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THE AUDIENCE. So do I—and I—and I.
MARY. Would a crystallographer?
L. I think so. He would find many more laws curiously exemplified in the irregularly grouped but pure crystal. But it is a futile question, this of first or second. Purity is in most cases a prior, if not a nobler, virtue; at all events it is most convenient to think about it first.
MARY. But what ought we to think about it? Is there much to be thought—I mean, much to puzzle one?
L. I don't know what you call "much." It is a long time since I met with anything in which there was little. There's not much in this, perhaps. The crystal must be either dirty or clean,—and there's an end. So it is with one's hands, and with one's heart— only you can wash your hands without changing them, but not hearts, nor crystals. On the whole, while you are young, it will be as well to take care that your hearts don't want much washing; for they may perhaps need wringing also, when they do.
(Audience doubtful and uncomfortable. LUCILLA at last takes courage.)
LUCILLA. Oh! but surely, sir, we cannot make our hearts clean?
L. Not easily, Lucilla; so you had better keep them so, when they are.
LUCILLA. When they are! But, sir—
L. Well?
LUCILLA. Sir—surely—are we not told that they are all evil?
L. Wait a little, Lucilla; that is difficult ground you are getting upon; and we must keep to our crystals, till at least we understand what THEIR good and evil consist in; they may help us afterwards to some useful hints about our own. I said that their goodness consisted chiefly in purity of substance, and perfectness of form: but those are rather the EFFECTS of their goodness, than the goodness itself. The inherent virtues of the crystals, resulting in these outer conditions, might really seem to be best described in the words we should use respecting living creatures— "force of heart" and "steadiness of purpose." There seem to be in some crystals, from the beginning, an unconquerable purity of vital power, and strength of crystal spirit. Whatever dead substance, unacceptant of this energy, comes in their way, is either rejected, or forced to take some beautiful subordinate form; the purity of the crystal remains unsullied, and every atom of it bright with coherent energy. Then the second condition is, that from the beginning of its whole structure, a fine crystal seems to have determined that it will be of a certain size and of a certain shape; it persists in this plan, and completes it. Here is a perfect crystal of quartz for you. It is of an unusual form, and one which it might seem very difficult to build—a pyramid with convex sides, composed of other minor pyramids. But there is not a flaw in its contour throughout; not one of its myriads of component sides but is as bright as a jeweler's faceted work (and far finer, if you saw it close). The crystal points are as sharp as javelins; their edges will cut glass with a touch. Anything more resolute, consummate, determinate in form, cannot be conceived. Here, on the other hand, is a crystal of the same substance, in a perfectly simple type of form—a plain six-sided prism; but from its base to its point,—and it is nine inches long,—it has never for one instant made up its mind what thickness it will have. It seems to have begun by making itself as thick as it thought possible with the quantity of material at command. Still not being as thick as it would like to be, it has clumsily glued on more substance at one of its sides. Then it has thinned itself, in a panic of economy; then puffed itself out again; then starved one side to enlarge another; then warped itself quite out of its first line. Opaque, rough-surfaced, jagged on the edge, distorted in the spine, it exhibits a quite human image of decrepitude and dishonor; but the worst of all the signs of its decay and helplessness is that half-way up a parasite crystal, smaller, but just as sickly, has rooted itself in the side of the larger one, eating out a cavity round its root, and then growing backwards, or downwards contrary to the direction of the main crystal. Yet I cannot trace the least difference in purity of substance between the first most noble stone, and this ignoble and dissolute one. The impurity of the last is in its will, or want of will.
MARY. Oh, if we could but understand the meaning of it all!
L. We can understand all that is good for us. It is just as true for us as for the crystal, that the nobleness of life depends on its consistency,—clearness of purpose—quiet and ceaseless energy. All doubt and repenting, and botching and re-touching and wondering what will it be best to do next, are vice, as well as misery.
MARY (much wondering). But must not one repent when one does wrong, and hesitate when one can't see one's way?
L. You have no business at all to do wrong, nor to get into any way that you cannot see. Your intelligence should always be far in advance of your act. Whenever you do not know what you are about, you are sure to be doing wrong.
KATHLEEN. Oh, dear, but I never know what I am about!
L. Very true, Katie, but it is a great deal to know, if you know that. And you find that you have done wrong afterwards; and perhaps some day you may begin to know, or at least, think, what you are about.
ISABEL. But surely people can't do very wrong if they don't know, can they? I mean, they can't be very naughty. They can be wrong, like Kathleen or me, when we make mistakes; but not wrong in the dreadful way. I can't express what I mean; but there are two sorts of wrong, are there not?
L. Yes, Isabel; but you will find that the great difference is between kind and unkind wrongs, not between meant and unmeant wrong. Very few people really mean to do wrong,—in a deep sense, none. They only don't know what they are about. Cain did not mean to do wrong when he killed Abel.
(ISABEL draws a deep breath, and opens her eyes very wide.)
L. No, Isabel; and there are countless Cains among us now, who kill their brothers by the score a day, not only for less provocation than Cain had, but for NO provocation,—and merely for what they can make of their bones,—yet do not think they are doing wrong in the least. Then sometimes you have the business reversed, as over in America these last years, where you have seen Abel resolutely killing Cain, and not thinking he is doing wrong The great difficulty is always to open people's eyes: to touch their feelings and break their hearts, is easy, the difficult thing is to break their heads. What does it matter as long as they remain stupid, whether you change their feelings or not? You cannot be always at their elbow to tell them what is right and they may just do as wrong as before or worse, and their best intentions merely make the road smooth for them,—you know where, children. For it is not the place itself that is paved with them as people say so often. You can't pave the bottomless pit, but you may the road to it
MAY. Well, but if people do as well as they can see how, surely that is the right for them, isn't it?
L. No, May, not a bit of it right is right, and wrong is wrong. It is only the fool who does wrong, and says he "did it for the best." And if there's one sort of person in the world that the Bible speaks harder of than another, it is fools. Their particular and chief way of saying "There is no God" is this of declaring that whatever their "public opinion" may be is right and that God's opinion is of no consequence.
MAY. But surely nobody can always know what is right?
L. Yes, you always can, for to-day; and if you do what you see of it to-day, you will see more of it, and more clearly, to-morrow. Here for instance, you children are at school, and have to learn French, and arithmetic, and music, and several other such things. That is your "right" for the present; the "right" for us, your teachers, is to see that you learn as much as you can, without spoiling your dinner, your sleep, or your play; and that what you do learn, you learn well. You all know when you learn with a will, and when you dawdle. There's no doubt of conscience about that, I suppose?
VIOLET. No; but if one wants to read an amusing book, instead of learning one's lesson?
L. You don't call that a "question," seriously, Violet? You are then merely deciding whether you will resolutely do wrong or not.
MARY. But, in after life, how many fearful difficulties may arise, however one tries to know or to do what is right!
L. You are much too sensible a girl, Mary, to have felt that, whatever you may have seen. A great many of young ladies' difficulties arise from their falling in love with a wrong person; but they have no business to let themselves fall in love, till they know he is the right one.
DORA. How many thousands ought he to have a year?
L. (disdaining reply). There are, of course, certain crises of fortune when one has to take care of oneself, and mind shrewdly what one is about. There is never any real doubt about the path, but you may have to walk very slowly.
MARY. And if one is forced to do a wrong thing by some one who has authority over you?
L. My dear, no one can be forced to do a wrong thing, for the guilt is in the will: but you may any day be forced to do a fatal thing, as you might be forced to take poison; the remarkable law of nature in such cases being, that it is always unfortunate YOU who are poisoned, and not the person who gives you the dose. It is a very strange law, but it IS a law. Nature merely sees to the carrying out of the normal operation of arsenic. She never troubles herself to ask who gave it you. So also you may be starved to death, morally as well as physically, by other people's faults. You are, on the whole, very good children sitting here to- day; do you think that your goodness comes all by your own contriving? or that you are gentle and kind because your dispositions are naturally more angelic than those of the poor girls who are playing, with wild eyes, on the dust-heaps in the alleys of our great towns; and who will one day fill their prisons,—or, better, their graves? Heaven only knows where they, and we who have cast them there shall stand at last But the main judgment question will be, I suppose, for all of us, "Did you keep a good heart through it? What you were, others may answer for,— what you tried to be, you must answer for yourself. Was the heart pure and true—tell us that?
And so we come back to your sorrowful question, Lucilla, which I put aside a little ago. You would be afraid to answer that your heart WAS pure and true, would not you?
LUCILLA. Yes, indeed, sir.
L. Because you have been taught that it is all evil—"only evil continually." Somehow, often as people say that, they never seem, to me, to believe it. Do you really believe it?
LUCILLA. Yes, sir, I hope so.
L. That you have an entirely bad heart?
LUCILLA (a little uncomfortable at the substitution of the monosyllable for the dissyllable, nevertheless persisting in her orthodoxy). Yes, sir.
L. Florrie, I am sure you are tired; I never like you to stay when you are tired; but, you know, you must not play with the kitten while we're talking.
FLORRIE. Oh! but I'm not tired, and I'm only nursing her. She'll be asleep in my lap, directly.
L. Stop! that puts me in mind of something I had to show you, about minerals that are like hair I want a hair out of Tittie's tail.
FLORRIE. (quite rude in her surprise, even to the point of repeating expressions). Out of Tittie's tail!
L. Yes, a brown one Lucilla, you can get at the tip of it nicely, under Florrie's arm, just pull one out for me.
LUCILLA. Oh! but, sir, it will hurt her so!
L. Never mind, she can't scratch you while Florrie is holding her. Now that I think of it you had better pull out two.
LUCILLA. But then she may scratch Florrie! and it will hurt her so sir! if you only want brown hairs, wouldn't two of mine do?
L. Would you really rather pull out your own than Tittie's?
LUCILLA. Oh, of course, if mine will do.
L. But that's very wicked, Lucilla!
LUCILLA. Wicked, sir?
L. Yes, if your heart was not so bad, you would much rather pull all the cat's hairs out, than one of your own.
LUCILLA. Oh! but, sir, I didn't mean bad like that.
L. I believe, if the truth were told, Lucilla, you would like to tie a kettle to Tittie's tail, and hunt her round the playground.
LUCILLA. Indeed, I should not, sir.
L. That's not true, Lucilla; you know it cannot be.
LUCILLA. Sir?
L. Certainly it is not;—how can you possibly speak any truth out of such a heart as you have? It is wholly deceitful.
LUCILLA. Oh! no, no; I don't mean that way; I don't mean that it makes me tell lies, quite out.
L. Only that it tells lies within you?
LUCILLA. Yes.
L. Then, outside of it, you know what is true, and say so; and I may trust the outside of your heart; but within, it is all foul and false. Is that the way?
LUCILLA. I suppose so: I don't understand it quite.
L. There is no occasion for understanding it; but do you feel it? Are you sure that your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked?
LUCILLA (much relieved by finding herself among phrases with which she is acquainted). Yes, sir. I'm sure of that.
L. (pensively). I'm sorry for it, Lucilla.
LUCILLA. So am I, indeed.
L. What are you sorry with, Lucilla?
LUCILLA. Sorry with, sir?
L. Yes; I mean, where do you feel sorry; in your feet?
LUCILLA (laughing a little). No, sir, of course.
L. In your shoulders, then?
LUCILLA. No, sir.
L. You are sure of that? Because, I fear, sorrow in the shoulders would not be worth much.
LUCILLA. I suppose I feel it in my heart, if I really am sorry.
L. If you really are! Do you mean to say that you are sure you are utterly wicked, and yet do not care?
LUCILLA. No, indeed; I have cried about it often.
L. Well, then, you are sorry in your heart?
LUCILLA. Yes, when the sorrow is worth anything.
L. Even if it be not, it cannot be anywhere else but there. It is not the crystalline lens of your eyes which is sorry, when you cry?
LUCILLA. No, sir, of course.
L. Then, have you two hearts; one of which is wicked, and the other grieved? or is one side of it sorry for the other side?
LUCILLA. (weary of cross-examination, and a little vexed). Indeed, sir, you know I can't understand it; but you know how it is written—"another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind."
L. Yes, Lucilla, I know how it is written; but I do not see that it will help us to know that, if we neither understand what is written, nor feel it. And you will not get nearer to the meaning of one verse, if, as soon as you are puzzled by it, you escape to another, introducing three new words—"law," "members," and "mind"; not one of which you at present know the meaning of; and respecting which, you probably never will be much wiser; since men like Montesquieu and Locke have spent great part of their lives in endeavoring to explain two of them.
LUCILLA. Oh! please, sir, ask somebody else.
L. If I thought any one else could answer better than you, Lucilla, I would: but suppose I try, instead, myself, to explain your feelings to you?
LUCILLA. Oh, yes; please do.
L. Mind, I say your "feelings," not your "belief." For I cannot undertake to explain anybody's beliefs. Still I must try a little, first, to explain the belief also, because I want to draw it to some issue. As far as I understand what you say, or any one else, taught as you have been taught, says, on this matter,—you think that there is an external goodness, a whited-sepulcher kind of goodness, which appears beautiful outwardly, but is within full of uncleanness: a deep secret guilt, of which we ourselves are not sensible; and which can only be seen by the Maker of us all. (Approving murmurs from audience.)
L. Is it not so with the body as well as the soul?
(Looked notes of interrogation.)
L. A skull, for instance, is not a beautiful thing? (Grave faces, signifying "Certainly not," and "What next?")
L. And if you all could see in each other, with clear eyes, whatever God sees beneath those fair faces of yours, you would not like it?
(Murmured No's.)
L. Nor would it be good for you?
(Silence.)
L. The probability being that what God does not allow you to see, He does not wish you to see; nor even to think of?
(Silence prolonged.)
L. It would not at all be good for you, for instance, whenever you were washing your faces, and braiding your hair, to be thinking of the shapes of the jawbones, and of the cartilage of the nose, and of the jagged sutures of the scalp?
(Resolutely whispered No's.)
L. Still less, to see through a clear glass the daily processes of nourishment and decay?
(No.)
L. Still less if instead of merely inferior and preparatory conditions of structure, as in the skeleton,—or inferior offices of structure, as in operations of life and death,—there were actual disease in the body, ghastly and dreadful. You would try to cure it; but having taken such measures as were necessary, you would not think the cure likely to be promoted by perpetually watching the wounds, or thinking of them. On the contrary, you would be thankful for every moment of forgetfulness: as, in daily health, you must be thankful that your Maker has veiled whatever is fearful in your frame under a sweet and manifest beauty; and has made it your duty, and your only safety, to rejoice in that, both in yourself and in others;—not indeed concealing, or refusing to believe in sickness, if it come; but never dwelling on it.
Now, your wisdom and duty touching soul-sickness are just the same. Ascertain clearly what is wrong with you; and so far as you know any means of mending it, take those means, and have done; when you are examining yourself, never call yourself merely a "sinner," that is very cheap abuse; and utterly useless. You may even get to like it, and be proud of it. But call yourself a liar, a coward, a sluggard, a glutton, or an evil-eyed, jealous wretch, if you indeed find yourself to be in any wise any of these. Take steady means to check yourself in whatever fault you have ascertained, and justly accused yourself of. And as soon as you are in active way of mending, you will be no more inclined to moan over an undefined corruption. For the rest, you will find it less easy to uproot faults, than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of your faults; still less of others' faults: in every person who comes near you, look for what is good and strong: honor that; rejoice in it; and, as you can, try to imitate it: and your faults will drop off like dead leaves, when their time comes. If, on looking back, your whole life should seem rugged as a palm-tree stem; still, never mind, so long as it has been growing; and has its grand green shade of leaves, and weight of honeyed fruit, at top. And even if you cannot find much good in yourself at last, think that it does not much matter to the universe either what you were, or are; think how many people are noble, if you cannot be; and rejoice in THEIR nobleness. An immense quantity of modern confession of sin, even when honest, is merely a sickly egotism; which will rather gloat over its own evil, than lose the centralization of its interest in itself.
MARY. But then, if we ought to forget ourselves so much, how did the old Greek proverb "Know thyself" come to be so highly esteemed?
L. My dear, it is the proverb of proverbs; Apollo's proverb, and the sun's—but do you think you can know yourself by looking INTO yourself? Never. You can know what you are, only by looking OUT of yourself. Measure your own powers with those of others; compare your own interests with those of others; try to understand what you appear to them, as well as what they appear to you; and judge of yourselves, in all things, relatively and subordinately; not positively: starting always with a wholesome conviction of the probability that there is nothing particular about you. For instance, some of you perhaps think you can write poetry. Dwell on your own feelings; and doings:—and you will soon think yourselves Tenth Muses; but forget your own feeling; and try, instead, to understand a line or two of Chaucer or Dante: and you will soon begin to feel yourselves very foolish girls—which is much like the fact.
So, something which befalls you may seem a great misfortune,—you meditate over its effects on you personally: and begin to think that it is a chastisement, or a warning, or a this or that or the other of profound significance; and that all the angels in heaven have left their business for a little while, that they may watch its effects on your mind. But give up this egotistic indulgence of your fancy; examine a little what misfortunes, greater a thousand- fold, are happening, every second, to twenty times worthier persons: and your self-consciousness will change into pity and humility; and you will know yourself so far as to understand that "there hath nothing taken thee but what is common to man."
Now, Lucilla, these are the practical conclusions which any person of sense would arrive at, supposing the texts which relate to the inner evil of the heart were as many, and as prominent, as they are often supposed to be by careless readers. But the way in which common people read their Bibles is just like the way that the old monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselves (it was said), over and over, where the grapes lay on the ground. What fruit stuck to their spines, they carried off, and ate. So your hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and declare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture, and that nothing else is. But you can only get the skins of the texts that way. If you want their juice, you must press them in cluster. Now, the clustered texts about the human heart, insist, as a body, not on any inherent corruption in all hearts, but on the terrific distinction between the bad and the good ones. "A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth that which is evil." "They on the rock are they which, in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it." "Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." "The wicked have bent their bow, that they may privily shoot at him that is upright in heart." And so on; they are countless, to the same effect. And, for all of us, the question is not at all to ascertain how much or how little corruption there is in human nature; but to ascertain whether, out of all the mass of that nature, we are of the sheep or the goat breed; whether we are people of upright heart, being shot at, or people of crooked heart, shooting. And, of all the texts bearing on the subject, this, which is a quite simple and practical order, is the one you have chiefly to hold in mind. "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."
LUCILLA. And yet, how inconsistent the texts seem!
L. Nonsense, Lucilla! do you think the universe is bound to look consistent to a girl of fifteen? Look up at your own room window; —you can just see it from where you sit. I'm glad that it is left open, as it ought to be, in so fine a day. But do you see what a black spot it looks, in the sunlighted wall?
LUCILLA. Yes, it looks as black as ink.
L. Yet you know it is a very bright room when you are inside of it; quite as bright as there is any occasion for it to be, that its little lady may see to keep it tidy. Well, it is very probable, also, that if you could look into your heart from the sun's point of view, it might appear a very black hole indeed: nay, the sun may sometimes think good to tell you that it looks so to Him; but He will come into it, and make it very cheerful for you, for all that, if you don't put the shutters up. And the one question for YOU, remember, is not "dark or light?" but "tidy or untidy?" Look well to your sweeping and garnishing; and be sure it is only the banished spirit, or some of the seven wickeder ones at his back, who will still whisper to you that it is all black.
LECTURE 6.
CRYSTAL QUARRELS
Full conclave, in Schoolroom. There has been a game of crystallization in the morning, of which various account has to be rendered. In particular, everybody has to explain why they were always where they were not intended to be.
L. (having received and considered the report). You have got on pretty well children: but you know these were easy figures you have been trying. Wait till I have drawn you out the plans of some crystals of snow!
MARY. I don't think those will be the most difficult:—they are so beautiful that we shall remember our places better; and then they are all regular, and in stars: it is those twisty oblique ones we are afraid of.
L. Read Carlyle's account of the battle of Leuthen, and learn Friedrich's "oblique order." You will "get it done for once, I think, provided you CAN march as a pair of compasses would." But remember, when you can construct the most difficult single figures, you have only learned half the game—nothing so much as the half, indeed, as the crystals themselves play it.
MARY. Indeed; what else is there?
L. It is seldom that any mineral crystallizes alone. Usually two or three, under quite different crystalline laws, form together. They do this absolutely without flaw or fault, when they are in fine temper: and observe what this signifies. It signifies that the two, or more, minerals of different natures agree, somehow, between themselves how much space each will want;—agree which of them shall give way to the other at their junction; or in what measure each will accommodate itself to the other's shape! And then each takes its permitted shape, and allotted share of space; yielding, or being yielded to, as it builds till each crystal has fitted itself perfectly and gracefully to its differently-natured neighbor. So that, in order to practice this, in even the simplest terms, you must divide into two parties, wearing different colors; each must choose a different figure to construct; and you must form one of these figures through the other, both going on at the same time.
MARY. I think WE may, perhaps, manage it; but I cannot at all understand how the crystals do. It seems to imply so much preconcerting of plan, and so much giving way to each other, as if they really were living.
L. Yes, it implies both the concurrence and compromise, regulating all wilfulness of design: and, more curious still, the crystals do NOT always give way to each other. They show exactly the same varieties of temper that human creatures might. Sometimes they yield the required place with perfect grace and courtesy; forming fantastic, but exquisitely finished groups: and sometimes they will not yield at all; but fight furiously for their places, losing all shape and honor, and even their own likeness, in the contest.
MARY. But is not that wholly wonderful? How is it that one never sees it spoken of in books?
L. The scientific men are all busy in determining the constant laws under which the struggle takes place; these indefinite humors of the elements are of no interest to them. And unscientific people rarely give themselves the trouble of thinking at all, when they look at stones. Not that it is of much use to think; the more one thinks, the more one is puzzled.
MARY. Surely it is more wonderful than anything in botany?
L. Everything has its own wonders; but, given the nature of the plant, it is easier to understand what a flower will do, and why it does it, than, given anything we as yet know of stone-nature, to understand what a crystal will do, and why it does it. You at once admit a kind of volition and choice, in the flower; but we are not accustomed to attribute anything of the kind to the crystal. Yet there is, in reality, more likeness to some conditions of human feeling among stones than among plants. There is a far greater difference between kindly-tempered and ill- tempered crystals of the same mineral, than between any two specimens of the same flower: and the friendships and wars of crystals depend more definitely and curiously on their varieties of disposition, than any associations of flowers. Here, for instance, is a good garnet, living with good mica; one rich red, and the other silver white; the mica leaves exactly room enough for the garnet to crystallize comfortably in; and the garnet lives happily in its little white house; fitted to it, like a pholas in its cell. But here are wicked garnets living with wicked mica. See what ruin they make of each other! You cannot tell which is which; the garnets look like dull red stains on the crumbling stone. By the way, I never could understand, if St. Gothard is a real saint, why he can't keep his garnets in better order. These are all under his care; but I suppose there are too many of them for him to look after. The streets of Airolo are paved with them.
MAY. Paved with garnets?
L. With mica-slate and garnets; I broke this bit out of a paving stone. Now garnets and mica are natural friends, and generally fond of each other; but you see how they quarrel when they are ill brought up. So it is always. Good crystals are friendly with almost all other good crystals, however little they chance to see of each other, or however opposite their habits may be; while wicked crystals quarrel with one another, though they may be exactly alike in habits, and see each other continually. And of course the wicked crystals quarrel with the good ones.
ISABEL. Then do the good ones get angry?
L. No, never: they attend to their own work and life; and live it as well as they can, though they are always the sufferers. Here, for instance, is a rock crystal of the purest race and finest temper, who was born, unhappily for him, in a bad neighborhood, near Beaufort in Savoy; and he has had to fight with vile calcareous mud all his life. See here, when he was but a child, it came down on him, and nearly buried him; a weaker crystal would have died in despair; but he only gathered himself together, like Hercules against the serpents, and threw a layer of crystal over the clay; conquered it,—imprisoned it,—and lived on. Then, when he was a little older, came more clay; and poured itself upon him here, at the side; and he has laid crystal over that, and lived on, in his purity. Then the clay came on at his angles, and tried to cover them, and round them away; but upon that he threw out buttress-crystals at his angles, all as true to his own central line as chapels round a cathedral apse; and clustered them round the clay; and conquered it again. At last the clay came on at his summit, and tried to blunt his summit; but he could not endure that for an instant; and left his flanks all rough, but pure; and fought the clay at his crest, and built crest over crest and peak over peak, till the clay surrendered at last, and here is his summit, smooth and pure, terminating a pyramid of alternate clay and crystal, half a foot high!
LILY. Oh, how nice of him! What a dear, brave crystal! But I can't bear to see his flanks all broken, and the clay within them.
L. Yes; it was an evil chance for him, the being born to such contention; there are some enemies so base that even to hold them captive is a kind of dishonor. But look, here has been quite a different kind of struggle: the adverse power has been more orderly, and has fought the pure crystal in ranks as firm as its own. This is not mere rage and impediment of crowded evil: here is a disciplined hostility; army against army.
LILY. Oh, but this is much more beautiful!
L. Yes, for both the elements have true virtue in them, it is a pity they are at war, but they war grandly.
MARY. But is this the same clay as in the other crystal?
L. I used the word clay for shortness. In both, the enemy is really limestone; but in the first, disordered, and mixed with true clay; while, here, it is nearly pure, and crystallizes into its own primitive form, the oblique six-sided one, which you know: and out of these it makes regiments; and then squares of the regiments, and so charges the rock crystal, literally in square against column.
ISABEL. Please, please, let me see. And what does the rock crystal do?
L. The rock crystal seems able to do nothing. The calcite cuts it through at every charge. Look here,—and here! The loveliest crystal in the whole group is hewn fairly into two pieces.
ISABEL. Oh, dear; but is the calcite harder than the crystal then?
L. No, softer. Very much softer.
MARY. But then, how can it possibly cut the crystal?
L. It did not really cut it, though it passes through it. The two were formed together, as I told you but no one knows how. Still, it is strange that this hard quartz has in all cases a good- natured way with it, of yielding to everything else. All sorts of soft things make nests for themselves in it; and it never makes a nest for itself in anything. It has all the rough outside work; and every sort of cowardly and weak mineral can shelter itself within it. Look; these are hexagonal plates of mica; if they were outside of this crystal they would break, like burnt paper; but they are inside of it,—nothing can hurt them,—the crystal has taken them into its very heart, keeping all their delicate edges as sharp as if they were under water, instead of bathed in rock. Here is a piece of branched silver: you can bend it with a touch of your finger, but the stamp of its every fiber is on the rock in which it lay, as if the quartz had been as soft as wool.
LILY. Oh, the good, good quartz! But does it never get inside of anything?
L. As it is a little Irish girl who asks, I may perhaps answer, without being laughed at, that it gets inside of itself sometimes. But I don't remember seeing quartz make a nest for itself in anything else.
ISABEL. Please, there as something I heard you talking about, last time, with Miss Mary. I was at my lessons, but I heard something about nests; and I thought it was birds' nests; and I couldn't help listening; and then, I remember, it was about "nests of quartz in granite." I remember, because I was so disappointed!
L. Yes, mousie, you remember quite rightly; but I can't tell you about those nests to-day, nor perhaps to-morrow: but there's no contradiction between my saying then, and now; I will show you that there is not, some day. Will you trust me meanwhile?
ISABEL. Won't I!
L. Well, then, look, lastly, at this piece of courtesy in quartz; it is on a small scale, but wonderfully pretty. Here is nobly born quartz living with a green mineral, called epidote; and they are immense friends. Now, you see, a comparatively large and strong quartz-crystal, and a very weak and slender little one of epidote, have begun to grow, close by each other, and sloping unluckily towards each other, so that at last they meet. They cannot go on growing together; the quartz crystal is five times as thick, and more than twenty times as strong[Footnote: Quartz is not much harder than epidote; the strength is only supposed to be in some proportion to the squares of the diameters.], as the epidote; but he stops at once, just in the very crowning moment of his life, when he is building his own summit! He lets the pale little film of epidote grow right past him; stopping his own summit for it; and he never himself grows any more.
LILY (after some silence of wonder). But is the quartz NEVER wicked then?
L. Yes, but the wickedest quartz seems good-natured, compared to other things. Here are two very characteristic examples; one is good quartz, living with good pearl-spar, and the other, wicked quartz, living with wicked pearl spar. In both, the quartz yields to the soft carbonate of iron: but, in the first place, the iron takes only what it needs of room; and is inserted into the planes of the rock crystal with such precision that you must break it away before you can tell whether it really penetrates the quartz or not; while the crystals of iron are perfectly formed, and have a lovely bloom on their surface besides. But here, when the two minerals quarrel, the unhappy quartz has all its surfaces jagged and torn to pieces; and there is not a single iron crystal whose shape you can completely trace. But the quartz has the worst of it, in both instances.
VIOLET. Might we look at that piece of broken quartz again, with the weak little film across it? it seems such a strange lovely thing, like the self-sacrifice of a human being.
L. The self-sacrifice of a human being is not a lovely thing, Violet. It is often a necessary and noble thing; but no form nor degree of suicide can be ever lovely.
VIOLET. But self-sacrifice is not suicide!
L. What is it then?
VIOLET. Giving up one's self for another.
L. Well; and what do you mean by "giving up one's self"?
VIOLET. Giving up one's tastes, one's feelings, one's time, one's happiness, and so on, to make others happy.
L. I hope you will never marry anybody, Violet, who expects you to make him happy in that way.
VIOLET (hesitating). In what way?
L. By giving up your tastes, and sacrificing your feelings, and happiness.
VIOLET. No, no, I don't mean that; but you know, for other people, one must.
L. For people who don't love you, and whom you know nothing about? Be it so; but how does this "giving up" differ from suicide then?
VIOLET. Why, giving up one's pleasures is not killing one's self?
L. Giving up wrong pleasure is not; neither is it self-sacrifice, but self-culture. But giving up right pleasure is. If you surrender the pleasure of walking, your foot will wither: you may as well cut it off: if you surrender the pleasure of seeing, your eyes will soon be unable to bear the light; you may as well pluck them out. And to maim yourself is partly to kill yourself. Do but go on maiming, and you will soon slay.
VIOLET. But why do you make me think of that verse then, about the foot and the eye?
L. You are indeed commanded to cut off and to pluck out, if foot or eye offend you; but why SHOULD they offend you?
VIOLET. I don't know; I never quite understood that.
L. Yet it is a sharp order; one needing to be well understood if it is to be well obeyed! When Helen sprained her ankle the other day, you saw how strongly it had to be bandaged; that is to say, prevented from all work, to recover it. But the bandage was not "lovely."
VIOLET. No, indeed.
L. And if her foot had been crushed, or diseased, or snake-bitten, instead of sprained, it might have been needful to cut it off. But the amputation would not have been "lovely."
VIOLET. No.
L. Well, if eye and foot are dead already, and betray you,—if the light that is in you be darkness, and your feet run into mischief, or are taken in the snare,—it is indeed time to pluck out, and cut off, I think: but, so crippled, you can never be what you might have been otherwise. You enter into life, at best, halt or maimed; and the sacrifice is not beautiful, though necessary.
VIOLET (after a pause). But when one sacrifices one's self for others?
L. Why not rather others for you?
VIOLET. Oh! but I couldn't bear that.
L. Then why should they bear it?
DORA (bursting in, indignant). And Thermopylae, and Protesilaus, and Marcus Curtius, and Arnold de Winkelried, and Iphigenia, and Jephthah's daughter?
L. (sustaining the indignation unmoved). And the Samaritan woman's son?
DORA. Which Samaritan woman's?
L. Read 2 Kings vi. 29.
DORA (obeys). How horrid! As if we meant anything like that!
L. You don't seem to me to know in the least what you do mean, children. What practical difference is there between "that," and what you are talking about? The Samaritan children had no voice of their own in the business, it is true; but neither had Iphigenia: the Greek girl was certainly neither boiled, nor eaten; but that only makes a difference in the dramatic effect; not in the principle.
DORA (biting her lip). Well, then, tell us what we ought to mean. As if you didn't teach it all to us, and mean it yourself, at this moment, more than we do, if you wouldn't be tiresome!
L. I mean, and always have meant, simply this, Dora;—that the will of God respecting us is that we shall live by each other's happiness, and life; not by each other's misery, or death. I made you read that verse which so shocked you just now, because the relations of parent and child are typical of all beautiful human help. A child may have to die for its parents; but the purpose of Heaven is that it shall rather live for them;—that, not by its sacrifice, but by its strength, its joy, its force of being, it shall be to them renewal of strength; and as the arrow in the hand of the giant. So it is in all other right relations. Men help each other by their joy, not by their sorrow. They are not intended to slay themselves for each other, but to strengthen themselves for each other. And among the many apparently beautiful things which turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that the thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men must be named as one of the fatalest. They have so often been taught that there is a virtue in mere suffering, as such; and foolishly to hope that good may be brought by Heaven out of all on which Heaven itself has set the stamp of evil, that we may avoid it,—that they accept pain and defeat as if these were their appointed portion; never understanding that their defeat is not the less to be mourned because it is more fatal to their enemies than to them. The one thing that a good man has to do, and to see done, is justice; he is neither to slay himself nor others causelessly: so far from denying himself, since he is pleased by good, he is to do his utmost to get his pleasure accomplished. And I only wish there were strength, fidelity, and sense enough, among the good Englishmen of this day, to render it possible for them to band together in a vowed brotherhood, to enforce, by strength of heart and hand, the doing of human justice among all who came within their sphere. And finally, for your own teaching, observe, although there may be need for much self-sacrifice and self-denial in the correction of faults of character, the moment the character is formed, the self-denial ceases. Nothing is really well done, which it costs you pain to do.
VIOLET. But surely, sir, you are always pleased with us when we try to please others, and not ourselves?
L. My dear child, in the daily course and discipline of right life, we must continually and reciprocally submit and surrender in all kind and courteous and affectionate ways: and these submissions and ministries to each other, of which you all know (none better) the practice and the preciousness, are as good for the yielder as the receiver: they strengthen and perfect as much as they soften and refine. But the real sacrifice of all our strength, or life, or happiness to others (though it may be needed, and though all brave creatures hold their lives in their hand, to be given, when such need comes, as frankly as a soldier gives his life in battle), is yet always a mournful and momentary necessity; not the fulfillment of the continuous law of being. Self-sacrifice which is sought after, and triumphed in, is usually foolish; and calamitous in its issue: and by the sentimental proclamation and pursuit of it, good people have not only made most of their own lives useless, but the whole framework of their religion so hollow, that at this moment, while the English nation, with its lips, pretends to teach every man to "love his neighbor as himself," with its hands and feet it clutches and tramples like a wild beast; and practically lives, every soul of it that can, on other people's labor. Briefly, the constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts; and to strengthen them for the help of others. Do you think Titian would have helped the world better by denying himself, and not painting; or Casella by denying himself, and not singing! The real virtue is to be ready to sing the moment people ask us; as he was, even in purgatory. The very word "virtue" means not "conduct" but "strength," vital energy in the heart. Were not you reading about that group of words beginning with V,—vital, virtuous, vigorous, and so on,—in Max Muller, the other day, Sibyl? Can't you tell the others about it?
SIBYL. No, I can't; will you tell us, please?
L. Not now, it is too late. Come to me some idle time to-morrow, and I'll tell you about it, if all's well. But the gist of it is, children, that you should at least know two Latin words; recollect that "mors" means death and delaying; and "vita" means life and growing: and try always, not to mortify yourselves, but to vivify yourselves.
VIOLET. But, then, are we not to mortify our earthly affections? and surely we are to sacrifice ourselves, at least in God's service, if not in man's?
L. Really, Violet, we are getting too serious. I've given you enough ethics for one talk, I think! Do let us have a little play. Lily, what were you so busy about, at the ant-hill in the wood, this morning?
LILY. Oh, it was the ants who were busy, not I; I was only trying to help them a little.
L. And they wouldn't be helped, I suppose?
LILY. No, indeed. I can't think why ants are always so tiresome, when one tries to help them! They were carrying bits of stick, as fast as they could, through a piece of grass; and pulling and pushing, SO hard; and tumbling over and over,—it made one quite pity them; so I took some of the bits of stick, and carried them forward a little, where I thought they wanted to put them; but instead of being pleased, they left them directly, and ran about looking quite angry and frightened; and at last ever so many of them got up my sleeves, and bit me all over, and I had to come away.
L. I couldn't think what you were about. I saw your French grammar lying on the grass behind you, and thought perhaps you had gone to ask the ants to hear you a French verb.
ISABEL. Ah! but you didn't, though!
L. Why not, Isabel? I knew, well enough, Lily couldn't learn that verb by herself.
ISABEL. No; but the ants couldn't help her.
L. Are you sure the ants could not have helped you, Lily?
LILY (thinking). I ought to have learned something from them, perhaps.
L. But none of them left their sticks to help you through the irregular verb?
LILY. No, indeed. (Laughing, with some others.)
L. What are you laughing at, children? I cannot see why the ants should not have left their tasks to help Lily in hers,—since here is Violet thinking she ought to leave HER tasks, to help God in his. Perhaps, however, she takes Lily's more modest view, and thinks only that "He ought to learn something from her."
(Tears in VIOLET'S eyes.)
DORA (scarlet). It's too bad—it's a shame:—poor Violet!
L. My dear children, there's no reason why one should be so red, and the other so pale, merely because you are made for a moment to feel the absurdity of a phrase which you have been taught to use, in common with half the religious world. There is but one way in which man can ever help God—that is, by letting God help him: and there is no way in which His name is more guiltily taken in vain, than by calling the abandonment of our own work, the performance of His.
God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where He wishes us to be employed; and that employment is truly "our Father's business." He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle ourselves, it is ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him, if we are not happy ourselves. Now, away with you, children; and be as happy as you can. And when you cannot, at least don't plume yourselves upon pouting.
LECTURE 7.
HOME VIRTUES
By the fireside, in the Drawing-room. Evening.
DORA. Now, the curtains are drawn, and the fire's bright, and here's your arm-chair—and you're to tell us all about what you promised.
L. All about what?
DORA. All about virtue.
KATHLEEN. Yes, and about the words that begin with V.
L. I heard you singing about a word that begins with V, in the playground, this morning, Miss Katie.
KATHLEEN. Me singing!
MAY. Oh tell us—tell us.
L. "Vilikens and his—"
KATHLEEN (stopping his mouth). Oh! please don't. Where were you?
ISABEL. I'm sure I wish I had known where he was! We lost him among the rhododendrons, and I don't know where he got to; oh, you naughty—naughty—(climbs on his knee).
DORA. Now, Isabel, we really want to talk.
L. I don't.
DORA. Oh, but you must. You promised, you know.
L. Yes, if all was well; but all's ill. I'm tired and cross; and I won't.
DORA. You're not a bit tired, and you're not crosser than two sticks; and we'll make you talk, if you were crosser than six. Come here, Egypt; and get on the other side of him.
(EGYPT takes up a commanding position near the hearth-brush.)
DORA (reviewing her forces). Now, Lily, come and sit on the rug in front.
(LILY does as she is bid.)
L. (seeing he has no chance against the odds). Well, well; but I'm really tired. Go and dance a little, first; and let me think.
DORA. No; you mustn't think. You will be wanting to make us think next; that will be tiresome.
L. Well, go and dance first, to get quit of thinking: and then I'll talk as long as you like.
DORA. Oh, but we can't dance to-night. There isn't time; and we want to hear about virtue.
L. Let me see a little of it first. Dancing is the first of girls' virtues.
EGYPT. Indeed! And the second?
L. Dressing.
EGYPT. Now, you needn't say that! I mended that tear the first thing before breakfast this morning.
L. I cannot otherwise express the ethical principle, Egypt; whether you have mended your gown or not.
DORA. Now don't be tiresome. We really must hear about virtue, please; seriously.
L. Well. I'm telling you about it, as fast as I can.
DORA. What! the first of girls' virtues is dancing?
L. More accurately, it is wishing to dance, and not wishing to tease, nor hear about virtue.
DORA (to EGYPT). Isn't he cross?
EGYPT. How many balls must we go to in the season, to be perfectly virtuous?
L. As many as you can without losing your color. But I did not say you should wish to go to balls. I said you should be always wanting to dance.
EGYPT. So we do; but everybody says it is very wrong.
L. Why, Egypt, I thought—
"There was a lady once, That would not be a queen,—that would she not, For all the mud in Egypt."
You were complaining the other day of having to go out a great deal oftener than you liked.
EGYPT. Yes, so I was; but then, it isn't to dance. There's no room to dance: it's—(Pausing to consider what it is for).
L. It is only to be seen, I suppose. Well, there's no harm in that. Girls ought to like to be seen.
DORA (her eyes flashing). Now, you don't mean that; and you're too provoking; and we won't dance again, for a month.
L. It will answer every purpose of revenge, Dora, if you only banish me to the library; and dance by yourselves; but I don't think Jessie and Lily will agree to that. You like me to see you dancing, don't you, Lily?
LILY. Yes, certainly,—when we do it rightly.
L. And besides, Miss Dora, if young ladies really do not want to be seen, they should take care not to let their eyes flash when they dislike what people say: and, more than that, it is all nonsense from beginning to end, about not wanting to be seen. I don't know any more tiresome flower in the borders than your especially "modest" snowdrop; which one always has to stoop down and take all sorts of tiresome trouble with, and nearly break its poor little head off, before you can see it; and then, half of it is not worth seeing. Girls should be like daisies, nice and white, with an edge of red, if you look close, making the ground bright wherever they are, knowing simply and quietly that they do it, and are meant to do it and that it would be very wrong if they didn't do it. Not want to be seen, indeed! How long were you in doing up your back hair, this afternoon Jessie?
(JESSIE not immediately answering, DORA comes to her assistance)
DORA. Not above three-quarters of an hour, I think, Jess?
JESSIE (putting her finger up). Now, Dorothy, you needn't talk, you know!
L. I know she needn't, Jessie, I shall ask her about those dark plaits presently. (DORA looks round to see if there is any way open for retreat) But never mind, it was worth the time, whatever it was, and nobody will ever mistake that golden wreath for a chignon: but if you don't want it to be seen you had better wear a cap.
JESSIE. Ah, now, are you really going to do nothing but play? And we all have been thinking, and thinking, all day, and hoping you would tell us things, and now—!
L. And now I am telling you things, and true things, and things good for you, and you won't believe me. You might as well have let me go to sleep at once, as I wanted to. (Endeavors again to make himself comfortable.)
ISABEL. Oh, no, no, you sha'n't go to sleep, you naughty!— Kathleen, come here.
L. (knowing what he has to expect if KATHLEEN comes). Get away, Isabel, you're too heavy. (Sitting up.) What have I been saying?
DORA. I do believe he has been asleep all the time! You never heard anything like the things you've been saying.
L. Perhaps not. If you have heard them, and anything like them, it is all I want.
EGYPT. Yes, but we don't understand, and you know we don't; and we want to.
L. What did I say first?
DORA. That the first virtue of girls was wanting to go to balls.
L. I said nothing of the kind.
JESSIE. "Always wanting to dance," you said.
L. Yes, and that's true. Their first virtue is to be intensely happy;—so happy that they don't know what to do with themselves for happiness,—and dance, instead of walking. Don't you recollect "Louisa,"
"No fountain from a rocky cave E'er tripped with foot so free; She seemed as happy as a wave That dances on the sea."
A girl is always like that, when everything's right with her.
VIOLET. But, surely, one must be sad sometimes?
L. Yes, Violet and dull sometimes and stupid sometimes, and cross sometimes. What must be, must; but it is always either our own fault, or somebody else's. The last and worst thing that can be said of a nation is, that it has made its young girls sad, and weary.
MAY. But I am sure I have heard a great many good people speak against dancing?
L. Yes, May, but it does not follow they were wise as well as good. I suppose they think Jeremiah liked better to have to write Lamentations for his people, than to have to write that promise for them, which everybody seems to hurry past, that they may get on quickly to the verse about Rachel weeping for her children, though the verse they pass is the counter blessing to that one: "Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance; and both young men and old together, and I will turn their mourning into joy."
(The children get very serious, but look at each other, as if pleased.)
MARY. They understand now: but, do you know what you said next?
L. Yes, I was not more than half asleep. I said their second virtue was dressing.
MARY. Well! what did you mean by that?
L. What do YOU mean by dressing?
MARY. Wearing fine clothes.
L. Ah! there's the mistake. I mean wearing plain ones.
MARY. Yes, I daresay I but that's not what girls understand by dressing, you know.
L. I can't help that. If they understand by dressing, buying dresses, perhaps they also understand by drawing, buying pictures. But when I hear them say they can draw, I understand that they can make a drawing; and when I hear them say they can dress, I understand that they can make a dress and—which is quite as difficult—wear one.
DORA. I'm not sure about the making; for the wearing, we can all wear them—out, before anybody expects it.
EGYPT (aside to L., piteously). Indeed I have mended that torn flounce quite neatly; look if I haven't!
L. (aside, to EGYPT). All right; don't be afraid. (Aloud to DORA.) Yes, doubtless; but you know that is only a slow way of UNdressing.
DORA. Then, we are all to learn dress-making, are we?
L. Yes; and always to dress yourselves beautifully—not finely, unless on occasion; but then very finely and beautifully, too. Also, you are to dress as many other people as you can; and to teach them how to dress, if they don't know; and to consider every ill-dressed woman or child whom you see anywhere, as a personal disgrace; and to get at them, somehow, until everybody is as beautifully dressed as birds.
(Silence; the children drawing their breaths hard, as if they had come from under a shower bath.)
L. (seeing objections begin to express themselves in the eyes). Now you needn't say you can't; for you can, and it's what you were meant to do, always; and to dress your houses, and your gardens, too; and to do very little else, I believe, except singing; and dancing, as we said, of course and—one thing more.
DORA. Our third and last virtue, I suppose?
L. Yes; on Violet's system of triplicities.
DORA. Well, we are prepared for anything now. What is it?
L. Cooking.
DORA. Cardinal, indeed! If only Beatrice were here with her seven handmaids, that she might see what a fine eighth we had found for her!
MARY. And the interpretation? What does "cooking" mean?
L. It means the knowledge of Medea, and of Circe, and of Calypso, and of Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices; and of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, and savory in meats, it means carefulness, and inventiveness, and watchfulness, and willingness, and readiness of appliance, it means the economy of your great-grandmothers, and the science of modern chemists; it means much tasting, and no wasting, it means English thoroughness, and French art, and Arabian hospitality, and it means, in fine, that you are to be perfectly and always "ladies"—"loaf-givers;" and, as you are to see, imperatively, that everybody has something pretty to put on,—so you are to see, yet more imperatively, that everybody has something nice to eat.
(Another pause, and long drawn breath.)
DORA (slowly recovering herself) to EGYPT. We had better have let him go to sleep, I think, after all!
L. You had better let the younger ones go to sleep now: for I haven't half done.
ISABEL (panic-struck). Oh! please, please! just one quarter of an hour.
L. No, Isabel, I cannot say what I've got to say in a quarter of an hour; and it is too hard for you, besides:—you would be lying awake, and trying to make it out, half the night. That will never do.
ISABEL. Oh, please!
L. It would please me exceedingly, mousie: but there are times when we must both be displeased; more's the pity. Lily may stay for half an hour, if she likes.
LILY. I can't, because Isey never goes to sleep, if she is waiting for me to come.
ISABEL. Oh, yes, Lily, I'll go to sleep to-night. I will, indeed.
LILY. Yes, it's very likely, Isey, with those fine round eyes! (To L.) You'll tell me something of what you we been saying, to- morrow, won't you?
L. No, I won't, Lily. You must choose. It's only in Miss Edgeworth's novels that one can do right, and have one's cake and sugar afterwards as well (not that I consider the dilemma, to- night, so grave).
(LILY, sighing, takes ISABEL'S hand.)
Yes, Lily dear, it will be better, in the outcome of it, so, than if you were to hear all the talks that eer were talked, and all the stories that ever were told. Good-night.
(The door leading to the condemned cells of the Dormitory closes on LILY, ISABEL, FLORRIE, and other diminutive and submissive victims.)
JESSIE (after a pause). Why, I thought you were so fond of Miss Edgeworth.
L. So I am, and so you ought all to be. I can read her over and over again, without ever tiring; there's no one whose every page is so full, and so delightful, no one who brings you into the company of pleasanter or wiser people; no one who tells you more truly how to do right. And it is very nice, in the midst of a wild world, to have the very ideal of poetical justice done always to one's hand:—to have everybody found out, who tells lies; and everybody decorated with a red riband, who doesn't; and to see the good Laura, who gave away her half sovereign, receiving a grand ovation from an entire dinner party disturbed for the purpose; and poor, dear, little Rosamond, who chooses purple jars instead of new shoes, left at last without either her shoes or her bottle. But it isn't life: and, in the way children might easily understand it, it isn't morals.
JESSIE. How do you mean we might understand it?
L. You might think Miss Edgeworth meant that the right was to be done mainly because one was always rewarded for doing it. It is an injustice to her to say that: her heroines always do right simply for its own sake, as they should; and her examples of conduct and motive are wholly admirable. But her representation of events is false and misleading. Her good characters never are brought into the deadly trial of goodness,—the doing right, and suffering for it, quite finally. And that is life, as God arranges it. "Taking up one's cross" does not at all mean having ovations at dinner parties, and being put over everybody else's head.
DORA. But what does it mean then? That is just what we couldn't understand, when you were telling us about not sacrificing ourselves, yesterday.
L. My dear, it means simply that you are to go the road which you see to be the straight one; carrying whatever you find is given you to carry, as well and stoutly as you can; without making faces, or calling people to come and look at you. Above all, you are neither to load, nor unload, yourself; nor cut your cross to your own liking. Some people think it would be better for them to have it large; and many, that they could carry it much faster if it were small; and even those who like it largest are usually very particular about its being ornamental, and made of the best ebony. But all that you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it—above all, not to boast of what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of "virtue" is in that straightness of back. Yes; you may laugh, children, but it is. You know I was to tell you about the words that began with V. Sibyl, what does "virtue" mean literally?
SIBYL. Does it mean courage?
L. Yes; but a particular kind of courage. It means courage of the nerve; vital courage. That first syllable of it, if you look in Max Muller, you will find really means "nerve," and from it come "vis," and "vir," and "virgin" (through vireo), and the connected word "virga"—"a rod;"—the green rod, or springing bough of a tree, being the type of perfect human strength, both in the use of. it in the Mosaic story, when it becomes a serpent, or strikes the rock; or when Aaron's bears its almonds; and in the metaphorical expressions, the "Rod out of the stem of Jesse," and the "Man whose name is the Branch," and so on. And the essential idea of real virtue is that of a vital human strength, which instinctively, constantly, and without motive, does what is right. You must train men to this by habit, as you would the branch of a tree; and give them instincts and manners (or morals) of purity, justice, kindness, and courage. Once rightly trained, they act as they should, irrespectively of all motive, of fear, or of reward. It is the blackest sign of putrescence in a national religion, when men speak as if it were the only safeguard of conduct; and assume that, but for the fear of being burned, or for the hope of being rewarded, everybody would pass their lives in lying, stealing, and murdering. I think quite one of the notablest historical events of this century (perhaps the very notablest), was that council of clergymen, horror-struck at the idea of any diminution in our dread of hell, at which the last of English clergymen whom one would have expected to see in such a function, rose as the devil's advocate; to tell us how impossible it was we could get on without him.
VIOLET (after a pause). But, surely, if people weren't afraid— (hesitates again).
L. They should be afraid of doing wrong, and of that only, my dear. Otherwise, if they only don't do wrong for fear of being punished, they HAVE done wrong in their hearts already.
VIOLET. Well, but surely, at least one ought to be afraid of displeasing God; and one's desire to please Him should be one's first motive?
L. He never would be pleased with us, if it were, my dear. When a father sends his son out into the world—suppose as an apprentice —fancy the boy's coming home at night, and saying, "Father, I could have robbed the till to-day; but I didn't, because I thought you wouldn't like it." Do you think the father would be particularly pleased?
(VIOLET is silent.)
He would answer, would he not, if he were wise and good, "My boy, though you had no father, you must not rob tills"? And nothing is ever done so as really to please our Great Father, unless we would also have done it, though we had had no Father to know of it.
VIOLET (after long pause). But, then, what continual threatenings, and promises of reward there are!
L. And how vain both! with the Jews, and with all of us. But the fact is, that the threat and promise are simply statements of the Divine law, and of its consequences. The fact is truly told you,— make what use you may of it: and as collateral warning, or encouragement, or comfort, the knowledge of future consequences may often be helpful to us; but helpful chiefly to the better state when we can act without reference to them. And there's no measuring the poisoned influence of that notion of future reward on the mind of Christian Europe, in the early ages. Half the monastic system rose out of that, acting on the occult pride and ambition of good people (as the other half of it came of their follies and misfortunes). There is always a considerable quantity of pride, to begin with, in what is called "giving one's self to God." As if one had ever belonged to anybody else!
DORA. But, surely, great good has come out of the monastic system —our books,—our sciences—all saved by the monks?
L. Saved from what, my dear? From the abyss of misery and ruin which that false Christianity allowed the whole active world to live in. When it had become the principal amusement, and the most admired art of Christian men, to cut one another's throats, and burn one another's towns; of course the few feeble or reasonable persons left, who desired quiet, safety, and kind fellowship, got into cloisters; and the gentlest, thoughtfullest, noblest men and women shut themselves up, precisely where they could be of least use. They are very fine things, for us painters, now—the towers and white arches upon the tops of the rocks; always in places where it takes a day's climbing to get at them; but the intense tragi-comedy of the thing, when one thinks of it, is unspeakable. All the good people of the world getting themselves hung up out of the way of mischief, like Bailie Nicol Jarvie;—poor little lambs, as it were, dangling there for the sign of the Golden Fleece; or like Socrates in his basket in the "Clouds"! (I must read you that bit of Aristophanes again, by the way.) And believe me, children, I am no warped witness, as far as regards monasteries; or if I am, it is in their favor. I have always had a strong leaning that way; and have pensively shivered with Augustines at St. Bernard; and happily made hay with Franciscans at Fesole; and sat silent with Carthusians in their little gardens, south of Florence; and mourned through many a day-dream, at Melrose and Bolton. But the wonder is always to me, not how much, but how little, the monks have, on the whole, done, with all that leisure, and all that good-will! What nonsense monks characteristically wrote;—what little progress they made in the sciences to which they devoted themselves as a duty,—medicine especially;—and, last and worst, what depths of degradation they can sometimes see one another, and the population round them, sink into; without either doubting their system, or reforming it!
(Seeing questions rising to lips.) Hold your little tongues, children; it's very late, and you'll make me forget what I've to say. Fancy yourselves in pews, for five minutes. There's one point of possible good in the conventual system, which is always attractive to young girls; and the idea is a very dangerous one;— 0the notion of a merit, or exalting virtue, consisting in a habit of meditation on the "things above," or things of the next world. Now it is quite true, that a person of beautiful mind, dwelling on whatever appears to them most desirable and lovely in a possible future, will not only pass their time pleasantly, but will even acquire, at last, a vague and wildly gentle charm of manner and feature, which will give them an air of peculiar sanctity in the eyes of others. Whatever real or apparent good there may be in this result, I want you to observe, children, that we have no real authority for the reveries to which it is owing. We are told nothing distinctly of the heavenly world; except that it will be free from sorrow, and pure from sin. What is said of pearl gates, golden floors, and the like, is accepted as merely figurative by religious enthusiasts themselves; and whatever they pass their time in conceiving, whether of the happiness of risen souls, of their intercourse, or of the appearance and employment of the heavenly powers, is entirely the product of their own imagination; and as completely and distinctly a work of fiction, or romantic invention, as any novel of Sir Walter Scott's. That the romance is founded on religious theory or doctrine;—that no disagreeable or wicked persons are admitted into the story;—and that the inventor fervently hopes that some portion of it may hereafter come true, does not in the least alter the real nature of the effort or enjoyment.
Now, whatever indulgence may be granted to amiable people for pleasing themselves in this innocent way, it is beyond question, that to seclude themselves from the rough duties of life, merely to write religious romances, or, as in most cases, merely to dream them, without taking so much trouble as is implied in writing, ought not to be received as an act of heroic virtue. But, observe, even in admitting thus much, I have assumed that the fancies are just and beautiful, though fictitious. Now, what right have any of us to assume that our own fancies will assuredly be either the one or the other? That they delight us, and appear lovely to us, is no real proof of its not being wasted time to form them: and we may surely be led somewhat to distrust our judgment of them by observing what ignoble imaginations have sometimes sufficiently, or even enthusiastically, occupied the hearts of others. The principal source of the spirit of religious contemplation is the East; now I have here in my hand a Byzantine image of Christ, which, if you will look at it seriously, may, I think, at once and forever render you cautious in the indulgence of a merely contemplative habit of mind. Observe, it is the fashion to look at such a thing only as a piece of barbarous art; that is the smallest part of its interest. What I want you to see, is the baseness and falseness of a religious state of enthusiasm, in which such a work could be dwelt upon with pious pleasure. That a figure, with two small round black beads for eyes; a gilded face, deep cut into horrible wrinkles; an open gash for a mouth, and a distorted skeleton for a body, wrapped about, to make it fine, with striped enamel of blue and gold;—that such a figure, I say, should ever have been thought helpful towards the conception of a Redeeming Deity, may make you, I think, very doubtful, even of the Divine approval,—much more of the Divine inspiration,—of religious reverie in general. You feel, doubtless, that your own idea of Christ would be something very different from this; but in what does the difference consist? Not in any more divine authority in your imagination; but in the intellectual work of six intervening centuries; which, simply, by artistic discipline, has refined this crude conception for you, and filled you, partly with an innate sensation, partly with an acquired knowledge, of higher forms,—which render this Byzantine crucifix as horrible to you, as it was pleasing to its maker. More is required to excite your fancy; but your fancy is of no more authority than his was: and a point of national art-skill is quite conceivable, in which the best we can do now will be as offensive to the religious dreamers of the more highly cultivated time, as this Byzantine crucifix is to you.
MARY. But surely, Angelico will always retain his power over everybody?
L. Yes, I should think, always; as the gentle words of a child will: but you would be much surprised, Mary, if you thoroughly took the pains to analyze, and had the perfect means of analyzing, that power of Angelico,—to discover its real sources. Of course it is natural, at first, to attribute it to the pure religious fervor by which he was inspired; but do you suppose Angelico was really the only monk, in all the Christian world of the middle ages, who labored, in art, with a sincere religious enthusiasm?
MARY. No, certainly not.
L. Anything more frightful, more destructive of all religious faith whatever, than such a supposition, could not be. And yet, what other monk ever produced such work? I have myself examined carefully upwards of two thousand illuminated missals, with especial view to the discovery of any evidence of a similar result upon the art, from the monkish devotion; and utterly in vain.
MARY. But then, was not Fra Angelico a man of entirely separate and exalted genius?
L. Unquestionably; and granting him to be that, the peculiar phenomenon in his art is, to me, not its loveliness, but its weakness. The effect of "inspiration," had it been real, on a man of consummate genius, should have been, one would have thought, to make everything that he did faultless and strong, no less than lovely. But of all men, deserving to be called "great," Fra Angelico permits to himself the least pardonable faults, and the most palpable follies. There is evidently within him a sense of grace, and power of invention, as great as Ghiberti's:—we are in the habit of attributing those high qualities to his religious enthusiasm; but, if they were produced by that enthusiasm in him, they ought to be produced by the same feelings in others; and we see they are not. Whereas, comparing him with contemporary great artists, of equal grace and invention, one peculiar character remains notable in him,—which, logically, we ought therefore to attribute to the religious fervor;—and that distinctive character is, the contented indulgence of his own weaknesses, and perseverance in his own ignorances.
MARY. But that's dreadful! And what is the source of the peculiar charm which we all feel in his work?
L. There are many sources of it, Mary; united and seeming like one. You would never feel that charm but in the work of an entirely good man; be sure of that; but the goodness is only the recipient and modifying element, not the creative one. Consider carefully what delights you in any original picture of Angelico's. You will find, for one minor thing, an exquisite variety and brightness of ornamental work. That is not Angelico's inspiration. It is the final result of the labor and thought of millions of artists, of all nations; from the earliest Egyptian potters downwards—Greeks, Byzantines, Hindoos, Arabs, Gauls, and Northmen—all joining in the toil; and consummating it in Florence, in that century, with such embroidery of robe and inlaying of armor as had never been seen till then; nor probably, ever will be seen more. Angelico merely takes his share of this inheritance, and applies it in the tenderest way to subjects which are peculiarly acceptant of it. But the inspiration, if it exist anywhere, flashes on the knight's shield quite as radiantly as on the monk's picture. Examining farther into the sources of your emotion in the Angelico work, you will find much of the impression of sanctity dependent on a singular repose and grace of gesture, consummating itself in the floating, flying, and above all, in the dancing groups. That is not Angelico's inspiration. It is only a peculiarly tender use of systems of grouping which had been long before developed by Giotto, Memmi, and Orcagna; and the real root of it all is simply—What do you think, children? The beautiful dancing of the Florentine maidens!
DORA (indignant again). Now, I wonder what next! Why not say it all depended on Herodias' daughter, at once?
L. Yes; it is certainly a great argument against singing that there were once sirens.
DORA. Well, it may be all very fine and philosophical, but shouldn't I just like to read you the end of the second volume of "Modern Painters"!
L. My dear, do you think any teacher could be worth your listening to, or anybody else's listening to, who had learned nothing, and altered his mind in nothing, from seven and twenty to seven and forty? But that second volume is very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle-pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra Angelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues of what you love, else you might come to love both alike; or even the weaknesses without the virtues. You might end by liking Overbeck and Cornelius as well as Angelico. However, I have perhaps been leaning a little too much to the merely practical side of things, in to-night's talk; and you are always to remember, children, that I do not deny, though I cannot affirm, the spiritual advantages resulting, in certain cases, from enthusiastic religious reverie, and from the other practices of saints and anchorites. The evidence respecting them has never yet been honestly collected, much less dispassionately examined: but assuredly, there is in that direction a probability, and more than a probability, of dangerous error, while there is none whatever in the practice of an active, cheerful, and benevolent life. The hope of attaining a higher religious position, which induces us to encounter, for its exalted alternative, the risk of unhealthy error, is often, as I said, founded more on pride than piety; and those who, in modest usefulness, have accepted what seemed to them here the lowliest place in the kingdom of their Father, are not, I believe, the least likely to receive hereafter the command, then unmistakable, "Friend, go up higher."
LECTURE 8.
CRYSTAL CAPRICE
Formal Lecture in Schoolroom, after some practical examination of minerals.
L. We have seen enough, children, though very little of what might be seen if we had more time, of mineral structures produced by visible opposition, or contest among elements; structures of which the variety, however great, need not surprise us: for we quarrel, ourselves, for many and slight causes,—much more, one should think, may crystals, who can only feel the antagonism, not argue about it. But there is a yet more singular mimicry of our human ways in the varieties of form which appear owing to no antagonistic force; but merely to the variable humor and caprice of the crystals themselves: and I have asked you all to come into the schoolroom to-day, because, of course, this is a part of the crystal mind which must be peculiarly interesting to a feminine audience. (Great symptoms of disapproval on the part of said audience.) Now, you need not pretend that it will not interest you; why should it not? It is true that we men are never capricious; but that only makes us the more dull and disagreeable. You, who are crystalline in brightness, as well as in caprice, charm infinitely, by infinitude of change. (Audible murmurs of "Worse and worse!" "As if we could be got over that way!" Etc. The LECTURER, however, observing the expression of the features to be more complacent, proceeds.) And the most curious mimicry, if not of your changes of fashion, at least of your various modes (in healthy periods) of national costume, takes place among the crystals of different countries. With a little experience, it is quite possible to say at a glance, in what districts certain crystals have been found; and although, if we had knowledge extended and accurate enough, we might of course ascertain the laws and circumstances which have necessarily produced the form peculiar to each locality, this would be just as true of the fancies of the human mind. If we could know the exact circumstances which affect it, we could foretell what now seems to us only caprice of thought, as well as what now seems to us only caprice of crystal: nay, so far as our knowledge reaches, it is on the whole easier to find some reason why the peasant girls of Berne should wear their caps in the shape of butterflies; and the peasant girls of Munich theirs in the shape of shells, than to say why the rock-crystals of Dauphine should all have their summits of the shape of lip-pieces of flageolets, while those of St. Gothard are symmetrical, or why the fluor of Chamouni is rose-colored, and in octahedrons, while the fluor of Weardale is green, and in cubes. Still farther removed is the hope, at present, of accounting for minor differences in modes of grouping and construction. Take, for instance, the caprices of this single mineral, quart;—variations upon a single theme. It has many forms; but see what it will make out of this ONE, the six-sided prism. For shortness' sake, I shall call the body of the prism its "column," and the pyramid at the extremities its "cap." Now, here, first you have a straight column as long and thin as a stalk of asparagus, with two little caps at the ends; and here you have a short thick column, as solid as a haystack, with two fat caps at the ends; and here you have two caps fastened together, and no column at all between them! Then here is a crystal with its column fat in the middle, and tapering to a little cap; and here is one stalked like a mushroom, with a huge cap put on the top of a slender column! Then here is a column built wholly out of little caps, with a large smooth cap at the top. And here is a column built of columns and caps; the caps all truncated about half-way to their points. And in both these last, the little crystals are set anyhow, and build the large one in a disorderly way; but here is a crystal made of columns and truncated caps, set in regular terraces all the way up.
MARY. But are not these groups of crystals, rather than one crystal?
L. What do you mean by a group, and what by one crystal?
DORA (audibly aside, to MARY, who is brought to pause). You know you are never expected to answer, Mary.
L. I'm sure this is easy enough. What do you mean by a group of people?
MARY. Three or four together, or a good many together, like the caps in these crystals.
L. But when a great many persons get together they don't take the shape of one person?
(MARY still at pause.)
ISABEL. No, because they can't; but you know the crystals can; so why shouldn't they?
L. Well, they don't; that is to say, they don't always, nor even often. Look here, Isabel.
ISABEL. What a nasty ugly thing!
L. I'm glad you think it so ugly. Yet it is made of beautiful crystals; they are a little gray and cold in color, but most of them are clear.
ISABEL. But they're in such horrid, horrid disorder!
L. Yes; all disorder is horrid, when it is among things that are naturally orderly. Some little girls' rooms are naturally orderly, I suppose; or I don't know how they could live in them, if they cry out so when they only see quartz crystals in confusion.
ISABEL. Oh! but how come they to be like that?
L. You may well ask. And yet you will always hear people talking, as if they thought order more wonderful than disorder! It is wonderful—as we have seen; but to me, as to you, child, the supremely wonderful thing is that nature should ever be ruinous or wasteful, or deathful! I look at this wild piece of crystallization with endless astonishment.
MARY. Where does it come from?
L. The Tete Noire of Chamonix. What makes it more strange is that it should be in a vein of fine quartz. If it were in a mouldering rock, it would be natural enough; but in the midst of so fine substance, here are the crystals tossed in a heap; some large, myriads small (almost as small as dust), tumbling over each other like a terrified crowd, and glued together by the sides, and edges, and backs, and heads; some warped, and some pushed out and in, and all spoiled, and each spoiling the rest.
MARY. And how flat they all are!
L. Yes; that's the fashion at the Tete Noire.
MARY. But surely this is ruin, not caprice?
L. I believe it is in great part misfortune; and we will examine these crystal troubles in next lecture. But if you want to see the gracefullest and happiest caprices of which dust is capable, you must go to the Hartz; not that I ever mean to go there myself, for I want to retain the romantic feeling about the name; and I have done myself some harm already by seeing the monotonous and heavy form of the Brocken from the suburbs of Brunswick. But whether the mountains be picturesque or not, the tricks which the goblins (as I am told) teach the crystals in them, are incomparably pretty. They work chiefly on the mind of a docile, bluish-colored, carbonate of lime; which comes out of a gray limestone. The goblins take the greatest possible care of its education, and see that nothing happens to it to hurt its temper; and when it may be supposed to have arrived at the crisis which is to a well brought up mineral, what presentation at court is to a young lady—after which it is expected to set fashions—there's no end to its pretty ways of behaving. First it will make itself into pointed darts as fine as hoarfrost; here, it is changed into a white fur as fine as silk; here into little crowns and circlets, as bright as silver; as if for the gnome princesses to wear; here it is in beautiful little plates, for them to eat off; presently it is in towers which they might be imprisoned in; presently in caves and cells, where they may make nun-gnomes of themselves, and no gnome ever hear of them more; here is some of it in sheaves, like corn; here, some in drifts, like snow; here, some in rays, like stars: and, though these are, all of them, necessarily, shapes that the mineral takes in other places, they are all taken here with such a grace that you recognize the high caste and breeding of the crystals wherever you meet them, and know at once they are Hartz- born.
Of course, such fine things as these are only done by crystals which are perfectly good, and good-humored; and of course, also, there are ill-humored crystals who torment each other, and annoy quieter crystals, yet without coming to anything like serious war. Here (for once) is some ill-disposed quartz, tormenting a peaceable octahedron of fluor, in mere caprice. I looked at it the other night so long, and so wonderingly, just before putting my candle out, that I fell into another strange dream. But you don't care about dreams.
DORA. No; we didn't, yesterday; but you know we are made up of caprice; so we do, to-day: and you must tell it us directly.
L. Well, you see, Neith and her work were still much in my mind; and then, I had been looking over these Hartz things for you, and thinking of the sort of grotesque sympathy there seemed to be in them with the beautiful fringe and pinnacle work of Northern architecture. So, when I fell asleep, I thought I saw Neith and St. Barbara talking together.
DORA. But what had St. Barbara to do with it?
L. My dear, I am quite sure St. Barbara is the patroness of good architects; not St. Thomas, whatever the old builders thought. It might be very fine, according to the monks' notions, in St. Thomas, to give all his employer's money away to the poor: but breaches of contract are bad foundations; and I believe, it was not he, but St. Barbara, who overlooked the work in all the buildings you and I care about. However that may be, it was certainly she whom I saw in my dream with Neith. Neith was sitting weaving, and I thought she looked sad, and threw her shuttle slowly; and St. Barbara was standing at her side, in a stiff little gown, all ins and outs, and angles; but so bright with embroidery that it dazzled me whenever she moved; the train of it was just like a heap of broken jewels, it was so stiff, and full of corners, and so many-colored and bright. Her hair fell over her shoulders in long, delicate waves, from under a little three pinnacled crown, like a tower. She was asking Neith about the laws of architecture in Egypt and Greece; and when Neith told her the measures of the pyramids, St. Barbara said she thought they would have been better three-cornered and when Neith told her the measures of the Parthenon, St. Barbara said she thought it ought to have had two transepts. But she was pleased when Neith told her of the temple of the dew, and of the Caryan maidens bearing its frieze: and then she thought that perhaps Neith would like to hear what sort of temples she was building herself, in the French valleys, and on the crags of the Rhine. So she began gossiping, just as one of you might to an old lady: and certainly she talked in the sweetest way in the world to Neith; and explained to her all about crockets and pinnacles: and Neith sat, looking very grave; and always graver as St. Barbara went on; till at last, I'm sorry to say, St. Barbara lost her temper a little.
MARY (very grave herself). "St. Barbara"?
L. Yes, Mary. Why shouldn't she? It was very tiresome of Neith to sit looking like that.
MAY. But, then, St. Barbara was a saint!
L. What's that, May?
MAY. A saint! A saint is—I am sure you know!
L. If I did, it would not make me sure that you knew too, May: but I don't.
VIOLET (expressing the incredulity of the audience). Oh,—sir!
L. That is to say, I know that people are called saints who are supposed to be better than others: but I don't know how much better they must be, in order to be saints; nor how nearly anybody may be a saint, and yet not be quite one; nor whether everybody who is called a saint was one; nor whether everybody who isn't called a saint, isn't one.
(General silence; the audience feeling themselves on the verge of the Infinities—and a little shocked—and much puzzled by so many questions at once.)
L. Besides, did you never hear that verse about being—called to be "saints"?
MAY (repeats Rom. i. 7).
L. Quite right, May. Well, then, who are called to be that? People in Rome only?
MAY. Everybody, I suppose, whom God loves.
L. What! little girls as well as other people?
MAY. All grown-up people, I mean.
L. Why not little girls? Are they wickeder when they are little?
MAY. Oh, I hope not.
L Why not little girls, then? (Pause)
LILY. Because, you know we can't be worth anything if we're ever so good,—I mean, if we try to be ever so good and we can't do difficult things—like saints.
L I am afraid, my dear that old people are not more able or willing for their difficulties than you children are for yours. All I can say is, that if ever I see any of you, when you are seven or eight and twenty, knitting your brows over any work you want to do or to understand as I saw you Lily knitting your brows over your slate this morning I should think you very noble women. But—to come back to my dream—St Barbara did lose her temper a little, and I was not surprised. For you can't think how provoking Neith looked, sitting there just like a statue of sandstone, only going on weaving like a machine and never quickening the cast of her shuttle, while St Barbara was telling her so eagerly all about the most beautiful things and chattering away, as fast as bells ring on Christmas Eve, till she saw that Neilh didn't care, and then St Barbara got as red as a rose, and stopped just in time,— or I think she would really have said something naughty.
ISABEL Oh please, but didn't Neith say anything then?
L. Yes. She said, quite quietly, "It may be very pretty, my love; but it is all nonsense."
ISABEL. Oh dear, oh dear; and then?
L. Well; then I was a little angry myself, and hoped St. Barbara would be quite angry; but she wasn't. She bit her lips first; and then gave a great sigh—such a wild, sweet sigh—and then she knelt down and hid her face on Neith's knees. Then Neith smiled a little, and was moved.
ISABEL. Oh, I am so glad!
L. And she touched St. Barbara's forehead with a flower of white lotus; and St. Barbara sobbed once or twice, and then said: "If you only could see how beautiful it is, and how much it makes people feel what is good and lovely; and if you could only hear the children singing in the Lady chapels!" And Neith smiled,—but still sadly,—and said, "How do you know what I have seen, or heard, my love? Do you think all those vaults and towers of yours have been built without me? There was not a pillar in your Giotto's Santa Maria del Fiore which I did not set true by my spear-shaft as it rose. But this pinnacle and flame work which has set your little heart on fire, is all vanity; and you will see what it will come to, and that soon; and none will grieve for it more than I. And then every one will disbelieve your pretty symbols and types. Men must be spoken simply to, my dear, if you would guide them kindly, and long." But St. Barbara answered, that, "Indeed she thought every one liked her work," and that "the people of different towns were as eager about their cathedral towers as about their privileges or their markets;" and then she asked Neith to come and build something with her, wall against tower; and "see whether the people will be as much pleased with your building as with mine." But Neith answered, "I will not contend with you, my dear. I strive not with those who love me; and for those who hate me, it is not well to strive with me, as weaver Arachne knows. And remember, child, that nothing is ever done beautifully, which is done in rivalship; nor nobly, which is done in pride."
Then St. Barbara hung her head quite down, and said she was very sorry she had been so foolish; and kissed Neith; and stood thinking a minute: and then her eyes got bright again, and she said, she would go directly and build a chapel with five windows in it; four for the four cardinal virtues, and one for humility, in the middle, bigger than the rest. And Neith very nearly laughed quite out, I thought; certainly her beautiful lips lost all their sternness for an instant; then she said, "Well, love, build it, but do not put so many colors into your windows as you usually do; else no one will be able to see to read, inside: and when it is built, let a poor village priest consecrate it, and not an archbishop." St. Barbara started a little, I thought, and turned as if to say something; but changed her mind, and gathered up her train, and went out. And Neith bent herself again to her loom, in which she was weaving a web of strange dark colors, I thought; but perhaps it was only after the glittering of St. Barbara's embroidered train: and I tried to make out the figures in Neith's web, and confused myself among them, as one always does in dreams; and then the dream changed altogether, and I found myself, all at once, among a crowd of little Gothic and Egyptian spirits, who were quarreling: at least the Gothic ones were trying to quarrel; for the Egyptian ones only sat with their hands on their knees, and their aprons sticking out very stiffly; and stared. And after a while I began to understand what the matter was. It seemed that some of the troublesome building imps, who meddle and make continually, even in the best Gothic work, had been listening to St. Barbara's talk with Neith; and had made up their minds that Neith had no workpeople who could build against them. They were but dull imps, as you may fancy by their thinking that; and never had done much, except disturbing the great Gothic building angels at their work, and playing tricks to each other; indeed, of late they had been living years and years, like bats, up under the cornices of Strasbourg and Cologne cathedrals, with nothing to do but to make mouths at the people below. However, they thought they knew everything about tower building; and those who had heard what Neith said, told the rest; and they all flew down directly, chattering in German, like jackdaws, to show Neith's people what they could do. And they had found some of Neith's old workpeople somewhere near Sais, sitting in the sun, with their hands on their knees; and abused them heartily: and Neith's people did not mind at first, but, after a while, they seemed to get tired of the noise; and one or two rose up slowly, and laid hold of their measuring rods, and said, "If St. Barbara's people liked to build with them, tower against pyramid, they would show them how to lay stones." |
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