I, I 1 I \ a I' 'i r t « ^- '^^ c'^'^ *; "^4 'O' '^ fl5 °^ .1 ^^•^^^ V ^ *1 /.C^% N • '^^ '* O. o. '^^'- 0-5 V*^-'.*^' ■fc, .*' • i'-. ^.J" .-'MK' **.«<•* •• ^* '^^ -^^ • ' A^ ... ^^^ a m a ^ ^ ^^> •'IV ^ V ^'^o^^'^' c* * ,. V ^ General Editor LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A.B. Professor of English in Brown University ADDISON — Sir Roger de Coverley Pavers — Abbott ADDISON AN7J ST'E^US.— Selections from The Taller and The Spec- tator — ABBOTT t iENEID OF VIRGIL— Allinson AUSTEN — Pride and Prejudice BROWNING — Selected Poems — Reynolds BUILDERS OF DEMOCRACY-— Creenlaw BUNYAN — The Pilgrim's Progress — Latham BURKE — Speech on Conciliation xjoUh Collateral Readings — Ward. BURNS — Selected Poems and CARLYLE — Essay on Burns— Marsh CHAUCER — Selections — Greenlatv COLERIDGE — The Ancient Mariner l^OWELl.— Vision of Sir Launfal ] ^ vol.— Moody COOPER — The Last of the Mohicans — Lewis COOPER — The Spy — Damon DANA — Two Years Before the Mast — Westcptt DEFOE — Robinson Crusoe — Hastings Democracy Today — Gauss DE OUINCEY — Joan of Arc and Selections — Moody DE OUINCEY — The Flight of a Tartar Tribe — French, DICKENS — A Christmas Carol, etc. — Broadus DICKENS— A Tale of Two Cities — Baldwin DICKENS — David Copperfield — Baldwin • DRYDEN — Palamon and Arcitc — Cook EMERSON — Essays and Addresses — Hetdrick English Poems — From Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Byron, Macaulay, ARNOLD, and others — Scudder English Popular Ballads — Hart Essays — English and American — Alden Familiar Letters — Greenlaw FRANKLIN — Autobiography — Griffin French Short Stories — Schweikert GASKELL (Mrs.) — Cranford — Hancock GEORGE ELIOT — Silas Marner — Hancock GEORGE ELIOT — The Mill on the Floss — Ward GOLDSMITH — The Vicar of Wakefield— Morton HAWTHORNE — The House of the Seven Gables— Herrick HAWTHORNE — Twice-Told Tales — Herrick and Bruere HUGHES — Tom Brown's School Days — de Mille IRVING— Li/e of GoldsmUh—KRAPP IKVING-The Sketch Book— Krapv IRVING — Tales 0/ a Traveller — and parts of T?ie Skstch Boot — Krapp Clf^ Hake Sttglfell (EinBBXtB-ttmtmmfn LAMB — Essays of Elia — Benedict LONGFELLOW — Narrative Poems — Powell LOWELL— Ffcfon of Sir Launfal — See Coleridge MAGAULAY — Essays on Addison and Johnson — Newcomer MAGAULAY — Essays on Cltve and Hastings — Newcomer MAGAULAY — Goldsmith, Frederic the Great, Madame D'Arblay — New- comer MAGAULAY — Essays on Milton and Addison — Newcomer MILl'ON — U Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas — Neilson MILTON — Paradise Lost, Books I and II — Farley Old Testament Narratives — Rhodes One Hundred Narrative Poems — Teter PALGRAVE — GoMen Treasury — ^Newcomer PARKMAN — The Oregon Trail — Macdonald POE — Poems and Tales, Selected — Newcomer POPE— Vomer's Iliad, Books I, VI, XXII, XXIV— CRESST and Moody READE — The Cloister and The Hearth — de Mille RUSKIN — Sesame and Lilies — ^Linn Russian Short Stories — SCHWEIKERT SGOTT — Ivanhoe — Simonds SGOTT — Quentin Durward — Simonds SGOTT — Lady of the Lake — Moody SGOTT — Lay of the Last Minstrel — Moody and Willard SGOTT — Marmion— MOODY and Willard SHAKSPERE — The NeUson EdUion—Bdited by W. A. Neilson, As You Lite It Macbeth Hamlet Midsummer 'Night's Dream Henry V Romeo and Juliet Julius Caesar The Tempest Twelfth Night SHAKSPERE — Merchant of Venice — Lovett SOUTHEY — Life of Nelson — Westcott STEVENSON — Inland Voyage and Travels with a Dontey — Leonard STEVENSON — Kidnapped — Leonard STEVENSON — Treaswre Island — Broadxjs TENNYSON — Selected Poems — Reynolds TENNYSON^ — The Princess — Copeland THOKEA^'—WaMen — 9W!9MAfi THAGKE^AY — Henri; Esmond — ^Phelps THAGKERAY — EngMish Hvmorists — Cunliffe and Watt Three American Poems — The Raven, Snow-Bound, Miles Standish — Greever Types of the Short Story — Heydrick Washington, Webster, Lincoln — Denney SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO: 623 S.Wabash At*. NEW YORK-. 8 East 34th Street Z^t Hafee tn^liif) Claggicsi REVISED EDITION WITH HELPS TO STUDY Sesame and Lilies BY JOHN RUSKIN EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE BY J. W. LINN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO . NEW YORK ..lP Copyright 1906, 1920 By Scott, Foresman and Company ©CU571752 ROBERT O. LAW COMPA sY EDITION BOOK MANUFACTURERS CHICAGO. U. S A. JUL 26 1920 EDITOR'S PREFACE The text of Sesame and Lilies here presented is that of the Brantwood edition, the recognized American edition. I have included Buskin's own preface to the edition of 1882, as undoubtedly help- ful in understanding the man and his book. The notes are fuller than could be wished. In the case of the Biblical allusions, for example, I should have preferred to leave the identification to the student as part of the ^'^intense reading*^ that Euskin eloquently urges. But I have quailed before the cry of ''insuffi- cient time,'' which comes from high-school teach- ers of English everyw^here. Only a few parallel pas- sages are adduced from Ruskin's other works. His message was, as I have tried to point out, so single, so constantly recurred to in all his writings, that his works may almost be said to be made up of a series of parallel passages. Only when what he has said elsewhere has served in some fashion to explain what he says here, have I cited it. How the student is to use the noteS/may safely be left to the individual teacher. But one thing it seems wise to urge, and urge strongly — that not a word of the lectures them- selves be read until the first two sections of the Intro- duction have been talked over carefully in the class- room. This is to reverse the ordinary procedure. 6 EDITOR'S PREFACE But whoever reads Euskin without knowledge of the man himself is likely to be so affected by his dogmatic way of putting things that the value of what he says is minimized. For valuable assistance in the compilation of the notes^ I am indebted to Mr. James R. Hulbert, of the University of Chicago^ J. W. L. Chicago, 190G. CONTENTS ^ PAGE Preface 5 Introduction Ruskin 's* Life 9 Ruskin's Political Economy 27 Ruskin 's Style 29 A Brief Bibliography 35 A Chronological Outline of Ruskin 's Life and Princij^al Writings . . .^ 36 Preface to the Edition of 1892 37 Sesame and Lilies , 41 Notes . . o . . . o o 147 Appendix * Helps to Study ....... .o,. . 161 Theme Subjects ..... o ... .o. 165 Selections for Class Reading . . c o o . . . 166 , Chronological Table . c c o c . <, <, o . . 167 INTRODUCTION I. Buskin's Life. John Euskin (born 1819, died 1900) had a singular youth. Until he was seventeen and went to Oxford he was absolutely sheltered from the world, knowing almost no one outside of his ow^n family. Even at Oxford he lived under the careful eye of his mother, who left her home and husband in London to watch over her only son. Aware only of his own small circle, of which he was conscious all the while that he was the center; extremely precocio.us, with gifts and powers far above the ordinary; — living, in his own words, ^^a very small, perky, contented, conceited^ Cock-Eobinson-Crusoe sort of life,^^ he fastened, upon himself at this time a kind of shell ("conceit,'^ he calls it, but it is not that), which he never wholly got rid of. And though he was personally the most gentle and generous of men, his writings show an almost querulous dogmatism which is repel- lent to those who do not know his life as whole — his consistent sweetness, sensitiveness, and modesty, and his passionate earnestness for what he believed to be the truth. It brought upon him abuse and ridicule, and plunged him into controversy which in the end wore down his body and wore out 9 10 SESAME AND LILIES his brain^ so that he died a shattered and broken old man. Yet had he lacked the intensity of belief which plunged him into conflicts and extravagances of opinion, he would, probably, have lacked also the generous ardor which breathes from all his writings, and which makes them among the most vital things in English literature. He was born in London of Scotch parentage, both his father and his mother having come from Edin- burgh. His father, John James Euskin, was a wholesale wine dealer, a man of quiet habits, great industry and prudence, and considerable education; and in particular, as his son wrote over his grave, '^an entirely honest merchant.^^ Although he began business without capital and with a considerable legacy of debts, by his straightforwardness and knowl- edge of details he became the head of his trade in London and amassed a comfortable fortune. It was, however, Euskin^s mother who possessed, for good or bad, the greatest influence over the boy. If not of stronger character than her husband, she was more persistent, surer of herself. Euskin him- self says, ^'^My father ... had the exceed- ingly bad habit of yielding to my mother in large things, and taking his own way in little ones.^^ She was systematic, serene, devoted, but rigid in her views. She surrounded her husband and her deli- cate son with an atmosphere of peace which was for their physical welfare, but she quietly ruled the lives of both. "My judgment of right and wrong, and powers of independent action," says ^ INTRODUCTION 11 Ruskin^ "were left entirely undeveloped; because the bridle and blinkers were never taken off me. . . . The ceaseless authority exercised over my youth left me^ when cast out at last into the world, unable to do more for some time than drift with its vortices/' It really left him with a worse disability than this. Euskin never drifted ; but he consistently decided great matters upon instinct, and withdut suf- ficient consideration; and though his instincts were always fine and very often right, this habit plunged him into many difficulties and made much of his work a kind of Penelope's web which he had con-- stantly to undo and begin over again. Indeed the picture he gives of his childhood in his autobiographical Praeterita is a little depres- sing. Eefused aJl playthings except first a bunch of keys, and later a cart, a ball, and some wooden bricks; in his whole childish recollection given nothing to eat '^of the dainty kind" except three raisins and the bottom of his father's half-eaten custard ; Sunday made "a horror'^ that "used even to cast its prescient gloom as far back in the week as Friday"; and finally, "steadily whipped" if he was troublesome — all this seems drear enough. It was, of course, the early 1820's, when children were to be seen and not heard, and when utter and unques- tioning obedience was considered the sole standard of morality for the young. We must not forget, either, that Mrs. Euskin, though she gave her son, as he complains, "nothing to love," retained his entire and tender devotion to the day of her death. Her 12 SESAME A>sD LILIES system of education sprang logically from her char- acter and her strict evangelical beliefs. And to that stern training at least one element of Euskin's power as a writer may be in part traced; it was in these early days that the boy secured that sound and permanent knowledge of the Bible which was of great value to him latcr^ both in shaping his phrases and in cultivating the powers of his mind. No other recent writer in English makes such con- stant and effective use of the Bible for reference and illustration as Euskin, and certainly no other recent writer had such a training in it. "My mother forced me," he says^ '^'^by steady daily ioil^ to learn long chap- ters of the Bible by heart ; as well as to read it every syllable through, aloud, hard names and all, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, about once a year." In ,this reading she made him pay most careful atten- tion to expression, forcing him to attend closely to every word; and in this way she developed that power of intense and analytic reading which in the lecture "On King^s Treasuries" he urges upon us all. For his other early reading, besides a few of the child's books of the day, he had the Waverley Novels, all read aloud by his father, and Pope's translation of the Iliad of Homer; and on Sunday he was given Robinson Crusoe and The Pilgrim's Progress, It was a sound, if a small, collection. This very steady-going childhood was relieved, however, during the summers, by family driving- tours through England and even up into Scotland, forty or fifty miles a day, to secure orders in his I INTRODUCTION 13 father's wine business. He tells^of riding in the forepart of their ponderous chariot^ behind big glass windows^ which gave ^ him an unobstructed view of exactly half the landscape; of their visits. to "a gen- tleman's house ... or better stilly a lord's — or best c" all;, a duke's" — visits which left him satisfied with his own small home as a place to live in, but which roused and increased his delight in archi- tecture, in fine lines and great masses, and made the sight of castles thenceforward an inspiration to him. "And at this day," he whites in Praete7'ita, when he is nearing seventy, "though I have kind invitations enough to visit America, I could not even for a couple of months, live in a country so miserable as to possess no castles!" By the time he was four years old Euskin's ex« traordinary talents began to show themselves. When he was having his portrait painted, he ^ was asked by the artist what he preferred for the background of the picture, and replied without hesitation, "blue hills," which he rightly regards as an unusual answer. The letters that he wrote at this age are marked not only by correctness, but by some individuality. By seven he was writing poetry, and illustrating it as^ well; already his parents had begun to dream of a great future for him. At nine he was apostrophizing in verse a famous Cumberland mountain of his ac- quaintance : "Skiddaw, upon thy heights tlie sun sliincs bright, But only for a moment; then gives place Unto a playful cloud which on thy brow 14 SESAME AND LILIES Sports wantonly,- — then floats away in air, — Throwing its shadow on thy towering height ; And, darkening for a moment thy green side, But adds unto its beauty"' — • . . . — lines which are equally remarkable for their smooth- ness, and for that close and accurate observation of nature which Euskin later insisted should always be the distinguishing mark of the poet and the painter. About this time, too, he acquired an- other interest which he never lost — geology, and in particular mineralogy. Wandering about the Welsh hills with his father, he collected and ex- amined '^specimens'^ with the greatest zeal and intel- ligence. If his parents had left him there, without family supervision, with some Welsh mountaineer for guide, and a Welsh pony for a companion, "they would have made a man of him,'^ he thinks, "and probably the first geologist of his time in Europe." But it was not thus that his career was to turn. In this period he began also systematically to cultivate his drawing, had a drawing-master (of whom he thought little) and continually made sketches. This eagerness for drawing and for mountaineer- ing determined his parents, when the boy was about fourteen, to abandon their usual summer trip through England and substitute a journey upon the continent. They went, "in the then only pos- sible way, with post-horses, and, on the lakes, with oared boats,^' through France, Germany, Switzer- land, Northern Italy, Switzerland again, and so home throug^h France — a vova^i^e which ]:e savs "excited all INTRODUCTION . 15 the poor little faculties that were in me to their ■uttermost/^ and gave him "more passionate happi- ness than most people have in all their lives/^ It was but the first of a series of journeys; thence- forward^ as the elder Euskin^s" affairs were now most prosperous^ the family went thus^, year after year, over much the same paths, each journey confirming the sensitive, impressionable, ardent child more deeply in his love of nature and of the art that tries to re- produce nature, and enabling him to cultivate more effectively the powers of the keenest eye and "the most analytic mind in Europe/^ All the while he w^as drawing, landscape and architecture both — architecture had by now become a "violent instinct'^ with him; — and was studying geology and mineralogy in a miost eager, intelligent, and unre- mitting fashion. Such was his boyhood; such were the influences and training that helped to make him the man he subsequently became. The two great defects in Bus- kin's message to the world were, first, that he was unable to see any beauty in modern life, and second, that he seemed to most of his auditors a terrible scold. And the reason for these defects is easy to discover when one scans this childhood, in which natural scen- ery held such a dominating place, and in which an im- pressionable boy, conscious of intellectual powers far superior to those of all the circle round him, was grad- ually hardened in the belief that because he saw so much more than they, he must see more than anybody. 16 SESAME AND LILIES In the autumn of 1836, when Euskin waA seven-' teen, he was notified to present himself for matricula- tion at Oxford, where his name had long been down on the lists of Christchurch, the most fashionable of the Oxford colleges. By this date Euskin had already begun publishing, in a very small way; he had writ- ten the first of his long series of passionate defenses of the English painter Turner and the kind of painting of which Turner was a leading exponent: and he had determined with the utmost definiteness, as he tells us, what his work in the world was to be — "my destiny fixed in all of it that was to be sacred and useful.'^ This same year also, 1836, marks the beginning of an episode of four years' duration which had a considerable infiuence upon his life. Just before he went to Oxford, his father^s business partner, il. Domecq, a Frenchman living in Paris, brought his four younger daughters to England to stay a month or two with the Euskins, who were then at Heme Hill, a London suburb. John Euskin fell deeply in love with Adele, - the oldest; " four days, at the mos^, it took to reduce m,e to ashes.'^ She never cared for him in any way, and laughed at his poetic declarations, as well as at the spelling of a seven-page French letter he subsequentlv wrote her. He saw her only once more, two years afterward. Yet when in 1840 he heard the news of her engagement to a Baron Duquesne the shock of the news affected him most painfuUv; he fell ill. left the university, and began a restless two-years^ w^andering about Europe. Throughout his whole INTRODUCTION 1? V life, indeed^ Euskin was peculiarly susceptible to the influence of women. His nature was in some re- spects, as he confesses/^feminine/'and moreover he had been brought up in his mother^s shadow. To men certainly he was the most affectionate of friends, and he was far from being the kind of man who continu- ally fancies himself in love; but underneath his dogmatism lay an extreme and romantic sensitive- ness which was often repelled by the' touch of any nature with coarser fibers than a woman's. Except that his university career was broken into by illness, it was successful. He made friends, won the Newdigate prize for poetry, and after his long illness and wanderings, took an honorable degree. This was in 1842. His mother had desired him to enter the ministry, but for this he had no taste. He set himself upon a career in literature instead, and promptly sat down to write his first book. He was twenty-three when this first book, the first volume of Modern Painters, was brought out. It was, in substance, an assault upon the generally ac- cepted formal traditions of landscape painting, an appeal to painters to go back to nature and draw exactly what they saw, and a glorification of Turner, the English artist, who, Euskin thought, did do just this. It contained novel ideas splendidly ex- pressed. It was crammed with originality, en- thusiasm, cocksureness, and beauty. It touched five hundred different matters, and threw new if not pure white light on every one of them. And in ail these 18 SESAME AND LILIES things it was entirely characteristic of the many works that were to follow. It was attacked in various quarters; but on the whole it was favorably received^ and the boy was accepted into the fellowship of men of letters. He was urged to go on with his discussion of the canons of art, and determined to do so. He felt, however, that he mnst have more training. Accordingly he made a sixth visit to his beloved Alps, and a year later jonrneyed to Italy, to Florence! Pisa, and Venice. And here, as he was constantly doing • throughout his life, he made a discovery which startled him out of some of his old convictions. He found that there had been great painters before Turner; that the superiority of modern painters in landscape was not so demonstrable after all. In his new volume, therefore, he now drew his illustra- tions chiefly from the work of the Florentine and Venetian schools, and in particular from the Vene- tian, Tintoretto. This second volume appeared in 1846. It made him famous at a blow. And yet a period of deep depression followed it, brought on by weariness, ill-health, and another brief but on his part vivid love affair, this time with Walter Scott^s granddaughter. Two years later he was married. The marriage was arranged chiefly by the parents of the two concerned and was a marriage merely in name. His wife was a Miss Gray, the daughter of old familv friends. She was charming and extremely beautiful, but her interests and Euskin's were very different. Fond of 1 INTIIODUCTION 19 Bociety and gay people^ she found the brilliant young author moody and over-studious; she admired him, but she did not love him. At the end of five years she was granted a divorce by mutual consent. Neither marriage nor divorce had any serious effect on Eus- kin^s career; he seems to have be6n no more in love with his wife than she with him. Seven years before their marriage, when Euskin was just twenty-one, she had challenged him to wTite her a fairy-story, and he had answered her challenge with one of the best an Englishman has ever produced — ^^The King of the Golden Eiver.^' It is perhaps for this, rather than for her marriage to him, that Miss Gray will be best remembered in Euskin's history. From the time of the annulment of the marriage Euskin con- tinued to make his home with his parents, and to submit peacefully to their domination in all every- day matter's. Both lived to be old, his father dying in 1864 at the age of seventy-eight, his mother in 1871 at the age of ninety. The year after his marriage, that is, in 1849, Eus- kin, shifting his comment from painting to archi- tecture, published his Seven Lamps of Architecture; two years later, tlie first volume of his Stones of Venice; and in 1853, the second and third volumes of the same work. In these books, he first attempted to do for architecture what he had already tried to do for painting, i. e., to^show what principles really lie at the bottom of the art, and how they should be applied. There are seven of these principles, he says, Truth, Beauty, Power, Sacrifice, Obedience, Labor, 20 SESAME AND LILIES Memon^ In laying them down he also lays down his theory of the intimate relation of Life to Art; he makes clear how^ to his mind^ it is impossible that great painting or great architecture should be the product of any but a people great morally ; how pure and powerful artistic forms cannot spring from any but the pure and powerful in heart and deed. And this theory he presented with so much vigor^ beauty, and enthusiasm that it became at once widely known. In this same theory we find an explanation of the great change which Buskin's interests were soon to show. Hitherto we have heard of nothing but Eus- kin the art-critic. How did Euskin the critic of art become Euskin the critic of life and morality? The transition is abrupt, but plain. He believed passion- ately in beauty ; and he believed as passionately that only people who lived beautiful lives could under- stand beauty or produce beautiful things. Modern conditions, he held, flew straight in the face of all that was beautiful in art and life ; and modern conditions, therefore, be set himself to attack, with all the fire of the spiritual reformer. This change in his pur- pose was not to be clearly evident for some years yet; but Frederic Harrison^ points out a paragraph, in the second volume of Stones of Venice, which may almost be called prophetic. ^"Men may be beaten, chained, tormented, yoked lite cattle, slaughtered like summer flies, and yet re- main in one sense, and the best sense, free. But to smother their souls within them, to blight and hew ^John Ruskin: p 76. INTRODUCTION 21 into rotting pollards the suckling branches 'of theii* human intelligence, to make the flesh and skin which after the worm's work on it is to see God, into leathern thongs to yoke machinery with, — this is to be slavem asters indeed; and there might be more free- dom in England, though her feudal lord's lightest words were worth men's lives, and though the blood of her vexed husbandmen 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 into the fineness of a web, or racked into the exactness of a line/^ "This/^ comments Mr. Harrison, ^^is to wander far from the palaces of Venice. But it is to come very close to the Social Democracy of today.'' It is here that we see the new path opening to Ruskin — the path that was to lead him into ridicule and scorn, but the path he could no more help treading than he Gould help urging others to it. In the years immediately following the publication of the Stones of Venice Euskin began to give lectures on various topics; wrote many articles and several books, including a manual of di-awing; concluded the three final volumes of Modern Painters; and in gen- eral exhibited that restless activity which is one char- acteristic of a nervous temperament. Until the end he was always either working himself into a fever or recovering from its effects. In 1857 he published the first of his ^^social" criticisms, as distinct from his "artistic" criticisms. In these years, also, he grew deeply interested %i the movoTvient which was 22 SESAME AND LILIES then beginning to spread education among working- men — a movement which exhibits itself today in University Settlements^ University Extension, and the like. It was not, however, imtil I860, when he was forty-one years old and famous throughout Europe as an art critic, that he definitely thrust him- self forward as a social reformer by the publication of the essays subsequently called "Unto This Last/^ These essays, published in the ''Cornhill Maga- zine,*" of which Thackeray was editor, w^ere in sub- stance a violent attack on some then accepted prin- ciples of political economy. Political economy, ac- cording to Euskin, assumes that w^e are all machines, are a mass entirely calculable in our actions, governed in set ways by set principles. This, he says, is ut- terly false, because it fails to take into account the soul of the individual, the "very peculiar agenf ^ of "a quite unknown quantity,^' which, entering into the political economist's equations without his knowl- edge, "falsifies every one of their results.'' Four papers were published; then the opposition of the public became so strong that publication was stopped. Euskin was called crazy and ridiculous, even his own father, who had been hitherto the foremost of his son's admirers, standing aghast at these new theories. Such opposition naturally had great effect on a nature so sensitive as Euskin's; he was shaken and torn this way and that by emotion; but the ultimate result was that although he became gentler and more retiring in his private life, in his writings he grew still more insistent and dognpitic. 1 INTRODUCTION 23 In the spring of 1864 his father died, leaving to him the responsibility of managing a fortune of more than three-quarters of a million dollars. In December of the same year, 1864, when he was forty-iive, he delivered at Manchester, for the benefit of certain charities, the two lectures, *^^0f King's Treasuries,^' and *^^0f Queen's Gardens,'' which were subsequently combined in book form under the some- what fanciful title of Sesame and Lilies, This little book marks no turning-point in Buskin's life; nor is it to be regarded as of more than minor im- portance in his long and varied literary career. It concerns itself primarily neither with art nor with economics, the two great topics of his lifelong preach- ment. But precisely because of the generally wider appeal of its subject-m^atter, and because of its com- bination of plain, homely truth and eloquence, it has been the most steadily popular of all its author's minor works. It is an axcellent introduction to Ruskin; though unless it is supplemented by some study of his life and character and the task he set himself, it is likely to be misunderstood. He went on lecturing, writing, fighting against odds for the truths he saw so plainly, making mis- takes, scorning compromises, setting up ideals that were impossible, even if they were wise, but stick- ing fast always to the one central truth that no na- tion could advance except by advancement in the character of the individuals that composed it. He organized the Guild of St. George, with its vows of honesty, kindliness, simplicity, and usefulness, 24 SESAME AND LILIES ■ lots™ :: on V and its practical object of acquiring various pL of ground^ to make them beautiful, and of carrying industries there without the employment of machin- ery and its accompaniments of noise^ smoke^ and danger. He set up a model shop or two^ and a pub- lishing house^ on the principle of offering a sound article at a fair price^ without rebates or advertising or middlemen of any kind. He accepted a professor- ship of Fine Arts at his old University, Oxford, and at intervals lectured there for fifteen years on many of his favorite topics. He wrote for many years (1871-1884) a series of monthly open letters to work- ingmen, partly autobiographical, largely eeonom^ic, which aroused great interest as well as great oppo- sition over much of Europe. He gave away his whole fortune, living on the profits of his writings. In many ways he was impractical; he saw some of his theories break down, and understood the reason for their failure; but as a vital stimulus to a higher and better life, Europe knew scarcely any greater force throughout all of these last years of his career. He never went back to his art-criticism as such. His Oxford lectures, ostensibly on the fine arts, are in fact a series of exhortations to goodness and truth ; and the story which is perhaps best known of h^'s professorship is that on one occasion he led h's students out to a stretch of roadway that was in 'great need of repair, and spent the day with them repair- ing it. In 1871 his mother died, and he moved from the vicinity of London to Brantwood, on Lake Coniston, INTRODUCTION 25 in Cumberland, not far from Grasmere, the old home of Wordsworth. His health was steadily failing. Attack after attack of brain fever weakened him. Yet from 1884 to 1889 he produced what is certainlj the most charming, and probably to the general reader the most interesting, of all his books — Praeterita — ^the story of his life; a work which is certain to remain one of the classical autobiographies in English. It was his last work. In the remaining ten or ekven years of his life he published nothing. His strength steadily failed. He lived at Coniston in almost complete retirement, at first able to walk about the grounds of his house, then forced to the idleness of the invalid's chair. At last, without suf- fering, he died, on the 20th of January, 1900, within two weeks of his 81st birthday. In personal appearance Euskin was always hand- some — as a child, beautiful; winning in middle age; and as an old man striking. He was of medium height, about five feet ten inches, with rather small, keen, yet exceedingly gentle blue eyes. In his prime he dressed a trifle unconventionally, but not at all as if his clothes were a matter of no moment to him. He spoke with the accent of his Scotch an- cestry. When he was a child a careless footman had allowed him to stoop down to caress a large dog while it was feeding; the animal sprang at him and bit him on the lip, leaving a scar which never dis- appeared. But this, like Thackeray's famous broken nose, rather added to the character of the face than detracted from it. Of his manner, Frederic Harri- 26 SESAME AND LILIES son says :^ "He was the very mirror of courtesy, with an indescribable charm of spontaneous lovingness. . . . No boy could blurt out all that he enjoyed and wanted with m"ore artless freedom ; no girl could be more humble, modest, and unassuming. In private life, it was always what he loved, not what he hated, that roused his interest.*^ Xeither in his conversa- tion, however, nor in his writings, did Euskin show any sense of humor. The lack of it was one of his chief defects. The value of Euskin to the reader, young or old, does not lie wholly, or even chiefly, in the advice he gives. This advice, though spiritually never wrong, often se^jis practically wrong. And it is often delivered with a certainty that at once arouses oppo- sition. But Euskin's great and supreme merit is that he makes his readers iliinJc. If you wish simply to be amused and entertained, if you do not wish to exercise your brains, you will^ find yourself out of sympathy with him. He complained with bitter sorrow, at the end, of the iDCople who read him for his ^"pretty passages,*^ without trying to un- derstand or act upon his message. He demands his reader^s whole attention. He is always in the lists^ a strong, splendid, chivalrous figure, serv- ing with daring and devotion and constancy his twin Queens of Truth and Beauty. He throws down gauntlet after shining gauntlet at the reader's feet; he dashes home his challenging bright spear into the ^John Rusl'in: p 93. I INTRODUCTION 27 very center of the readsr^s intelligence. He is a knight to stir the imagination and the blood of all who meet him squarely, face to face. II. Euskin's Political Economy. Euskin^s theories of political economy were, as has been said, first put forth in the early sixties in a series of articles in the ^^Cornhill Magazine/' then edited by his friend Thackeray. Subsequently these articles were published in book form under the title Unto This Last, He held, in his own words, that "There is no Wealth but Life." That is to say, the wealth of a country is not to be measured by its material possessions, but by the powers and qualities of its inhabitants. He attacked vigorously the old doctrine of political economy that material profit was the only incentive to labor and the only standard of economic success. An employer, according to Euskin, should look first to the welfare of his employees, second to the honesty and genuineness of his product; third, and subse- quent to* -both, he should consider profit. If, with employees working under fair conditions and pro- ducing an honest article, neither flimsy nor adulter- ated — if under these circumstances a merchant could not compete with rivals who carried on their business with an eye solely to profit, then he should fail honor- ably. In the present state of affairs, Euskin ad- 28 SESAME AND LILIES mitted, such a merchant inevitably would fail. But what;, he asked, was such a failure? Was it not akin to the failure of the soldier who dies defending the flag of his country, or of the sailor who goes down bravely with his ship? We call the sailor and the soldier heroes; why, Kuskin demanded, should we expect heroism from them, and not expect it from the merchant? Xaturally such ideas as these were not readily ac- cepted — they flew too squarely in the face of universal practice. Their fundamental honesty and justice Eus- kin overlaid, too, with a multitude of visionary and impractical suggestions. The result was that for a long time he was regarded by many people as a dreamer and a fool. Time, however, has ena- bled the world to estimate the value of Eus- kin's ideas more fairly. Some of his suggestions have been shown by the years to be impractica- ble and destructive to human progress. Others of his contentions, indeed his main contentions, have now become an accepted part of the theory of political economy, though the older ideas have by no means been superseded entirely. But the great value of his work in this fleld has been in the stimulus it has given to modern thought. Just as his criticism of art, though mistaken in parts, over-personal, some- times extravagant and inconsistent with itself, was nevertheless the starting-point for the new educa- tion in art which has spread so widely in England in the last fiftv v^cirs. so his criticism of political economy, likewise extravagant and sometimes incon- LNiTvgDUOTION 29 sistent, lias inspired a thousand and a thousand thinkers, and set them upoB the road which humanity must some day travel, to the heights. in. Euskin's Style. Hitherto we have spoken of liuskin as a man and as a teacher ; it remains to look at Euskin the literary artist. He is remarkably individual in both the com- ponents of written expression, namely, structure and style. The structure of Euskin^s essays is often peculiar and difficult to . comprehend. In one sense, it is utterly illogical. He seldom proceeds straight on toward a definite goal. He is the antithesis of Macaulay. With Macaulay (in the essay on Milton, for example) one can always make an outline, per- fect in heads and subheads, in which each topic con- nects itself unmistakably with the next, and all are bound up into a solid and perfect whole. All is symmetrical and obvious. But with Euskin the only law of progress seems to be the law of the association of ideas. A point occurs to him, and he sets it down, and develops it with wonderful keenness and vigor. Then in the course of the development, a turn of thought, a phrase, or perhaps merely a word, sug- gests to him some other ^point, and he shifts . his illuminating comment to that. He may return to the original idea, and he may not; if he does so return, 30 SESAME AND LILIES it is often without warning. He is always on the alert for new impressions^ and expects his reader to be equally so. He repeats himself without hesita- tion ; moves on, now slowly, now with resistless speed ; cuts in now from this angle, now from that. And yet in the largest sense he is logical. For with Euskin there was only one thing ultimately worth discussing — the need of more beauty and truth in our everyday lives. And so, whether he begins, as in "King^s Treasuries/' with reading, or, as in "Queen's Gardens," with the powers and opportunities of women, he is sure to come round before long to this one great message of his. • The general scheme of the two lectures which are included in Sesame and Lilies may well be indi- cated here. Euskin's aim in the first lecture, "'Of King's Treasuries," he indicates in the first para- graph of the second lecture. "The questions spe- cially proposed to you . . . namely. How and What to Eead, rose out of a far deeper one, . . . namely. Why to Eead. ... I wish you to see that both well-directed moral training and well- chosen reading lead to the possession of a power over the ill-guided and illiterate, which is, according to the measure of it, in the truest sense, kingly/' His first lecture proceeds, after an extremely skillful in- troduction on the value of good books, to define whaV a good book, a real book, is, and to tell how it is writ- ten. "Whatever bit of a wise man's work is honestly and benevolently done, that bit is his book, or his pi^ ce of art." Then he proceeds to show how such a INTRODUCTION 31 book should be read ; goes on to point out the im- possibility of having any honest and benevolent vi^rit- ing or honest and benevolent reading among a dis- honest an unbenevolent people;, such as he asserts the English of his day are; and finally in his perora- tion sets forth an ideal^ and suggests a way of at- taining it. The second lecture, ^'Of Queen's Gardens/^ is among the most orderly of all Euskin's works. His statement of his purpose, in his third paragraph, is indeed intentionally a little blind ; but his subsequent procedure is unlike his usual rambling method. He makes three main points: the right of woman, according to the testimony of great writers, to a voice in the conduct of affairs: the education which shall best fit woman to exercise her right; the way in which she ought to exercise it. Both lectures must be read carefully, if their real trend is to be understood; a casual reading will leave the impression of a series of interesting but disconnected statements. Ruskin's style is entitled to high praise. Of .the masters of prose in the Victorian period Thackeray was the most graceful, and Carlyle possi- bly the most forcible; but it was given to Euskin, combining the grace of the one with the terrible vigor of the other, to reach in certain passages a height and splendor of eloquence attained by no other of his time. Not that Euskin stands as a supreme stylist, or that he is acceptable as a model; his prose is too mannered, too ornamented, too affected even, for that; he has the faults of one who lets himself go; 32 SESAME AND LIT/IES he pours out his words with the abundance anr splendor of one of his own mountain torrents, foi getting that one element of perfect beauty mus always be repose. And nevertheless he is at time wellnigh unmatchable in prose; and for those pas- sages, as well as for the value of his message as ci w^hole, he will continue to hold a high place in Enj lish literature. A student will find great profit in comparing th styles of Macaulay^ Arnold^ and Euskin. Each had pre-eminently, one of the three accepted quali ties of a good style, — Macaulay, clearness; Ai nold, subtlety, and Euskin, force. Carlyle was per haps more forcible still, but Carlyle sacrificed s many things to the attainment of this force that t ■ imitate his method of putting things is merely to fa . quickly into a thousand faults. Of the three styles the most practical, the most merchantable, so t speak, is unquestionably Macaulay's. He may almof be called the parent of our own every-day written Eng- lish. To misunderstand him is impossible. But with all his clearness, he lacks shading. A thing is so, or it is not so, and there's an end of it; his style makes no allowances. Arnold's is just the opposite, so shaded, so careful, so fine, that the outlines of his thought seen through it have upon them the mist of an i finite aloofness. He too is clear, but not with th hard, bright clearness of Macaulay. And finally there is Euskin, whose principal interest is neither in clarity nor in exactitude, but in power. His para- graphs are like the roll of thunder, beginning gently. .1 INTRODUCTION 33 as if in a whisper^, yet with a hint of menace^ and then growing in intensity and grandeur till the final mighty crash. One may misunderstand Euskin, one , may charge him with a lack of clearness and of toler- ance^ but one can never charge him with a lack of J force. The unexpressed motto of the Elizabethans^ of Shakspere and his contemporaries, was ^^Be lavish^^; the motto of the classicists, of Addison and his ^ school, was, ^'Be careful/^ That is to say, Shak- . spere heaped up his words and Addison selected ., his. Shakspere, for instance, gives Macbeth the . lines, ^The innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravelFd sleeve of care. The death of each day^s life, sore labour^s bath. Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course. Chief nourisher in life's feast," — . with sheer delight in his own ability to pile one . magnificent figure on another. Addison, on the other hand, would have preferred to choose one figure, the most effective, and to develop that one. Now in lavishness Euskin was entirely Elizabethan. One of the first things to notice about his style is its fluency, its richness. His treasure-house is in- exhaustible. He adds adjective to adjective, verb to verb, figure to figure, illustration to illustration. He abounds in allusions, to lack an understanding of which is to fail in getting his whole mean- ing. His style is. in fact like a great window of stained glass, through which streams the full light of 34 SESAME AND LILIES his ideas in all the gorgeous colors of the rainbow. See, for example, the passage quoted on p. 20 of this Introduction. The form of his sentences is characteristic of his defects and his merits as a stylist. For perfect clear- ness, they are too long. On the other hand, their very length and almost amorphous formation add im- measurably to their power. They have the weight and plunge of avalanches, and their impact is tre- mendous. Compare the amazing passages in para- graphs 41 and 92 of Sesame and Lilies, He uses short sentences also, but only to give variety; all his best-known bursts of eloquence are in the more com- plicated form. It is trite to say that a man's style reflects the man himself, that "the style is the man.'' But the state- ment is perhaps more obviously true of Ruskin than of most writers of prose. For Euskin is essentially emotional; he feels, and then argues to justify his feelings. His feelings are always sweeping him away, overthrowing the boundary walls of his reserve, showing the whole man to anyone who cares to look. And this lack of reserve his style faithfully reflects. His choice of words, his illustrations, the very form of his sentences, are all governed not so much by his intellect as by his emotion ; the surging of his nature finds a constant echo in the unequal music of his style. At its worst, it is congested, vague, even per- haps a little wild; at its best, so rich with beauty, so instinct with life, that the reader is inspired and up- lifted as by splendid poetry. INTRODUCTION 35 IV. A Brief Bibliography. Praeterita. Euskin's Autobiography, necessary to any full acquaintance with Euskin. Life of John Rushin. W. P. CoUingwood. 2 vol&. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The standard biography; in parts, however, labored and over-minute but ex- cellent. John Ruskin. Frederic Harrison. In the English Men of Letters Series. The most convenient biog- raphy. Clear and scholarly. Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning, Anne Thackeray Eitchie. Harper's. Interesting sidelights. John Ruskin. W. H. Spielmann. Lippincott's. Sympathetic. John Ruskin, His Life and Teaching. E. J. Mather. Warne. The Work of John Ruskin, Charles Waldstein. Methuen. Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill and Other Literary Esti- mates. Frederic Harrison. Two valuable appreci- ations. John Ruskin, Social Reformer. John Hobson. A careful estimate of Euskin's contributions to politi- cal economy. Social Ideals in English Letters. Vida D. Scud- der. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Three appreciative chapters on Euskin. Victorian Prose Masters. W. C. Brownell. Scrib- ner's. Unfavorable to Euskin's theories of art and style. 3 A CHRONOLOGICAI. OUTLINE OF RUS- KIN'S LIFE AXD PRIXCIPAL WRITINGS 1819. Born. 1834. First published article. 1836. Oxford. 1840. Met Turner. 1841. First long visit to Venice. 1842. Took Bachelor 's degree. 1843. Modern Painters, vol. I. 1846 Modern Painters, vol. II, 1848. Married. 1849. Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1851-3. Stones of Venice. 1855. Marriage annulled. 1856. Elements of Drawing, and Modern Painters, vols. III-IV. 1860. Unto This Last. 1863. Munera Pulveris. 1865. Sesame and Lilies. 1866. Crown of Wild Olives and Ethics of the Dust. 1867. LL. D., Cambridge. 1870. Slade Professorship of Fine Arts, Oxford. 1871. Settled at Brantwood. Guild of St. George founded. 1871-84. Fors Clavigera, • 1885-9. PraeteHta. 1900. Died. PEEFAOE TO THE EDITION OF 1882 The present edition of "Sesame and Lilies/' issued at the request of an aged friend, is reprinted with- out change of a word from the first small edition of the book, withdrawing only the irrelevant preface respecting tours in the Alps, which, however, if the reader care to see he will find placed with more pro- priety in the second volume of "Deucalion/^ The third lecture, added in the first volume of the large edition of my works, and the gossiping introduction prefixed to that edition, are withdrawn also, not as irrelevant, but as following the subject too far, and disturbing the simplicity in which the two original lectures dwell on their several themes, — ^the majesty of the influence of good books, and of good women, if we know how to read them, and how to honor. I might just as well have said, the influence of good men, and good women, since the best strength of a man is shown in his intellectual work, as that of a woman in her daily deed and character ; and I am somewhat tempted to involve, myself in the debate which might be imagined in illustrating these rela- tions of their several powers, because only the other day one of my friends put me in no small pet by say- ing that he thouofht my own influence was much more in being amiable and obliging than in writing books. Admitting, for the argument's sake, the amia- 37 3S ' SESAME AND LILIES me ■ at I bleness and obligingness, I begged him, with some warmth, to observe that there were myriads of least equally good-natured people in the world who had merely become its slaves, if not its victims, but that the influence of my books was distinctly on the increase, and I hoped — etc., etc. — it is no matter what more I said, or intimated ; but it much matters that the young reader of the following essays should be confirmed in the assurance on which all their pleading depends, that there is such a thing as essen- tial good, and as essential evil, in books, in art, and in character; — that this essential goodness and badness are independent of epochs, fashions, opinions, or revolutions; and that the present extremely active and ingenious generation of J^ung people, in thank- ing Providence for the advantages it has granted them in the possession of steam whistles and bicycles, need not hope materially to add to the laws of beauty in sound or grace in motion, which were acknowl- edged in the days of Orpheus, and of Camilla. But I am. brought to more serious pause than I had anticipated in putting final accent on the main sentences in this — already, as men now count time, old — book of mine, because since it was written, not only these untried instruments of action, but many equally novel methods of education and systems of morality have come into vogue, not without a cer- tain measure of prospective good in them; — college education for women, — out-of-college education for men: positivism with its religion of humanity, and negativism with its religion of Chaos, — and the like. PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1882 39 from the entanglement of which no young people can now escape, if they would ; together with a mass of realistic^ or materialistic, literature and art, founded mainly on the theory of nobody's having any will, or needing any master; much of it extremely clever, irresistibly amusing, and enticingly pathetic; but which is all nevertheless the mere whirr and dust- cloud of a dissolutely reforming and vulgarly m-anu- facturing age, which when its dissolutions are ap- peased, and its manufactures purified, must return in due time to the understanding of the things that have been, and are, and shall be hereafter, though for the present concerned seriously with nothing beyond its dinner and its bed. I must therefore, for honesty's sake, no less than intelligibility's, warn the reader of ^^Sesame and Lilies,'' that the book is wholly of the old school ; that it ignores, without contention or regret, the ferment of 'surrounding elements, and assumes for perennial some old-fashioned conditions and existencies which the philosophy of to-day imagines to be extinct with the Mamm^h and the Dodo. Thus the second lecture, in its very title, "Queens^ Gardens," takes for granted the persistency of Queen- ship, and therefore of Kingship, and therefore of Courtliness or Courtesy, and therefore of TJncourtli- ness or Rusticity. It assumes, with the ideas of higher and lower rank, those of serene authority and happy submission; of Eiehes and Poverty without dispute for their rights, and of Virtue and Vice with- out confusion of their natures. 4u SESAME AND LILIES And farther, it must be premised that the book is chiefly written for young people belonging to the upper, or undistressed middle, classes; who may be supposed to have choice of the objects and command of the industries of their life. It assumes that many of them will be called to occupy responsible positions in the world, and that they have leisure, in prepara- tion for these, to play tennis, or to read Plato. Therefore, also — that they have Plato to read if they choose, with lawns on which they may run, and woods in which they may muse. It supposes their father^s library to be open to them, and to contain all that is necessary for their intellectual progress, without the smallest dependence on monthly parcels from town. These presupposed conditions are not extravagant in a country which boasts of its wealth, and which, without boasting, still presents in the greater number of its landed households, the most perfect types of grace and peace which can be found in Europe. I have only to add farther, respecting the book, that it was written while my energies were still un- broken and my temper unf retted; and that if read in connection with "Unto This Last,^' it contains the chief truths I have endeavored through all my past life to display, and which, under the warnings I have received to prepare for its close, I am chiefly thankful to have learnt and taught. AvALLON^ August 24th, 1882. SESAME A:t!rD LILIES LECTUEE I.— SESAME. OF KIKGS' TKEASUEIES. "You shall each have a cake of sesame, — and ten pound.'' Lucian: The Fisherman. 1. My first duty this evening is to ask your par- don for the ambiguity of title under which the sub- ject of lecture has been announced; and for having endeavored, as you may ultimately think, to obtain your audiences under false pretences. For indeed I am not going to talk of kings, known as regnant, nor of treasuries, understood to contain wealth; but of quite another order of royalty, and another material of riches, than those usually acknowledged. I had even intended to ask your a"^^ention for a little while on trust, and (as sometime one contrives in taking a friend to see a favorite piece of scenery) to hide what I wanted most to show, with such imperfect cunning as I might, until we unexpectedly reached the best point of view by winding paths. But— and as also I have heard it said, by men practised in public ad- dress, that hearers are never so much fatigued as by the endeavor to follow a speaker who gives them no clue to his purpose — 1 will take the slight mask off at once, and tell you plainly that I want to speak to 41 42 SESAME AND LILIES you about the treasures hidden in books; and about the way we find them, and the way we lose them. A grave subject, you will say: and a wide one I Yes; so wide that I shall make no effort to touch the com- pass of it. I will try only to bring before you a few simple thoughts about reading, which press themselves upon me every day more' deeply, as I watch the course of the public mind with respect to our daily enlarging means of education: and the answeringly wider spreading on the levels, of the irrigation of literature. 2. It happens that I have practically some connec- tion with schools for different classes of youth; and I receive many letters from parents respecting the education of their children. In the mass of these letters I am always struck by the precedence which the idea of a ^^position in life'^ takes above all other thoughts in the parents' — more especially in the mothers' — minds. ^* The education befitting such and such a station in life " — this is the phrase, this the object, always. They never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good in itself; even the con- ception of abstract rightness S^ training rarely seems reached by the writers. But, an education " which shall keep a good coat on my son's back; — which shall enable him to ring with confidence the visitors' bell at double-belled doors; which shall result ulti- mately in the establishment of a double-belled door to his own house ; — in a word, which shall lead to ad- vancement in life : — fh is we pray for on bent knees — and this is all we pray for." It never seems to occur. to the parents that there may be an education I SESAME AND LILIES 43 which, in itself, is advancement in Life ; — that any other than that may perhaps be advancement in Death; and that this essential education might be more easily got, or given, than they fancy, if they set about it in the right way ; while it is for no price, and by no favor, to be got, if they set about it in the wrong. 3. Indeed, among the ideas most prevalent and effective in the mind of this busiest of countries, I suppose the first — at least that which is confessed with the greatest frankness, and put forward as the fittest stimulus to youthful exertion — is this of "Ad- vancement in life/^ May I ask you to consider with me, what this idea practically includes, and what it should include? Practically, then, at present, "advancement in life '^ means, becoming conspicuous in life' ; obtaining a position which shall be acknowledged by others to be respectable or honorable. We do not understand by this advancement, in general, the mere making of money, but the being known to have made it ; not the accomplishment of any great aim, but the being seen to have accomplished it. In a word, we mean the gratification of our thirst for applause. That thirst, if the last infirmity of noble minds,^ is also the first infirmity of weak ones ; and on the whole, the strong- est impulsive influence of average humanity: the greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure. [* See Milton 's Lycidas, line 71.] 44 SESAME AND LILIES 4. I am not about to attack or defend this impulse. I want you: only to feel how it lies at the root of effort ; especially of all modern effort. It is the grati- fication of vanity which is^ with us^ the stimulus of toil and balm of repose; so closely does it touch the very springs of life that the wounding of our vanity is always spoken of (and truly) as in its measure mortal; we call it "mortification/^ using the same expression which we should apply to a gangrenous and incurable bodily hurt. And although few of us may be physicians enough to recognize the various effect of this passion upon health and energj^, I believe njiost honest men know^ and would at once acknowl- edge, its leading power with them as a motive. The seaman does not commonly desire to be made captain only because he knows he can manage the ship better than any other sailor on board. He wants to be made captain that he may be called captain. The clergyman does not usually want to be made a bishop only because he believes that no other hand can, as firmly as his, direct the diocese through its difficulties. He wants to be made bishop primarily that he may be called "My Lord.^^ And a prince does not usually desire to enlarge, or a subject to gain, a kingdom, because he believes that no one else can as well serve the State, upon its throne ; but, briefly, because he wishes to be addressed as " Your Majesty ,^^ by as many lips as may be brought to such utterance. 5. This, then, being the main idea of " advance- ment in life,^^ the force of it applies, for all of us, ac- cording to our station, particularly to that secondary SESAME AND LILIES 45 result of such advancement which we call " getting into good society." We want to get into good society not that we may have it, but that we may be seen in it; and our notion of its goodness depends primarily on its conspicuousness. Will you pardon me if I pause for a moment to put what I fear you may think an impertinent ques- tion? I never can go on with an address unless I feel;, or know, that my audience are either with me or against me : I do not much care which, in beginning ; but I must know where they are; and I would fain find out, at this instant, whether you think I am putting the motives of popular action too low. I am resolved, to-night, to state them low enough to be admitted as probable; for whenever, in my writings on Political Economy, I assume that a little honesty, or generosity — or what used to be called '' virtue " — may be calculated upon as a human motive of action, people always answer me, saying, '' You must not calculate on that : that is not in human nature : you must not assume anything to be common to men but acquisitiveness and jealousy; no other feeling ever has influence on them, except accidentally, and in matters out of the way of business." I begin, ac- cordingly, to-night low in the scale of motives ; but I must know if you think me right in doing so. There- fore, let me ask those who admit the love of praise to be usually the strongest motive in men's minds in seeking advancement, and the honest desire of doing any kind of duty to be an entirely secondary one, to hold up their hands. (About a dozen hands held up 46 SESAME AND LILIES — the audience, partly, not being sure the lecturer is serious, and, partly, shy of expressing opinion,) I am quite serious — I really do want to know what you think; however, I can judge by putting the reverse question. Will those who think that duty is generally the first, and love of praise the second, motive, hold up their hands ? (One hand reported to have been held up, behind the lecturer,) Very good: I see you are with me, and that you think I have not begun too near the ground. Now, without teasing you by putting farther question, I venture to assume that you will admit duty as at least a secondary or tertiary motive. You think that the desire of doing something useful, or obtaining some real good, is in- deed an existent collateral idea, though a secondary one, in most men^s desire of advancement. You will grant that moderately honest men desire place and office, at least in some measure, for the sake of bene- ficent power ; and would wish to associate rather with sensible and well-informed persons than with fools and ignorant persons, whether they are seen in the company of the sensible ones or not. And finally, without being troubled by repetition of any common truisms about the preciousness of friends, and the influence of companions, you will admit, doubtless, that according to the sincerity of our desire that our friends may be true, and' our companions wise, — and in proportion to the earnestness and discretion v/itli which we choose both, — will be the general chances of our happiness and usefulness. 6. But granting that we had both the will and the SESAME AND LILIES 47 sense to choose our friends well, how few of us have the power I or, at least, how limited, f ov most, is the sphere of choice! Nearly all our associations are determined by chance, or necessity; and restricted within a narrow circle. We cannot know whom we would ; and those whom we know, we cannot have at our side when we most need them. All the higher circles of human intelligence are, to those beneath, only momentarily and partially open. We may, by good fortune, obtain a glimpse of a great poet, and hear the sound of his voice; or put a question to a man of science, and be answered good humoredly. We may intrude ten minutes^ talk on a cabinet minister, answered probably with words worse than silence, being deceptive ; or snatch, once or twice in our lives, the privilege of throwing a bouquet in the path of a princess, or arresting the kind glance of a queen. And yet these momentary chances we covet; and spend our years, and passions, and powers in pursuit of lit- tle more than these; while, meantime, there is a so- ciety, continually open to us, of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or occupa- tion ; — talk to us in the best words they can choose, and of the things nearest their hearts. And this so- ciety, because it is so numerous and so gentle, and can be kept waiting round us all day long, — kings and statesmen lingering patiently, not to grant audience, but to gain it ! — in those plainly furnished and nar- row anterooms, our bookcase shelves, — we make no account of that company, — perhaps never listen to a word they would say, all day long ! 48 SESAME AND LILIES 7. You may tell me, perhaps, or think within your- selves; that the apathy with which we regard this company of the noble, who are praying us to listen to them; and the passion with which we pursue the company, probably of the ignoble, who despise us, or who have nothing to teach us, are grounded in this, — that we can see the faces of the living men, and it is themselves, and not their sayings, with which we desire to become familiar. But it is not so. Sup- pose you never were to see their faces : — suppose you could be put behind a screen in the statesman's cabinet, or the prince's chamber, would you not be glad to listen to their words, though you were forbid- den to advance beyond the screen? And when the screen is only a little less, folded in two instead of four, and you can be hidden behind the cover of the two boards that bind a book, and listen all day long, not to the casual talk, but to the studied, determined, chosen addresses of the wisest of men; — this station of audience, and honorable privy council, you despise ! 8. But perhaps you will say that it is because the living people talk of things that are passing, and are of immediate interest to you, that you desire to hear them. Nay; that cannot be so, for the living people will themselves tell you about passing matters, much better in their writings than in their careless talk. But I admit that this motive does influence you, so far as you prefer those rapid and ephemeral writings to slow and enduring writings — books, properly so called. For all books are divisible into two classes : the books of the hour, and the books of all time. ' SESAME AND LILIES 49 Mark this distinction — it is not one of quality only. It is not merely the bad book that does not last, and the good one that does. It is a distinction of species. There are good books for the hour^, and good ones for all time; bad books for the hour, and bad ones for all time. I must define the two kinds before I go farther. 9. The good book of the hour, then, — I do nol speak of the bad ones, — is simply the useful or plea- sant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels ; good-humored and witty discussions of question; lively or pathetic^story- telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing his- tory; — all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no goqd use of them. But we make the worst possible use if we allow them to usurp the place of true books : for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or news- papers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, to-day : \yhether worth keep- ing or not, is to be considered. The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast-time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So, though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant 50 SESAME AND LILIES an account of the inns, and roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells yon that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable fpr occasional refer- ence, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a ^^ book ^^ at all, nor in the real sense, to be '' read." A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written not with a view of mere commu- nication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thou- sands of people at once : if he could, he would — the volume is mere nvultiplication of his voice. You can- not talk to your friend in India ; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author has something to say which he per- ceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may ; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him ; — this, the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down forever : engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, ^"^ This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another ; my life was as the vapor, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this if any- thing of mine, is worth your memory.^^ That is his SESAME A^D LILIES 51 " writing ; ^^ it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a " Book/^ 10. Perhaps you think no books were ever so writ- ten? But, again, I ask you, do you at all believe in hon- esty, or at all in kindness? or do you think there is never any honesty or benevolence in wise people? None of us, I hope, are so unhappy as to think that. Well, whatever bit of a wise man's work is honestly and benevolently done, that bit is his book, or his piece of art. It is mixed always with evil fragments ■ — ill-done, redundant, affected work. But if you read rightly, you will easily discover the true bits, and those are the book. 11. Now, books of this kind have been written in all ages by their greatest men, — by great readers, great statesmen, and great thinkers. These are all at your choice ; and Life is short. You have heard as much before ; — yet, have you measured and mapped out this short life and its possibilities ? Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read that — that what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you: may talk with^queens and kings ; or flatter yourselves that it is with any worthy consciousness of your own claims to respect, that you jostle with the hungry and common crowd for entree here, and audience there, when all the while this eter- nal court is open to you, with its society, wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen, and the 52 SESAME AND LILIES mighty^ of every place and time ? Into that you may enter always; in that you may take fellowship and rank according to your wish ; from that, once entered into it, you can never be an outcast but by your own fault; by your aristocracy of companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and the motives with which you strive to take high place in the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to take in this company of the Dead. 12. " The place you desire," and the place you fit yourself for, I must also say; because, observe, this court of the past differs from all living aristocracy in this : — it is open to labor and to merit, but to noth- ing else. No wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice deceive, the guardian of those Elysian gates. In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the portieres of that silent Faubourg St. Germain, there is but brief question : " Do you de- serve to enter? Pass. Co you ask to be the com- panion of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it. But on other terms ? — no. If you will not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the living philosopher explain his thought to you with considerate pain ; but here we neither feign nor interpret ; you must rise to the level of our thoughts if you would be gladdened bv them, and share our feelings if you would recognize our nre^ence.'- •• SESAME AND LILIES 53 13. This, then, is what you have to do, and I admit that it is much. You must, in a word, love these people, if you are to be among them. No ambition is of any use. They scorn your ambition. You must love them, and show your love in these two following ways. I. — First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and to enter into their thoughts. To enter into theirs, observe; not to find your own expressed by them. If the person who wrote the book is not wiser than you, you need not read it ; if he be, he will think dif- ferently from you in many respects. Very ready we are to say of a book, ^^ How good this is — that's exactly what I think!'' But the right feeling is, '' How strange that is ! I never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true ; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, some day." But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterwards if you think yourself qualified to do so; but ascertain it first. And be sure also, if the author is worth anything, that you will not get at his meaning all at once; — nay, that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parable, in order that he may be sure you want it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyze that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men 54 SESAME AND LILIES which makes them always hide their deeper thought.^ They do not give it you by way of help, but ot re- ward ; and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it. But it is the same with the physical type of wisdom, gold. There seems, to you and me, no reason why the electric forces of the earth should not carry whatever there is of gold within it at once to the mountain tops, so that kings and people might know that all the gold they could get was there ; and without any trouble of dig- ging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste of time, cut it away, and coin as much as they needed. But Nature does not manage it so. She puts it in little fissures in the earth, nobody knows where ; you may dig long and find none ; you must dig painfully to find any. 14. And it is just the same with men's best wis- dom. When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself, "Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would ? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, and my tem- per ?'' And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit, and learn- ing; your smelting furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author^s mean- ^ See Matthew xiii. 10-13. SESAME AND LILIES 55 ing without those tools and that fire ; often you wili heed sharpest, finest chiselling, and patientest fusing, before you can gather one grain of the metal. 15. And, therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestlj and authoritatively (I Icnow I am right in this), you must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable — nay, letter by letter. For though it is only by reason of the opposition of letters in the function of signs, to sounds in the function of signs, that the study of books is called '^ literature,^' and that a man versed in it is called, by the consent of nations, a man of letters instead of a man of books, or of words, you may yet connect with that accidental nomencla- ture this real fact, - — that you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough), and remain an -utterly ^^ illiterate,^' unedu- cated person; but that if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, — that is to say, with real accuracy, — - you are f orevermore in some measure an educated person. The entire difference between education and non-education (as regards the merely intellectual part of it) consists in this accuracy. A well-educated gentleman may not know many lan- guages, — may not be able to speak any but his own, — may have read very few books. But whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned in the peerage of words ; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern canaille; remembers all their 56 SESAME AND LILIES ancestry, their intermarriages, distant relationships^ and the extent to which thev were admitted, and oflBces they held, among the national noblesse of words at any time, and in any country. Bnt an un- educated person may know, by memory, many lan- ,guages, and talk them all, and yet truly know not a word of any, — not a word even of his own. An ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will be able to make his way ashore at most ports ; yet he has only to speak a sentence of any language to be known for an illiterate person; so also the accent, or turn of expression of a single sentence, will at once mark a scholar. And this is so strongly felt, so conclusively admitted, by educated persons, that a false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough, in the parliament of any civilized nation, to assign to a man a certain degree of inferior standing forever. 16. And this is right ; but it is a pity that the ac- curacy insisted on is not greater, and required to a serious purpose. It is right that a false Latin quan- tity should excite a smile in the House of Commons ; but it is wrong that a false English meaning should not excite a frown there. Let the accent of words be watched, and closely; let their meaning be watched more closely still, and fewer will do the work. A few words, well chosen and distinguished, will do work that a thousand cannot, when every one is acting, equivocally, in the function of another. Yes; and words, if they are not watched, will do deadly work sometimes. There are masked words droning and skulking about us in Europe just now — (there never SESAME AND LILIES 57 were so many, owing to the spread of a shallow, blotching, blundering, infectious " information/^ or rather deformation, everywhere, and to the teaching of catechisms and phrases at schools instead of human meanings) — there are masked words abroad, I say, which nobody understands, but which everybody uses, and most people will also fight for, live for, or even die for, fancying they mean this or that, or the other, of things dear to them : for such words wear chame- leon cloaks — '' ground-lion ^^ cloaks, of the^ color of the ground of any man^s fancy : on that ground they lie in wait, and rend him with a spring from it. There never were creatures of prey so mischievous, never diplomatists so cunning, never poisoners so deadly, as these masked words ; they are the unjust stewards of all men^s ideas : whatever fancy or favorite instinct a man most cherishes, he gives to his favorite masked word to take care of for him ; the word at last comes to have an infinite power over him, — you cannot get at him but by its ministry. 17. And in languages so mongrel in breed as the English, there is a fatal power of equivocation put into men^s hands, almost whether they will or no, in being able to use Greek or Latin words for an idea when they want it to be awful ; and Saxon or other- wise common words when they want it to be vulgar. What a singular and salutary effect, for instance, would be produced on the minds of people who are in the habit of taking the Form of the " Word '' they live by, for the Power of which that Word tells them, if we always either retained', or refused, the Greek 58 SESAME AND LILIES form " bibles/^ or ^' biblion," as the right expression for ^^ book '^ — instead of employing it only in the one instance in which we wish to give dignity to the idea, and translating it into English everywhere else. * How wholesome it would be for many simple persons if, in such places (for instance) as Acts xix. 19, we retained the Greek expression, instead of translating it, and they had to read — " Many of them also which nsed curious arts, brought their bibles together, and burnt them before all men; and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver ^^ I Or if, on the other hand, we translated where we retain it, and always spoke of " the Holy Book,^^ instead of " Holy Bible,^^ it might come into more heads than it does at present, that the Word of God, by which the heavens were, of old, and by which they are now kept in store,^ cannot be made a present of to anybody in morocco binding, *nor sown on any wayside by help either of steam plough or steam press; but is nevertheless being offered to us daily, and by us with contumely refused; and sown in us daily, and by us, as instantly as may be, choked. 18. So, again, consider what effect has been pro- duced on the English vulgar mind by the use of the sonorous Latin form '' damno,^^ in translating the Greek KaraKpLvo), when people charitably wish to make it forcible; and the substitution of the tem- perate " condemn ^^ for it, when they choose to' keep it gentle; and what notable sermons have been ^ 2 Peter iii. 5-7. SESAME AND LILIES 59 preached by illiterate clergymen on — " He that be- lieveth not shall be damned;'' though they would shrink with horror from translating Heb. xi. 7, " The saving of his house^ by which he damned the world/' or John viii. 10-11, " Woman, hath no man damned thee? She saith, ISTo man, Lord. Jesus answered her, Neither do I damn thee : go, and sin no more." And divisions in the mind of Europe, which have cost seas of blood, and in the defence of which the noblest souls of men have been cast away in frantic desolation, countless as forest leaves, — though, in the heart of them, founded on deeper causes, — have nevertheless been rendered practically possible, mainly, by the European adoption of the Greek word for a public meeting, " ecclesia," to give peculiar re- spectability to such meetings, when held for religious purposes; and other collateral equivocations, such as the vulgar English one of using the word " priest " as a contraction for " presbyter." 19. Now, in order to deal with words rightly, this is the habit you must form. Nearly every word in your language has been first a word of some other language — of Saxon, German, French, Latin, or Greek (not to speak of Eastern and primitive dia- lects). And many words have been all these; — that is to say, have been Greek first, Latin next, French or German next, and English last: undergoing a certain change of sense and use on the lips of each nation: but retaining a deep vital meaning, which, all good scholars feel in employing them, even at this day. If you do not know the Greek alphabet, learn it ; young so SESAME AND LILIES or old — girl or boy — whoever you may be, if you think of reading seriously (which, if course, implies that you have some leisure at command), learn your Greek alphabet; then get good dictionaries of all these languages, and whenever you are in doubt about a word, hunt it down patiently. Read Max M'iiller's lectures, thoroughly, to begin with; and, after that, never let a word escape you that looks suspicious. It is severe work; but you will find it, even at first, inter- esting, and at last, endlessly amusing. Arid the gen- eral gain to your character, in power and precision, will be quite incalculable. Mind, this does not imply knowing, or trying to know, Greek, or Latin, or French. It takes a whole life to learn any language perfectly. But you can easily ascertain the meanings through which the English word has passed ; and those which in a good writer^s work it must still bear. 20. And now, merely for example^s sake, I will, with your permission, read a few lines of a true book with you carefully ; and see what will i:ome out of " them. I will take a book perfectly known to you all. No English words are more familiar to us, yet few perhaps have been read with less sincerity. I will take these few following lines of Lycidas. ''Last came, and last did go, The Pilot of the Galilean lake. Two massy keys he bore of metals twain (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain). He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: — 'liow well could I have spared for thee, young swain Enow of such as, for their bellies' sake, SESAME AND LILIES 61 Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make Than how to scranible at the shearers ' feast. And shove away the worthy bidden guest. Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least That to the faithful Herdman^s art belongs! What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Besides what the grim Wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said. ' ' ' Let us think over this passage^ and examine its words. First, is it not singular to find Milton assigning to St. Peter, not only his full episcopal function, but the very types of it which Protestants usually refuse most passionately ? His " mitred ^' locks ! Milton was no bishop-lover; how comes St. Peter to be " mitred ^^ ? " Two massy keys he bore.^' Is this, then, the power of the keys claimed by the Bishops of Rome, and is it acknowledged here by Milton only in a poetical license, for the sake of its picturesque- ness, that he may get the gleam of the golden keys to help his effect ? 'Do not think it. Great men do not play stage tricks with the doctrines of life and death : only little men do that. Milton means what he says; and means it with his might too — is going to put the whole strength of his spirit presently into the saying of it. For though not a lover of false bishops, he 62 SESAME AND LILIES was a lover of true ones ; and the Lake-pilot is here, in his thoughts^ the type and head of true episcopal power. • For Milton reads that text^ " I will give nnto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven/^ quite hon- estly. Puritan though he be, he would not blot it out ^ of the book because there have been bad bishops; nay, in order to understand him, we must understand that verse first; it will not do to eye it askance, or whisper it under our breath, as if it were a weapon of an adverse sect. It is a solemn, universal assertion, deeply to be kept in mind by all sects. But perhaps we shall be better able to reason on it if we go on a little farther, and come back to it. For clearly this marked insistence on the power of the true episcopate is to make lis feel more weightily what is to be charged against the false claimants of episcopate; or generally, against false claimants of power and rank in the body of the clergy : they who, " for their bel- lies^ sake, creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold/^ 21. Never think Milton uses those three words to fill up his verse, as a loose writer would. He needs all the three ; — specially those three, and no more than those — " creep/' and " intrude,^' and " climb ; '^ no other words would or could serve the turn, and no more could be added. For they exhaustively com- prehend the three classes, correspondent to the three characters, of men who dishonestly seek ecclesiastical power. First, those who " creep '^ into the fold ; who do not care for office, nor name, but for secret in- fluence, and do all things occultly and cunningly, con- senting to any servility of office or conduct, so only SESAME AND LILIES 63 that they may intimately discern, and unawares direct, the minds of men. Then those who " intrude ^^ (thrust, that is) themselves into the fold, who by natural insolence of heart, and stout eloquence of tongue, and fearlessly perseverant self-assertion, ob- tain hearing and authority with the common crowd. Lastly, those who " climb,^^ who, by labor and learn- ing, both stout and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their own ambition, gain high dignities and authorities, and become " lords over the heritage,^^ though not " ensamples to the flock.^^ 22. Now go on : — ''Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearers ' feast. Blind mouths ' ' — I pause again, for this is a strange expression: a broken metaphor, one might think, careless and un- scholarly. N'ot so; its very audacity and pithiness are in- tended to make us look close at the phrase and remem- ber it. Those two monosyllables express the precisely accurate contraries of right character, in the two great offices of the Church — those of bishop and pastor. A " Bishop ^' means '' a person who sees.^' A " Pastor ^^ means " a person who feeds." The most unbishoply character a man can have is therefore to be Blind. The most unpastoral is, instead of feeding, to want to be fed, — to be a Mouth. Take the two reverses together, and you have 64 SESAME AND LILIES " blind mouths.'^ We may advisably follow out this idea a little. Nearly all the evils in the Church have arisen from bishops desiring power more than light. They want authority, not outlook. Whereas their real ofRce is not to rule; though it may be vigorously to exhort and rebuke ; it is the king's office to rule ; the bishop's office is to oversee the flock; to number it, sheep by sheep; to be ready always to give full ac- count of it. Xow, it is clear he cannot give account of the souls, if he has not so much as numbered the bodies of his flock. The first thing, therefore, that a bishop has to do is at least to put himself in a posi- tion in w^hich, at any moment, he can obtain "the his- tory, from childhood, of every liviijg soul in his diocese, and of its present state. Down in that back street Bill and Xancy, knocking each other's teeth out ! — Does the bishop know all about it ? Has he his eye upon them ? Has he Tiad his eye upon them ? Can he circumstantially explain to us how Bill got into the habit of beating N'ancy about the head ? If he cannot, he is no bishop, though he had a mitre as high as Salisbury steeple ; he is no bishop, — he has sought to be at the helm instead of the mast-head; he has no sight of things. '' Nay,'' you say, " it is not his duty to look after Bill in the back street.^^ What ! the fat sheep that have full fleeces — you think it is only those he should look after, while (go back to your Milton) " the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, besides what the grim Wolf, with privy paw" (bishops knowing nothing about it), "daily devours apace, and nothing said " ? J SESAME AND LILIES 65 "But that's not our idea of a bishop."^ Perhaps not ; but it was St. PauFs ; and it was Milton's. They may be right, or we may be; but we must not think we are reading either one or the other by putting our meaning into their words. 23. I go on. ' * But swoln with wind s-nd the rank mist^they draw. ' ' This is to meet the vulgar answer that '' if the poor are not, looked after in their bodies, they are in their souls ; they have spiritual food.'' And Milton says, " They have no such thing as spiritual food ; they are only swollen with wind." At first you may think that is a coarse type, and an ob- scure one. But again, it is a quite literally accurate one. Take up your Latin and Greek dictionaries, and find out the meaning of " Spirit." It is only a con- traction of the Latin word " breath," and an indis- tinct translation of the Greek word for "^ wind." The same word is used in writing, " The wind bloweth where it listeth ; " and in writing, " So is every one that is born of the Spirit;" born of the hreath, that is ; for it means the breath of God, in soul and body. We have the true sense of it in our words " inspira- tion " and ^^ expire." Now, there are two kinds of breath with which the flock may be filled; God's breath and man's. The breath of God is health, and life, and peace to them, as the air of heaven is to the flocks on the hills; but man's breath — the word which he calls spiritual — is disease and contagion to * Compare the 13th Letter in Time and Tide. 66 SESAME AND LILIES them^ as the fog of the fen. They rot inwardly with it; they are puffed up by it, as a dead body by the vapors of its own decomposition. This is literally true of all false religious teaching; the first, and last, and f atalest sign of it is that " puffing up.^^ Your converted children, who teach their parents; your converted convicts, who teach honest men; your con- verted dunces, who, having lived in cretinous stupefac- tion half their lives, suddenly awaking to the fact of there being a God, fancy themselves therefore his peculiar people and messengers; your sectarians of every species, small and great, Catholic or Protestant, of high church or low, in so far as they think them- selves exclusively in the right and others wrong ; and preeminently, in every sect, those who hold that men can be saved by thinking rightly instead of doing rightly, by word instead of act, and wish instead of work ; — these are the true fog children — clouds, these, without water; bodies, these, of putrescent vapor and skin, without blood or flesh: blown bag- pipes for the fiends to pipe with — corrupt, and cor- rupting — " Swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw.^^ 24. Lastly, let us return to the lines respecting the power of the keys, for now we can understand them. Note the difference between Milton and Dante in their interpretation of this power; for once, the latter is vreaker in thought; he supposes hoth the keys to be of the gate of heaven; one is of gold, the other of silver : they are given by St. Peter to the sentinel angel; and it is not easy to determine the meaning I SESAME AND LILIES • 67 either of the substances of the three steps of the gate, or of the two keys. But Milton makes one^ of gold, the key of heaven ; the other, of iron, the key of the prison in which the wicked teachers are to be bound who "have taken away the key of knowledge, yet entered not in themselves/^ We have seen that the duties of bishop and pastor are to see, and feed ; and of all who do so it is said, " He that watereth, shall be watered also himself/^ But the reverse is truth also. He that watereth not, shall be withered himself; and he that seeth not, shall himself be shut out of sight — shut into the perpetual prison-house. And that prison opens here, as well as hereafter; he who is to be bound in heaven must first be bound on earth. That command to the strong angels, of which the rock-apostle is the image, " Take him, and bind him hand and foot, and cast him out/' issues, in its measure, against the teacher, for every help withheld, and for every truth refused, and for every falsehood enforced ; so that he /is more strictly fettered the more he fetters, and farther outcast, as he more and more misleads, till at last the bars of the iron cage close upon him, and as " the golden opes, the iron shuts amain.'' 25. We have got something out of the lines, I think, and much more is yet to be found in them ; but we have done enough by way of example of the kind of word-by-word examination of your author which is rightly called " reading ; " watching every accent and expression, and putting ourselves always in the author's place, annihilating our own personality, and 68 . SESAME AND LILIES seeking to enter into his^ so as to be able assuredly to say, '' Thus Milton thought/' not " Thus / thought, in mis-reading Milton/' And by this process you will gradually come to attach less weight to your own "Thus I thought'' at other times. You will begin to perceive that what you thought was a matter of no serious importance; that your thoughts on any sub- ject are not perhaps the clearest and wisest that could be arrived at thereupon : in fact, that unless you are a very singular person, you cannot be said to have any "thoughts" at all; that you have no materials for them, in any serious matters;^ — no right to "think," but only to try to learn more of the facts. Nay, most probably all your life (unless, as I said, you are a singular person) you will have no legitimate right to an "opinion" on any business, except that instantly under your. hand. What must of necessity be done, you can always find out, beyond question, how to do. Have you a house to keep in order, a commodity to sell, a field to plough, a ditch to cleanse ? There need be no two opinions about these proceedings; it is at your peril if you have not much more than an "opin- ion" on the way to manage such matters. And also, outside of your own business, there are one or two subjects on which you are bound to have but one opinion. That roguery and lying are objectionable, and are instantly to be flogged out of the way when- ^ Modern * * education ' ^ for the most part signifies giving people the faculty of thinking wrong on every conceivable 3ubject of importance to them. SESAME AND LILIES 69 ever discovered; that eovetousness and love of quarreling are dangerous dispositions even in chil- dren^ and deadly dispositions in men and nations; that in the end^, the God of heaven and earth loves active, modest, and kind people, and hates idle, proud, greedy, and cruel ones; — on these general facts you are bound to have but one and that a very strong opinion. For the rest, respecting religions, govern- ments, sciences, arts, you will find that, on the whole, you can know nothing, — judge nothing; that the best you can do, e\'en though you may be a well- educated person, is to be silent, and strive to be wiser every day, and to understand a little more of the thoughts of others, which so soon as you try to do honestly, you will discover that the thoughts even of the wisest are very little more than pertinent ques- tions. To put the difficulty into a clear shape, and exhibit to you the grounds for indecision, that is all they can generally do for you ! — and well for them and for us, if indeed they are able "to mix the music with our thoughts, and sadden us with heavenly doubts.^^ This writer, from whom I have been read- ing to you, is not among the first or wisest : he sees shrewdly as far as he sees, and therefore it is easy to find out his full meaning; but with the greater men, you cannot fathom their meaning; they do not even wholly measure it themselves, — it is so wide. Suppose I had asked you, for instance, to seek for Shakes- peare's opinion, instead of Milton's, on this matter of Church authority? — or for Dante's? Have any of you, at this instant, the least idea what either thought 70 SESAME AND LILIES about it? Have you ever balanced the scene with the bishops in Eichard III. against the character of Cranmer? the description of St. Francis and St. Dominic against that of him who made Virgil wonder to gaze upon him^ — "disteso, tanto vilmente^ nelV eterno esilio;'^ or of him whom Dante stood beside, ^^come'l frate che confessa lo perfido assassin'^? Shakespeare and Alighieri knew men better than most of us, I presume ! They were both in the midst of the main struggle between the temporal and spirit- ual powers. They had an opinion, we may guess. But where is it ? Bring it into court ! Put Shake- speare's or Dante's creed into articles, and send it up for trial by the Ecclesiastical Courts I 26. You will not be able, I tell you again, for many and many a day, to come at the real purposes and teaching of these great men; but a very little honest study of them will enable you to perceive that what you took for your own ^^judgment'^ was mere chance prejudice, and drifted, helpless, entangled weed of castaway thought ; nay, you will see that most men^s minds are indeed little better than rough heath wil- derness, neglected and stubborn, partly barren, partly overgrown with pestilent brakes, and venomous, wind- sown herbage of evil surmise; that the first thing you have to do for them, and yourself, is eagerly and scornfully to set fire to this; burn all the jungle into wholesome ash-heaps, and then plough and sow. All the true literary work before you. for life, must begin with obedience to that order, ^^'Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns/' n I SESAME AND LILIES VI 27. II. Having then faithfully listened to the great teachers^ that you may enter into their Thoughts, you have yet this higher advance to make ; - — you have to enter into their Hearts. As you go to them first for clear sight, so you must stay with them, that you may share at last their just and mighty Pas- sion. Passion, or ^"^sensation.^^ I am not afraid of the word; still less of the thing. You have heard many outcries against sensation lately ; but, I can tell you, it is not less sensation we want, but more. The ennobling difference between one man and another — between one animal and another — is precisely in this, that one feels more than another. If we were sponges, perhaps sensation might not be easily got for us; if we were earth-worms, liable at every instant to be cut in two by the spade, perhaps too much sensation might not be good for us. But being human crea- tures, it is good for us ; nay, we are only human in so far as we are sensitive, and our honor is precisely in proportion to our passion. 28. You know I said of that great and pure so- ciety of the Dead, that it would allow "no vain or vul- gar person to enter there.^^ What do you think I meant by a "vulgar^^ person ? What do you yourselves mean by "vulgarity'^ ? You will find it a fruitful sub- ject of thought; but, briefly, the essence of all vul- garity lies in want of sensation. Simple and innocent vulgarity is merely an untrained and undeveloped bluntness of body and mind ; but in true inbred vul- garity, there is a deathful callousness, which, in ex- tremity, becomes capable of every sort of bestial habit 78 SESAME AND LILIES and crime, without fear, without pleasure, without horror, and without pity. It is in the blunt hand and the dead heart, in the diseased habit, in the hardened conscience, that men become Tulgar; they are forerer vulgar, predsely in proportion as they are incapable of sympathy — of quick understanding,— of all that, in deep insistence on the common but most accurate term, may be called the "tact,'' or "touch-faculty,'' body and soul: that tact which the Mimosa has trees, which the pure woman has above all creatures finene^ and fulness of sensation, beyond reason; guide and sanctifier of reason itsdf. Beason can but determine what is true: — it is the God-given passion of humanity which alone can recognize what God has made good. 29. We come then to that great concourse of the Dead, not merely to know from them what is true, but chiefly to fed with them what is jusL Xow, to feel with them, we must be like them; and none of us can become that wiiSiout pains. As the true knowl- edge is disciplined and tested knowledge, — not the first thought that comes, — so the true passion is dis- ciplined and tested passion, — not the first pa^on that comes. The first that come are the vain, the false, the treacherous; if you yield to them, they will lead you wildly and far, in vain pursuit, in hollow en- thusiasm, till you have no true purpose and no true passion lefL Xot that any feeling po^ble to hu- manity is in itself wrong, but only wrong wheu un- disciplined. Its nobility is in its force and justice; it is wrong when it is weak, and felt for paltry cause. 4 SESAME AND LILIES 73 There is a mean wonder^ as of a child who sees a juggler tossing golden balls, and this is base, if you will. But do you think that the wonder is ignoble, or the sensation less, with which every human soul is called to watch the golden balls of heaven tossed through the night by the Hand that made them? There is a mean curiosity, as of a child opening a forbidden door, or a servant prying into her master^s business; — and a noble curiosity, questioning, in the front of danger, the source of the great river beyond the sand, — the place of the great continent beyond the sea; — a nobler curiosity still, which questions of the source of the Eiver of Life, and of the space of the Continent of Heaven — things which ^^the angels desire to look into/^ So the anxiety is ignoble, with which you linger over the course and catastrophe of an idle tale ; but do you think the anxiety is less, or greater, with which you watch, or ought to watch, the dealings of fate and destiny with the life of an agon- ized nation? Alas! it is the narrowness, selfishness, minuteness, of your sensation that you have to de- plore in England at this day; — sensation which ' spends itself in bouquets and speeches ; in revellings and junketings ; in sham fights and gay puppet shows, while you can look on and see noble nations mur- dered, man by man, without an effort or a tear. 30. I said "minuteness'^ and "selfishness" of sen- sation, but it would have been enough to have said "injustice'^ or "unrighteousness^^ of sensation. For as in nothing is a gentleman better to be discerned from a vulgar person, so in nothing is a gentle nation 74 SESAME AND LILIES l^l (such nations have been) better to be discerned from a mob, than in this, — that their feelings are constant and just, results of due contemplation, and of equal thought. You can talk a mob into anything ; its feel- ings may be — usually are — on the whole, generous and right ; but it has no foundation for them, no hold of them ; you may tease or tickle it into any, at your pleasure; it thinks by infection, for the most part, catching an opinion like a cold, and there is nothing so little that it will not roar itself wild about, when the fit is on; — nothing so great but it will forget in an hour, when the fit is past. But a gentleman's, or a gentle nation's, passions are just, measured, and continuous. A great nation, for instance, does not spend its entire national wits for a couple of months in weighing evidence of a single ruffian's having done a single murder; and for a couple of years see its own children murder each other by their thousands or tens of thousands a day, considering only what the effect is likely to be' on the price of cotton, and caring nowise to determine which side of battle is in the wrong. Xeither does a great nation send its poor little boys to jail for stealing six walnuts; and allow its bankrupts to steal their hundreds or thousands with a bow, and its bankers rich with poor men's savings, to close their doors "^'under circumstances over which they have no control," with a ^^by your leave;" and large landed estates to be bought by men who have made their money by going with armed steamers up and down the China Seas, selling opium at the cannon's mouth, and altering, for the benefit I SESAME AND LILIES 75 of the foreign nation, the common highwayman's demand of "your money or your life/' into that of ^^your money and yonr life/' Neither does a great nation allow the lives of its innocent poor to be parched out of them by fog fever, and rotted out of them by dunghill plague, for the sake of sixpence a life extra per week to its landlords.;^ and then de- bate, with drivelling tears, and diabolical sympathies, whether it ought not piously to save, and nursingly cherish, the lives of its murderers. Also, a great nation, having made up its mind that hanging is quite the wholesomest process for its homicides in general, can yet with mercy distinguish between the degrees of guilt in homicides ; and does not yelp like a pack of frost-pinched wolf-cubs on the blood-track of an unhappy crazed boy, or gray-haired clodpate Othello, "perplexed i' the extreme," at the very mo- ment that it is sending a Minister of the Crown to make polite speeches to a man who is bayoneting young girls in their fathers' sight, and killing noble youths in cool blood, faster than a country butcher kills lambs' in spring. And, lastly, a great nation does not mock Heaven and its Powers, by pretending belief in a revelation which asserts the love of money to be the root of all evil, and declaring, at the same time, fhat it is actuated, and intends to be actuated, • in all chief national deeds and measures, by no other love. ^ See note at end of lecture. I have put it in large type, because the course of matter's since it was written has made It perhaps better worth attention. 76 SESAME AND LILIES I 31. My friends, I do not know why any of us should talk about reading. We want some sharper discipline than that of reading ; but at all events, be assured, we cannot read. No reading is possible for a people with its mind in this state. No sentence of any great writer is intelligible to them. It is simply and sternly impossible for the English public, at this moment, to understand any thoughtful writ- ing, — so incapable of thought has it become in its insanity of avarice. Happily, our disease is, as yet, little worse than this incapacity of thought; it is not corruption of the inner nature; we ring true still, when anything strikes home to us; and though the idea that everything should "pay^^ has infected our every purpose so deeply, that even when we would play the good Samaritan, we never take out our two- pence and give them to the host without saying, "When I come again, thou shalt give me fourpence,^' there is a capacity of noble passion left in our hearts' core. We show it in our work — in our war — even in those unjust domestic affections which make us furious at a small private wrong, while we are polite to a boundless public one : we are still industrious to the last hour of the day, though we add the gambler's fury to the laborer's patience; we are still brave to the death, though incapable of discerning true cause for battle; and are still true in affection to our own flesh, to the death, as the sea-monsters are, and the rock-eagles. And there is hope for a nation while this can be still said of it. As long as' it holds its life in its hand, ready to give it for its honor (though J SESAME AND LILIES Hf a foolish honor), for its love (though a selfish love), and for its business (though a base business), there is hope for it. But hope only ; for this instinctive, reck- less virtue cannot last. No nation can last, which has made a mob of itself, however generous at heart. It must discipline its passions, and direct them, or they will discipline it, one day, with scorpion-whips. Above all, a nation cannot last as a iTiOney-making mob: it cannot with impunity — it cannot with existence — go on despising literature, despising science, despising art, despising nature, despising compassion, and con- centrating its soul on Pence. Do you think these are harsh or wild words? Have patience with me but a little longer. J will prove their truth to you, clause by clause. 32. I. I say first we have despised literature. What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our li- braries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses? If a man spends lavishly on his library, you call him mad — a bibliomaniac. But you never call any one a horse-maniac, though men ruin themselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of people ruining themselves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how much do you think the contents of the book-shelves of the United Kingdom, public and private, would fetch, as compared with the con- tents of its wine-cellars ? What position would its ex- penditure on literature take, as compared with its ex- penditure on luxurious eating? We talk of food for the mind, as of food for the body : now a good book 78 SESAME AXD LILIES I contains such food inexhanstiblY; it is a provision for Kfe, and for the best part of ns; yet how long nKwt^j people would look at the best book before thej would'^H give the price of a large turbot for it ! Though there ^ have been men who have pinched their stomachs and bared their backs to bi]^ a book, who^ libraries were cheaper to them, I think, in the «id, than most men's dinners are. We are few of us put to such trial, and more the pitv; for, indeed, a precious thing is all the more precious to us if it has been won by work or economy; and if public libraii^ were half as costly as public dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what bracelets do, even foolish men and women might sometimes sustt:: tI re vas good in reading, as well as in mn-i ^ - ^1 sparkling; whereas the very deapness : ^ :~ ~ hing even wise people for- get that a - 1 : iing, it is worth buying. Mo book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re- read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, m that you can refer to the passages you want in it, as a sol- dier can seize the weapon he needs in an armory, or a housewife bring the spice she needs from her store- Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book; and tiie family must be poor indeed which, once in their Uves, cannot, for such multipliable barley-loaves, pay their baker's bilL We call ourselves a ridi nation, and we are filthy and f ooUsh enough to thumb each other's books out of circulating libraries ! 33. II. I say we have despised science. ^'What F* SESAME AND LILIES 79 yon exclaim, ''are we not foremos^ in all discovery,^ and is not the whole world giddy by reason, or un- reason, of our inventions ?" Yes, but do you suppose that is national work ? That work is all done in spite of the nation; by private people's zeal and money. We are glad enough, indeed, to make our profit of science; we snap up anything in the way of a scientific bone that has meat on it, eagerly enough ; but if the scientific man comes for a bone or a crust to us, that is another story. What have we publicly done for science? We are obliged to know what o'clock it is, for the safety of our ships, and therefore we pay for an Observatory ; and we allow ourselves, in the person of our Parliament, to be annually tormented into do- ing something, in a slovenly way, for the British Mu- seum; sullenly apprehending that to be a place for keeping stuffed birds in, to amuse our children. If anybody will pay for their own telescope, and resolve another nebula, we cackle over the discernment as if it were our own ; if one in ten thousand of our hunt- ing squires suddenly perceives that the earth was in- deed made to be something else than a portion for foxes, and burrows in it himself, and tells us where the gold is, and where the coals, we understand that there is some use in that; and very properly knight him : but is the accident of his having found out how to employ himself usefully any credit to ns? (The ^ Since this was written, the answer has become definitely — No; we having surrendered the field of Arctic discovery to the Continental nations, as being ourselves too poor to pay for ships. 80 SESAME AND LILIES negation of such discovery among his brother squires may perhaps be some discredit to us, if we would con- sider of it.) But if you doubt these generalities, here is one fact for us all to meditate upon, illustrative of our love of science. Two years ago there was a collec- tion of the fossils of Solenhof en to be sgld in Bavaria : the best in existence, containing many specimens unique for perf ectness, and one, unique as an example of a species (a whole kingdom of unknown living creatures being announced by that fossil.) This col- lection, of which the mere market worth, among pri- vate buyers, would probably have been some thousand or twelve hundred pounds, was offered to the English nation for seven hundred: but we would not give seven hundred, and the whole series would have been in the Munich museum at this moment, if Professor Owen^ had not, with loss of his own time, and patient tormenting of the British public in person of its rep- resentatives, got leave to give four hundred pounds at once, and himself become answerable for the other three! which the said public will doubtless pay him eventually, but sulkily, and caring nothing about the matter all the while; only always ready to cackle if any credit comes of it. Consider, I beg of you, arith- metically, what this fact means. Your annual ex- penditure for public purposes (a third of it for mili- ^ I state this fact without Professor Owen 's permission, which of course he could not with propriety have granted, had I asked it; but I considered it so important that the pubUc should be aware of the fact, that I do what seems to me right, though rude. SESAME AND LILIES 81 tary apparatus) is at least fifty millions. Now £700 is to £50,000,000, roughly, as seven-pence to two thou- sand pounds. Suppose, then, a gentleman of un- known income, but whose wealth was to be conjec- tured from the fact that he spent two thousand a year on his park walls and footmen only, professes himself fond of science ; and that one of his servants comes eagerly to tell him that an unique collection of fossils, giving clue to a new era of creation, is to be had for the sum of seven-pence sterling ; and that the gentleman, who is fond of science, and spends two thousand a year on his park, answers, after keeping his servant waiting several months, "Well ! 1^11 give you four-pence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra three-pence yourself, till next year V^ 34. III. I say you have despised Art ! "What V you again answer, "have we not Art exhibitions, miles long ? and do not we pay thousands of pounds for sin- gle pictures ? and have we not Art schools and insti- tutions, more than ever nation had before?'^ Yes, truly, but all that is for the sake of the shop. You would fain sell canvas as well as coals, and crockery as well as iron; you would take every other nation's bread out of its mouth if you could ;^ not being able to do that, your ideal of life is to stand in the thor- oughfares of the world, like Ludgate apprentices, screaming to every passer-by, "What d'ye lack ?" You ^That was our real idea of ''Free Trade ' ^—* ' AH the trade to myself. ^ * You find now that by ' ' competition ' * other people can manage to sell something as well as you — and now we call for Protection again. Wretches! 82 SESAME AND LILIES know nothing of your own faculties or circumstances ; YOU fancy that^ among your damp^ flat^ fat fields of clay, you can have as quick art-fancy as the French- n:an among his bronzed vines^ or the Italian under his volcanic cliflfe; — that Art may be learned as book-keeping is^ and when learned^ will give you more books to keep. You care for pictures^ absolutely, no more than you do for the bills pasted on your dead walls. There is always room on the walls for the bills to be read,^ — ^never for the pictures to be seen. You do not know what pictures you have (by repute) in the country, nor whether they are false or true, nor whether they are taken care of or not; in foreign countries, you calmly see the noblest existing pictures in the world rotting in abandoned wreck — (in Venice you saw the Austrian guns deliberately pointed at the palaces containing them), and if you heard that all the fine pictures in Europe were made into sand-bags to-morrow on the Austrian forts, it would not trouble you so much as the chance of a brace or two of game less in your own bags, in a day's shooting. That is your national love of Art. 35. IV. You' have despised nature; that is to say, all the deep and sacred sensations of natural scenery. The French revolutionists made stables of the cathe- drals of France; you have made racecourses of the cathedrals of the earth. Your one conception of plea- ure is to drive in railroad carriages around their aisles, and eat off their altars.^ You have put a railroad- ^ I meant that the beautiful places of the world — Switzer- land, Italy, South Germany, and so on — are, indeed, the SESAME AND LILIES 83 bridge over the falls of Schaflhausen. You have tun- nelled the cliffs of Lucerne by Tell's chapel ; you have destroyed the Clarens shore of the Lake of Geneva; there is not a quiet valley in England that you have not filled with bellowing fire ; there is no particle left of English land which you have not trampled coal ashes into^ — ^nor any foreign city in which the spread of your presence is not marked among its fair old streets and happy gardens by a consuming white leprosy of new hotels and perfumers^ shops : the Alps themselves, which your own poets used to love so rev- erently, you look upon as soaped poles in a bear- garden, which you set yourselves to climb and slide down again, with ^^shrieks,of delight/^ When you are past shrieking, having no human articulate voice to say you are glad with, you fill the quietude of their valleys with gun-powder blasts, and rush home, red with cutaneous eruption of conceit, and voluble with convulsive hiccough of self-satisfaction. I think near- ly the two sorrowfullest spectacles I have ever seen in humanity, taking the deep inner significance of them, are the English mobs in the valley of Chamouni, amusing themselves with firing rusty howitzers; and the Swiss vintagers of Zurich expressing their Chris- truest cathedrals — places to be reverent in, and to worship in: and that we only care to drive through them; and to eat and drink at their most sacred places. 1 1 was singularly struck, some years ago, by finding all the river shore at Richmond, in Yorkshire, black in its earth, from the mere drift of soot-laden air from places many miles away. 84 SESAME AND LILIES tian thanks for the gift of the vine, by assembling in*^ knots in the '^'towers of the vineyards/* and slowly loading and firing horse-pistols from morning till evening. It is pitiful, to have dim conceptions of dntv: more pitiful, it seems to me. to have concep- tions like these, of mirth. 36. Lastly. You despise compassion. There is no need of words of mine for proof of this. I will merely print one of the newspaper paragraphs which I am in the habit of cutting out and throwing into my store- drawer: here is one from a '•'Daily Telegraph*' of an early date this year (1S65) : (date which, though by me carelessly left unmarked, is easily discoverable; for on the back of the slip, there is the announce- ment that "yesterday the seventh of the special serv- ices of this year was performed by the Bishop of Eipon in St. Paul's'*) ; it relates only one of such facts as happen now daily; this by chance having taken a form in which it came before the coroner. I will print the paragraph in red. Be sure, the facts themselves are written in that color, in a book which we shall all of us. literate or illiterate, have to read our page of, some day.^ ^"An inquiry was held on Friday by Mr. Eichards, deputy coroner, at the White Horse Tavern, Christ Church, Spitalfields, respecting the death of Michael Collins, aged 58 years. Mary Collins, a miserable- looking woman, said that she lived with the deceased • [^ In his own edition. Mr. Buskin printed, in red ink, all the rest of § 36, except his footnotes.] n SESAME AND LILIES 85 and his son in a room at 2, Cobb's Court, Christ Church. Deceased was a '^translator' of boots. Witness went out and bought old boots; deceased and his son made them into good ones, and then wit- ness sold them for what she could get at the shops, which was very little indeed. Deceased and his son used to work night and day to try and get a little bread and tea, and pay for the room (25. a week), so as to keep the home together. On Friday night week deceased got up from his bench and began to shiver. He threw down his boots, saying, ^Some- body else must finish them when I am gone,^ for I can do no more.' There was no fire, and he said, ^I would be better if I was warm.' Witness therefore took two pairs of translated boots^ to sell at the shop, but she could only get 14:d. for the two pairs, for the people at the shop said, ^We must have our profit.' Witness got 14 lb. of coal, and a little tea and bread. Her son sat up the whole night to make the ^trans- lations,' to get money, but deceased died on Saturday morning. The family never had enough to eat. — Coroner: '^It seems to me deplorable that you did not go into the workhouse.' Witness: ^We wanted the comforts of our little home.' A juror asked what the comforts were, for he only saw a little straw in the corner of the room, the windows of which were broken. The witness began to cry, and said that they had a quilt and other little things. The deceased said he ^ One of the things which we must very resolutely enforce, for the good of all classes, in our future arrangements, _ must be that they wear no * translated ' ' article of dress. 86 SESAME AND LILIES never would go into the workhouse. In summer, when the season was good, they sometimes made as much as 10.5?. profit in the week. They then always saved towards the next week, which was generally a bad one. In winter they made not half so much. For three years they had been getting from bad to worse. — Cornelius Collins said that he had assisted his father since 1847. They used to work so far into the night that both nearly lost their eyesight. Witness now had a film over his eyes. Five years ago de- ceased applied to the parish for aid. The reliev- ing officer gave him a 4 lb. loaf, and told him if he came again he should get the ^stones.^^ That dis- ^ [I. €., working at breaking stones in the road.] This abbreviation of the penalty of useless labor is curiously co- incident in verbal form with a certain passage which some of us may remember. [See Matthew vii. 9.] It may perhaps be well to preserve beside this paragraph another cutting out of my store-drawer, from the Morning Post, of about a parallel date, Friday, March 10th, 1865:— ''The salons of Mme. C , who did the honors with clever imitative grace and elegance, were crowded with princes, dukes, marquises, and counts — in fact, with the same male company as one meets at the parties of the Princess Metternich and Madame Drouyn de Lhuys. Some English peers and members of Parliament were present, and appeared to enjoy the ani- mated and dazzlingly improper scene. On the second floor the supper tables were loaded with every delicacy of the season. That your readers may form some idea of the dainty fare of the Parisian demi-monde, I copy the menu of the supper, which was served to all the guests (about 200) seated at four o'clock. Choice Yquem, Johannisberg, Laf- fitte, Tokay, and champagne of the finest vintages were SESAME AND LILIES 87 gusted deceased^ and he . would have nothing to do with them since. They got worse and worse until last Friday week, when they had not even a half- penny to buy a candle. Deceased then lay down on the straw, and said he could not live till morning. — A juror : ^You are dying of starvation yourself, and you ought to go into the house until the summer.^ — Witness : ^If we went in, we should die. When we come out in the summer, we should be like people dropped from the sky. No one would know us, and we would not have even a room. I could work now if I had food, for my sight would get better,^ Dr. G. P. Walker said deceased died from syncope, from exhaustion from want of food. The deceased had had no bedclothes. For four months he had had nothing but bread to eat. There was not a particle of fat in the body. There was no disease, but if there had been medical attendance, he might have survived the syncope or fainting. The coroner having remarked served most lavishly throughout the morning. After sup- per, dancing was resumed with increased animation, and the ball terminated with a chatne diabolique and a cancan d'enfer at seven in the morning. (Morning service — 'Ere the fresh lawns appeared, under the opening eyelids of the Morn.') Here is the menu: — 'Consomme de volaille ^ la Bag'ration: 16 hors-d ^oeuvres varies. Bouchees k la Talley- rand. Saumons froids, sauce Kavigote. Filets de boeuf en Bellevue;, timbales milanaises, chaudfroid de gibier. Dindes truffees. Pates de foies gras, buissons d 'ecrevisses, salades v^netiennes, gelees blanches aux fruits, gateaux mancini, parisiens et parisiennes. Fromages glaces. Ananas. Des- sert. ' ' ' 88 SESAME AND LILIES upon the painful nature of the case^ the jury returned the following verdict, '^That deceased died from ex- haustion from want of food and the common neces- saries of life ; also through want of medical aid/ ^^ 37. '*Why would witness not go into the work- house?^^ you ask. Well, the poor seem to have a prejudice against the workhouse which the rich have not; for of course every one. who takes a pension from Government goes into the workhouse on a grand scale :^ only the workhouses for the rich dp not in- volve the idea of work, and should be called play- houses. But the poor like to die independently, it appears; perhaps if we made the play-houses for them pretty and pleasant enough, or gave them their pensions at home, and allowed them a little introduc- tory peculation with the public money, their minds might be reconciled to the conditions. Meantime, here are the facts : we make our relief either so in- sulting to them, or so painful, that they rather die than take it at our hands; or, for third alternative, we leave them so untaught and foolish . that they starve like brute creatures, wild and dumb, not know- ing what to do, or what to ask. I say, you despise compassion; if you did not, such a newspaper para- graph would be as impossible in a Christian country as a deliberate assassination permitted in its public ^ Please observe this statement, and think of it, and con- sider how it happens that a poor old woman will be ashamed to take a shilling a week from the country — but no one is ashamed to take a pension of a thousand a year. SESAME AND LILIES ^ 89 streets.^ "Christian^^ did I say? Alas, if we were ^ I am heartily glad to see such a paper as the Pall Mall Gazette established; for the power of the press in the hands of highly educated men, in independent position, and of honest purpose, may indeed become all t^at it has been hitherto vainly vaunted to be. Its editor will therefore, I doubt not, pardon me, in that, by very reason of my respect for the journal, I do not let pass unnoticed an article in its third number, page 5, which was wrong in every word of it, with the intense wrongness which only an honest man can achieve who has taken a false turn of thought in the outset, and is following it, regardless of consequences. It contained at the end this notable passage: — ' ' The bread of affliction, and the water of affliction — aye, and the bedstead and blankets of affliction, are the very ut- most that the law ought to give to outcasts merely as out- casts,^ ^ I merely put beside this expression of the gentle- manly mind of England in 1865, a part of the message which Isaiah was ordered to '^lift up his voice like a trumpet^* in declaring to the gentlemen of his day: '^Ye fast for strife, and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out (margin, * afflicted') to thy house?'' The falsehood on which the writer had mentally founded himself, as previously stated by him, was this: ^^To confound the functions of the dispensers of the poor-rates with those of the dispensers of a charitable institution is a great and pernicious error." This sentence is so accurately and exquisitely wrong, that its substance must be thus reversed in our mind before we can deal with any existing problem of national distress. * ' To understand that the dispensers of the poor-rates are the almoners of the nation, and should distribute its alms with a gentleness and freedom of hand as much greater and franker than that possible to individual charity, as the collective national wisdom and power may be supposed ^0 SESAME AND LILIES but wholesomely ^n-Christian^ it would be impossi- ble : it is our imaginary Christianity that helps us to commit these crimes, for we revel and luxuriate in our faith, lOr the lewd sensation of it ; dressing it up, like everything else, m fiction. The dramatic Christianity of the organ and aisle, of dawn-service and twilight- revival — the Christianity which we do not fear to mix the mockery of, pictorially, with our play about the devil, in our Satanellas, — Eoberts, — Fausts; chanting hymns through traceried windows for back- ground effect, and artistically modulating the "Dio" through variation on variation of mimicked prayer (while we distribute tracts, next day, for the benefit of uncultivated swearers, upon what we suppose to be the signification of the Third Commandment) ; — this gas-lighted, and gas-inspired, Christianity, we are triumphant in, and draw back the hem of our robes from the touch of the heretics who dispute it. But to do a piece of common Christian righteousness in a plain English word or deed; to make Christian law any rule of life, and found one National act or hope thereon, — we know too well what our faith comes to for that! You might* sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion. You had better get rid of the sm.oke, and the organ pipes, both : leave them, greater than those of any single person, is the foundation of all law respecting pauperism.'' (Since this was written the Pall Mall Gazette has become a mere party paper — like the rest; but it writes well, and does more good than mis- chief on the whole.) SESAME AND LILIES 91 and the Gothic windows, and the painted glass, to the property man; give up your carburetted hydrogen ghost in one healthy expiration, and look after Laz- arus at the doorstep. For there is a true Church wherever one hand meets another helpfully, and that is the only holy or Mother Church which ever was, or ever shall be. ^ 38. All these pleasures then, and all these virtues, I repeat, you nationally despise. You have, indeed, men among you who do not; by whose work, by whose strength, by whose life, by whose death, you live, and never thank them. Your wealth, your amusement, your pride, would all be alike impossible, but for those whom you scorn or forget. The police- man, wlio is walking up and dow^n the black lane all night to watch the guilt you have created there ; and may have his brains beaten out, and be maimed for life, at any moment, and never be thanked; the sailor wrestling with the sea's rage; the»quiet student por- ing over his book or his vial; the common worker, without praise, and nearly without bread, fulfilling his task as your horses drag your carts, hopeless, and spurned of all; these are the men by whom England lives; but they are not the nation; they are only the body and nervous force of it, acting still from old habit in a convulsive perseverance, while the mind is gone. Our National wish and purpose are only to be amused ; our National religion is the performance of church ceremonies, and preaching of soporific truths (or untruths) to keep the mob quietly at work, while we amuse ourselves; and the necessitv for this amuse- 92 SESAME AND LILIES ment is fastening on ns^ as a feverous disease of parched throat and wandering eyes — senseless^ dis- solute, merciless. How literally that word i)is-Ease, the Jfegation and possibility of Ease, expresses the entire moral state of our English Industry and its Amusements ! ^ 39. When men are rightly occupied, their amuse- ment grows out of their work, as the color-petals out of a fruitful flower; — when they are faithfully help- ful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse to the body. But now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into the false business of money-making; and having no true emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with, not innocently, as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly, as the idolatrous Jews with their pictures on cavern walls, which men had to dig to detect. The justice we do not execute, we mimic in the novel and on the stage; for the beauty we destroy in nature, we substitute the meta- morphosis of the pantomime, and (the human nature of us imperatively requiring awe and s.orrow of some kind) for the noble grief we should have borne with our fellows, and the pure tears we should have wept with them, we gloat over the pathos of the police court, and gather the night-dew of the grave. 40. It is difficult to estimate the true significance of these things; the facts are frightful enough; — the measure of national fault involved in them is perhaps not as great as it would at first seem. We permit, or SESAME AND LILIES 93 cause, thousands of deaths daily, but we mean no harm; we set fire to houses, and ravage peasants' fields, yet we should be sorry to find we had injurec? anybody. We are still kind at heart; still capable of virtue, but only as children are. Chalmers, at the end of his long life, having had much power with the .public, being plagued in some serious matter by a reference to "^"^public opinion/^ uttered the impatient exclamation, ^*^The public is just a great baby V' And the reason that I have allowed all these graver sub- jects of thought to mix themselves up with an in- quiry into methods of reading, is that, the more I see of our national faults or miseries, the more they resolve themselves into conditions of childish illiter- ateness and want of education in the most ordinary habits of thought.- It is, I repeat, not vice, not selfish- ness, not dullness of brain, which we have to lament ; but an unreachable schoolboy^s recklessness, only dif- fering from the true schoolboy^s in its incapacity of r-7being helped, because it acknowledges no master. /\^ 41. There is a curious type of us given in one of the lovely, neglected works of the last of our great painters. It is a drawing of Kirkby Lonsdale church- yard, and of its brook, and valley, and hills, and folded morning sky beyond. And unmindful alike of these, and of the dead who have left these for other valleys and for other skies, a group of sehool- boys have piled their little books upon a grave, to strike them off with stones. So, also, we play with the words of the dead that would teach us, and strike them far from us with our bitter, reckless will ; little 94 SESAME AND LILIES thinking that those leaves which the wind scatters had been piled, not only upon a gravestone, but upon the seal of an enchanted vault — jisly, the gate of a great city of sleeping kings, who would awakje for ns, and walk with ns, if we knew but how to call them by their names. How often, even if we lift the marble entrance gate, do we but wander among those old kings in their repose, and finger the robes they lie in, and stir the crowns on their foreheads, and still they are silent to us, and seem but a dusty imagery; be- cause we know not the incantation of the heart that would wake them: — ^which, if they once heard, they would start up to meet us in their power of long ago, narrowly to look upon us, and consider us; and, as the fallen kings of Hades meet the newly fallen, say- ing, "Art thou also become weak as we — ^art thou also become one of us?'^ so would these kings, with their undimmed, unshaken diadems, meet, us, sajdng, "Art thou also become pure and mighty of heart as we ? art thou also become one of us ?*^ 42. Mighty of heart, mighty of mind — ^*magnani- mous'" — to be this, is indeed to be great in life: to become this increasingly, is, indeed, to "advance in life,'' — in life itself — not in the trappings of it. My friends, do you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died ? How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and carried about to his friends' houses ; and each of them placed him at his tablets head, and all feasted in his presence ? Suppose it were offered to you in plain words, as it is offered to you in dire facts, that you should gain SESAME AND LILIES 95 this Scythian honor, gradually, while you yet thought yourself alive. Suppose the offer were this : You shall die slowly; your blood shall daily grow cold, your flesh petrify, your heart beat at last only as a rusted group of iron valves. Your life shall fade from you, and sink through the earth into the ice of Caina; but, day by day, your body shall be dressed more gaily, and set in higher chariots, and have more orders on its breast — crowns on its head, if you will. Men shall bow before it, stare and shout round it, crowd after it up and down the streets; build pal- aces for it, feast with it at their tables^ heads all the night long; your soul shall stay enough within it to know what they do, and feel the weight of the golden dress on its shoulders, and the furrow of the crown- edge on the skull ; — no more. Would you take the of- fer, verbally made by the death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you ? Yet practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a meas- ure; many of us grasp at it in its fulness of horror. Every man accepts it, who desires to advance in life without knowing what life is ; who means only that he is to get more horses, and more footmen, and more fortune, and miore public honor, and — not more per- sonal soul. He only is advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, wliubu Unain quicker, whose spirit is entering into Living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth — they, and they only. All other kingships, so far as they are true, are only the practical issue and expression of theirs; if less than 96 SESAME AND LILIES this^ they are either dramatic royalties, — costly shows, set off, indeed, with real jewels instead of tinsel — but still only the toys of nations ; or else, they are no roy- alties at all, but t}Tannies, or the mere active and practical issue of national folly; for which reason. I have said of them elsewhere, "Visible governments are the toys of some nations, the diseases of others, the harness of some, the burdens of more/^ 43. But I have no words for the wonder with which I hear Kinghood still spoken of, even among thoughtful men, as if governed nations were a per- sonal propert}', and might be bought and sold, or oth- erwise acquired, as sheep, of whose flesh their king, was to feed, and whose fleece he was to gather; as if Achilles' indignant epithet of base kings, "people- eating/*' were the constant and proper title of all monarchs; and enlargement of a king^s dominion meant the same thing as the increase of a private man's estate ! Kings who think so, however power- ful, can no more be the true kings of the nation fhan gadflies are the kings of a horse; they suck it, and may drive it wild, but do not guide it. They, and , their courts, and their armies are, if one could see clearly, only a large species of marsh mosquito, with bayonet proboscis and melodious, band-mastered trumpeting, in the summer air; the twilight being, perhaps, sometimes fairer, but hardly more whole- some, for its glittering mists of midge companies. The true kiags, meanwhile, rule quietly, if at aU, and hate ruling: too many of them make "il gran rifiiito;^^ and if thev do not, the mob, as soon as thev are likely SESAME AND LILIES 97 to become useful to it, is pretty sure to make its '^gran rifiiito^' of them. 4:4:. Yet the visible king may also be a true one, some day, if ever day comes when he will estimate his dominion by the force of it, — ^not the geographical boundaries. It matters very little whether Trent cuts you a cantel out here, or Ehine rounds you a castle less there. But it does matter to you, king of men, whether you can verily say to this man, "Go,^' and he goeth; and to another, ^^Come,^^ and he cometh. Whether you can turn your people, as you can Trent — and where it is that you bid them come, and where go. It matters to you, king of men, whether your people hate you, and die by you, or love you, and live by you. You may measure your dominion by multi- tudes, better than by miles; and count degrees of love-latitude, not from, but to, a wonderfully warm and infinite equator. 45. Measure ! — nay, you cannot measure. Who shall measure the difference between the power of those who "do and teach,^^ and who are greatest in the kingdoms of earth, as of heaven — and the power of those who undo, and consume — whose power, at the fullest, is only the power of the moth and the rust ? Strange ! to think how the Moth-kings lay up treasures for the moth; and the Eust-kings, who are to their people^s strength as rust to armor, lay up treasures for the rust; and the Eobber-kings, treas- ures for the robber ; but how few kings have ever laid up treasures that needed no guarding — treasures of which, the more thieves there were, the better ! Broid- 98 SESAME AND LILIES ered robe^ only to be rent; helm and sword, only to be dimmed ; jewel and gold, only to be scattered ; — ^there have been three kinds of kings who have gathered these. Suppo&e there ever should arise a Fonrth order of kings, who had read, in some obscure writing of long ago, that there was a Fourth kind of treasure, which the jewel and gold could not equal, neither should it be valued with pure gold^ A web made fair in the weaving, by Athena' s shuttle ; an armor, forged in divine fire by Yulcanian force ; a gold to be mined in the very sun's red heart, where he sets over the Delphian cliffs ; — deep-pictured tissue ; — impenetra- ble armor ; — potable gold ! — the three great Angels of Conduct, Toil, and Thought, still calling to us, and waiting at the posts of our doors, to lead us, with their winged power, and guide us, with their unerring eyes, by the path which no fowl knoweth, and which the -vulture's eye has not seen ! Suppose kings should ever arise, who heard and believed this word, and at last gathered and brought forth treasures of — Wis- dom — for their people? 46. Think what an amazing business that would be ! How inconceivable, in the state of our present national wisdom! That we should bring up our peasants to a book exoTt- -e instead of a bayonet exer- cise! — organize, drill, maintain with pay, and good generalship, armies of thinkers, instead of armies of stabbers ! — find national amusement in reading-rooms as rifle-grounds ; give prizes for a fair shot at a fact, as well as for a leaden splash on a target. What an absurd idea it seems, put fairly in words, that the SESAME AND LILIES 99 wealth of the capitalists of civilized nations should ever come to support literature instead of war ! 47. Have yet patience with me, while I read you a single sentence out of the only book, properly to be. called a book/ that I have yet written myself, the one that will stand (if anything stand) surest and longest of all work of mine : — ^ ' It is one very awful form of the operation of wealtli in Europe that it is entirely capitalists' wealth which supports unjust wars. Just wars do not need so much money tO' support them; for most of the men who wage such, wage them gratis; but for an unjust war, men's bodies and souls have both to be bought; and the best tools of war for them besides, which makes such war costly to the maximum ; not to speak of the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, be- tween nations which have not grace nor honesty enough in all their multitudes to buy an hour's peace of mind with; as, at present, France and England, purchasing of each other ten millions sterling worth of consternation, annually (a remarkably light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves, sown, reaped, and granaried by the 'science' of the modern political economist, teaching covet ousness instead of truth). And, all unjust war being supportable, if not by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these loans are repaid by subsequent taxation of the people, who appear to have no will ir the matter, the capitalists' will being the primary root of the war; but its real root is the covetousness of the whole nation, rendering it incapable of faith, frank- ness, or justice, and bringirg about, therefore, in due time, his own separate loss and punishment to each person. ' ' 48. France and England literally, observe, buy panic of each other ; they pay, each of them, for ten thousand-thousand pounds' worth of terror, a year. [^Unto this Last; in the essay entitled ''Ad Valorem."] 100 SESAME AND LILIES Now suppose, instead of buying these ten millions' worth of panic annually, they made up their minds to be at peace with each other, and buy ten millions^ worth of knowledge annually; and that each nation spent its ten thousand-thousand pounds a year in founding royal libraries, royal art galleries, royal museums, royal gardens, and places of rest. Might it not be better somewhat for both French and Eng- lish? 49. It will be long, yet, before that comes to pass. N'evertheless, I hope it will not be long before royal or national libraries will be founded in every con- siderable city, with a royal series of boolvS in them; the same series in every one of them, chosen books, the best in every kind, prepared for that national series in the most perfect way possible; their text printed all on leaves of equal size, broad of margin, and divided into pleasant volumes, light in the hand, beautiful, and strong, and thorough as examples of binders' . work ; and that these great libraries will be accessible to all clean and orderly persons at all times of the day and evening ; strict law being enforced for this cleanliness and quietness. 50. I could shape for you other plans, for art gal- leries, and for natural history galleries, and for many precious — many, it seems to me, needful — ^things; but this book plan is the easiest and needfuUest, and would prove a considerable tonic to what we call our British Constitution, which has fallen dropsical of late, and has an evil thirst, and evil hunger, and wants healthier feeding. You have got its corn laws SESAME AND LILIES 101 repealed for it ; try if you cannot get corn laws estab- lished for it^ dealing in a better bread ; — bread made of that old enchanted Arabian grain, the Sesame, which opens doors; — doors, not of robbers', but of Kings^ Treasuries. NOTE TO § 30 Eespecting the increase of rent by the deaths of the poor, for evidence of which, see the preface to the Medical Officer's Eeport to the Privy Council, just published, there are suggestions in its preface which will make some stir among us, I fancy, respecting which let me note these points following : — There are two theories on the subject of land now abroad, and in contention; both false. The first is that, by Heavenly law, there have always existed, and must continue to exist, a certain number of hereditarily sacred persons to whom the earth, air, and water of the world belong, as personal property; of which earth, air, and water, these per- sons may, at their pleasure, permit, or forbid, the rest of the human race to eat, to breathe or to drink. This theory is not for many years longer tenable. The adverse theory is that a division of the land of the world among the mob of the world would immedi- ately elevate the said mob into sacred personages; that houses would then build themselves and corn grow of itself; and that everybody would be able to live, without doing any work for his living. This theory would also be found highly untenable in prac- tice. 102 SESAME AND LILIES It will, however, require some rough experiments and rougher catastrophes, before the generality of persons will be convinced that no law concerning any- thing — least of all concerning land, for either hold- ing or dividing it, or renting it high, or renting it low — would be of the smallest ultimate use to the peo- ple, so long as the general contest for life, and for the means of life, remains one of mere brutal competition. That contest, in an unprincipled nation, will take one deadly form or another, whatever laws you make against it. For instance, it would be an entirely wholesoni;^ law for England, if it could be carried, that maximum limn:^ should be assigned to incomes according to classes: and that everv nobleman's in- come should be paid to him as a fixed salary or pen- sion by the nation : and not squeezed by him in vari- able sums, at discretion, out of the tenants of his land. But if you could get such a law passed to-morrow, and if, which would be farther necessary, you could fix the value of the assigned incomes by making a given weight of pure bread legal-tender for a given sum, a twelve-month would not pass before another currency would have been tacitly established, and the power of accumlated wealth would have reasserted itself in some other article, or some other imaginary sign. There is only one cure for public distress — and that is public education, directed to make men thoughtful, merciful, and just. There are, indeed, many laws conceivable which would gradually better and strengthen the national temper; but, for the most part, they are such as the national temper must SESAME AND LILIES . 103 be much bettered before it. would bear. A nation in its youth may be helped by laws, as a weak child by back-boards, but when it is old it cannot that way strengthen its crooked spine. And besides ; the problem of land, at its woi^t, is a bye one; distribute the earth as you will, the princi- pal question remains inexorable, — who is to dig it? Which of us, in brief words, is to do the hard and dirty work for the rest — and for what pay? Who is to do the pleasant and clean work, and for what pay? Who is to do no work, and for what pay? And there are curious moral and religious questions connected with these. How far is it lawful to suck a portion of the soul out of a great many persons, in order to put the abstracted psychical quantities to- gether and make one very beautiful or ideal soul ? If we had to deal with mere blood instead of spirit (and thp thing might literally be done — as* it has been done with infants before now), — so that it were pos- sible by taking a certain quantity of blood from the arms of a given number of the mob, and putting it all into one person, to make a more azure-blooded gentle- man of him, the thing would of CQurse be managed; but secretly, I rNhould conceive. But now, because it is brain and soul that we abstract, not visible blood, it can be done quite openly, and we live, we gentle- njen, on delicatest prey, after the rnanner of weasels ; that is to say, we keep a certain number of clowns di.2fging and ditching, and generally stupefied, in or- der that we, being fed gratis, may have all the think- ing and feeling to ourselves. Yet there is a great deal 104 SESAME AND LILIES to be said for this. A highly bred and trained Eng- lish, French, Austrian, or Italian gentleman (much more a lady) is a great production, — a better produc- tion than most statues; being beautifully colored as well as shaped, and plus all the brains; a glorious thing to look at, a wonderful thing to talk to; and you cannot have it, any more than a pyramid or a church, but by sacrifice of much contributed life. And it is, perhaps, better to build a beautiful human creature than a beautiful dome or steeple — and more delightful to look up reverently to a creature far above us, than to a wall; only the beautiful human creature will have some duties to do in return — duties of living belfry and rampart — of which presently. LECTUEE II.— LILIES. OF QUEENS' GAKDENS. ' * Be thou glad, oh thirsting Desert ; let the desert be made cheerful, and' bloom as the lily; and the barren places of Jordan shall run wild with wood.'' — Isaiah xxxv. i. (Septuagint). \ ''51. It will, perhaps, be well, as this Lecture is the sequel of one previously given, that I should shortly- state to you my general intention in both. The ques- tions specially proposed to you in the first, namely. How and What to Eead, rose out of a far deeper one, which it was my endeavor to make you propose ear- nestly to yourselves, namely. Why to Eead. I want you to feel, with me, that whatever advantage we pos- sess in the present day in the diffusion of education and of literature, can only be rightly used by any of us when we have apprehended clearly what education is to lead to, and literature to teach. I wish you to see that both well-directed moral training and well- chosen reading lead to the possession of a power over the ill-guided and illiterate, which is, according to the measure of it, in the truest sense, Mngly ; conferring indeed the purest kingship that can exist among men : too many other kingships (however distinguished by visible insignia or material power) being either spec- tral, or tyrannous; — spectral — that is to say, aspf^cts and shadows only of royalty, hollow as death, and 105 106 SESAME AND LILIES whicii only the '^•'likeness of a kingly crown have on f or else tyrannous — that is to say, substituting their own will for the law of justice and love by which all true kings rule. 52. There is, then, I repeat — and as I want to leave this idea witn }'ou, I begin with it, and shall end with it — only one pure kind of kingship ; an in- evitable and eternal kind, crowned or not: the king- ship, namely, which consists in a stronger moral state, and a truer thoughtful state, than tliat of others; enabling you, therefore, to guide, or to raise them. Observe that word '^^State f we have got into a loose way of using it. It means literally the standing and stability of a thing ; and you have the full force of it in the derived word "statue" — "the immovable thing.^' A king's majesty or "sta*te,'^ then, and the right of his kingdom to be called a state, depends on the movelessness of both : — without tremor, without quiver of balance; established and enthroned upon a foundation of eternal law which nothing can alter, nor overthrow. 53. Believing that all .literature and all education are only useful so far as they tend to confirm this calm, beneficent, and therefore kingly, power, — first, over ourselves, and, through ourselves over all around us — I am now going to ask you to consider with me, farther, what special portion or kind of this royal authority, arising out of noble education, may rightly be possessed by women; and how far they also are called to a true queenly power, — not in their house- holds merely, but over all within their sphere. And SESAME AND LILIES 107 in what sense^ if they rightly -anderstood and exer- cised this royal or gracious influence, the order and beauty induced by such benignant power would just- ify us in speaking of the territories over which each of them reigned, as "Queens^ Gardens/^ 54. And here, in the very outset, we are met by a far deeper question, which — strange though this may seem — remains among many of us yet quite unde- cided, in spite of its infinite importance. We cannot determine what the queenly power of women should be, until we are agreed what their ordi- nary power should be. We cannot consider how education may fit them for any widely extending duty, until we are agreed what is their true constant duty. And there never was a time when wilder words were spoken, or more vain imagination permitted, respect- ing this question — quite vital to all social happiness. The relations of the womanly to the manly nature, their different capacities of intellect or of virtue, seem never to have been yet estimated with entire consent. We hear of the "mission^^ and of the "rights'^ of Woman, as if these could ever be separate from the mission and the rights of Man; — as if she and her lord were creatures of independent kind, and of irre- concilable claim. This, at least, is wrong. And not less wrong — perhaps even more foolishly wrong (for I will anticipate thus far what I hope to prove) — is the idea that woman is only the shadow and attendant image of her lord, owing him a thoughtless and ser- vile obedience, and supported altogether in her weak* ness, by the preeminence of his fortitude. 108 SESAME AND LILIES This, I say, is the most foolish of all errors respect- ing her who was made to be the helpmate of man. As if he could be helped ejBfectiyely by a shadow, or worthily by a slave ! 55. Let us try, then, whether we cannot get at some clear and harmonious idea (it must be harmoni- ous if it is true) of what womanly mind and virtue are in power and office, with respect to man's; and how their relations, rightly accepted, aid, and in- crease, the vigor, and honor, and authority of both. 'And now I must repeat one thing I said in the last lecture : namely that the first use of education was to enable us to consult with the wisest and the greatest men on all points of earnest difficulty. That to use books rightly, was to go to them for help : to appeal to them when our own knowledge and power of thought failed : to be led by them into wider sight — purer conception — than our own, and receive from them the united sentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our solitary and unstable opinion. Let us do this now. Let us see whether the great- est, the wisest, the purest-hearted of all ages are agreed in any wise on this point : let us hear the tes- timony they have left respecting what they held to be the true' dignity of woman, and her mode of help to man. 56. And first let us take Shakespeare. Note broadly in the outset, Shakespeare has no heroes; — ^he has only heroines. There is not one entirely heroic figure in all his plays, except the slight sketch of Henry the Fifth, exaggerated for the pur- SESAME AND LILIES 109 poses of the stage ; and the still slighter Valentine in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona/' In his labored and perfect plays you have no hero. Othello would have been one^ if his simplicity had not been so great as to leave him the prey of every base practice round him ; but he is the only example even approximating to the heroic type. Coriolanus — Caesar — Antony stand in flawed strength, and fall by their vanities; — Hamlet is indolent, and drowsily speculative ; Romeo an impa- tient boy; the Merchant of Venice languidly submis- sive to adverse fortune ; Kent, in "King Lear/' is en- tirely noble at heart, but too rough and unpolished to be of true use at the critical time, and he sinks into the office of a servant only. Orlando, no less noble, is yet the despairing toy of chance, followed, com- forted, saved, by Eosalind. Whereas there is hardly a play that has not a perfect woman in it, steadfast in grave hope, and errorless purpose; Cordelia, Desde- mona, Isabella, Hermione, Imogen, Queen Catherine, Perdita, Sylvia, Viola, Eosalind, Helena, and last, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all faultless ; conceived in the* highest heroic type of humanity. 57. Then observe, secondly. The catastrophe of every play is caused always by the folly or fault of a man ; the redemption, if there be any, is by the wisdom and virtue of a woman, and, failing that, there is none. The catastrophe of King Lear is owing to his own want of judgment, his impa- tient vanity, his misunderstanding of his children; the virtue of his one true daughter would have saved him from all the injuries of the others, unless he had 110 SESAME AND LILIES cast her away from him; as it is, she all but saves him. Of Othello I need not trace the tale; nor the one weakness of his so mighty love; nor the inferiority of his perceptive intellect to that even of the second woman character in the play, the Emilia who dies in wild testimony against his error: — *'0h, murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool Do with so good a wife?'' In ^^Eomeo and Juliet/' the wise and brave strat- agem of the wife is brought to ruinous issue by the reckless impatience of her husband. In "The Win- ter's Tale," and in "Cymbeline/' the happiness and existence of two princely households, lost through long years, and imperilled to the death by the folly and obstinacy of the husbands, are redeemed at last by the queenly patience and wisdom of the wives. In "Measure for Measure,'' the foul injustice of the judge, and the foul cowardice of the brother, are opposed to the victorious truth and adamantine puri- ty of a woman. In "Coriolanus," the mother's coun- sel, acted upon in time, would have saved her son from all evil ; his momentary f orgetf ulness of it is his ruin ; her prayer, at last, granted, saves him — not, in- deed, from death, but from the curse of living as the destroyer of his country. And what shall I say of Julia, constant against the fickleness of a lover who is a mere wicked child? — of Helena, against the petulance and insult of a care- SESAME AND LILIES 111 less youth? — of the patience of Hero^ the passion of Beatrice^ aaid the calmly devoted wisdom of the ^^un- .essoned girl/^ who appears among the helplessness, the blindness, and the vindictive passions of men, as a gentle angel, bringing courage and safety by her presence, and defeating the worst malignities of crime by what women are fancied most to fail in, — preci- sion and accuracy of thought ? 58. Observe, further, among all the principal fig- ures in Shakespeare^s plays, there is only one weak woman — Ophelia; and it is because she fails Ham- let at the critical moment, and is not, and cannot in her nature be, a guide to him when he needs her most, that' all the bitter catastrophe follows : Finally, though there are three wicked women among the principal figures, Lady Macbeth, Eegan, and Goneril, they are felt at once to be frightful exceptions to the ordinary laws of life; fatal in their influence also, in proportion to the power for good which they have abandoned. Such, in broad light, is Shakespeare^s testimony to the position and character of women in iiuman life. He represents them as infalli'Jy faithiiil and wise counsellors, — in corruptibly just and pure examples, — strong always to sanctify, even when they cannot save. 59. Not as in any wise comparable in knowledge of the nature of man, — still less in his understand- ing of the causes and courses of fate, — but only as the writer who has given us the broadest view of the conditions and modes of ordinary thought in modern 112 SESAME AND LILIES society, I ask you next to receive the witness of Wal- ter Scott. I put aside his merely romantic prose writings as of no value, and though the early romantic poetry is very beautiful, its testimony is of no weight, other than that of a boy^s ideal. But his true works, stud- ied from Scottish life, bear a true witness; and, in the whole range of these, there are but three men who reach the heroic type^ — Dandie Dinmont, Eob Eoy, and Claverhouse; of these, one is a border farmer; another a freebooter; the third a soldier in a bad cause. And these touch the ideal of heroism only in their courage and faith, together with a strong, but uncultivated, or mistakenly applied, intellectual power; while his younger men are the gentlemanly playthings of fantastic fortune, and only by aid (or accident) of that fortune, survive, not vanquish, the trials they involuntarily sustain. Of any disciplined, or consistent character, earnest in a purpose wisely conceived, or dealing with forms of hostile evil, defi- nitely challenged and resolutely subdued, there is no trace in his conceptions of young men. Whereas in ^ I ought, in order to make this assertion fully understood, to have noted the various weaknesses which lower the ideal of other great characters of men in the Waverley novels — the selfishness and narrowness of thought in Eedgauntlet, the weak religious enthusiasm in Edward Glendinning, and the like; and I ought to have noticed that there are several quite perfect characters sketched sometimes in the back- grounds; three — let us accept joyously this courtesy to Eng- land and her soldiers — are English officers : Colonel Gardiner, Colonel Talbot, and Colonel Mannering. r SESAME AND LILIES 113 his imaginations of women, — in the characters of Ellen Douglas, of Flora Maclvor, Eose Bradwardine, Catherine Seyton, Diana Vernon, Lilias Redgauntlet, Alice Bridgenorth, Alice Lee, and Jeanie Deans, — with endless varieties of grace, tenderness, and intel- lectual power, we find in all a quite infallible sense of dignity and justice ; a fearless, instant, and untir- ing self-sacrifice to even the appearance of duty, much more to its real claims; and, finally, a patient wisdom of deeply restrained affection, which does in- finitely more than protect its objects from a momen- tary error; it gradually forms, animates, and exalts the characters of the unworthy lovers, until, at the close of the tale, we are just able, and no more, to take patience in hearing of their unmerited success. So that, in all cases, with Scott as with Shake- speare, it is the woman who watches over, teaches, and guides the youth ; it is never, by any chance, the youth who watches over, or educates, his mistress. 60. Next, take, though more briefly, graver testi- mony — that of the great Italians and Greeks. You know well the plan of Dante's great poem — that it is a love-poem to his dead lady; a song of praise for her watch over his soul. Stooping only to pity, never to love, she yet saves him from destruction — saves him from hell. He is going eternally astray in de- spair; she comes down from heaven to his help, and throughout the ascents of Paradise is his teacher, in- terpreting for him the most difficult truths, divine and human; and leading him, with rebuke upon re- buke, from star to star. 114 SESAME AND LILIES I do not insist upon Dante's conception ; if I began, I could not cease : besides, you might think this a wild imagination of one poet's heart. So I will rather read to you a few Verses on the deliberate writ- ing of a knight of Pisa to his living lady, wholly characteristic of the feeling of all the noblest men of the thirteenth, or early fourteenth, century, preserved among many other such records of knightly honor and love, which Dante Eossetti has gathered for us from among the early Italian poets. ^^For lo! thy law is passed That this my love should manifestly be To serve and honor thee: And so I do; and my delight is full, Accepted for the servant of thy rule. *' Without almost, I am all rapturous, Since thus my will was set: To serve, thou flower of joy, thine excellence; Nor ever seems it anything could rouse A pain or a regret. But on thee dwells my every thought and sense; . Considering that from thee all virtues spread As from a fountain head, — That hi thy gift is wisdom's test avail j And honor without fail; With whom each sovereign good dwells separate. Fulfilling the pdk-f ection of thy state. ^ '*Lady, since I conceived Thy pleasurable aspect in my heart My life has been apart Jn shining brightness and the place of truth; SESAME AND LILIES 115 Which till that time, good sooth, Groped among shadows in a darkened place, , Where many hours and days It hardly ever had remembered good. But now my servitude Is thine, and I am full of joy and rest. A man from a wild beast Thou madest me, since for thy love I lived." 61. You may think, perhaps, a Greek knight would have had a lower estimate of women than this Christian lover. His spiritual subjection to them was indeed not so absolute : but as regards their own per- sonal character, it was only because you could not have followed me so easily, that I did not take the Greek women instead of Shakespeare's ; and instance, for chief ideal types of human beauty and faith, the simple mother's and wife's heart of Andromache; the divine, yet rejected wisdom of Cassandra ; the play- ful kindness and simple princess-life of happy Nau- sicaa ; the housewifely calm of that of Penelope, with its watch upon the sea; the ever patient, fearless, hopelessly devoted piety of the sister and daughter, in Antigone; the bowing down of Iphigenia, lamb- like and silent; and, finally, the expectation of the resurrection, made clear to the soul of the Greeks in the return from her grave of that Alcestis, who, to save her husband, had passed calmly through the bit- terness of death. 62. Now I could multiply witness upon witness of this kind upon you if I had time. I would take Chaucer, and show you why he wrote a. Legend of 116 SESAME AND LILIES Good Women; but no Legend of Good Men.- I would take Spenser, and show you how all his fairy knights are sometimes deceived and sometimes van- quished; but the soul of Una is never darkened, and the spear of Britomart is never broken. Nay, I could go back into the mythical teaching of the most an- cient times, and show you how the great people — by one of whose princesses, it was appointed that the Law-giver of all the earth should be educated, rather than by his own kindred : — how that great Egyptian people, wisest then of nations, gave to their Spirit of Wisdom the form of a woman; and into her hand, for a symbol, the weaver^s shuttle; and how the name and the form of that spirit, adopted, believed, and obeyed by the Greeks, became that Athena of the olive-helm, and cloudy shield, to faith in whom you owe, down to this date, whatever you hold most pre- cious in art, in literature, or in types of national virtue. 63. But I will not wander into this distant and mythical element ; I will only ask you to give its legit- imate value to the testimony of these great poets and men of the world, — consistent, as you see it is, on this head. I will ask you whether it can be supposed that these men, in the main work of their lives, are amusing themselves with a fictitious and idle view of the relations between man and woman; nay, worse than fictitious or idle ; for a thing may be imaginary, yet desirable, if it were possible; but this, their ideal of woman, is, according to our common idea of the marriage relation, wholly undesirable. The woman. SESAME AND LILIES 117 we say^ is not to guide, nor even to think for herself. The man is always to be the wiser; he is to be the thinker, the ruler, the superior in knowledge and dis- cretion, as in power. 64. Is it not somewhat important to make up our minds on this matter ? Are all these great men mis- taken, or are we? Are Shakespeare and Aeschylus, Dante and Homer, merely dressing dolls for us; or, worse than dolls, unnatural visions, the realization of which, were it possible, would bring anarchy into all households and ruin into all affections ? Nay, if you can suppose this, take lastly the evidence of facts given by the human heart itself. In all Christian ages which have been remarkable for their purity of progress, there has been absolute yielding of obedient devotion, by the lover, to his mistress. I say obedi- ent; — ^not merely enthusiastic and worshipping in imagination, but entirely subject, receiving from the beloved woman, however young, not only the encour- agement, the praise, and the reward of all toil, but, so far as any choice is open or any question difficult of decision, the direction of all toil. That chivalry, to the abuse and dishonor of which are attributable primarily whatever is cruel in war, unjust in peace, or corrupt and ignoble in domestic relations ; and to the original purity and power of which we owe the defence alike of faith, of law, and of love; — that chivalry, I say, in its very first conception of honor- abl-e life assumes the subjection of the young knight to the command — should it even be the command in caprice — of his lady. It assumes this, because its 118 SESAME AND LILiES masters knew that the first and necessary impulse of every truly taught and knightly heart is this of blind service to its lady : that where that true faith and cap- tivitj" are not^ all wayward and wicked passion must be ; and that in this rapturous obedience to the single love of his youth is the sanctification of all man's strength^ and the continuance of all his purposes. And this^ not because such obedience would be safe, or honorable, were it ever rendered to the unworthy ; but because it ought to be impossible for everj^ noble youth — it is impossible for every one rightly trained —to love any one whose gentle counsel he cannot trust, or whose prayerful command he can hesitate to obey. 65. I do not insist by any farther argument on this, for I think it should commend itself at once to your knowledge of what has been, and to your feeling of what should be. You cannot think that the buck- ling on of the knight's armor by his lady's hand was a mere caprice of romantic fashion. It is the type of an eternal truth — that the souFs armor is never well set to the heart unless a woman's hand has braced it ; and it is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of manhood fails. Know you not those lovely lines — I would they were learned by all youthful ladies of England : — ^'Ah, wasteful woman! — she who may On her sweet self set her own price, Knowing he cannot choose but pay — How has she cheapened Paradise! SESAME AND LILIES 119 How given for nought her priceless gift, How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine, Which, spent with due respective thrift, Had made brutes men, and men divine 1 ''* ^^, Thus much, then, respecting the relations of lovers I believe you will accept. But what we too often doubt is the fitness of the continuance of such a relation throughout the whole of human life. We think it right in the lover and mistress, not in the husband and wife. That is to say, we think that a reverent and tender duty is due to one whose affection we still doubt, and whose character we as yet do but partially and distantly discern; and that this rever- ence and duty are to be withdrawn, when the affection has become wholly and limitlessly our own, and the character has been so sifted and tried that we fear not to entrust it with the happiness of our lives. Do you not see how ignoble this is, as well as how unreason- able? ' Do you not feel that marriage — when it is marriage at all — is only the seal which marks the vowed transition of temporary into untiring service, and of fitful into eternal love? 67. Bat how, you will ask, is the idea of this guiding function of the woman reconcilable with a true wifely subjection? Simply in that it is a guid- ing, not a determinini^:, function. Let me try to ^Coventry Patmore YT)ie Angel in the House]. You can- not read him too often or too carefully; as far as I know, he is the only living poet who always strengthens and puri- fies; the others sometimes darken and nearly always depress^ and discourage the imagination they deeply seize. laO SES.A3IE AND LILIES show you briefly how these powers seem to be rightly distinguishable. We are foolish^ and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the •*superioritr^ of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in similar things. Each has what the other has not : each completes the other, and is completed by the other; they are in nothing alike, and the happiness and perfection of both de- pends on each asking and receiving from the other what the other only can give. 68. Xow their separate characteis are briefly these. The man's power is active, progressive, defen- sive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the dis- coverer, the defender. His intellect is for specula- tion and invention ; his energy for adventure, for war, and for conquest wherever war is just, wherever con- quest necessary. But the woman's power is for rule, not for battle, — and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision. She sees the qualities of thiugs, their claims, and their places. Her great function is Praise: she enters into no contest, but infallibly adjudges the crown of contest. By her oflBce and place, she is pro- tected from all danger and temptation. The man, iu his rough work in the open world, must encounter all peril, and trial : — to him, therefore, must be the fail- ure, the offence, the inevitable error : often he must be wounded, or subdued ; often misled ; and always hard- ened. But he guards the woman from all this ; within his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself has sought it, need enwr no danger, no temptation, no SSKSAME AND LILIES 121 cause of error or offence. This is the true nature of home — it is the place of Peace ; the shelter, not only from all injury^ but from all terror^ doubt, and divi- sion. In so far as it is not this, it is not home ; so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or hos- tile society of the outer world is allowed by either husband or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home ; it is then only a part of that outer world which you have roofed over, and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple 'of the hearth watched over by Household Gods, before whose faces none may come but those whom they can receive with love, — so far as it is this, and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade and light, a shade as of the rock in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea; — so far it vindicates the name, and fulfills the praise, of Home. And wherever a true wife comes, this home is al- ways round her. The stars only may be over her head; the gloww^orm in the night-cold grass may be the only fire at her foot ; but home is yet wherever she is; and for a noble woman it stretches far round her, better than ceiled with cedar, or painted with ver- milion, shedding its quiet light far, for those who else were homeless. 69. This, then, I believe to be — will you not idmit it to be? — the woman's true place and power. But do not you see that, to fulfill this, we must — as far as one can use such terms of a human creature — be incapable of error? So far as she rules, all must 122 SESAME AND LILIES be right, or nothing is. She must be enduringly^ in- corraptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise — wise, not for self-development, but for self-renunciation: wise, not that she may set herself above her husband, but that she may never fail from his side : wise, not with the narrowness of insolent and loveless pride, but with the passionate gentleness of an infinitely variable, because infinitely applicable, modesty of service — the true changefulness of woman. In that great sense — "La donna e mobile,^^ not "Qual pium\ al Yentof no, nor yet "Variable as the shade, by the light quivering aspen made;'^ but variable as the lightj manifold in fair and serene division, that it may take the color of all that it falls upon, and exalt it. 70. II. I have been tryin.s' "^bus far, to show you what should be the plac^^, and what the power, of woman. Xow, sec-on.lly, yro ask, What kind of educa- tion is to f:t her for these? And if you indeed think this a true conception of her office and dignity it will not be difficult to trace the course of education which would fit her for the one, and raise her to the other. The first of our duties to her — no thoughtful per- sons now doubt this — is to secure for her such physi- cal training and exercise as may confirm her health, and perfect her beauty; the highest refinement of that beauty being unattainable without splendor of activity and of delicate strength. To perfect her beauty, I say, and increase its power; it cannot be too powerful, nor shed its sacred light too far: only SESAME AND LILIES 123 remember that all physical freedom is vain to pro- duce beauty without a corresponding freedom of heart. There are two passages of that poet who is distinguished, it seems to me, from all others — not by power, but by exquisite rightness — which point you to the source, and describe to you, in a few syllables, the completion of womanly beauty. I will read the introductory stanzas, but the last is the one I wish you specially to notice : — ' * Three years she grew in sun and shower, Then Nature said, ^A lovelier flovv'er ^On earth was never sown; *This child I to myself will take; 'She shall be mine, and I will make 'A lady of my own. '^ 'Myself will to my darling be 'Both law and injpulse; and with me ' The girl, in rock and plain, 'In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 'Shall feel an overseeing power 'To kindle, or restrain. ' ' * The floating clouds their state shall lend 'To her, for her the willow bend; 'Nor shall she fail to see 'Even in the motions of the storm, 'Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 'By silent sympathy. ' ' ' And vital feelings of delight * Shall rear her form to stately height, 'Her virgin bosom swell. 13^ SESAME AND LILIES ' 'Such thoughts to Lucy I will give, 'While she and I together live, ' Here in this happy dell. ' ' ' ^ '^ Vital feelings of delight/^ observe. There are deadly feelings of delight; but the natural ones are vital^ necessary to very life. And they must be feelings of delight, if they are to be vital. Do not think you can make a girl lovely if you do not make her happy. There is not one restraint you put on a good girFs nature — ^there is not one check you give to her instincts of affection or of effort — which will not be indelibly written on her features, with a hardness which is all the more pain- ful because it takes away the brightness from the eyes of innocence, and the charm from the brow of virtue. 71. This for the means: now note the end. Take from the same poet, in two lines, a perfect description of womanly beauty— ''A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet.'' The perfect loveliness of a woman^s countenance can only consist in that majestic peace which h founded in memory of happy and useful years, — full of sweet records; and from the joining of this with that yet more majestic childishness, which is still full of change and promise; — opening always — modest at once, and bright, with hope of better things to be ^Observe,, it is ''Nature" who is speaking throughout, and who says, "while she and I together live.'' I SESAME AND LILIES 125 won, and to be bestowed. There is no old age where there is still that promise. 72, Thus, then, you have first to mould her physi- cal frame, and then, as the strength she gains will permit you, to fill and temper her mind* with all knowledge and thoughts which tend to confirm its natural instincts of justice, and refine its natural tact of love. All such knowledge should be given her as may enablie her to understand, and even to aid, the work of men : and yet it should be given, not as knowledge, — ^not as if it were, or could be, for her an object to know; but only to feel, and to judge. It is of no mo- ijient, as a matter of pride or perfectness in herself, whether she knows many languages or one; but it is of the utmost, that she should be able to shoW kind- ness to a stranger, and to understand the sweetness of a stranger's tongue. It is of no moment to her own worth or dignity that she should be acquainted with this science or that ; but it is of the highest that she should be trained in habits of accurate thought; that she should understand the meaning, the inevitable- ness, and the loveliness of natural laws; and follow at least some one path of scientific attainment, as far as to the threshold of that bitter Valley of Humilia- tion, into which only the wisest and bravest of men can descend, owning themselves forever children^ gathering pebbles on a boundless shore. It is of lit- tle consequence how many positions of cities she knows, or how many dates of events, or names of cele- brated persons — it is not the object of education to 126 SESAME AND LILIES turn the woman into a dictionary; but it is deeply necessary that she should be taught to enter with her whole personality into the history she reads; to pic- ture the passages of it vitally in her own bright imag- ination; to apprehend, with her fine instincts, the pathetic circumstances and dramatic relations, which the historian too often eclipses by his reasoning, and disconnects by his arrangement : it is for her to trace the hidden equities of divine reward, and catch sight, through the darkness, of the fateful threads of woven fire that connect error with retribution. But, chiefly of all, she is to be taught to extend the limits of her sympathy with respect to that history which is being forever determined as the moments pass in which she draws her peaceful breath; and to the contemporary calamity, which, were it but rightly mourned by her, would recur no more hereafter. She is to exercise herself in imagining what would be the effects upon her mind and conduct, if she were daily brought into the presence of the suffering which is not the less real because shut from her sight. She is to be taught somewhat to understand the nothingness of the pro- portion which that little world in which she lives and loves, bears to the world in which God lives and loves ; — and solemnly she is to be taught to strive that her thoughts of piety may not be feeble in proportion to the number they embrace, nor her prayer more lan- guid than it is for the momentary relief from pain of her husband or her child, when it is uttered for the multitudes of those who have none to love them, — and is, "for all who are desolate and oppressed.^^ SESAME AND LILIES 137 73. Thus far, I think, I have had your concur- rence ; perhaps you will not be with me in what I be- lieve is most needful for me to say. There is (me dangerous science for women — one which they must indeed beware how they profanely touch — that of theology. Strange, and miserably strange, that while they are modest enough to doubt their powers, and pause at the threshold of sciences where every step is demonstrable and sure, they will plunge headlong, and without one thought of incompetency, into that science in which the greatest men have trembled, and the wisest erred. Strange, that they will com- placently and pridefuUy bind up whatever vice or folly there is in them, whatever arrogance, petulance, or blind incomprehensiveness, into one bitter bundle of consecrated myrrh. Strange in creatures born to be Love visible, that where they can know least, they will condemn first, and think to recommend them- selves to their Master, by crawling up the steps of , His judgment-throne, to divide it with Him. Strangest of all, that they should think they were led by the Spirit of the Comforter into habits of mind which have become in them the unmixed elements of home discomfort; and that they dare to turn the Household Gods of Christianity into ugly idols of their own ; — spiritual dolls, for them to dress accord- ing to their caprice ; and from which their husbands must turn away in grieved contempt, lest they should be shrieked at for breaking them. • 74. I believe, then, with this exception, that a girl's education should be nearly, in its course and 128 SESAME AND LILIES material of study, the same as a boy's ; but quite dif- ferently directed. A woman, in any rank of life, ought to know whatever her husband is likely to know, but to know it in a different way. His command of it should be foundational and progressive : hers, gen- eral and accomplished for daily and helpful use. Not but that it would often be wiser in men to learn things in a womanly sort of way, for present use, and to seek for the discipline and training of their men- tal powers in such branches of study as will be after- wards fittest for social service ; but, speaking broadly, a man ought to know any language or science he learns, thoroughly — while a woman ought to know the same language, or science, only so far as may enable her to sympathize in her husband's pleasures, and in those of his best friends. 75. Yet, observe, with exquisite accuracy as far as she reaches. There is a wide difference between ele- mentary knowledge and superficial knowledge — be- tween a firm beginning, and an infirm attempt at compassing. A woman may always help her husband by what she knows, however little ; by what she half- knows, or mis-knows, she will only tease him. And indeed, if there were to be any difference between a girl's education and a boy's, I should say that of the two the girl should be earlier led, as her intellect ripens faster, into deep and serious subjects : and that her range of literature should be, not more, but less frivolous ; calculated to add the qualities of patience and seriousness to her natural poignancy of thought and quickness of wit; and also to keep her SESAME AND LILIES 129 in a lofty and pure element of thought. I enter not now into any question of choice of books ; only let us be sure that her books are not heaped up in her lap as they fall out of the package of the circulating library, wet with the last and lightest spray of the fountain of folly. 76. Or even of the fountain of wit; for with re- spect to the sore temptation of novel-reading, it is not the badness of a novel that we should dread, so much as its overwrought interest. The weakest romance is not so stupefying as the lower forms of religious ex- citing literature, and the worst romance is not so cor- rupting as false history, false philosophy, or false po- litical essays. But the best romance becomes danger- ous, if, by its excitement, it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, and increases the morbid thirst for useless acquaintance with scenes in which we shall never be called upon to act. 77. I speak therefore of good novels only; and our modern literature is particularly rich in types of such. Well read, indeed, these books have serious use, being nothing less than treatises on moral anatomy and chemistry; studies of human nature in the elements of it. But I attach little weight to this function; they are hardly ever read with earnestness enough to permit them to fulfill it. The utmost they usually do is to enlarge somewhat the charity of a kind reader, or the bitterness of a malicious one; for each will gather, from the novel, food for her own disposition. Those who are naturally proud and envious will learn from Thackeray to despise humanity; those who are i30 SESAME AND LILIES naturally gentle^ to pity it; those who are naturally shallow^ to laugh at it. So, also^ there might be a serviceable power in novels to bring before us^ in vividness^ a human truth which we had before dimly conceived; but the temptation to picturesqueness of statement is so great, that often the best writers of fiction cannot resist it; and our views are rendered so violent and one-sided^ that their vitality is rather a harm than good. 78. Without^ however^ venturing here on any at- tempt at decision how much novel-reading should be allowed^ let us at least clearly assert this^ that whether novels, or poetry, or history be read, they should be chosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of good. The chance and scattered evil that may here and there haunt, or hide itself in, a powerful book, never does any harm to a noble girl; but the emptiness of an author oppresses her, and his amiable folly degrades her. And if she can have access to a good library of old and classical books, there need be no choosing at all. Keep the modern magazine and novel out of your girl's way; turn her loose into the old librarv everv wet dav, and let her alone. She will find what is good for her; you can- not; for there is just this difference between the making of a girFs character and a boy^s — you may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or ham- mer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into an}i:hing. She grows as a flower does, — she will wither without sun; she will decay in her SESAME AND LILIES 131 sheath, as a narcissus will, if you do not give her air enough; she may fall, and defile lier head in dust, if you leave her without help at some moments of her life; but you cannot fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way, if she take any, and in mind as in body, must have always ''Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty. '' Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in the field. It knows the bad weeds twenty times better than you ; and the good ones too, and will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good for it, which you had not the, slightest thought would have been so. 79. Then, in art, keep the finest models before her, and let her practice in all accomplishments be ac- curate and thorough, so as to enable her to under- stand more than she accomplishes. I say the finest models — that is to say, the truest, simplest, usefullest. Note those epithets ; they will range through all the arts. Try them in music, where you might think them the least applicable. I say the truest, that in which the notes most closely and faithfully express the meaning of the words, or the character of in- tended emotion; again, the simplest, that in which the meaning and melody are attained with the few- est and most significant notes possible; and, finally, the usefullest, that music which makes the best words most beautiful, which enchants them in our memories each with its own glory of sound, and which applies them closest to the heart at the moment we need them. 132 SESAME AND LILIES 80. And not only in the material and in the course^ but yet more earnestly ^n the spirit of it, let a girFs education be as serious as a boy^s. You bring up your girls as if they were meant for sideboard ornaments, and then complain of their frivolity. Give them the same advantages that you give their brothers — appeal to the same grand instincts of virtue in them; teach them, also, that courage and trilth are the pillars of their being: — do you think that they would not answer that appeal, brave and true as they are even now, when you know that there is hardly a glrf s school in this Christian kingdom where the children's courage or sincerity would be thought of half so much importance as their way of coming in at a door; and when the whole system o^ society, as respects the mode of establishing them in life, is one rotten plague of cowardice and imposture — cowardice, in not daring to let them live, or love, except as their neighbors choose; and imposture, in bringing, for the purposes of our own pride, the full glow of the world^s worst vanity upon a girl's eyes, at the very period when the whole happiness of her future existence de- pends upon her remaining undazzled ? 81. And give them, lastly, not only noble teach- ings, but noble teachers. You consider somewhat, be- fore you send your boy to school, what kind of man the master is ; — whatsoever kind of a man he is, you d,t least give him full authority over your son, and show some respect to him yourself: — if he comes to dine with you, you do not put him at a side table: you know also that, at college, your child's immediate SESAME AND LILIES 133 tutor will be under the direction of some still higher tutor^ for whom you have absolute reverence. You do not treat the Dean of Christ Church or the Mas- ter of Trinity as your inferiors. But what teachers do you give your girls^ and what reverence do you show to the teachers you have chosen? Is a girl likely to think her own conduct, or her own intellect^ of much importance, when yon trust the entire formation of her character, moral and intellectual, to a person whom you let your servants treat with less respect than they do your housekeeper (as if the soul of your child were a less charge than jams and groceries), and whom you yourself think you confer an honor upon by letting her sometimes sit in the drawing-room in the even- ing? 82. Thus, then, of literature as her help and thus of art. There is one more help which she cannot do without — one which, alone, has sometimes done more than all other influences besides, — the help of wild and fair nature. Hear this of the education of Joan of Arc: — ''The education of this poor girl was mean, according to the present standard; was ineffably grand, according to a purer philosophical standard; and only not good for our age, because for us it would be unattainable. . . . ''Next after her spiritual advantages, she owed most to the advantages of her situation. The fountain of Dom- r^my was on the brink of a boundless forest; and it was haunted to that degree by fairies, that the parish priest {cur6) was obliged to read mass there once' a year, in order to keep them in decent bounds. . ^ • 134 SESAME AND LILIES ''But the forests of Domremy — those were the glories of the land; for in them abode mysterious powers and an- cient secrets that towered into tragic strength. 'Abbeys there were, and abbey windows,' — like Moorish temples of the Hindoos,' — that exercised even princely power both in Touraine and in the German Diets. These had their sweet bells that pierced the forests for many a league at matins or vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. Few enough, and scattered enough, were these abbeys, so as in no degree to disturb the deep solitude of the region; yet many enough to spread a network or awning of Christian sanctity over what else might have seemed a heathen wilderness. ' ' * Now, you cannot, indeed, have here in Eng- land, woods eighteen miles deep to the centre; but you can, perhaps, keep a fairy or two for your chil- dren yet, if you wish to keep them. But do you wish it? Suppose you had each, at the back of your houses, a garden^ large enough for your children to play in, with just as much lawn as would give them room to run, — no more, — and that you could not change your abode ; but that, if you chose, you could double your income, or quadruple it, by digging a coal shaft in the middle of the lawn, and turning the flower-beds into heaps of coke. Would you do it ? I hope not. I can tell you, you would be wrong if you did, though it gave you income sixty-fold instead of four-fold. 83. Yet this is what you are doing with all Eng- land. The whole country is but a little garden, not more than enough for your children to run on the * ^ ^ Joan of Arc : in reference to M. Michelet ^s History of France, ^ ' — Thomas De Quincey. SESAME AND LILIES 135 lawns of^ if you would let them all run there. And this little garden you will turn into furnace ground, and fill with heaps of cinders, if you can; and those children of yours, not you, will suffer for it. For the fairies will not be all banished; there are fairies of the furnace as of the wood, and their first gifts seem to be "sharp arrows of the mighty ;^^ but their last gifts are "coals of juniper.^^ 84. And yet T cannot — though there is no part of my subject that I feel more — press this upon you; for we made so little use of the power of nature while we had it that we shall hardly feel what we have lost. Just on the other side of the Mersey you have your Snowdon, and your Menai Straits, and that mighty granite rock beyond the moors of Anglesea, splendid in its heathery crest, and foot planted in the deep sea, once thought of as sacred — a divine promontory, looking westward ; the Holy Head or Headland, still not without awe when its red light glares first through storm. These are the hills, and these the bays and blue inlets, which, among the Greeks, would have been always loved, always fateful in influence on the national mind. That Snowdon is your Par- nassus; but where are its Muses? That Holyhead mountain is your Island of Aegina; but where is its Temple to Minerva? 85. Shall I read you what the Christian Minerva had achieved under the shadow of our Parnassus up to the year 1848? — Here is a little account of a Welsh school, from page 261 of the Report on Wales, published by the Committee of Council on Educa- 136 SESAME AND LILIES ninor ^™ tion. This is a school close to a town containing 5000 persons: — ^ ^ I then called up a larger class, most of whom had re- ^hI centlj come to the school.. Three girls repeatedly declared they had never heard of Christ, and two that they had never heard of God. Two out of six thought Christ was on earth now^' (they might have had a worse thought, per- haps), ^^ three knew nothing about the Crucifixion. Four out of seven did not know the,, names of the months nor the num- ber of days in a yekr. They had no notion of addition, beyond two and two, or three and three; their minds were perfect blanks.'' OH^ ye women of England ! from the Princess of that Wales to the simplest of you^ do not think your own children can be brought into their true fold of rest^ while these are scattered on the hills, as sheep having no shepherd. And do not think your daugh- ters can be trained to the truth of their own human beauty, while the pleasant places, which God made at once for their school-room and their play-ground, lie desolate and defiled. You cannot baptize them rightly in those inch-deep fonts of yours, unless you baptize them also in the sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes forth forever from the rocks of your native land — waters which a Pagan would have worshipped in their purity, and you worship only with pollution. You cannot lead your children faith- fully to those narrow axe-hewn church altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in heaven — the moun- tains that sustain your island throne — mountains on which a Pagan would have seen the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed cloud — remain for you with- SESAME AND LILIES 137 out inscription; altars built, not to, but by, an Un- known God. 86. III. Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of the teaching, of woman, and thus of her house- hold office, and queenliness. We come now to our last, our widest question, — What is her queenly office with respect to the state? Generally, we are under an impression that' a man's duties are public, and a woman's private. But this is not altogether so. A man has a personal work or duty, relating to his own home, and a public work or duty, which is the expansion of the other, relating to the state. So a woman has a personal work or duty, relating to her own home, and a public work or duty, which is also the expansion of that. ]S"ow, the man's work for his own home is, as has been said, to secure its maintenance, progress, and defence; the woman's to secure its order, comfort, and loveliness. Expand both these functions. The man's duty, as a member of a commonwealth, is to assist in^ the maintenance, in the advance, in the defence of the state. The woman's duty, as a member of the com- monwealth, is to assist in the ordering, in the com- forting, and in the beautiful adornment of the state. What the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need be, against insuft and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted measure, he is to be at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if need be, even to the spoiler, to do his more incumbent work there. 138 SESAME AND LILIES And, in like manner^ what the woman is to be within her gates^ as the centre of order^ the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty: that she is also to be without her gates, where order is more difBcnlt, distress more imminent, loveliness more rare. And as within the human heart there is always set an instinct for all its real duties, — an instinct which you cannot quench, but only warp and corrupt if you withdraw it from its true purpose: — as there is the intense instinct of love, which, rightly disciplined, maintains all the sanctities of life, and, misdirected, undermines them, and must do either the one or the other; — so there is in the human heart an inex- tinguishable instinct, the love of power, which, rightly directed, maintains all the majesty of law and life, and, misdirected, wrecks them. 87. Deep rooted in the innermost life of the heart of man, and of the heart of woman, God set'it there, and God keeps it there. Vainly, as falsely, you blame or rebuke the desire of power ! — For Heaven's sake, and for Man's sake, desire it all you can. But what power? That is all the question. Power to destroy? the lion's limb, and the dragon's breath? Not so. Power to heal, to redeem, to guide, and to guard. Power of. the sceptre and shield; the power ^of the royal hand that heals in touching, — that binds the fiend, and looses the captive; the throne that is founded on the rock of Justice, and descended from only by steps of Mercy. Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more housewives, bfit queens? SESAME AND LILIES 139 88. It is now long since the women of England arrogated;, universally, a title which once belonged to nobility only; and having once been in the habit of accepting the. simple title of gentlewoman, as corre- spondent to that of gentleman, insisted on the privilege of assuming the title of "Lady/^^ which properly corresponds only to the title of "Lord/' I do not blame them for this; but only for their narrow motive in this. I would have them desire and claim the title of Lady, provided they claim, not merely the title, but the office and duty signified by it. Lady means "bread-giver^^ or "loaf-giver,^' and Lord means "maintainer of laws,'' and both titles have reference, not to the law which is maintained in the house, nor to the bread which is given to the household ; but to law maintained for the multitude, and to bread broken among the multitude. So that a Lord has legal claim only to his title in so far as he is the maintainor of the justice of the Lord of Lords ; and a Lady has legal claim to her title, only so far as she communicates that help to the poor repre- sentatives of her Master, which women once, minis- * I wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for our English youth of certain ranks, in which both boy and girl should receive, at a given age, their knighthood and ladyhood by true title; attainable 'only by certain probation and trial both of character and accomplishment; and to be forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, of any dishonorable act. Such an institution would be entirely, and with all noble results, possible, in a nation which loved honor. That it would not be possible among us, is not to the discredit of the scheme. 140 SESAME AND LILIES tering to Him of their substance, were permitted to extend to that Master Himself; and when she is known, as He Himself once was, in breaking of bread. 89. And this beneficent and legal dominion, this power of the Dominus, or House-Lord, and of the Domina, or House-Lady, is great and venerable, not in the number of those through whom it has lineally descended, but in the number of those whom it grasps within its sway; it is always regarded with reverent worship wherever its dynasty is founded on its duty, and its ambition correlative with its beneficence. Your fancy is pleased with the thought of being noble ladies, with a train of vassals? Be it so; you can- not be too noble, and your train cannot be too great ; but see to it that your train is of vassals whom you serve and feed, not merely of slaves who serve and feed you; and that the multitude which obeys you is of those whom you have comforted, not oppressed, — whom you have redeemed, not led into captivity. 90. And this, which is true of the lower or house- hold dominion, is equally true of the queenly domin- ion ; — that highest dignity is open to you, if you will also accept that highest duty. Eex et Eegina — Eoi et Eeine — ''Right-doers f they differ but from the Lady and Lord, in that their power is supreme over the mind as over the person — that they not only feed and clothe, but direct and teach. And whether con- sciously or not, you must be, in many a heart, en- throned : there is no putting by that crown ; queens you must always be; queens to your lovers; queens SESAME AND LILIES 141 to your husbands and your sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond, which bows itself, and will forever bow, before the myrtle crown, and the stainless sceptre of womanhood. ' But, alas ! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the great- est; and leaving misrule and violence to work their will among men, in defiance of the power which, holding straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace, the wicked among you betray, and the good forget. 91. "Prince of Peace.^^ Note that name. When kings rule in that name, and nobles, and the judges of the earth, they also, in their narrow place, and mortal measure, receive the power of it. There are no other rulfers than they: other rule than theirs is but misrule; they who govern verily "Dei gratia" are all princes, yes, or princesses, of Peace. There is not a war in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you women are answerable for it.; not in that you have provoked, but- in that you have not hindered. Men, by their nature, are prone to fight ; they will fight for any cause, or for none. It is for you to choose their cause for them, and to forbid them when there is no cause. There is no suffering, no injustice, no misery in the earth, but the guilt of it lies with you. Men can bear the sight of it, but you should not be able to bear it. Men may tread it down without sympathy in their own struggle; but men are feeble in sym- pathy, and contracted in hope; it is you only who can feel the depths of pain, and conceive the way of its healing. Instead of trying to do this, you turn 142 SESAME AND LILIES away from it; you shut yourselves within your park walls and garden gates ; and you are content to know that there is bevond them a whole world in wilder- ness — a world of secrets which you dare not pene- trate^ and of suffering which you dare not conceive. 92. I tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing afaong the phenomena of humanity. I am surprised at no depths to which, when once warped from its honor^ that humai^ity can be degraded. I do not wonder at the misers death, with his hands, as they relax, dropping gold. I do not wonder at the sensualisf s life, with the shroud wrapped about his feet. I do not wonder at the single-handed murder oi a single victim, done by the assassin in the dark- ness of the railway, or reed-shadow of the marsh. I do not even wonder at the m3Tiad-handed murder of multitudes, done boastfully in the daylight, by the frenzy of nations, and the immeasurable, unimagin- able guilt, heaped up from hell to heaven, of their priests and kings. But this is wonderful to me — oh, how wonderful ! — to see the tender and delicate woman among you, with her child at her breast, and a power, if she would wield it, over it, and over its father, purer than the air of heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth — nay a magnitude of blessing which her husband would not part with for all that earth itself, though it were made of one entire and perfect chrysolite: — to see her abdicate this majesty to play at precedence with her next-door neighbor ! This is wonderful — oh, wonderful ! — to see her, with every innocent feeling fresh within her, go out in the SESAME AND LILIES 143 morning into her garden to play with the fringes ,of its guarded flowers, and lift their heads when they are drooping, with her happy smile upon her face, and no cloud upon her brow, because there is a little wall around her place of peace ; and yet she knows, in her heart, if she would only look for its knowledge, that, outside of that little rose-covered wall, the wild- grass, to the horizon, is torn up by tlie agony of men, and beat level by the drift of their life-blood. 93. Have you ever considered what a deep under- meaning there lies, or at least may be read, if we choose, in our custom of strewing flowers before those whom we think most happy? Do you suppose it is merely to deceive them into the hope that happiness is always to fall thus in showers at their feet? — tliat wherever they pass they will tread on herbs of sweet scent, and that the rough ground will be made smooth for them by depth of roses ! So surely as they be- lieve that, they will have, instead, to walk on bitter herbs and thorns; and the only softness to their feet will be of snow. But it is not thus intended they should believe ; there is a better meaning in that old custom. The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them. ^^Her feet have touched the meadows, and left the daisies rosy.^^ 94. You think that only a lover's fancy; — false and vain ? How if it could be true ? You think this also, perhaps, only a poet's fancy — *'Even the light harebell raised its head Elastic from her airy tread. ' ' 144 SESAME AND LILIES But it is little to say of a woman, that she only does not destroy where she passes. She should revive; the harebells should bloom, not stoop, as she passes. You think I am rushing into wild hyperbole? Par- don me, not a whit — I mean what I say in calm English, spoken in resolute truth. You have heard it said — (and I believe there is more than fancy even in that sa}^ing, but let it pass for a fanciful one) — that flowers only flourish rightly in the garden of some one who loves them. I know you would like that to be true ; you would think it a pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon them: nay, more, if your look had the power, not only to cheer, but to guard; — ^if you could bid the black blight turn away, and the knotted caterpillar spare — if you could bid the dew fall upon them in the drought, and say to the south wind, in frost — "Come, thou south, and breathe upon my garden, that the spices of it may flow out." This j'ou would think a great thing ? And do you think it not a greater thing, that all this (and how much more than this!) 5^ou can do, for fairer flowers than these — flowers that could bless you for having blessed them, and will love you for having loved them; — flowers that have thoughts like yours, and lives like yours ; and which, once saved, you save forever ? Is this only a little power? Far among the moorlands and the rocks, — far in the darkness of the terrible streets, — these feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh leaves torn, and their stems broken — will you never go down to them, nor set them in order in their SESAME AND LI1.IES 145 little fragrant beds, nor fence them, in their trem- bling, from the fierce wind? Shall morning follow morning, for 3^ou, but not for them; and -the dawn rise to watch, far away, those frantic Dances of Death ;^ but no dawn rise to breathe upon these liv- ing banks of wild violet, and woodbine, and rose ; nor call to you, through your casement, — call (not giving you the name of the English poet's lady, but the name of Dante's great Matilda, who on the edge of happy Lethe, stood, wreathing flowers with flowers), saying,— ' ' Come into the garden, Maud, > For the black bat, night, has flown. And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad And the musk of the roses blown * ' ? Will you not go down among them ? — among those sweet living things, whose new courage, sprung from the earth with the deep color of heaven upon it, is starting up in strength of goodly spire; and whose purity, washed from the dust, is opening, bud by bud, into the flower of promise; — and still they turn to you and for you, "The Larkspur listens — I hear, I hear ! And the Lily whispers — I wait/' 95. Did you notice that I missed two lines when I read you that first stanza; and think that I had forgotten them? Hear them now: — *'Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown. Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone.'' ^ See note, p. 86. 146 SESAME AND LILIES :Wlio is it^ think you, who stands at the gate of this sweeter garden, alone, waiting for you? Did you ever hear, not of a Maud, but a Madeleine, who went down to her garden in the dawn, and found One waiting at the gate, whom she supposed to be the gardener? Have you not sought Him often; sought Him in vain, all through the night; sought Him in vain at the gate of that old garden where the fiery sword is set? He is never there; but at the gate of thi^ garden He is waiting always — waiting to take your hand — ready to go down to see the fruits of the valley, to see whether the vine has flourished, and the pomegranate budded. There you shall see with Him the little tendrils of the vines that His hand is guiding — there you shall see the pomegranate springing where His hand cast the sanguine seed; — more: you shall see the troops of the angel keepers that, with their wings, wave away the hungry birds from the pathsides where He has sown, and call to each other between the vineyard rows, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for* our vines have tender grapes.'^ Oh — you queens — you queens ! among the hills and happy greenwood of this land of yours, shall the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests; and in your cities shall the stones cry out against you, that they are the only pillows where the Son of Man can lay His head? NOTES ''Sesame and Lilies" is an illustration of Ruskin* usual whimsi« raiity in selecting titles. Fors Clavigera, for instance, is an almost untranslatable Latin pun; Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds is a treatise on the unification of the church; The Eagle's Nest is a collection of lectures on metaphysics, and Love's Meinie a dis- cussion of Greek and English birds. Ruskin's message was so single and consistent that his various titles meant little to him. Says Frederick Harrison: "I remember hearing Ruskin give a lecture . . . ?vhich had been announced with the title of 'Crystallography.' He opened by telling us that he was really about to lecture on ' Cistercian Architecture,' nor did it matter what the title was. 'For,' said he, ' if I had begun to speak about Cistercian Abbeys, I should have been sure to get on Crystals presently; and if I had begun upon Crystals, I should soon have drifted into Architecture I' " The last sentence of the first lecture throws some light on the first word of the present title; and for the other, the comparison of a young girl to a lily is a well- known one. The meaning of the sub-title is plain. Page 41, IT 1- slight mask. Is the mask really thrown off here? 42, 2. somie connection with schools. "His father's charity had made him life-governor of various institutions and schools" (Col- lingwood). At the time of this lecture, moreover, Ruskin was teach- ing drawing in the Workingmen's College. 42, 2. double-belled doors. Fashionable houses in England have one bell for business callers and another for visitors. 43, 3. the last infirmity. Milton^ Lycidas, II, 70-72. (Slightly misquoted here.) 44, 4. mortal. Lat. mortalis, from mors, death; literally, deadly. 44, 4. My Lord. Most of the bishops of the Church of England are members of the House of I^ords. 45, 5. my writings on Political Economy. In 1864 Ruskin had already published, on this subject, The Political Economy o] Art, Unto this Last, and Munera Pulveris. 45, Note. — Queen of the Air, §106, reads in part as follows. " First .of the foundation of art in moral character. . . . A good man is not necessarily a painter, nor does an eye for color imply an honest mind. But great art implies the union of both powers; it is the expression, by an art-gift, of a pure soul. If the gift is not there, we c^n have no art at all; and if the soul — and a right soul, too — is not there, the art is bad, however dexterous." And §102 of the same work say." 147 148 NOTES further: "A man may hide himself to you, every other way; but he cannot in his work; there, be sure, you have him to the inmost. All that he likes, all that he sees, — all that he can do, — his imagination, his affections, his perseverance, his impatience, his clumsiness, clever- ness, everything is there. If the work is a cobweb, you know it was made by a spider; if a honeycomb, by a bee; a worm-cast is thrown up by a worm, and a nest wreathed by a bird; and a house built by a man, v/orthily, if he is worthy, and ignobly, if he is ignoble. **And always, from the least to the greatest, as the made thing is good or bad, so is the maker of it." These paragraphs contain the gist of all Ruskin's art teaching, this is his message of art to the world. For a discussion of its soundness, see F. Harrison's John Ruskin, pp. 65, 66. See also Browneil, Victorian Prose MaMers. 52, 11. inherent aristocracy. Aristocracy is used here in its literal meaning, — the rule of the best. 52, 12. Elysian gates. In the Elysian fields, according to the Greek conception, dwelt the happy souls of dead heroes and wise men. 52, 12. portieres. Here means gates. 52, 12. Faubourg St. Germain. One of the aristocratic quar- ters of old Paris. 53, 13. that cruel reticence. This is an old doctrine of Rus- kin's, set forth in various books. On the other hand, Habakkuk was ordered by the Lord to write so that **he who ran might read it." 55, 14, patientest. Note the fo^m. Cf. "fatalest," further on; also "crimsonest." used often in- Modern Painters. Ruskin was almost as fond as Carlyle of coining new v,ords, but very few of their coinages have any circulation in the language. 55, 15. literature. Look up the derivation of the word for an understanding of this passage. 55, 15- pronounces. For a contrary view, see T. H. Louns- bury's "Standard of Pronunciation in English," portions of which appeared in Harper's, Sept. and Nov., 1903. 55, 15. canaille. Fr.; common people, rascals. 56, 15. noblesse. Fr. ; nobility. 56, 16. false Latin quantity. English education is based on the classics to a far greater extent than is education in America. In our House of Representatives a false quantity would excite noth- ing but a yawn. 56, 16. masked words. Words capable of more than one inter- pretation. 57, 16. chameleon . . . "ground-lion." This is another of Ruskin's complicated puns. Chameleon is derived from the Gr. XttM-at — on the ground, and Aeu>f — lion. But the accepted English idea of the cha?meleon is an animal which changes color in different environments. These two ideas the Greek and the English, Ruskin here unites. NOTES 14:^ 57, 16. unjust stewards. Luke xvi, 1-5, q. v. 57, 17. mongrel in breed. Cf. par. 19, second sentence. 58, 17. heavens were of old. II Peter, iii, 5-7. 53, 17. sown on any wayside. Read the parable of the sower, Matt, xiii, 3-8. 58, 18. damno and condemn. The obvious inference here, that it is wrong to translate a foreign word by different English words, in different contexts, is not altogether sound. Such verbs, for in- stance, as Gr. yiyvofxai or Lat. ago cannot always be translated by the same English word. 59, 18. divisions in the mind of Europe. This refers to the struggles of the Reformation, and smaller religious wars. 50, 19. Greek first, etc. One such word is Gr. ©Tjo-avpo?, Lat. thesaurum. Old Fr. tresor, Eng. treasure. See Greenough and Kit-. tvedge's Words and Their Ways, Chap. 10 (The Macmillan Co.), for other examples. 60, 19. Max Muller. A celebrated German philologian (1823- 1900) almost exactly contemporary with Ruskin; professor at Oxford. The work referred to is Lectures on the Science of Language (1861-64). 60, 20. Lycidas. To get the background of this passage the student must read Lycidas as a whole. 61, 20. no bishop-lover. Milton was a Puritan. How did the Puritans regard bishops? 61, 20. the power of the keys. Matt, xvi, 19; a biblical passage constantly quoted in ecclesiastical documents of the Middle Ages as authority for the papacy's claim to universal power. 63, 21. ** lords over the heritage" : "ensamples to the flock.** I Pet. V, 3. ensaraples = examples. 63, 22. broken metaphor. Mixed meta^phor; metaphor in whicli the figures conflict. Cf. Hamlet — " to take arms against a sea of troubles.'* 63, 22. bishop and pastor. Bishop from Gr. eTriV/coTro?, lit- erally an overseer. Pastor from I>at. pastor, literally shepherd. (What is the effect of the paragraphing here?) 64, 22. Bill and Nancy. May refer to Bill Sykes and Nancy in Oliver Twist. Ruskin was fond of Dickens — much fonder than of either Thackeray or George Eliot, the two ether great novelists of the time. 64, 22. Salisbury steeple. Called the highest in England. 65, N-OTE. — Time and Tide, Utters of Ruskin's to a workingman, on the Laws of Work (1867). In the thirteenth letter occurs the following: " Over every hundred (or some not much greater number) of the families composing a Christian State, there should be appointed an overseer, or bishop, to render account, to the state, of the life of everv individual in tho^e families; and to have care both of their interest and conduct . . . so that it may bo impossible tor anv p.mm)ii, how- 150 NOTEb ever humble, to suffer from unknown want, or live in unrecognized crimes." 65, 23. Spirit. From Lat. spiritus. The Greek word referred to here is nvevfj-a, breath, wind. 65, 23. the wind bloweth. John iii, 8. 66, 23. **puflang up." Ruskin had a particular dislike for sec- tarian conceit. Cf. the following extract from a letter to Charles Eliot Norton: **I went away to a Waldensian chapel, where a little squeaking idiot was preaching to an audience of seventeen old women and three louts that they were the only children of God in Turin; and that all the people in Turin outside the chapel and all the people in the world ©ut of sight of Monte Viso would be damned." 66, 23. cretinous. Cretins are a kind of idiot especially com- mon in parts of Switzerland. 66, 23. clouds Without water. Jude 12. 66, 24. Dante. (1265-1321.) The great ItaUan poet of the Middle Ages. 66, 24.' both the keys. "Thither we came to the first great stair; it was of white marble so polished and smooth that I mirrored myself in it as I appeared. The second of deeper hue than perse [dark blue], was of a rough and scorched stone, cracked lengthwise and athwart. The third which above lies massy, seemed to me of por- phyry as flaming red as blood that spurts forth from a vein. Upon this the angel of God held both his feet, seated upon the threshold that seemed to me stone of adamant. . . . From beneath that [vest- ment] he drew two keys. One was of gold and the other was of silver; first with the white and then with the yellow he so did to the door, that I was content." (Purgatory, Canto IX, Norton's trans- lation.) "The lowest stair was marble white, so smooth And polished, that therein my mirror'd form Distinct I saw. The next of hue more dark Than sablest grain, a rough and singed block Cracked lengthwise and across. The third, that lay Massy above, seemed porphyry, that flamed Red as the lifeblood spouting from a vein. On this God's angel either foot sustained. Upon the threshold seated, which appear'd A rock of diamond. ... From underneath that vestment forth he drew Two keys, of metal twain: the one was gold, Its fellow silver. With the pallid first. And next the burnished, he so plj^'d the gate As to content me well." (Gary's translation.) The explanations of this passage are varied. Professor Norton interprets it thus: "The first step is the symbol of confession, the second of contrition, the third of satisfaction: the threshold of ada- NOTES 151 mant (or diamond) may perhaps signify the authority of the church. Tt)t golden key is typical of the power to open, and the silver of the knowledge to whom to open." 67, 24. have taken away the key. Luke xi, 52. 67, 24. He that watereth. Proverbs xi, 25. 67. 24. rock-apostle. Peter; from Gr. nerpo^ a rock. Cf. Matt, xvi, 18. 67, 24. Take him and bind him. Matt, xxii, 13. 68, 25. You will begin to perceive, etc. Much of what Ruskin says here is profoundly true, but it is uttered tactlessly and with an apparent self-assurance that repels. Ruskin kept this kind of phraseology for his writing ; in personal intercourse he was modest to a fault, wholly generous and tolerant of the opinions of everybody. 68, 25. a ditch to cleanse. Cf. the story of Ruskin's road- mending near Oxford. But unfortunately he had only an "opinion" then about road-mending, and the job was badly done. There is a legend that Mr. Andrew Lang, at that time an Oxford student, rode to the scene of his labor with his pick in a hansom. 69, 25. "to mix the music ..." From Emerson's To Rhea, When a god loves a mortal child, *'He mixes music with her thoughts, And saddens her with heavenly doubts." 69. 25. This writer. Milton. 70, 25. the scene with the bishops. Ruskin's meaning is, have you ever contrasted the character of the hypocritical and feeble ■ bishops in this scene with the character of such a right-meaning bishop as Cranmer? The "scene" referred to occurs in Richard III, Act iii, Sc. 7, q. v. 70, 25. description of St. Francis and St. Dominic. Dante praises them highly in the Paradiso, Cantos XI, XIL 70, 25. him who made Virgil wonder. Virgil was Dante's guide through the Inferno. "Him" was Caiaphas, high priest of the Jews, who condemned Christ. The translation of the Italian is "Abjectly extended ... in banishment eternal." (Cary.) 70, 25. him whom Dante stood beside. Pope Nicholas III, whom Dante pictures in Hell head downwards in a fiery pit, with only his feet protruding. Dante stands "like the friar that doth shrive a wretch for murder doomed." (Cary.) 70, 25. articles. Definite declarations of faith. Cf. the Thirty- Nine Articles of the English Church. 70, 26. Break up. Jeremiah iv. 3. 71, 27. Passion or ^'sensation." Ruskin uses both as syn- onyms for "feeling." 71, 28. vulgarity. From Lat. vulgaris, meaning primarily com- mon, of the multitude. 72, 28. "tact." From Lat. tangere, to touch. 72, 28. Mimosa. Mimosa sensitiva, the sensitive-plant. 152 NOTES 72, 29. As the true knowledge. Note the careful balance here. 73, 29. the Biver of Life. Revelation xxii, 1. 73, 29. the angels desire. I Peter i, 12. ♦ 73, 29. the life of an agonized nation. This may refer to the attitude of England toward the American Civil War, then going on. Ruskin's feeling of the wickedness of that conflict was so strong that while it was in progress he refused to write to hte friend Charles EUot Norton, saying, "I could no otherwise than by silence express the intensity of my adverse feelings to the things you were coun- tenancing." For light on Ruskin's view of slavery, cf. the paragraph quoted on p. 20 of the Introduction. He felt that slavery was bad, but that there were other worse evils. 73, 29. noble nations murdered. This was the period of the struggle of Poland against Russia, of the attempt of Garibaldi for freedom in Italy, and of the Dano- Prussian war, in none of which would the English government consent to interfere. 74, 30. weighing evidence. This undoubtedly refers to a crime of the particular winter (1864) in which these lectures were deUvered. But illustrations of Ruskin's point are as commion as newspapers. 74, 30. its own children. A reference to the Civil War, which of course greatly affected the cotton market, forcing many of the English mills to close for lack of raw material. 74, 30. stealing six walnuts. Cf. in Victor Hugo's Les Miser- ables Jean Valjean's punishment cf two years in the galleys for steal- ing a loaf of bread. 74, 30. selling opium. The Opium War of 1839-40, between England and China, is one of the blackest blots on modern Enghsh history. The emperor of China, seeing the destruction which opium was bringing upon his subjects, forbade its importation; but as this interfered with the business of English planters in India, the English government forced him after a brief resistance to rescind his decree. 75,30. "perplexed i* the extreme." From Othello's dying speech : *'Then you must speak Of one that loved not wisely, but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought Perplexed i' the extreme." (Othello, Act V, Sc. 2.) 75, 30. bayoneting young girls. Cf. in our own day the Armenian atrocities of 1903-4. 75, 30. love of money. I Tim. vi, 10. 75, 30. declaring, etc. See Introduction, on Ruskin's theories of social ethics. The opposition which these theories had ^aroused surprised and saddened him. 76, 31. good Samaritan. Luke x, 30-35. Read^ the whole parable. 77, 31. scorpion whips. II Chronicles x, 11. Whips barbed with iron points. NOTES 153 77, 31. a money-making mob. Ruskin's hatred of avarice is made sufficiently evident here. He practised what he preached, tnoreover. 77, 32. bibliomaniac. Cf. par, 18 for derivation. 78, 32. bared their backs. "When Southey, in 1805, went to see Sir Walter Scott, it occurred to him in Edinburgh that having had neither new coaA nor hat since little Edith was born, he must surely be in want of both: and here, in the metropolis of the North, was an opportunity of arraying himself to his desire. 'Howbeit,' he says, 'en considering the really respectable appearance which my old ones made, for a traveller, — and considering, moreover, that as learn- in ;: v.-j;s better than house or land, it certainly must be better than fine clothes, — I laid out all my money in books, and came home to wear out my old clothes in the winter.' " (English Men of Letters, Southey, p. 101. Quoted by Miss A. S. Cook, in her edition of Sesame and Lilies. 78, 32. munching and sparkling. Note the effective choice of words. 78, 32. sweet as honey. Possibly rem*iniscent of Rev. x, 9, 10; although the meaning of the verse would not fit Ruskin's preachment. 78, 32. multipliable barley -loaves. Matt, xiv, q. v. 78, 32. circulating libraries. Ruskin does not seem to agree with the belief that circulating libraries aie the foundation of popular education. But he is perhaps referring to circulating libraries of fic- tion only. 79, 33. Observatory. At Greenwich, from which we in America reckon longitude. 79, 33. British Museum. In many ways the most notable museum in the world. 79, 33. anybody will pay, etc. Why Ruskin allowed the gram- matical error in this sentence to stand through various editions, has never been explained. 79, 33. resolve another nebula. Break up star-mist, such as that of the Milky Way, into individual stars. 79, 33. a portion for foxes. A play upon Psalms Ixiii, 10. 80, 33. one, unique, etc. It was "a fossil of the archaeopteryx ... a genus . . . combining some characteristics of a lizard with some of a bird." (Century Diet.) 80, 33. Professor Owen. Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892). See any biographical dictionary. 81, 34. Ludgate apprentices. I udgate Hill, a street of small shops leading west from St. Paul's Cathedral. It is often referud to in the works of the Elizabethan dramatists. 83, 35. Schaffhausen. For Schaffhausen, in Switzerland. Ruskin had a peculiar affection. It was there he caught his first glimj^se ol one of the great passions of his life, the Alps. "Infinitely beyond all that we had ever thought or dreamed - the seen walls of lost Eden 154 . NOTES could not have be^n more beautiful to us; not more awful, round heaven, the walls of sacred Death. ... To that terrace, and to the Lake of Geneva, my heart and faith return to this day in every impulse that is yet nobly alive in them, and every thought that has in it help or peace." (Praeterita.) 83, 35. Tell's chapel. On the Swiss Lake Lucerne. 83, 35. the Clarens shore. Where stands the Castle of Chillon, 83,35. "bellowing fire. Cf. Fors Clavigera,Y: "You enterprised a Railroad — j^ou blasted . . . rocks away, heaped thousands of tons of shale into [the] lovely stream. The valley is gone, and the God with it; and now every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton ; which you think a lucra- tive process of exchange — you Fools Everywhere." In this connec- tion note Collingwood, Life, vol. II, p. 459: "Mr. Ruskin's dislike of railways has been the text of a great deal of misrepresentation. As a matter of fact, he never objected to main lines of railway communi- cation; but he strongly objected, in common with a vast number of people, to the introduction of railways into districts whose chief interest is in their scenery." 83, 35. soaped poles. Cf. the "greased poles" at country fairs. 83, 35. firing howitzers. To hear the echoes. 84, 35. "towers of the vineyards.** Cf. Isaiah v, 2. 84, Note. — Cf. the work of the Consumers' League in America at the present time. Many of Ruskin's "impractical" suggestions nave thus borne fruit. 86, 36. get the ** stones.** Be put to breaking stones bn the roads. The "certain passage" referred to in the note is Matt, vii, 9, q.v. 87, Note. — chaine diabolique. Devil's chain. 87, Note. — cancan d*enfer. Dance of Hell. 87, Note. — Morning service. Tlie meaning is, compare this with the idea of "morning service" in the hues quoted. (The lines are from Lycidas, slightly misrendered.) 88, 37. takes a pension from Government. Is there any flaw in Ruskin's argument? 89, Note.— bread of affliction, etc. I Kings, xxii, 27. 89, Note.— Ye fast for strife. Cf. Isaiah, Iviii, 4. 90, 37. Satanellas, — Roberts, — Fausts. Light operas of the day, in which the devil appears as a character. 90, 37. "Dio.** Italian for God; used in these "mimicked prayers,'* 91, 37. carburetted hydrogen ghost. Editors differ about Ruskin's meaning here, but it seems plain enough. Carburetted hydrogen is illuminating gas, and he has already referred to "gas- inspired" Christianity. Let the ghost of this false Christ iar it y pass away, and let us return to the sound and true Christianity which would help the beggar at the doorstep. For the story of Lazarus, see Luke xvi. / NOTES 155 91, 37. a true Church, etc. "The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with another's need.' — (Lowell, Vision of Sir Lauvfal, Part VIII.) 92. 39. their amusement grows out of their work. The •'Arts and Crafts" movement of the present day is another helpful influence we owe in large part to Ruskin. A worxman engaged, not in turning out endless chair-arms by machinery and all alike, but in making the entire chair with his own hands, finds pleasure in produc- ing as beautiful and useful an article as he can. 92, 39. the idolatrous Jews. Ezekiel viii, 7-12. Read the passage. 93, 40. Chalmers. Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), a famous and eloquent Scotch minister. 93.41. the last of our great painters. J. M. W. Turner (1774- 1851). See Introduction pp. 16, 17. 94, 41. the gate of a great city of sleeping kings. The fol- lowing passage is so closely connected with Isaiah xiv, 4-23, that the student must compare the two for himself to get the whole effect. The paragraph is in diction one of Ruskin's noblest. Great prcise has seldom come nearer to great poetry, and yet remained sound proj-e. 94.42. Scythian custom. Herodotus's account of the Scythians Ruskin tells us in Praeterita, took hold of his boyish imagination. He based various poems upon it. 95, 42. Caina. The first four divisions of the ninth circle of Dante's Hell, where traitors ^vere punished. The name is taken from Cain, the first murderer (traitor to his own blood). 95, 42. true lords or kings. "From my own chosen masters, then, Scott and Homer, I learned ... a most sincere love of kings, and dislike of everybody who attempted to disobey them. Only, both by Homer and by Scott, I was taught strange ideas about kings, which I find for the present much obsolete; for I perceived that both the author of the Iliad and the author of Waverley made their king?, or king-loving persons, do harder work than anybody else. Tydidcs or Idomeneus always killed twenty Trojans to other people's one, and Redsauntlet speared more salmon than any of the Solway fisher- men, and — which was particularly a subject of admiration to me— I observed that they not only did more, but in proportion to their doings (jot less than other people — nay, that the best of them were even ready to govern for nothing! and let their followers divide any quantity of spoil or profit. Ot late it has seemed to me tnat the idea of a king has become exactly the contrary of this, and it has been supposed the duty of superior persons generally to govern less, and get more, than anybody else." (Praeterita, chap, i.) Cf. note on aristocracy, p. 52. 96, 42. elsewhere. M^inera Pulveris, n22. 96. 43. " people-Citing." Applied to Agamemnon. Iliad, I, 231. Jf^G NOTES 96,43. **il gran rifiato.** The great refusal (i.e., abdication) L)ante, Inferno, Canto ill, L 60. 97, 44. Trent cuts you a cantel out. Cf. for this and the other allusion to Trent below, Shakspere's Henry IV, Part I, Act iii, So. I. A cantel is a piece broken off. 97, 44. " Go, and he gocth.** Matt, viii, 9. 97, 45. "do and teach.*' Matt, v, 19. i97, 45. the moth and the rust, etc. Matt, vi, 19-20, q. v. 98,45. Fourth kind of treasure. Wisdom. Job xxviii, 12-28. 98, 45. Athena's. Pallas Athene, or Minerva, goddess of Wis- dom. 98, 45. Vulcanian. Vulcan was the god of fire. 98, 45. Delphian. Apollo, god of the sun and of light, had his shrine at Delphi. 98, 45. deep-pictured tissue. The embroidered tissue of the "web made fair in the weaving" which Ruskin has just referred to. 98, 45. potable gold. Drinkable gold, gold that might become a part of the man. 98, 45. the three great Angels. Perhaps, symbolically, Athena, Vulcan, and Apollo, whom Ruskin elsewhere has called the iords respectively of "useful art,'' of "labor," and of "illuminating intellectual wisdom." But the imagery is interwoven and tangled; analysis almost wrecks it. 98, 45. the path. Job xxviii, 7. 98, 46. armies of thinkers. It is not farfetched to find in this the root of Ruskin's subsequent Society, the "Company or Guild of St. George." Miss A. S. Cook points out the fact that Henry VIII. in 1537, chartered the "Fraternity or Guylde of St. George, Maistars and Rulars of the Science of Artillery, for long bowes, crosbowes .^i,nd Hand-Gonnes," an "army of stabbers" with which Ruskin may very well have wished to contrast his own "army of thinkers." (For a full account of Ruskin's Guild of St. George, see Fors Clavigera, viii and ix.) 99, 47. the only book. Unto This Last, (Essay 4). 99, 47. half thorns, etc. Half discomfort, half fear. 100, 50. corn laws. Protective measures which it was thought kept up the price of food; after great agitation under Bright and Cobden, they were repealed in 1846. 101, 50. Sesame, which opens doors. Sesame is a kind of grain. In the story of "Ali Baba, or the Forty Thieves," a magic treasure-cave remains fast shut to the various demands of, "Open, barley!" "Open, wheat!" "Open, corn'" But at the cry of *'Opeii, Sesame!" the doors fly apart. 103. a bye one. A side issue. 103. clowns. Peasants, laborers. NOTES 157 LECTURE II 105. Septuagint. The Greek translation of the Old Testament (about 280 B. C), said to have been made by seventy (Lat. septua- ginta) scholars. 106, 51. ** likeness of a kingly crown." Paradise Lost, II, G73. 108, 54. helpmate. Gen. ii, 18. Helpmate derives its meaning from a misquotation of this passage. 108, 55. Let us see whether. The following pages are in part an illustration of the chief fault of Ruskin as a teacher, i. e., that his passions and pa^rtisanship are likely sometimes to lead him astray. To get the judgment of great writers is admirable; but to twist their writings, to exaggerate their meaning even a little, is to do exactly wha< heinsists we must rjoMo (see Lecture I). And yet here Ruskin himself exaggerates and tv/ists. Shakspere's leading male figures are not perfectly heroic, because if they were we could have no tragedy; the essence of tragedy is the downfall of a great character through some flaw. As for the characterization given of the various personages, it may be noted that Romeo is far from "impatient," and that the treat- ment of jHenry the Fifth is not a "slight sketch." Prospero and Brutus, Ruskin does not mention. The women are chosen without great discrimination. Julia, Sylvia, Hero, are really mere lay-figures. The heroines of Scott, here mentioned, are, except Jeanie Deans and Catherine Seyton, conventional, unreal figures, no more heroic than the male personages with whom in the novels they are matched. Scott's strength as a novelist did not lie in the depiction of "leading men" and "leading women," but in the drawing of minor characters — whether peasants or kings and queens. Of his heroines, Mrs. Meynell says: "These young creatures Scott made virtuous because convention required a virtuous maid for the hero to love, and made faultless at a blow, because he could not be at the pains to work upon their char- acters, t is chilling to hear their intellect and tenderness praised in the noble terms of the intellect and tenderness of Imogen, Hermione, or Perdita." Nevertheless this whole passage is so finely phrased and rings so true with a noble affection for woman, that no one would wish it unsaid. For the plays and stories in which the various characters appear, see Webster, the Century Dictionary, or any dictionary of fiction. 113, 60. Dante's great poem. The Divine Comedy is in a sense dedicated to the memory of Beatrice Portinari, the love of Dante's youth. 114, 60. a knight of Pisa, Pannucio dal Pagno Pasano'. The poem is translated in Rossetti's Early Italian Poets. Dante Ga- briel Rossetti (1828-1882) was a distinguished English painter and poet of Italian parentage. 115, 61. Greek women. Cf. any dictionary for the names. 116, 62. Chaucer. The first great English poet. The Legend 158 NOTES of Good Women does not concern itself entirely with women whom we should call good; it includes, for example, the stories of Medea and Cleopatra. Does this aflfect the argument? 116, 62. Spenser. Edmund Spenser, contemporarj- with Shak- spere. The characters named are from his greatest work, the Faerie Queene. Una represents Truth (Book I); Britomart. Chastity (Book III). 116, 62. Law-giver. Moses. Cf. Exodus ii, 10. 116, 62. Spirit of Wisdom. The goddess Neith. 116, 62. olive-helm and cloudy shield. Sjonbolic of wisdom working in peace and war, and throughout the processes of nature (Ruskin's own interpretation). 118,65. '* Ah, wasteful woman I" From The Angel in the House. Patmore, like Spenser, is called a "poet's poet" — that is, one dearer to other poets than to the general public. He wrote some high and noble verse, as the passage here quoted shows. 121, 68. vestal temple. Vesta was the Roman goddess of the home. 121, 68. Household Gods. The Lares and Penates, whose tem- ples were the houses of the Romans. 121, 68. shade as of the rock. Isaiah xxxii, 2, 121, 68. the Pharos. A lighthouse on the island of Pharos at the entrance of the harbor of Alexandria. 121, 68. ceiled with cedar. Jeremiah xxii, 14. 122, 69. *'La donna e mobile," not "qual pium' al vento;** '*Woman is changeful" but not "as a feather in the wind.'* From Verdi's opera of "Rigoletto." 122,69. *• Variable as the shade.'* Scott's 3/armion, vi, 30. 123, 70. that poet. Wordsworth (1770-1850). 124, 71. *• A countenance," etc. From Wordsworth's "She was a Phantom of Delight." 125, 72. Valley of Humiliation. Into which Christian goes down, in The Pilgrim's Progress. 125, 72. children, gathering pebbles on a boundless shore. Sir Isaac Newton, the great English physicist, is reported to have said, near the close of his long career: "I have been only gathering pebbles on the shore of the great Ocean of Truth that stretches out before me." 126.72. **for all who are desolate." The English Book of Common Prayer reads: "That it may please thee to defend and pro- vide for the fatherless children, and widows, and all who are desolate and oppressed." 127.73. There is one dangerous science. There can be little doubt that in this passage Ruskin is thinking of his mother, and the influence her somewhat narrow theolog^^ exercised over his own life. See Introduction, pp. 11, 12. NOTES 159 1275 73. consecrated myrrh. Myrrh was used in the Jewish ritual of sacrifice. 127, 73. Spirit of the Comforter. John xiv, 26. 128, 74. hers, general. Ruskin is not thinking of the modern ^ woman, earning her own hving. He has called his book "old-fash- ioned." 129, 77. Thackeray. Thackeray was a friend of Ruskin's, but Ruskin never* liked the influence of his books. 131, 78. ** Her household motions,*' etc. Also from Words- worth's Phantom of Delight. 133, 81. Dean of Christchurch . . . Master of Trinity. Heads of colleges, Christchurch (Ruskin's own college) at Oxford, Trinity at Cambridge. 134, 82. German Diets. The legislative assemblies of lords of church and state which constituted the highest political authority in Germany. 135, 83. sharp arrows. Cf. Psalms cxx, 3-4. Ruskin means that these " furnaces," the great manufactories, seem to give England power, but their real result wnll be burning shame and anguish. "Coals of juniper'' were supposed to be hotter than coals of other wood. 135, 84. Parnassus. The Nine Muses of Greek legend had their home on Mt. Parnassus. Snowdon is the most famous and beautiful mountain in Wales. 135, 84. Island of Aegina. On which Pallas Athene (= Minerva; see note, p. 156) had a temple. 135, 85. Christian Minerva. Christian culture and education. 136, 85. as sheep having no shepherd. Matt, ix, 36. 136, 85. inch-deep fonts. Refers to the vessels of water for baptism placed in English churches. 136, 85. the great Lawgiver. God, likened to Moses, in Exodus xvii, 6. 137, 85. Unknown God. Cf. Acts xvii, 23. 138, 87. power of the royal hand. The touch of the king's hand was of old supposed to cure various diseases. Dr. Samuel Johnson, the eighteenth century literary dictator, was in his childhood taken to be "touched" by Queen Anrie to heal his scrofula. Unfortunately the results were negative. 139, ^8. Lady means "breadgiver." Ruskin 's etymology here has been vigorously assailed. According to Skeat's Etymological Dictionary, "lady" means "loaf-kneader," "lord" means "loaf- keeper," i.e., master of the house. 139, 88. poor representatives of her Master. Cf . Matt, xxv, 40. 139, 88. ministering to Him of their substance. Luke viii 2-3. 140, 88. In breaking of bread. At the supper at Emmaus Luke xxiv, 31. 160 NOTES 141, 90. the myrtle crown. The myrtle was sacred to Venus, goddess of beauty. 141, 90. "Prince of Peace." Isaiah ix, 6. 141,91. *' Dei gratia." By the grace of God. The words form part of the formal title of various European sovereigns, including that of the King of England. 142, 92. I tell you. Note the growth in length and power of the sentences as the paragraph proceeds, till the final splendid close. 142, 92. Chrysolite. " If heaven had made me such another world Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, I'd not have sold her for it." (Oihello, Act v, Sc. 2, 1. 145.) 143,93. "Her feet have touched," etc. From Tennyson's Maud. Cf. also Wordsworth's Ode to Duty. " Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, And fragrance in thy footing treads." 143, 94. " Even the light harebell," etc. From Scott's Lady of the Lake, Canto I, 1. 18. (Shghtly misquoted.) 144, 94. only. Note the position of the word. What is its force? 144, 94. " Come, thou south." Song of Solomon, iv, 16. 145, 94. frantic Dances of Death. Ruskin's note at the foot of the page makes his reference here plain. He was probably led to use this particular phrase by a memory of the Dutch painter Hol- bein's "Dance of Death," a series of woodcuts illustrating the constant nearness of death in all the activities of hfe. 145, 94. English poet's lady. The "Maud" of Tennyson. Maud is an abbreviated form of Matilda. "The great Matilda" of Dante was Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, who guides him on part of his way through Purgatory. 145, 94. Lethe. The river whose waters took away the memory of sin, allowing the happy soul to enter the next world unstained. 145, 94. " Come into the garden, Maud." As before, from Tennyson; as are the two quotations a few lines further on. 146, 95. Madeleine. Mary Magdalene, John xx, 11-18. 146, 95. Sought Him in vain, all through the night. Song of Solomon, iii, 1. 146, 95. that old Garden. The Garden of Eden. Cf. Genesis, iii, 24. 146, 95. the vine has flourished. Song of Solomon, vi, 11. 146, 95. sanguine. Red. 146, 95. Take us the foxes. Song of Solomon, xi, 15. •'Us" is here used in the dative — take for us. 146, 95. the foxes have holes, etc. This passage is a mosaic of biblical references. Cf. Matt, viii, 20; Luke xix, 40: Genesis xxviii, 10-11. APPENDIX (Adapted, and enlarged, from the Manual for the Study K of English Classics, by George L. Marsh) r HELPS TO STUDY Euskin's Career When was Ruskin born? What were the station and the character of his parents (p. 10) ? To what circumstances of Ruskin ^g youth may prominent characteristics of him as a man and a writer be attributed (pp. 12 ff.) ? Note especially the nature of the chief reading of his youth, and illustrate its influence upon his writings. Tell something of Ruskin 's early travels and their effect upon him (p. 15). Where did Ruskin receive his university training, and what were the most noteworthy events of his university life (pp. 16, 17) ? What relations did he later have with the univer- sity (p. 24) ? What was Ruskin ^s first book and when was it published (p, 17) ? What was its main purpose? Note Ruskin 's later attitude toward his early work, and his reason for it. What important books on architecture did Ruskin write, and what were the fundamental principles he laid down for great architecture (p. 20) ? When did Ruskin turn from art criticism (p. 22)? Why? Into what field of work? What were his most important con- tentions (pp. 22 ff.)? What' were the main occupations of his later life (pp. 24 ff.)? When did he die? Perry Picture 102 is a portrait of Ruskin. 161 162 APPENDIX Sesame and Lilies — General Questions When was Sesame and Lilies written? For what purpose or purposes? What is its position among Euskin's works (p. 23) ? Make an outline of each of the lectures, amplifying the hints as to logical structure given on pages 31 ff. of the editor's Introduction. What is the meaning of the titles of the separate lectures? Of the title of the whole book? What criticism may be made of the titles? What defense of them? Where does Euskin explain or defend them? What do you think of the explanation or the defense? What are the main points in the Preface of 1882 (pp. 39 ff.) as to the persons for whom Sesame and Lilies was in- tended, and its relations to Euskin 's principal teachings? Comparison of this Preface with that of 1871 is interesting. Do you find any hint in these lectures of Euskin 's funda- mental art principles: that art must be true to the facts of nature, not to the conventionalitiea of previous art; that esthetics and ethics are vitally related, good art being possible only to an artist who is morally good? Point out examples in Sesame and Lilies of Euskin 's views of political economy: that the whole competitive system is wrong, and machinery harmful rather than useful. What indications of intended oral delivery are there in the lectures? Note the effort made by the lecturer to get himself and his audience on a common footing, the frequent rhetorical questions, etc. Are the sentences short enough for comprehension by an ordinary hearer? Pick out some of the most eloquent passages (as sections 41, 42, Q%^ 92, etc.), and make a detailed study of them such as Euskin himself makes of the passage from Lycidas (see sections 20 ff.). Can you account in every case f or" the pe- culiar effectiveness you find? Note the most striking uses of satire or irony that you find. What are the principal objects of the satire? APPENDIX 163 m Point out some of the most effective concrete examples by l^i^hich Ruskin makes his points. Illustrate the various characteristics of Ruskin 's style as described in the editor's Introduction (pp. 29 ff.). Examine some of the longest sentences you find, and decide whether or not they are clear. Is the grammatical construction ever obscure or even faulty? (See, for example, an error in sec- tion 33.) Where do you find balance and antithesis used notably? Compare these lectures in this respect with ^ ^ Work ^ ' in The Crown of Wild Olive, or with essays by Macaulay. Note striking figures of speech (as in section 43). Are they characterized mainly by beauty or by strength? Questions on Details State the main point of Ruskin 's comment on the popular desire for ^'advancement in life'' (sections 2-5). What is the purpose and the effect of the direct appeal to the audience in section 5 ? Can anything definite be assumed from the action of the audience? Compare Ruskin 's general comments on books (sections 6 ff.) with Bacon's Essay ''Oi Studies," or with Milton's Areopagitica (see Newcomer and Andrews, Twelve Centuries of English Poetry and Prose, pp. 212, 263). What is the main division Ruskin makes of books (sections 8 ff.) ? The basis of his distinction? What are the princi- pal kinds of books in the respective classes? What very important principle for reading and interpre- tation and criticism is contained in section 13? What are the most important considerations in Ruskin 's discussion of words (sections 15 ff.) ? Compare the treat- ment of diction in a textbook on rhetoric ; for instance, Chap- ters XII-XVIII, inclusive, in Herrick and Damon's New Composition and Rhetoric. What are the purpose and effect of the long discussion of the passage from Lycidas (sections 20 ff.)? Compare with 164 APPENDIX 1 the notes on Lycidas in the Lake Classics edition of Milton 's Minor Poems, Comment on section 25 as a paragraph. Has it unity! If so, under what topic? Study other long paragraphs in a similar way. How about the short paragraphs in section 22? ■ What is their purpose? ■ What is Ruskin^s attitude toward feeling, or *' passion, or 'sensation' '' (section 27)? Note illustrations of this attitude in his own life. Sum up Euskin 's most important criticisms of the English nation and the English people as individuals (as in section 31, etc.). What specific activities are criticized? What important views on religion do you find expressed (as in section 37) ? Can you account for them in what the editor says about Ruskin^s early training (pp. 11 ff.) ? What interesting comment does Suskin make on his own work (section 47) ? What important views of war are expressed (as in sections 47, 48, etc.)? Compare with the lecture on ''War'' in The Crown of Wild Olive; or compare with Carlyle's view of war in Sartor Besartus. What erroneous notions as to the relations of men and women does Ruskin especially criticize (as in section 54, etc.)? Compare Tennyson's views in The Princess with Ruskin 's. Summarize the important comments on Shakspere (sec- tions 56 ff.), and on Scott (sections 59 ff.). What other important authors does Ruskin mention or quote? For in- stance, note the important comment on Wordsworth in sec- tion 70. What is Ruskin 's attitude toward chivalry; toward romance ? Outline the course of education Ruskin suggests for girls (sections 72 ff.). Wherein chiefly does it differ from the education he recommends for boys? APPENDIX 165 THEME SUBJECTS 1. Ituskin's life (pp. 9-25). 2. Buskin's childhood (especially in relation to his later life and work; pp. 9-15). 3. Ruskin'g work in art criticism (including architec- ture; pp. 16-21). 4. Buskin 's economic and social work (pp. 21-24, 27-29 ; with reference also to the expression of his views in the book studied). 5. Discussion of the merits and demerits of the titles of the separate lectures and of the work as a whole (pp. 47, 107, etc.). 6. Brief outlines or condensed summaries of the two lectures (amplifying the editor's hints on pp. 30, 31). 7. Minute discussion of a short passage from some poem studied in the English course (similar to Buskin's dis- cussion, pp. 60 ff.). 8. What Buskin thinks of novels and novel-reading (pp. 49, 129 ff.). 9. Does America today despise literature, science, art, nature, compassion (pp. 77-91)1 Discuss, with reference to your own city, any or all of Buskin 's charges. 10. Amusements of which Buskin disapproves (pp. 91, etc.). (A defense, or a criticism, of his attitude toward some specific amusement might be attempted.) 11. Themes developing and explaining, or criticizing (cf. p. 157) Buskin's comments on some of the characters from Shakspere and Scott; e. g., Orlando, Bosalind, Ophelia. 12. How girls should be educated, according to Buskin (pp. 122 ff.). Compare your own education. 13. Comparison of Buskin's view of the true position of woman in society (pp. 119-22, 137 ff.) with the view of Ten- nyson as expressed in The Princess. 14. The objects of satire in these lectures. 166 APPENDIX SELECTIONS FOR CLASS READING 1. The choice of friends (pp. 46-48). 2. What is a *'true book'' (pp. 49-52). 3. Intensive reading (pp. 55-57). 4. Passion, or ^ ^ sensation ' ' (pp. 71-73). 5. Characteristics of a *^ gentle nation'' (pp. 77-84), 6. Treatment of the poor (pp. 88-91). 7. The public craving for amusement (pp. 91-94). 8. True greatness in life (pp. 94-99). 9. The purpose of the lecture **0f Queens' Gardens" (pp. 106-8). 10. Shakspere's women (pp. 108-11). 11. Scott's women (pp. 111-13). 12. Other great women in literature (pp. 113-16). 13. Chivalry toward women (pp. 117, 118). 14. Differences between men and women (pp. 120-22). 15. The first duty in the education of women (pp. 122-26). 16. Differences between education for girls and for boys (pp. 127-33). 17. The help of nature in education (pp. 133-35). 18. Woman's duty in the state (pp. 137, 138). 19. Woman's influence (pp. 140-46). CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE tin the following parallel columns are given the most impor- tant dates in the history of English and American literature, from the time of Shakspere down to 1900. Special care has been taken to include the classics commonly read in high schools, so tnat the historical background of any given classic will be apparent from the table: AMERICAN ENGLISH 1594-5 Shakspere : Midsummer Night's Dream, 1596 (or earlier): Romeo arid Juliet. 1598 (or earlier) : The Mer- chant of Venice. 1599 Henry V. 1599-1600 As You Like It, 1601-1700 1607 Jamestown founded. 1608 J. Smith : A True Rela- tion. 1610 Strachey: A True Rep- ortory. 1620 Plymouth Colony founded. 1601 Julius CcBsar. 1602 Hamlet; Twelfth Night (acted). 1603 Queen Elizabeth died. 1605 Bacon : Advancement of Learning. 1610 1611 1612 1614 1616 1620 Shakspere : Macbeth (acted). The Tempest (acted). *'K i n g James" Bible printed. Bacon : Essays (first edi- tion, 1597). Raleigh : History of the World, Shakspere died. Bacon : Novum Organum, 167 168 APPENDIX AMERICAN 1624 J. Smith : The General History of Virginia. 1630 Massachusetts Bay Col- ony founded. Bradford : History of Plimoth Plantation be- gun about this time. Winthrop : Journal be- gun, ended 1649. 1635 R. Mather : Journal (written). 1636 Harvard College estab- lished. 1638 New Haven founded. 1640 The Bay Psalm Book, 1644 Williams: The Bloudy Tenent. 1650 A. Bradsti-eet : PoenirS, 1662 Wigglesworth : The' Day of Doom. 1681 1682 1689 1692 C. Mather: Diary begun. Philadelphia founded. King William's War. Salem witchcraft trials. 1623 1627 Shakspere : Plays (first folio edition). Drayton ; court. Ballad of Agin- 1633 Milton : L' Allegro and II Penseroso. 1634 Milton: Comus (acted). 1638 Trial of John Hampd^. Milton : Lycidas (pub- lished). 1642 Theaters closed. Browne : Religio Medici, 1644 Milton : Areopagitica. Battle of Marston Moor. 1648 Herrick : Hesperides. 1649 Charles I executed. 1653 Walton : The Compleat Angler. 1660 The monarchy restored. Pepys : Diary begun, end- ed 1669. 1666 London fire. 1667 Milton: Paradise Lost. 1671 Milton : Paradise Re- gained; Samson Agon- istes. 1674 Milton died. 1678 Bunyan: Pilgrim's Prog- ress. 1681 Dryden : Ahsalom and Achitophel. 1682 Dryden : MacFlecknoe, 1688 The English Revolution. 1697 Dryden Feast. Alexander's APPENDIX 1701-1800 169 AMERICAN 1701 Yale College established. 1702-13 Queen Anne's War. 1702 C. Mather : Magnolia Chris ti Americana. 1704 Boston News Letter estab- lished. 1722 Edwards : Diarp begun. 1732 Washington born. 1733 Franklin : Poor Richard's Almanac (begun). 1741 Edwards: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Qod, 1700 1702 1704 1709 1711 1712 1714 1715 i719 1722 1726 1728 1732 ENGLISH Dryden : Fables ("Pala- mon and Arcite," etc.). Queen Anne throne. ascended Swift : Tale of a Tut, The The Steele and Addison : Tatler begun. Steele and Addison: Spectator begun. Pope : The Rape of the Lock, Queen Anne died. Pope : Translation of the Iliad (Books I-IV). Defoe : Robinson Crusoe, Defoe : Journal of the Plague Year. Swift : (Quiver's Travels, Thomson : Winter, Pope : Dunciad. Pope : Essay on Man. 1740 Richardson : Pamela, 1755 Braddock's defeat. 1756 Woolman : Journal (be- gun). 1758 Franklin : The Way to Wealth in Poor Rich- ard's Almanac. 1742 1744 1747 1748 1749 1750 1751 1755 Fielding : drews. Joseph An- Death of Pope. Gray : Ode on Eton Col- lege. Richardson : Clarissa Harlowe. Fielding : Tom Jones. Johnson: The Rambler (begun). Gray : Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. jobticon : English Dic- tionary. 170 APPENDIX AMERICAN 1765 Godfrey : Juvenile Poems (with The Prince of Parthia, the first Amer- ican drama). The Stamp Act. 1771 Franklin : Autobiography, first part, written. 1773 P. Wheatley : Poems. 1775 Trumbull : M'Fingal. Henr,^ : Speech in the Virginia Convention. 1776 The Declaration of Inde- pendence. Paine : Common Sense. 1783 The Treaty of Paris. 1785 Dwight : The Conquest of Canaan. 1786 Freneau : Poems. 1789 Franklin : Autobiography, second part, written. 1796 Washington : Farewell Address. 1798 Brown: Wieland. J. Hopkinson : Hail Columbia. ENGLISH 1759 Sterne : Tristram Shandy (begun). Johnson : Rasselas. 1760 King George III on throne. 1762 Macpherson : The Poems of Ossian. 1764 Walpole : The Castle of Otranto. Goldsmith : The Traveler. 1765 Percy : Relique-s of An- cient Poetry. 1766 Goldsmith : Vicar of Wakefield. 1770 Goldsmith : Deserted Vil- lage. 1771 Encyclopedia Britannica, first edition. 1773 Goldsmith : She Stoops to Conquer (acted). 1775 Burke : Speech on Con- ciliation. Sheridan : The Rivals. 1776 Gibbon : Decline and Fall of Romesque, Longfellow : Voices of the Night. 1840. Dana : Two Tears Before the Mast, 1841 Emerson : Essays, first series. Longfellow : Ballads and Other Poems. 1842 Hawthorne : Twice-Told Tales, second series. 1843 Poe : The Qold-Bug, Prescott : Conquest of Mexico. 1844 Emerson : Essays, second series. Lowell : Poems, 1845 Poe : The Raven and Other Poems. 1846 Hawthorne : Mosses from an Old Manse, 1846-48 War with Mexico. 1847 Emerson : Poems. Longfellow: Evangeline, Parkman : The Oregon Trail, 1848 Lowell : Vision of Sir Launfal. 1849 Irving: Oliver Goldsmith, 1850 Emerson : Representative Men, Hawthorne: The Soarlei Letter, ENGLISH 1835 Browning : Paracelsus. 1836 Dickens : Pickwick Pa- pers. 1837 Victoria became Queen. De Quincey : Revolt of the Tartars. C a r 1 y 1 e : The French Revolution, 1840 Macaulay : Essay on Clive. 1841 Browning : Pippa Passes. Macaulay : Essay on War- ren Hastings, 1842 Macaulay: Lays cf An- cient Rome, Browning : Dramatic Lyrics, 1843 Dickens : A Christmas Carol, Macaulay : Essay on Ad- dison. Ruskin : Modern Painters. Vol. I. 1844 E. B. Browning: Poems. 1845 Browning : Dramatic Ro- mances and Lyrics, 1846 Dickens : The Cricket on the Hearth, 1847 De Quincey : Joan of Arc, Tennyson: The Princess, Thackeray : Vanity Fair. C. Bronte : Jane Eyre, 1848 Macaulay : History of England, I, II. 1849 De Quincey : The English Mail Cjoach, M. Arnold : The Strayed Reveller, etc. 1850 Tennyson.: In Memoriam, Dickens : David Copper- field. APPENDIX 173 1851 1852 AMERICAN Hawthorne : The House of the Seven Gables, Parkman : The Conspir- acy of Pontiac, Mrs. Stowe : Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1854 Thoreau : Walden, 1855 Longfellow : Hiawatha. Whitman : Leaves of Grass, 1856 Motley : Rise of the Dutch Republic. Curtis : Prue and I. 1858 Longfellow : Courtship of Miles Standish. Holmes : Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 1861-65 The avll War. 1862-66 Lowell : BiglotD Pa- pers, IL 1863 Longfellow : Tales of a Wayside Inn, 1865 Whitman : Drum Taps. 1866 Whlttler : Snow-Bound. ENGLISH 1851 Thackeray : Lectures on English Humorists. G, Meredith : Poems, 1852 Thackeray : Henry Es- mond, 1853 M. Arnold: Poems ("Sohrab and Rustum," etc.). Mrs. Gaskell : Oranford, 1855 R. Browning : Men and Women, Tennyson : Maud, 1856 Macaulay : E s s ay s on Johnson and Goldsmith, Mrs. Browning : Aurora Leigh. 1857 Hughes : Tom Brown's School Days, 1859 Tennyson : Idylls of the King, Dickens : A Tale of Two Cities, G, Eliot : Adam Bede. Meredith : Ordeal of Richard Feverel, 1860 Darwin : The Origin of Species, G. Eliot: The Mill on the Floss, 1861 G, Eliot: Silas Marner. Reade : The Cloister and the Hearth. Palgrave : The Golden Treasury, 1862 Meredith : Modem Love, etc. 1863 G. Eliot : Romola. 1864 Browning : Dramatis Per- sonw. 1865 Swinburne : Atalanta in Calydon, R u s k i n : Sesame and Lilies. 1866 Ruskin : A Crown of Wild Olive. 174 APPENDIX 1S6S 1S70 1S71 1ST3 1S76 1877 1S79 1881 1SS6 1887 1888 1890 1891 AMERICAN Hale : The Man Without a Country, etc. Bret Harte : The Luck of Roaring Camp, etc. Howells : Their Wedding Journey. Aldrich etc. Mark Twain yer. Lanier : Poems. Marjorie Daic, Tom SaiC- Cable : Old Creole Days. Stockton : Rudder Grange. Whittler : Missive. The King's H. Jackson : Si)nnet8 and Lyrics. M. E. Wilkins : A Humble Romance, etc. Whitman: yovem'ber Boughs. E. Dickinson : Poems, first series. Whitman : Goodbye, My Fancy. 1898 War with Spaiu. XKGLISH 1868 BrowniDg : The Ring and the Book. 1868-70 Morris : The Earthly Paradise. 1S69 Tennyson. The H oly \ Grail, etc. 1870 D. G. Pwossetti : Poems, i 1871 Swinburne : Bongs Before \ Sunrise, 1S72 Tennyson : Gareth and Lynette, etc. 1873 Arnold : Literature and Dogma. 1876 Morris : Sigurd the Vol- sung. 1878 Stevenson : An Inland Voyage. 1879 Stevenson : Travels %cith a Donkey, Meredith : The Egoist. 1881 D. G. Rossetti : Ballade and Sonnets, 1882 Stevenson : Netc Arabian Xights. 1883 Stevenson : Treasure Is- land. 1886 Stevenson : Kidnapped. 1887 Stevenson : The Merry Men r'M a r k h e i m,'* etc.). ISSS Kipling: Pla4n Tales from the EiUs. Barrier Auld Licht Idylls. 18S9 Browning : Asolando. 1891 Kipling : Life's Handi- cap. 1592 Tennyson died. 1593 Conington : Translation of Aeneid published. Barrie : Two of Them, 1901 Queen Victoria died. X107 V '•■•' ,*^ ^ '^^ ^^.c^"^ -^^-^^^ >°v Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. > * Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide ^<^^%^ /^0 '^ ^^^^^ Treatment Date: May 2009 •-A 4^ ^iJif^^ '^^ PreservationTechnologies o^. 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