and splendid in 
 organization, but we shall utterly lose in it that 
 moral ideal which is dependent on its right ful- 
 filment of its appointed functions. It was 
 intended and created by the Deity for the cover- 
 ing of those lonely spots where no other plant 
 could live; it has been thereto endowed with 
 courage, and strength, and capacities of endur- 
 ance unequalled; its character and glory are not 
 therefore in the gluttonous and idle feeling of its 
 own over-luxuriance, at the expense of other 
 creatures utterly destroyed and rooted out for 
 its good alone, but in its right doing of its hard 
 duty, and forward climbing into those spots of 
 forlorn hope where it alone can bear witness to 
 the kindness and presence of the Spirit that 
 cutteth out rivers among the rocks, as it covers 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 335 
 
 the valleys with corn: and there, in its vanward 
 place, and only there, where nothing is withdrawn 
 iOr it, nor hurt by it, and where nothing can take 
 part of its honour, nor usurp its throne, are its 
 strength, and fairness, and price, and goodness 
 in the sight of God, to be truly esteemed. 
 
 The first time that I saw the soldanella alpina, 
 it was growing, of magnificent size, on a sunny 
 Alpine pasture, among bleating of sheep and 
 lowing of cattle, associated with a profusion of 
 geum montanum, and ranunculus pyrenaeus. I 
 noticed it only because new to me, nor perceived 
 any peculiar beauty in its cloven flower. Some 
 days after, I found it alone, among the rack of 
 the higher clouds, and howling of glacier winds, 
 and, as I described it, piercing through an edge 
 of avalanche, which in its retiring had left the 
 new ground brown and lifeless, and as if burned 
 by recent fire; the plant was poor and feeble, 
 and seemingly exhausted with its efforts, but it 
 was then that I comprehended its ideal character, 
 and saw its noble function and order of glory 
 among the constellations of the earth. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 
 
 One of the frescoes by Ambrozio Lorenzetti, 
 in the townhall of Siena, represents, by means 
 
33^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 of symbolical figures, the principles of Good 
 Civic Government and of Good Government 
 in general. The figure representing this noble 
 Civic Government is enthroned, and sur- 
 rounded by figures representing the Virtues," 
 variously supporting or administering its author- 
 ity. Now, observe what work is given to each 
 of these virtues. Three winged ones — Faith, 
 Hope, and Charity — surrounded the head of the 
 figure, not in mere compliance with the com- 
 mon and heraldic laws of precedence among 
 Virtues, such as we moderns observe habitu- 
 ally, but with peculiar purpose on the part of 
 the painter. Faith, as thus represented, ruling 
 the thoughts of the Good Governor, does not 
 mean merely religious faith, understood in those 
 times to be necessary to all persons — governed 
 no less than governors — but it means the faith 
 which enables work to be carried out steadily, in 
 spite of adverse appearances and expediencies, 
 the faith in great principles, by which a civic 
 ruler looks past all the immediate checks and 
 shadows that would daunt a common man, know- 
 ing that what is rightly done will have a right 
 issue, and holding his way in spite of pullings at 
 his cloak and whisperings in his ear, enduring, 
 as having in him a faith which is evidence 
 of things unseen. And Hope, in like manner, is 
 here not the heavenward hope which ought to 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 2>2>7 
 
 animate the hearts of all men; but she attends 
 upon Good Government, to show that all such 
 government is expectant as well as conservative ; 
 that if it ceases to be hopeful of better things, it 
 ceases to be a wise guardian of present things: 
 that it ought never, as long as the world lasts, to 
 be wholly content with any existing state of in- 
 stitution or possession, but to be hopeful still of 
 more wisdom and power; not clutching at it 
 restlessly or hastily, but feeling that its real life 
 consists in steady ascent from high to higher: 
 conservative, indeed, and jealously conservative 
 of old things, but conservative of them as pillars, 
 not as pinnacles — as aids, but not as Idols; and 
 hopeful chiefly, and active, in times of national 
 trial or distress, according to those first and 
 notable words describing the queenly nation. 
 "She riseth, ivhile it is yet night'' And again, 
 the winged Charity which is attendant on Good 
 Government has, in this fresco, a peculiar office. 
 Can you guess what? If you consider the char- 
 acter of contest which so often takes place 
 among kings for their crowns, and the selfish 
 and tyrannous means they commonly take to 
 aggrandize or secure their power, you will, per- 
 haps, be surprised to hear that the office of 
 Charity is to crown the King. And yet, if you 
 think of it a little, you will see the beauty of the 
 thought which sets her in this function: since in 
 
338 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 the first place, all the authority of a good gov- 
 ernor should be desired by him only for the 
 good of his people, so that it is only Love that 
 makes him accept or guard his crown: in the 
 Second place, his chief greatness consists in the 
 exercise of this love, and he is truly to be revered 
 only so far as his acts and thoughts are those of 
 kindness; so that Love is the light of his crown, 
 as well as the giver of it: lastly, because his 
 strength depends on the affections of his people, 
 and it is only their love which can securely 
 crown him, and for ever. So that Love is the 
 strength of his crown as well as the light of it. 
 
 Then, surrounding the King, or in various 
 obedience to him, appear the dependent virtues, 
 as Fortitude, Temperance, Truth, and other 
 attendant spirits, of all which I cannot now give 
 account, wishing you only to notice the one to 
 whom are entrusted the guidance and adminis- 
 tration of the public revenues. Can you guess 
 which it is likely to be? Charity, you would 
 have thought, should have something to do with 
 the business; but not so, for she is too hot to 
 attend carefully to it. Prudence, perhaps, you 
 think of in the next place. No, she is too timid, 
 and loses opportunities in making up her mind. 
 Can it be Liberality then? No: Liberality is 
 entrusted with some small sums; but she is a 
 bad accountant, and is allowed no important 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 33Q 
 
 place in the excheciuer. But the treasures are 
 given in charge to a virtue of which we hear too 
 little in modern times, as distinct from others; 
 Magnanimity: largeness of heart: not softness or 
 weakness of heart, mind you — but capacity oi 
 heart — the great 77icasuring virtue, which weighs 
 in heavenly balances all that may be given, and 
 all that may be gained; and sees how to do 
 noblest things in noblest ways: which of two 
 goods comprehends and therefore chooses the 
 greatest: which of two personal sacrifices dares 
 and accepts the largest: which, out of the avenues 
 of beneficence, treads always that which opens 
 farthest into the blue fields of futurity: that 
 character, in fine, which, in those words taken by 
 us at first for the description of a Queen among 
 the nations, looks less to the present power than 
 to the distant promise; "Strength and honour 
 are in her clothing, — and she shall rejoice in 
 
 TIME TO COME." 
 
 ASSIMILATION AND INDIVIDUALITY. 
 
 It is a lamentable and unnatural thing to see a 
 number of men subject to no government, actu- 
 ated by no ruling principle, and associated i)y 
 no common affection: but it would be a more 
 lamentable thing still, were it possible, to see a 
 
340 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 number of men so oppressed into assimilation as 
 to have no more any individual hope or charac- 
 ter, no differences in aim, no dissimilarities of 
 passion, no irregularities of judgment; a society 
 in which no man could help another, since none 
 would be feebler than himself; no man admire 
 another, since none would be stronger than him- 
 self; no man be grateful to another, since by 
 none he could be relieved; no man reverence 
 another, since by none he could be instructed; 
 a society in which every soul would be as the 
 syllable of a stammerer instead of the word of a 
 speaker, in which every man would walk as in a 
 frightful dream, seeing spectres of himself, in 
 everlasting multiplication, gliding helplessly 
 around him in a speechless darkness. There- 
 fore it is that perpetual difference, play, and 
 change in groups of form are more essential to 
 them even than their being subdued by some 
 great gathering law: the law is needful to them 
 for their perfection and their power, but the dif- 
 ference is needful to them for their life. 
 
 A SOLEMN WARNING. 
 
 The phases of transition in the moral temper 
 of the falling Venetians, during their fall, were 
 from pride to infidelity, and from infidelity to 
 the unscrupulous pursuit of pleasure. During 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 341 
 
 the last years of the existence of the state, the 
 minds both of the nobility and the people seem 
 to have been set simply upon the attainment of 
 the means of self-indulgence. There was not 
 strength enough in them to be proud, nor fore- 
 thought enough to be ambitious. One by one 
 the possessions of the state were abandoned to 
 its enemies; one by one the channels of its trade 
 Were forsaken by its own languor, or occupied and 
 closed against it by its more energetic rivals; 
 and the time, the resources, and the thoughts of 
 the nation were exclusively occupied in the in- 
 vention of such fantastic and costly pleasures as 
 might best amuse their apathy, lull their remorse, 
 or disguise their ruin. 
 
 It is as needless, as it is painful, to trace the 
 steps of her final ruin. That ancient curse was 
 upon her, the curse of the cities of the plain, 
 " Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of 
 idleness." By the inner burning of her own 
 passions, as fatal as the fiery rain of Gomorrah, 
 she was consumed from her place among the 
 nations; and her ashes are choking the channels 
 of the dead salt sea. 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 Among the countless analogies by which the 
 nature and relations of the human soul are illus- 
 
342 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 trated in the material creation, none are more 
 striking than the impressions inseparably con- 
 nected with the active and dormant states of 
 matter. I have elsewhere endeavoured to show, 
 that no inconsiderable part of the essential char- 
 acters of Beauty depended on the expression of 
 vital energy in organic things, or on the subjec- 
 tion to such energy, of things naturall} passive 
 and powerless. I need not here repeat, of what 
 was then advanced, more than the statement 
 which I believe will meet with general accept- 
 ance, that things in other respects alike, as in 
 their substance, or uses, or outward forms, are 
 noble or ignoble in proportion to the fulness of 
 the life which either they themselves enjoy, or of 
 whose action they bear the evidence, as sea 
 sands are made beautiful by their bearing the 
 seal of the motion of the waters. And this is 
 especially true of all objects which bear upon 
 them the impress of the highest order of crea- 
 tive life, that is to say, of the mind of man : 
 they become noble or ignoble in proportion to 
 the amount of the energy of that mind which 
 has visibly been employed upon them. But most 
 peculiarly and imperatively does the rule hold 
 with respect to the creations of Architecture, 
 which being properly capable of no other life 
 than this, and being not essentially composed of 
 things pleasant in themselves, — as music of sweet 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGH IS. 343 
 
 sounds, or painting of fair colours, but of inert 
 substance, — depend, for their dignity and pleas- 
 urableness in the utmost degree, upon the vivid 
 expression of the intellectual life which has been 
 concerned in their production. 
 
 Now in all other kind of energies except that 
 of man's mind, there is no question as to what is 
 life, and what is not. Vital sensibility, whether 
 vegetable or animal, may, indeed, be reduced to 
 so great feebleness, as to render its existence a 
 matter of question, but when it i evident at all, 
 it is evident as such: there is no mistaking any 
 imitation or pretence of it for the life itself; 
 no mechanism nor galvanism can take its place; 
 nor is any resemblance of it so striking as to in- 
 volve even hesitation in the judgment; although 
 many occur which the human imagination takes 
 pleasure in exalting, without for an instant losing 
 sight of the real nature of the dead things it ani- 
 mates; but rejoicing rather in its own excessive 
 life, which puts gesture into clouds, and joy into 
 waves, and voices into rocks. 
 
 But when we begin to be concerned with the 
 energies of man, we find ourselves instantly deal- 
 ing with a double creature. Most part of his 
 being seems to have a fictitious counterpart, 
 which it is at his peril if he do not cast off and 
 deny. Thus he has a true and false (otherwise 
 called a living and dead, or a feigned or un- 
 
344 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 feigned) faith. He has a true and a false hope* a 
 true and a false charity, and, finally, a true and a 
 false life. His true life is like that of lower or- 
 ganic beings, the independent force by which he 
 moulds and governs external things; it is a force 
 of assimilation which converts everything around 
 him into food, or into instruments; and which, 
 however humbly or obediendy it may listen to or 
 follow the guidance of superior intelligence, never 
 forfeits its own authority as a judging principle, 
 as a will capable either of obeying or rebelling. 
 His false life is, indeed, but one of the condi- 
 tions of death or stupor, but it acts, even when 
 it cannot be said to animate, and is not always 
 easily known from the true. It is that life of 
 custom and accident in which many of us pass 
 much of our time in the world; that life in which 
 we do what we have not purposed, and speak 
 what we do not mean, and assent to what we do 
 not understand; that life which is overlaid by the 
 weight of things external to it, and is moulded by 
 them, instead of assimilating them; that, which 
 instead of growing and blossoming under any 
 wholesome dew, is crystallised over with it, as 
 with hoar frost, and becomes to the true life what 
 an arborescence is to a tree, a candied agglomer- 
 ation of thoughts and habits foreign to it, brittle, 
 obstinate, and icy, which can neither bend nor 
 grow, but must be crushed and broken to bits, if 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 345 
 
 it stand in our way. All men are liable to be in 
 some degree frost-bitten in this sort; all are partly 
 encumbered and crusted over with idle matter; 
 only, if they have real life in them, they are al- 
 ways breaking this bark away in noble rents, until 
 it becomes, like the black strips upon the birch- 
 tree, only a witness of their own inward strength. 
 But, with all the efforts that the best men make, 
 much of their being passes in a kind of dream, 
 in which they indeed move, and play their parts 
 sufficiently, to the eyes of their fellow-dreamers, 
 but have no clear consciousness of what is around 
 them, or within them; blind to the one, insensi- 
 ble to the other, vaodpoi. I would not press 
 the definition into its darker application to the 
 dull heart and heavy ear; I have to do with it 
 only as it refers to the too frequent condition of 
 natural existence, whether of nations or individ- 
 uals, settling commonly upon them in proportion 
 to their age. The life of a nation is usually, like 
 the flow of a lava stream, first bright and fierce, 
 then languid and covered, at last advancing only 
 by the tumbling over and over of its frozen 
 blocks. And that last condition is a sad one to 
 look upon. All the steps are marked most clearly 
 in the arts, and in Architecture more than in any 
 other; for it, being especially dependent, as we 
 have just said, on the warmth of the true life, is 
 also peculiarly sensible of the hemlock cold of 
 
346 FRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 the false, and I do not know anything more op- 
 pressive, when the mind is once awakened to its 
 characteristics, than the aspect of a dead archi- 
 tecture. The feebleness of childhood is full of 
 promise and of interest, — the struggle of imper- 
 fect knowledge full of energy and continuity, — 
 but to see impotence and rigidity settling upon 
 the form of the developed man; to see the types 
 which once had the die of thought struck fresh 
 upon them, worn flat by overuse; to see the shell 
 of the living creature in its adult form, when its 
 colours are faded, and its inhabitant perished, — 
 this is a sight more humiliating, more melan- 
 choly, than the vanishing of all knowledge, and 
 the return to confessed and helpless infancy. 
 
 LOVE AND FEAR. 
 
 Two great and principal passions are evidently 
 appointed by the Deity to rule the life of man; 
 namely, the love of God, and the fear of sin, and 
 of its companion — Death. How many motives 
 we have for Love, how much there is in the uni- 
 verse to kindle our admiration and to claim our 
 gratitude, there are, happily, multitudes among 
 us who both feel and teach. But it has not, I 
 think, been sufficiently considered how evident, 
 throughout the system of creation, is the pur- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. S47 
 
 pose of God that we should often be affected 
 by Fear; not the sudden, selfish, and contempt- 
 ible fear of immediate danger, but the fear which 
 arises out of the contemplation of great powers 
 in destructive operation, and generally from the 
 perception of the presence of death. Nothing 
 appears to me more remarkable than [the array 
 of scenic magnificence by which the imagination 
 is appalled, in myriads of instances, when the 
 actual danger is comparatively small; so that 
 the utmost possible impression of awe shall be 
 produced upon the minds of all, though direct 
 suffering is inflicted upon few. Consider, for 
 instance, the moral effect of a single thunder- 
 storm. Perhaps two or three persons may be 
 struck dead within the space of a hundred 
 square miles; and their deaths, unaccompanied 
 by the scenery of the storm, would produce 
 little more than a momentary sadness in the busy 
 hearts of living men. But the preparation for 
 the Judgment, by all that mighty gathering of 
 clouds; by the questioning of the forest leaves, 
 in their terrified stillness, which way the winds 
 shall go forth; by the murmuring to each other, 
 deep in the distance, of the destroying angels 
 before they draw forth their swords of fire; by 
 the march of the funeral darkness in the midst 
 of the noon-day, and the rattling of the dome of 
 heaven beneath the chariot-wheels of death; — on 
 
348 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 how many minds do not these produce an im- 
 pression almost as great as the actual witnessing 
 of the fatal issue! and how strangely are the ex- 
 pressions of the threatening elements fitted to 
 the apprehension of the human soul! The lurid 
 colour, the long, irregular, convulsive sound, the 
 ghastly shapes of flaming and heaving cloud, are 
 all as true and faithful in their appeal to our in- 
 stinct of danger, as the moaning or wailing of the 
 human voice itself is to our instinct of pity. It 
 is not a reasonable calculating terror which they 
 awake in us; it is no matter that we count dis- 
 tance by seconds, and measure probability by 
 averages. That shadow of the thunder-cloud 
 will still do its work upon our hearts, and we 
 shall watch its passing av/ay as if we stood upon 
 the threshing-floor of Araunah. 
 
 And this is equally the case with respect to all 
 the other destructive phenomena of the universe. 
 From the mightiest of them to the gentlest, from 
 the earthquake to the summer shower, it will be 
 found that they are attended by certain aspects 
 of threatening, which strike terror into the hearts 
 of multitudes more numerous a thousandfold than 
 those v/ho actually suffer from the ministries of 
 judgment; and that besides the fearfulness of 
 these immediately dangerous phenomena,j there 
 is an occult and subtle horror belonging to many 
 aspects of the creation around us, calculated often 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 349 
 
 to fill us with serious thought, even in our times 
 of quietness and peace.* 
 
 INVOLUNTARY INSTRUMENTS OF GOOD. 
 
 Wherever we see the virtue of ardent labour 
 and self-surrendering to a single purpose, wher- 
 ever we find constant reference made to the 
 written scripture of natural beauty, this at least 
 we know is great and good, this we know is not 
 granted by the counsel of God, without purpose, 
 nor maintained without result: Their interpreta- 
 tion we may accept, into their labour we may 
 enter, but they themselves must look to it, if 
 what they do has no intent of good, nor any ref- 
 erence to the Giver of all gifts. Selfish in their 
 industry, unchastened in their wills, ungrateful 
 for the Spirit that is upon them, they may yet be 
 helmed by that Spirit whithersoever the Governor 
 listeth; involuntary instruments they may be- 
 come of others' good; unwillingly they may bless 
 
 * The Love of God is, however, always shown by the 
 predominance or greater sum of good in the end; but 
 never by the annihilation of evil. The modern doubts of 
 eternal punishment are not so much the consequence of 
 benevolence as of feeble powers of reasoning. Every one 
 admits that God brings finite good out of finite evil. 
 Why not, therefore, infinite good out of infinite evil ? 
 
350 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 Israel, doubtingly discomfit Amalek, but short- 
 coming there will be of their glory, and sure, of 
 their punishment. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 It seems to me, not only that this feeling is in 
 most cases wholly wanting in those who forward 
 the devotional buildings of the present day; but 
 that it would even be regarded as an ignorant, 
 dangerous, or perhaps criminal principle by many 
 among us. I have not space to enter into dis- 
 pute of all the various objections which may be 
 urged against it — they are many and specious; 
 but I may, perhaps, ask the reader's patience 
 while I set down those simple reasons which 
 cause me to believe it a good and just feeling, 
 and as well-pleasing to God and honourable in 
 men, as it is beyond all dispute necessary to the 
 production of any great work in the kind with 
 which we are at present concerned. 
 
 Now, first, to define this Spirit of Sacrifice, 
 clearly. I have said that it prompts us to the 
 offering of precious things, merely because they 
 are precious, not because they are useful or nec- 
 essary. It is a spirit, for instance, which of two 
 marbles, equally beautiful, applicable, and dur- 
 able, would choose the more costly, because it 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 351 
 
 was so, and of two kinds of decoration, equally 
 effective, would choose the more elaborate be- 
 cause it was so, in order that it might in the same 
 compass present more cost and more thought. 
 It is therefore most unreasoning and enthusiastic, 
 and perhaps best negatively defined, as the oppo- 
 site of the prevalent feeling of modern time, 
 which desires to produce the largest results at the 
 least cost. 
 
 Of this feeling, then, there are two distinct 
 forms: the first, the wish to exercise self-denial 
 for the sake of self-discipline merely, a wish 
 acted upon in the abandonment of things loved 
 or desired, there being no direct call or purpose 
 to be answered by so doing; and the second, the 
 desire to honour or please some one else by the 
 costliness of the sacrifice. The practice is, in 
 the first case, either private or public; but most 
 frequently, and perhaps most properly, private; 
 while, in the latter case, the act is commonly, 
 and with greatest advantage, public. Now, it 
 cannot but at first appear futile to assert the ex- 
 pediency of self-denial for its own sake, when, 
 for so many sakes, it is every day necessary to a 
 far greater degree than any of us practise it. 
 But I believe it is just because we do not enough 
 acknowledge or contemplate it as a good in it- 
 self, that we are apt to fail in its duties w^hen 
 they become imperative, and to calculate, with 
 
352 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 some partiality, whether the good proposed to 
 others measures or warrants the amount of griev- 
 ance to ourselves, instead of accepting with glad- 
 ness the opportunity of sacrifice as a personal 
 advantage. Be this as it may, it is not necessary 
 to insist upon the matter here; since there are 
 always higher and more useful channels of self- 
 sacrifice, for those who choose to practise it, 
 than any connected with the arts. 
 
 While in its second branch, that which is 
 especially concerned with the arts, the justice of 
 the feeling is still more doubtful; it depends on 
 our answer to the broad question, can the Deity 
 be indeed honoured by the presentation to Him 
 of any material objects of value, or by any direc 
 tion of zeal or wisdom which is not immediately 
 beneficial to men? 
 
 For, observe, it is not now the question whether 
 the fairness and majesty of a building may or 
 may not answer any moral purpose; it is not the 
 result of labour in any sort of which we are speak- 
 ing, but the bare and mere costliness — the sub- 
 stance and labour and time themselves: are 
 these, we ask, independently of their result, ac- 
 ceptable offerings to God, and considered by 
 Him as doing Him honour ? So long as we refer 
 this question to the decision of feeling, or of 
 conscience, or of reason merely, it will be contra- 
 dictorily or imperfectly answered; it admits of 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 353 
 
 entire answer only when we have met another 
 and a far different question, whether the Bible be 
 indeed one book or two, and whether the charac- 
 ter of God revealed in the Old Testament be 
 other than His character revealed in the New. 
 
 Now, it is a most secure truth, that, although 
 the particular ordinances divinely appointed for 
 special purposes at any given period of man's 
 history, may be by the same divine authority 
 abrogated at another, it is impossible that any 
 character of God, appealed to or described in any 
 ordinance past or present, can ever be changed, 
 or understood as changed, by the abrogation of 
 that ordinance. God is one and the same, and 
 is pleased or displeased by the same thing for 
 ever, although one part of His pleasure may be 
 expressed at one time rather than another, and 
 although the mode in which His pleasure is to 
 be consulted may be by Him graciously modified 
 to the circumstances of men. Thus, for instance, 
 it was necessary that, in order to the understand- 
 ing by man of the scheme of Redemption, that 
 scheme should be foreshown from the beginning 
 by the type of bloody sacrifice. But God had no 
 more pleasure in such sacrifice in the time of 
 Moses than He has now; He never accepted as 
 a propitiation for sin any sacrifice but the single 
 one in prospective; and that we may not enter- 
 tain any shadow of doubt on this subject, the 
 
354 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 worthlessness of all other sacrifice than this is 
 proclaimed at the very time when typical sacrifice 
 was most imperatively demanded. God was a 
 spirit, and could be worshipped only in spirit and 
 in truth, as singly and exclusively when every day 
 brought its claim of typical and material service 
 or offering, as now when He asks for none but 
 that of the heart. 
 
 So, therefore, it is a most safe and sure princi- 
 ple that, if in the manner of performing any rite 
 at any time, circumstances can be traced which 
 we are either told, or may legitimately conclude, 
 pleased God at that time, those same circumN 
 stances will please Him at all times, in the 
 performance of all rites or offices to which they 
 may be attached in like manner; unless it has 
 been afterwards revealed that, for some special 
 purpose, it is now His will that such circum. 
 stances should be withdrawn. And this argument 
 will have all the more force if it can be shown 
 that such conditions were not essential to the 
 completeness of the rite in its human uses and 
 bearings, and only were added to it as being ii\ 
 themselves pleasing to God. 
 
 Now, was it necessary to the completeness, as 
 a type, of the Levitical sacrifice, or to its utility as 
 an explanation of divine purposes, that it should 
 cost anything to the person in whose behalf it 
 was offered? On the contrary, the sacrifice 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 355 
 
 which it foreshowed, was to be God's free gift; 
 and the cost of, or difficulty of obtaining, the 
 sacrificial type, could only render that type in a 
 measure obscure, and less expressive of the offer- 
 ing which God would in the end provide for all 
 men. Yet this costliness was generally a con- 
 dition of the acceptableness of the sacrifice. 
 " Neither will I offer unto the Lord my God of 
 that which doth cost me nothing." That costli- 
 ness, therefore, must be an acceptable condition 
 in all human offerings at all times; for if it was 
 pleasing to God once, it must please Him always, 
 unless directly forbidden by Him afterwards, 
 which it has never been. 
 
 Again, was it necessary to the typical perfec- 
 tion of the Levitical offering, that it should be 
 the best of the flock? Doubtless the spotlessness 
 of the sacrifice renders it more expressive to the 
 Christian mind; but was it because so expressive 
 that it was actually, and in so many words, de- 
 manded by God? Not at all. It was demanded 
 by Him expressly on the same grounds on which 
 an earthly governor would demand it, as a testi- 
 mony of respect. " Offer it now unto thy gov- 
 ernor." And the less valuable offering was re- 
 jected, not because it did not image Christ, nor 
 fulfil the purposes of sacrifice, but because it 
 indicated a feeling that would grudge the best of 
 its possessions to Him who gave them; and 
 
35^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 because it was a bold dishonouring of God in the 
 sight of man. Whence it may be infahibly con- 
 cluded, that in whatever offerings we may now 
 see reason to present unto God (I say not what 
 these may be), a condition of their acceptableness 
 will be now, as it was then, that they should be 
 the best of their kind. 
 
 But farther, was it necessary to the carrying 
 out of the Mosaical system, that there should be 
 either art or splendour in the form or services of 
 the tabernacle or temple? Was it necessary to 
 the perfection of any one of their typical offices, 
 that there should be that hanging of blue, and 
 purple, and scarlet? those taches of brass and 
 sockets of silver? that working in cedar and over- 
 laying with gold? One thing at least is evident: 
 there was a deep and awful danger in it; a 
 danger that the God whom they so worshipped, 
 might be associated in the minds of the serfs of 
 Egypt with the gods to whom they had seen 
 similar gifts offered and similar honours paid. 
 The probability, in our times, of fellowship with 
 the feelings of the idolatrous Romanist is abso- 
 lutely as nothing compared with the danger to 
 the Israelite of a sympathy with the idolatrous 
 Egyptian; no speculative, no unproved danger; 
 but proved fatally by their fall during a month's 
 abandonment to their own will; a fall into the 
 most servile idolatry; yet marked by such offer- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 357 
 
 ings to their idol as their leader was, in the close 
 sequel, instructed to bid them offer to God. 
 This danger was imminent, perpetual, and of the 
 most awful kind: it was the one against which 
 God made provision, not only by commandments, 
 by threatenings, by promises, the most urgent, re- 
 peated, and impressive; but by temporary ordi- 
 nances of a severity so terrible as almost to dim 
 for a time, in the eyes of His people, His attri- 
 bute of mercy. 
 
 HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 At the debate of King Edwin with his cour- 
 tiers and priests, whether he ought to receive the 
 Gospel preached to him by Paulinus, one of his 
 nobles spoke as follows: — 
 
 " The present life, O king! weighed with the 
 time that is unknown, seems to me like this. 
 When you are sitting at a feast with your earls 
 and thanes in winter time, and the fire is lighted, 
 and the hall is warmed, and it rains and snows, 
 and the storm is loud without, there comes a 
 sparrow, and flies through the house. It comes 
 in at one door, and goes out at the other. While 
 it is within, it is not touched by the winter's 
 storm; but it is but for the twinkling of an eye, 
 for from winter it comes and to winter it returns. 
 
358 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 So also this life of man endureth for a little space; 
 what goes before, or what follows after, we know 
 not. Wherefore, if this new lore bring anything 
 more certain, it is fit that we should follow it." 
 
 Hear another story of those early times. 
 
 The king of Jerusalem, Godfrey of Bouillon, 
 at the siege of Asshur, or Arsur, gave audience 
 to some emirs from Samaria and Naplous. They 
 found him seated on the ground on a sack of 
 straw. They expressing surprise, Godfrey an- 
 swered them: " May not the earth, out of which 
 we came, and which is to be our dwelling after 
 death, serve us for a seat during life?" 
 
 It is long since such a throne has been set in 
 the reception-chambers of Christendom, or such 
 an answer heard from the lips of a king. 
 
 ASCETICISM. 
 
 Three principal forms of asceticism have ex- 
 isted in this weak world. Religious asceticism, 
 being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for 
 the sake (as supposed) of religion; seen chiefly 
 in the middle ages. Military asceticism, being 
 the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the 
 sake of power; seen chiefly in the early days of 
 Sparta and Rome. And monetary asceticism, 
 consisting in the refusal of pleasure and knowl- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 359 
 
 edge for the sake of money; seen in the present 
 days of London and Manchester. 
 
 " We do not come here to look at the moun- 
 tains," said the Carthusian to me at the Grande 
 Chartreuse. "We do not come here to look at 
 the mountains," the Austrian generals would say, 
 encamping by the shores of Garda. " We do not 
 come here to look at the mountains," so the 
 thriving manufacturers tell me, between Rochdale 
 and Halifax. 
 
 All these asceticisms have their bright and 
 their dark sides. I myself like the military as- 
 ceticism best, because it is not so necessarily a 
 refusal of general knowledge as the two others, 
 but leads to acute and marvellous use of mind, 
 and perfect use of body. Nevertheless, none of 
 the three are a healthy or central state of man. 
 There is much to be respected in each, but they 
 are not what we should wish large numbers of 
 men to become. A monk of La Trappe, a 
 French soldier of the Imperial Guard, and a 
 thriving mill-owner, supposing each a type, and 
 no more than a type, of his class, are all interest- 
 ing specimens of humanity, but narrow ones, — 
 so narrow that even all the three together would 
 not make a perfect man. Nor does it appear in 
 any way desirable that either of the three classes 
 should extend itself so as to include a majority 
 of the persons in the world. 
 
3^0 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 CHEERFULNESS. 
 
 Cheerfulness is just as natural to the heart of 
 a man in strong health as color to his cheek; 
 and wherever there is habitual gloom, there must 
 be either bad air, unwholesome food, improperly 
 severe labour, or erring habits of life. 
 
 FANCY AND REALITY. 
 
 Be assured of the great truth — that what is 
 impossible in reality is ridiculous in fancy. If it 
 is not in the nature of things that peasants should 
 be gentle and happy, then the imagination of 
 such peasantry is ridiculous, and to delight in 
 such imagination wrong; as delight in any 
 kind of falsehood is always. But if in the nature 
 of things it be possible that among the wildness 
 of hills the human heart should be refined, and 
 if the comfort of dress, and the gentleness of 
 language, and the joy of progress in knowledge, 
 and of variety in thought, [are ^possible to the 
 mountaineer in his true existence, let us strive to 
 write this true poetry upon the rocks before we 
 indulge it in our visions, and try whether, among 
 all the fine arts, one of the finest be not that of 
 painting cheeks with health rather than rouge. 
 
 " But is such refinement possible? "^o not the 
 
PI^ECIOUS THOUGHTS. 3^1 
 
 conditions of the mountain peasant's life, in the 
 plurality of instances, necessarily forbid it?" 
 
 As bearing sternly on this question, it is nec- 
 essary to examine one peculiarity of feeling which 
 manifests itself among the European nations, so 
 far as I have noticed, irregularly, — appearing 
 sometimes to be the characteristic of a particular 
 time, sometimes of a particular race, sometimes of 
 a particular locality, and to involve at once much 
 that is to be blamed and much that is praise- 
 worthy. I mean the capability of enduring, or 
 even delighting in, the contemplation of objects 
 of terror — a sentiment which especially influences 
 the temper of some groups of mountaineers, and 
 of which it is necessary to examine the causes, 
 before we can form any conjecture whatever as to 
 the real effect of mountains on human character. 
 
 For instance, the unhappy alterations which 
 have lately taken place in the town of Lucerne 
 have still spared two of its ancient bridges; both 
 of which, being long covered walks, appear, in 
 past times, to have been to the population of the 
 town what the Mall was to London, or the 
 Gardens of the Tuileries are to Paris. For the 
 continual contemplation of those who sauntered 
 from pier to pier, pictures were painted on the 
 woodwork of the roof. These pictures, in the 
 one bridge, represent all the important Swiss bat- 
 tles and victories; in the other they are the well- 
 
362 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 known series of which Longfellow has made so 
 beautiful a use in the Golden Legend, the Dance 
 of Death. 
 
 Imagine the countenances with which a com- 
 mittee, appointed for the establishment of a new 
 " promenade " in some flourishing modern town, 
 would receive a proposal to adorn such prome- 
 nade with pictures of the Dance of Death. 
 
 Now just so far as the old bridge at Lucerne, 
 with the pure, deep, and blue water of the Reuss 
 eddying down between its piers, and with the 
 sweet darkness of green hills, and far-away 
 gleaming of lake and Alps alternating upon the 
 eye on either side; and the gloomy lesson frown- 
 ing in the shadow, as if the deep tone of a pass- 
 ing-bell, overhead, were mingling for ever with 
 the plashing of the river as it glides by beneath; 
 just so far, I say, as this differs from the straight 
 and smooth strip of level dust, between two rows 
 of round topped acacia trees, wherein the inhabi- 
 tants of an English watering-place or French 
 fortified town take their delight, — so far I believe 
 the life of the old Lucernois, with all its happy 
 waves of light, and mountain strength of will, 
 and solemn expectation of eternity, to have dif- 
 fered from the generality of the lives of those 
 who saunter for their habitual hour up and down 
 the modern promenade. But the gloom is not 
 always of this noble kind. As we penetrate 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 363 
 
 farther among the hills we shall find it becoming 
 very painful. We are walking, perhaps, in a 
 summer afternoon, up the valley of Zermatt (a 
 German valley), the sun shining brightly on 
 grassy knolls and through fringes of pines, the 
 goats leaping happily, and the cattle bells ring- 
 ing sweetly, and the snowy mountains shining 
 like heavenly castles far above. We see, a little 
 way off, a small white chapel, sheltered behind 
 one of the flowery hillocks of mountain turf; and 
 we approach its little window, thinking to look 
 through it into some quiet home of prayer; but 
 the window is grated with iron, and open to the 
 winds, and when we look through it, behold — a 
 heap of white human bones mouldering into 
 whiter dust! 
 
 So also in that same sweet valley, of which I 
 have just been speaking, between Chamouni and 
 the Valais, at every turn of the pleasant path- 
 way, where the scent of the thyme lies richest 
 upon its rocks, we shall see a little cross and 
 shrine set under one of them; and go up to it, 
 hoping to receive some happy thought of the 
 Redeemer, by whom all these lovely things were 
 made, and still consist. But when we come 
 near — behold, beneath the cross, a rude picture 
 of souls tormented in red tongues of hell fire, and 
 pierced by demons. 
 
 As we paos towards Italy the appearance 
 
364 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 of this gloom deepens; and when we descend 
 the southern slope of the Alps we shall find this 
 bringing forward of the image of Death asso- 
 ciated with an endurance of the most painful 
 aspects of disease; so that conditions of human 
 suffering, which in any other country would 
 be confined in hospitals, are permitted to be 
 openly exhibited by the wayside; and with this 
 exposure of the degraded human form is farther 
 connected an insensibility to ugliness and imper- 
 fection in other things; so that the ruined wall, 
 neglected garden, and uncleansed chamber, seem 
 to unite in expressing a gloom of spirit possess- 
 ing the inhabitants of the whole land. It does 
 not appear to arise from poverty, nor careless 
 contentment with little: there is here nothing of 
 Irish recklessness or humour; but there seems a 
 settled obscurity in the soul, — a chill and plague, 
 as if risen out of a sepulchre, which partly 
 deadens, partly darkens, the eyes and hearts of 
 men, and breathes a leprosy of decay through 
 every breeze and every stone. " Instead of well- 
 set hair, baldness, and burning instead of beauty." 
 Nor are definite proofs wanting that the feel- 
 ing is independent of mere poverty or indolence. 
 In the most gorgeous and costly palace garden 
 the statues will be found green with moss, the 
 terraces defaced or broken; the palace itself, 
 partly coated with marble, is left in other places 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 365 
 
 rough with cementless and jagged brick, its iron 
 balconies bent and rusted, its pavements over- 
 grown with grass. The more energetic the effort 
 has been to recover from this state, and to shake 
 off all appearance of poverty, the more assuredly 
 the curse seems to fasten on the scene, and the 
 unslaked mortar, and unfinished wall, and ghastly 
 desolation of incompleteness, entangled in decay, 
 strike a deeper despondency into the beholder. 
 
 The feeling would be also more easily ac- 
 counted for if it appeared consistent in its re- 
 gardlessness of beauty, — if what was done were 
 altogether as inefficient as what was deserted. 
 But the balcony, though rusty and broken, is 
 delicate in design, and supported on a nobly 
 carved slab of marble; the window, though 
 a mere black rent in ragged plaster, is encircled 
 by a garland of vine and fronted by a thicket of 
 the sharp leaves and aurora-coloured flowers of 
 the oleander; the court-yard, overgrown by 
 mournful grass, is terminated by a bright fresco 
 of gardens and fountains; the corpse, borne with 
 the bare face to heaven, is strewn with flowers; 
 beauty is continually mingled with the shadow of 
 death. 
 
 So also is a kind of merriment, — not true 
 cheerfulness, neither careless or idle jesting, but 
 a determined effort at gaiety, a resolute laughter, 
 mixed with much satire, grossness, and practical 
 
66 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 buffoonery, and, it always seemed to me, void of 
 all comfort or hope, — with this eminent charac- 
 ter in it also, that it is capable of touching with 
 its bitterness even the most fearful subjects, so 
 that as the love of beauty retains its tenderness 
 in the presence of death, this love of jest also 
 retains its boldness, and the skeleton becomes 
 one of the standard masques of the Italian 
 comedy. When I was in Venice, in 1850, the 
 most popular piece of the comic opera was 
 '' Death and the Cobbler," in which the point of 
 the plot was the success of a village cobbler as a 
 physician, in consequence of the appearance of 
 Death to him beside the bed of every patient 
 who was not to recover; and the most applauded 
 scene in it was one in which the physician, inso- 
 lent in success, and swollen with luxury, was 
 himself taken down into the abode of Death, and 
 thrown into an agony of terror by being shown 
 lives of men, under the form of wasting lamps, 
 and his own ready to expire. 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 
 
 The reason that preaching is so commonly in- 
 effectual is, that it calls on men oftener to work 
 for God, than to behold God working for them. 
 In every rebuke that we utter of men's vices, we 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 367 
 
 ]Hit forth a claim upon their hearts: if for every 
 assertion of God's demands from them, we could 
 substitute a display of his kindness to them; if 
 side by side with every warning of death, we 
 could exhibit proofs and promises of immor- 
 tality; if, in fine, instead of assuming the being 
 of an awful Deity, which men, though they can- 
 not and dare not deny, are always unwilling, 
 sometimes unable, to conceive, we were to show 
 them a near, visible, inevitable, but all-beneficent 
 Deity, whose presence makes the earth itself a 
 heaven, I think there would be fewer deaf chil- 
 dren sitting in the market-place. At all events, 
 whatever may be the inability in this present life 
 to mingle the full enjoyment of the Divine works 
 with the full discharge of every practical duty, 
 and confessedly in many cases this must be, let 
 us not a.ttribute the inconsistency to any indig- 
 nity of the faculty of contemplation, but to the 
 sin and the suffering of the fallen state, and the 
 change of order from the keeping of the garden 
 to the tilling of the ground. We cannot say how 
 far it is right or agreeable with God's will, while 
 men are perishing round about us, while grief, 
 and pain, and wrath, and impiety, and death, and 
 all the powers of the air, are working wildly and 
 evermore, and the cry of blood going up to 
 heaven, that any of us should take hand from 
 the plough; but this we know, that there will 
 
368 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 come a time when the service of God shall be 
 the beholding of him; and though in these 
 stormy seas, where we are now driven up and 
 down, his Spirit is dimly seen on the face of the 
 waters, and we are left to cast anchors out of 
 the stern, and wish for the day, that day will 
 come, when, with the evangelists on the crystal 
 and stable sea, all the creatures of God shall be 
 full of eyes within, and there shall be " no more 
 curse, but his servants shall serve him, and shall 
 see his face." 
 
 MILTON S AND DANTE S SATAN. 
 
 It is not possible to express intense wicked- 
 ness without some condition of degradation. 
 Malice, subtlety, and pride, in their extreme, 
 cannot be written upon noble forms; and I am 
 aware of no effort to represent the Satanic mind 
 in the angelic form, which has succeeded in 
 painting. Milton Succeeds only because he sep- 
 arately describes the movements of the mind, 
 and therefore leaves himself at liberty to make 
 the form heroic; but that form is never dis- 
 tinct enough to be painted. Dante, who will not 
 leave even external forms obscure, degrades 
 them before he can feel them to be demoniacal; 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 369 
 
 so also John Bunyan: both of them, I think, 
 having firmer faith than Milton's in their own 
 creations, and deeper insight into the nature of 
 sin. Milton makes his fiends too noble, and 
 misses the foulness, inconsistency, and fury of 
 wickedness. His Satan possesses some virtues, 
 not the less virtues for being applied to evil pur- 
 pose. Courage, resolution, patience, delibera- 
 tion in council, this latter being eminently a wise 
 and holy character, as opposed to the " Insania" 
 or excessive sin: and all this, if not a shallow 
 and false, is a smoothed and artistical, concep- 
 tion. On the other hand, I have always felt 
 that there was a peculiar grandeur in the inde- 
 scribable ungovernable fury of Dante's fiends, 
 ever shortening its own powers, and disappoint- 
 ing its own purposes; the deaf, blind, speechless, 
 unspeakable rage, fierce as the lightning, but 
 erring from its mark or turning senselessly 
 against itself, and still further debased by foul- 
 ness of form and action. Something is indeed 
 to be allowed for the rude feelings of the time, 
 but I believe all such men as Dante are sent 
 into the world at the time when they can do 
 their work best; and that, it being appointed for 
 him to give to mankind the most vigorous reali- 
 zation possible both of Hell and Heaven, he 
 was born both in the country and at the time 
 which furnished the most stern opposition of 
 
3;o PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 Horror and Beauty, and permitted it to be writ- 
 ten in the clearest terms. 
 
 MAN S DELIGHT IN GOD S WORKS. 
 
 Let us once comprehend the holier nature of 
 the art of man, and begin to look for the mean- 
 ing of the spirit, however syllabled, and the 
 scene is changed; and we are changed also. 
 Those small and dexterous creatures whom once 
 we worshipped, those fur-capped divinities with 
 sceptres of camel's hair, peering and pouring in 
 their one-windowed chambers over the minute 
 preciousness of the laboured canvas; how are 
 they swept away and crushed into unnoticeable 
 darkness! And in their stead, as the walls of 
 the dismal rooms that enclosed them, and us, 
 are struck by the four winds of Heaven, and 
 rent away, and as the world opens to our sight, 
 lo! far back into all the depths of time, and 
 forth from all the fields that have been sown 
 with human life, how the harvest of the dragon's 
 teeth is springing! how the companies of the 
 gods are ascending out of the earth! The dark 
 stones that have so long been the sepulchres of 
 thoughts of nations, and the forgotten ruins 
 wherein their faith lay charnelled, give up the 
 dead that were in them; and beneath the Egyp. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 371 
 
 tian ranks of sultry and silent rock, and amidst 
 the dim golden lights of the Byzantine dome, 
 and out of the confused and cold shadows of the 
 Northern cloister, behold, the multitudinous 
 souls come forth with singing, gazing on us with 
 the soft eyes of newly comprehended sympathy, 
 and stretching their white arms to us across the 
 grave, in the solemn gladness of everlasting 
 brotherhood. 
 
 The other danger to which, it was above said, 
 we were primarily exposed under our present 
 circumstances of life, is the pursuit of vain pleas- 
 ure, that is to say, false pleasure; delight, which 
 is not indeed delight; as knowledge vainly ac- 
 cumulated, is not indeed knowledge. And this 
 we are exposed to chiefly in the fact of our ceas- 
 ing to be children. For the child does not seek 
 false pleasure; its pleasures are true, simple, and 
 instinctive: but the youth is apt to abandon his 
 early and true delight for vanities, — seeking to 
 be like men, and sacrificing his natural and pure 
 enjoyments to his pride. In like manner, it 
 seems to me that modern civilization sacrifices 
 much pure and true pleasure to various forms 
 of ostentation from which it can receive no 
 fruit. Consider, for a moment, what kind of 
 pleasures are open to human nature, undiseased. 
 Passing by the consideration of the pleasures of 
 the higher affections, which lie at the root of 
 
3/2 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 everything, and considering the definite and 
 practical pleasures of daily life, there is, first, 
 the pleasure of doing good; the greatest of all, 
 only apt to be despised from not being often 
 enough tasted: and then, I know not in what 
 order to put them, nor does it matter, — the 
 pleasure of gaining knowledge; the pleasure of 
 the excitement of imagination and emotion (or 
 poetry and passion); and, lastly, the gratification 
 of the senses, first of the eye, then of the ear, 
 and then of the others in their order. 
 
 All these we are apt to make subservient to 
 the desire of praise; nor unwisely, when the 
 praise sought is God's and the conscience's: but 
 if the sacrifice is made for man's admiration, 
 and knowledge is only sought for praise, passion 
 repressed or affected for praise, and the arts 
 practised for praise, we are feeding on the bit- 
 terest apples of Sodom, suffering always ten 
 mortifications for one delight. And it seems to 
 me, that in the modern civilized world we make 
 such sacrifice doubly: first, by labouring for 
 merely ambitious purposes; and secondly, which 
 is the main point in question, by being ashamed 
 of simple pleasure, more especially of the pleas- 
 ure in sweet colour and form, a pleasure evi- 
 dently so necessary to man's perfectness and 
 virtue, that the beauty of colour and form has 
 been given lavishly throughout the whole of crea- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 373 
 
 tion, so that it may become the food of all, and 
 with such intricacy and subtlety that it may 
 deeply employ the thoughts of all. If we refuse 
 to accept the natural delight which the Deity 
 has thus provided for us, we must either become 
 ascetics, or we must seek for some base and 
 guilty pleasures to replace those of Paradise, 
 which we have denied ourselves. 
 
 Some years ago, in passing through some of 
 the cells of the Grand Chartreuse, noticing that 
 the window of each apartment looked across the 
 little garden of its inhabitant to the wall of the 
 cell opposite, and commanded no other view, I 
 asked the monk beside me why the window was 
 not rather made on the side of the cell whence 
 it would open to the solemn fields of the Alpine 
 valley. " We do not come here," he replied, *' to 
 look at the mountains." 
 
 The same answer is given, practically, by the 
 men of this century, to every such question; 
 only the walls with which they enclose them- 
 selves are those of Pride, not of Prayer. 
 
 THE HIGHLANDER. 
 
 The right faith of man is not intended to 
 give him repose, but to enable him to do his 
 work. 
 
374 PRECIOUS THOIFGHTS. 
 
 It is not intended that he should look awaj 
 from the place he lives in now, and cheer him- 
 self with thoughts of the place he is to live in 
 next, but that he should look stoutly into this 
 world, in faith that if he does his work thor- 
 oughly here, some good to others or himself, 
 with which however he is not at present con- 
 cerned, will come of it hereafter. And this kind 
 of brave, but not very hopeful or cheerful 
 faith, I perceive to be always rewarded by clear 
 practical success and splendid intellectual pow- 
 er; while the faith which dwells on the future 
 fades away into rosy mist, and emptiness of 
 musical air. That result indeed follows nat- 
 urally enough on its habit of assuming that 
 things must be right, or must come right, when, 
 probably, the fact is, that so far as we are con- 
 cerned, they are entirely wrong; and going 
 wrong: and also on its weak and false way of 
 looking on what these religious persons call 
 " the bright side of things," that is to say, on 
 one side of them only, when God has given 
 them two sides, and intended us to see both. 
 
 I was reading but the other day in a book by a 
 zealous, useful, and able Scotch clergyman, one 
 of these rhapsodies, in which he described a 
 scene in the Highlands to show (he said) the 
 goodness of God. In this Highland scene there 
 was nothing but sunshine, and fresh breezes, 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 375 
 
 and bleating lambs, and clean tartans, and all 
 manner of pleasantness. Now a Highland 
 Bcene is, beyond dispute, pleasant enough in its 
 own way; but, looked close at, has its shadows. 
 Here, for instance, is the very fact of one, as 
 pretty as I can remember — having seen many. 
 It is a little valley of soft turf, enclosed in its 
 narrow oval by jutting rocks and broad flakes of 
 nodding fern. From one side of it to the other 
 winds, serpentine, a clear brown stream, droop- 
 ing into quicker ripple as it reaches the end of 
 the oval field, and then, first islanding a purple 
 and white rock with an amber pool, it dashes 
 away into a narrow fall of foam under a thicket 
 of mountain ash and alder. The autumn sun, 
 low but clear, shines on the scarlet ash-berries 
 and on the golden birch-leaves, which, fallen 
 here and there, when the breeze has not caught 
 them, rest quiet in the crannies of the purple 
 rock. Beside the rock, in the hollow under the 
 thicket, the carcass of an ewe, drowned in the 
 last flood, lies nearly bare to the bone, its white 
 libs protruding through the skin, raven-torn; 
 and the rags of its wool still flickering from the 
 branches that first stayed it as the stream swept 
 it down. A little lower, the current plunges, 
 roaring, into a circular chasm like a well, sur- 
 rounded on three sides by a chimney-like hol- 
 lowness of polished rock, down which the foam 
 
37^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 Blips in detached snow-flakes. Round the edges 
 of the pool beneath, the water circles slowly, 
 like black oil; a little butterfly lies on its back, its 
 wings glued to one of the eddies, its limbs 
 feebly quivering; a fish rises and it is gone. 
 Lower down the stream, I can just see, over 
 a knoll, the green and damp turf roofs of four 
 or five hovels, built at the edge of a morass, 
 which is trodden by the cattle into a black 
 Slough of Despond at their doors, and traversed 
 by a few ill-set stepping-stones, with here and 
 there a flat slab on the tops, where they have 
 sunk out of sight; and at the turn of the brook 
 I see a man fishing, with a boy and a dog — a 
 picturesque and pretty group enough certainly, 
 if they had not been there all day starving. I 
 know them, and I know the dog's ribs also, 
 which are nearly as bare as the dead ewe's; 
 and the child's wasted shoulders, cutting his old 
 tartan jacket through, so sharp are they. We 
 will go down and talk with the man. 
 
 Or, that I may not piece pure truth with 
 fancy, for I have none of his words set down, 
 let us hear a word or two from another such, a 
 Scotchman also, and as true-hearted, and in just 
 as fair a scene. I write out the passage, in 
 which I have kept his few sentences, word for 
 word, as it stands in my private diary: — " 2 2d 
 April (1851). Yesterday I had a long walk up 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. Z77 
 
 the Via Gellia, at Matlock, coming down upon 
 it from the hills al)ove, all sown with anemones 
 and violets, and murmuring with sweet springs. 
 Above all the mills in the valley, the brook, in 
 its first purity, forms a small shallow pool, with 
 a sandy bottom covered with cresses, and other 
 water plants. A man was wading in it for 
 cresses as I passed up the valley, and bade me 
 good-day. I did not go much farther; he was 
 there when I returned. I passed him again, 
 about one hundred yards, when it struck me I 
 might as well learn all I could about water- 
 cresses; so I turned back'. I asked the man, 
 among other questions, what he called the 
 common weed, something like water-cress, but 
 with a serrated leaf, which grows at the edge of 
 nearly all such pools. ' We calls that brook- 
 lime, hereabouts,' said a voice behind me. I 
 turned, and saw three men, miners or manufac- 
 turers — two evidently Derbyshire men, and re- 
 spectable-looking in their way; the third, thin, 
 poor, old, and harder-featured, and utterly in 
 rags. * Brooklime? ' I said. ' What do you 
 call it lime for? * The man said he did not 
 know, it was called that. * You'll find that in 
 the British Erba,' said the weak, calm voice of 
 the old man. I turned to him in much sur- 
 prise; but he went on saying something drily (I 
 hardly understood what) to the cress-gatherer; 
 
37^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 who contradicting him, the old man said he 
 'didn't know fresh water/ he ' knew enough 
 of sa't.' * Have you been a sailor? ' I asked. 
 * I was a sailor for eleven years and ten months 
 of my life,' he said, in the same strangely quiet 
 manner. * And what are you now? ' * I lived 
 for ten years after my wife's death by picking 
 up rags and bones; I hadn't much occasion 
 afore.* 'And now how do you live?' 'Why, 
 I lives hard and honest, and haven't got to live 
 long,' or something to that effect. He then 
 went on, in a kind of maundering way about 
 his wife. ' She had rheumatism and fever very 
 bad; and her second rib grow'd over her hench- 
 bone. A' was a clever woman, but a' grow'd to 
 be a very little one' (this with an expression of 
 deep melancholy.) (Then, after a pause:) ' She 
 died. I never cared much what come of me 
 since; but I know that I shall soon reach her; 
 that's a knowledge I would na gie for the king's 
 crown.* 'You are a Scotchman, are not you? * 
 I asked. ' I'm from the Isle of Skye, sir; I'm a 
 McGregor.' I said something about his reli- 
 gious faith. 'Ye'll know I was bred in the 
 Church of Scotland, sir,' he said, ' and I love it as 
 I love my own soul; but I think thae Wesleyan 
 Methodists ha' got salvation among them, too.' " 
 Truly, this Highland and English hill-scenery 
 is fair enough; but has its shadows; and deeper 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 379 
 
 colouring, here and there, than that of heath 
 and rose. 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 And let us not now lose sight of this broac 
 and unabrogated principle — I might sa}v incapa- 
 ble of being abrogated, so long as men shall re- 
 ceive earthly gifts from God. Of all that they 
 have His tithe must be rendered to Him, or in 
 so far and in so much He is forgotten: of the 
 skill and of the treasure, of the strength and of 
 the mind, of the time and of the toil, offering 
 must be made reverently; and if there be any 
 difference between the Levitical and the Chris- 
 tian offering, it is that the latter may be just so 
 much the wider in its range as it is less typical 
 in its meaning, as it is thankful instead of sacri- 
 ficial. There can be no excuse accepted be- 
 cause the Deity does not nov/ visibly dwell in His 
 temple ;'if He is invisible it is only through our 
 failing faith: nor any excuse because other calls 
 are more immediate or more sacred; this ought 
 to be done, and not the other left undone. 
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD ALTAR. 
 
 When men do not love their hearths, nor rev- 
 erence their thresholds, it is a sign that they 
 
3^0 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 have dishonoured both, and that they have never 
 acknowledged the true universality of that 
 Christian worship v/hich was indeed to super- 
 sede the idolatry, but not the piety, of the pagan. 
 Our God is a household God, as well as a heav- 
 enly one; He has an altar in every man's dwell- 
 ing; let men look to it when they rend it lightly 
 and pour out its ashes. It is not a question of 
 mere ocular delight, it is no question of intel- 
 lectual pride, or of cultivated and critical fancy, 
 how, and with what aspect of durability and of 
 completeness, the domestic buildings of a nation 
 shall be raised. It is one of those moral duties, 
 not with more impunity to be neglected because 
 the perception of them depends on a finely 
 toned and balanced conscientiousness, to build 
 our dwellings with care, and patience, and fond- 
 ness, and diligent completion, and with a view 
 to their duration at least for such a period as, 
 in the ordinary course of national revolutions, 
 might be supposed likely to extend to the entire 
 alteration of the direction of local interests. 
 This at the least; but it would be better if, in every 
 possible instance, men built their own houses on 
 a scale commensurate rather with their condi- 
 tion at the commencement, than their attain- 
 ments at the termination, of their worldly career; 
 and built them to stand as long as human work 
 at its strongest can be hoped to stand; record- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 38 1 
 
 ing to their children what they have been, and 
 from what, if so it had been permitted them, 
 they had risen. And when houses are thus 
 built, we may have that true domestic architect- 
 ure, the beginning of all other, which does not 
 disdain to treat with respect and thoughtfulness 
 the small habitation as well as the large, and 
 which invests with the dignity of contented man- 
 hood the narrowness of worldly circumstance. 
 
 EMOTIONS EXCITED BY THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 Examine the nature of your own emotion (if 
 you feel it) at the sight of the Alp, and you find 
 all the brightness of that emotion hanging, like 
 dew on gossamer, on a curious web of subtle 
 fancy and imperfect knowledge. First, you 
 have a vague idea of its size, coupled with won- 
 der at the work of the great Builder of its walls 
 and foundations; then an apprehension of its 
 eternity, a pathetic sense of its perpetualness, 
 and your own transientness, as of the grass upon 
 its sides; then, and in this very sadness, a sense 
 of strange companionship with past generations 
 in seeing what they saw. They did not see the 
 clouds that are floating over your head; nor the 
 cottage wall on the other side of the field; nor 
 the road by which you are travelling. But they 
 
3^2 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 saw tJmt. The wall of granite in the heavens 
 was the same to them as to you. They have 
 ceased to look upon it; you will soon cease to 
 look also, and the granite wall will be for others. 
 Then, mingled with these more solemn imagina- 
 tions, come t?ie understandings of the gifts and 
 glories of the Alps, the fancying forth of all the 
 fountains that well from its rocky walls, and 
 strong rivers that are born out of its ice, and of 
 all the pleasant valleys that wind between its 
 cliffs, and all the chalets that gleam among its 
 clouds, and happy farmsteads couched upon its 
 pastures; while together with the thoughts of 
 these rise strange sympathies with all the un- 
 known of human life, and happiness, and death, 
 signified by that narrow white flame of the ever- 
 lasting snow, seen so far in the morning sky. 
 
 These images, and far more than these, lie at 
 the root of the emotion which you feel at the 
 sight of the Alp. You may not trace them in 
 your heart, for there is a great deal more in your 
 heart, of evil and good, than you ever can trace; 
 but they stir you and quicken you for all that. 
 Assuredly, so far as you feel more at beholding 
 the snowy mountain than any other object of 
 the same sweet silvery grey, these are the kind 
 of images which cause you to do so; and, ob- 
 serve, these are nothing more than a greater ap- 
 prehension of X};\it facts of the thing. We call 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 383 
 
 the power " Imagination," because it imagines 
 or conceives; but it is only noble imagination if 
 it imagines or conceives the truth. 
 
 LIFE NEVER A JEST. 
 
 The playful fancy of a moment may inno- 
 cently be expressed by the passing word; but he 
 can hardly have learned the preciousness of life, 
 who passes days in the elaboration of a jest. 
 And, as to what regards the delineation of human 
 character, the nature of all noble art is to epito- 
 mize and embrace so much at once, that its sub- 
 ject can never be altogether ludicrous; it must 
 possess all the solemnities of the whole, not the 
 brightness of the partial, truth. For all truth 
 that makes us smile. is partial. The novelist 
 amuses us by his relation of a particular inci- 
 dent; but the painter cannot set any one of his 
 characters before us without giving some glimpse 
 of its whole career. That of which the histo- 
 rian informs us in successive pages, it is the task 
 of the painter to inform us of at once, writing 
 upon the countenance not merely the expression 
 of the moment, but the history of the life: and 
 the history of a b'fe can never be a jest. 
 
384 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 The reader will probably remember the son- 
 nets of Wordsworth which were published at the 
 time when the bill for the railroad between Ken- 
 dal and Bowness was laid before Parliament. 
 His remonstrance was of course in vain; and I 
 have since heard that there are proposals enter- 
 tained for continuing this line to Whitehaven 
 through Borrowdale. I transcribe the note pre- 
 fixed by W^ordsworth to the first sonnet. 
 
 " The degree and kind of attachment which 
 many of the yeomanry feel to their small inheri- 
 tances can scarcely be over-rated. Near the 
 house of one of them stands a magnificent tree, 
 which a neighbor of the owner advised him to 
 fell for profit's sake. ' Fell it! ' exclaimed the 
 yeoman; 'I had rather fall on my knees and 
 worship it.' It happens, I believe, that the in- 
 tended railway would pass through this little 
 property, and I hope that an apology for the an- 
 swer will not be thought necessary by one who 
 enters into the strength of the feeling." 
 
 The men who thus feel will always be few, 
 and overborne by the thoughtless, avaricious 
 crowd; but is it right, because they are a min- 
 ority, that there should be no respect for them, 
 no concession to them, that their voice should 
 be utterlv without regard in the council of the 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 385 
 
 nation, and that any attempt to defend one sin- 
 gle district from the offence and foulness of mer- 
 cenary uses, on the ground of its beauty and 
 power over men's hearts, should be met, as I 
 doubt not it would be, by total and impenetra- 
 ble scorn? 
 
 THE PRE-EMINENCE OF THE SOUL. 
 
 I do not mean to speak of the body and soul 
 as separable. The man is made up of both: 
 they are to be raised and glorified together, and 
 all art is an expression of the one, by and 
 through the other. All that I would insist upon 
 is, the necessity of the whole man being in his 
 work; the body must be in it. Hands and hab- 
 its must be in it, whether we will or not; but the 
 nobler part of the man may often not be in it. 
 And that nobler part acts principally in love, rev- 
 erence, and admiration, together with those con- 
 ditions of thought which arise out of them. For 
 we usually fall into much error by considering 
 the intellectual powers as having dignity in them- 
 selves, and separable from the heart; whereas 
 the truth is, that the intellect becomes noble 
 and ignoble according to the food we give it, 
 and the kind of subjects with which it is con- 
 versant. It is not the reasoning power which, 
 
386 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 of itself, is noble, but the reasoning power occu- 
 pied with its proper objects. Half of the mis- 
 takes of metaphysicians have arisen from their 
 not observing this; namely, that the intellect, 
 going through the same processes, is yet mean 
 or noble according to the matter it deals with, 
 and wastes itself away in mere rotatory motion, 
 if it be set to grind straws and dust. If we rea- 
 son only respecting words, or lines, or any 
 trifling and finite things, the reason becomes a 
 contemptible faculty; but reason employed on 
 holy and infinite things, becomes herself holy 
 and infinite. So that, by work of the soul, I 
 mean the reader always to understand the work 
 of the entire immortal creature, proceeding from 
 a quick, perceptive, and eager heart, perfected 
 by the intellect, and finally dealt with by the 
 hands, under the direct guidance of these higher 
 powers. 
 
 And now observe, the first important conse- 
 quence of our fully understanding this pre-emi- 
 nence of the soul, will be the due understanding 
 of that subordination of knowledge respecting 
 which so much has already been said. For it 
 must be felt at once, that the increase of knowl- 
 edge, merely as such, does not make the soul 
 larger or smaller; that, in the sight of God, all 
 the knowledge man can gain is as nothing: but 
 that the soul, for which the great scheme of re- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 387 
 
 demption was laid, be it ignorant or be it wise, 
 is all in all; and in the activity, strength, health, 
 and well-being of this soul, lies the main differ- 
 ence, in His sight, between one man and an- 
 other. And that wiiich is ali in all in God's 
 estimate is also, be assured, all in all in man's la- 
 bour; and to have the heart open, and the eyes 
 clear, and the emotions and thoughts warm and 
 quick, and not the knowing of this or the other 
 fact, is the state needed for all mighty doing in 
 this world. And therefore finally, for this, the 
 weightiest of all reasons, let us take no pride in 
 our knowledge. We may, in a certain sense, be 
 proud of being immortal; we may be proud of 
 being God's children; we may be proud of lov- 
 ing, thinking, seeing, and of all that we are by 
 no human teaching: but not of what we have 
 been taught by rote; not of the ballast and 
 freight of the ship of the spirit, but only of its 
 pilotage, without which all the freight will only 
 sink it faster, and strew the sea more richly with 
 its ruin. There is not at this moment a youth 
 of twenty, having received what we moderns 
 ridiculously call education, but he knows more 
 of everything except the soul, than Plato or St. 
 Paul did; but he is not for that reason a greater 
 man, or fitter for his work, or more fit to be 
 heard by others, than Plato or St. Paul. 
 
388 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 THIS WORLD A HOSTELRY. 
 
 All that in this world enlarges the sphere of 
 affection or imagination is to be reverenced, 
 and all those circumstances enlarge it which 
 strengthen our memory or quicken our concep- 
 tion of the dead; hence it is no light sin to de- 
 stroy anything that is old, more especially be- 
 cause, even with the aid of ail obtainable rec- 
 ords of the past, we, the living, occupy a space 
 of too large importance and interest in our own 
 eyes; we look upon the world too much as our 
 own, too much as if we had possessed it and 
 should possess it for ever, and forget that it is a 
 mere hostelry, of which we occupy the apart- 
 ments for a time, which others better than we 
 have sojourned in before, who are now where we 
 should desire to be with them. 
 
 CLOUDS AS GOD S DWELLING-PLACE. 
 
 If we try the interpretation in the theological 
 sense of the word Heaven^ and examine whether 
 the clouds are spoken of as God's dwelling- 
 place, we find God going before the Israelites in 
 a pillar of cloud; revealing Himself in a cloud 
 on Sinai; appearing in a cloud on the mercy- 
 seat, filling the Temple of Solomon with the 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 389 
 
 cloud when its dedication is accepted; appearing 
 in a great cloud to Ezekiel; ascending into a 
 cloud before the eyes of the disciples on Mount 
 Olivet; and in like manner returning to Judg- 
 ment. " Behold, He cometh with clouds, and 
 every eye shall see Him." "Then shall they see 
 the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, 
 with power and great glory." 
 
 THE NOBLE ENDS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Men are merely on a lower or higher stage of 
 an eminence, whose summit is God's throne, in- 
 finitely above all; and there is just as much rea- 
 son for the wisest as for the simplest man being 
 discontented with his position, as respects the 
 real quantity of knowledge he possesses. And, 
 for both of them, the only true reasons for con- 
 tentment with the sum of knowledge they pos- 
 sess are these: that it is the kind of knowledge 
 they need for their duty and happiness in life; 
 that all they have is tested and certain, so far as 
 it is in their power; that all they have is well in 
 order, and within reach when they need it; that 
 it has not cost too much time in the getting; 
 that none of it, once got, has been lost; and 
 that there is not too much to be easily taken 
 care of. 
 
390 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 Consider these requirements a little, and the 
 evils that result in our education and polity 
 from neglecting them. Knowledge is mental 
 food, and is exactly to the spirit what food is to 
 the body (except that the spirit needs several 
 sorts of food, of which knowledge is only one), 
 and it is liable to the same kind of misuses. It 
 may be mixed and disguised by art, till it be- 
 comes unwholesome; it may be refined, sweet- 
 ened, and made palatable, until it has lost all its 
 power of nourishment; and, even of its best kind, 
 it may be eaten to surfeiting, and minister to dis- 
 ease and death. 
 
 Therefore, with respect to knowledge, we are 
 to reason and act exactly as with respect to food. 
 We no more live to know, than we live to eat. 
 We live to contemplate, enjoy, act, adore ; and 
 we may know all that is to be known in this 
 world, and what Satan knows in the other, with- 
 out being able to do any of these. We are to 
 ask, therefore, first, is the knowledge we would 
 have fit food for us, good and simple, not artifi- 
 cial and decorated ? and secondly, how much of 
 it will enable us best for our work ; and will 
 leave our hearts light, and our eyes clear ? For 
 no more than that is to be eaten without the old 
 Eve-sin. 
 
 Observe, also, the difference between tasting 
 knowledge, and hoarding it. In this respect it 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 39 1 
 
 is also like food ; since, in some measure, the 
 knowledge of all men is laid up in granaries, for 
 future use; much of it is at any given moment 
 dormant, not fed upon or enjoyed, but in store. 
 And by all it is to ^be remembered, that knowl- 
 edge in this form may be kept without air till it 
 rots, or in such unthreshed disorder that it is of 
 no use ; and that, however good or orderly, it is 
 still only in being tasted that it becomes of use; 
 and that men may easily starve in their own 
 granaries, men of science, perhaps, most of all, 
 for they are likely to seek accumulation of their 
 store, rather than nourishment from it. Yet let 
 it not be thought that I would undervalue them. 
 The good and great among them are like Joseph, 
 to whom all nations sought to buy corn ; or like 
 the sower going forth to sow beside all waters, 
 sending forth thither the feet of the ox and the 
 ass: only let us remember that this is not all 
 men's work. We are not intended to be all 
 keepers of granaries, nor all to be measured by 
 the filling of a storehouse; but many, nay, most 
 of us, are to receive day by day our daily bread, 
 and shall be as well nourished and as fit for our 
 labour, and often, also, fit for nobler and more 
 divine labour, in feeding from the barrel of meal 
 that does not waste, and from the cruse of oil 
 that does not fail, than if our barns were filled 
 
39^ PRECIOUS Tiro UGH TS. 
 
 with plenty, and our presses bursting out with 
 new wine. 
 
 It is for each man to find his own measure in 
 this matter ; in great part, also, 'for others to 
 find it for him, while he is yet a youth. And the 
 desperate evil of the whole Renaissance system 
 is, that all idea of measure is therein forgotten, 
 that knowledge is thought the one and the only 
 good, and it is never inquired whether men are 
 vivified by it or paralyzed. Let us leave figures. 
 The reader may not believe the analogy to have 
 been pressing so far; but let him consider the 
 subject himself, let him examine the effect of 
 knowledge in his own heart, and see whether 
 the trees of knowledge and of life are one now, 
 any more than in Paradise. He must feel that 
 the real animating power of knowledge is only 
 in the moment of its being first received, when 
 it fills us with wonder and joy ; a joy for which, 
 observe, the previous ignorance is just as neces- 
 sary as the present knowledge. That man is al- 
 ways happy who is in the presence of something 
 which he cannot know to the full, which he is 
 always going on to know. This is the necessary 
 condition of a finite creature with divinely rooted 
 and divinely directed intelligence ; this, there- 
 fore, its happy state, — but observe, a state, not of 
 triumph or joy in what it knows, but of joy rather 
 in the continual discovery of new ignorance, con- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 393 
 
 tinual self-abasement, continual astonishment. 
 Once thoroughly our own, the knowledge ceases 
 to give us pleasure. It may be practically useful 
 to us, it may be good for others, or good for 
 usury to obtain more ; but, in itself, once let it 
 be thoroughly familiar, and it is dead. The 
 wonder is gone from it, and all the fine colour 
 which it had when first we drew it up out of the 
 infinite sea. And what does it matter how much 
 or how little of it we have laid aside, when our 
 only enjoyment is still in the casting of that 
 deep sea line ? What does it matter ? Nay, in 
 one respect, it matters much, and not to our 
 advantage. For one effect of knowledge is to 
 deaden the force of the imagination and the 
 original energy of the whole man: under the 
 weight of his knowledge he cannot move so 
 lightly as in the days of his simplicity. The 
 pack-horse is furnished for the journey, the war- 
 horse is armed for war; but the freedom of the 
 field and the lightness of the limb are lost for 
 both. Knowledge is, at best, the pilgrim's bur- 
 den or the soldier's panoply, often a weariness 
 to them both: and the Renaissance knowledge is 
 like the Renaissance armour of plate, binding and 
 cramping the human form; while all good knowl- 
 edge is like the crusader's chain mail, which 
 throws itself into folds with the body, yet it is 
 rarely so forged as that the clasps and rivets do 
 
394 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 not gall us. All men feel this, though they do 
 not think of it, nor reason out its consequences. 
 They look back to the days of childhood as of 
 greatest happiness, because those were the days 
 of greatest wonder, greatest simplicity, and most 
 vigorous imagination. And the whole difference 
 between a man of genius and other men, it has 
 been said a thousand times, and most - truly, is 
 that the first remains in great part a child, seeing 
 with the large eyes of children, in perpetual won- 
 der, not conscious of much knowledge, — con- 
 scious, rather, of infinite ignorance, and yet infin- 
 ite power; a fountain of eternal admiration, de- 
 light, and creative force within him meeting the 
 ocean of visible and governable things around 
 him. 
 
 That is what we have to make men, so far as 
 we may. All are to be men of genius in their 
 degree, — rivulets or rivers, it does not matter, so 
 that the souls be clear and pure; not dead walls 
 encompassing dead heaps of things known and 
 numbered, but running waters in the sweet wil- 
 derness of things unnumbered and unknown, con- 
 scious only of the living banks, on which they 
 partly refresh and partly reflect the flowers, and 
 so pass on. 
 
 Let each man answer for himself how far his 
 knowledge has made him this, or how far it is 
 loaded upon him as the pyramid is upon the 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 395 
 
 tomb. Let him consider, also, how much of it 
 has cost him labour and time that might have 
 been spent in healthy, happy action, beneficial 
 to all mankind; how many living souls may have 
 been left uncomforted and unhelped by him, 
 while his own eyes were failing by the midnight 
 lamp; how many warm sympathies have died 
 within him as he measured lines or counted let- 
 ters; how many draughts of ocean air, and steps 
 on mountain-turf, and openings of the highest 
 heaven he has lost for his knowledge; how much 
 of that knowledge, so dearly bought, is now for- 
 gotten or despised, leaving only the capacity of 
 wonder less within him, and, as it happens in a 
 thousand instances, perhaps even also the capac- 
 ity of devotion. And let him, — if, after thus 
 dealing with his own heart, he can say that his 
 knowledge has indeed been fruitful to him, — yet 
 consider how many there are who have been 
 forced by the inevitable laws of modern educa- 
 tion into toil utterly repugnant to their natures, 
 and that in the extreme, until the whole strength 
 of the young soul was sapped away; and then 
 pronounce with fearfulness how far, and in how 
 m^ny senses, it may indeed be true that the wis- 
 dom of this world is foolishness with God. 
 
 Now all this possibility of evil, observe, 
 attaches to knowledge pursued for the noblest 
 ends, if it be pursued imprudently. I have as- 
 
39^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 sumed, in speaking of its effect both on men gen- 
 erally and on the artist especially, that it was 
 sought in the true love of it, and with all honesty 
 and directness of purpose. But this is granting 
 far too much in its favour. Of knowledge in 
 general, and without qualification, it is said by 
 the Apostle that " it puffeth up;" and the father 
 of all modern science, writing directly in its 
 praise, yet asserts this danger even in more abso- 
 lute terms, calling it a " venomousness" in the 
 very nature of knowledge itself. 
 
 There is, indeed, much difference in this re- 
 spect between the tendencies of different 
 branches of knowledge; it being a sure rule that 
 exactly in proportion as they are inferior, nuga- 
 tory, or limited in scope, their power of feeding 
 pride is greater. Thus philology, logic, rhetoric, 
 and the other sciences of the schools, being for 
 the most part ridiculous and trifling, have so 
 pestilent an effect upon those who are devoted 
 to them, that their students cannot conceive of 
 any higher sciences than these, but fancy that 
 all education ends in the knowledge of words: 
 but the true and great sciences, more especially 
 natural history, make men gentle and modest in 
 proportion to the largeness of their apprehension 
 and just perception of the infiniteness of the 
 things they can never know. And this, it seems 
 to me, is the principal lesson we are intended to 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 39/ 
 
 be taught by the book of Job; for there God 
 has thrown open to us the heart of a man most 
 just and holy, and apparently perfect in all 
 things possible to human nature except humility. 
 For this he is tried: and we are shown that no 
 suffering, no self-examination, however honest, 
 however stern, no searching out of the heart by 
 its own bitterness, is enough to convince man of 
 his nothingness before God; but that the sight 
 of God's creation will do it. For, when the 
 Deity himself has willed to end the temptation, 
 and to accomplish in Job that for which it was 
 sent, He does not vouchsafe to reason with him, 
 still less does He overwhelm him with terror, or 
 confound him by laying open before his eyes the 
 book of his iniquities. He opens before him 
 only the arch of the dayspring, and the fountains 
 of the deep; and amidst the covert of the reeds, 
 and on the heaving waves, Fie bids him watch 
 the kings of the children of pride, — " Behold now 
 Behemoth, which I made with thee:" And the 
 work is done. 
 
 Thus, if, I repeat, there is any one lesson in 
 the whole book which stands forth more defi- 
 nitely than another, it is this of the holy and hum- 
 bling influence of natural science, on the human 
 lieart. And yet, even here, it is not the science 
 but the perception, to which the good is owing; and 
 the natural sciences may become as harmful as any 
 
398 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 others, when they lose themselves in classification 
 and catalogue-making. Still, the principal danger 
 is with the sciences of words and methods; and 
 it was exactly into those sciences that the whole 
 energy of men during the Renaissance period was 
 thrown. They discovered suddenly that the 
 world for ten centuries had been living in an un- 
 grammatical manner, and they made it forthwith 
 the end of human existence to be grammatical. 
 And it mattered thenceforth nothing what was 
 said or what was done, so only that it was said 
 with scholarship, and done with system. False- 
 hood in a Ciceronian dialect had no opposers; 
 truth in patois no listeners. A Roman phrase 
 was thought worth any number of Gothic facts. 
 The sciences ceased at once to be anything more 
 than different kinds of grammars, — grammar of 
 language, grammar of logic, grammar of ethics, 
 grammar of art; and the tongue, wit, and inven- 
 tion of the human race were supposed to have 
 found their utmost and most divine mission in 
 syntax and syllogism, perspective and five orders. 
 Of such knowledge as this, nothing but pride 
 could come; and, therefore, I have called the 
 first mental characteristic of the Renaissance 
 schools, the "pride" of science. If they had 
 reached any science worth the name, they might 
 have loved it; but of the paltry knowledge 
 they possessed, they could only be proud. There 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 399 
 
 was not anything in it capable of being loved. 
 Anatomy, indeed, then first made the subject 
 of accurate study, is a true science, but not 
 so attractive as to enlist the affections strongly 
 on its side: and therefore, like its meaner sisters, 
 it became merely a ground for pride; and the one 
 main purpose of the Renaissance artists, in all 
 their work, was to show how much they knew. 
 
 There were, of course, noble exceptions; but 
 chiefly belonging to the earliest periods of the 
 Renaissance, when its teaching had not yet pro- 
 duced its full effect. Raphael, Leonardo, and 
 Michael Angelo were all trained in the old school; 
 they all had masters who knew the true ends of 
 art, and had reached them; masters nearly as 
 great as they were themselves, but imbued with 
 the old religious and earnest spirit, which their 
 disciples receiving from them, and drinking at 
 the same time deeply from all the fountains of 
 knowledge opened in their day, became the 
 world's wonders. Then the dull wondering world 
 believed that their greatness rose out of their new 
 knowledge, instead of out of that ancient religious 
 root, in which to abide was life, from which to 
 be severed was annihilation. And from that day 
 to this, they have tried to produce Michael 
 Angelos and Leonardos by teaching the barren 
 sciences, and still have mourned and marvelled 
 that no more Michael Angelos came; not per- 
 
400 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ceiving that those great Fathers were only able 
 to receive such nourishment because they were 
 rooted on the rock of all ages, and that our scien- 
 tific teaching, nowadays, is nothing more nor less 
 than the assiduous watering of trees whose stems 
 are cut through. Nay, I have even granted too 
 much in saying that those great men were able 
 to receive pure nourishment from the sciences; 
 for my own conviction is, and I know it to be 
 shared by most of those who love Raphael truly, 
 — that he painted best when he knew least. 
 Michael Angelo was betrayed again and again, 
 into such vain and offensive exhibition of his 
 anatomical knowledge as, to this day, renders his 
 higher powers indiscernible by the greater part of 
 men; and Leonardo fretted his life away in 
 engineering, so that there is hardly a picture left 
 to bear his name. But, with respect to all who 
 followed, there can be no question that the 
 science they possessed was utterly harmful; 
 serving merely to draw away their hearts at once 
 from the purposes of art and the power of nature, 
 and to make, out of the canvas and marble, 
 nothing more than materials for the exhibition 
 of petty dexterity and useless knowledge. 
 
 It is sometimes amusing to watch the naive 
 and childish way in which this vanity is shown. 
 For instance, when perspective was first invented, 
 the world thought it a mighty discovery, and the 
 
PRECIOUS THOU GUTS. 401 
 
 greatest men it had in it were as proud of know- 
 ing that retiring lines converge, as if all the wis- 
 dom of Solomon had been compressed into a 
 vanishing point. And, accordingly, it became 
 nearly impossible for any one to paint a Nativity, 
 but he must turn the stable and manger into a 
 Corinthian arcade, in order to show his knowl- 
 edge of perspective; and half the best architect- 
 ure of the time, instead of being adorned v/ith 
 historical sculpture, as of old, was set forth with 
 bas-relief of minor corridors and galleries, thrown 
 into perspective. 
 
 Now that perspective can be taught to any 
 schoolboy in a week, we can smile at this vanity. 
 But the fact is, that all pride in knowledge is 
 precisely as ridiculous, whatever its kind, or 
 whatever its degree. There is, indeed, nothing 
 of which man has any right to be proud; but 
 the very last thing of which, with any show of 
 reason, he can make his boast is his knowledge, 
 except only that infinitely small portion of it 
 which he has discovered for himself. For what 
 is there to be more proud of in receiving a piece 
 of knowledge from another person than in receiv- 
 ing a piece of money? Beggars should not be 
 proud whatever kind of alms they receive. 
 Knowledge is like current coin. A man may have 
 iiome right to be proud of possessing it, if he has 
 worked for the gold of it and assayed it, and 
 
402 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 stamped it, so that it may be received of all men 
 as true; or earned it fairly, being already assayed: 
 but if he has done none of these things, but only 
 had it thrown in his face by a passer-by, what 
 cause has he to be proud? And though, in this 
 mendicant fashion, he had heaped together the 
 wealth of Croesus, would pride any more, for 
 this, become him, as, in some sort, it becomes 
 the man who has laboured for his fortune, how- 
 ever small? So, if a man tells me the sun 
 is larger than the earth, have I any cause for 
 pride in knowing it? or, if any multitude of men 
 tell me any number of things, heaping all their 
 wealth of knowledge upon me, have I any reason 
 to be proud under the heap? And is not nearly 
 all the knowledge of which we boast in these 
 days cast upon us in this dishonourable way; 
 worked for by other men, proved by them, and 
 then forced upon us, even against our wills, and 
 beaten into us in our youth, before we have 
 the wit even to know if it be good or not? 
 (Mark the distinction between knowledge and 
 thought.) Truly a noble possession to be proud 
 of! Be assured, there is no part of the furniture 
 of a man's mind which he has a right to exult 
 in, but that which he has hewn and fashioned 
 for himself. He who has built himself a hut oii 
 a desert heath, and carved his bed, and table, ana 
 chair out of the nearest forest, may have some 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 4O3 
 
 right to take pride in the appliances of his nar- 
 row chamber, as assuredly he will have joy 
 in them. But the man who has had a palace 
 built, and adorned, and furnished for him, may, 
 indeed, have many advantages above the other, 
 but he has no reason to be proud of his uphol- 
 sterer's skill; and it is ten to one if he has half 
 the joy in his couches of ivory that the other will 
 have in his pallet of pine. 
 
 And observe how we feel this, in the kind of 
 respect we pay to such knowledge as we are 
 indeed capable of estimating the value of. When 
 it is our own, and new to us, we cannot judge of 
 it; but let it be another's also, and long familiar 
 to us, and see what value we set on it. Consider 
 how we regard a schoolboy, fresh from his term's 
 labour. If he begin to display his newly ac- 
 ([uired small knowledge to us, and plume himself 
 thereupon, how soon do we silence him with 
 contempt! But it is not so if the schoolboy 
 begins to feel or see anything. In the strivings 
 of his soul within him he is our equal; in his 
 power of sight and thought he stands separate 
 from us, and may be a greater than we. We are 
 ready to hear him forthwith. " You saw that? 
 you felt that? No matter for your being a child; 
 let us hear." 
 
 Consider that ever}^ generation of men stands 
 in this relation to its successors. It is as 
 
4^4 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 the schoolboy: the knowledge of which it is 
 proudest will be as the alphabet to those who 
 follow. It had better make no noise about its 
 knowledge; a time will come when its utmost, in 
 that kind, will be food for scorn. Poor fools! 
 was that all they knew? and behold how proud 
 they were! But what we see and feel will never 
 be mocked at. All men will be thankful to us 
 for telling them that. "Indeed!" they will say, 
 " they felt that in their day? saw that? Would 
 God we may be like them, before we go to the 
 home where sight and thought are not!" 
 
 WHAT USE? 
 
 Of what use was that dearly bought water of 
 the well of Bethlehem with which the King of 
 Israel slaked the dust of Adullum? yet was not 
 thus better than if he had drunk it? Of what 
 use was that passionate act of Christian sacrifice, 
 against which, first uttered by the false tongue, 
 the very objection we would now conquer took 
 a sullen tone for ever? So also let us not ask of 
 what use our offering is to the church: it is at 
 least better for ns than if it had been retained 
 for ourselves. It may be better for others also: 
 there is, at any rate, a chance of this; though we 
 must always fearfully and widely shun the 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 405 
 
 thought that the magnificence of the temple can 
 materially add to the efficiency of the worship or 
 to the power of the ministry. Whatever we do, 
 or whatever we offer, let it not interfere with the 
 simplicity of the one or abate, as if replacing, the 
 zeal of the other. 
 
 PAGAN DOUBTS. 
 
 The Greeks never shrink from horror; down 
 to its uttermost depth, to its most appalling 
 physical detail, they strive to sound the secrets 
 of sorrow. For them there is no passing by on 
 the other side, no turning away the eyes to 
 vanity from pain. Literally, they have not 
 "lifted up their souls unto vanity." Whether 
 there be consolation for them or not, neither 
 apathy nor blindness shall be their saviours; if, 
 for them, thus knowing the facts of the grief of 
 earth, any hope, relief, or triumph may hereafter 
 seem possible, — well; but if not, still hopeless, 
 reliefless, eternal, the sorrow shall be met face to 
 face. This Hector, so righteous, so merciful, so 
 brave, has, nevertheless, to look upon his dearest 
 brother in miserablest death. His own soul 
 passes away in hopeless sobs through the throat- 
 wound of the Grecian spear. That is one aspect 
 of things in this world, a fair world truly, but 
 
4g6 precious thoughts. 
 
 having among its other aspects, this one, highly 
 ambiguous. 
 
 Meeting it boldly as they may, gazing right into 
 the skeleton face of it, the ambiguity remains', 
 nay, in some sort gains upon them. We trusted 
 in the gods; — we thought that wisdom and 
 courage would save us. Our wisdom and cour- 
 age themselves deceive us to our death. Athena 
 had the aspect of Deiphobus — terror of the 
 enemy. She has not terrified him, but left us, in 
 our mortal need. 
 
 And, beyond that mortality, what hope have 
 we? Nothing is clear to us on that horizon, nor 
 comforting. Funeral honours; perhaps also rest; 
 perhaps a shadowy life — artless, joyless, loveless. 
 No devices in that darkness of the grave, nor 
 daring, nor delight. Neither marrying nor giving 
 in marriage, nor casting of spears, nor rolling of 
 chariots, nor voice of fame. Lapped in pale 
 Elysian mist, chilling the forgetful heart and 
 feeble frame, shall we waste on forever? Can 
 the dust of earth claim more of immortality than 
 this? Or shall we have even so much as rest? 
 May we, indeed, lie down again in the dust, or 
 have our sins not hidden from us even the things 
 that belong to that peace? May not chance and 
 the whirl of passion govern us there; when there 
 shall be no thought, nor work, nor wisdom, nor 
 breathing of the soul? 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. A^l 
 
 PROPHETIC DREAMS. 
 
 Now, so far as the truth is seen by the imagi- 
 nation in its wholeness and quietness, the vision 
 is sublime; but so far as it is narrowed and 
 broken by the inconsistencies of the human ca- 
 pacity, it becomes grotesque: and it would seem 
 to be rare that any very exalted truth should be 
 impressed on the imagination without some gro- 
 tesqueness in its aspect, proportioned to the de- 
 gree oi diminution of breadth in the grasp which is 
 given of it. Nearly all the dreams recorded in 
 the Bible, — Jacob's, Joseph's, Pharaoh's, Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's, — are grotesques; and nearly the 
 whole of the accessary scenery in the books of 
 Ezekiel and the Apocalypse. Thus Jacob's 
 dream revealed to him the ministry of angels; 
 but because this ministry could not be seen or 
 understood by him in its fulness, it was narrowed 
 to him into a ladder between heaven and earth, 
 which was a grotesque. Joseph's two dreams 
 v/ere evidently intended to be signs of the stead- 
 fastness of the Divine purpose towards him, by 
 possessing the clearness of special prophecy; yet 
 were couched in such imagery, as not to inform 
 him prematurely of his destiny, and only to be 
 understood after their fulfilment. The sun, and 
 moon, and stars were at the period, and are in- 
 deed throughout the Bible, the symbols of high 
 
408 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 authority. It was not revealed to Joseph that 
 he should be lord over all Egypt; but the repre- 
 sentation of his family by symbols of the most 
 magnificent dominion, and yet as subject to him, 
 must have been afterwards felt by him as a dis- 
 tinctly prophetic indication of his own supreme 
 power. It was not revealed to him that the oc- 
 casion of his brethren's special humiliation before 
 him should be their coming to buy corn; but 
 when the event took place, must he not have felt 
 that there was prophetic purpose in the form of 
 the sheaves of wheat which first imaged forth 
 their subjection to him? And these two images 
 of the sun doing obeisance, and the sheaves bow- 
 ing down, — narrowed and imperfect intimations 
 of great truth which yet couid not be otherv/ise 
 conveyed, — are both grotesques. The kine of 
 Pharaoh eating each other, the gold and clay of 
 Nebuchadnezzar's image, the four beasts full of 
 eyes, and other imagery of Ezekiel and the 
 Apocalypse, are grotesques of the same kind, on 
 which I need not further insist. 
 
 CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM. 
 
 As the heathen, in their alienation from God, 
 changed His glory into an image made like unto 
 corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 4O9 
 
 beasts, the Christian, in his approach to God, is 
 to undo this work, and to change the corrupti- 
 ble things into the image of His glory; believing 
 that there is nothing so base in creation, but that 
 our faith may give it wings which shall raise us 
 into companionship with heaven; and that, on 
 the other hand, there is nothing so great or so 
 goodly in creation, but that it is a mean symbol 
 of the Gospel of Christ, and of the things R- 
 has prepared for them that love Him. 
 
 THANKFULNESS. 
 
 No man can indeed be a lover of what is best 
 in the higher walks of art, who has not feeling 
 and charity enough to rejoice with the rude 
 sportiveness of hearts that have escaped out of 
 prison, and to be thankful for the flowers which 
 men have laid their burdens down to sow by the 
 wayside. 
 
 " STAND FAST, CRAIG ELLACHIE." 
 
 All the highest points of the Scottish charac- 
 ter are connected with impressions derived 
 straight from the natural scenery of their country. 
 No nation has ever before shown, in the general 
 
4IO PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 tone of its language — in the general current of 
 its literature — so constant a habit of hallowing 
 its passions and confirming its principles by di- 
 rect association with the charm, or power, of na- 
 ture. The writings of Scott and Burns — and 
 yet more, of the far greater poets than Burns 
 who gave Scotland her traditional ballads, — fur- 
 nish you in every stanza — almost in every line — 
 with examples of this association of natural 
 scenery with the passions; but an instance of its 
 farther connexion with moral principle struck 
 me forcibly just at the time when I was most la- 
 menting the absence of art among the people. 
 In one of the loneliest districts of Scotland, where 
 the peat cottages are darkest, just at the western 
 foot of that great mass of the Grampians which 
 encircles the sources of the Spey and Dee, the 
 main road which traverses the chain winds 
 round the foot of a broken rock called Crag, or 
 Craig Ellachie. There is nothing remarkable 
 m either its height or form; it is darkened with 
 a few scattered pines, and touched along its sum- 
 mit with a flush of heather; but it constitutes a 
 kind of headland, or leading promontory, in the 
 group of hills to which it belongs — a sort of in- 
 itial letter of the mountains; and thus stands m 
 the mind of the inhabitants of the district, the 
 Clan Grant for a type of their country, and of 
 the influence of that country upon themselves. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 4^1 
 
 Their sense of this is beautifully indicated in 
 the war-cry of the clan, " Stand fast, Craig El- 
 lachie." You may think long over those few 
 words without exhausting the deep wells of feel- 
 ing and thought contained in them — the love of 
 the native land, the assurance of their faithful- 
 ness to it; the subdued and gentle assertion of 
 indomitable courage — I may need to be told to 
 stand, but, if I do, Craig Ellachie does. You 
 could not but have felt, had you passed beneath 
 it at the time when so many of England's dear- 
 est children were being defended by the strength 
 of heart of men born at its foot, how often 
 among the delicate Indian palaces, whose mar- 
 ble was pallid with horror, and whose vermillion 
 was darkened with blood, the remembrance of 
 rough grey rocks and purple heaths must have 
 risen before the sight of the Highland soldier; 
 how often the hailing of the shot and the shriek 
 of battle would pass away from his hearing, and 
 leave only the whisper of the old pine branches, 
 " Stand fast, Craig Ellachie!"* 
 
 CARE FOR TRIFLES. 
 
 In mortals, there is a care for trifles which 
 proceeds from love and conscience, and is most 
 
 * Is not this the " war-cry" of our own Grant?— 
 L. C. T. 
 
412 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 holy; and a care for trifles which comes of idle- 
 ness and frivolity, and is most base. And so, 
 also, there is a gravity proceeding from thought, 
 which is most noble; and a gravity proceeding 
 from dulness and mere incapability of enjoy- 
 ment, which is most base. 
 
 DURER AND SALVATOR. 
 
 The reader might see at a glance the elements 
 of the Nuremberg country, as they still exist. 
 Wooden cottages, thickly grouped, enormously 
 high in the roofs; the sharp church spire, small 
 and slightly grotesque, surmounting them; be- 
 yond, a richly cultivated, healthy plain bounded 
 by woody hills. By a strange coincidence the 
 very plant which constitutes the staple produce 
 of those fields, is in almost ludicrous harmony 
 with the grotesqueness and neatness of the ar- 
 chitecture around; and one may almost fancy that 
 the builders of the little knotted spires and tur- 
 rets of the town, and workers of its dark iron 
 flowers, are in spiritual presence, watching and 
 guiding the produce of the field, — when one finds 
 the footpaths bordered everywhere, by the bossy 
 spires and lustrous jetty flowers of the black 
 hollyhock. 
 
 Lastly, when Durer penetrated among those 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 413 
 
 hills of Franconia he would find himself in a 
 pastoral country, much resembling the Gruyere 
 districts of Switzerland, but less thickly inhab- 
 ited, and giving in its steep, though net lofty, 
 rocks, — its scattered pines, — and its fortresses 
 and chapels, the motives of all the wilder land- 
 scape introduced by the painter in such pieces as 
 his St. Jerome, or St. Hubert. His continual 
 and forced introduction of sea in almost every 
 scene, much as it seems to me to be regretted, 
 is possibly owing to his happy recollections of 
 the sea-city where he received the rarest of all 
 rewards granted to a good workman; and for 
 once in his life was understood. 
 
 Among this pastoral simplicity and formal 
 sweetness of domestic peace, Durer had to work 
 out his question concerning the grave. It 
 haunted him long; he learned to engrave death's 
 heads well before he had done w^ith it; looked 
 deeper than any other man into those strange 
 rings, their jewels lost; and gave answer at last 
 conclusively in his great Knight and Death — of 
 which more presently. But while the Nurem- 
 berg landscape is still fresh in our minds, we had 
 better turn south quickly and compare the ele- 
 ments of education which formed, and of crea- 
 tion which companioned, Salvator. 
 
 Born with a wild and coarse nature (how 
 coarse I will show you soon), but nevertheless 
 
414 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 an honest one, he set himself in youth hotly to 
 the war, and cast himself carelessly on the cur- 
 rent, of life. No rectitude of ledger-lines stood 
 in his way; no tender precision of household 
 customs; no calm successions of rural labour. 
 But past his half-starved lips rolled profusion of 
 pitiless wealth; before him glared and swept the 
 troops of shameless pleasure. Above him mut- 
 tered Vesuvius; beneath his feet shook the Sol- 
 fatara. 
 
 In heart disdainful, in temper adventurous; 
 conscious of power, impatient of labour, and yet 
 more of the pride of the patrons of his youth, he 
 fled to the Calabrian hills, seeking not knowledge, 
 but freedom. If he was to be surrounded by 
 cruelty and deceit, let them at least be those of 
 brave men or savage beasts, not of the timorous 
 and the contemptible. Better the wrath of the 
 robber, than the enmity of the priest; and the 
 cunning of the wolf than of the hypocrite. 
 
 We are accustomed to hear the south of Italy 
 spoken of as a beautiful country. Its mountain 
 forms are graceful above others, its sea bays ex- 
 quisite in outline and hue; but it is only beau- 
 tiful in superficial aspect. In closer detail it is 
 wild and melancholy. Its forests are sombre- 
 leafed, labyrinth-stemmed; the carubbe, the 
 olive, laurel, and ilex, are alike in that strange 
 feverish twisting of their branches, as if in spasms 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 4^5 
 
 of half human pain: — Avernus forests: one fears 
 to break their boughs, lest they should cry to us 
 from their rents; the rocks they shade are of 
 ashes, or thrice-molten lava; iron sponge, whose 
 every pore has been filled with fire. Silent vil- 
 lages, earthquake-shaken, without commerce, 
 without industry, without knowledge, without 
 hope, gleam in white ruin from hillside to hill- 
 side; far-winding wrecks of immemorial walls 
 surround the dust of cities long forsaken: the 
 mountain streams moan through the cold arches 
 of their foundations, green with weed, and rage 
 over the heaps of their fallen towers. Far above 
 in thunder-blue serration, stand the eternal 
 edges of the angry Apennine, dark with rolling 
 impendence of volcanic cloud. 
 
 Yet even among such scenes as these, Salva- 
 tor might have been calmed and exalted, had he 
 been, indeed, capable of exaltation. But he was 
 not of high temper enough to perceive beauty. 
 He had not the sacred sense — the sense of col- 
 our; all the loveliest hues of the Calabrian air 
 were invisible to him; the sorrowful desolation 
 of the Calabrian villages unfelt. He saw only 
 what was gross and terrible, — the jagged peak, 
 the splintered tree, the flowerless bank of gra«s, 
 and wandering weed, prickly and pale. His 
 temper confirmed itself in evil, and became more 
 and more fierce and morose; though not, I be 
 
4l6 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 lieve, cruel, ungenerous, or lascivious. I should 
 not suspect Salvator of wantonly inflicting pain. 
 His constantly painting it does not prove he de- 
 lighted in it; he felt the horror of it, and in that 
 horror fascination. Also he desired fame, and 
 saw that here was an untried field rich enough 
 in morbid excitement to catch the humour of 
 his indolent patrons. But the gloom gained up- 
 on him, and grasped him. He could jest, in- 
 deed, as men jest in prison-yards (he became af- 
 terwards a renowned mime in Florence); his 
 satires are full of good mocking, but his own 
 doom to sadness is never repealed. 
 
 Of all men whose work I have ever studied, he 
 gives me 'most distinctly the idea of a lost spirit. 
 Michelet calls him " Ce damne Saivator," per- 
 haps in a sense merely harsh and violent; the 
 epithet to me seems true in a more literal, 
 more merciful sense, — " That condemned Salva- 
 tor." I see in him, notwithstanding all his base- 
 ness, the last traces of spiritual life in the art of 
 Europe. He was the last man to whom the 
 thought of a spiritual existence presented itself 
 as a conceivable reality. All succeeding men, 
 however powerful — Rembrandt, Rubens, Van- 
 dyck, Reynolds — would have mocked at the 
 idea of a spirit. They were men of the world; 
 they axe never m earnest, and they are never ap- 
 palled. But Salvator was capable of pensiveness, 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 417 
 
 of faith, and of fear. The misery of the earth 
 is a marvel to him; he cannot leave off gazing at 
 it. The religion of the earth is a horror to him. 
 He gnashes his teeth at it, rages at it, mocks and 
 gibes at it. He would have acknowledged relig- 
 ion, had he seen any that was true. Anything 
 rather than that baseness which he did see. " If 
 there is no other religion than this of pope and 
 cardinals, let us to the robber's ambush and the 
 dragon's den." He was capable of fear also." 
 The grey spectre, horse-headed, striding across 
 the sky — (in the Pitti palace) — its bat wings 
 spread, green bars of the twilight seen between its 
 bones; it was no play to him — the painting of it. 
 Helpless Salvator! A little early sympathy, a 
 word of true guidance, perhaps, had saved him. 
 What says he of himself ? Despiser of wealth 
 and of death. Two grand scorns; but, oh, con- 
 demned Salvator! the question is not for man 
 what he can scorn, but what he can love. 
 
 I do not care to trace the various hold which 
 Hades takes on this fallen soul. It is no part of 
 my work here to analyse his art, nor even that 
 of Durer; all that we need to note is the oppo- 
 site answer they gave to the question about 
 death. 
 
 To Salvator it came in narrow terms. Desola- 
 tion, without hope, throughout the fields of na- 
 ture, he had to explore; hypocrisy and sensual- 
 
41 8 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ity, triumphant, and shameless, in the cities from 
 which he derived his support. His life, so far as 
 any nobility remained in it, could only pass in 
 horror, disdain or despair. It is difficult to say 
 which of the three prevails most in his common 
 work; but his answer to the great question was 
 of despair only. He represents " Umana Fragil- 
 ita" by the type of a skeleton with plumy wings, 
 leaning over a woman and child; the earth cov- 
 ered with ruin round them — a thistle, casting its 
 seed, the only fruit of it. " Thorns, also, and 
 thistles shall it bring forth to thee." The same 
 tone of thought marks all Salvator's more earn- 
 est work. 
 
 On the contrary, in the sight of Durer, things 
 were for the most part as they ought to be. Men 
 did their work in his city and in the fields round 
 it. The clergy were sincere. Great social ques- 
 tions unagitated; great social evils either non- 
 existent, or seemingly a part of the nature of 
 things, and inevitable. His answer was that of 
 patient hope; and twofold, consisting of one de- 
 sign in praise of Fortitude, and another in praise 
 of Labour. The Fortitude, commonly known as 
 the " Knight and Death," represents a knight 
 riding through a dark valley overhung by leaf- 
 less trees, and with a great castle on a hill be- 
 yond. Beside him, but a little in advance, rides 
 Death on a pale horse. Death is grey-haired 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGH rs. 4^9 
 
 and crowned; — serpents wreathed about his 
 crown (the sting of death involved in the kingly 
 power). He holds up the hour-glass, and looks 
 earnestly into the knight's face. Behind him 
 follows Sin; but Sin powerless; he has been con- 
 quered and passed by, but follows yet, watching 
 if any way of assault remains. On his forehead 
 are two horns — I think, of sea-shell — to indicate 
 his insatiableness and instability. He has also 
 the twisted horns of the ram, for stubbornness, 
 the ears of an ass, the snout of a swine, the 
 hoofs of a goat. Torn wings hang useless from 
 his shoulders, and he carries a spear with two 
 hooks, for catching as well as wounding. The 
 knight does not heed him, nor even Death, 
 though he is conscious of the presence of the 
 last. 
 
 He rides quietly, his bridle firm in his hand, 
 and his lips set close in a slight sorrowful smile, 
 for he hears what Death is saying; and hears it 
 as the word of a messenger who brings pleasant 
 tidings, thinking to bring evil ones. A little 
 branch of delicate heath is twisted round his 
 helmet. His horse trots proudly and straight; 
 its head high, and with a cluster of oak on the 
 brow where on the fiend's brow is the sea-shell 
 horn. But the horse of Death stoops its head; 
 and its rein catches the little bell which hangs 
 
420 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 from the knight's horse-bridle, making it toll, as 
 a passing bell* 
 
 Durer's second answer is the plate of " Melen- 
 cholia," which is the history of the sorrowful 
 toil of the earth, as the " Knight and Death " is 
 of its sorrowful patience under temptation. 
 
 Salvator's answer, remember, is in both re- 
 spects that of despair. Death as he reads, lord 
 of temptation, is victor over the spirit of man; 
 and lord of ruin, is victor over the work of man. 
 Durer declares the sad, but unsullied conquest 
 over Death the tempter; and the sad, but endur- 
 ing conquest over Death the destroyer. 
 
 Though the general intent of the Melencholia 
 is clear, and to be felt at a glance, I am in some 
 doubt respecting its special symbolism. I do 
 not know how far Durer intended to show that 
 labour, in many of its most earnest forms, is 
 closely connected with the morbid sadness or 
 " dark anger," of the northern nations. Truly 
 
 * This was first pointed out to me by a friend — Mr. 
 Robert Allen. It is a beautiful thought; yet, possibly, 
 an after-thought. I have some suspicion that there is an 
 alteration in the plate at that place, and that the rope to 
 which the bell hangs was originally the line of the chest 
 of the nearest horse, as the grass-blades about the lifted 
 hind leg conceal the lines which could not, in Durer's 
 way of work, be effaced, indicating its first intended posi- 
 tion. What a proof of his general decision of handling is 
 involved in this " repentir '" 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 42 1 
 
 some of the best work ever done for man, has 
 been in that dark anger;* but I have not yet 
 been able to determine for myself how far this 
 is necessary, or how far great work may also be 
 done with cheerfulness. If I knew what the 
 truth was, I should be able to interpret Durer 
 better; meantime the design seems tome his an- 
 swer to the complaint, " Yet is his strength la- 
 bour and sorrow." 
 
 " Yes," he replies, " but labour and sorrow are 
 his strength." 
 
 The labour indicated is in the daily work of 
 men. Not the inspired or gifted labour of the 
 few (it is labour connected with the sciences, not 
 with the arts), shown in its four chief functions: 
 thoughtful, faithful, calculating and executing. 
 
 Thoughtful, first; all true power coming of 
 that resolved, resistless calm of melancholy 
 thought. This is the first and last message of 
 the whole design. Faithful, the right arm of the 
 
 *" Yet withal, you see that the Monarch is a great, 
 valiant, cautious, melancholy, commanding man." — 
 Friends in Council, last volume, p. 269. Milverton giv- 
 ing an account of Titian's picture of Charles the Fifth. 
 (Compare Ellesmere's description of Milverton himself, 
 p. 140.) Read carefully also what is said further on re- 
 specting Titian's freedom, and fearless withholding of 
 flattery; comparing it with the note on Giorgione and 
 Titian. 
 
422 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 Spirit resting on the book. Calculating (chiefly 
 in the sense of self-command), the compasses in 
 her right hand. Executive — roughest instru- 
 ments of labour at her feet: a crucible, and 
 geometrical solids, indicating her work in the 
 sciences. Over her head the hour-glass and the 
 bell, for their continual words, *' Whatsoever thy 
 hand findeth to do." Beside her, childish la- 
 bour (lesson-learning?) sitting on an old mill- 
 stone, with a tablet on its knees. I do not know 
 what instrument it has in its hand. At her knees, 
 a wolf-hound asleep. In the distance, a comet 
 (the disorder and threatening of the universe) 
 setting, the rainbow dominant over it. Her 
 strong body is close girded for work; at her 
 waist hang the keys of wealth; but the coin is 
 cast aside contemptuously under her feet. She 
 has eagles* wings, and is crowned with fair leaf- 
 age of spring. 
 
 Yes, Albert of Nuremberg, it was a noble an- 
 swer, yet an imperfect one. This is indeed the 
 labour which is crowned with laurel and has the 
 wings of an eagle. It was reserved for another 
 country to prove, for another hand to portray, 
 the labour which is crowned with fire, and has 
 the wings of the bat. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 42.3 
 
 CARE FOR POSTERITY. 
 
 The benevolent regards and purposes of men 
 in masses seldom can be supposed to extend be- 
 yond their own generation. They may look to 
 posterity as an audience, may hope for its atten- 
 tion, and labour for its praise; they may trust to 
 its recognition of unacknowledged merit, and de- 
 mand its justice for contemporary wrong. But 
 all this is mere selfishness, and does not involve 
 the slightest regard to, or consideration of, the 
 interests of those by whose numbers we would 
 fain swell the circle of our flatterers, and by 
 whose authority we would gladly support our 
 presently disputed claims. The idea of self-de^ 
 nial for the sake of posterity, of practising pres- 
 ent economy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, 
 of planting forests that our descendants may live 
 under their shade, or of raising cities for future 
 nations to inhabit, never, I suppose, efficiently 
 takes place among publicly recognised motives 
 of exertion. Yet these are not the less our du- 
 ties; nor is our part fitly sustained upon the 
 earth, unless the range of our intended and de- 
 liberate usefulness include not only the compan- 
 ions, but the successors, of our pilgrimage. God 
 has lent us the eartli for our life; it is a great 
 entail. It belongs as much to those who are to 
 come after us, and whose names are already 
 
424 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 written in the book of creation, as to us; and we 
 have no right, by anything that we do or neg- 
 lect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, 
 or deprive them of benefits which it was in our 
 power to bequeath. And this the more, because 
 it is one of the appointed conditions of the la- 
 bour of men that, in proportion to the time be- 
 tween the seed-sowing and the harvest, is the 
 fulness of the fruit; and that generally, there- ^ 
 fore, the farther off we place our aim, and the * 
 less we desire to be ourselves the witnesses of 
 what we have laboured for, the more wide and 
 rich will be the measure of our success. Men 
 cannot benefit those that are with them as they 
 can benefit those who come after them; and of 
 all the pulpits from which human voice is ever 
 sent forth, there is none from which it reaches 
 so far as from the grave. 
 
 GLOOM. 
 
 It is not in the languor of a leisure hour that 
 a man will set his whole soul to conceive the 
 means of representing some important truth, nor 
 to the projecting angle of a timber bracket that 
 he would trust its representation, if conceived. 
 And yet, in this languor, and in this trivial work, 
 he must find some expression of the serious part 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 425 
 
 of his soul, of what there is within him capable 
 of awe, as well as of love. The more noble the 
 man is, the more impossible it will be for him to 
 confine his thoughts to mere loveliness, and that 
 of a low order. Were his powers and his time 
 unlimited, so that, like Fra Angelico, he could 
 paint the Seraphim, in that order of beauty he 
 could find contentment, bringing down heaven 
 to earth. But by the conditions of his being, by 
 his hard-worked life, by his feeble powers of exe- . 
 cution, by the meanness of his employment and 
 the languor of his heart, he is bound down to 
 earth. It is the world's work that he is doing, 
 and world's work is not to be done without fear. 
 And whatever there is of deep and eternal con- 
 sciousness within him, thrilling his mind with the 
 sense of the presence of sin and death around 
 him, must be expressed in that slight work, and 
 feeble way, come of it what will. He cannot 
 forget it, among all that he sees of beautiful in 
 nature; he may not bury himself among the leaves 
 of the violet on the rocks, and of the lily in the 
 glen, and twine out of them garlands of perpetual 
 gladness. He sees more in the earth than these, 
 — misery and wrath, and discordance and dan- 
 ger, and all the work of the dragon and his 
 angels; this he sees with too deep feeling ever to 
 forget. And though when he returns to his idle 
 work, — it may be to gild the letters upon the 
 
426 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 page, or to carve the timbers of the chamber, or 
 the stones of the pinnacle, — he cannot give his 
 strength of thought any more to the woe or to 
 the danger, there is a shadow of them still pres- 
 ent with him: and as the bright colours mingle 
 beneath his touch, and the fair leaves and flowers 
 grow at his bidding, strange horrors and phan- 
 tasms rise by their side; grisly beasts and ven- 
 omous serpents, and spectral fiends and nameless 
 inconsistencies of ghastly life, rising out of things 
 most beautiful, and fading back into them again, 
 as the harm and the horror of life do out of its 
 happiness. He has seen these things; he wars 
 with them daily; he cannot but give them their 
 part in his work, though in a state of compara- 
 tive apathy to them at the time. He is but carv- 
 ing and gilding, and must not turn aside to weep; 
 but he knows that hell is burning on, for all that, 
 and the smoke of it withers his oak-leaves. 
 
 Now, the feelings which give rise to the false 
 or ignoble grotesque, are exactly the reverse of 
 these. In the true grotesque, a man of naturally 
 strong feeling is accidentally or resolutely apa- 
 thetic; in the false grotesque, a man naturally 
 apathetic is forcing himself into temporary ex- 
 citement. The horror which is expressed by 
 the one, comes upon him whether he will or not; 
 that which is expressed by the other, is sought 
 out by him, and elaborated by his art. And 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 42/ 
 
 tlierefore, also, because the fear of the one is 
 true, and of true things, however fantastic its ex- 
 pression may be, there will be reality in it, and 
 force. It is not a manufactured terribleness 
 whose author, when he had finished it, knew not 
 if it would terrify any one else or not: but it is 
 a terribleness taken from the life; a spectre 
 which the workman indeed saw, and which, as 
 it appalled him, will appal us also. But the 
 other workman never felt any Divine fear; he 
 never shuddered when he heard the cry from the 
 burning towers of the earth, 
 
 " Venga Medusa; si lo farem di smalto." 
 
 He is stone already, and needs no gentle hand 
 laid upon his eyes to save him. 
 
 NOTHING BUT TRUTH. 
 
 Let me declare, without qualification — that 
 partial conception is no conception. The whole 
 picture must be imagined, or none of it is. And 
 this grasp of the whole implies very strange and 
 sublime qualities of mind. It is not possible, 
 unless the feelings are completely under control; 
 the least excitement or passion will disturb the 
 measured equity of power; a painter needs to be 
 as cool as a general; and as little moved or sub- 
 
428 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 dued by his sense of pleasure, as a soldier by the 
 sense of pain. Nothing good can be done with- 
 out intense feeling; but it must be feeling so 
 crushed, that the work is set about with mechani- 
 cal steadiness, absolutely untroubled, as a sur- 
 geon, — not without pity, but conquering it and 
 putting it aside — begins an operation. Until 
 the feelings can give strength enough to the will 
 to enable it to conquer them, they are not strong 
 enough. If you cannot leave your picture at any 
 moment; — cannot turn from it and go on with 
 another, while the colour is drying; — cannot 
 work at any part of it you choose with equal 
 contentment — you have not firm enough grasp 
 of it. 
 
 It follows also, that no vain or selfish person 
 can possibly paint, in the noble sense of the 
 word. Vanity and selfishness are troublous, 
 eager, anxious, petulant: — painting can only be 
 done in calm of mind. Resolution is not enough 
 to secure this; it must be secured by disposition 
 as well. You may resolve to think of your pic- 
 ture only; but, if you have been fretted before 
 beginning, no manly or clear grasp of it will be 
 possible for you. No forced calm is calm enough. 
 Only honest calm, — natural calm. You might 
 as well try by external pressure to smooth a lake 
 till it could reflect the sky, as by violence of 
 effort to sechre the peace through which only 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 429 
 
 you can reach imagination. That peace must 
 come in its own time; as the waters settle them- 
 selves into clearness as well as quietness; you 
 can no more filter your mind into purity than 
 you can compress it into calmness; you must 
 keep it pure, if you would have it pure; and 
 throw no stones into it, if you would have it 
 quiet. Great courage and self-command may, 
 to a certain extent, give power of painting with- 
 out the true calmness underneath; but never of 
 doing first-rate work. There is sufficient evi- 
 dence of this, in even what we know of great 
 men, though of the greatest, we nearly always 
 know the least (and that necessarily; they being 
 very silent, and not much given to setting them- 
 selves forth to questioners; apt to be contempt- 
 uously reserved, no less than unselfishly). But 
 in such writings and sayings as we possess of 
 theirs, we may trace a quite curious gentleness 
 and serene courtesy. Rubens' letters are almost 
 ludicrous in their unhurried politeness. Rey- 
 nolds, swiftest of painters, was gentlest of com- 
 panions; so also Velasquez, Titian, and Vero- 
 nese. 
 
 It is gratuitous to add that no shallow or 
 petty person can paint. Mere cleverness or 
 special gift never made an artist. It is only 
 perfectness of mind, unity, depth, decision, the 
 
430 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 liighest qualities, in fine, of the intellect, which 
 will form the imagination. 
 
 And, lastly, no false person can paint. A 
 person false at heart may, when it suits his pur- 
 poses, seize a stray truth here or there; but the 
 relations of truth, — its perfectness, — that which 
 makes it wholesome truth, he can never per- 
 ceive. As wholeness and wholesomeness go to- 
 gether, so also sight with sincerity; it is only 
 the constant desire of, and submissiveness to 
 truth, which can measure its strange angles and 
 mark its infinite aspects; and fit them and knit 
 them into the strength of sacred invention. 
 
 Sacred, I call it deliberately; for it is thus, in 
 the most accurate senses, humble as well as 
 helpful; meek in its receiving as magnificent in 
 its disposing; the name it bears being rightly 
 given to invention formal, not because it 
 forms, but because it finds. For you cannot 
 find a lie; you must make it for yourself. False 
 things may be imagined, and false things com- 
 posed; but only truth can be invented. 
 
 INFIDELITY. 
 
 It is written, " He that trusteth in his own 
 heart is a fool," so also it is written, " The fool 
 hath said in his heart, There is no God;" and 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 431 
 
 the self-adulation which influenced not less the 
 .earning of the age than its luxury, led gradually 
 to the forgetfulness of all things but self, and to 
 an infidelity only the more fatal because it still 
 retained the form and language of faith. 
 
 In noticing the more prominent forms in 
 which this faithlessness manifested itself, it is 
 necessary to distinguish justly between that 
 which was the consequence of respect for Pag- 
 anism, and that which followed from the cor- 
 ruption of Catholicism. For as the P^oman 
 architecture is not to be made answerable for 
 the primal corruption of the Gothic, so neither 
 is the Roman philosophy to be made answerable 
 for the primal corruption of Christianity. Year 
 after year, as the history of the life of Christ 
 sank back into the depth of time, and became 
 obscured by the misty atmosphere of the history 
 of the world, — as intermediate actions and in- 
 cidents multiplied in number, and countless 
 changes in men's modes of life, and tones of 
 thought, rendered it more difficult for them to 
 imagine the facts of distant time, — it became 
 daily, almost hourly, a greater effort for the 
 faithful heart to apprehend the entire veracity 
 and vitality of the story of its Redeemer; and 
 more easy for the thoughtless and remiss to de- 
 ceive themselves as to the true character of the 
 belief they have been taught to profess. And 
 
432 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 this must have been the case, had the pastors of 
 the Church never failed in their watchfuhiess, 
 and the Church itself never erred in its practice 
 or doctrine. But when every year that removed 
 the truths of the Gospel into deeper distance, 
 added to them also some false or foolish tradi- 
 tion; when wilful distortion was added to natu- 
 ral obscurity, and the dimness of memory was 
 disguised by the fruitfulness of fiction; when, 
 moreover, the enormous temporal power granted 
 to the clergy attracted into their ranks multi- 
 tudes of men who, but for such temptation, 
 would not have pretended to the Christian 
 name, so that grievous wolves entered in among 
 them, not sparing the flock; and when, by the 
 machinations of such men, and the remissness of 
 others, the form and administration of Church 
 doctrine and discipline had become little more 
 than a means of aggrandizing the power of the 
 priesthood, it was impossible any longer for 
 men of thoughtfulness or piety to remain in an 
 unquestioning serenity of faith. The Church 
 had become so mingled with the world that its 
 witness could no longer be received; and the 
 professioning members of it, who were placed in 
 circumstances such as to enable them to become 
 aware of its corruptions, and whom their interest 
 or their simplicity did not bribe or beguile into 
 silence, gradually separated themselves into twc-^ 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 433 
 
 vast multitudes of adverse energy, one tending 
 to Reformation, and the other to Infidelity. 
 
 Of these, the last stood, as it were, apart, to 
 watch the course of the struggle between Roman- 
 ism and Protestantism, a struggle which, how- 
 ever necessary, was attended with infinite calam- 
 ity to the Church. For, in the first place, the 
 Protestant movement was, in reality, not re- 
 formation but xtanimatta/i. It poured new life 
 into the Church, but it did not form or define 
 her anew. In some sort it rather broke down 
 her hedges, so that all they who passed by might 
 pluck off her grapes. The reformer speedily 
 found that the enemy was never far behind the 
 sower of good seed; that an evil spirit might 
 enter the ranks of reformation as well as those 
 of resistance; and that though the deadly blight 
 might be checked amidst the wheat, there was 
 no hope of ever ridding the wheat itself from the 
 tares. New temptations were invented by Satan 
 wherewith to oppose the revived strength of 
 Christianity: as the Romanist, confiding in his 
 human teachers, had ceased to try whether they 
 were teachers sent from God, so the Protestant, 
 confiding in the teaching of the Spirit, believed 
 every spirit, and did not try the spirit whether 
 they were of God. And a thousand enthusi- 
 asms and heresies speedily obscured the faith 
 and divided the force of the Reformation. 
 
434 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 But the main evils rose out of the antst^onism 
 of the two great parties; primarily, in the mere 
 fact of the existence of an antagonism. To the 
 eyes of the unbeliever the Church of Christ, for 
 the first time since its foundation, bore the 
 aspect of a house divided against itself. Not 
 that many forms of schism had not before arisen 
 in it; but either they had been obscure and 
 silent, hidden among the shadows of the Alps 
 and the marshes of the Rhine; or they had been 
 outbreaks of visible and unmistakable error, ca^L 
 off by the Church, rootless, and speedily wither- 
 ing away, while, with much that was erring and 
 criminal, she still retained within her the pillar 
 and ground of the truth. But here was at last 
 a schism in which truth and authority were at 
 issue. The body that was cast off withered 
 away no longer. It stretched out its boughs to 
 the sea and its branches to the river, and it was 
 the ancient trunk that gave signs of decrepitude. 
 On one side stood the reanimated faith, in its 
 right hand the book open, and its left hand 
 lifted up to heaven, appealing for its proof to 
 the Word of the Testimony and the power of 
 the Holy Ghost. On the other stood, or seemed 
 to stand, all beloved custom and believed tradi- 
 tion; all that for fifteen hundred years had been 
 closest to the hearts of men, or most precious 
 for their help. Long-trusted legend; long-rev- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 435 
 
 erenced power; long-practised discipline; faiths 
 that had ruled the destiny, and sealed the de- 
 parture, of souls that could not be told or num- 
 bered for multitude; prayers, that from the lips 
 of the fathers to those of the children had dis- 
 tilled like sweet waterfalls, sounding through the 
 silence of ages, breaking themselves into heaven- 
 ly dew to return upon the pastures of the wilder- 
 ness; hopes, that had set the face as a flint in 
 the torture, and the sword as a flame in the bat- 
 tle, that had pointed the ' purposes and minis- 
 tered the strength of life, brightened the last 
 glances and shaped the last syllables of death; 
 charities, that had bound together the brother- 
 hoods of the mountain and the desert, and had 
 woven chains of pitying or aspiring communion 
 between this world and the unfathomable be- 
 neath and above; and, more than these, the 
 spirits of all the innumerable, undoubting, dead, 
 beckoning to the one way by which they had 
 been content to follow the things that belonged 
 unto their peace; — these all stood on the other 
 side: and the choice must have been a bitter 
 one, even at the best; but it was rendered ten- 
 fold more bitter by the natural, but most sinful 
 animosity of the two divisions of the Church 
 against each other. 
 
 On one side this animosity was, of course, in- 
 evitable. The Romanist party, though still in- 
 
43^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 
 
 eluding many Christian men, necessarily included, 
 also, all the worst of those who called themselves 
 Christians. In the fact of its refusing correction, 
 it stood confessed as the Church of the unholy; 
 and, while it still counted among its adherents 
 many of the simple and believing, — men unac- 
 quainted with the corruption of the body to 
 which they belonged, or incapable of accepting 
 any form of doctrine but that which they had 
 been taught from their youth, — it gathered to- 
 gether with them whatever was carnal and sen- 
 sual in priesthood or in people, all the lovers of 
 power in the one, and of ease in the other. And 
 the rage of these men was, of course, unlimited 
 against those who either disputed their authority, 
 reprehended their manner of life, or cast suspi- 
 cion upon the popular methods of lulling the con- 
 science in the lifetime, or purchasing salvation on 
 the death-bed. 
 
 Besides this, the reassertion and defence of 
 various tenets which before had been little more 
 than floating errors in the popular mind, but 
 which, definitely attacked by Protestantism, it 
 became necessary to fasten down with a band of 
 iron and brass, gave a form at once more rigid, 
 and less rational, to the whole body of Romanist 
 Divinity. Multitudes of minds which in other 
 ages might have brought honour and strength to 
 the Church, preaching the more vital truths 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 437" 
 
 which it still retained, were now occupied in 
 pleading for arraigned falsehoods, or magnifying 
 disused frivolities: and it can hardly be doubted 
 by any candid observer, that the nascent or 
 latent errors which God pardoned in times of ig- 
 norance, became unpardonable when they were 
 formally defined and defended; that fallacies 
 which were forgiven to the enthusiasm of a mul- 
 titude, were avenged upon the stubbornness of a 
 Council; that, above all, the great invention of 
 the age, which rendered God's word accessible to 
 every man, left all sins against its light incapable 
 of excuse or expiation; and that from the mo- 
 ment when Rome set herself in direct opposition 
 to the Bible, the judgment was pronounced upon 
 her, which made her the scorn and the prey of 
 her own children, and cast her down from the- 
 throne where she had magnified herself against 
 heaven, so low, that at last the unimaginable 
 scene of the Bethlehem humiliation was mocked 
 in the temples of Christianity. Judea had seen 
 her God laid in the manger of the beast of bur- 
 den; it was for Christendom to stable the beasc 
 of burden by the altar of her God. 
 
 Nor, on the other hand, was the opposition of 
 Protestantism to the Papacy less injurious to it- 
 self. That opposition was, for the most part, in- 
 temperate, undistinguishing, and incautious. It 
 could indeed hardly be otherwise. Fresh bleed- 
 
43 8 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ing from the sword of Rome, and still trembling 
 at her anathema, the reformed churches were lit- 
 tle likely to remember any of her benefits, or to 
 regard any of her teaching. Forced by the Ro- 
 manist contumely into habits of irreverence, by 
 the Romanist fallacies into habits of of disbelief, 
 the self-trusting, rashly-reasoning spirit gained 
 ground among them daily. Sect branched out 
 of sect, presumption rose over presumption; the 
 miracles of the early Church were denied and its 
 martyrs forgotten, though their power and palm 
 were claimed by the members of every persecuted 
 sect; pride, malice, wrath, love of change, 
 masked themselves under the thirst for truth, 
 and mingled with the just resentment of decep- 
 tion, so that it became impossible even for the 
 best and truest men to know the plague of their 
 own hearts; while avarice and impiety openly 
 transformed reformation into robbery, and re- 
 proof into sacrilege. Ignorance could as easily 
 lead the foes of the. Church, as lull her slumber; 
 men who would once have been the unquestion- 
 ing recipients, were now the shameless inventors 
 of absurd or perilous superstitions; they who 
 were of the temper that walketh in darkness, 
 gained little by having discovered their guides 
 to be blind; and the simplicity of the faith, ill 
 understood and contumaciously alleged, became 
 an excuse for the rejection of the highest arts and 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 439> 
 
 most tried wisdom of mankind: while the learned 
 infidel, standing aloof, drew his own conclusions, 
 both from the rancour of the antagonists, and 
 from their errors; believed each in all that he al- 
 leged against the other; and smiled with superior 
 humanity, as he watched the winds of the Alps 
 drift the ashes of Jerome, and the dust of Eng- 
 land drink the blood of King Charles. 
 
 Now all this evil was, of course, entirely inde- 
 pendent of the renewal of the study of Pagan 
 writers. But that renewal found the faith of 
 Christendom already weakened and divided; and 
 therefore it was itself productive of an effect ten- 
 fold greater than could have been apprehended 
 from it at another time. It acted first, as before 
 noticed, in leading the attention of all men to 
 words instead of things; for it was discovered 
 that the language of the middle ages had been 
 corrupt, and the primal object of every scholar 
 became now to purify his style. To this study 
 of words, that of forms being added, both as of 
 matters of the first importance, half the intellect 
 of the age was at once absorbed in the base 
 sciences of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; studies 
 utterly unworthy of the serious labour of men, 
 and necessarily rendering those employed upon 
 them incapable of high thoughts or noble emo- 
 tions. Of the debasing tendency of philology, 
 no proof is needed beyond once reading a gram- 
 
440 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 marian's notes on a great poet: logic is unneces- 
 sary for men who can reason; and about as use- 
 ful to those who cannot, as a machine for forcing 
 one foot in due succession before the other 
 would be to a man who could not walk: while 
 the study of rhetoric is exclusively one for men 
 who desire to deceive or be deceived; he who 
 has the truth at his heart need never fear the 
 want of persuasion on his tongue, or, if he fear 
 it, it is because the base rhetoric of dishonesty 
 keeps the truth from being heard. 
 
 The study of these sciences, therefore, natu- 
 rally made men shallow and dishonest in general; 
 but it had a peculiarly fatal effect v/ith respect to 
 religion, in the view which men took of the Bible. 
 Christ's teaching was discovered not to be rhe- 
 torical, St. Paul's preaching not to be logical, and 
 the Greek of the New Testament not to be gram- 
 matical. The stern truth, the profound pathos, 
 the impatient* period, leaping from point to point 
 and leaving the intervals for the hearer to fill, the 
 comparatively Hebraized and unelaborate idiom, 
 had little in them of attraction for the students 
 of phrase and syllogism: and the chief knowl- 
 edge of the age became one of the chief stum- 
 bling-blocks to its religion. 
 
 But it was not the grammarian and logician 
 alone who was thus retarded or perverted; in 
 them there had been small loss. The men who 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 44 1 
 
 could truly appreciate the higher excellencies of 
 the classics were carried away by a current of 
 enthusiasm which withdrew them from every 
 other study. Christianity was still professed as 
 a matter of form, but neither the Bible nor the 
 writings of the Fathers had time left for their 
 perusal, still less heart left for their acceptance. 
 The human mind is not capable of more than a 
 certain amount of admiration or reverence, and 
 that which was given to Horace was withdrawn 
 from David. Religion is, of all subjects, that 
 which will least endure a second place in the 
 heart or thoughts, and a languid and occasional 
 study of it was sure to lead to error or infidelity. 
 On the other hand, what was heartily admired 
 and unceasingly contemplated was soon brought 
 nigh to being believed; and the systems of Pagan 
 mythology began gradually to assume the places 
 in the human mind from which the unwatched 
 Christianity was wasting. Men did not indeed 
 openly sacrifice to Jupiter, or build silver shrines 
 for Diana, but the ideas of Paganism neverthe- 
 less became thoroughly vital and present with 
 them at all times; and it did not matter in the 
 least, as far as respected the power of true relig- 
 ion, whether the Pagan image v/as believed in or 
 not, so long as it entirely occupied the thoughts, 
 The scholar of the sixteenth century, if he saw 
 the lightning shining from the east unto the west, 
 
442 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 thought forthwith of Jupiter, not of the coming 
 of the Son of man; if he saw the moon walking 
 in brightness, he thought of Diana, not of the 
 throne which was to be established for ever as a 
 faithful witness in heaven; and though his heart 
 was but secretly enticed, yet thus he denied the 
 God that is above.* 
 
 And, indeed, this double creed, of Christianity 
 confessed and Paganism beloved, was worse than 
 Paganism itself, inasmuch as it refused effective 
 and practical belief altogether. It would have 
 been better to have worshipped Diana and Jupiter 
 at once, than to have gone on through the whole 
 of life naming one God, imagining another, and 
 dreading none. Better, a thousandfold, to have 
 been " a Pagan suckled in some creed outworn,'^ 
 than to have stood by the great sea of Eternity^ 
 and seen no God walking on its waves, no 
 heavenly world on its horizon. 
 
 This fatal result of an enthusiasm for classical 
 literature was hastened and heightened by the 
 misdirection of the powers of art. The imagi- 
 nation of the age was actively set to realise these 
 objects of Pagan belief; and all the most exalted 
 faculties of man, which, up to that period, had 
 been employed in the service of Faith, were now 
 transferred to the service of Fiction. The in- 
 
 * Job, xxxi. 26-28; Psalm Ixxxix. 37. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. ^3 
 
 vention which had formerly been both sanctified 
 and strengthened by labouring under the com- 
 mand of settled intention, and on the ground of 
 assured belief, had now the reins laid upon its 
 neck by passion, and all grounds of fact cut from 
 beneath its feet; and the imagination which for- 
 merly had helped men to apprehend the truth, 
 now tempted them to believe a falsehood. The 
 faculties themselves wasted away in their own 
 treason; one by one they fell in the potters' 
 field; and the Raphael who seemed sent and in- 
 spired from heaven that he might paint Apostles 
 and Prophets, sank at once into powerlessness at 
 the feet of Apollo and the Muses. 
 
 But this was not all. The habit of using the 
 greatest gifts of imagination upon fictitious sub- 
 jects, of course destroyed the honour and value 
 of the same imagination used in the cause of 
 truth. Exactly in the proportion in which Jup- 
 iters and Mercuries were embodied and believed, 
 in that proportion Virgins and Angels were dis- 
 embodied and disbelieved. The images sum- 
 moned by art began gradually to assume one 
 average value in the spectator's mind; and inci- 
 dents from the Iliad and from the Exodus to 
 come within the same degrees of credibility. 
 
444 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 THE TWO BOYHOODS. 
 
 Bom half-way between the mountains and the 
 sea — that young George of Castelfranco — of the 
 Brave Castle: — Stout George they called him, 
 George of Georges, so goodly a boy he was — 
 Giorgione. 
 
 Have you ever thought what a world his eyes 
 opened on — fair, searching eyes of youth? What 
 a world of mighty life, from those mountain roots 
 to the shore; — of loveliest life, when he went 
 down, yet so young, to the marble city — and 
 became himself as a fiery heart to it? 
 
 A city of marble, did I say? nay, rather a 
 golden city, paved with emerald. For truly, 
 every pinnacle and turret glanced or glowed, 
 overlaid with gold, or bossed with jasper. 
 Beneath, the unsullied sea drew in deep breath- 
 ing, to and fro, its eddies of green wave. Deep- 
 hearted, majestic, terrible as the sea, — the men 
 of Venice moved in sway of power and war; pure 
 as her pillars of alabaster, stood her mothers and 
 maidens; from foot to brow, all noble, walked 
 her knights; the low bronzed gleaming of sea- 
 rusted armour shot angrily under their blood-red 
 mantle-folds. Fearless, faithful, patient, impene- 
 trable, implacable, — every word a fate, — sate her 
 senate. In hope and honour, lulled by flowing 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 445 
 
 of wave around their isles of sacred sand, each 
 with his name written and the cross graved at 
 his side, lay her dead. A wonderful piece of 
 world. Rather, itself a world. It lay along the 
 face of the waters, no larger, as its captains saw 
 it from their masts at evening, than a bar of sun- 
 set that could not pass away; but, for its power, 
 it must have seemed to them as if they were sail- 
 ing in the expanse of heaven, and this a great 
 planet, whose orient edge widened through ether. 
 A world from which all ignoble care and petty 
 thoughts were banished, with all the common and 
 poor elements of life. No foulness nor tumult, 
 in .those tremulous streets, that filled, or fell, be- 
 neath the moon; but rippled music of majestic 
 change, or thrilling silence. No weak walls could 
 rise above them; no low-roofed cottage, nor straw- 
 built shed. Only the strength as of rock, and 
 the finished setting of stones most precious. And 
 around them, far as the eye could reach, still the 
 soft moving of stainless waters, proudly pure; as 
 not the flower, so neither the thorn nor the thistle, 
 could grow in the glancing fields. Ethereal 
 strength of Alps, dream-like, vanishing in high 
 procession beyond the Torcellan shore; blue 
 islands of Paduan hills, poised in the golden west. 
 Above, free winds and fiery clouds ranging at 
 their mil; — brightness out of the north, and balm 
 from the south, and the stars of the evening and 
 
44^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 morning clear in the limitless light of arched 
 heaven and circling sea. 
 
 Such was Giorgione's school — such Titian's 
 home. 
 
 Near the south-west corner of Covent Garden, a 
 square brick pit or well is formed by a close-set 
 block of houses, to the back windows of which it 
 admits a few rays of light. Access to the bottom 
 of it is obtained out of Maiden Lane, through a 
 low archway and an iron gate; and if you stand 
 long enough under the archway to accustom your 
 eyes to the darkness, you may see on the left 
 hand a narrow door, which formerly gave quiet 
 access to a respectable barber's shop, of which 
 the front window, looking into Maiden Lane, is 
 still extant, filled in this year (i860) with a row 
 of bottles, connected, in some defunct manner, 
 with a brewer's business. A more fashionable 
 neighbourhood, it is said, eighty years ago than 
 now — never certainly a cheerful one — wherein a 
 boy being born on St. George's day, 1775, ^^- 
 gan soon after to take interest in the world of 
 Covent Garden, and put to service such spec- 
 tacles of life as it afforded. 
 
 No knights to be seen there, nor, I imagine, 
 many beautiful ladies; their costume at least dis- 
 advantageous, depending much on incumbency of 
 hat and feather, and short waists; the majesty of 
 men founded similarly on shoebuckles and wigs; 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 447 
 
 — impressive enough when Reynolds will do his 
 best for it; but not suggestive of much ideal 
 delight to a boy. 
 
 "Bello ovile dov' io dormii agnello:" of things 
 beautiful, besides men and women, dusty sun- 
 beams up or down the street on summer morn- 
 ings ; deep furrowed cabbage leaves at the green- 
 grocer's ; magnificence of oranges in wheelbarrows 
 round the corner; and Thames' shore within 
 three minutes' race. 
 
 None of these things very glorious; the best, 
 however, that England, it seems, was then abltf 
 to provide for a boy of gift: who, such as they 
 are, loves them — never, indeed, forgets them. 
 The short waists modify to the last his visions of 
 Greek ideal. His foregrounds had always a 
 succulent cluster or two of greengrocery at the 
 corners. Enchanted oranges gleam in Covent 
 Gardens of the Hesperides; and great ships go 
 to pieces in order to scatter chests of them 
 on the waves. That mist of early sunbeams in 
 the London dawn crosses, many and many a 
 time, the clearness of Italian air; and by Thames* 
 shore, with its stranded barges and glidings of red 
 sail, dearer to us than Lucerne lake or Venetian 
 lagoon, — by Thames' shore we will die. 
 
 With such circumstance round him in youth, 
 let us note what necessary effects followed upon 
 the boy. I assume him to have had Giorgione's 
 
448 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 sensibility (and more than Giorgione's, if that be 
 possible) to colour and form. I tell you farther, 
 and this fact you may receive trustfully, that his 
 sensibility to human affection and distress was no 
 less keen than even his sense for natural beauty 
 — heart-sight deep as eye-sight. 
 
 Consequently, he attaches himself with the 
 faithfullest child-love to everything that bears an 
 image of the place he was born in. No matter 
 how ugly it is, — has it anything about it like 
 Maiden Lane, or like Thames' shore? If so, it 
 shall be painted for their sake. Hence, to the 
 very close of life, Turner could endure ugliness 
 which no one else of the same sensibility would 
 have borne with for an instant. Dead brick 
 walls, blank square windows, old clothes, market- 
 womanly types of humanity — anything fishy and 
 muddy, like Billingsgate or Hungerford Market, 
 had great attraction for him; black barges, 
 patched sails, and every possible condition of fog. 
 
 "That mysterious forest below London Bridge" 
 — better for the boy than wood of pine, or grove 
 of myrtle. How he must have tormented the 
 watermen, beseeching them to let him crouch 
 anywhere in the bows, quiet as a log, so only that 
 he might get floated down there among the ships, 
 and round and round the ships, and with the 
 ships, and by the ships, and under the ships, star- 
 ing and clambering; — these the only quite beauti- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 449 
 
 ful things he can see in all the world, except the 
 sky; but these, when the sun is on their sails 
 filling or falling, endlessly disordered by sway of 
 tide and stress of anchorage, beautiful unspeaka- 
 bly; which ships also are inhabited by gHorious 
 creatures — red-faced sailors, with pipes, appear- 
 ing over the gunwales, true knights, over their 
 castle parapets — the most angelic beings in the 
 whole compass of London world. And Trafalgar 
 happening long before we can draw ships, we, 
 nevertheless, coax all current stories out of the 
 wounded sailors, do our best at present to show 
 Nelson's funeral streaming up the Thames; and 
 vow that Trafalgar shall have its tribute of mem- 
 ory some day. Which, accordingly, is accom- 
 plished — once, with all our might, for its death; 
 twice, with all our might, for its victory; thrice, 
 in pensive farewell to the old Temeraire, and, 
 with it, to that order of things. 
 
 Now this fond companying with sailors must 
 have divided his time, it appears to me, pretty 
 equally between Covent Garden and Wapping 
 (allowing for incidental excursions to Chelsea on 
 one side, and Greenwich on the other), which 
 time he would spend pleasantly, but not magnifi- 
 cently, being limited in pocket-money, and lead- 
 ing a kind of " Poor Jack" life on the river. 
 
 In some respects, no life could be better for a 
 lad. But it was not calculated to make his ear 
 
450 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 fine to the. niceties of language, nor form his 
 moralities on an entirely regular standard. Pick- 
 ing up his first scraps of vigorous English chiefly 
 at Deptford and in the markets, and his first ideas 
 •of female tenderness and beauty among nymphs 
 •of the barge and the barrow — another boy might, 
 perhaps, have become what people usually term 
 " vulgar." But the original make and frame of 
 Turner's mind being not vulgar, but as nearly as 
 possible a combination of the minds of Keats 
 and Dante, joining capricious waywardness and 
 intense openness to every fine pleasure of sense, 
 and hot defiance of formal precedent, with a 
 quite infinite tenderness, generosity, and desire 
 of justice and truth — this kind of mind did not 
 become vulgar, but very tolerant of vulgarity, 
 even fond of it in some forms; and, on the out- 
 side, visibly infected by it, deeply enough; the 
 curious result, in its combination of elements, 
 being to most people wholly incomprehensible. 
 
 -It was as if a cable had been woven of blood- 
 
 ? crimson silk, and then tarred on the outside. 
 
 ' People handled it, and the tar came off on their 
 hands; red gleams were seen through the black, 
 underneath, at the places where it had been 
 strained. Was it ochre? — said the world, or red 
 
 lead? 
 
 Schooled thus in manners, literature, and gen- 
 
 ■eral moral principles at Chelsea and Wapping, 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 451 
 
 we have finally to inquire concerning the most 
 important point of all. We have seen the princi- 
 pal differences between this boy and Giorgione, 
 as respects sight of the beautiful, understanding 
 of poverty, of commerce, and of order of battle; 
 then follows another cause of difference in our 
 training — not slight, — the aspect of religion, 
 namely, in the neighborhood of Covent Garden. 
 I say the aspect; for that was all the lad could 
 judge by. Disposed, for the most part, to learn 
 chiefly by his eyes, in this special matter he finds 
 there is really no other way of learning. His 
 father taught him " to lay one penny upon anoth- 
 er." Of mother's teaching, we hear of none; of 
 parish pastoral teaching, the reader may guess 
 how much. 
 
 I choose Giorgione rather than Veronese to 
 help me in carrying out this parallel; because I 
 do not find in Giorgione's work any of the early 
 Venetian monachist element. He seems to me 
 to have belonged more to an abstract contem- 
 plative school. I may be wrong in this; it is no 
 matter; — suppose it were so, and that he came, 
 down to Venice somewhat recusant, or insentient, 
 concerning the usual priestly doctrines of his day, 
 — how would the Venetian religion, from an 
 outer intellectual standing-point, have looked to 
 him? 
 
 He would have seen it to be a religion indis- 
 
452 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 putably powerful in human affairs; often very 
 harmfully so; sometimes devouring widows' 
 houses, and consuming the strongest and fairest 
 from among the young; freezing into merciless 
 bigotry the policy of the old: also, on the other 
 hand, animating national courage, and raising 
 souls, otherwise sordid, into heroism: on the 
 whole, always a real and great power; served 
 with daily sacrifice of gold, time, and thought; 
 putting forth its claims, if hypocritically, at least 
 in bold hypocrisy, not waiving any atom of them 
 in doubt or fear; and, assuredly, in large meas- 
 ure, sincere, believing in itself, and believed: a 
 goodly system, moreover, in aspect; gorgeous, 
 harmonious, mysterious; — a thing which had 
 either to be obeyed or combated, but could 
 not be scorned. A religion towering over all 
 the city — many buttressed — luminous in marble 
 stateliness, as the dome of our Lady of Safety 
 shines over the sea; many voiced also, giving, 
 over all the eastern seas, to the sentinel his watch- 
 word, to the soldier his war-cry; and, on the lips 
 of all who died for Venice, shaping the whisper 
 of death. 
 
 I suppose the boy Turner to have regarded 
 the religion of his city also from an external in- 
 tellectual standing-point. 
 
 What did he see in Maiden Lane? 
 
 Let not the reader be offended with me; I am 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 453 
 
 willing to let him describe, at his own pleasure, 
 what Turner saw there; but to me, it seems to 
 have been this. A religion maintained occa- 
 sionally, even the whole length of the lane, at 
 point of constable's staff; but, at other times, 
 placed under the custody of the beadle, within 
 certain black and unstately iron railings of St. 
 Paul's, Covent Garden. Among the wheelbar- 
 rows and over the vegetables, no perceptible 
 dominance of religion; in the narrow, disquieted 
 streets, none; in the tongues, deeds, daily ways 
 of Maiden Lane, little. Some honesty, indeed, 
 and English industry, and kindness of heart, 
 and general idea of justice; but faith, of any 
 national kind, shut up from one Sunday to the 
 next, not artistically beautiful even in those 
 Sabbatical exhibitions; its paraphernalia being 
 chiefly of high pews, heavy elocution, and cold 
 grimness of behaviour. 
 
 What chiaroscuro belongs to it — (dependent 
 mostly on candle light), — we will, however, 
 draw, considerably; no goodliness of escutcheon, 
 nor other respectability being omitted, and the 
 best of their results confessed, a meek old 
 woman and a child being let into a pew, for 
 whom the reading by candlelight will be benefi- 
 cial. 
 
 For the rest, this religion seems to him dis- 
 creditable — discredited — not believing in itself, 
 
454 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 putting forth its authority in a cowardly way,, 
 watching how far it might be tolerated, continu- 
 ally shrinking, disclaiming, fencing, finessing;, 
 divided against itself, not by stormy rents, but 
 by thin fissures, and splittings of plaster from 
 the walls. Not to be either obeyed, or com- 
 bated, by an ignorant, yet clear-sighted youth; 
 only to be scorned. And scorned not one whit 
 the less, though also the dome dedicated to if 
 looms high over distant winding of the Thames; 
 as St. Mark's campanile rose, for goodly land- 
 mark, over mirage of lagoon. For St. Mark 
 ruled over life; the Saint of London over death; 
 St. Mark over St. Mark's Place, but St. Paul 
 over St. Paul's Churchyard. 
 
 Under these influences pass away the first re- 
 flective hours of life, with such conclusion as 
 they can reach. In consequence of a fit of ill- 
 ness, he was taken — I cannot ascertain in what 
 year — to live with an aunt, at Brentford; and 
 here, I believe, received some schooling, which 
 he seems to have snatched vigorously; getting 
 knowledge, at least by translation, of the more 
 picturesque classical authors, which he turned 
 presently to use, as we shall see. Hence also, 
 walks about Putney and Twickenham in the 
 summer time acquainted him with the look of 
 English meadow-ground in its restricted states 
 of paddock and park; and with some round- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 455 
 
 headed appearances of trees, and stately entrances 
 to houses of mark, the avenue of Bushy, and the 
 iron gates and carved pillars of Hampton, im 
 pressing him apparently with great awe and 
 admiration; so that in after life his little coun- 
 try house is, — of all places in the world, — at 
 Twickenham! Of swans and reedy shores he 
 now learns the soft motion and the green 
 mystery, in a way not to be forgotten. 
 
 And at last fortune wills that the lad's true 
 life shall begin; and one summer's evening, 
 after various wonderful stage-coach experiences 
 on the north road, which gave him a love of 
 stage-coaches ever after, he finds himself sitting 
 alone among the Yorkshire hills.* For the first 
 time, the silence of Nature round him, her free- 
 dom sealed to him, her glory opened to him. 
 Peace at last; nor roll of cart-wheel, nor mutter 
 of sullen voices in the back shop; but curlew- 
 cry in space of heaven, and welling of bell-toned 
 streamlet by its shadowy rock. Freedom at 
 last. Dead-wall, dark railing, fenced field, gated 
 garden, all passed away like the dream of a pris- 
 oner; and behold, far as foot or eye can race or 
 
 * I do not mean that this is his first acquaintance with 
 the country, but the first impressive and touching one, 
 after his mind was formed. The earliest sketches I found 
 in the National collection are at Clifton and Bristol, the 
 next, at O^Jord. 
 
45^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 range, the moor, and cloud. Loveliness at last 
 It is here then, among these deserted vales! 
 Not among men. Those pale, poverty-struck, 
 or cruel faces; — that multitudinous, marred hu- 
 manity — are not the only things that God has 
 made. Here is something He has made which 
 no one has marred. Pride of purple rocks, and 
 river pools of blue, and tender wilderness of glit- 
 tering trees, and misty lights of evening on im- 
 measurable hills. 
 
 Beauty, and freedom, and peace; and yet an- 
 other teacher, graver than these. Sound preach- 
 ing at last here, in Kirkstall crypt, concerning 
 fate and life. Here, where the dark pool re- 
 flects the chancel pillars, and the cattle lie in 
 unhindered rest, the soft sunshine on their dap- 
 pled bodies, instead of priests' vestments; their 
 white furry hair ruffled a little, fitfully, by the 
 evening wind, deep-scented from the meadow 
 thyme. 
 
 Consider deeply the import to him of this, his 
 first sight of ruin, and compare it with the effect 
 of the architecture that was around Giorgione. - 
 There were indeed aged buildings, at Venice, in 
 his time, but none in decay. All ruin was re- 
 moved, and its place filled as quickly as in our 
 London; but filled always by architecture loftier 
 and more wonderful than that whose place it 
 took, the boy himself happy to work upon the 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 4$? 
 
 walls of it; so that the idea of the passing away 
 of the strength of men and beauty of their works 
 never could occur to him sternly. Brighter and 
 brighter the cities of Italy had been rising and 
 broadening on hill and plain, for three hundred 
 years. He saw only strength and immortality, 
 could not but paint both; conceived the form 
 of man as deathless, calm with power, and fiery 
 with life. 
 
 Turner saw the extract reverse of this. In 
 the present work of men, meanness, aimlessness, 
 unsightliness: thin-walled, lath-divided, narrow- 
 garreted houses of clay; booths of a darksome 
 Vanity Fair, busily base. 
 
 But on Whitby Hill, and by Bolton Brook, 
 remained traces of other handiwork. Men who 
 could build had been there; and who also had 
 wrought, not merely for their own days. But to 
 what purpose? Strong faith and steady hands, 
 and patient souls — can this, then, be all you 
 have left! this the sum of your doing on the 
 earth! — a nest whence the night-owl may whim- 
 per to the brook, and a ribbed skeleton of con- 
 sumed arches, looming above the bleak banks of 
 mist, from its cliff to the sea. 
 
 As the strength of men to Giorgione, to Turn- 
 er their weakness and vileness, were alone vis- 
 ible. They themselves unworthy or ephemeral; 
 their work, despicable, or decayed. In the 
 
458 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 Venetian's eyes, all beauty depended on man's 
 presence and pride; in Turner's, on the solitude 
 he had left, and the humiliation he had suffered. 
 
 And thus the fate and issue of all his work 
 were determined at once. He must be a painter 
 of the strength of nature, there was no beauty 
 elsewhere than in that; he must paint also the 
 labour and sorrow and passing away of men; 
 this was the great human truth visible to him. 
 
 Their labour, their sorrow, and their death. 
 Mark the three. Labour; by sea and land, in 
 field and city, at forge and furnace, helm and 
 plough. No pastoral indolence nor classic pride 
 shall stand between him and the troubling of the 
 world: still less between him and the toil of his 
 country, — blind, tormented, unwearied, marvel- 
 lous England. 
 
 Also their Sorrow; Ruin of all their glorious 
 work, passing away of their thoughts and their 
 honour, mirage of pleasure. Fallacy of Hope; 
 gathering of weed on temple step; gaining of 
 wave on deserted strand; weeping of the mother 
 for the children, desolate by her breathless first- 
 born in the streets of the city, desolate by her 
 last sons slain, among the beasts of the field. 
 
 And their Death. That old Greek question 
 again; — yet unanswered. The unconquerable 
 spectre still flitting among the forest trees at 
 twilight ; rising ribbed out of the sea-sand ; — white, 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 459 
 
 a Strange Aphrodite, — out of the sea-foam; 
 stretching its grey, cloven wings among the 
 clouds; turning the light of their sunsets into 
 blood. This has to be looked upon, and in a 
 more terrible shape than ever Salvator or Durer 
 saw it. The wreck of one guilty country does 
 not infer the ruin of all countries, and need not 
 cause general terror respecting the laws of the 
 universe. 
 
 Turner was eighteen years old when Napoleon 
 came down on Areola. Look on the map of 
 Europe, and count the blood stains on it, be- 
 tween Areola and Waterloo. 
 
 Not alone those blood-stains on the Alpine 
 snow, and the blue of the Lombard plain. The 
 English death was before his eyes also. No de- 
 cent, calculable, consoled dying; no passing to 
 rest like that of the aged burghers of Nuremberg 
 town. No gentle processions to churchyards 
 among the fields, the bronze crests bossed deep 
 on the memorial tablets, and the skylark singing 
 above them from among the corn. But the life 
 trampled out in the slime of the street, crushed f 
 to dust amidst the roaring of the wheel, tossed 
 countlessly away into howling winter wind along 
 five hundred leagues of rock-fanged shore. Or, 
 worst of all, rotted down to forgotten graves 
 through years of ignorant patience, and vain 
 seeking for help from man, for hope in God — in- 
 
4^0 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 firm, imperfect yearning, as of motherless in- 
 fants starving at the dawn; oppressed royalties 
 of captive thought, vague ague-fits of bleak, 
 amazed despair. 
 
 So taught, and prepared for his life's labour, 
 sate the boy at last alone among his fair English 
 hills; and began to paint, with cautious toil, the 
 rocks, and fields, and trickling brooks, and soft, 
 white clouds of heaven. 
 
 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 What is the proper function of play, with re- 
 spect not to youth merely, but to all mankind? 
 
 It is a much more serious question than may 
 be at first supposed; for a healthy manner of 
 play is necessary in order to a healthy manner 
 of work: and because the choice of our recrea- 
 tion is, in most cases, left to ourselves, while the 
 nature of our work is as generally fixed by ne- 
 cessity or authority, it may be well doubted 
 whether more distressful consequences may not 
 have resulted from mistaken choice in play than 
 from mistaken direction in labour. 
 
 Observe, however, that we are only concerned, 
 here, with that kind of play which causes laugh- 
 ter or implies recreation, not with that which 
 consists in the excitement of theenerdes whether 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 46 1 
 
 of body or mind. Muscular exertion is, indeed, 
 in youth, one of the conditions of recreation; 
 "but neither the violent bodily labour which 
 children of all ages agree to call play," nor the 
 grave excitement of the mental faculties in 
 games of skill or chance, are in anywise con- 
 nected with the state of feeling we have here to 
 investigate, namely, that sportiveness which man 
 possesses in common with many inferior crea- 
 tures, but to which his higher faculties give 
 nobler expression in the various manifestations 
 of wit, humour, and fancy. 
 
 With respect to the manner in which this in- 
 stinct of playfulness is indulged or repressed, 
 mankind are broadly distinguishable into four 
 classes: the men who play wisely; who play nec- 
 essarily; who play inordinately; and who play 
 not at all. 
 
 First: Those who play wisely. It is evident 
 that the idea of any kind of play can only be 
 associated with the idea of an imperfect, child- 
 ish, and fatigable nature. As far as men can 
 raise that nature, so that it shall no longer be 
 interested by trifles or exhausted by toils, they 
 raise it above play; he whose heart is at once 
 fixed upon heaven, and open to the earth, so as 
 to apprehend the importance of heavenly doc- 
 trines, and the compass of human sorrow, will 
 have little disposition for jest; and exactly in 
 
462 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 proportion to the breadth and depth of his char- 
 acter and intellect, will be, in general, the inca- 
 pability of surprise, or exuberant and sudden 
 emotion, which must render play impossible. It 
 is, however, evidently not intended that many 
 men should even reach, far less pass their lives 
 in, that solemn state of thoughtfulness, which 
 brings them into the nearest brotherhood with 
 their Divine Master; and the highest and healthi- 
 est state which is competent to ordinary hu- 
 manity appears to be that which, accepting the 
 necessity of recreation, and yielding to the im- 
 pulses of natural delight springing out of health 
 and innocence, does, indeed, condescend often 
 to playfulness, but never without such deep love 
 of God, of truth, and of humanity, as shall make 
 even its slightest words reverent, its idlest fan- 
 cies profitable, and its keenest satire indulgent. 
 Wordsworth and Plato furnish us with, perhaps, 
 the finest and highest examples of this playful- 
 ness: in the one case, unmixed with satire, the 
 perfectly simple effusion of that spirit 
 " Which gives to all the self-same bent, 
 Whose life is wise, and innocent ;" 
 
 — in Plato, and, by the by, in a very wise book 
 of our own times, not unworthy of being named 
 in such companionship, " Friends in Council," 
 mingled with an exquisitely tender and loving 
 satire. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 463. 
 
 Secondly: The men who play necessarily. 
 That highest species of playfulness, which we 
 have just been considering, is evidently the con- 
 dition of a mind, not only highly cultivated, but 
 so habitually trained to intellectual labour that 
 it can bring a considerable force of accurate 
 thought into its moments even of recreation. 
 This is not possible, unless so much repose of 
 mind and heart are enjoyed, even at the periods 
 of greatest exertion, that the rest required by the 
 system is diffused over the whole life. To the 
 majority of mankind, such a state is evidently 
 unattainable. They must, perforce, pass a large 
 part of their lives in employments both irksome 
 and toilsome, demanding an expenditure of en- 
 ergy which exhausts the system, and yet consum- 
 ing that energy upon subjects incapable of inter- 
 esting the nobler faculties. When such employ- 
 ments are intermitted, those noble instincts, 
 fancy, imagination, and curiosity, are all hun- 
 gry for the food which the labour of the day 
 has denied to them, while yet the weariness of 
 the body, in a great degree, forbids their appli- 
 cation to any serious subject. They therefore 
 exert themselves without any determined pur- 
 pose, and under no vigorous restraint, but gather, 
 as best they may, such various nourishment, and 
 put themselves to such fantastic exer/:ise, as may 
 soonest indemnify them for their past imprison- 
 
464 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ment, and prepare them to endure their recur- 
 rence. This sketching of the mental limbs as 
 their fetters fall away, — this leaping and dancing 
 of the heart and intellect, when they are restored 
 to the fresh air of heaven, yet half paralyzed by 
 their captivity, and unable to turn themselves to 
 any earnest purpose, — I call necessary play. It 
 is impossible to exaggerate its importance, 
 whether in polity, or in art. 
 
 Thirdly: The men who play inordinately. The 
 most perfect state of society which, consistently 
 with due understanding of man's nature, it, may 
 be permitted us to conceive, would be one in which 
 the whole human race were divided, more or less 
 distinctly, into workers and thinkers; that is to 
 say, into the two classes, who only play wisely, 
 or play necessarily. But the number and the 
 toil of the working class are enormously increased, 
 probably more than doubled, by the vices of the 
 men who neither play wisely nor necessarily, but 
 are enabled by circumstances, and permitted by 
 their want of principle, to make amusement the ob- 
 ject of their existence. There is not any moment 
 of the lives of such men which is not injurious to 
 others; both because they leave the work undone 
 which was appointed for them, and because they 
 necessarily think wrongly, whenever it becomes 
 compulsory upon them to think at all. The 
 greater portion of the misery of this world arises 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 465 
 
 from the false opinions of men whose idleness 
 has physically incapacitated them from forming 
 true ones. Every duty which we omit obscures 
 some truth which we should have known; and 
 the guilt of a life spent in the pursuit of pleas- 
 ure is twofold, partly consisting in the perversion 
 of action, and partly in the dissemination of 
 falsehood. 
 
 There is, however, a less criminal, though 
 hardly less dangerous condition of mind; which, 
 though not failing in its more urgent duties, fails 
 in the finer conscientiousness which regulates the 
 degree, and directs the choice, of amusement, at 
 those times when amusement is allowable. The 
 most frequent error in this respect is the want of 
 reverence in approaching subjects of importance 
 or sacredness, and of caution in the expression of 
 thoughts which may encourage like irreverence 
 in others: and these faults are apt to gain upon 
 the mind until it becomes habitually more sensi- 
 ble to what is ludicrous and accidental, than to 
 what is grave and essential, in any subject that 
 is brought before it; or even, at last, desires to 
 perceive or to know nothing but what may end 
 in jest. Very generally minds of this character 
 are active and able; and many of them are so 
 far conscientious, that they believe their jesting 
 forwards their work. But it is difficult to cal- 
 culate the harm they do, by destroying the 
 
466 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 reverence which is our best guide into all truth; 
 for weakness and evil are easily visible, but 
 greatness and goodness are often latent; and we 
 do infinite mischief by exposing weakness to 
 eyes which cannot comprehend greatness. This 
 error, however, is more connected with abuses 
 of the satirical than of the playful instinct; and 
 I shall have more to say of it presently. 
 
 The men who do not play at all: those who 
 are so dull or so morose as to be incapable of 
 inventing or enjoying jest, and in whom care, 
 guilt, or pride represses all healthy exhilaration 
 of the fancy; or else men utterly oppressed with 
 labour, and driven too hard by the necessities of 
 the world to be capable of any species of happy 
 relaxation. We have next to consider the expres- 
 sion throughout of the minds of men who indulge 
 themselves in unnecessary play. It is evident that 
 a large number of these men will be more refined 
 and more highly educated than those who only 
 play necessarily; their power of pleasure-seeking 
 implies, in general, fortunate circumstances of 
 life. It is evident also that their play will not be 
 so hearty, so simple, or so joyful; and this defi- 
 ciency of brightness will affect it in proportion 
 to its unnecessary and unlawful continuance, 
 until at last it becomes a restless and dissatisfied 
 indulgence in excitement, or a painful delving 
 after exhausted springs of pleasure. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 467 
 
 THE STATES OF THE FOREST. 
 
 It was not from their lakes, nor their cliffs, 
 nor their glaciers — though these were all pecu- 
 liarly their possession, that the three venerable 
 cantons or states received their name. They 
 were not called the States of the Rock, nor the 
 States of the Lake, but the States of the Forest. 
 And the one of the three which contains the 
 most touching record of the spiritual power of 
 Swiss religion, in the name of the convent of the 
 " Hill of Angels," has, for its own, none but the 
 sweet childish name of " Under the Woods." 
 
 And indeed you may pass under them if, leav- 
 ing the most sacred spot in Swiss history, the 
 Meadow of the Three Fountains, you bid the 
 boatman row southward a little way by the 
 shore of the Bay of Uri, Steepest there in its 
 western side, the walls of its rocks ascend to 
 heaven. Far, in the blue of evening, like a 
 great cathedral pavement, lies the lake in its 
 darkness: and you may hear the whisper of in- 
 numerable falling waters return from the hollows 
 of the cliff like the voices of a multitude pray- 
 ing under their breath. From time to time the 
 beat of a wave, slow lifted, where the rocks lean 
 over the black depth, dies heavily as the last 
 note of a requiem. Opposite, green with steep 
 grass, and set with chalet villages, the Fron-Alp 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 rises in one solemn glow of pastoral light and 
 peace; and above, against the clouds of twilight, 
 ghostly on the gray precipice, stand, myriad by 
 myriad, the shadowy armies of the Unterwalden 
 pine. 
 
 I have seen that it is possible for the stranger 
 to pass through this great chapel, with its font of 
 waters, and mountain pillars, and vaults of cloud, 
 without being touched by one noble thought, or 
 stirred by any sacred passion; but for those who 
 received from its waves the baptism of their 
 youth, and learned beneath its rocks the fidelity 
 of their manhood, and watched amidst its clouds 
 the likeness of the dream of life, with the eyes 
 of age — for these I will not believe that the 
 mountain shrine was built, or the calm of its; 
 forest-shadows guarded by their God, in vain. 
 
 THE PAGAN SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. 
 
 The Pagan system is completely triumphant; 
 and the entire body of the so-called Christian 
 world has established a system of instruction for 
 its youth, wherein neither the history of Christ's 
 Church, nor the language of God's law, is con- 
 sidered a study of the smallest importance; 
 wherein, of all subjects of human inquiry, his 
 own rtligion is the one in which a youth's igno- 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 469 
 
 ranee is most easily forgiven; * and in which it 
 is held a light matter that he should be daily- 
 guilty of lying, of debauchery, or of blasphemy, 
 so only that he write Latin verses accurately, 
 and wi<:h speed. 
 
 I believe that in a few years more w^e shall 
 wake from all these errors in astonishment, as 
 from evil dreams; having been preserved, in the 
 midst of their madness, by those hidden roots of 
 active and earnest Christianity which God's 
 grace has bound in the English nation with iron 
 and brass. But in the Venetian, those roots 
 themselves had withered; and, from the palace 
 of their ancient religion, their pride cast them forth 
 hopelessly to the pasture of the brute. From 
 pride to infidelity, from infidelity to the unscru- 
 pulous and insatiable pursuit of pleasure, and 
 from this to irremediable degradation, the transi- 
 tions were swift, like the falling of a star. The 
 great palaces of the haughtiest nobles of Venice 
 were stayed, before they had risen far above 
 their foundations, by the blast of a penal pov- 
 erty; and the wild grass, on the unfinished frag- 
 
 * I shall not forget the impression made upon me at 
 Oxford, when, going, up for my degree, and mentioning 
 to one of the authorities that I had not had time enough 
 to read the Epistles properly, I was told, that " the Epis- 
 tles were separate sciences, and I need not trouble myself 
 about them." 
 
470 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ments of their mighty shafts, waves at the tide- 
 mark where the power of the godless people 
 first heard the " Hitherto shalt thou come." 
 And the regeneration in which they had so vainly 
 trusted, — the new birth and clear dawning, as 
 they thought it, of all art, all knowledge, and all 
 hope, — became to them as that dawn which 
 Ezekiel saw on the hills of Israel: " Behold the 
 day; behold it is come. The rod hath blos- 
 somed, pride hath budded, violence is risen up 
 into a rod of wickedness. None of them shall 
 remain^ nor of their multitude; let not the buyer 
 rejoice, nor the seller mourn, for wrath is upon 
 all the multitude thereof." 
 
 The fact is, we distrust each other and our- 
 selves. We know that if, on any occasion of 
 general intercourse, we turn to our next neigh- 
 bour, and put to him some searching or testing 
 question, we shall, in nine cases out of ten, dis- 
 cover him to be only a Christian in his own way, 
 and as far as he thinks proper, and that he doubts 
 of many things which we ourselves do not be- 
 lieve strongly enough to hear doubted without 
 danger. What is in reality cowardice and faith- 
 lessness, we call charity; and consider it the 
 part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men's 
 evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, 
 and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy 
 for the sake of f^r\i admirable practice. And 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 4/1 
 
 under this shelter of charity, humility, and faint- 
 heartedness, the world, unquestioned by others- 
 or by itself, mingles with and overwhelms the 
 small body of Christians, legislates for them, 
 moralizes for them, reasons for them; and 
 though itself of course greatly and beneficently 
 influenced by the association, and held much in 
 check by its pretence to Christianity, yet under- 
 mines, in nearly the same degree, the sincerity 
 and practical power of Christianity itself. 
 
 THEOLOGY OF SPENSER. 
 
 The following analysis of the first books of 
 the " Faerie Queene," may be interesting to read- 
 ers who have been in the habit of reading the 
 noble poem too hastily to connect its parts com- 
 pletely together; and may perhaps induce them 
 to more careful study of the rest of the poem. 
 
 The Redcross Knight is Holiness, — the " Pie- 
 tas" of St. Mark's, the " Devotio" of Orcagna, — 
 meaning, I think, in general. Reverence and 
 Godly Fear. 
 
 This virtue, in the opening of the book, has 
 Truth (or Una) at its side, but presently enters 
 the Wandering Wood, and encounters the ser- 
 pent Error; that is to say. Error in her universal 
 form, the first enemy of Reverence and Holi- 
 
472 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 ness and more especially Error as founded on 
 learning; for when Holiness strangles her, 
 
 "Her vomit /u// of bookes and papers was, 
 
 With loathly frogs and toades, which eyes did lacke." 
 
 Having vanquished this first ojDen and palpa- 
 ble form of Error, as Reverence and Religion 
 must always vanquish it, the Knight encounters 
 Hypocrisy, or Archimagus: Holiness cannot de- 
 tect Hypocrisy, but believes him, and goes home 
 with him; whereupon Hypocrisy succeeds in 
 separating Holiness from Truth; and the Knight 
 (Holiness) and Lady (Truth) go forth separately 
 from the house of Archimagus. 
 
 Now observe, the moment Godly Fear, or 
 Holiness, is separated from Truth, he meets In- 
 fidelty, or the Knight Sans Foy: Infidelity hav- 
 ing Falsehood, or Duessa, riding behind him. 
 The instant the Redcrosse Knight is aware of 
 the attack of Infidelity, he 
 
 " Gan fairly couch his speare, and towards ride." 
 
 He vanquishes and slays Infidelity; but is de- 
 ceived by his companion, Falsehood, and takes 
 her for his lady: thus showing the condition of 
 Religion, when, after being attacked by Doubt, 
 and remaining victorious, it is nevertheless se- 
 duced, by any form of Falsehood, to pay rever- 
 ence where it ought not. This, then, is the first 
 fortune of Godly Fear separated from Truth. 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 473 
 
 The poet then returns to Truth, separated from 
 Godly Fear. She is immediately attended by a 
 lion, or Violence, which makes her dreaded 
 wherever she comes; and when she enters the 
 mart of Superstition, this Lion tears Kirkrapine 
 in pieces: showing how Truth, separated from 
 Godliness, does indeed put an end to the abuses 
 of Superstition, but does so violently and des- 
 perately. She then meets again with Hypo- 
 crisy, whom she mistakes for her own lord, or 
 Godly Fear, and travels a little way under his 
 guardianship (Hypocrisy thus not unfrequently 
 appearing to defend the truth), until they are 
 both met by Lawlessness, or the Knight Sans 
 Loy, whom Hypocrisy cannot resist. Lawless- 
 ness overthrows Hypocrisy, and seizes upon 
 Truth, first slaying her lion attendant: showing 
 that the first aim of license is to destroy the 
 force and authority of Truth. Sans Loy then 
 takes Truth captive, and bears her away. Now 
 this Lawlessness is the " unrighteousness," or 
 "adikia,'*of St. Paul; and his bearing Truth 
 away captive, is a type of those " who hold the 
 truth in unrighteousness," — that is to say, gen- 
 erally, of men who, knowing what is true, make 
 the truth give way to their own purposes, or use 
 It only to forward them, as is the case with so 
 many of the popular leaders of the present day. 
 Una is then delivered from Sans Loy by the 
 
4-74 PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 satyrs, to show that Nature, in the end, must 
 work out the deliverance of the truth, although, 
 where it has been captive to Lawlessness, that 
 deliverance can only be obtained through Sav- 
 ageness, and a return to barbarism. Una is then 
 taken from among the satyrs by Satyrane, the 
 son of a satyr and a " lady myld, fair Thyamis," 
 (typifying the early steps of renewed civilizatioUj 
 and its rough, and hardy character " mousled up 
 in life and maners wilde"), who, meeting again 
 with Sans Loy, enters instantly into rough and 
 prolonged combat with him: showing how the 
 early organization of a hardy nation must be 
 wrought out through much discouragement from 
 Lawlessness. This contest the poet leaving for 
 the time undecided, returns to trace the adven- 
 tures of the Redcrosse Knight, or Godly Fear,, 
 who, having vanquished Infidelity, presently is 
 led by Falsehood to the house of pride: thus 
 showing how religion, separated from truth, is 
 first tempted by doubts of God, and then by the 
 pride of life. The description of this house of 
 Pride is one of the most elaborate and noble 
 pieces in the poem; and here we begin to get at 
 the proposed system of Virtues and Vices. For 
 Pride, as queen, has six other vices yoked in her 
 chariot; namely, first, Idleness, then Gluttony, 
 Lust, Avarice, Envy, and Anger, all driven on 
 by " Sathan, with a smarting whip in hand.**" 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS, 4/5 
 
 Prom these lower vices and their company, 
 Godly Fear, though lodging in the house of 
 Pride, holds aloof; but he is challenged, and has 
 a. hard battle to fight with Sans Joy, the brother 
 of Sans Foy: showing, that though he has con- 
 quered Infidelity, and does not give himself up 
 to the allurements of Pride, he is yet exposed, so 
 long as he dwells in her house, to distress of 
 mind and loss of his accustomed rejoicing be- 
 fore God. He, however, having partly con- 
 quered Despondency, or Sans Joy, Falsehood 
 goes down to Hades, in order to obtain drugs to 
 maintain the power or life of Despondency; but, 
 meantime, the Knight leaves the house of Pride; 
 falsehood pursues and overtakes him, and finds 
 him by a fountain side, of which the waters are 
 * ' Dull and slow. 
 And all that drinke thereof do faint and feeble grow. " 
 
 Of which the meaning is, that Godly Fear, after 
 passing through the house of Pride, is exposed to 
 drowsiness and feebleness of watch; as, after 
 Peter's boast, came Peter's sleeping, from weak- 
 ness of the flesh, and then, last of all, Peter's fall. 
 And so it follows: for the Redcrosse Knight, be- 
 ing overcome with faintness by drinking of the 
 fountain, is thereupon attacked by the giant 
 Orgoglio, overcome, and thrown by him into a 
 dungeon. This Orgoglio is Orgueil, or Carnal 
 Pride; not the pride of life, spiritual and subtle. 
 
47^ PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 
 
 but the common and vulgar pride in the power 
 of this world; and his throwing the Redcrosse 
 Knight into a dungeon, is a type of the captivity 
 of true religion under the corporal power of cor- 
 rupt churches, more especially of the Church of 
 Rome, and of its gradually wasting away in un- 
 known places, while carnal pride has the pre- 
 eminence over all things. That Spenser means, 
 especially, the pride of the Papacy, is shown by 
 the 1 6th stanza of the book; for there the giant 
 Orgoglio is said to have taken Duessa, or False- 
 hood, for his " deare," and to have set upon her 
 head a triple crown, and endowed her with royal 
 majesty, and made her to ride upon a seven- 
 headed beast. 
 
 In the meantime, the dwarf, the attendant of 
 the Redcrosse Knight, takes his arms, and find- 
 ing Una tells her of the captivity of her lord. 
 Una, in the midst of her mourning, meets Prince 
 Arthur, in whom, as Spenser himself tells us, is 
 set forth generally Magnificence,- but who, as is 
 shown by the choice of the hero's name, is more 
 especially the magnificence, or literally, " great 
 doing" of the kingdom of England. This power 
 of England, going forth with Truth, attacks 
 Orgoglio, or the Pride of Papacy, slays him; strips 
 Duessa, or Falsehood, naked: and liberates the 
 Redcrosse Knight. The magnificent and well 
 known description of Despair follows, by whom 
 
PRECIOUS THOUGHTS. 477" 
 
 the Redcrosse Knight is hard bested, on account 
 of his past errors and captivity, and is only saved 
 by Truth, who, preceiving him to be stiil feeble, 
 brings him to the house of Ccelia, called, in the 
 argument of the canto, Holiness, but properly, 
 Heavenly Grace, the mother of the Virtues. 
 Her " three daughters, well upbrought," are Faith, 
 Hope, and Charity. Her porter is Humility; be- 
 cause Humility opens the door of Heavenly 
 Grace. Zeal and Reverence are her chamberlains, 
 introducing the new comers to her presence; her 
 gioom, or servant, is Obedience; and her physi- 
 cian, Patience. Under the commands of Charity, 
 the matron Mercy rules over her hospital, under 
 whose care the knight is healed of his sickness; 
 and it is to be especially noticed how much im- 
 portance Spenser, though never ceasing to chastise 
 all hypocrisies and mere observances of form, 
 attaches to true and faithful penance in effecting 
 this cure. Having his strength restored to him, 
 the Knight is trusted to the guidance of Mercy, 
 who, leading him forth by a narrow and thorny 
 way, first instructs him in the seven works of 
 Mercy, and then leads him to the hill of Heavenly 
 Contemplation; whence, having a sight of the 
 New Jerusalem, as Christian of the Delectable 
 Mountains, he goes forth to the final victory over 
 Satan, the old serpent, with which the book 
 closes. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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