l^USKIN’S CROWN OF WILMUVE THE QUEEN OF THE AIR THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY &ZA '■ T2g.2>c! \3)\S> clop. ' 2 . Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE AND THE QUEEN OF THE AIR itiacmtuau'S potm 'American ano ibnsust) etiassici A Series of English Texts, edited for use in Elementary and Secondary Schools, with Critical Introductions, Notes, etc. Addison’s Sir Roger de Coverley. American Democracy from Washington to Wilson. American Patriotism in Prose and Verse. Andersen’s Fairy Tales. Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. Arnold’s Sohrab and Rustum. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Bacon’s Essays. Baker’s Out of the Northland. Bible (Memorable Passages). Blackmore’s Lorna Doone. Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Abridged. Browning’s Shorter Poems. Mrs. Browning’s Poems (Selected). Bryant’s Thanatopsis, etc. Bryce on American Democracy. Bulwer-Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii. Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. 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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/crownofwildolive00rusk_3 THE CKOWiX OF WILD OLIVE AND THE QUEEN OF THE AIR BY JOHN RUSKIN EDITED WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION BY WIGFITMAN F. MELTON, Ph.D. “bishop GEORGE F. PIERCE” PROFKbSOR OF ENGLISH EMORY COLLEGE, OXFORD, GEORGIA Netn gotfe THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1921 All ricfJits reserved Copyright, 1910, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published March, igio; Norhjooli J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. \ PREFATORY NOTE Ruskin is as hard to annotate as he is easy to read. He refers to almost everything in mere glancing allusion. For assistance in “ running down ” some of these references, I wish to thank my colleagues Dr. Charles W. Peppier, Dr. E. K. Turner, and Professor Edgar W. Johnson. For simi- lar favors I am grateful to Dr. William Hand Browne of the Johns Hopkins University and Miss Frieda Thies of the Hopkins Library. W. F. M. •894514 vii CONTENTS Prefatory Note .... PA;arret. I often wonder what the angelic builders and surveyors — 20 the angelic builders who build the ^^nany mansions up above there; and the angelic surveyors, who measured that four-square city® with their measuring reeds — I wonder what they think, or are supposed to think, of the laying out of ground by this nation.^ 25 27. Then, next to the gentlemen^s game of hunting, we must put the ladies^ game of dressing. It is not the cheapest of games.® And I wish I could tell you what this ^^play^^ costs, altogether, in England, France, and Russia ^ The subject is pursued at some length in Fors Clavigera for March, 1873; but I have not yet properly stated the opposite side of the question nor insisted on the value of uncultivated land to the national health of body and mind. 24 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE annually. But it is a pretty game, and on certain terms I like it; nay, I don^t see it played quite as much as I would fain have it. You ladies like to lead the fashion : — • by all means lead it — lead it thoroughly, — lead it far 5 enough. Dress yourselves nicely, and dress everybody else nicely. Lead fashions for the poor first ; make them look well, and you yourselves will look, in ways of which you have now no conception, all the better. The fashions you have set° for some time among your peasantry are not ic? pretty ones ; their doublets are too irregularly slashed, or as Chaucer calls it ^^all toslittered,^^ though not for '^queintise,^^° and the wind blows too frankly through them. 28. Then there are other games, wild enough, as I 15 could show you if I had time. There ^s playing at literature, and playing at art ; — very different, both, from working at literature, or working at art, but I\^e no time tc zpeak of these. I pass to the great- est of all, — the play of plays, the great gentlemen’s game, 20 which ladies like them best to play at, — the game of War. It is entrancingly pleasant to the imagination® ; we dress for it, however, more finely than for any other sport ; and go out to it, not merely in scarlet, as to hunt, but in scarlet and gold, and all manner of fine colors ; of course we could 25 fight better in gray, and without feathers ; but all nations have agreed that it is good to be well dressed at this play. Then the bats and balls® are very costly ; our English and French bats, with the balls and wickets, even those which we don’t make any use of, costing, I suppose, now, about 30 fifteen millions of money annually to each nation ; all which you know is paid for by hard laborer’s work in the furrow and furnace. A costly game ! — not to sj)eak of its consequences; I will say at present nothing of these WORK 25 The mere immediate cost of all these plays is what I want you to consider ; they are all paid for in deadly work some- where, as many of us know too well. The jewel-cutter, whose sight fails over the diamonds; the weaver, whose arm fails over the web ; the iron-forger, whose breath fails 5 before the furnace — they know what work is — they, who have all the work, and none of the play, except a kind they have named for themselves down in the black north coun- try, where ^^play'^ means being laid up by sickness. It is a pretty example for philologists, ° of varying dialect, 10 this change in the sense of the word, as used in the black country of Birmingham,® and the red and black country of Baden Baden.® Yes, gentlemen, and gentlewomen, of England, who think ^^one moment unamused a misery, not made for feeble man,^^ this is what you have brought the 15 word ^‘play^Ho mean, in the heart of merry England! You may have your fluting and piping ; but there are sad children sitting in the market-place, who indeed cannot say to you, “We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced® but eternally shall say to you, “We have 20 mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.^' 29. This, then, is the first distinction between the “upper and lower classes. And this is one which is by no means necessary; which indeed must, in process of good time, be by all honest men^s consent abohshed. Men 25 will be taught that an existence of play, sustained by the blood of other creatures, is a good existence for gnats and jelly-fish® ; but not for men : that neither days, nor lives, can be made holy or noble by doing nothing in them : that the best prayer at the beginning of a day is that we may 30 not lose its moments ; and the best grace before meat, the consciousness that we have justly earned our dinner. And when we have this much of plain Christianity preached to 26 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE us again, and cease to translate the strict words,® ^^Son, gc work to-day in my vineyard,^^® into the dainty ones: ^^Baby, go play to-day in my vineyard,^^ we shall all be workers, in one way or another ; and this much at least of 5 the distinction between upper and ‘dower forgotten. 30. II. I pass then to our second distinction ; between the rich and poor, between Dives and Lazarus,® — dis- tinction which exists more sternly, I suppose, in this day, than ever in the world. Pagan or Christian, till now. lo Consider, for instance, what the general tenor of such a paper as the Morning Post implies of delicate luxury among the rich ; and then read this chance extract® from it : — “Yesterday morning, at eight o^clock, a woman, pass- 15 ing a dung-heap in the stone-yard near the recently erected almshouses in Sha dwell Gap, High Street, Shadwell, called the attention of a Thames police-constable to a man in a sitting position on the dung-heap, and said she was afraid he was dead. Her fears proved to be true. The wretched 20 creature appeared to have been dead several hours. He had perished of cold and wet, and the rain had been beat- ing down on him all night. The deceased was a bone- picker.® He was in the lowest stage of poverty, poorly clad, and half -starved. The police had frequently driven 25 him away from the stone-yard, between sunset and sunrise, and told him to go home. He selected a most desolate spot for his wretched death. A penny and some bones were found in his pockets. The deceased was between fifty and sixty years of age. Inspector Roberts, of the K 30 division, has given directions for inquiries to be made at the lodging-houses respecting the deceased, to ascertain his identitv if possible .'^ — Morning Postj November 25. 1864. WORK 27 Compare the statement of the finding bones in his pocket with the following, from the Telegraph of Janu- ary 16 of this year : — Again, the dietary scale for adult and juvenile paupers was drawn up by the most conspicuous political econo- s mists in England. It is low in quantity, but it is sufficient to support nature; yet within ten years of the passing of the Poor Law Act,® we heard of the paupers in the Andover Union gnawing the scraps of putrid flesh and sucking the marrow from the bones® of horses which they were em- ic ployed to crush. You see my reason for thinking that our Lazarus of Christianity has some advantage over the Jewish one. Jewish Lazarus expected, or at least prayed, to be fed with crumbs from the rich man^s table®; but our Lazarus is fed 15 with crumbs from the dog’s table. 31. Now this distinction between rich and poor rests on two bases. Within its proper limits, on a basis which is lawful and everlastingly necessary; beyond them, on a basis unlawful, and everlastingly corrupting the frame- 20 work of society. The lawful basis of wealth is, that a man who v/orks should be paid the fair value of his work ; and that if he does not choose to spend it to-day, he should have free leave to keep it, and spend it to-morrow. Thus, an industrious man working daily, and laying by daily, 25 attains at last the possession of an accumulated sum of wealth, to which he has absolute right. The idle person who will not work, and the wasteful person who lays noth- ing by, at the end of the same time will be doubly poor — poor in possession, and dissolute in moral habit ; and he 30 will then naturally covet the money which the other has saved. And if he is then allowed to attack the other, and rob him of his well-earned wealth, there is no more any 28 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE motive for saving, or any reward for good conduct ; and all society is thereupon dissolved, or exists only in systems of rapine.® Therefore the first necessity of social life is the clearness of national conscience in enforcing the law — 5 that he should keep who has justly earned. 32. That law, I say, is the proper basis of distinction between rich and poor. But there is also a false basis of distinction; namely, the power held over those who are earning® wealth by those who already possess it, and only lo use it to gain more.® There will be always a number of men who would fain set themselves to the accumulation of wealth as the sole object of their lives. Necessarily, that class of men is uneducated class, inferior in intellect, and more or less cowardly. It is physically impossible for 15a well-educated, intellectual, or brave man to make money the chief object of his thoughts; just as it is for him to make his dinner the principal object of them. All healthy people like their dinners, but their dinner is not the main object of their lives. So all healthily-minded people like 20 making money — ought to like it, and to enjoy the sensa- tion of winning it ; but the main object of their life is not money; it is something better than money. A good soldier, for instance, mainly wishes to do his fighting well. He is glad of his pay — very properly so, and justly grum- 25 bles when you keep him ten years without it® — still, his main notion of life is to win battles, not to be paid for win- ning them. So of clergymen. They like pew-rents, and baptismal fees, of course; but yet, if they are brave and well-educated, the pew-rent is not the sole object of their 30 lives, and the baptismal fee is not the sole purpose of the baptism ; the clergyman's object® is essentially to baptize and preach, not to be paid for preaching. So of doctors. They like fees® no doubt, — ought to like them ; yet if WORK 29 they are brave and well-educated, the entire object of their lives is not fees. They, on the whole, desire to cure the sick ; and, — if they are good doctors, and the choice were fairly put to them, — would rather cure their patient and lose their fee, than kill him, and get it. And so with 5 all other brave and rightly-trained men ; their work is first, their fee second — very important always, but still second. But in every nation, as I said, there are a vast class who are ill-educated, cowardly, and more or less stupid. And with these people, just as certainly the fee is first, and the ic work second, as with brave people the w^ork is first and the fee second. And this is no small distinction. It is between life and death in a man, between heaven and hell /or him. You cannot serve two masters® : — you must serve one or other. If your work is first with you, and your fee second, 15 work is your master, and the lord of work, who is God. But if your fee is first with you, and your work second, fee is your master, and the lord of fee, who is the Devil ; and not only the Devil, but the lowest of devils — the ‘deast erected fiend that fell.^^® So there you have it in brief 20 terms : Work first — you are God^s servants ; Fee first — you are the Fiend ^s. And it makes a difference, now and ever, believe me, whether you serve Him who has on His vesture and thigh written, ^^King of Kings,^^® and whose service is perfect freedom ; or him on whose vesture and 25 thigh the name is written, “Slave of Slaves,^' and whose service is perfect slavery. 33. However in every nation there are, and must al- ways be, a certain number of these Fiend ^s servants, who have it principally for the object of their lives to make 3c money. They are always, as I said, more or less stupid, and cannot conceive of anything else so nice as money. Stupidity is always the basis of the Judas bargain.® We 30 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE do great injustice to Iscariot, ° in thinking him wicked above all common wickedness. He was only a common mone3^over, and, like all money-lovers, did not under- stand Christ ; — could not make out the worth of Him, or 5 meaning of Him. He never thought He would be killed.® He was horror-struck when he found that Christ would be killed ; threw his mone}" away instantly, and hanged him- self. How many of our present money-seekers, think you, would have the grace to hang themselves, whoever 10 was killed? But Judas was a common, selfish, muddle- headed, pilfering fellow; his hand always in the bag of the poor, not caring for them. Helpless to understand Christ,® yet believed in Him, much more than most of us do ; had seen Him do miracles, thought He was quite 15 strong enough to shift for Himself, and he, Judas, might as well make his own little by-perquisites out of the affair. Christ would come out of it well enough,® and he have his thirty" pieces. Now, that is the money-seeker ^s idea, all over the world. He doesn't hate Christ, but can't under- 20 stand Him — doesn't care for Him — sees no good in that benevolent business ; makes his own little job out of it at all events, come what will. And thus, out of every mass of men, you have a certain number of bagmen — \mur ‘‘fee-first" men, whose main object is to make money. 25 And they do make it — make it in all sorts of unfair ways, chiefly by the weight and force of money itself, or what is called the power of capital; that is to say, the power which money, once obtained, has over the labor of the poor, so that the capitalist can take all its produce to himself, 30 except the laborer's food. That is the modern Judas's way of “carrying the bag,"® and “bearing what is put therein." 34. Nay, but (it is asked) how is that an unfair advan- WORK 31 tage? Has not the man who has worked for the money a right to use it as he best can? No, in this respect, money is now exactly what mountain promontories over public roads were in old times. The barons fought for them fairly: — the strongest and cunningest® got them; then 5 fortified them, and made every one who passed below pay toll. Well, capital now is exactly what crags were then. j\Ien fight fairly (we will, at least, grant so much, though it is more than we ought) for their money ; but, once hav- ing got it, the fortified millionaire can make ever}^body lo who passes below pay toll to his million, and build another tovv^er of his money castle. And I can tell you, the poor vagrants by the roadside suffer now quite as much from the bag-baron, as ever they did from the crag-baron. Bags and crags have just the same result on rags.° I have : not time, however, to-night to show you in how man;\- ways the power of capital is unjust; but remember thi> one great principle® — you will find it unfailing® — that whenever money is the principal object of life with either man or nation, it is both got ill, and spent ill ; and doe harm both in the getting and spending ; but when it is not the principal object, it and all other things will be well got and well spent. And here is the test, .with every man, of whether money is the principal object with him, or not. If in mid-life he could pause and say, “Now I have enough 25 to live upon. Til live upon it ; and having well earned it, I will also well spend it, and go out of the world poor, as I came into it,^^ then money is not principal with him ; but if, having enough to live upon in the manner befitting his character and rank, he still wants to make more, and to 30 die rich, then money is the principal object with him, and it becomes a curse to him.self, and generally to those who spend it after him. For you know it mvst be spent some 32 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE day ; the only question is whether the man who makes it shall spend it, or some one else, and generally it is better for the maker to spend it, for he will know best its value and use/^ And if a man does not choose thus to spend his 5 money, tie must either hoard it or lend it, and the worst thing he can generally do is to lend it ; for borrowers are nearly always ill-spenders, and it is with lent money that all evil is mainly done, and all unjust war protracted. 35. For observe what the real fact is, respecting loans loto foreign military governments, and how strange it is. If your little boy came to you to ask for money to spend in squibs and crackers, you would think twice before jmu gave it him, and you would have some idea that it was wasted, when you saw it fly off in fireworks, 15 even though he did no mischief with it. But the Russian children and Austrian children come to you, borrowing money, not to spend in innocent squibs, but in cartridges and bayonets to attack you in India with, and to keep down all noble life in Italy with, and to murder Polish 20 women and children with ; and that you will give at once, because they pay you interest for it. Now, in order to pay you that interest, they must tax every working peas- ant in their dominions ; and on that work you live. You therefore at once rob the Austrian peasant, assassinate or 25 banish the Polish peasant, and you live on the produce of the theft, and the bribe for the assassination ! That is the broad fact — that is the practical meaning of your foreign loans, and of most large interest of money ; and then you quarrel with Bishop Colenso,® forsooth, as if he denied the 30 Bible, and you believed it ! though, every deliberate act of your lives is a new defiance of its i)rimary orders.'^ 3G. III. I must pass, however, now to our third con- dition of separation, between the men who work vrith tlie hand and those who work with the head.® WOHK 33 And here we have at last an inevitable distinction. There must be work done by the arms, or none of us could live. There must be work done by the brains, or the life we get w^ould not be worth having. And the same men cannot do both. There is rough work to be done, and 5 rough men must do it ; there is gentle work to be done, and gentlemen must do it; and it is physically impossible that one class should do, or divide, the work of the other. And it is of no use to try to conceal this sorrowful fact by fine words, and to talk to the workman about the honor- 10 ableness of manual labor, and the dignity of humanity.® Rough work, honorable or not, takes the life out of us; and the man who has been heaving clay out of a ditch all day, or driving an express train against the north wind all night, or holding a collier^s helm® in a gale on a lee-shore,® or 15 whirling white-hot iron at a furnace mouth, is not the same man at the end of his day, or night, as one who has been sitting ill a quiet room, with everything comfortable about him, reading books, or classing butterflies, or painting pictures.® ^ If it is any comfort to you to be told that the 20 rough work is the more honorable of the two, I should be sorry to take that much of consolation from you ; and in some sense I need not. The rough work is at all events real, honest, and, generally, though not always, useful; while the fine work is, a great deal of it, foolish and false 25 as well as fine, and therefore dishonorable : but when both kinds are equally well and worthily done, the head^s is the noble work, and the hand's the ignoble.® Therefore, of all hand work whatsoever, necessary for the maintenance of life, those old words, ^^In the sweat of thy face thou 30 shalt eat bread,"® indicate that the inherent nature of it is D ^ Compare § 57. 34 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE one of calamity : and that the ground , cursed for our sake, casts also some shadow of degradation into our contest with its thorn and its thistle ; so that all nations have held their days honorable, or “holy/^ and constituted them holy- 5 days^' or holidays/' by making them days of rest; and the promise, which, among all our distant hopes, seems to cast the chief brightness over death, is that blessing of the dead who die in the Lord, that ^Hhey rest from their labors, and their works do follow them/^° lo 37 . And thus the perpetual question and contest must arise, who is to do this rough work ? and how is the worker of it to be comforted, redeemed, and rewarded ? and what kind of play should he have, and what rest, in this world, sometimes, as well as in the next? Well, my good labori- 150US friends,® these questions will take a little time to answer yet. They must be answered : all good men are occupied with them, and all honest thinkers. There^s grand head v/ork doing® about them ; but much must be discovered, and much attempted in vain, before anything 20 decisive can be told you. Only note these few particulars, which are already sure. 38 . As to the distribution of the hard work. None of us, or very few of us, do either hard or soft work® because we think we ought ; but because we have chanced to fall 25 into the way of it, and cannot help ourselves.® Now, no- body does anything well that they cannot help doing: work is only done well when it is done with a will ; and no man has a thoroughly sound will unless he knows he is doing what he should, and is in his place. And, depend 30 upon it, all w6rk must be done at last, not in a disorderly, scrambling, doggish way, but in an ordered, soldierly, human way® — a lawful or ‘MoyaL^ way.® Men are enlisted for the labor that kills — the h^bov of war: they WOEK 35 are counted, trained, fed, dressed, and praised for that. Let them be enlisted also for the labor that feeds® : let them be counted, trained, fed, dressed, praised for that. Teach the plough exercise as carefully as you do the sword exercise, and let the officers of troops of life be held as 5 much gentlemen as the officers of troops of death ; and all is done : but neither this, nor any othfer right thing, can be accomplished — you canT even see your way to it — un- less, first of all, both servant and master are resolved that, come what will of it, they will do each other justice.® 10 39. People are perpetually squabbling about what will be best to do, or easiest to do, or advisablest to do, or profit- ablest to do ; but they never, so far as I hear them talk, ever ask® what it is just to do. And it is the law of heaven that you shall not be able to judge what is wise or easy, 15 unless you are first resolved to judge what is just, and to do it. That is the one thing constantly reiterated by our Master — the order of all others that is given oftenest — ^‘Do justice and judgment/^® That^s your Bible order; that^s the ^‘Service of God,^^ — not praying nor psalm- 20 singing. You are told, indeed, to sing psalms® when you are merry, and to pray when you need anything®; and, by the perverseness of the Evil Spirit, we get to think that praying and psalm-singing are service. If a child finds itself in want of anything, it runs in and asks its father 25 for it — does it call that doing its father a service ? If it begs for a toy or a piece of cake — does it call that serving its father? That, with God, is prayer, and He likes to hear it® : He likes you to ask Him for cake when you want it; but He doesnT call that ‘^serving Him.^^ Begging is 30 not serving : God likes mere beggars as little as you do — He likes honest servants, not beggars. So when a child loves its father very much, and is very happy, it may sing 3G THE CROWI:r OF WILD OLIVE little songs about him; but it doesn’t call that serving its father®; neither is singing songs about God, serving God. It is enjoying ourselves, if it^s anything ; most prob- ably it is nothing® ; but if it’s anything, it is serving our- 5 selves, not God. And yet we are impudent enough to call our beggings and chantings ^‘Divine service:” we say ^‘Divine service will be ^performed’” (that’s our word — the form of it gone through)® ‘^at so-and-so o’clock.”® Alas ! unless we perform Divine service in every willing lo act of life, we never perform it at all. The one Divine work — the one ordered sacrifice — is to do justice ; and it is the last we are ever inclined to do. Anything rather than that ! As much charity® as you choose, but no justice. ^^Nay,” you will say, charity is greater than justice.” 15 Yes, it is greater; it is the summit of justice — it is the temple of which justice is the foundation. But you can’t have the top without the bottom ; you cannot build upon charity. You must build upon justice, for this main reason, that you have not, at first, charity to build with. 20 It is the last reward of good work. Do justice to your brother (you can do that, whether you love him or not), and you will come to love him. But do injustice to him, because you don’t love him®; and you will come to hate him. ^5 40. It ‘3 all very fine to think you can build upon charity to begin with; but you will find all you will have got® to begin with, begins at home,® and is essen- tially love of yourself. You well-to-do people, for in- stance, who are here to-night, will go to Divine service” 30 next Sunday, all nice and tidy, and your little children will have their tight little Sunday boots on, and lovely little® Sunday feathers in their hats; and you’ll think, complacently and piously, how lovely they look going WORK 37 to church in their best ! So they do : and you love them heartily, and you like sticking feathers in their hats, That^s all right : that is charity ; but it is charity begin- ning at home. Then you will come to the poor little cross- ing-sweeper,® got up also, — it, in its Sunday dress, — 5 the dirtiest rags it has, — that it may beg the better : you wull give it a penny, and think how good you are,® and how good God is to prefer your child to the crossing- sweeper and bestow on it a divine hat, feathers, and boots, and the pleasure of giving pence instead of begging for ic them.® That^s charity going abroad. But what does Justice say, walking and watching near us? Christian Justice has been strangely mute, and seemingly blind®; and, if not blind, decrepit, this many a day : she keeps her accounts still, however — quite steadily — doing them at 15 nights, carefully, with her bandage off, and through acutest spectacles (the only modern scientific invention she cares about). You must put your ear down ever so close to her lips to hear her speak ; and then you will start at what she first whispers, for it will certainly be, Why 20 shouldnT that little crossing-sweeper have a feather on its head, as well as your owm child ? Then you may ask Justice, in an amazed manner, ^^How she can possibly be so foolish as to think children could sweep crossings with feathers on their heads ?^^® Then you stoop again, and 25 Justice says — still in her dull, stupid way — ‘‘Then, why donT you, every other Sunday, leave your child to sweep the crossing, and take the little sweeper to church in a hat and feather Mercy on us (you think), what will she say next? Apd you answer, of course, that “you 30 donff , because everybody ought to remain content in the position in which Providence has placed them.^^ Ah, my friends, that's the gist of the whole question. Did 38 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE Providence put them in that position, or did you? You knock a man into a ditch, and then you tell him to remain content in the position in which Providence has placed him/' That's modern Christianity.® You say — 5 did not knock him into the ditch." We shall never know what you have done or left undone,® until the question with us every morning, is not how to do the gainful thing, but how to do the just thing during the day ; nor until we are at least so far on the way to being Christian, as to lo acknowledge that maxim of the poor half-way Mahometan, “One hour in the execution of justice is worth seventy years of prayer." 41 . Supposing, then, we have it determined with ap- propriate justice, who is to do the hand work, the next 1 5 questions must be how the hand-workers are to be paid, and how they are to be refreshed, and what play they are to have. Now, the possible quantity of play depends on the possible quantity of pay; and the quantity of pay is not a matter for consideration to hand-workers only, but to 20 all workers. Generally, good, useful work, whether of the hand or head, is either ill-paid, or not paid at all. I don't say it should be so, but it always is so. People, as a rule, only pay for being amused or being cheated,® not for being served. Five thousand a year to your talker,® and a 25 shilling a day to your fighter, digger, and thinker, is the rule. None of the best head work in art, literature, or science, is ever paid for. How much do you think Homer got for his lliad^ 9 or Dante for his Paradise^ 9 only bitter bread and salt, and going up and down other people's stairs. In science', the man who discovered the telescope,® and first saw heaven, was paid witii a dungeon; the man who invented tl'e microsco]H‘,® anci fii‘st saw earth, died of starvation, driven from his home. It is indeed very WORK .^9 clear that God means all thoroughly good work and talk to be done for nothing. ° Baruch, ° the scribe, did not get a penny a line for writing Jeremiah^s second roll for him, I fancy; and St. Stephen® did not get bishop ^s pay for that long sermon of his to the Pharisees ; nothing but 5 stones. For, indeed, that is the world-father's® proper payment. So surely as any of the world's children work for the world's good, honestly, with head and heart ; and come to it, saying, ^‘Give us a little bread, just to keep the life in us," the world-father answers them, ‘‘No, my 10 children, not bread; a stone,® if you like, or as many as you need, to keep you quiet® and tell to future ages, how unpleasant you made yourself to the one you lived in."® 42. But the hand-workers are not so ill off as ail this comes to. The worst that can happen to you is to break 15 stones ; not be broken by them. And for }mu there will come a time for better payment® ; we shall pay people not quite so much for talking in Parliamient and doing nothing, as for holding their tongues out of it and doing something ; we shall pay our ploughman a little more, and our lawyer 20 a little less, and so on : but, at least, we may even now take care that whatever work is done shall be fully paid for ; and the man who does it paid for it, not somebody else; and that it shall be done in an orderly, soldierly, well- guided, wholesome way, under good captains and lieu- 25 tenants of labor ; and that it shall have its appointed times of rest, and enough of them; and that in those times the play shall be wholesome play, not in theatri- cal gardens, with tin flowers and gas sunshine, and girls dancing because of their misery ; but in true gardens, 30 with real flow^ers, and real sunshine, and children dancing because of their gladness; so that truly the streets shall be full (the “streets," mind you, not the gutters) of 40 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE children, playing in the midst thereof.® We may take care that working-men shall have at least as good books to read as anybody else, when they Ve time to read them ; and as comfortable firesides to sit at as anybody else, 5 when theyVe time to sit at them. This, I think, can be managed for you, my laborious friends,® in the good time. 43. IV. I must go on, however, to our last head, con- cerning ourselves all, as workers. What is wise work, and what is foolish work® ? What the difference between sense lo and nonsense, in daily occupation ? There are three tests of wise work: — that it must be honest, useful, and cheerful. i. It is HONEST. I hardly know anything more strange than that you recognize honesty in play, and you do not IS in work. In your lightest games, you have always some one to see what you call “fair-play.^^ In boxing, you must hit fair; in racing, start fair. Your English watch- word is ^^iohx-play,^^ your English hatred, ‘Toul-pZa?/.^’® Did it never® strike you that you wanted another watch- 20 word also, “fair-?rorA;,^^ and another and bitterer® hatred — ^^foul-icor/c^^ ® ? Your prize-fighter has some honor in him yet ; and so have the men in the ring round him : they will judge him to lose the match, by foul hitting. But your prize-merchant gains his match by foul selling, and 25 no one cries out against that. You drive a gambler out of the gambling-room who loads dice,® but you leave a trades- man in flourishing business who loads scales® ! For ob- serve, all dishonest dealing is loading scales. What difference does it make® whether I get short weight, adul- 3oterate substance, or dishonest fabric? — unless that flaw in the substance or fabric is the worse evil of the two.® Give me short measure of food, and I only lose by you ; but give me adulterate food, an^i I die by you. Here, then, is WORK 41 your chief duty, you workmen and tradesmen — to be true to yourselves, and to us who would help you.® We can do nothing for you, nor you for yourselves, without hon- esty. Get that, you get all ; without that, your suffrages, your reforms, your free-trade measures, your institutions of science, are all in vain. It is useless to put ;^our heads together, if you can^t put your hearts together. Shoulder to shoulder, right hand to right hand, among yourselves, and no wrong hand® to anybody else, and you 11 win the world yet. 44. ii. Then, secondly, wise work is useful. No man minds, or ought to mind, its being hard, if only it comes to something; but when it is hard, and comes to nothing; when all our bees^ business turns to spiders^; and for honey-comb we have only resultant cobweb, blown away by the next breeze — that is the cruel thing for the worker. Yet do we ever ask ourselves, personally, or even nationally, whether our work is coming to any- thing or not ? We donT care to keep what has been nobly done ; still less do we care to do nobly what others would keep ; and, least of all, to make the work itself useful in- stead of deadly to the doer, so as to exert® his life indeed, but not to waste it. Of all wastes, the greatest waste that you can commit is the waste of labor. If you went down in the morning into your dairy, and found® that your youngest child had got down before you, and that he and the cat were at play together, and that he had poured out all the cream on the floor for the cat to lap up, you would scold the child, and be sorry the cream® was wasted. But if, instead of wooden bowls with milk in them, there are golden bowls with human life in them, and instead of the cat to play with — the devil to play with ; and you yourself the player ; and instead of 5 10 15 20 25 30 42 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE leaving that golden bowl to be broken by God at the fountain,® you break it in the dust yourself, and pour the human life® out on the ground for the fiend to lick up — that is no waste ! 5 45. What! you perhaps think, ^Go waste the labor of men is not to kill them.’^ Is it not? I should like to know how you could kill them more utterly — kill them with second deaths, seventh deaths, hundredfold deaths? It is the slightest way of killing to stop a man^s breath, lo Nay, the hunger, and the cold, and the whistling bullets® — our love-messengers between nation and nation — have brought pleasant messages to many a man® before now ; orders of sweet release, and leave at last to go where he will be most welcome and most happy. At the worst 15 you do but shorten his life,® you do not corrupt his life. But if you put him to base labor, if you bind his thoughts, if you blind his eyes, if you blunt his hopes, if you steal his joys, if you stunt his body, and blast his soul, and at last leave him not so much as strength® to reap the poor 20 fruit of his degradation, but gather that for yourself, and dismiss him to the grave, when you have done with him, having, so far as in you lay, made the walls of that grave everlasting ; (though, indeed, I fancy the goodly bricks of some of our family vaults will hold closer® in the resurrec- ts tion day than the sod over the laborer's head), this you think is no waste and no sin ! 46. iii. Then, lastly, wise work is cheerful, as a child’s work is. And now I want you to take one thought home with you, and let it stay with you. 30 Everybody in this room has been taught to pray daily, ‘^Thy kingdom come.”® Now, if we hear a man swear in the streets, we think it very wrong, and say he ‘Gakes God’s name in vain.”® But there’s a twenty limes worse WORK 43 vvay of taking His name in vain, than that. It is to ask God for what we don’t want. He doesn^t like that sort of prayer. If you don^t want a thing, don't ask for it : such asking is the worst mockery of your King you can insult® Him with ; the soldiers striking Him on the head 5 with the reed® was nothing to that. If you do not wish for His kingdom, don't pray for it. But if you do, you must do more than pray for it; you must work for it. And, to work for it, you must know what it is : we hav3 all prayed for it many a day without thinking. Observe, 10 it is a kingdom that is to come to us ; we are not to go to it. Also, it is not to be a kingdom of the dead, but of the living. Also, it is not to come all at once, but quietly; nobody knows how. ^^The kingdom of God cometh not with observation." Also, it is not to come outside of us, 15 but in our hearts: ‘Ahe kingdom of God is within you."® And, being within us, it is not a thing to be seen, but to be felt ; and though it brings all substance of good with it, it does not consist in that: ^Hhe kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, [and] peace, and joy in 20 the Holy Ghost® :" joy, that is to say, in the holy, healthful, and helpful Spirit. Now, if we want to work for this king- dom, and to bring it, and enter into it, there's one curious condition® to be first accepted. You must enter it as children, or not at all; ‘‘Whosoever will not receive it as 25 a little child shall not enter therein." ® And again, “ Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, fo of such is the kingdom of heaven.” ® ^ 47. Of such, observe. Not of children themselves, but ^ T have referred oftener to the words of the English Bible in this lecture than in any other of my addresses, because I was here speaking to an audience which professed to accept its authority implicitly. 44 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE of such as children. I believe most mothers who read that text think that all heaven or the earth — when it gets to be like heaven® — is to be full of babies. But that^s not so.® ‘^Length of days, and long life and peace, 5 that is the blessing, not to die, still less to live,® in baby- hood. It is the character of children we want, and must gain at our peril ; let us see, briefly, in what it consists. The first character of right childhood is that it is Modest. A well-bred child does not think it can teach its parents, lo or that it knows everything. It may think its father and mother know everything, — perhaps that all grown-up people know everything; very certainly it is sure that it does not. And it is always asking questions, and wanting to know more. Well, that is the first character of a good 15 and wise man at his work. To know that he knows very little; — to perceive that there are many above him wiser than he ; and to be always asking questions, wanting to learn, not to teach. No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern ; 20 it is an old saying (Platons,® but I know not if his, first), and as wise as old. 48. Then, the second character of right childhood is to be Faithful. Perceiving that its father knows best what is good for it, and having found always, when it has tried 25 its own way against his, that he was right and it was wrong, a noble child trusts him at last wholly, gives him its hand, and will walk blindfold with him, if he bids it. And that is the true character of all good men also, as obedient workers, or soldiers under captains. They must trust 30 their captains ; — they are bound for their lives to choose none but those whom they can trust. Then, they are not always to be thinking that what seems strange to them, or wrong in what they are desired to do, is strange 01 WORK 45 wrong. They know their captain: where he leads they must follow, — what he bids, they must do ; and without this trust and faith, without this captainship and soldier- ship, no great deed, no great salvation, is possible to man.® 49. Then the third character of right childhood is to be 5 Loving.® Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back. It loves everything near it, when it is a right kind of child ; would hurt nothing, would give the best it has away, always, if you need it ; does not lay plans for getting everything in the house for itself, and delights in lo helping people ; you cannot please it so much as by giving it a chance of being useful, in ever so humble® a way. 50. And because of all these characters, lastly, it is Cheerful. Putting its trust in its father, it is careful for nothing® — being full of love to every creature, it is happy 15 always, whether in its play or in its duty. Well, that^s the great worker ^s character also. Taking no thought for the morrow® ; taking thought only for the duty of the day ; trusting somebody else to take care of to-morrow; know- ing indeed what labor is, but not what sorrow is ; and al- 20 ways ready for play — beautiful play. For lovely human play is like the play of the Sun, There^s a worker for you. He, steady to his time, is set as a strong man to run his course, but also, he rejoiceth as a strong man to run his course.® See how he plays in the morning, with the mists 25 below, and the clouds above, with a ray here and a flash there, and a shower of jewels everywhere® ; — that’s the Sun’s play ; and great human play is like his — all vari- ous — all full of light and life, and tender, as the dew of the morning. 3 a 51. So then, you have the child’s character in these four things — Humility, Faith, Charity, and Cheerfulness. That’s what you have got to be converted to. Except 46 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE ye be converted and become as little children/'® — You hear much of conversion nowadays; but people always seem to think they have got to be made wretched by conversion, — to be converted to long faces. No, friends, 5 you have got to be converted to short ones ; you have to repent int : childhood, to repent into delight, and delight- someness. You can't go into a conventicle® but you'll hear plenty of talk of backsliding.® Backsliding, indeed ! I can tell you, on the ways most of us go, the faster we lo slide back the better. Slide back into the cradle, if going on is into the grave : — back, I tell you : back — out of your long faces, and into your long clothes. It is among children only, and as children only, that you will find medicine for your healing® and true wisdom for your teach- 15 ing.® There is poison in the counsels of the men of this world ; the words they speak are all bitterness, ^Hhe poison of asps is under their lips,"® but, ^Hhe sucking child shall play by the hole of the asp."® There is death in the looks of men. Their eyes are privily set against the poor®;" 20 they are as the uncharmable serpent, the cockatrice, which slew by seeing. But ‘Hhe weaned child shall lay his hand on the cockatrice den."® There is death in the steps of men: ‘Hheir feet are swift to shed blood; they have com- passed us in our steps like the lion that is greedy of his 25 prey, and the young lion lurking in secret places® ; " but, in that kingdom, the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and the fatling with the lion, and ^‘a little child shall lead them."® There is death in the thoughts of men : the world is one wide riddle to them, darker and darker as it draws to 30 a close ; but the se(*ret of it is known to the child, and the Lord of heaven and earth® is most to be thanked in that ‘^He has hidden tliose things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes."® Yes, and there is WORK 47 death — infinitude of death in the principalities and powers® of men. As far as the east is from the west,® so far our sins are — not set from us, but multiplied around us: the Sun himself, think you he now ‘‘rejoices ^^® to run his course, when he plunges westward to the horizon, so 5 widely red, not with clouds, but blood?® And it will be red more widely yet. Whatever drought of the early and latter rain® may be, there will be none of that red rain.® You fortify yourselves, you arm yourselves against it in vain ; the enemy and avenger will be upon you also, unless 10 you learn that it is not out of the mouths of the knitted gun, or the smoothed rifle, but “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings that the strength is ordained, which shall “still the enemy and avenger.^^® LECTURE II TRAFFIC^ Delivered in the Town Hally Bradford 52. My good Yorkshire friends, you asked me down here among your hills that I might talk to you about this Exchange® you are going to build : but earnestly and seriously asking you to pardon me, I am going to do 5 nothing of the kind. I cannot talk, or at least can say very little, about this same Exchange. I must talk of quite other things, though not willingly; — I could not deserve your pardon, if when you invited me to speak on one subject, I wilfully spoke on another. But I cannot lo speak, to purpose, of anything about which I do not care ; and most simply and sorrowfully I have to tell you, in the outset, that I do not care about this Exchange of yours. If, however, when you sent me your invitation, I had answered, “I won’t come, I don’t care about the Ex- 15 change of Bradford,” you would have been justly offended with me, not knowing the reasons of so blunt a carelessness. So I have come down, hoping that you will patiently let me tell you why, on this, and many other such occasions, I now remain silent, when formerly I should have caught at 20 the opportunity of speaking to a gracious audience. 53. In a word, then, I do not care about this Ex- change, — because you don’t ; and because you know perfectly well I cannot make you. Look at the essential 48 TRAFFIC 49 conditions® of the case, which you, as business men, know perfectly well, though perhaps you think I forget them. You are going to spend £ 30 , 000 , which to you, collectively, is nothing ; the buying a new coat is, as to the cost of it, a much more important matter of consideration to me than 5 building a new Exchange is to you. But you think you may as well have the right thing for your money. You know there are a great many odd styles of architecture about; you don^t want to do anything ridiculous; you hear of me, among others, as a respectable architectural 10 man-milliner® ; and you send for me, that I may tell you the leading fashion; and what is, in our shops, for the moment, the newest and sweetest thing in pinnacles. 54 . Now, pardon me for telling you frankly, you cannot have good architecture merely by asking people’s advice 15 on occasion. All good architecture is the expression of national life and character ; and it is produced by a preva- lent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty.® And I want you to think a little of the deep significance of this word ^Haste”; for no statement of mine has been more 20 earnestly or oftener controverted than that good taste is essentially a moral quality. ^^No,” say many of my an- tagonists, ^Haste is one thing, morality is another. Tell us what is pretty: we shall be glad to know that; but we need no sermons even were you able to preach them, 25 which may be doubted.”® Permit me, therefore, to fortify this old dogma of mine somewhat. Taste is not only a part and an index of morality — it is the only morality. The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature is, What 30 do you like?” Tell me what you like, and I’ll tell you what you are.® Go out into the street, and ask the first man or woman you meet, what their ''taste” is, and if E 50 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE they answer candidly, you know them, body and soul. “You, my friend in the rags, with the unsteady gait, what do^oulike?^^ “A pipe and a quartern® of gin I know you. “You, good woman, with the quick step and tidy 5 bonnet, what do you like ? “A swept hearth and a clean tea-table, and my husband opposite me, and a baby at my breast.’' Good, I know you also. ^'You, little girl with the golden hair and the soft eyes, what do you like?” “My canary, and a run among the wood hyacinths.” lo “ You, little boy with the dirty hands and the low forehead, what do you like ? ” “ k shy at the sparrows,® and a game at pitch farthing.”® Good ; we know them all now. What more need we ask ? 55. “Nay,” perhaps you answer: “we need rather to 1 5 ask what these people and children do, than what they like. If they do right, it is no matter that they like what is wrong ; and if they do wrong, it is no matter that they like what is right. Doing is the great thing; and it does not matter that the man likes drinking, so that he does not drink ; nor 20 that the little girl likes to be kind to her canary, if she will not learn her lessons ; nor that the little boy likes throwing stones at the sparrows, if he goes to the Sunday School.” Indeed, for a short time, and in a provisional sense, this is true. For if, resolutely, people do what is right, in time 25 they come to like doing it. But they only are in a right moral state when they have come to like doing it ; and as long as they don’t like it, they are still in a vicious state. The man is not in health of body who is always thinking of the bottle® in the cupboard, though he bravely bears his 30 thirst ; but the man who heartily enjoys water in the morning and wine in the evening, each in its proper quan- tity and time. And the entire object of true education is to mnke peojdc not merely do the right things, but enjoy TRAFFIC 51 the right things — not merely industrious, but to love industry — not merely learned, but to love knowledge — not merely pure, but to love purity — not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.® 56 . But you may answer or think, “ Is the liking for 5 outside ornaments, — for pictures, or statues, or furniture, or architecture, — a moral quality ? Yes, most surely, if a rightly set liking.® Taste for any pictures or statues is not a moral quality, but taste for good ones is. Only here again we have to define the word ^^good.^^ I donT mean 10 by ‘^good,’^ clever — or learned — or difficult in the doing. Take a picture by Teniers,® of sots quarrelling over their dice : it is an entirely clever picture ; so clever that noth- ing in its kind has ever been done equal to it ; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture. It is an expression of 15 delight in the prolonged contemplation of a vile thing, and delight in that is an “unmannered,^^ or “immorah^ quality. It is bad taste” in the profoundest sense — it is the taste of the devils. On the other hand, a picture of Titian^s,® or a Greek statue, or a Greek coin, or a Turner® 20 landscape, expresses delight in the perpetual contempla- tion of a good and perfect thing. That is an entirely moral quality — it is the taste of the angels. And all delight in fine Frt,® and all love of it, resolve themselves into simple love of that which deserves love. That deserving 25 is the quality which we call ^‘loveliness” — (we ought to have an opposite word, hateliness, to be said of the things which deserve to be hated) ; and it is not an in- different nor optional thing whether we love this or that ; but it is just the vital function of all our being. What 3c we like determines what we are, and is the sign of what we are ; and to teach taste is inevitably to form character. 57 . As I was thinking over this, in walking up Fleet 52 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE Street the other day, my eye caught the title of a book standing open in a book-seller window. It was — ‘‘On the necessity of the diffusion of taste among all classes. “Ah,^^ I thought to myself, “my classifying friend, when 5 you have diffused your taste, where will your classes be ? The man who likes what you like, belongs to the same class with you, I think. Inevitably so. You may put him to other work if you choose ; but, by the condition you have brought him into, he will dislike the other work as much lo as you would yourself. You get hold of a scavenger, or a costermonger, ° who enjoyed the Newgate Calendar‘d for literature, and ‘Pop goes the WeaseP® for music. You think you can make him like Dante° and Beethoven®? I wish you joy of your lessons®; but if you do, you have 15 made a gentleman of him : — he wonT like to go back to his costermongering.^^ 58 . And so completely and unexceptionally is this so, that, if I had time to-night, I could show you that a nation cannot be affected by any vice, or weakness, without ex- 20 pressing it, legibly, and forever, either in bad art, or by want of art; and that there is no national virtue, small or great, which is not manifestly expressed in all the art which circumstances enable the people possessing that virtue to produce. Take, for instance, your great English 25 virtue of enduring and patient courage. You have at pres- ent in England only one art of any consequence — that is, iron-working. You know thoroughly well how to cast and hammer iron.® Now, do you think in those masses of lava which you build volcanic cones to melt, and which you 30 forge at the mouths of the Infernos® you have created ; do you think, on those iron plates, your courage and endur- ance are not written forever — not merely with an iron pen, but on iron parchment? And take also your great TRAFFIC 63 English vice — European vice — vice of all the world — vice of all other worlds that roll or shine in heaven,® bearing with them yet the atmosphere of hell — the vice of jealousy, which brings competition into your commerce, treachery into your councils, and dishonor into your wars 5 — that vice which has rendered for you, and for your next neighboring nation,® the daily occupations of existence no longer possible, but with the mail® upon your breasts and the sword loose in its sheath; so that at last, you have realized for all the multitudes of the two great peoples 10 who lead the so-called civilization of the earth, — you have realized for them all, I say, in person and in policy, what was once true only of the rough Border riders of your Cheviot hills — They carved at the meal 15 With gloves of steel, And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr’d;’^® — do you think that this national shame and dastardli- ness of heart are not written as legibly on every rivet of your iron armor® as the strength of the right hands that 20 forged it ? 59 . Friends, I know not whether this thing be the more ludicrous® or the more melancholy.® It is quite unspeak- ably both. Suppose, instead of being now sent for by you, I had been sent for by some private gentleman, living 25 in a surburban house, with his garden separated only by a fruit-wall from his next door neighbor’s ; and he had called me to consult with him on the furnishing of his drawing room. I begin looking about me, and find the walls rather bare ; I think such and such a paper might be 30 desirable — perhaps a little fresco® here and there on the ceiling — a damask curtain or so at the windows. ^‘Ah/’ THE CliOWH OF WILD OLIVE says my employer, ‘^damask curtains,® indeed! That^s all very fine, but you know I can't afford that kind of thing just now!" “Yet the world credits you with a splendid income!" “Ah, ye^," says my friend, “but do 5 you know, at present, I am obliged to spend it nearly all in steel-traps?" “Steel-traps! for whom?" “Why, for that fellow on the other side the wall, you know : we're very good friends, capital friends; but we are obliged keep our traps set on both sides of the wall; we cculd not lo possibly keep on friendly terms without then and our spring guns.® The vmrst of it is, we are both clever fol- lows enough ; and there's never a day passes that we don't find out a new trap, or a new gun-barrel, or something ; we spend about fifteen millions a year® each in our traps, 15 take it all together; and I don’t see how we're to do with less." A highly comic state of life for two private gentle- men ! but for two nations, it seems to me, not wholl\' comic ? Bedlam® would be comic, perhaps, if there were only one madman in it ; and your (Christmas pantomime® 20 is comic, when there is only one clown in it ; but when the whole world turns clown, and paints itself red with its own heart's blood insead of vermilion,® it is something else than comic, I think. 60. Mind, I know a great deal of this is play, and wi.. 25 ingly allow for that. You don't know what to do with yourselves for a sensation: fox-hunting ar«d cricketing® will not carry you through the whole of this unendurably long mortal life : you liked pop-guns when you were school- boys, and rifles and Armstrongs® are only the same tilings 30 better made: but then the worst of it is, that wh&t was play to you when boys, was not play to the sparrows ; and what is play to you now, is not play to the small birds of State neither®; and for the black eagles,® you are some- what shy of faking shots if I mistake not. TRAFFIC 55 61 . I must get back to the matter in hand, however. Believe me, without farther® instance, I could show you, in all time, that every nation ^s vice, or virtue, was written in its ar^, : the soldiership of earh^ Greece® ; the sensuality of late Italy® ; the visionary religion of Tuscany® ; the 5 splendid human energy and beauty of Venice.® I have no time to do this to-night (I have done it elsewhere be- fore now) ® ; but I proceed to apply the principle to our- selves in a more searching manner. I notice that among all the new buildings which cover 10 your once wild hills, churches and schools are mixed in due, that is to say, in large proportion, with your mills and mansions; and I notice also that the churches and schools are almost always Gothic,® and the mansions and mills are never Gothic. Will you allow me to ask precisely 15 the meaning of this? For, remember, it is peculiarly a modern phenomenon.® When Gothic was invented, houses were Gothic as well as churches ; and when the Italian style® superseded the Gothic, churches were Italian as well as houses. If there is a Gothic spire to the cathedral of 20 Antwerp,® there is a Gothic belfry to the Hotel de Ville at Brussels®; if Inigo Jones builds an Italian Whitehall,® Sir Christopher Wren builds an Italian St. Pauhs.® But now you live under one school of architecture, and worship under another. What do you mean by /doing this? Am 25 I to understand that you are thinking of changing your architecture back to Gothic ; and that you treat your churches experimentally, because it does not matter what mistakes you make in a church? Or am I to understand that you consider Gothic a preeminently sacred and beauti- 30 ful mode of building, which you think, like the fine frankin- cense,® should be mixed for the tabernacle only, and re- served for your religious services? For if this be the feel- 56 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE ing, though it may seem at first as if it were graceful and reverent, at the root of the matter, it signifies neither more nor less than that you have separated your religion from your life. 5 62. For consider what a wide significance this fact has ; and remember that it is not you only, but all the people of England, who are behaving thus just now. You have all got into the habit of calling the church ^Hhe house of God.^^ I have seen, over the doors of many lo churches, the legend actually carved, This is the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Now, note where that legend comes from, and of what place it was first spoken. A boy leaves his father’s house to go on a long journey on foot, to visit his uncle® ; he has to cross a 15 wild hill-desert ; just as if one of your own boys had to cross the wolds® to visit an uncle at Carlisle. ® The second or third day your boy finds himself somewhere between Hawes and Brough, in the midst of the moors,® at sunset. It is stony ground, and boggy®; he cannot go one foot farther that 20 night. Down he lies, to sleep, on Wharnside, where best he may, gathering a few of the stones together to put under his head ; — so wild the place is, he cannot get anything but stones. And there, lying under the broad night, he has a dream; and he sees a ladder set up on the earth, 25 and the top of it Keaches to heaven, and the angels of God are seen ascending® and descending upon it. And when he wakes out of his sleep, he says, “How dreadful is this place ; surely, this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” This place, observe; 30 not this church ; not this city ; not this stone, even, which he puts up for a memorial — the piece of flint on which his head lias lain. But this place; this windy slope of Wharnside; this moorland hollow, torrent-bitten,® snow- TRAFFIC 57 blighted ; this any place where God lets down the ladder. And how are you to know where that will be ? or how are you to determine where it may be, but by being ready for it always®? Do you know where the lightning is to fall next? You do know that, partly; you can guide the 5 lightning®; but you cannot guide the going forth of the Spirit,® which is as that lightning when it shines from the east to the west.® 63. But the perpetual and insolent warping of that strong verse to serve a merely ecclesiastical purpose, 10 is only one of the thousand instances in which we sink back into gross Judaism.® We call our churches tem- ples. ^^® Now, you know perfectly well they are not temples. They have never had, never can have, anything whatever to do with temples. They are synagogues ^^® — 15 gathering places ^ where you gather yourselves to- gether as an assembly; and by not calling them so, you again miss the force of another mighty text — ^‘Thou, when thou prayest, shaft not be as the hypocrites are ; for they lev© to pray standing in the churches ’^® [we should 20 translate it], ^Hhat they may be seen of men. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father, — which is, not in chancel nor in aisle, but ^Tn secret.’^® 64. Now, you feel^ as I say this to you — I know you 25 feel — as if I were trying to take away the honor of your churches. Not so ; I am trying to prove to you the honor of your houses and your hills® ; not that the Church is not sacred — but that the whole Earth is. I would have you feel, what careless, what constant, what infectious sin 30 there is in all modes of thought, whereby, in calling your churches only “holy,^^ you call your hearths and homes profane and have separated yourselves from the 58 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE fieathen by casting all your household gods to the ground instead of recognizing, in the place of their many and feeble Lares, the presence of your One and Mighty Lord and Lar.° * 5 65 . But what has all this to do with our Exchange ? you ask me, impatiently. My dear friends, it has just everything to do with it ; on these inner and great ques- tions depend all the outer and little ones ; and if you have asked me down here to speak to you, because you had lo before been interested in anything I have written, you must know that all I have yet said about ^architecture was to show this. The book I called ^^The Seven Lamps was to show that certain right states of temper and moral feeling were the magic powers by which all good architect- 15 ure, without exception, had been produced. ^^The Stones of Venice had, from beginning to end, no other aim than to show that the Gothic architecture of Venice had arisen out of, and indicated in all its features, a state of pure national faith, and of domestic virtue ; and that its 20 Renaissance architecture ° had arisen out of, and in all its features indicated, a state of concealed national infidelity, and of domestic corruption. And now, you ask me what style is best to build in; and how can I answer, knowing the meaning of the two styles, but by another question — 25 do you mean to build as Christians or as Infidels ? And still more — do you mean to build as honest Christians or as honest Infidels®? as thoroughly and confessedly either one or the other? You donT like to be asked such rude questions. I cannot help it ; they are of much more ini- 30 portance than this Exchange business® ; and if they can be at once answered, the Exchange business settles itself in a moment. But, before I press them farther,® I must ask leave to explain one point clearly. TRAFFIC 59 66. In all my pa.st work, my endeavor has been to show that good architecture is essentially religious — the pro- duction of a faithful and virtuous, not of an infidel and corrupted people. But in the course of doing this, I have had also to show that good architecture is not ec- clesiasticaL^ People are so apt to look upon religion as the business of the clergy, not their own, that the moment they hear of anything depending on religion, they think it must also have depended on the priesthood ; and I have had to take what place was to be occupied between these two errors, and fight both, often with seeming contradic- tion. Good architecture is the work of good and be- lieving men ; therefore, you say, at least some people say, ^^Good architecture must essentially have been the work of the clergy, not of the laity. No — a thousand times no ; good architecture ^ has always been the work of the commonalty, not of the clergy. What, you say, those glorious cathedrals — the pride of Europe — did their builders not form Gothic architecture? No; they cor- rupted Gothic architecture. Gothic was formed in the baron’s castle,® and the burgher’s street.® It was formed by the thoughts, and hands, and powers of free citizens and warrior kings.® By the monk it was used as an in- strument for the aid of his superstition ; when that super- stition became a beautiful madness, and the best hearts of Europe vainly dreamed and pined in the cloister,® and vainly raged and perished in the crusade® — through that fury of perverted faith and wasted war, the Gothic rose also to its loveliest, most fantastic, and, finally, most foolish dreams ; and, in those dreams, was lost. ^ And all other arts, for the most part; even of incredulous and secularly-minded commonalties. 5 10 15 20 25 30 60 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE 67. I hope, now, that there is no risk of your misunder- standing me when I come to the gist® of what I want to say to-night ; — when I repeat, that every great national architecture has been the result and exponent of a great 5 national religion. You can't have bits of it here, bits there — you must have it everywhere, or nowhere. It is not the monopoly of a clerical company — it is not the exponent of a theological dogma — it is not the hiero- glyphic® writing of an initiated priesthood ; it is the manly lo language of a people inspired by resolute and common purpose, and rendering resolute and common fidelity to the legible laws of an undoubted God. 68. Now, there have as yet been three distinct schools of European architecture. I say, European, because Asi- 15 atic and African architectures belong so entirely to other races and climates, that there is no question of them here ; only, in passing, I will simply assure you that what- ever is good or great in Egypt,® and Syria,® and India,® is just good or great for the same reasons as the build- 20 ings on our side of the Bosphorus.® We Europeans, then, have had three great religions : the Greek, which was the worship of the God of Wisdom and Power ; the Mediaeval,® which was the Worship of the God of Judgment and Con- solation ; the Renaissance,® which was the worship of the 25 God of Pride and Beauty; these three we have had, — ■ they are past, — and now, at last, we English have got a fourth religion, and a God of our own, about which I want to ask you. But I must explain these three old ones first. 69. I repeat, first, the Greeks essentially worshipped 30 the God of Wisdom ; so that whatever contended against their religion, — to the Jews a stumbling block, — was, to the Greeks — Foolishness.^ The first Greek idea of Deity was that expressed in TRAFFIC 61 the word, of which we keep the remnant in our words ''Dt-urnal'^ and ''Dt-vine^' — the god of Day, Jupiter the revealer. Athena® is his daughter, but especially daughter of the Intellect, springing armed from the head. We are only with the help of recent investigation 5 beginning to penetrate the depth of meaning couched under the Athenaic symbols : but I may note rapidly, that her aegis,® the mantle with the serpent fringes, in which she often, in the best statues, is represented as folding up her left hand for better guard, and the Gorgon® on her 10 shield, are both representative mainly of the chilling horror and sadness (turning men to stone, as it were,) of the out- most and superficial spheres of knowledge — that knowl- edge which separates, in bitterness, hardness, and sorrow, the heart of the full-grown man from the heart of the 15 child. For out of imperfect knowledge spring terror, dissension, danger, and disdain; but from perfect knowl- edge, given by the full-revealed Athena, strength and peace, in sign of which she is crowned with the olive spray,® and bears the resistless spear. 20 This, then, was the Greek conception of purest Deity, and every habit of life, and every form of his art developed themselves from the seeking this bright, serene, resistless wisdom ; and setting himself, as a man, to do things ever- more rightly and strongly ; ^ not with any ardent affection 25 ^ It is an error to suppose that the Greek worship, or seeking, was chiefly of Beauty. It was essentially of Rightness and Strength, founded on Forethought: the principal character of Greek art is not Beauty, but design : and the Dorian Apollo-worship ° and Athenian Virgin-worship ° are both expressions of adoration of divine Wisdom and Purity. Next to these great deities rank, in power over the national mind, Dionysus ° and Ceres,® the givers ot human strength and life : then, for heroic example, Hercules.® G 2 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE or ultimate hope ; but with a resolute and continent energ\ < /f will, as kno\ving that for failure there was no consolation, and for sin there was no remission. And the Greek archi- tecture rose unerring, bright, clearly defined, and self- 5 contained. 70 . Next followed in Europe the great Christian faith, which was essentially the religion of Comfort. Its great doctrine is the remission of sins°; for which cause it hap- pens, too often, in certain phases of Christianity, that sin lo and sickness themselves are partly glorified, as if, the more you had to be healed of, the more divine was the healing. The practical result of this doctrine, in art, is a continual contemplation of sin and disease, and of imaginary states of purification from them; thus we have an architecture 15 conceived in a mingled sentiment of melancholy® and as- piration,® partly severe, partly luxuriant, which will bend itself to every one of our needs, and everyone of our fancies, and be strong or weak with us, as we are strong or weak ourselves. It is, of all architecture, the basest, when base 20 people build it — of all, the noblest, when built by the noble. 71 . And now note that both these religions — Greek and Mediaeval — perished by falsenood in their own main purpose. The Greek religion of Wisdom perished in a 25 false philosophy — ‘‘Oppositions of science, falsely so called.'’^ The Mediaeval religion of Consolation perished in false comfort ; in remission of sins given lyingly. It was the selling of absolution® that ended he .Mediaeval faith ; and I can tell you more, it is the selling of abso- 30 lution which, to the end of time, will mark false Christi- There is no Venus-worship ° among the Greeks in the great times: and the Muses ° are essentialh’ It achers of Triitli, and of its har- monies. Compare Aratra P( idt lici, § 200.® TRAFFIC 63 anity. Pure Christianity gives her remission of sins only by ending them; but false Christianity gets her remission of sins by compounding^ for them. And there are many ways of compounding for them. We Eng- lish have beautiful little quiet ways of buying absolution, 5 whether in low Church or high,® far more cunning than any of TetzeFs trading.® 72 . Then, thirdly, there followed the religion of Pleas- ure, in which all Europe gave itself to luxury, ending in death. First, bals masques^, in every saloon, and then 10 guillotines® in every square. And all these three wor- ships issue in vast temple building. Your Greek wor- shipped Wisdom, and built you the Parthenon® — the Yirgin^s temple. The Mediaeval worshipped Consolation, and built you Virgin temples also — but to our Lady of Sal- 15 vation.® Tho the Revivalist® worshipped beauty, of a sort, and built you Versailles,® and the Vatican.® Now, lastly, will you tell me what we worship, and what we build ? 73 . You know we are speaking always of the real, active, continual, national worship ; that by which men 20 act while they live ; not that which they talk of when they die. Now, we have, indeed, a nominal religion, to which we pay tithes of property® and sevenths of time® ; but we have also a practical and earnest religion, to which we devote nine-tenths of our property and sixth-sevenths of 25 our time. And we dispute a great deal about the nominal religion; but we are all unanimous about this practical one, of which I think you will admit that the ruling goddess may be best generally described as the “Goddess of Get- ting-on,'' or “Britannia of the Market." The Athenians 30 had an “ilthena Agoraia,"® or Athena® of the Market ; but she was a subordinate type of their goddess, while our Britannia Agoraia is the principal type of ours. And all 64 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE your great architectural works, are, of course, built to her.® It is long since you built a great cathedral; and how you would laugh at me, if I proposed building a cathe- dral on the top of one of these hills of yours, to make it 5 an Acropolis® ! But your railroad mounds, vaster than the walls of Babylon® ; your railroad stations, vaster than the temple of Ephesus,® and innumerable ; your chimneys how much more mighty and costly than cathedral spires ! your harbor piers® ; your warehouses ; your exchanges ! — ■ lo all these are built to your great Goddess of Getting-on ” ; and she has formed, and will continue to form, your archi- tecture, as long as you worship her; and it is quite vain to ask me to tell you how to build to her; you know far better than I. IS 74 . There might indeed, on some theories, be a con- ceivably good architecture for Exchanges — that is to say, if there were any heroism in the fact or deed of ex- change, which might be typically carved on the outside of your building. For, you know, all beautiful architect- 20 ure must be adorned with sculpture or painting ; and for sculpture or painting, you must have a subject. And hitherto it has been a received opinion among the nations of the world that the only right subjects for either, were heroisms of some sort. Even on his pots and his flagons, 25 the Greek put a Hercules slaying lions, or an Apollo® slaying serpents, or Bacchus® slaying melancholy giants, and earth-born despondencies. On his temples, the Greek put contests of great warriors in founding states, or of gods with evil spirits. On his houses and temples alike, the 30 Christian put carvings of angels conquering devils; or of hero-martyrs exchanging this world for another; sub- ject inappropriate, 1 think, to our direction® of exchange here. And the Master of Christians not only left his fol- TRAFFIC 65 lowers without any orders as to the sculpture of affairs of exchange on the outside of buildings, but gave some strong evidence of his dislike of affairs of exchange within them.® And yet there might surely be a heroism in such affairs; and all commerce become a kind of selling of doves, not im- 5 pious. The wonder has always been great to me, that heroism has never been supposed to be in any wise con- sistent with the practice of supplying people with food, or clothes; but rather with that of quartering® one's self upon them for food, and stripping them of their clothes, to S poiling of armor is an heroic deed in all ages; but the selling of clothes, old or new, has never taken any color of magnanimity.® Yet one does not see why feeding the hungry and clothing the naked® should ever become base businesses, even when engaged in on a large scale. If one 15 could contrive to attach the notion of conquest to them anyhow® ! so that, supposing there were anywhere an obstinate race, who refused to be comforted, one might take some pride in giving them compulsory comfort® ! ^ and as it were, occupying^ a country" with one's gifts, 20 instead of one's armies? If one could only consider it as much a victory to get a barren field sown, as to get an eared field stripped; and contend who should build vil- lages, instead of who should carry " them® ! Are not all forms of heroism, conceivable in doing these serviceable 25 deeds ? You doubt who is strongest ? It might be ascer- tained by push of spade, as well as push of sword. Who is wisest ? There are witty® things to be thought of in plan- ning other business than campaigns. Who is bravest? There are always the elements® to fight with, stronger than 30 men ; and nearly as merciless. ^ Quite serious, all this, though it reads like jest. F 66 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE 75. The only absolutely and unapproachably heroic element in the soldier's work seems to be — that he is paid little for it — and regularly® : while you traffickers, and exchangers, and others occupied in presumably be- 5 nevolent business, like to be paid much for it — and by chance. I never can make out how it is that a knight- errant® does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a ped/er®-errant always does ; — that people are willing to take hard knocks for nothing, but never to sell ribands® lo cheap; — that they are ready .to go on fervent crusades® to recover the tomb of a buried God, but never on any travels to fulfil the orders of a living one ; — that they will go anywhere barefoot to preach their faith, but must be well bribed to practise it, and are perfectly ready 15 to give the Gospel gratis, but never the loaves and fishes.^ 76. If you chose to take the matter up on any such soldierly principle, to do your commerce, and your feed- ing of nations, for fixed salaries; and to be as particular 20 about giving people the best food, and the best cloth, as soldiers are about giving them the best gunpowder,® I could carve something for you on your exchange worth looking at. But I can only at present suggest decorating its frieze® with pendent purses; and making its pillars 25 broad at the base, for the sticking of bills.® Ar i in the innermost chambers of it there might be a statue of Britannia of the Market, who may have, perhaps advis- ably, a partridge for her crest, typical at once of her courage in fighting for noble ideas, and of her interest in 30 game ; and round its neck the inscription in golden letters, ^ Please think over this paragraph, too briefly and antithetically put, but one of those which I am happiest in liaviiig written. THAFFW G7 ■^Perdix fovit qUcT non peperitd^^ Then, for Iier spear, she might have a weaver^s beam ; and on her shield, in- stead of St. George \s Cross,® tlie Milanese boar, semi- fleeeed, with the town of Gennesaret proj)er,® in the field,® and the legend ^Mn the best market, ^^^® and her corselet, 5 of leather, folded over her heart in the shape pf a purse, with thirty slits® in it for a piece of money to go in at, on each day of th- month. And I doubt not but that people would come to see your exchange, and its goddess, with applause. ic 77. Nevertheless, I want to point out to you certain strange characters in this goddess of }murs. She differs from the great Greek and Mediaeval deities essentially in two things — first, as to the continuance of her presumed power; secondly, as to the extent of it. 15 1st, as to the Continuance. The Greek Goddess of Wisdom® gave continual increase of wisdom, as the Christian Spirit of Comfort (or Com- forter) continual increase of comfort. There was no ques- tion, with these, of any limit or cessation of function. But 20 with your Agora Goddess,® that is just the most important question. Getting on — but where to ? Gathering to- gether — b It how much ? Do you mean to gather always — never to spend? If so, I wish you joy of your goddess, for I am just as well off as you, without the trouble of 25 worshipping her at all. But if you do not spend, some- body else will — somebody else must. And it is because of this (among many other such errors) that I have fear- ' Jerem. xvii. 11 (best in Septuagint and Vulgate). the partridge, fostering what she brought not forth, so he that getteth riches, not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.” ° ^ Meaning fully, ‘AVe have brought our pigs to it.” 68 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE ^ssly declared your so-called science of Political Economy to be no science ; because, namely, it has omitted the study of exactly the most important branch of the business — the study of spending. For spend you must, and as much 5 as you make, ultimately. You gather corn : — will you bury England under a heap of grain ; or will you, when you have gathered, finally eat ? You gather gold® : — will you make your house-roofs® of it, or pave your streets with it? That is still one way of spending it. But if loyou keep it, that you may get more. I’ll give you more; Idl give you all the gold you want — all you can imagine — if you can tell me what youdl do with it. You shall have thousands of gold pieces ; — thousands of thousands — millions — mountains, of gold : where will you keep them ? 15 Will you put an Olympus® of silver upon a golden Pelion® — make Ossa® like a wart? Do you think the rain and dew would then come down to you, in the streams from such mountains, more blessedly than they will down the mountains which God has made for you, of moss and whin- 20 stone® ? But it is not gold that you want to gather ! What is it? greenbacks? No; not those neither.® What is it then — is it ciphers after a capital I ? Cannot you practise writing ciphers, and write as many as you want? Write ciphers for an hour every morning, in a big 2 5 book, and say every evening, I am worth all those noughts more than I was yesterday. WonTthatdo? Well, what in the name of Plutus is it you want®? Not gold, not greenbacks, not ciphers after a capital I? You will have to answer, after all, ‘^No; we want, somehow or other, 30 money ^s Well, what is that? Let your Goddess of Getting-on discover it, and let her learn to stay therein. 78. II. But there is yet another question to be asked respecting this Goddess of Getting-on. The first was of TRAFFIC 69 the continuance of her power; the second is of its ex- tent. Pallas ° and the Madonna® were supposed to be all the world ^s Pallas, and all the world ^s Madonna. They could teach all men, and they could comfort all men. But, look strictly into the nature of the power of your Goddess of Getting-on ; and you will find she is the Goddess — not of everybody's getting on — but only of somebody ^s getting on. This is a vital, or rather deathful,® distinction. Examine it in your own ideal of the state of national life which this Goddess is to evoke and maintain. I asked you what it was, when I was last here® ; ^ — you have never told me. Now, shall I try to tell you? 79. Your ideal of human life then is, I think, that it should be passed in a pleasant undulating world,® with iron and coal everywhere underneath it. On each pleasant bank of this world is to be a beautiful mansion, with two wings ; and stables, and coach-houses ; a moderately sized park ; a large garden and hot-houses ; and pleasant carriage drives through the shrubberies. In this mansion are to live the favored votaries® of the Goddess; the English gentleman, with his gracious wife, and his beauti- ful family; always able to have the boudoir® and the jewels for the wife," and the beautiful ball dresses for the daughters, and hunters for the sons, and a shooting in the Highlands for himself. At the bottom of the bank, is to be the mill ; not less than a quarter of a mile long, with a steam engine at each end, and two in the middle, and a chimney three hundred feet high.® In this mill are to be in constant employment from eight hundred to a thousand workers, who never drink, never strike, always go to ^ ‘‘The Two Paths,” p. 115 (small edition), and p. 99 of vol. x. of the “Revised Series of the Entire Works.” 5 10 15 20 25 30 70 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE church on Sunday, and always express themselves in respectful language. 80 . Is not that, broadly, and in the main features, the kind of thing you propose to yourselves? It is very 5 pretty indeed, seen from above ° ; not at all so pretty, seen from below. For, observe, while to one family this deity is indeed the Goddess of Getting-on, to a thousand fami- lies she is the Goddess of not Getting-on. Nay,^^ you say, “they have all their chance.’^ Yes, so has every one in a lo lottery, but there must always be the same number of blanks.® “Ah ! but in a lottery it is not skill and intelli- gence which take the lead, but blind chance.'^ What then ! do you think the old practice, that “they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can,^^° is less 15 iniquitous, when the power has become power of brains instead of fist ? and that, though we may not take advan- tage of a child ^s or awoman^s weakness, we may of a man's foolishness? ^^Nay, but finally, work must be done, and some one must be at the top, some one at the bottom." 20 Granted, my friends. Work must always be, and cap- tains of work must always be ; and if you in the least re- member the tone of any of my writings, you must know that they are thought unfit for this age, because they are always insisting on need of government, and speaking with 25 scorn of liberty.® But I beg you to observe that there is a wide difference between being captains or governors of work, and taking the profits of it. It does not follow, because you are general of an army, that you are to take all the treasure, or land, it wins (if it fight for treasure or 30 land) ; neither, because you are king of a nation, that you are to consume all the profits of the nation's work. Real kings, on the contrary, are known invariably by their doing (juite the reverse of this, — by their taking the least TRAFFIC 71 possible quantity of tlie natioii^s work for theinsehes There is no test of real kinghood so infallible as that. Does the crowned creature live simply, bravely, unostenta- tiously ? probably he is a King. Does he cover his body with jewels, and his table with delicates°? in all probabil-’s ity he is not a King. It is possible he may be, as Solomon® was ; but that is when the nation shares his s})lendor with him. Solomon made gold, not only to be in his own palace as stones, but to be in Jerusalem as stones. But even so, for the most part, these splendid kinghoods expire in ruin, ic and only the true kinghoods live, which are of royal labor- ers governing loyal laborers ; who, both leading rough lives, establish the true dynasties. Conclusively you will find that because you are king of a nation, it does not follow that you are to gather for yourself all the wealth of that 15 nation ; neither, because you are king of a small part of the nation, and lord over the means of its maintenance — over field, or mill, or mine — are you to take all the prod- uce of that piece of the foundation of national existence for yourself. 20 81 . You will tell me I need not preach against these things, for I cannot mend them. No, good friends, I can- not ; but you can, and you. will ; or something else can and will. Even good things have no abiding power — and shall these evil things persist in victorious evil®? All 25 history shows, on the contrary, that to be the exact thing they never can do. Change rnust come; but it is ours to determine whether change of growth, or change of death. Shall the Parthenon® be in ruins 6n its rock, and Bolton priory® in its meadow, but these mills of yours be the con- 30 summation of the buildings of the earth, and their wlieels be as the wheels of eternity? Think you that “men may come, and men may go,^’ but — mills — go on forever®? 72 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE Not so ; out of these, better or worse shall come ; and it is for you to choose which. 82 . I know that none of this wrong is done with deliber- ate purpose. I know, on the contrary, that you wish your 5 workmen well ; that you do much for them, and that you desire to do more for them, if you saw your way to such benevolence® safely. I know that even all this wrong® and misery are brought about by a warped sense of duty, each of you striving to do his best ; but unhappily, not lo knowing for whom this best should be done. And all our hearts have been betrayed by the plausible impiety of the modern economist,® that ^^To do the best for yourself, is finally to do the best for others.'’^® Friends, our great Master said not so®; and most absolutely we shall find 15 this world is not made so. Indeed, to do the best for others, is finally to do the best for ourselves; but it will not do to have our eyes fixed on that issue. The Pagans® had got beyond that. Hear what a Pagan says of this matter ; hear what were, perhaps, the last written words 20 of Plato,® — if not the last actually written (for this we cannot know) , yet assuredly in fact and power his parting words — in which, endeavoring to give full crowning and harmonious close to all his thoughts, and to speak the sum of them by the imagined sentence of the Great Spirit, his 25 strength and his heart fail him, and the words cease, broken off forever. 83 . They are at the close of the dialogue called ^Xritias,^^® in which he describes, partly from real tradi- tion, partly in ideal dream, the early state of Athens®; and 30 the genesis,® and order, and religion, of the fabled isle of Atlantis®; in which genesis he conceives the same first perfection and final degeneracy of man, which in our own Scriptural tradition is expressed by saying that the Sons of TRAFFIC God mtermarried with the daughters of men,® for he sup- poses the earliest race to have been indeed the children of God; and to have corrupted themselves, until ^Hheir spot was not the spot of his children/^ And this, he says, was , the end ; that indeed “through many generations, so long 5 as the God’s nature in them yet was full, they were sub- missive to the sacred laws, and carried themselves lov- ingly to all that had kindred with them in divineness ; for their uttermost spirit was faithful and true, and in every wise great ; so that, in all meekness of wisdom, they dealt 10 with each other, ^ and took all the chances of life; and de- spising all things except virtue, they cared little what happened day by day, and hore lightly the burden of gold and of possessions ; for they saw that, if only their common love and virtue increased, all these things would he increased 1 5 together with them"^; but to set their esteem and ardent pur- suit upon material possession would be to lose that first, and their virt le and affection together with it. And by such reasoning, and what of the divine nature remained in them, they gained all this greatness of which we have 20 already told ; but when the God’s part of them faded and oecame extinct, being mixed again and again, and ellaced by the prevalent mortality® ; and the human nature at last exceeded, they then became unable to endure the courses of fortune ; and fell into shapelessness of life, and baseness 25 in the sight of him who could see, having lost everything that was fairest of their honor ; while to the blind hearts® which could not discern the true life, tending to happiness, it seemed that they were then chiefly noble and happy, being filled with all iniquity of inordinate possession and 30 power. Whereupon, the God of gods, whose Kinghood is in laws, beholding a once just nation thus cast into misery, and desiring to lay such punishment upon them as 74 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE might make them repent into restraining, gatliered to- gether all the gods into his dwelling-place, which from heaven^s centre overlooks whatever has part in creation; , and having assembled them, he said'^ — 5 84. The rest is silence. Last words® of the chief wisdom of the heathen, spoken of this idol of riches ; this idol of yours; this golden image high by measureless cubits.® set up where your green fields of England are furnace- burnt into the likeness of the plain of Dura® : this idol, for- lo bidden to us, first of all idols, by our own Master and faith® ; forbidden to us also by every human lip that has ever, in any age or people, been accounted of as able to speak ac- cording to the purposes of God. Continue to make that forbidden deity your principal one, and soon no more IS art, no more science, no more pleasure will be possible. Catastrophe will come ; or worse than catastrophe, slow mouldering and withering into Hades.® But if you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be striven for — life good for all men® as for yourselves — if 20 you can determine some honest and simple order of ex- istence; following those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking her quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace ^ ; — then, and so sanctifying wealth into commonwealth,^^® all your art, your litera- 25 ture, your daily labors, your domestic affection, and citi- zen's duty, will join and increase into one magnificent harmony. You will know then how to build, well enough ; you will build with stone well, but with flesh better ; tem- ples not made with hands, but riveted of hearts ; and that 30 kind of marble, crimson-veined, is indeed eternal.® ^ I imagine the Hebrew chant merely intends passionate repe- tition, and not a distinction of this somewhat fanciful kind; yet we may profitably make it in reading the laiglisli. LECTURE III WAR Delivered at the Royal Military Academy ^ Woolwich ^ 1865 85. Young soldiers, I do not doubt but that many of you came unwillingly to-night, and many in merely con- temptuous curiosity, to hear what a writer on painting could possibly say, or would venture to say, respecting your great art of war. You may well think within your- selves, that a painter might, perhaps without immodesty, lecture younger painters upon painting, but not young lawyers upon law, nor young physicians upon medicine — least of all, it may seem to you, young warriors upon war. And, indeed, when I was asked to address you, I declined at first, and declined long; for I felt that you would not be interested in my special business, and would cer- tainly think there was small need for me to come to teach you yours. Nay, I knew that there ought to be no such need, for the great veteran soldiers of England are now men every way so thoughtful, so noble, and so good, that no other teaching than their knightly example, ° and their few words® of grave and tried counsel should be either necessary for you, or even, without assurance of due modesty m the offerer, endured by you. 86. But being asked, not once nor twice, I have not ventured persistently to refuse; and I will try, in very few words, to lay before you some reason why you should 5 10 15 20 76 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE accept my excuse, and hear me patiently. You may im- agine that your work is wholly foreign to, and separate from mine. So far from that, all the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war; no great art ever yet rose 5 on earth, but among a nation of soldiers. There is no art among a shepherd people, if it remains at peace. There is no art among an agricultural people, if it remains at peace. Commerce is barely consistent with fine art; but cannot produce it. Manufacture not only is unable to lo produce it, but invariably destroys whatever seeds of it exist. There is no great art possible to a nation but that which is based on battle. 87. Now, though I hope you love fighting for its own sake, you must, I imagine, be surprised at my assertion 15 that there is any such good fruit of fighting. You sup- posed, probably, that your office was to defend the works of peace, but certainly not to found them : nay, the common course of war, you may have thought, was only to destroy them. And truly, I w^ho tell you this of the use 20 of war, should have been the last of men to tell you so had I trusted my own experience only. Hear why: I have given a considerable part of my life to the investigation of Venetian painting, and the result of that inquiry was my fixing upon one man as the greatest of all Venetians, 25 and therefore, as I believed, of all painters whatsoever. I formed this faith (whether right or wrong matters at present nothing), in the supremacy of the painter Tin- toret,® under a roof covered with his pictures ; and of those pictures, three of the noblest were then in the form of 30 shreds of ragged canvas, mixed up with the laths of the roof, rent through by three Austrian shells. Now it is not every lecturer who could tell you that he had seen three of his favorite pictures torn to rags by bomb-shells. And WAR 77 after such a sight, it is not every lecturer who would tell you that, nevertheless, war was the foundation of all great art. 88. Yet the conclusion is. inevitable, from any careful comparison of the states of great historic race.3 at different 5 periods. Merely to show you what I mean, I will sketch for you, very briefly, the broad steps of the advance of the best art of the world. The first dawn of it is in Egypt ; and the power of it is founded on the perpetual contemplation of death, and of future judgment, by the mind of a nation ic of which the ruling caste were priests, and the second, sol- diers. The greatest works produced by them are sculptures of their kings going out to battle, or receiving the homage of conquered armies. And you must remember also, as one of the great keys to the splendor of the Egyptian na- 15 tion, that the priests were not occupied in theology only. Their theology was the basis of practical government and law; so that they were not so much priests as religious judges; the office of Samuel,® among the Jews, being as nearly as possible correspondent to theirs. 20 89. All the rudiments of art then, and much more than the rudiments of all science, are laid first by this great warrior-nation, which held in contempt all mechanical trades, and in absolute hatred the peaceful life of shep- herds. From Egypt art passes directly into Greece, where 25 all poetry, and all painting, are nothing else than the de- scription, praise, or dramatic representation of war, or of the exercises which prepare for it, in their connection with offices of religion. All Greek institutions had first respect to war; and their conception of it, as one necessary office 3a of all human and divine life, is expressed simply by the images of their guiding gods. Apollo is the god of all wisdom of the intellect ; he bears the arrow and the bow, 78 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE before he bears the lyre.° Again, Athena is the goddess of all wisdom in conduct. It is by the helmet and the shield, oftener than by the shuttle, that she is distinguished from other deities. 5 90 . There were, however, two great differences in princi- ple between the Greek and the Egyptian theories of polic}\ In Greece there was no soldier caste; every citizen was necessarily a soldier. And, again, while the Greeks rightly despised mechanical arts as much as the Egyptians, they lo did not make the fatal mistake of despising agricultural and pastoral life ; but perfectly honored both. These two conditions of truer thought raise them quite into the high- est rank of wise manhood that has yet been reached ; for all our great arts, and nearly all our great thoughts, have 15 been borrowed or derived from them. Take away from us what they have given ; and I hardly can imagine how low the modern^ European would stand. 91 . Now, you are to remember, in passing to the next phase of history, that though you must have war to produce 20 art — you must also have much more than war ; namely, an art-instinct or genius in the people ; and that, though all the talent for painting in the world won't make paint- ers of you, unless you have a gift for fighting® as well, you may have the gift for fighting, and none for painting. 25 Now, in the next great dynasty of soldiers, the art -instinct is wholly wanting. I have not yet investigated the Roman character enough to tell you the causes of this; but I believe, paradoxical® as it may seem to you, that, however truly the Roman might say of himself that he was born of 30 Mars, and suckled by the wolf,® he was nevertheless, at ^ The modern, obs^erve, because we have lost all inheritance from Florence or Venice, and are now pensioners upon the Cl reeks only. WAR 79 heart, more of a farmer than a soldier. The exercises of war were with him practi(;al, not poetical; his poetry was in domestic life only, and the object of battle, ‘'pads imponere morem.^^° And the arts are extinguished in his hands, and do not rise again, until, with Gothic chivalry, 5 there comes back into the mind of Europe a passionate delight in war itself, for the sake of war. And then, with the romantic knighthood which can imagine no other noble en.ployment, — under the fighting kings of France, England, and Spain ; and under the fighting dukeships and 10 citizenships of Italy, art is born again, and rises to her height in the great valleys of Lombardy® and Tuscany, through which there flows not a single stream, from all their Alps® or Apennines,® that did not once run dark red from battle : and it reaches its culminating glory in the 15 city which gave to history the most intense type of soldier- ship yet seen among men ; — the city whose armies were led in their assault by their king, led through it to victory by their king,^ and so led, though that king of theirs was blind, and in the extremity of his age. 20 92. And from this time forward, as peace is established or extended in Europe, the arts decline. They reach an unparalleled pitch of costliness, but lose their life, enlist themselves at last on the side of luxury and various cor- ruption, and, among wholly tranquil nations, wither 25 utterly away; remaining only in partial practice among races who, like the French and us, have”" still the minds, though we cannot all live the lives, of soldiers. 93. “ It maybe so,^^ I can suppose that a philanthropist® might exclaim. “ Perish then the arts, if they can flourish 30 only at such a cost. What worth is there in toys of canvas ^ Henry Dandolo : the King of Bohemia is very grand, too, and by the issue, his knighthood is. to" us, more memorable. 80 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE and stone, if compared to the joy and peace of artless do- mestic life ? And the answer is — truly, in themselves, none. But as expressions of the highest state of the hu- man spirit, their worth is infinite. As results they may be 5 worthless, but, as signs, they are above price. For it is an assured truth that, whenever the faculties of men are at their fulness, they inust express themselves by art ; and to say that a state is without such expression, is to say that it is sunk from its proper level of manly nature. So that, lo when I tell you that war is the foundation of all the arts, I mean also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of men. 94. It is very strange to me to discover this ; and very dreadful — but I saw it to be quite an undeniable fact. 15 The common notion that peace and the virtues of civil life flourished together, I found to be wholly untenable. Peace and the vices of civil life only flourish together. We talk of peace and learning, and of peace and plenty, and of peace and civilization ; but I found that those were not the 20 words which the ^luse of History® coupled together : that on her lips, the words were — peace and sensuality, peace and selfishness, peace and corruption, peace and death. I found, in brief, that all great nations learned their truth of word, and strength of thought, in war ; that they were 25 nourished in war, and wasted by peace; taught by war, and deceived by peace ; trained by war, and betrayed by peace ; — in a word, that they were born in war and ex- pired in peace.® 95. Yet now note carefully, in the second place, it is 30 not all war of which this can be said — nor all dragon's teeth, which, sown, will start up into men.® It is not the ravage of a barbarian wolf-flock, as under (tenseric or Suwarrow®; nor the habitual restlessness and rapine of WAR 81 mountaineers, as on the old borders of Scotland®; nor the occasional struggle of a strong peaceful nation for its life, as in the wars of the Swiss with Austria®; nor the contest of merely ambitious nations for extent of power, as in the wars of France under Napoleon,® or the just 5 terminated war in America.® None of these forms of war build anything but tombs. But the creative or founda- tional war is that in which the natural restlessness and love of contest among men are disciplined, by consent, into ■ modes of beautiful — though it may be fatal — play : in ic which the natural ambition and love of power of men are disciplined into the aggressive conquest of surrounding evil: and in which the natural instincts of self-defence are sanctified by the nobleness of the institutions, and purity of the households, which they are appointed to 15 defend. To such war as this all men are born ; in such war as this any man may happily die ; and out of® such war as this have arisen throughout the extent of past ages, all the highest sanctities and virtues of humanity. I shall therefore divide the war of which I w’ould speak 20 to you into three heads. War for exercise or play; war for dominion ; and, war for defence. 96. I. And first, of war for exercise or play. I speak of it primarily, in this light, because, through all past history, manly war has been more an exercise than any- 25 thing else, among the classes who cause, and proclaim it. It is not a game to the conscript, or the pressed sailor®; but neither of these are the causers of it. To the gov- ernor who determines that war shall be, and to the youths who voluntarily adopt it as their profession, it has always 3c been a grand pastime; and chiefly pursued because they had nothing else to do. And this is true without any ex- ception. No king whose mind was fully occupied with the G 82 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE development of the inner resources of his kingdom, or with any other sufficing subject of thought, ever entered into war but on compulsion. No youth who was earnestly bus}^ with any peaceful subject of study, or set on any 5 serviceable course of action, ever voluntarily became a soldier. Occupy him early and wisely, in agriculture or business, in science or in literature, and he will never think of war otherwise than as a calamity.^ But leave him idle ; and, the more brave and active and capable he is lo by nature, the more he will thirst for some appointed field for action ; and find, in the passion and peril of battle, the only satisfying fulfilment of his unoccupied being. And from the earliest incipient civilization until now, the population of the earth divides itself, when you look at it 15 widely, into two races ; one of workers, and the other of players — one tilling the ground, manufacturing, building, and otherwise providing for the necessities of life ; — the other part proudly idle, and continually therefore needing recreation, in which they use the productive and laborious 20 orders® partly as their cattle, and partly as their puppets or pieces in the game of death.® 97 . ^Now, remember, whatever virtue or goodliness there may be in this game of war, rightly played, there is none when you thus play it with a multitude of /..uman 25 pawns.® If you, the gentlemen of this or any other kingdom, ^ A wholesome calamity, observe, not to be shrunk from, thougli not to be provoked. 2 I dislike more and more every day the declamatory forms in which what 1 most desired to make impressive was arranged for oral delivery, but these two paragraphs, 97 and 98, sacrifice no accuracy in their endeavor to be pompous, and are among the most importnntly triic j)assages T liave ever written. WAR 83 choose to make your pastime of contest, do so, and wel- come ; but set not up these unhappy peasant-pieces upon the checker of forest and field.® If the wager is to be of death, lay it on your own heads, not theirs. A goodly struggle in the Olympic dust,® though it be the dust of the grave, the gods will look upon, and be with you in® ; but they will not be with you, if you sit on the sides of the amphitheatre,® whose steps are the mountains of earth, whose arena® its valleys, to urge your peasant® millions into gladiatorial® war. You also, you tender and delicate women, for whom, and by whose command, all true battle has been, and must ever be; you would perhaps shrink now, though you need not, from the thought of sitting as (jueens above set lists where the jousting® game might be mortal. How much more, then, ought you to shrink from the thought of sitting above a theatre pit in which even a few condemned slaves were slaying each other only for your delight ! And do you not shrink from the fact of sitting above a theatre pit, where, — not condemned slaves, — but the best and bravest of the poor sons of your people, slay each other, — not man to man, — as the coupled gladiators ; but race to race, in duel of genera- tions? You would tell me, perhaps, that you do not sit to see this ; and it is indeed true, that the women of Europe — those who have no heart-interest of their own at peril in the contest — draw the curtains of their boxes, and muffle the openings ; so that from the pit of the circus of slaughter there may reach them only at intervals a half-heard cry and a murmur as of the wind^s sighing, when myriads of souls expire. They^ shut out the death-cries ; and are happy, and talk wittily among themselves. That is the utter literal fact of what our ladies do in their pleasant lives. 5 10 15 20 25 30 84 THE GROWN OF WILD OLIVE 98. Nay, you might answer, speaking with them^ — do not let these wars come to pass for our play, nor by our carelessness ; we cannot help them. How can any final quarrel of nations be settled otherwise than by 5 war ? I cannot now delay to tell you how political quarrels might be otherwise settled. But grant that they cannot. Grant that no law of reason can be understood by nations ; no law of justice submitted to by them: and that, while lo questions of a few acres, and of petty cash, can be deter- mined by truth and equity, the questions which are to issue in the perishing or saving of kingdoms can be deter- mined only by the truth of the sword, and the equity of the rifle. Grant this, and even then, judge if it will always 15 be necessary for you to put your quarrel into the hearts of your poor, and sign your treaties with peasants^ blood. You would be ashamed to do this in your own private position and power. Why should you not be ashamed also to do it in public place and power? If you quarrel 20 with your neighbor, and the quarrel be indeterminable by law, and mortal, you and he do not send your footmen to Battersea® fields to fight it out ; nor do you set fire to his tenants^ cottages, nor spoil their goods. You fight out your quarrel yourselves, and at your own danger, if at all. 25 And you do not think it materially affects the arbitrament® that one of you has a larger household than the other ; so that, if the servants or tenants were brought into the field with their masters, the issue of the contest could not be doubtful? You either refuse the private duel, or you 30 practise it under laws of honor,® not of physical force ; that so it may be, in a manner, justly concluded. Now the just or unjust conclusion of the private feud is of little moment, while the just or unjust conclusion of the public WAR 85 jfeud is of eternal moment : and yet, in this public quarrel, you take your servants^ sons from their arms to fight for it, and your servants^ food from their lips to support it ; and the black seals on the parchment of your treaties of peace are the deserted hearth and the fruitless field. 99. There is a ghastly ludicrousness in this, as there is mostly in these wide and universal crimes. Hear the statement of the very fact of it in the most literal words of the greatest of our English thinkers® : — What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net purport and upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. From these, by certain ^natural enemies^ of the French, there are successively selected, during the French war, say thirty able-bodied men. Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them ; she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois.® Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected; all dressed in red; and shipped away, at the public charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain ; and fed there till wanted. ‘E4nd now to that same spot in the south of Spain are thirty similar French artisans, from a French Dum- drudge, in like manner wending ; till at length, after in- finite effort, the two parties come into actual juxtaposition ; and Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with a gun in his hand. ^^Straightway the word ‘Fire!^ is given, and they blow the souls out of one another, and in place of sixty brisk 5 10 15 20 25 30 80 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE useful craftsmen, tlie world has sixty dead carcaSes, which it must bury, and anon shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the devil is,° not the smallest! They lived far enough apart ; were the entirest strangers ; 5 nay, in so wide a universe, there was even, unconsciously, commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton! their governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting one another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot. (Sartor Resartus.°) lo 100 . Positively, then, gentlemen, the game of battle must not, and shall not, ultimately be played this way. But should it be played any way? Should it, if not by your servants, be practised by yourselves? I think, yes. Both history and human instinct seem alike to say, yes. 15 All healthy men like fighting, and like the sense- of danger ; all brave women like to hear of their fighting, and of their facing danger. This is a fixed instinct in the fine race of them°; and I cannot help fancying thatTair fight is the best play for them ; and that a tournament was a better 20 game than a steeple-chase.® The time may perhaps come in France as well as here, for universal hurdle-races and cricketing®: but I do not think universal crickets will bring out the best qualities of the nobles of either countr}^ I use, in sucn (juestion, the test which I have adopted, of 25 the connection of war with other arts ; and I reflect how, as a sculptor, I should feel, if I were asked to design a monument for a dead knight, in Westminster abbey,® with a carving of a bat at one end, and a ball at the other. It may be the remains in me only of savage Gothic prejudice ; 30 but I had rather carve it with a shield at one end, and a sword at the other. And this, observe, with no reference whatever to any story of duty done, or cause defended. Assume the knight merely to have ridden out occasionally JVAB 87 to fight his neighbor for exercise ; assume him even a soldier of fortune, and to have gained his bread, and filled his purse, at the sword^s point. Still, I feel as if it were, somehow, grander and worthier in him to have made his bread by sword play than any other play ; I had rather he 5 had made it by thrusting than by batting ; — much rather, than by betting. Much rather that he should ride war horses, than back race horses ; and — I say it sternly and deliberately — much rather would I have him slay his neighbor, than cheat him.® lo 101. But remember, so far as this ma}^ be true, the game of war is only that in which the full personal power of the human creature is brought out in management of its weapons. And this for three reasons : — First, the great justification of this game is that it truly, 15 when well played, determines who is the best man; — who is the highest bred, the most self-denying, the most fear- less, the coolest of nerve, the swiftest of eye and hand. You cannot test these qualities wholly, unless there is a clear possibility of the struggle's ending in death. It 20 is only in the fronting of that condition that the full trial of the man, soul and body, comes out. You may go to your game of wickets, or of hurdles, or of cards, and any knavery that is in yon may stay unchallenged all the while. But if the play may be ended at any moment by a lance- 25 thrust, a man will probably make up his accounts a little before he enters it. Whatever is rotten and evil in him will weaken his hand more in holding a sword-hilt, than in balancing a billiard-cue ; and on the whole, the habit of living lightly hearted, in daily presence of death, always 3c has had, and must have, power both in the making® and testing of honest men. But for the final testing, observe, you must make the issue of battle strictly dependent on 88 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE fineness of frame, and firmness of hand. You must not make it the question, which of the combatants has the longest gun, or which has got° behind the biggest tree, or which has the wind in his face, or which has gunpowder 5 made by the best chemists, or iron smelted with the best coal, or the angriest mob at his back. Decide your battle, whether of nations, or individuals, on those terms ; — and you have only multiplied confusion, and added slaughter to iniquity. But decide your battle by pure trial which lo has the strongest arm, and steadiest heart, — and you have gone far to decide a great many matters besides, and to decide them rightly.^ 102. And the other reasons for this mode of decision of cause, are the diminution both of the material destructive- 15 ness, or cost, and of the physical distress of war. For you must not think that in speaking to you in this (as you may imagine), fantastic praise of battle, I have overlooked the conditions weighing against me. I pray all of you, who have not read, to read with the most earnest atten- 20 tion, Mr. Helps ^s° two essays on War and Government, in the first volume of the last series of Friends in Council. Everything that can be urged against war is there simply, exhaustively, and most graphically stated. And all, there urged, is true. But the two great counts of evil alleged 25 against war by that most thoughtful writer, hold only against modern war. If you have to take away masses of men from all industrial employment, — to feed them by the labor of others, — to provide them with destructive machines,® varied daily in national rivalship of inventive 30 cost ; if you have to ravage the country which you attack, — to destroy for a score of future }^ears, its roads, its woods, its cities, and its harbors ; — and if, finally, having ^ Compare Fors Clavigera, Letter XIV., p. 9. WAR 89 brought masses of men, counted by hundreds of thousa nds, face to face, you tear those masses to pieces with jagged shot, and leave the living creatures,® countlessly beyond all help of surgery, to starve and parch, through days of torture, down into clots of clay — what book of accounts 5 shall record the cost of your work; — what book of judg- ment sentence the guilt of it ? 103. That, I say, is modern war, — scientific war, — chemical and mechanic war, — how much worse than the savage^s poisoned arrow® ! And yet you will tell me, per- 10 haps, that any other war than this is impossible now. It may be so; the progress of science cannot, perhaps, be otherwise registered than by new facilities of destruction ; and the brotherly love of our enlarging Christianity be only proved by multiplication of murder. Yet hear, for a 15 moment, what war was, in Pagan and ignorant days ; — w^hat war might yet be, if we could extinguish our science in darkness, and join the heathen ^s practice to the Chris- tianas theory. I read you this from a book which probably most of you know well, and all ought to know — Muller's 20 Dorians";^ — but I have put the points I wish you to remember in closer connection than in his text. 104. “The chief characteristic of the warriors of Sparta® was great composure and subdued strength ; the violence (Xwo-a)® of Aristodemus® and Isadas® being considered 25 as deserving rather of blame than praise ; and these quali- ties in general distinguished the Greeks from the northern Barbarians,® whose boldness always consisted in noise and tumult. For the same reason the Spartans sacrificed to the Muses before an action; these goddesses being ex- 30 pected to produce regularity and order in battle ; as they sacrificed on the same occasion in Crete^ to the god of love, as ^ Vol. ii., chap. 12, § 9. 90 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE the confirmer of mutual esteem and shame. Every man put on a crown, when the band of flute-players gave the signal for attack ; all the shields of the line glittered with their high polish, and mingled their splendor with the dark 5 red of the purple mantles, which were meant both to adorn the combatant, and to conceal the blood of the wounded ; to fall well and decorously being an incentive the more to the most heroic valor. The conduct of the Spartans in battle denotes a high and noble disposition, which rejected VO all the extremes of brutal rage. The pursuit of the enemy ceased when the victory was completed; and after the signal for retreat had been given, all hostilities ceased. The spoiling of arms, at least during the battle, was also interdicted®; and the consecration of the spoils of slain 15 enemies to the gods, as, in general, all rejoicings for victory, were considered as ill-omened. 105. Such was the war of the greatest soldiers who prayed to heathen gods. What Christian war is, preached by Christian ministers, let any one tell you, who saw the 20 sacred crowning, and heard the sacred flute-playing, and was inspired and sanctified by the divinely-measured and musical language,® of any North American regiment pre- paring for its charge. And what is the relative cost of life in Pagan and Christian wars, let this one fact tell you : — 25 the Spartans won the decisive battle of Corinth® with the loss of eight men ; the victors at indecisive Gettysburg® confess to the loss of 30,000. 106. II. I pass now to our second order of war, the com- monest among men, that undertaken in desire of dominion. 30 And let me ask you to think for a few moments what the real meaning of this desire of dominion is — first in tlie minds of kings — then in that of nations. Now, mind you this first, — that I speak either about WAR 91 kings, oi- masses of men, with a fixed conviction that human nature is a noble and beautiful thing; not a foul nor a base thing. All the sin of men I esteem as their disease, not their nature; as a folly which may be pre- vented, not a necessity which must be accepted. And my wonder, even when things are at their worst, is always at the height which this human nature can attain. Think- ing it high, I find it always a higher thing than I thought it ; while those who think it low, find it, and will find it, always lower than they thought it : the fact being, that it is infinite, and capable of infinite height and infinite fall , but the nature of it — and here is the faith which I would have you hold with me — the nature of it is in the noble- ness, not in the catastrophe. 107. Take the faith in its utmost terms. When the captain of the London’^ shook hands with his mate, saying ^^God speed you ! I will go down with m}^ passen- gers,^^ that I believe to be human nature. He does not do it from any religious motive — from any hope of re- ward, or any fear of punishment ; he does it because he is a man. But when a mother, living among the fair fields of merry England, gives her two-year-old child to be suffocated under a mattress in her inner room, while the said mother waits and talks outside®; that I believe to be not human nature. You have the two extremes there, shortly. And you, men, and mothers, who are here face to face with me to-night, I call upon you to say which of these is human, and which inhuman — which “naturaE^ and which ^GinnaturaE^ ? Choose your creed® at once, I beseech you : — choose it with unshaken choice — choose it forever. Will you take, for foundation of act and hope, the faith that this man was such as God made him, or that this woman was such as God made her? Which of them 5 r 10 ; 15 20 25 30 92 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE has failed from their nature — from their present, possible, actual nature ; — not their nature of long ago, but their nature of now ? Which has betrayed it — falsified it ? Did the guardian who died in his trust, die inhumanly, 5 and as a fool ; and did the murderess of her child fulfil the law of her being ? Choose, I say ; infinitude of choices hang upon this. You have had false prophets among you — for centuries you have had them — solemnly warned against them though you were; false prophets, lo who have told you that all men are nothing but- fiends or wolves, half beast, half devil. Believe that, and indeed you may sink to that. But refuse that, and have faith that God ^^made you upright, though you have sought out many inventions®; so, you will strive daily to be- 15 come more what your Maker meant and means you to be, and daily gives you also the power to be — and you will cling more and more to the nobleness and virtue that is in you, saying, My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go.^^° 20 108 . I have put this to you as a choice, as if you might hold either of these creeds you liked best. But there is in reality no choice for you; the facts being finite easily ascertainable. You have no business to think about this matter, or to choose in it. The broad fact is, that a hu- 25 man creature of the highest race, and most perfect as a human thing, is invariably both kind and true ; and that as you lower the race, you get cruelty and falseness, as you get deformity : and this so steadily and assuredly, that the two great words which, in their first use, meant only 30 perfection of race, have come, by consequence of the in- variable connection of virtue with the fine human nature, both to signify benevolence of disposition. The word generous, and the word gentle, both, in their origin. WAR 93 meant only pure race/’ but because charity and ten- derness are inseparable from this purity of blood, the words which once stood only for pride, now stand as synonyms for virtue. 109. Now, this being the true power of our inherent 5 humanity, and seeing that all the aim of education should be to develop this ; — and seeing also what magnificent self-sacrifice the higher classes of men are capable of, for any cause that they understand or feel, — it is wholly inconceivable to me how well-educated princes, who ought 10 to be of all gentlemen the gentlest, and of all nobles the most generous, and whose title of royalty means only their function of doing every man right” — how these, I say, throughout history, should so rarely pronounce themselves on the side of the poor and of justice, but continually 15 maintain themselves and their own interests by oppression of the poor, and by wresting of justice; and how this should be accepted as so natural, that the word loyalty, which means faithfulness to law, is used as if it were only the duty of a people to be loyal to their king, and not the 20 duty of a king to be infinitely more loyal to his people. How comes it to pass that a captain will die with his pas- sengers, and lean over the gunwale to give the parting boat its course ; but that a king will not usually die with, much less for, his passengers, — thinks it rather incumbent on 25 his passengers in any number, to die for him f 110. ° Think, I beseech you, of the wonder of this. The sea captain, not captain by divine right, but only by company's appointment; — not a man of royal de- scent, but only a plebeian° who can steer ; — not with the 30 eyes of the world upon him, but with feeble chance, de- pending on one poor boat, of his name being ever heard above the wash of the fatal waves ; — not with the cause 94 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE of a nation resting on his act, but helpless to save so much as a child from among the lost crowd with whom he re- solves to be lost, — yet goes down (juietly to his grave, rather than break his faith to these few emigrants. But 5 your captain by divine right,® — your captain with the hues® of a hundred shields of kings upon his breast, — your captain whose every deed, brave or base, will be illuminated or branded forever before unescapable eyes of men, — your captain whose eveiy tliought and act are lo beneficent, or fatal, from sunrising to setting, blessing as the sunshine, or shadowing as the night, — this captain, as you find him in history, for the most part thinks only how he may tax his passengers, and sit at most ease in his state cabin ! 15 111 . For observe, if there had been indeed in the hearts of the rulers of great multitudes of men any such concep- tion of work for the good of those under their command, as there is in the good and thoughtful masters of any small company of men, not only wars for the sake of mere in- 20 crease of power could never take place, but our idea of power itself would be entirely altered . Do you suppose that to think and act even for a million of men, to hear their complaints, watch their weaknesses, restrain their vices, make laws for them, lead them, day by day, to purer life, 25 is not enough for one man’s work? If any of us were ab- solute lord only of a district of a hundred miles scjuare, and were resolved on doing our utmost for it ; making it feed as large a number of people as possible ; making every clod productive, and every rock defensive, and every 30 human being happy; should we not have enough on our hands, think you? 112 .® But if the i*uler has any otluu- aim th;ui this; if, careless of tlie result of his inu'rfercnce, he d(‘sii‘e only WAR 95 the authority to interfere; and, regardless of what is ill- done or well-done, cares only that it shall be done at his bidding; — if he would rather do two hundred miles^ space of mischief, than one hundred miles ^ space of good, of course he will try to add to his territory; and to add 5 inimitably. But does he add to his power? Do you call it power in a child, if he is allowed to play with the wheels and bands of some vast engine, pleased with their murmur and whirl, till his unwise touch, wandering where it ought not, scatters beam and wheel into ruin? Yet what ma - to chine is so vast, so incognizable, as the working of the mind of a nation ; what child ^s touch so wanton, as the word of a selfish king ? And yet, how long have we allowed the his- torian to speak of the extent of the calamity a man causes, as a just ground for his pride ; and to extol him as the great- 15 est prince, who is only the centre of the widest error. Follow out this thought by yourselves; and you will find that all power, properly so called, is wise and benevolent. There may be capacity in a drifting fire-ship to destroy a fleet ; there may be venom enough in a dead body to infect 20 a nation : — but which of you, the most ambitious, would desire a drifting kinghood, robed in consuming fire, or a poison-dipped sceptre whose touch was mortal ? There is no true potency, remember, but that of help ; nor true ambition, but ambition to save. 25 113 . And then, observe farther,® this true power, the power of saving, depends neither on multitude of men, nor on extent of territory. We are continually assuming that nations become strong according to their numbers. They indeed become so, if those numbers can be made of 30 one mind ; but how are you sure you (^an stay them in one mind, and keep them from ha\’ing north and south minds? Grant them unanimous, how know you they will be unani- 96 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE mous in right ? If they are unanimous in wrong, the more they are, essentially the weaker they are. Or, suppose that they can neither be of one mind, nor of two minds, but can only be of no mind? Suppose they are a mere 5 helpless mob ; tottering into precipitant catastrophe, like a waggon-load of stones when the wheel comes off. Dan- gerous enough for their neighbors, certainly, but not pow- erful. 114. Neither does strength depend on extent of terri- lo tory, any more than upon number of population. Take up your maps when you go home this evening, — put the cluster of British Isles beside the mass of South America; and then consider whether any race of men need care how much ground they stand upon. The strength is in 15 the men,® and in their unity and virtue, not in their stand- ing room : a little group of wise hearts is better than a wilderness full of fools®; and only that nation gains true territory, which gains itself. 115. And now for the brief practical outcome of all this. 20 Remember, no government is ultimately strong, but in proportion to its kindness and justice ; and that a nation does not strengthen, by merely multiplying and diffusing itself. We have not strengthened as yet, by multiplying into America.® Nay, even when it has not to encounter 25 the separating conditions of emigration, a nation need not boast itself of multiplying on its own ground, if it multi- plies only as flies or locusts do, with the god of flies for its god. It multiplies its strength only by increasing as one great family, in perfect fellowship and brotherhood. 30 And lastly, it does not strengthen itself by seizing domin- ion over races whom it cannot benefit. Austria® is not strengthened, but weakened, by her gras]^ of Lombardy ; and whatever apparent increase of majesty and of wealth WAB 97 iiiay have accrued to us from the possession of India, ° whether these prove to us ultimately power or weakness, depends wholly on the degree in which our influence on the native race shall be benevolent and exalting. 116. ° But, as it is at their own peril that any race ex- tends their dominion in mere desire of power, so it is at their own still greater peril that they refuse to undertake aggressive war, according to their force, whenever they are assured that their authority would' be helpful and pro- tective. Nor need you listen to any sophistical objection of the impossibility of knowing when a people's help is needed, or when not. Make your national conscience clean, and your national eyes will soon be clear. No man who is truly ready to take part in a noble quarrel will ever stand long in doubt by whom, or in what cause, his aid is needed. I hold it my duty to make no political state- ment of any special bearing in this presence ; but I tell you broadly and boldly, that, within these last ten }^ears, we English have, as a knightly nation, lost our spurs : we have fought where we should not have fought, for gain ; and we have been passive where we should not have been passive, for fear. I tell you that the principle of non-in- tervention, as now preached among us, is as selfish and cruel as the v/orst frenzy of conquest, and differs from it only by being not only malignant, but dastardly. 117. ° I know, however, that my opinions on this sub- ject differ too widely from those ordinarily held, to be any farther intruded upon you ; and therefore I pass lastly to examine the conditions of the third kind of noble war ; — war waged simply for defence of the country in which we were born, and for the maintenance and execution of her laws, by whomsoever threatened or defied. It is to this duty that I suppose most men entering tlie army consider H 5 10 15 20 25 30 98 THE CRO WN OF WILT) OUVE themselves in reality to be bound, and I want you now to reflect what the laws of mere defence are ; and what the soldier's duty, as now understood, or supposed to be understood. You have solemnly devoted yourselves to be 5 English soldiers, for the guardianship of England. I want you to feel what this vow of yours indeed means, or is gradually coming to mean. 118. You take it upon you, first, while you are senti- mental schoolboys ; you go into your military convent, or lo barracks, just as a girl goes into her convent while she is a sentimental schoolgirl ; neither of you then know what you are about, though both the good soldiers and the good nuns make the best of it afterwards. You don't under- stand perhaps why I call you ‘^sentimental" schoolboys, 15 when you go into the army? Because, on the whole, it is love of adventure, of excitement, of fine dress and of the pride of fame, all which are sentimental motives, which chiefly make a boy like going into the Guards better than into a counting-house. You fancy, perhaps, that there 20 is a severe sense of duty mixed with these peacocky mo- tives° ? And in the best of you, there is ; but do not think that it is principal. If you cared to do your duty to your country in a prosaic and unsentimental way, depend upon it, there is now truer duty to be done in raising harvests, 25 than in burning them ; more in building houses, than in shelling them — more in winning money by your own work, wherewith to help men, than in taxing other people's work, for money wherewith to slay men; more duty finally, in honest and unselfish living than in honest and 30 unselfish dying, though that seems to your boys' eyes the bravest. So far then, as for your own honor, and the honor of your families, you choose brave death in a red coat before brave life in a i)lack one, you are senlirnental; WAM 99 and now see what this passionate vow of yours comes to. For a little while you ride, and you hunt tigers or savages, you shoot, and are shot; you are happy, and proud, always, and honored and wept if you die ; and you are satisfied with your life, and with the end of it; be- lieving, on the whole, that good rather than harm of it comes to others, and much pleasure to you. 119. But as the sense of duty enters into your forming minds, the vow takes another aspect. You find that you have put yourselves into the hand of your country as a weapon. You have vowed to strike, when she bids you, and to stay scabbarded° when she bids you ; all that you need answer for is, that you fail not in her grasp. And there is goodness in this, and greatness, if you can trust the hand and heart of the Britomart® who has braced you to her side, and are assured that when she leaves you sheathed in darkness, ° there is no need for your flash to the sun. But remember, good and noble as this state may be, it is a state of slavery. There are different kinds of slaves and different masters. Some slaves are scourged to their work by whips, others are scourged to it by restlessness or ambition. It does not matter what the whip is; it is none the less a whip, because you have cut thongs for it out of your own souls: the fact, so far, of slavery, is in being driven to your work without thought, at another's bidding. Again, some slaves are bought with money, and others with praise. It matters not what the purchase- money is. The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and be bought for it. Again, it matters not what kind of work you are set on ; some slaves are set to forced diggings, others to forced marches; some dig furrows, others field-works, and others graves. Some press the juice of reeds, and some the juice of vines, and some the 5 10 15 20 25 30 100 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE blood of men. The fact of the captivity is the same what- ever work we are set upon, though the fruits of the toil may be different. 120. But, remember, in thus vowing ourselves to be the 5 slaves of any master, it ought to be some subject of fore- thought with us, what wmrk he is likely to put us upon. You may think that the whole duty of a soldier is to be passive, that it is the country you have left behind who is to command, and you have only to obey. But are you lo sure that you hav3 left all your country behind, or that the part of it you have so left is indeed the best part of it ? Suppose — and, remember, it is quite conceivable — that you yourselves are indeed the best part of England ; that you, who have become the slaves, ought to have been the 15 masters; and that those who are the masters, ought to have been the slaves ! If it is a noble and whole-hearted England, whose bidding you are bound to do, it is well; but if you are yourselves the best of her heart, and the England you have left be but a half-hearted England, 20 how say you of your obedience? You were too proud to become shop-keepers : are you satisfied then to become the servants of shop-keepers ? You were too proud to become merchants or farmers yourselves: will you have mer- chants or farmers then for your field marshals? You 25 had no gifts of special grace for Exeter Hall°: will you have some gifted person thereat for your commander-in- chief, to judge of your work, and reward it? You im- agine yourselves to be the army of England : how if you should find yourselves, at last, only the police of he:’ manu- 3 facturing towns, and the beadles of her Ihtle Be'diels®? 12L° It is not so yet, nor will be so, I trust, forever; but \vhat I want you to see, and to be assured of, is, tliat the ideal of soldiership is not mere passive obedience and WAR 101 bravery ; that, so far from this, no country is in a healthy state which has separated, even in a small degree, her civil from her military power. All states of the world, how^ever great, fall at once when they use mercenary armies ; and although it is a less instant form of error (because involving 5 no national taint of cowardice), it is yet an error no less ultimately fatal — it is the error especially of modern times, of which we cannot yet know all the calamitous con- sequences — to take away the best blood and strength of the nation, all the soul-substance of it that is brave, and ic careless of reward, and scornful of pain, and faithful in trust ; and to cast that into st.eel, and make a mere sword of it; taking away its voice and will; but to keep the worst part of the nation — whatever is cowardly, ava- ricious, sensual, and faithless — and to give to this the 15 voice, to this the authority, to this the chief privilege, where there is least capacity, of thought. 122 . The fulfilment of your vow for the defence of Eng- land will by no means consist in carrying out such a sys- tem. You are not true soldiers, if you only mean to stand 20 at a shop door, to protect shop-boys who are cheating inside. A soldier^s vow to his country is that he will die for the guardianship of her domestic virtue, of her righteous la^vs, and of her anyw^ay challenged or endangered honor. A state without virtue, without laws, and without honor, he 25 is bound not to defend ; nay, bound to redress by his own right hand that which he sees to be base in her. 123 . So sternly is this the law of Nature and life, that a nation once utterly corrupt can only® be redeemed by a military despotism — never by talking, nor by its free 3^ effort. And the health of any state consists simply in this : that in it, those who are wisest shall also be strong- est; its rulers should be also its soldiers; or, rather, by 102 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE force of intellect more than of sword, its soldiers also its rvters. Whatever the hold which the aristocracy of Eng- Iand° has on the heart of England, in that they are still always in front of her battles, this hold will not be enough, 5 unless they are also in front of her thoughts. And truly her thoughts need good captain ^s leading now, if ever ! Do you know what, by this beautiful division of labor (her brave men fighting, and her cowards thinking), she has come at last to think ? Here is a bit of paper in my hand,^ lo a good one too, and an honest one ; quite representative of the best common public thought of England at this mo- ment ; and it is holding forth in one of its leaders upon our “social welfare,’^ — upon our “vivid life^^ — upon the “political supremacy of Great Britain. And what do 15 you think all these are owing to? To what our English sires have done for us, and taught us, age after age ? No : not to that. To our honesty of heart, or coolness of head, or steadiness of will? No: not to these. To our think- ers, or our statesmen, or our poets, or our captains, or 20 our martyrs, or the patient labor of our poor? No : not ^ I do not care to refer to the journal quoted, because the article was unworthy of its general tone, though in order to enable the audience to verify the quoted sentence, I left the number contain- ing it on the table, when T gave this lecture.® But a saying of Baron Liebig^s,® quoted at the head of a leader on the same subject in the Daily*T elegraiph of January 11, 1866, summarily digests and presents the maximum folly of modern thought in this respect. ^‘Civilization,” says the Baron, “is the economy of power, and English power is coal.” Not altogether so, my chemical friend. Civilization is the making of civil persons, which is a kind of dis- tillation of which alembics ° are incapable, and does not at all imply the turning of a small company of gentlemen into a large com])any of ironmongers. And English power (what little of it may be left) is b}^ no means coal, but, indeed, of that which, “when the whole world turns to coal, then chiefly lives.” WAR 103 to these; or at least not to these in any chief measure. “ Nay,” says the journal, ‘^more than any agency, it is the cheapness and abundance of our coal which have made us what we are.” If it be so, then ashes to ashes”® be our epitaph ! and the sooner the better. s 124. Gentlemen of England,® if ever you would have your country breathe the pure breath of heaven again, and receive again a soul into her body, instead of rotting into a carcase, blown up in the belly with carbonic acid (and great that way), you must think, and feel, for your lo England, as well as fight for her : you must teach her that all the true greatness she ever had, or ever can have, she won while her fields were green and her faces ruddy®; ~ that greatness is still possible for Englishmen, even though the ground be not hollow under their feet, nor the 15 sky black over their heads.® 125. And bear with me, you soldier youths,® who are thus in all ways the hope of your country ; or must be, if she have any hope : if I urge you with rude earnestness to remember that your fitness for all future trust depends 20 upon what you are now.® No good soldier in his old age was ever careless or indolent in his youth. ]\lany a giddy and thoughtless boy has become a good bishop, or a gooc lawyer, or a good merchant ; but no such an one ever became a good general. I challenge you, in all history, to 25 find a record of a good soldier who was not grave and earnest in his youth. And, in general, I have no patience with people who talk about ‘‘ the thoughtlessness of youth ” indulgently. I had infinitely rather hear of thoughtless old age, and the indulgence due to that. When a man has 30 done his work, and nothing can any way be materially altered in bis fate, let him forget his toil, and jest with his fate, if he will ; but what excuse can you find for wilfulness 104 THE CROWH OF WILD OLIVE of thought, at the very time when every crisis of future fortune hangs on your decisions ? A youth thoughtless ! when all the happiness of his home forever depends on the chances, or the passions, of an hour ! A youth thougbt- 5 less ! when the career of all his days depends on the oppor- tunity of a moment ! A youth thoughtless ! when his every act is as a torch to the laid train of future conduct,® and every imagination a fountain of life or death ! Be thoughtless in any after years, rather than now — though, lo indeed, there is only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless, — his deathbed. No thinking should ever be left to be done there, ^ 126 .® Having, then, resolved that you will not waste recklessly, but earnestly use, these early days of yours, 15 remember that all the duties of her children to England may be summed in two words — industry, and honor. I say first, industry, for it is in this that soldier youth are especially tempted to fail. Yet, surely, there is no reason, because your life may possibly or probably be shorter than 20 other men's, that you should therefore waste more reck- lessly the portion of it that is granted you ; neither do the duties of your profession, which require you to keep your bodies strong, in any wise involve the keeping of your minds weak. So far from that, the experience, the hard- 25 ship, and the activity of a soldier's life render his powers of thought more accurate than those of other men ; and while, for others, all knowledge is often little more than a means of amusement, there is no form of science which a soldier may not at some time or other find bearing on busi- 30 ness of life and death. A young mathematician may be excused for languor in studying curves to be described only with a pencil ; but not in tracing those which are to be described with a rocket. Your knowledge of a whole- WAR 105 some herb may involve the feeding of an army; and acquaintance with an obscure point of geography, the suc- cess of a campaign. Never waste an instant^s time, there- fore ; the sin of idleness is a thousand-fold greater in you than in other youths ; for the fates of those who will one 5 day be under your command hang upon your knowledge ; lost moments now will be lost lives then, and every in- stant which you carelessly take for play, you buy with blood. 127 . But there is one way of wasting time, of all the 10 vilest, because it wastes, not time only, but the interest and energy of your minds. Of all the ungentlemanly habits into which you can fall, the vilest is betting, or in- teresting yourselves in the issues of betting. It unites nearly every condition of folly and vice; you concentrate 15 your interest upon a matter of chance, instead of upon a subject of true knowledge; and you back opinions which you have no grounds for forming, merely because they are your own. All the insolence of egotism is in this ; and so far as the love of excitement is complicated with the 20 hope of winning money, you turn yourselves into the basest sort of tradesmen — those who live by speculation. Were there no other ground for industry, this would be a sufficient one ; that it protected you from the temptation to so scandalous a vice. Work faithfully, and you will 25 put yourselves in possession of a glorious and enlarging happiness ; not such as can be won by the speed of a horse, or marred by the obliquity of a ball. 128 . First, then, by industry you must fulfil your vow to your country ; but all industry and earnestness will be 30 useless unless they are consecrated by your resolution to be in all things men of honor ; not honor in the common sense only, but in the highest. Rest on the force of the 106 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE two main words in the great verse, integer vitae, seelerisqne purus° You have vowed your life to England; give it her wholly — a bright, stainless, perfect life — a knightly life.® Because you have to fight with machines instead 5 of lances, there may be a necessity for more ghastly danger, but there is none for less worthiness of character, than in olden time. You may be true knights yet, though perhaps not equites, you may have to call yourselves ^^cannonry '' instead of chivalry, but that is no reason lo why you should not call yourselves true men. So the first thing you have to see to in becoming soldiers is that you make yourselves wholly true. Courage is a mere matter of course among any ordinarily well-born youths ; but neither truth nor gentleness is matter of course. You 15 must bind them like shields about }mur necks; you must write them on the tables of your hearts.® Though it be not exacted of you, yet exact it of yourselves, this vow of stainless truth.® Your hearts are, if you leave them un- stirred, as tombs in which a god lies buried. Vow your^ 20 selves crusaders to redeem that sacred sepulchre. And remember, before all things — for no other memory will be so protective of you — that the highest law of this knightly truth is that under which it is vowed to women. Whomsoever else you deceive, whomsoever you injure, 25 whomsoever you leave unaided, you must not deceive, nor injure, nor leave unaided, according to your power, any woman of whatever rank. Believe me, every virtue of the higher phases of manly character begins in this ; — in truth and modesty before the face of all maidens; in 30 truth and pity, or truth and reverence, to all womanhood. 129 .® And now let me turn for a moment to you, — wives nnd maidens, who are the souls of soldier. 4 ; to you, — mothers, who have devoted your children to the great WAR 10 ' hierarchy of war. Let me ask you to consider what part you have to take for the aid of those who love you ; for if you fail in your part they cannot fulfil theirs ; such abso- lute helpmates you are that no man can stand without that help, nor labor in his own strength. 5 I know your hearts, and that the truth of them never fails when an hour of trial comes which you recognize for such. But you know not when the hour of trial first finds you, nor when it verily finds you. You imagine that you are only called upon to wait and to suffer; to surrender 10 and to mourn. You know that you must not weaken the hearts of your husbands and lovers, even by the one fear of which those hearts are capable, — the fear of parting from you, or of causing you grief. Through weary years of separation ; through fearful expectancies of unknown fate ; 15 through the tenfold bitterness of the sorrow which might so easily have been joy, and the tenfold yearning for glorious life struck down in its prime — through all these agonies you fail not, and never will fail. But your trial is not in these. To be heroic in danger is little ; — you 20 are Englishwomen. To be heroic in change and sway of fortune is little ; — for do you not love ? To be patient through the great chasm and pause of loss is little ; — for do you not still love in heaven? But to be heroic in happiness; to bear yourselves gravely and righteously in 25 the dazzling of the sunshine of morning ; not to forget the God in whom you trust, when He gives you most ; not to fail those who trust you, when they seem to need you least ; this is the difficult fortitude. It is not in the pining of absence, not in the peril of battle, not in the wasting of 30 sickness, that your prayer should be most passionate, or your guardianship most tender. Pray, mothers and maidens, for your young soldiers in the bloom of their pride; 108 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE pray for them, while the only dangers round them are in their own wayward wills ; watch you, and pray, when they have to face, not death, but temptation.® But it is this fortitude also for which there is the crowning reward. 5 Believe me, the whole course and character of your lovers^ lives is in your hands ; what you would have them be, they shall be, if you not only desire to have them so, but deserve to have them so ; for they are but mirrors in which you will see yourselves imaged. If you are frivolous, they lo will be so also ; if you have no understanding of the scope of their duty, they also will forget it ; they will listen, — they can listen, — to no other interpretation of it than that uttered from your lips. Bid them be brave ; — they will be brave for you; bid them be cowards; and how 15 noble soever they be; — they will quail for you. Bid them be wise, and they will be wise for you ; mock at their counsel, they will be fools for you : such and so absolute is your rule over them. You fancy, perhaps, as you have been told so often, that a wife^s rule should only be over 20 her husband ^s house, not over his mind. Ah, no ! the true rule is just the reverse of that; a true wife, in her husband ^s house, is his servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever of best® he can conceive, it is her part to be ; whatever of highest he can hope, it is hers to prom- 25 ise ; all that is dark in him she must purge into purity ; all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth : from her, through all the world ^s clamor, he must win his praise ; in her, through all the world ^s warfare, he must find his peace. 30 130. And, now, but one word more. You may wonder, perhaps, that I have spoken all this night in praise of war. Yet, truly, if it might be, I, for one, would fain join in the cadence of hammer-strokes that should beat swords into WAR 109 ploughshares'^ : and that this cannol be, is not the fault of us men. It is your fault. Wholly yours. Only by your command, or by your permission, can any contest take place among us. And the real, final, reason for all the poverty, misery, and rage of battle, throughout /Europe, 5 is simply that you women, however good, however reli- gious, however self-sacrificing for those whom you love, are too selfish and too thoughtless to take pains for any creature out of your own immediate circles. You fancy that you are sorry for the pain of others. Now I j jst tell 10 you this, that if the usual course of war, instead of unroof- ing peasants^ houses, and ravaging peasants’ fields, merely broke the china upon your own drawing-room tables, no war in civilized countries would last a week. I tell you more, that at whatever moment you chose to put a period 15 to war,° you could do it with less trouble than you take any day to go out to dinner. You know, or at least you might know if you would think, that every battle you hear of has made many widows and orphans. We have, none of us, heart enough truly to mourn with these. But at least 20 we might put on the outer symbols of mourning with them. Let but every Christian lady who has conscience toward God, vow that she will mourn, at least outwardly, for His killed creatures. Your praying is useless, and your churchgoing mere mockery of God, if you have not plain 25 obedience® in you enough for this. Let every lady in the upper classes of civilized Europe simply vow that, while any cruel war proceeds, she will wear black; — a mute’s black, — with no jewel, no ornament, no excuse for, or evasion into prettiness. — I tell you again, no war would 30 last a week. 131 . And lastly. You women of England are all now shrieking with one voice, — you and your clergymen 110 THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE together, — because you hear of your Bibles being at- tacked.® If you choose to obey your Bibles, you will never care who attacks them. It is just because you never fulfil a single downright precept of the Book, that you are 5 so careful for its credit : and just because you don^t care to obey its whole words, that you are ^o particular about the letters of them. The Bible tells you to dress plainly,® — and you are mad for finery ; the Bible tells you to have pity on the poor,® — and you crush them under your xo carriage- wheels ; the Bible tells you to do judgment and justice, — and you do not know, nor care to know, so much as what the Bible word justice means. Do but learn so much of God^s truth as that comes to ; know what He means when He tells you to be just : and teach your 15 sons, that their bravery is but a foohs boast, and their deeds b . : a firebrand ^s tossing, unless they are indeed Just men, and Perfect in the Fear of God ; — and you will soon have no more war, unless it be indeed such as is willed by Him, of whom, though Prince of Peace,® it is also written, 20 ^^In Righteousness He doth judge, and make war.^^® THE QUEEN OF THE AIR CONTENTS PAGE Preface The Que EN OF THE Air : I. Athena in the Heavens • . 117 II. Athena in the Earth . . . 1(57 III. Athena in the Heart . . . 205 The Hercules of Camarina . 257 112 PREFACE i. My days and strength have lately been much broken ; and I never more felt the insufficiency of both than in preparing for the press the following desultory memoranda on a most noble subject. But I leave them now as they stand, for no time nor labor would be enough to complete 5 them to my contentment ; and I believe that they contain suggestions which may be followed with safety, by per- sons who are beginning to take interest in the aspects of mythology, which only recent investigation has removed from the region of conjecture into that of rational inquiry. 10 I have some advantage, also, from my field work, in the interpretation of myths relating to natural phenomena; and I have had always near me, since we were at college together, a sure, and unweariedly kind, guide, in my friend Charles Newton,® to whom we owe the finding of more 15 treasure in mines of marble than, were it rightly esti- mated, all California could buy. I must not, however, permit the chance of his name being in any wise associated with my errors. Much of my work has been done obsti- nately in my own way ; and he is never responsible for 20 me, though he has often kept me right, or at least enabled me to advance in a right direction. Absolutely right no one can be in such matters ; nor does a day pass without convincing every honest student of antiquity of some par- tial error, and showing him better how to think, and where 25 to look. But I knew that there was no hope of my being able to enter with advantage on the fields of history 113 I 114 PREFACE opened by the splendid investigation of recent philologists, though I could qualify myself, by attention and sympathy, to understand, here and there, a verse of Homer^s or Hesiod’s, as the simple people did for whom they sang. 5 ii. Even while I correct these sheets for press, a lecture by Professor TyndalP has been put into my bands, which I ought TO have heard last 16 th of January j but was hin- dered by mischance; and which, I now find, completes, in two important particulars, the evidence of an instinctive lo truth in ancient symbolism ; showing, first, that the Greek conception of an setherial element pervading space is justi- fied by the closest reasoning of modern physicists; and, secondly, that the blue of the sky, hitherto thought to be caused by watery vapor, is, indeed, reflected from the 15 divided air itself ; so that the bright blue of the eyes of Athena,® and the deep blue of her aegis, prove to be ac- curate mythic expressions of natural phenomena which it is an uttermost triumph of recent science to have revealed, iii. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine triumph 20 more complete. To form, ^Gvithin an experimental tube, a bit of more perfect sky than the sky itself ! here is magic of the finest sort ! singularly re^^ersed from that of old time, which only asserted its competency to enclose in bottles elemental forces that were not of the sky. 25 iv. Let me, in thanking Professor Tyndnll for the true wonder of this piece of work, ask his pardon, and that of all masters in physical science, for any words of mine, either in the following pages or elsewhere, that may ever seem to fail in the respect due to their great powers of thought, or 30 in the admiration due to the far scope of their discovery. But I will be judged by themselves, if I have not bitter reason to ask them to teach us more than yet they have taught. PREFACE 115 V. This first day of May, 1869 , I am writing where my work was begun thirty-five years ago, within sight of the snows of the higher Alps. In that half of the permitted life of man, I have seen strange evil brought upon every scene that I best loved, or tried to make beloved-by others. 5 The light which once flushed those pale summits with its rose at dawn, and purple at sunset, is now umbered and faint; the air which once inlaid the clefts of all their golden crags with azure is now defiled with languid coils of smoke, belched from worse than volcanic fires° ; their 10 very glacier waves are ebbing, and their snows fading, as if Hell had breathed on them ; the waters that once sank at their feet into crystalline rest are now dimmed and foul, from deep to deep, and shore to shore. These are no care- less words — they are accurately, horribly, true. I know 15 what the Swiss lakes were ; no pool of Alpine fountain at its source was clearer. This morning, on the Lake of Geneva, at half a mile from the beach, I could scarcely see my oar-blade a fathom deep. vi. The light, the air, the waters, all defiled ! How of the 20 earth itself ? Take this one fact for type of honor done by the modern Swiss to the earth of his native land. There uc>ed to be a little rock at the end of the avenue by the port of NeuchateP ; there, the last marble of the foot of JuraP sloping to the blue water, and (at this time of }"ear) cov- 25 ered with bright pink tufts of Saponaria.® I went, three days since, to gather a blossom at the place. The goodly native rock and its flowers were covered with the dust and refuse of the town ; but, in the middle of the avenue, was a newly constructed artificial rockery, with a fountain 3c twisted through a spinning spout, and an inscription on one of its loose-tumbled stones, — “ Aux Bofaiiistes, Le club Jurassique,^’ ° 116 PREFACE Ah, masters of modern science, give me back my Athena out of your vials, and seal, if it may be, once more. As- modeus® therein. You have divided the elements, and united them ; enslaved them upon the earth, and dis- 5 cerned them in the stars. Teach us, now, but this of them, which is all that man need know, — that the Air is given to him for his life ; and the Rain to his thirst, and for his baptism ; and the Fire for warmth ; and the Sui* for sight ; and the Earth for his meat — and his Rest. Vevay, May 1, 1869. THE QUEEN OF THE AIR I ATHENA CHALINITIS* {Athena in the Heavens) LECTURE ON THE GREEK MYTHS OF STORM, GIVEN (partly) in UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, MARCH 9, 1869 1. I WILL not ask your pardon for endeavoring to in- terest you in the subject of Greek Mythology^; but I must ask your permission to approach it in a temper differ- ing from that in which it is frequently treated. We can- not justly interpret the religion of any people, unless 5 we are prepared to admit that we ourselves, as well as they, are liable to error in matters of faith; and that the convictions of others, however singular, may in some points have been well founded, while our own, however reasonable, may in some particulars be mis - 10 taken. You must forgive me, therefore, for not always distinctively calling the creeds of the past superstition, and the creeds of the present day ‘Yeligion^^; as well as for assuming that a faith now confessed may sometimes be superficial, and that a faith long forgotten may once 15 have been sincere. It is the task of the Divine to condemn 1 Athena the Restrainer/’ The name is given to her as hav> ing helped Bellerophon° to bridle Pegasus,® the flying cloud. 117 118 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR the errors of antiquity, and of the philologists to account for them ; I will only pray you to read, with patience, and human sympathy, the thoughts of men who lived without blame in a darkness they could not dispel ; and to remem - 5 ber that, whatever charge of folly may justly attach to the saying, ‘"'There is no God,’^° the folly is prouder, deeper, and less pardonable, in saying, “There is no God but for xneF 2. A myth, in its simplest definition, is a story with a lo meaning attached to it other than it seems to have at first ; and the fact that it has such a meaning is generally marked by some of its circumstances being extraordinary, or, in the common use of the word, unnatural. Thus, if I tell you that Hercules killed a water-serpent in the lake of 15 Lerna,° and if I mean, and you understand, nothing more than that fact, the story, whether true or falsa, is not a myth. But if by telling you this, I mean that Hercules purified the stagnation of many streams from deadly miasmata, ° my story, however simple, is a true myth; 20 only, as, if I left it in that simplicity, you would probably look for nothing beyond, it will be wise in me to surprise your attention by adding some singular circumstance; for instance, that the water-snake had several heads, which revived as fast as the}" were killed, and which poi- 25 soned even the foot that trod upon them as they slept. And in proportion to the fulness of intended meaning I shall ]:)robably multiply and refine upon these improbabili- ties ; as, suppose, if, instead of desiring only to tell you that Hercules purified a marsh, I wished you to understand 30 tiiat he contended with the venom and vapor of envy and evil ambition, whether in other men^s souls or in his own, and choked that malaria only by supreme, toil, — I might tell you that tliis serpent was fornu'd by the goddess whoii(j ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 119 pride was in the trial of Hercules ; and that its i)lace of abode was a palm-tree ; and that for every head of it th'^t was cut off, two rose up with renewed life ; and that the hero found at last he could not kill the creature at all by cutting its heads off or crushing them, but only by burning them down ; and that the midmost of them could not be killed even that way, but had to be buried alive. Only in proportion as I mean more, I shall certainly ap- pear more absurd in my statement; and at last, when I get unendurably significant, all practical persons will agree that I was talking mere nonsense from the begin- ning, and never meant anything at all. 3. It is just possible, however, also, that the story- teller may all along have meant nothing but what he said ; and that, incredible as the events may appear, he himself literally believed — and expected you also to believe — all this about Hercules, without an}^ latent moral or his- tory whatever. And it is very necessary, in reading tradi- tions of this kind, to determine, first of all, whether you are listening to a simple person, who is relating what, at all events, he believes to be true (and may, therefore, possibly have been so to some extent), or to a reserved philosopher, who is veiling a theory of the universe under the grotesque of a fairy tale. It is, in general, more likely that the first sii]:)position should be the right one: simple and credulous persons are, perhaps fortunately, more common than phi- losophers ; and it is of the highest importance that you should take their innocent testimony as it was meant, and not efface, under the graceful explanation which your cultivated ingenuity may suggest, either the evidence their story may contain (such as it is worth) of an ex- traordinary event having really taken })lace, or the unques- tionable light which it will cast upon the character of the 5 10 15 20 25 30 120 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR person by whom it was frankly believed. And. to deal with Greek religion honestly, you must at once understand that this literal belief was, in the mind of the general people, as deeply rooted as ours in the legends of our own 5 sacred book ; and that a basis of unmiraculous event was as little suspected, and an explanatory symbolism as rarely traced, by them, as by us. You must, therefore, observe that I deeply degrade the position which such a myth as that just referred to oc- lo cupied in the Greek mind, by comparing it (for fear of offending you) to our story of St. George and the Dragon.® Still, the analogy is perfect in minor respects ; and though it fails to give you any notion of the vitally religious earnestness of the Greek faith, it will exactly illustrate 15 the manner in which faith laid hold of its objects. 4. This story of Hercules and the Hydra,® then, was to the general Greek mind, in its best days, a tale about a real hero and a real monster. Not one in a thousand knew anything of the way in which the story had arisen, 20 any more than the English peasant generally is aware of the plebeian original® of St. George; or supposes that there were once alive in the world, with sharp teeth and claws, real, and very ugly, flying dragons. On the other hand, few persons traced any moral or symbolical meaning 25 in the story, and the average Greek was as far from imagin- ing any interpretation like that I have just given you, as an average Englishman is from seeing in St. George the Red Cross Knight of Spenser,® or in the Dragon the Spirit of Infidelity. But, for all that, there was a certain under- 30 current of consciousness in all minds that the figures meant more than they at first showed ; and, according to each man^s own faculties of sentiment, lie judged and read them ; just as a Knight of the Garter® reads more in the je\vel on ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 121 his collar than the George and Dragon of a public-house® expresses to the host or to his customers. Thus, to the mean person® the myth always meant little ; to the noble person, much; and the greater their familiarity with it, the more contemptible it became to one, and the more s sacred to the other ; until vulgar commentators ex- plained it entirely away, while Virgil made it the crown- ing glory of his choral hymn to Hercules.® Around thee, powerless to infect thy soul. Rose, in his crested crowd, the Lerna worm.'' lo Non te rationis egentem Lernseus turba capitum circumstetit anguis.^^ And although, in any special toil of the heroes life, the moral interpretation was rarely with definiteness attached to its event, yet in the whole course of the life, not only a 15 symbolical meaning, but the warrant for the existence of a real spiritual power, was apprehended of all men. Hercu- les was no dead hero, to be remembered only as a victor over monsters of the past — harmless now, as slain. He was the perpetual type and mirror of heroism, and its 2c present and living aid against every ravenous form of human trial and pain. 5 . But, if we seek to know more than this, and to ascertain the manner in which the story first crystallized into its shape, we shall find ourselves led back generally 25 to one or other of two sources — either to actual historical events, represented by the fancy under figures personify- ing them ; or else to natural phenomena similarly endowed with life by the imaginative power, usually more or less under the influence of terror. The historical myths we 3c must leave the masters of history to follow; they, and the 122 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR events they record, being yet involved in great, though attractive and penetrable, myster}^ But the stars, and hills, and storms are with us now, as they were with others of old ; and it only needs that we look at them with 5 the earnestness of those childish eyes to understand the first words spoken of them by the children of men. And then, in all the most beautiful and enduring myths, we shall find, not only a literal story of a real person, not only a parallel imagery of moral principle, but an underlying lo v'orship of natural phenomena, out of which both have sprung, and in which both forever remain rooted. Thus, from the real sun, rising and setting, — from the real at- mosphere, calm in its dominion of unfading blue, and fierce in its descent of tempest, — the Greek forms first 15 the idea of two entirely personal and corporeal gods, whose limbs are clothed in divine flesh, and whose brows are crowned with divine beauty ; yet so real that the quiver rattles at their shoulder, and the chariot bends beneath their weight. And, on the other hand, collaterally with 20 these corporeal images, and never for one instant separated from them, he conceives also two omnipresent spiritual influences, of which one illuminates, as the sun, with a constant fire, whatever in humanity is skilful and wise; and the other, like the living air, breathes the calm of 25 heavenly fortitude, and strength of righteous anger, into every human breast that is pure and brave. 6. Now, therefore, in nearly ever\' myth of importance, and certainly in ever\^ one of those of which I shall speak to-night, you have to discern these three structural parts, 30 — the root and the two branches: the root, in physica existence, sun, or sky, or cloud, or sea : then the personal incarnation of that, becoming a trusted and companionable deity, with whom you may walk hand in hand, as a child ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 123 with its brother or its sister; and, lastly, the moral signifi- cance of the image, which is in all the great myths eternally and beneficently true. 7. The great myths ; that is to say, myths made by great people. For the first plain fact about myth-making 5 h one which has been most strangely lost sight of, — that you cannot make a myth unless you have something to make it of. You cannot tell a secret which you donT° know. If the myth is about the sky, it must have been made by somebody who had looked at the sky. If the ic myth is about justice and fortitude, it must have been made by some one w^ho knew what it was to be just or patient. According to the quantity of understanding in the person will be the quantity of significance in his fable ; and the myth of a simple and ignorant race must neces- 15 sarily mean little, because a simple and ignorant race have little to mean. So the great question in reading a story is always, not what wild hunter dreamed, or what childish race first dreaded it; but what wise man first perfectly told, and what strong people first perfectly lived by it. 20 And the real meaning of any myth is that which it has at the noblest age of the nation among whom it is current. The farther back you pierce, the less significance you will find, until you come to the first narrow thought, which, indeed, contains the germ of the accomplished tradition ; 25 but only as the seed contains the flower. As the intelli- gence and passion of the race develop, they cling to and nourish their beloved and sacred legend®; leaf by leaf it expands under the touch of more pure affections, and more delicate imagination, until at last the perfect fable bur- 30 geons out® into symmetry of milky stem and honied bell.® 8. But through whatever changes it may pass, remem- 124 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR ber that our right reading of it is wholly dependent on the materials we have in our own minds for an intelligent answering sympathy. If it first arose among a people who dwelt under stainless skies, and measured their jour- 5 neys by ascending and declining stars, we certainly cannot read their story, if we have never seen anything above us in the day but smoke, nor anything around us in the night but candles. If the tale goes on to change clouds or planets into living creatures, — to invest them with fair lo forms and inflame them with mighty passions, — we can only understand the story of the human-hearted things, in so far as we ourselves take pleasure in the perfectness of visible form, or can sympathize, by an effort of imagina- tion, with the strange people who had other loves than 15 that of wealth, and other interests than those of com- merce. And, lastly, if the myth complete itself to the fulfilled thoughts of the nation, by attributing to the gods, whom they have carved out of their fantasy,® continual presence with their own souls ; and their every effort for 20 good is finally guided by the sense of the companionship, the praise, and the pure will of immortals, we shall be able to follow them into this last circle of their faith only in the degree in which the better parts of our own beings have been also stirred by the aspects of nature, or strengthened 25 by her laws. It may be easy to prove that the ascent of Apollo in his chariot signifies nothing but the rising of the sun. But what does the sunrise itself signify to us? If only languid return to frivolous amusement, or fruitless labor, it will, indeed, not be easy for us to conceive the 30 power, over a Greek, of the name of Apollo. But if, for us also, as for the Greek, the sunrise means daily restora- tion to the sense of passionate gladness and of perfect life — if it means the thrilling of new strength through every ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 125 nerve, — the shedding over us of a better peace than the peace of night, in the power of the dawn, — and the . purging of evil vision and fear by the baptism of its dew ; — if the sun itself is an influence, to us also, of spiritual good - — and becomes thus in reality, not in imagination, to us 5 also, a spiritual power, — we may then soon over-pass the narrow limit of conception which kept that power imper- sonal, and rise with the Greek to the thought of an angel who rejoiced as a strong man to run his course, whose voice calling to life and to labor rang round the earth, and 10 whose going forth was to the ends of heaven.® 9* The time, then, at which I shall take up for you, as well as I can decipher it, the traditions of the gods of Greece, shall be near the beginning of its central and formed faith, — about 500 b.c., — a faith of which the 15 character is perfectly represented by Pindar® and ^Eschylus, ° who are both of them outspokenly religious, and entirely sincere men ; while we may always look back to find the less developed thought of the preceding epoch given by Homer, in a more occult, subtle, half-instinctive, and in- 20 voluntary way. 10. Now, at that culminating period of the Greek reli- gion, we find, under one governing Lord of all things, four subordinate elemental forces, and four spiritual powers living in them and commanding them. The elements are 25 of course the well-known four of the ancient world, — the earth, the waters, the fire, and the air®; and the living powers of them are Demeter, the Latin Ceres® ; Poseidon, the Latin Neptune®; Apollo, who has retained always his Greek name ; and Athena, the Latin Minerva. Each 30 of these are descended from, or changed from, more an- cient, and therefore more mystic, deities of the earth and heaven, and of a finer element of sether supposed to be 12C THE QUEEN OF THE AIR beyond the heavens ; ^ but at this time we find the four quite definite, both in their kingdoms and in their personalities. They are the rulers of the earth that we tread upon, and the air that we breathe; and are with us as closely, in 5 their vivid humanity, as the dust that they animate, and the winds that they bridle. I shall briefly define for you the range of their separate dominions, and then follow, as far as we have time, the most interesting of the legends which relate to the queen of the air. lo 11. The rule of the first spirit. Demeter the earth mother, is over the earth, first, as the origin of all life — the dust from whence we were taken; secondly, as the receiver of all things back at last into silence — “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And, there- 15 fore, as the most tender image of this appearing and fad- ing life, in the birth and fall of flowers, her daughter Pros- erpine plays in the fields of Sicily, and thence is torn away into darkness, and becomes the Queen of Fate® — not merely of death, but of the gloom which closes over and 20 ends, not beauty only, but sin, and chiefly of sins the sin against the life she gave; so that she is, in her highest power, Persephone, the avenger and purifier of blood — “The voice of thy brother's blood cries to me out of the ground.’’^ Then, side by side with this queen of tho earth, 25 we find a demigod of agriculture by the plough — the lord of grain,® or of the thing ground by the mill. And it is a singular proof of the simplicity of Greek character at this noble time, that of all representations left to us of their deities by their art, few are so frequent, and none perhaps 30 so beautiful, as the symbol of this spirit of agriculture. 12. Then the dominant spirit of the element water is ^ And hy modern science now also assertt'd, and with proba- bility ar«;ned, to exist. ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 12 Neptune,® but subordinate to him are myriads of other water spirits, of whom Nereus® is the chief, with Palsemon,® and Leucothea,® the white lady of the sea ; and Thetis,® and nymphs innumerable who, like her, could suffer a sea change,^^® while the river deities had each indepen- 5 dent power, according to the preciousness of their streams to the cities fed by them, — the fountain Arethuse, and thou, honored flood, smooth sliding Hindus, crowned with vocal reeds/^® And, spiritually, this king of the waters is lord of the strength and daily flow of human life — he ic gives it material force and victory ; which is the meaning of the dedication of the hair, as the sign of the strength of life,® to the river or the native land. 13 . Demeter, then, over the earth, and its giving and receiving of life. Neptune over the waters, and the flow 15 and force of life, — always among the Greeks typified by the horse, which was to them as a crested sea-wave, ani- mated and bridled.® Then the third element, fire, has set over it two powers: over earthly fire, the assistant of human labor, is set Hephaestus,® lord of all labor in which 20 is the flush and the sweat of the brow ; and over heavenly fire, the source of day, is set Apollo, the spirit of all kin- dling, purifying, and illuminating intellectual wisdom, each of these gods having also their subordinate or associated powers, — servant, or sister, or companion muse. 25 14 . Then, lastly, we come to the myth which is to be our subject of closer inquiry, — the story of Athena and of the deities subordinate to her. This great goddess, the Neith of the Egyptians, the Athena or Athenaia of the Greeks, and, with broken power, half usurped by Mars,® the Mi- 30 nerva of the Latins, is, physically, the queen of the’ air; having supreme power both over its blessing of calm, and wrath of storm; and, spiritually, she is the queen of the 128 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR breath of man,® first of the bodily breathing which is life to his blood, and strength to his arm in battle ; and then of the mental breathing, or inspiration, which is his moral health and habitual wisdom; wisdom of conduct and of 5 the heart, as opposed to the wisdom of imagination and the brain; moral, as distinct from intellectual; inspired, as distinct from illuminated. 15. By a singular and fortunate, though I beheve wholly accidental, coincidence, the heart-virtue, of which she is lo the spirit, was separated by the ancients into four divi- sions, which have since obtained acceptance from r!l men as rightly discerned, and have received, as if from the quarters of the four winds of which Athena is the natu- ral queen, the name of “ Cardinal'' virtues: namely, Pru- 15 dence (the right seeing, and foreseeing, of events through darkness) ; Justice (the righteous bestowal of favor and of indignation) ; Fortitude (patience under trial by pain) ; and Temperance (patience imder trial by pleasure). With respect to these four virtues, the attributes of 20 Athena are all distinct. In her prudence, or sight in darkness, she is Glaukopis," owl-eyed." ^ In her justice, which is the dominant virtue, she wears two robes, one of light and one of darkness ; the robe of light, saffron color, or the color of the daybreak, falls to her feet, covering her 25 wholly with favor and love, — the calm of the sky in bless- ing ; it is embroidered along its* edge with her victory over the giants (the troublous powers of the earth), and the likeness of it was woven yearly by the Athenian maidens and carried to the temple of their own Athena, not to the 30 Parthenon, that was the temple of all the world's Athena, — but this they carried to the temple of their own only ' There are many other meanings in the epithet ; see, farther on. § 91, pp. 229-231.' ATHENA IN THE lIEAVENS 129 one who loved them, and stayed with them always. Then her robe of indignation is worn on her breast and left arm only, fringed with fatal serpents, and fastened with Gorgonian cold,® turning men to stone ; physically, the lightning and the hail of chastisement by storm. Then 5 in her fortitude she wears the crested and unstooping helmet ; ^ and lastly, in her temperance, she is the queen of maidenhood — stainless as the air of heaven.® 16. But all these virtues mass themselves in the Greek mind into the two main ones, — of Justice, or noble pas- ic sion, and Fortitude, or noble patience; and of these, the chief powers of Athena, the Greeks had divinely written for them, and for all men after them, two mighty songs, — one, of the Menis,^ Mens, passion, or zeal, of Athena, breathed into a mortal whose name is “Ache of heart, and 15 whose short life is only the incarnate brooding and burst of storm ; and the other is of the foresight and fortitude of Athena, maintained by her in the heart of a mortal whose name is given to him from a longer grief, Odysseus,® the full of sorrow, the much enduring, and the long-suffering. 20 17. The minor expressions by the Greeks in word, in symbol, and in religious service, of this faith, are so many and so beautiful, that I hope some day to gather at least a few of them into a separate body of evidence respecting the power of Athena, and its relations to the ethical con- 25 ception of the Homeric poems,® or, rather, to their ethical nature; for they are not conceived didactically, but are ^ I am compelled, for clearness’ sake, to mark only one meaning at a time. Athena’s helmet is sometimes a mask, sometimes a sign of anger, sometimes of the highest light of aether; but I can- not speak of all this at once. 2 This first word of the Iliad, Menis, afterwards passes into the Latin Mens ; is the root of the Latin name for Athena, “Minerva,” and so of the English “mind.” K 130 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR didactic in their essence, as all good art is.° There is an increasing insensibility to this character, and even an open denial of it, among us now which is one of the most curious errors of modernism, — the pecuhar and judicial blindness 5 of an age which, having long practised art and poetry for the sake of pleasure only, has become incapable of reading their language when the}" were both didactic; and also, having been itself accustomed to a professedly didactic teaching, which yet, for private interests, studiously lo avoids collision with every prevalent vice of its day (and especially with avarice), has become equally dead to the intensely ethical conceptions of a race which habitually divided aU men into two broad classes of worthy or worth- less, — good, and good for nothing. And even the cele- 15 brated passage of Horace about the Iliad is now misread or disbelieved, as if it was impossible that the Iliad could be instructive because it is not like a sermon. Horace does not say that it is like a sermon, and would have been still less likely to say so if he ever had had the advantage of 20 hearing a sermon. “I have been reading that story of Troy again'' (thus he writes to a noble youth of Rome whom he cared for), quietly at Prseneste, while you have been busy at Rome ; and truly I think that what is base and what is noble, and what useful and useless, may be 25 better learned from that, than from all Ch^ysippus ' ° and Grantor's® talk put together." ^ Which is profoundly true, not of the Iliad only, but of all other great art whatsoever ; for all pieces of such art are didactic in the purest way, indirectly and occultly, so that, first, you shall only be 30 bettered by them if }mu are already hard at work in better- ^ Note, once for all, that unless when there is question about some particular expression, I never translate literally, but give ehe real force of what is said, as I best can, freely. ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 131 ing yourself ; and when you are bettered by them, it shall be partly with a general acceptance of their influence, so constant and subtle that you shall be no more conscious of it than of the healthy digestion of food ; and partly by a gift of unexpected truth, which you shall only find by slow 5 mining for it, — which is withheld on pur])ose, and close- locked, that you may not get it till you have forged the key of it in a furnace of your own heating. And this with- holding of their meaning is continual, and confessed, in the great poets. Thus Pindar says of himself : '‘There is ic many an arrow in my quiver, full of speech to the wise, but, for the many, they need interpreters.^^ And neither Pin- dar, nor ^schylus, nor Hesiod, ° nor Homer, nor any of the greater poets or teachers of any nation or time, ever spoke but with intentional reservation; nay, beyond this, there is often a meaning which they themselves cannot interpret, — which it may be for ages long after them to interpret, — in what they said, so far as it recorded true imaginative vision. For all the greatest myths have been seen by the men who tell them, involuntarity and passively, 20 — seen by them with as great distinctness (and in some respects, though not in all, under conditions as far beyond the control of their will) as a dream sent to any of us by night when we dream clearest ; and it is this veracity of vision that could not be refused, and of moral that could 25 not be foreseen, which in modern historical inquiry has been left wholly out of account ; being indeed the thing which no merely historical investigator can understand, or even believe ; for it belongs exclusively to the creative or artistic group of men, and can only be interpreted by those 3c of their race, who themselves in some measure also see visions and dream dreams. ° So that you may obtain a more truthful idea of the 132 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR nature of Greek religion and legend from the poems of Keats,® and the nearly as beautiful, and, in general grasp of subject, far more powerful, recent work of Morris,® than from frigid scholarship, however extensive. Not 5 that the poet^s impressions or renderings of things are wholly true, but their truth is vital, not formal. They are like sketches from the life by Reynolds® or Gainsborough,® which may be demonstrably inaccurate or imaginary in many traits, and indistinct in others, yet will be in the lo deepest sense like, and true ; while the work of historical analysis is too often weak with loss, through the very labor of its miniature touches, or useless in clumsy and vapid veracity of externals, and complacent security of having done all that is required for the portrait, when it 15 has measured the breadth of the forehead and the length of the nose. 18. The first of requirements, then, for the right reading of myths, is the understanding of the nature of all true vision by noble persons ; namely, that it is founded on con- 20 stant laws common to all human nature ; that it perceives, however darkly, things which are for all ages true ; that we can only understand it so far as we have some perception of the same truth; and that its fulness is developed and manifested more and more by the reverberation of it from 25 minds of the same mirror-temper, in succeeding ages. You will understand Homer better by seeing his reflection in Dante, as you may trace new forms and softer colors in a hill-side, redoubled by a lake. I shall be able partly to show you, even to-night, how 30 much, in the Homeric vision of Athena, has been made clearer by the advance of time, being thus essentially and eternally true; but I must in the outset indicate the re- lation to that central thought of the imagery of the in- ferior deities of storm. ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 133 • 19 . And first I will take the myth of iEolus'^ (the ^‘sage Hippotades of Milton),® as it is delivered pure by Homer from the early times. Wh}" do you suppose Milton calls him ^^sage^'? One does not usually think of the winds as very thoughtful or 5 deliberate powers. But hear Homer®: ^^Then we came to the ^-Eolian island, and there dwelt ^olus Hippotades, dear to the deathless gods; there he dwelt in a floating island, and round it was a wall of brass that could not be broken ; and the smooth rock of it ran up sheer. To ic whom twelve children were born in the sacred chambers, — six daughters and six strong sons ; and they dwell forever with their beloved father and their mother, strict in duty ; and with them are laid up a thousand benefits ; and the misty house around them rings with fluting all the day 15 long.^^ Now, you are to note first, in this description, the wall of brass and the sheer rock. You will find, through- out the fables of the tempest-group, that the brazen wall and precipice (occurring in another myth as the brazen . tower of Danae) ® are always connected with the idea of the 20 towering cloud lighted by the sun, here truly described as a floating island. Secondly, you hear that all treasures were laid up in them ; therefore, you know this ^Hollis is lord of the beneficent winds (^^he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries i ^.nd presently afterwards Homer calls 25 him the ^bsteward^^ of the winds, the master of the store- house of them. And this idea of gifts and preciousness in the winds of heaven is carried out in the well-knowm sequel of the fable : ^Eolus gives them to Ulysses, all but one, bound in leathern bags,® with a glittering cord of silver; 30 and so like bags of treasure that the sailors think they are so, and open them to see. And when Ulysses is thus driven back to ^Eolus, and prays him again to help him, 134 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR note the deliberate words of the king’s refusal, — ^‘Did-1 not,” he says, ‘^send thee on thy way heartily, that thou mightest reach thy country, thy home, and whatever is dear to thee ? It is not lawful for me again to send forth 5 favorably on his journey a man hated by the happy gods.” This idea of the beneficence of ^olus remains to the latest times, though Virgil, by adopting the vulgar change of the cloud island into Lipari,° has lost it a little ; but even when it is finally explained away by Diodorus,® ^Eolus is still a lo kind-hearted monarch, who lived on the coast of Sorrento,® invented the use of sails, and established a system of storm signals. 20. Another beneficent storm-power, Boreas,® occupies an important place in early legend, and a singularly princi- 15 pal one in art ; and I wish I could read to you a passage of Plato about the legend of Boreas and Oreithyia,® ^ and the breeze and shade of the Ilissus® — notwithstanding its severe reflection upon persons who waste their time on mythological studies; but I must go on at once to the 20 fable with which you are all generally familiar, that of the Harpies.® This is always connected with that of Boreas or the north wind, because the two sons of Boreas are enemies of the Harpies, and drive them away into frantic flight. The 25 myth in its first literal form means only the battle between the fair north wind and the foul south one : the two Har- pies, Stormswift ” and “Swiftfoot,” are the sisters of the rainbow; that is to say, they are the broken drifts of the showery south wind, and the clear north wind drives 30 them back ; but they quickly take a deeper and more ma- ^ Translated by Max Muller® in the opening of his essay on '* ( 'oinparative Mythology .” — -Chips from a German Workshop vol. ii. ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS i3r> lignant significance. You know the shorty, violent, spiral gusts that lift the dust before coming rain : the Harpies get identified first with these, and then with more violent whirlwinds, and so they are called “Harpies,’^ ^Hhe Snatch- ers,^^ and are thought of as entirely destructive ; their man- 5 ner of destroying being twofold, — by snatching away, and b}^ defiling and polluting. This is a month® in which you may really see a small Harpy at her work almost when- ever you choose. The first time that there is threatening of rain after two or three days of fine weather, leave your ic window well open to the street, and some books or papers on the table ; and if you do not, in a little while, know what . the Harpies mean, and how they snatch, and how they defile, I’W give up my Greek myths.® 21. That is the physical meaning. It is now easy to 15 find the mental one. You must all have felt the expression of ignoble anger in those fitful gusts of sudden storm. There is a sense of provocation and apparent bitterness of purpose in their thin and senseless fury, wholly different from the nobler anger of the greater tempests. Also, they 20 seem useless and unnatural, and the Greek thinks of them always as vile in malice, and opposed, therefore, to the Sons of Boreas, who are kindly, wfinds, that fill sails, and wave harvests, — full of bracing health and happy im- ])ulses. From this lower and merely malicious temper, the 25 Harpies rise into a greater terror, always associated with their whirling motion, which is indeed indicative of the most destructive winds ; and they are thus related to the nobler tempests, as Charybdis® to the sea ; they are de- vouring and desolating, merciless, making all things dis-30 appear that come in their grasp ; and so, spiritually, they are the gusts of vexatious, fretful, lawless passion, vain and overshadowing, discxmtented and lamenting, meagre 136 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR and insane, — spirits of wasted energy, and wandering dis- ease, and unappeased famine, and unsatisfied hope. So you have, on the one side, the winds of prosperity and health, on the other, of ruin and sickness. Understand that, once, 5 deeply, — any who have ever known the weariness of vain desires, the pitiful, unconquerable, coiling and recoiling and self-involved returns of some sickening famine and thirst of heart, — and you will know what was in the sound of the Harpy Celseno^s® shriek from her rock; and lowhy, in the seventh circle of the Inferno, the Harpies make their nests in the warped branches of the trees that are the souls of suicides. 22. Now you must always be prepared to read Greek legends as you trace threads through figures on a silken 1 5 damask : the same thread runs through the web, but it makes part of different figures. Joined with other colors you hardly recognize it, and in different lights it is dark or light. Thus the Greek fables blend and cross curiously in different directions, till they knit themselves into an ara- 20 besque° where sometimes you cannot tell black from purple, nor blue from emerald — they being all the truer for this, because the truths of emotion they represent are inter- woven in the same way, but all the more difficult to read, and to explain in any order. Thus the Harpies, as they 25 represent vain desire, are connected with the Sirens,® who are the spirits of constant desire ; so that it is difficult sometimes in early art to know which are meant, both being represented alike as birds with women ^s heads ; only the Sirens are the great constant desires — the infinite o sicknesses of heart — which, rightly placed, give life, and wrongly placed, waste it away; so that there are two groups of Sirens, one noble and saving, as the other is fatal. But there are no animating or saving Harpies; ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 137 their nature is always vexing and full of weariness, and thus they are curiously connected with the whole group of legends about Tantalus.® 23. We all know what it is to be tantalized; but we do not often think of asking what Tantalus was tanta- lized for — what he had done, to be forever kept hungry in sight of food.® Well; he had not been condemned to this merely for being a glutton. By Dante the same pun- ishment is assigned to simple gluttony, to purge it away ; but the sins of Tantalus were of a much wider and more mysterious kind. There are four great sins attributed to him : one, stealing the food of the gods to give it to men ; another, sacrificing his son to feed the gods themselves (it may remind you for a moment of what I was telling you of the earthly character of Demeter, that, while the other gods all refuse, she, dreaming about her lost daughter, eats part of the shoulder of Pelops® before she knows what she is doing) ; another sin is, telling the secrets of the gods ; and only the fourth — stealing the .golden dog of Panda- reos® — is connected with gluttony. The special sonse of this myth is marked by Pandareos receiving the happy privilege of never being troubled with indigestion; the dog, in general, however, mythically represents all utterly senseless and carnal desires ; mainly that of gluttony ; and in the mythic sense of Hades — that is to say, so far as it represents spiritual ruin in this life, and not a literal hell — the dog Cerberus® as its gate-keeper — with this special marking of his character of sensual passion, that he fawns on all those who descend, but rages against all who would re- turn (the Yirgilian “ facilis descensus ’’® being a later recog- nition of this mythic character of Hades) ; the last labor of Hercules is the dragging him up to the light ; and in some sort he represents the voracity or devouring of Hades 5 10 15 25 30 138 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR itself ; and the mediaeval representation of the month of hell perpetuates the same thought. Then, also, the power of evil passion is partly associated with the red and scorch- ing light of Sirius, as opposed to the pure light of the sun : she is the dog-star of ruin° ; and hence the cortinual Homeric dwelling upon him, and comparison of the flame of anger to his swarthy light ; only, in his scorching, it i3 thirst, not hunger, over which he rules physically ; so that the fable of Icarius,® his first master, corresponds, among lo the Greeks, to the legend of the drunkenness of Noah.° The story of Actaeon,® the raging death of Hecuba,® and the tradition of the white dog which ate part of Her- cules^ first sacrifice, and so gave name to the Cynosarges,® are all various phases of the same thought, — the Greek 15 notion of the dog being throughout confused between its serviceable fidelity, its watchfulness, its foul voracity, shamelessness, and deadly madness,® while with the curi- ous reversal or recoil of the meaning which attaches itself to nearly every great . myth, — and which we shall pres- 20 ently see notably exemplified in the relations of the ser- pent to Athena, — the dog becomes in philosophy a type of severity and abstinence. 24 . It would carry us too far aside were I to tell you the story of Pandareos' dog® — or rather of Jupiter’s dog, for 25 Pandareos was its guardian only ; all that bears on our present purpose is that the guardian of this golden dog had three daughters, one of whom was subject to the power of the Sirens, and is turned into the nightingale ; and the other two were subject to the power of the Harpies, and 30 this was what happened to them : They were very beauti- ful, and they were beloved by the gods in their youth, and liW the great goddesses were anxious to bring them up rightly. Of all types of young ladies’ education, there is ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 139 nothing so splendid as that of the younger daughters of Pandareos. They have literally the four greatest god- desses for their governesses. Athena teaches them do- mestic accomplishments, how to weave, and sew, and the like; Artemis® teaches them to hold themselves ups straight; Hera,® how to behave proudly and oppressively to company; and Aphrodite,® delightful governess, feeds them with cakes and honey all day long. All goes well, until just the time when they are going to be brought out ; then there is a great dispute whom they are to marry, and ic in the midst of it they are carried off by the Harpies, given by them to be slaves to the Furies,® and never seen more. But of course there is nothing in Greek myths ; and one never heard of such things as vain desires, and empty hopes, and clouded passions, defiling and snatching away 15 the souls of maidens, in a London season.® I.have no time to trace for you any more harpy legends, though they are full of the most curious interest ; but I may confirm for you my interpretation of this one, and prove its importance in the Greek mind, by noting that 20 Polygnotus® painted these maidens, in his great religious series of paintings at Delphi,® crowned with flowers, and playing at dice® ; and that Penelope® remembers them in her last fit of despair, just before the return of Ulysses, and prays bitterly that she may be snatched away at once 25 into nothingness by the Harpies, like Pandareos^ daugh- ters, rather than be tormented longer by her deferred hope, and anguish of disappointed love. 25 . I have hitherto spoken only of deities of the winds. We pass now to a far more important group, the deities of 30 cloud. Both of these are subordinate to the ruling power of the air, as the demigods of the fountains and minor seas are to the great deep ; but, as the cloud-firmament 140 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR detaches itself more from the air, and has a wider range of ministry than the minor streams and seas, the highest cloud deity, Hermes,® has a rank more equal with Athena than Nereus or Proteus® with Neptune; and there is 5 greater difficulty in tracing his character, because' his physical dominion over the clouds can, of course, be as- serted only where clouds are ; and, therefore, scarcely at all in Egypt ; ^ so that the changes which Hermes under- goes in becoming a Greek from an Egyptian and Phoenician lo god, are greater than in any oth^" case of adopted tradi- tion* In Egypt Hermes is a deit^s of hi:^ 4 orical record, and a conductor of the dead to judgment ; the Greeks take away much of this historical function, assigning it to the Muses ; but, in investing 1 pm vAth the physical power over 15 clouds, they give him that vffiich the Muses disdain, — the power of concealment and of thefr. The snatching away by the Harpies is with brute force ; but the snatch- ing away by the clouds is connected with the thought of hiding, and of making things seem to be what they are not ; 20 so that Hermes is the god of lyiag, as ne is of mist ; and yet \/hh this ignoble function of making things vanish and disappear is connected the remnant of his grand Egyptian authority of leading away souls in the cloud of death (the actual dimness of sight caused by mortal wounds physi- 25 cally suggesting the darkness and descent of clouds, and continually being so described in the Iliad) ; while the ^ I believe uat the conclusions of recent scholarship are gener- ally opposed to the Herodotean ideas of any direct acceptance by the Greeks of Egyptian myths; and very certainly, Greek art is 30 developed by sn vliig the veracity and simplicity of real life to Eastern savage grotesque and not by softening the severity of pure Egyptian design. But it is of no consequence whether one conception was, or was not, in this case, derived from the other; my object is only to mark the essential differences between them. A THEN A IN THE HEAVENS 141 sense of the need of guidance cn the untrodden road follows necessarily. You cannot but remember how this thought of cloud guidance, nnd aoud receiving of souls at death, has been elsev:here ratiisd. 26. Without fodowing that higher clue, I will pass to 5 the lovely group 0 :^ mytiis connected with the birth of Hermes on the G’oek mountains. You knew that the valley of Sparta is one of the noblest mountain ravines in the world, and that the western flank of it is formed by an unbroken chain of crags, forty miles long, rising, opposite 10 Sparta, to a height of 8,000 feet^ and known as the chain of Taygetus. Now, the nymph from whom that mountain ridge is named was the mother of Lacedaemon, therefore the mythic ancestress of the Spartan race. She is the nymph Taygeta,® and one of the seven stars of spring; 15 one of those Pleiades^ of whom is the question to Job, — ^^Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion ^ ‘‘ The sweet influences of Pleiades,” of the stars of spring, — nowhere sweeter than among the • pine-clad slopes of the hills of Sparta and Arcadia,® when 20 the snows of their higher summits, beneath the sunshine of April, feh into fountains, and rose into clouds ; and in every ravine was a newly awakened voice of waters,® — soft increase of whisper among its sacred stones; and on every crag its forming and fading veil of radiant cloud ; 25 temple above temple, of the divine marble that no tool can pollute, nor ruin undermine. And, therefore, beyond this central valley, this great Greek vase of Arcadia, on the hollow^' mountain, Cyllene, or ^‘pregnant” mountain, called also cold,” because there the vapors rest,^ and born 30 ^ On the altar of Hermes on its summit, as on that of the La- cinian Hera,® no wind everacirred the ashes. By those altars, the Gods of Heaven were appeased, and all their storms at rest. 142 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR of the eldest of those stars of spring, that Maia, from whon? your own month of May has its name, bringing to you, in the green of her garlands, and the white of her hawthorn, the unrecognized symbols of the pastures and the wreathed 5 snows of Arcadia, where long ago she was queen of stars : there, first cradled and wrapt in swaddling-clothes ; then raised, in a moment of surprise, into his wandering power, — is born the shepherd of the clouds, ° wing-footed and deceiving, — blinding the eyes of Argus, ° — escaping from lo the grasp of Apollo — restless messenger between the high- est sky and topmost earth — “the herald Mercury, new lighted on a heaven-kissing hill/^ 27 .° Now, it will be wholly impossible, at present, to trace for you any of the minor Greek expressions of this 15 thought, except only that Mercury, as the cloud shepherd, is especially called Eriophoros, the wool-bearer. You will recollect the name from the common woolly rush “ eri- ophorum which has a cloud of silky seed ; and note also that he wears distinctively the flat cap, petasoSy named 20 from a word meaning “ to expand ” ; which shaded from the sun, and is worn on journeys. You have the epithet of mountains “cloud-capped^^ as an established form with every poet, and the Mont Pilate of Imcerne is named from a Latin word signifying specially a woollen 25 cap ; but Mercury has, besides, a general Homeric epithet, curiously and intensely concentrated in meaning, “the profitable or serviceable by wool,^ that is to say, by shepherd wealth; hence, “pecuniarily,^’® rich, or service- able, and so he passes at last into a general mercantile 30 ^ T am convinced that the epi in ipLo^vLos is not intensitive, but retained from epLOp; but even if I am wrong in thinking this, the mistake is of no consecjuence with respect to the general force of the term as meaning tlie profitableness of Hermes. Athena’s epithet of dyeXeLa has a parallel significance. ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 143 deity ; while yet the cloud sense of the wool is retained by Homer ^.Iways, so that he gives him this epithet when it would otherwise have been quite meaningless (in Iliad, xxiv. 440 ), when he drives Priam chariot, and breathes force into his horses, precisely as we shall find Athena drive s Diomed°; and yet the serviceable and profitable sense — and something also of gentle and soothing character in the mere wool-softness, as used for dress, and religious rites — is retained also in the epithet, and thus the gentle and serviceable Hermes is opposed to the deceitful one. lo 28 . In connection with this driving of Priam^s chariot, remember that as Autolycus® is the son of Hermes the Deceiver, Myrtilus® (the Auriga of the Stars) is the son of Hermes the Guide. The name Hermes itself means im- pulse ; and he is especially the shepherd of the flocks of 15 the sky,° in driving, or guiding, or stealing them ; and yet his great name, Argeiphontes, not only — as in different passages of the olden poets — means Shining White,"' which is said of him as being himself the silver cloud lighted by the sun ; but Argus-Killer,"" the killer of bright- 20 ness, which is said of him as he veils the sky, and especially the stars, which are the eyes of Argus ; or, literally, eyes of brightness, which Juno, who is, with Jupiter,® part of the type of highest heaven, keeps in her peacock "s train. We know that this interpretation is right, from a passage 25 in which Euripides® describes the shield of Hippomedon,® which bore for its sign, Argus the all-seoing, covered with eyes ; open towards the rising of the star^, and closed tow- ards their setting."" And thus Hermes becomes the spirit of the movement 30 of tl e sky or firmament ; not merely the fast flying of the transitory cloud, but the great motion of the heavens and stars themselves. Thus, in his highest lU THE QUEEN OF THE AIR power, lie corresponds to the ^^primo mobile of the iatei Italian philosophy, and, in his simplest, is tne gu de of ad mysterious and cloudy movement, and cf all successful subtleties. Perhaps the prettiest minor recognition of his 5 character is when, on the night foray^ of Ulysses and Dio med, Ulysses wears the helmet stolen by Autol’ycus, the son of Hermes, 29 . The position in the Greek mind of Hermes as the lord of cloud is, however, more mystic and ideal than that of loany other deity, just on account of the constant and real presence of the cloud i self under different forms, giving rise to all kinds of minor fables. The play of the Greek imagination in this direction is so wide and complex, that I cannot even give you an cuthne of its range in my present 15 limits. There is first a great series of storm-legends con- nected with the family of the historic ^olus, centralized by the story of Athamas,° with his two wives, “the Cloud and the “White Goddess, ending in that of Phrixus® and Helie,° and of the golden fleece (which is only the cloud- jo burden of Hermes Eriophoros). With this, there is the fate of Salmoneus,° and the destruction of Glaucus® by his own horses ; all these minor myths of storm concentrat- ing themselves darkly into the legend of Bellerophon and the Chirnsera,® in which there is an under story about the 25 vain subduing of passion and treachery, and the end of life in fading melancholy, — which, I hope, not many of you could understand even were I to show it you (the merely physical meaning of the Chimaera is the cloud of volcanic lightning, connected wholly with earth-fire, but resembling 30 the heavenly cloud in its height and its thunder). Finally, in the ^olic group, there is the legend of Sisyphus,® which I mean to work out thoroughly by itself ; its root is in the position of Corinth as ruling the isthmus and the ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 145 two seas — the Corinthean Acropolis, two thousand feet high, being the centre of the crossing currents of the winds, and of the commerce of Greece. Therefore, Athena, and the fountain-cloud Pegasus, are more closely connected with Corinth than even with Athens in’ their material, 5 though not in their moral, power ; and Sisyphus founds the Isthmian games° m connection with a melancholy story about the sea gods ; but he himself is KepStcrrog the most gaining’^ and subtle of men; who, having the key of the Isthmus, becomes the type of transit, ic transfer, or trade, as such ; and of the apparent gain from it, which is not gain; and this is the real meaning of his punishment in hell — eternal toil and recoil (the modern idol of capital being, indeed, the stone of Sisyphus with a vengeance, crushing in its recoil). But, throughout, the 15 old ideas of the cloud power and cloud feebleness, — the deceit of its hiding, — and the emptiness of its vanishing, — the Autolycus enchantment of making black seem white, — and the disappointed fury of Ixion® (taking shadow for power), mingle in the moral meaning of this 20 and its collateral legends ; and give an aspect, at last, not only of foolish cunning, but of impiety or literal ^Tdolatry,^' ^imagination worship, to the dreams of avarice and in- justice, until this notion of atheism and insolent blindness becomes principal; and the Clouds of Aristophanes,® 25 with the personified ^^just^^ and ^imjust^^ sayings in the latter part of the play, foreshadow, almost feature by fea- ture, in all that they were written to mock and to chastise, the worst elements of the impious and tumult in men^s thoughts, which have followed on their avarice in 30 the present day, making them alike forsake the laws of their ancient gods, and misapprehend or reject the true words of their existing teachers. L 146 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR 30. All this we have from the legends of the historic ^>olus only ; but, besides these, there is the beautiful story of Semele, the mother of Bacchus.® She is the cloud with the strength of the vine in its bosom, consumed by the 5 light which matures the fruit ; the melting away of the cloud into the clear air at the fringe of its edges being ex- quisitely rendered by Pindar^s epithet for her, Semele, ^ Avith the stretched-out hair (ravveOapa) Then there is the entire tradition of the Danaides,® and of the tower of lo Danae® and golden shower ; the birth of Perseus® connect- ing this legend with that of the Gorgons® and Graise,® who are the true clouds of thunderous and ruinous tempest. I must, in passing, mark for you that the form of the sword or sickle of Perseus, with which he kills Medusa,® is an- 15 other image of the whirling harpy vortex, and belongs especially to the sword of destruction or annihilation; whence it is given to the two angels who gather for de- struction the evil harvest and evil vintage of the earth (Rev. xiv. 15). I will collect afterwards and complete 20 what I have already written respecting the Pegasean and Gorgonian legends, noting here only what is necessary to explain the central myth of Athena herself, who repre- sents the ambient air, which included all cloud, and rain, and dew, and darkness, and peace, and wrath of heaven. 25 Let me now try to give you, however briefly, some distinct idea of the several agencies of this great goddess. 31. ® I. She is the air giving life and health to all animals. II. She is the air giving vegetative power to the 30 earth. III. She is the air giving motion to the sea, and rendering navigation possible. IV. She is the air nourishing artificial light, torch ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 147 or lamplight ; as opposed to that of the sun, on one hand, and of consuming ^ fire on the other. V. She is the air conveying vibration of sound. I will give you instances of her agency in all these func- 5 tions. 32. First, and chiefly, she is air as the spirh of life, giving vitality to the blood. Her psychic relation co the vital force in matter lies deeper, and we will examine it after- wards ; but a great number of the most interesting pas- ic sages in Homer regard her as flying over the earth in local and transitory strength, simply and merely the goddess of fresh air. It is curious that the British city which has somewhat saucily styled itself the Modern Athens is indeed more 15 under her especial tutelage and favor in this respect than perhaps any other town in the island. Athena is first simply what in the Modern Athens you so practicall}^ find her, the breeze of the mountain and the sea ; and wherever she comes, there is purification, and health, and power. 20 The sea-beach round this isle of ours is the frieze of our Parthenon; every wave that breaks on it thunders with Athena ^s voice ; nay, whenever you throw your window wide open in the morning, you let in Athena, as wisdom and fresh air at the same instant ; and whenever you draw a 25 pure, long, full breath of right heaven, you take Athena into your heart, through your blood ; and, with the blood, into the thoughts of your brain. Now, this giving of strength by the air, observe, is mechanical as well as chemical. You cannot strike a good 30 blow but with your chest full ; and, in hand to hand fight- ^ Not a scientific, but a very practical and expressive distinc- tion. 148 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR ing, it is not the muscle that fails first, it is the breath ; the longest-breathed will, on the average, be the victor, — not the strongest. Note how Shakspeare° always leans on this. Of Mortimer,® in changing hardiment with great 5 Glendower : Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn^s flood. And again. Hotspur,® sending challenge to Prince Harry: That none might draw short breath to-day lo But I and Harry Monmouth.^’ Again, of Hamlet,® before he receives his wound: He’s fat, and scant of breath.’’ Again, Orlando® in the wrestling: Yes; I beseech your grace 15 I am not yet well breathed.” Now, of all people that ever lived, the Greeks knew best what breath meant, both in exercise and in battle, and therefore the queen of the air becomes to them at once the queen of bodily strength in war ; not mere brutal muscular 20 strength, — that belongs to Ares,® — but the strength of young lives passed in pure air and swift exercise, — Ca- milla’s® virginal force, that ''flies o’er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.” 33 . Now I will rapidly give you two or three instances of 25 her direct agency in this function. First, when she wants to make Penelope® bright and beautiful ; and to do away with the signs of her waiting and her grief. "Then Athena thought of another thing: she laid her into deep sleep, and loosed all her limbs, and made her taller, and made her ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 149 smoother, and fatter, and whiter than sawn ivory; and breathed ambrosial brightness over her face ; and so she left her ^nd went up to heaven/^ Fresh air and sound sleep at night, young ladies® ! You see you may have Athena for lady^s maid whenever you choose. Next, hark how she 5 gives strength to Achilles® when he is broken with fasting and grief. Jupiter pities him and says to her, ^ Daughter mine, are you forsaking your own soldier, and don’t you care for Achilles any more? See how hungry and weak is, — go and feed him with ambrosia.’® So he urged 10 the eager Athena ; and she leaped down out of heaven like a harpy falcon,® Shrill-voiced; and she poured nectar and ambrosia, full of delight, into the breast of Achilles, that his limbs might not fail with famine ; then she returned to the solid dome of her strong father.” And then comes the 15 great passage about Achilles arming — for which we have no time. But here is again Athena giving strength to the whole Greek army. She came as a falcon to Achilles, straight at him,® a sudden drift of breeze ; but to the army she must come widely, she sweeps around them all. As 20 when Jupiter spreads the purple rainbow over heaven, portending battle or cold storm, so Athena, wrapping her- self round with a purple cloud, stooped to the Greek soldiers, and raised up each of them.” Note that purple, in Homer’s use of it, nearly always means fiery,” ^Hull of 25 light.” It is the light of the rainbow, not the color of it, which Homer means you to think of. 34 . But the most curious passage of all, and fullest of meaning, is when she gives strength to Menelaus,® that he may stand unwearied against Hector.® He prays to her : 3° And blue-eyed Athena v/as glad that he prayed to her, first ; and she gave him strength in his shoulders, and in his limbs, and she gave him the courage ” — of what ani- 150 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR mal, do you suppose ? Had it been Neptune or Mars, they would have given him the courage of a bull, or a lion ; but Athena gives him the courage of the most fearless in attack of all creatures, small or great, and very small it is, but 5 wholly incapable of terror, — she gives him the courage of a fly. 35 . Now, this simile of Homer’s is one of the best in- stances I can give you of the way in which great writers seize truths unconsciously which are for all time. It is loonly recent science which has completely shown the per- fectness of this minute s^mibol of the power of Athena ; proving that the insect’s flight and breath- are coordinated ; that its wings are actually forcing-pumps, of which the stroke compels the thoracic respiration; and that it thus 15 breathes and flies simultaneously by the action of the same muscles, so that respiration is carried on most vigorously during flight, ^Svhile the air-vessels, supplied by many pairs of lungs instead of one, traverse the organs of flight in far greater numbers than the capillary blood-vessels of our 20 own system, and give enormous and untiring muscular power, a rapidity of action measured by thousands of strokes in the minute, and an endurance, by miles and hours of flight.”^ Homer could not have known this; neither that the 25 buzzing of the fly was produced, as in a wind instrument, by a constant current of air through the trachea. But he had seen, and, doubtless, meant us to remember, the mar- vellous strength and swiftness of the insect’s flight (the glance of the swallow itself is clumsy and slow compared 30 to the darting of common house-flies at play) ; he prob- ably attributed its murmur to the wings, but in this also there was a type of what we shall presently find recog- ^ Ormerod. “Natural History of Wasps.” ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 151 nized in the name of Pallas, — the vibratory power of the air to convey sound, while, as a purifying creature, the fly holds its place beside the old symbol of Athena in Egypt, the vulture ; and as a venomous and tormenting creature has more than the strength of the serpent in proportion to 5 its size, being thus entirely representative of the influence of the air both in purification and pestilence ; and its cour- age is so notable that, strangely enough, forgetting Ho- mer^s simile, I happened to take the fly for an expression of the audacity of freedom in speaking of quite another 10 subjects Whether it should be called courage, or mere mechanical instinct, may be questioned, but assuredly no other animal, exposed to continual danger, is so absolutely without sign of fear. 36 . You will, perhaps, have still patience to hear two instances, not of the communication as strength, but of the personal agency of Athena as the air. When she comes down to help Diomed against Ares, she does not come to fight instead of him, but she takes his charioteer ^s place. ^^She snatched the reins, she lashed with all her force, 20 And full on Mars impelled the foaming horse.” Ares is the first to cast his spear ; then — note this — Pope® says : ^‘Pallas opposed her hand, and caused to glance, Far from the car, the strong immortal lance.” 25 She does not oppose her hand in the Greek — the wind could not meet the lance straight — she catches it in her hand, and throws it off. There is no instance in which a lance is so parried by a mortal hand in all the Iliad, and it is exactly the way the wind would parry it, catching it, 30 ^ See farther on, § 148. 162 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR and turning it aside. If there are any good rifleshots here, they know something about Athena ^s parrying; and in old times the English masters of feathered artillery knew more yet. Compare also the turning of Hector ^s lance 5 from Achilles : Iliad xx. 439. 37. The last instance I will give you is as lovely as it is subtle. Throughout the Iliad, Athena is herself the will or Menis of Achilles. If he is to be calmed, it is she who calms him; if angered, it is she who inflames him. In lothe first quarrel with Atreides,® when he stands at pause, with the great sword half drawn, Athena came from heaven, and stood behind him and caught him by the yellow hair.’^ Another god would have stayed his hand upon the hilt, but Athena only lifts his hair. ^^And he 15 turned and knew her, and her dreadful eyes shone upon him.^^ There is an exquisite tenderness in this laying her hand upon his hair, for it is the talisman of his life, vowed to his own Thessalian river if he ever returned to its shore, and cast upon Patroclus’® pile, so ordaining that there 20 should be no return. 38. Secondly, Athena is the air giving vegetative im- pulse to the earth. She is the wind and the rain, and yet more the pure air itself, getting at the earth fresh turned® by spade or plough, and, above all, feeding the fresh 25 leaves; for though the Greeks knew nothing about car- bonic acid, they did know that trees fed on the air. Now, note first in this, the myth of the air getting at ploughed ground. You know I told you the Lord of all labor by which man lived was Hephaestus®; therefore 30 Athena adopts a child of his, and of the Earth, — Erich- thonius,® — literally, ^H/he tearer up of the ground,^’ who is the head (though not in direct line) of the kings of At- tica®; and, having adopted him, she gives him to be ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 153 brought up by the three nymphs of the dew. Of these, Aglauros,® the dweller in the fields, is the envy or malice of the earth ; she answers nearly to the envy of Gain,® the tiller of the ground, against his shepherd brother, in her own envy against her two sisters; Herse,° the cloud dew, who is the beloved of the shepherd Mercury®; and Pandrosos,® the diffused dew, or dew of heaven. Literally, you have in this myth the words of the blessing of Esau : ‘^Thy dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above. ^^® Aglauros is for her envy turned into a black stone ; and hers is one of the voices — the other being that of Cain — which haunts the circle of envy in the Purgatory : lo sono Aglauro, chi divenne sasso.”® Dut to her two sisters, with Erichthonius (or the hero Erechtheus) , is built the most sacred temple of Athena in Athens ; the temple to their own dearest Athena — to her, and to the dew together ; so that it was divided into two parts : one, the temple of Athena of the city, and the other that of the dew. And this expression of her power, as the air bringing the dew to the hill pastures, in the cen- tral temple of the central city of the heathen, dominant over the future intellectual world, is, of all the facts con- nected with her worship as the spirit of life, perhaps the most important. I have no time now to trace for you the hundredth part of the different ways in which it bears both upon natural beauty, and on the best order and happi- ness of men^s lives. I hope to follow out some of these trains of thought in gathering together what I have to say about field herbage ; but I must say briefly here that the great sign, to the Greeks, of the coming of spring in the pastures, was not, as with us, in the primrose,® but in 5 10 15 20 25 30 154 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR the various flowers of the asphodel® tribe (of which I wilV give you some separate accoi^nt presently) ; therefore it is that the earth answers with crocus flame® to the cloud on Ida® ; and the power of Athena in eternal life is written 5 by the light of the asphodel on the Elysian fields.® But further, Athena is the air, not only to the lilies of the field, but to the leaves of the forest. We saw before the reason why Hermes is said to be the son of Maia,® the eldest of the sister stars of spring. Those stars are called lo not only Pleiades, but Vergiliae, from a word mingling the ideas of the turning or returning of springtime with the outpouring of rain. The mother of Vergil bearing the name of Maia, Vergil® himself received his name from the seven stars ; and he, in forming first the mind of Dante, 15 and through him that of Chaucer® (besides whatever special minor influence came from the Pastorals and Georgies)® became the fountain-head of all the be^t literary power connected with the love of vegetative nature among civilized races of men. Take the fact for what it is worth ; 20 still it is a strange seal of coincidence, in word and in reality, upon the Greek dream of the power over human life, and its purest thoughts, in the stars of spring. But the first syllable of the name of Vergil has relation also to another group of words, of which the English ones, virtue 25 and virgin, bring down the force to modern days. It is a group containing mainly the idea of spring, or in- crease of life in vegetation — the rising of the new branch of the tree out of the bud, and of the new leaf out of the ground. It involves, secondarily, the idea of greenness 30 and of strength, but primarily, that of living increase of a new rod from a stock, stem, or root (^‘ There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse ^ 0 °; ^^nd chiefly the stem of certain plants — either of the rose tribe, as in the ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 155 budding of the almond rod of Aaron® ; or of the olive tribe, which has triple significance in this symbolism, from the use of its oil for sacred anointing, for strength in the gym- nasium, and for light. Hence, in numberless divided and reflected ways, it is connected with the power of Hercules 5 and Athena : Hercules plants the wild olive, for its shade, on the course of Olympia,® and it thenceforward gives the Olympic crown of consummate honor and rest ; while the prize at the Panathenaic games® is a vase of its oil (mean- ing encouragement to continuance of effort) ; and from the 10 paintings on these Panathenaic vases we get the most precious clue to the entire character of Athena. Then to express its propagation by slips, the trees from which the oil was to be taken were called ^^Moriai,^^® trees of division (being all descendants of the sacred one in the Erechtheum) .® 1 5 And thus, in one direction, we get to the children like olive plants round about thy table ^^® and the olive grafting of St. Paul ; while the use of the oil for anointing gives chief name to the rod itself of the stem of Jesse,® and to all those who were by that name signed for his disciples first in 20 Antioch.® Remember, further, since that name was first given the influence of the symbol, both in extreme unction® and in consecration of priests and kings to their ‘^divine right and think, if you can reach with any grasp of thought, what the influence on the earth has been, of those 25 twisted branches whose leaves give gray bloom to the hill- sides under every breeze that blows from the midland sea. But, above and beyond all, think how strange it is that the chief Agonia® of humanity, and the chief giving of strength from heaven for its fulfilment, should have been under its 30 night shadow in Palestine.® 39 . Thirdly, Athena is the air in its power over the sea. On the earliest Panathenaic ^^ase known — the Burgon 156 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR vase in the British Museum® — Athena has a dolphin^ on her shield. The dolphin has two principal meanings in Greek symbolism. It means, first, the sea ; secondarily, the ascending and descending course of any of the heavenly 5 bodies from one sea horizon to another — the dolphins^ arching rise and replunge (in a summer evening, out of calm sea, their black backs roll round with exactly the slow motion of a water-wheel; but I do not know how far Aristotle’s exaggerated account of their leaping or their lo swiftness has any foundation) being taken as a type of the emergence of the sun or stars from the sea in the east, and plunging beneath in the west. Hence, Apollo, when in his personal power he crosses the sea, leading his Cretan® colonists to Pytho,® takes the form of a dolphin, becomes 15 Apollo Delphinius, and names the founded colony Del- phi.^’ The lovety drawing of the Delphic Apollo on the hydria® of the Vatican (Le Normand and De Witte, vol. ii. p. 6 ) gives the entire conception of this myth. Again, the beautiful coins of Tarentum represent Taras® coming 20 to found the city, riding on a dolphin, whose leaps and plunges have partly the rage of the sea in them, and partly the spring of the horse, because the splendid riding of the Tarentines had made their name proverbial in. Magna Grsecia.® The story of Arion® is a collateral fragment of 25 the same thought ; and, again, the plunge, before their transformation, of the ships of ^neas.® Then, this idea of career upon, or conquest of, the sea, either by the crea- tures themselves, or by dolphin-like ships (compare the Merlin prophecy,® 30 They shall ride Over ocean wide With hempen bridle, and horse of tree ,’0 connects its:^)f with the thought of undulation, and ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 157 of the wave-power in the sea itself, which is always expressed by the serpentine bodies either of the sea-gods or of the sea-horse ; and when Athena carries, as she does often in later work, a serpent for her shield-sign, it is not so much the repetition of her own segis-snakes as the 5 further expression of her power over the sea-wave ; which, finally, Vergil gives in its perfect unity with her own anger, in the approach of the serpents against Laocoon® from the sea ; and then, finally, when her own storm-power is fully put forth on the ocean also, and the madness of the aegis- ic snake is given to the wave-snake, the sea-wave becomes the devouring hound at the waist of Scylla,® and Athena takes Scylla for her helmet-crest ; while yet her beneficent and essential power on the ocean, in making navigation possible, is commemorated in the Panathenaic festival by 15 her peplus° being carried to the Erechtheum suspended from the mast of a ship. In Plate cxv. of vol. ii., Le Normand, are given two sides of a vase, which, in rude and childish way, assembles most of the principal thoughts regarding Athena in this relation. 20 In the first, the sunrise is represented by the ascending chariot of Apollo, foreshortened; the light is supposed to blind the eyes, and no face of the god is seen (Turner, ° in the Ulysses and Polyphemus® sunrise, loses the form of the god in light, giving the chariot-horses only ; rendering 25 in his own manner, after 2,200 years of various fall and revival of the arts, precisely the same thought as the old Greek potter). He ascends out of the sea; but the sea itself has not yet caught the light. In the second design, Athena as the morning breeze, and Hermes as the morn- 3° ing cloud, fly over the sea before the sun. Hermes turns back his head; his face is unseen in the cloud, as Apollo’s in the light; the grotesque appearance of an animal’s 158 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR face is only the cloud-phantasm® modifying a frequent form of the hair of Hermes beneath the back of his cap. Under the morning breeze, the dolphins leap from the rip- pled sea, and their sides catch the light. 5 The coins of the Lucanian H5*acleia give a fair repre- sentation of the helmed Athena, as imagined in later Greek art, with the embossed Scylla. 40. Fourthly, Athena is the air nourishing artificial light — unconsuming fire. Therefore, a lamp was always lo kept burning in the Erechtheum ; and the torch-race belongs chiefly to her festival, of which the meaning is to show the danger of the perishing of the light even by ex- cess of the air that nourishes it ; and so that the race is not to the swift,® but to the wise. The household use of her 15 constant light is symbolized in the lovely passage in the Odyssey, where Ulysses and his son move the armor while the servants are shut in their chambers, and there is no one to hold torches for them; but Athena herself, ^‘having a golden lamp,^^ fills all the rooms with light. Her presence 20 in war-strength with her favorite heroes is always shown by the unwearied fire hovering on their helmets and shields ; and the image gradually becomes constant and ac- cepted, both for the maintenance of household watchful- ness, as in the parable of the ten virgins,® or as the symbol 25 of direct inspiration, in the rushing wind and divided flames of Pentecost®; but together with this thought of unconsuming and constant fire, there is always mingled in the Greek mind the sense of the consuming by excess, as of the flame by the air, so also of the inspired creature by 30 its own fire (thus, again, ^Hhe zeal of thine house hath eaten me up ^^® — “my zeal hath consumed me, because of thine enemies,^^® and the like) ; and especially Athena has this aspect towards the truly sensual and bodily ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 159 strength; so that to Ares,° who is himself insane and con- suming, the opposite wisdom seems to be insane and consuming: ^^All we the other gods have thee against us, O Jove ! when we would give grace to men ; for thou hast begotten the maid without a mind — the mischievous 5 creature, the doer of unseemly evil. All we obey thee, and are ruled by thee. Her only thou wilt not resist in any- thing she says or does, because thou didst bear her — con- suming child as she is.^^ 41 . Lastly, Athena is the air conveying vibration of 10 sound. In all the loveliest representations in central Greek art of the birth of Athena, Apollo stands close to the sitting Jupiter, singing, with a deep, quiet joyfulness, to his lyre. The sun is always thought of as the master of time and 15 rhythm, and as the origin of the composing and inventive discovery of melody°; but the air, as the actual element and substance of the voice, the prolonging and sustaining power of it, and the symbol of its moral pa.ssion. Whatever in music is measured and designed belongs therefore to 20 Apollo and the Muses ; whatever is impulsive and passion- ate,® to Athena; hence her constant strength of voice or cry (as when she aids the shout of Achilles)® curiously opposed to the dumbness of Demeter.® The Apolline lyre, therefore, is not so much the instrument producing sound, 25 as its measurer and divider by length or tension of string into given notes ; and I believe it is, in a double connec- tion with its office as a measurer of time or motion, and its relation to the transit of the sun in the sky, that Hermes forms it from the tortoise-shell, which-'is the image of the 3c dappled concave of the cloudy sky. Thenceforward all the limiting or restraining modes of music belong to the Muses ; but the passionate music is wind music, as in the 160 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR Doric flute.® Then, when this inspired music beromes de- graded in its passion, it sinks into the pipe of Pan,® and the double pipe of Marsyas,® and is then rejected by Athena. The myth which represents her doing so is that she in- 5 vented the double pipe from hearing the hiss of the Gor- gonian serpents® ; but when she played upon it, chancing to see her face reflected in water, she saw that it was dis- torted, whereupon she threw down the flute, which I\rar- syas found. Then, the strife of Apollo and Marsyas repre- To sents the enduring contest between music in which the words and thought lead, and the lyre measures or melo- dizes them (which Pindar means when he calls his hymns kings over .the lyre^O? music in which the words are lost and the wind or impulse leads, — generally, there- 15 fore, between intellectual, and brutal, or meaningless, music. Therefore, when Apollo prevails, he flays Marsyas, taking the limit and external bond of his shape from him, which is death, without touching the mere muscular strength, yet shameful and dreadful in dissolution. 20 42 . And the opposition of these two kinds of sound is continually dwelt upon by the Greek philosophers, the real fact at the root of all their teaching being this, that true music is the natural expression of a lofty passion for a right cause ; that in proportion to the kingliness and force 25 of any personality, the expression either of its joy or suffer- ing becomes measured, chastened, calm, and capable of interpretation only by the majesty of ordered, beautiful, and worded sound. Exactly in proportion to the degree in which we become narrow in the cause and concep- 3otionof our passions-, incontinent in the utterance of them, feeble of ])erseveram*e in them, sullied or shameful in the indulgence of them, their expression by musical sound be- comes broken, mean, fatuitous, and at last impossible; the ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS IGl measured waves of tiieair of heaven will not lend themselves to expression of ultimate vice, it must be forever sunk into discordance or silence. And since, as before stated, every work of right art has a tendency to reproduce the ethical state which first developed it, this, which of all the arts is 5 most directly ethical in origin, is also the most direct in power of discipline ; the first, the simplest, the most effec- tive of all instruments of moral instruction ; while in the failure and betrayal of its functions, it becomes the subtlest aid of moral degradation. Music is thus, in her health, ic the teacher of perfect order, ° and is the voice of the obe- dience of angels, and the companion of the course of the spheres of heaven ; and in her depravity she is also the teacher of perfect disorder and disobedience, and the Gloria in Excelsis® becomes the Marseillaise.® In the 15 third section of this volume, I reprint two chapters from another essay of mine (^^The Cestus of Aglaia^^, on mod- esty or measure, and on liberty, containing further ref- erence to music in her two powers ; and I do this now, because, among the many monstrous and misbegotten fan- 20 tasies . which are the spawn of modern license, perhaps the most impishly opposite to the truth is the conception of music which has rendered possible the writing, by educated persons, and, more strangeh^ yet, the toler- ant criticism, of such words as these : This so persuasive 25 art is the only one that has no didactic efficacy, that en- genders no emotions save such as are without issue on the side of moral truths that expresses nothing of God, notJiing of reason, nothing of human liberty. I will not give the author's name ; the passage is quoted in the Westminster 3c Review" for last January [I860].® 43. I must also anticipate something of what I have to say respecting the relation of the power of Athena to M 162 THE QUEEN OF THE AIH organic life, so far as to note that her name, Pallas, probably refers to the quivering or vibration of the air; and to its power, whether as vital force, or communicated wave, over every kind of matter, in giving it vibratory 5 movement ; first, and most intense, in the voice and throat of the bird, which is the air incarnate; and so descending through the various orders of animal life to the vibrating and semi- voluntary murmur of the insect ; and, lower still, to the hiss or quiver of the tail of the half- lo lunged snake and deaf adder ; all these, nevertheless, being wholly under the rule of Athena as representing either breath or vital nervous power; and, therefore, also, in their simplicity, the oaten pipe and pastoral song,^^ which belong to her dominion over the asphodel meadows, 15 and breathe on their banks of violets. Finally, is it not strange to think of the influence of this one power of Pallas in vibration (we shall see a singular mechanical energy of it presently in the serpent ^s motion), in the voices of war and peace ? How much of the repose, 20 how much of the wrath, folly, and misery of men, has literally depended on this one power of the air; on the sound of the trumpet and of the bell, on the lark^s song, and the bee^s murmur ! 44 . Such is the general conception in the Greek mind 25 of the physical power of Athena. The spiritual power as- sociated with it is of two kinds : first, she is the Spirit of Life in material organism ; not strength in the blood only, bul formative energy in the clay; and, secondly, she is inspired and impulsive wisdom in human conduct and 30 human art, giving the instinct of infallible decision, and of faultless invention. It is quite beyond the scope of my present purpose — and, indeed, will only l)c possible for me at all after mark ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 163 ing the relative intention of the Apolline myths — to trace for you the Greek conception of Athena as the guide of moral passion. But I will at least endeavor, on some near occasion,^ to define some of the actual truths respect- ing the vital force in created organism, and inventive fancy s in the works of man, which are more or less expressed by the Greeks, under the personality of Athena. You would, perhaps, hardly bear with me if I endeavored further to show you — what is nevertheless perfectly true — the analogy between the spiritual power of Athena in her lo gentle ministry, yet irresistible anger, with the ministry of another Spirit whom we also, holding for the universal power of life, are forbidden, at our worst peril, to quench or to grieve.® 45 . But, I think, to-night, you should not let me close 15 without requiring of me an answer on one vital point, nam-ely, how far these imaginations of gods — which are vain to us — were vain to those who had no better trust ? and what real belief the Greek had in these creations of his own spirit, practical and helpful to him in the sorrow of 20 earth? I am able to answer you explicitly in this. The origin of his thoughts is often obscure, and we may err in endeavoring to account for their form of realization ; but the effect of that realization on his life is not obscure at all. The Greek creed was, of course, different in its character, as 25 our own creed is, according to the class of persons who held it. The common people's was quite literal, simple, and happy ; their idea of Athena was as clear as a good Roman Catholic peasant's idea of the Madonna. In Athens itself, the centre of thought and refinement, Pisistratus® ob-30 tained the reins of government through the ready belief of ^ I have tried to do this in mere outline in the two following sections of this volume. 164 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR the populace that a beautiful woman^ armed like x\thena,° was the goddess herself. Even at the close of the last cen- tury some of this simplicity remained among the in- habitants of the Greek islands ; and when a pretty English 5 lady first made her way into the grotto of Antiparos,^ she was surrounded, on her return, by all the women of the neighboring village, believing her to be divine, and praying her to heal them of their sicknesses. 46. Then, secondly, the creed of the upper classes was lo more refined and spiritual, but quite as honest, and even more forcible in its effect on the life. You might imagine that the employment of the artifice just referred to im- plied utter unbelief in the persons contriving it; but it really meant only that the more worldly of them would 15 play with a popular faith for their own purposes, as doubly- minded persons have often done since, all the while sin- cerely holding the same ideas themselves in a more ab- stract form; while the good and unworldly men, the true Greek heroes, lived by their faith as firmly as St. Louis,® 20 or the Cid,® or the Chevalier Bayard.® 47. Then, thirdly, the faith of the poets and artists was, necessarily, less definite, being continually modified b}^ the involuntary action of their own fancies ; and by the neces- sity of presenting, in clear verbal or material form, things 25 of which they had no authoritative knowledge. Their faith was, in some respects, like Banters or Milton’s : firm in general conception, but not able to vouch for every detail in the forms they gave it ; but they went condder- ably farther, even in that minor sincerity, than subsequent 30 poets ; and strove with all their might to be as near the truth as they could. Pindar says, quite simply, ‘G can- not think so-and-so of the gods. It must have been this way — it cannot have b^en that way — that the thing ATHENA IN THE HEAVENS 165 was done/^ And as late among the Latins as the days of Horace, this sincerity remains. Horace® is just as true and simple in his religion as Wordsworth® ; but all power of understanding any of the honest classic poets has been taken away from most English gentlemen by the me- 5 chanical drill in verse-writing® at school. Throughout the whole of their lives afterwards, they never can get themselves quit of the notion that all verses were written as an exercise, and that Minerva was only a convenient word for the last of a hexameter,® and Jupiter for the last but one. ic 48. It is impossible that any notion can be more fal- lacious or more misleading in its consequences. All great song, from the first day when human lips contrived sylla- bles, has been sincere song. With deliberate didactic pur- pose the tragedians — with pure and native passion the 15 lyrists — fitted their perfect words to their dearest faiths. “Operosa parvus earmina fingo.^' ‘H, little thing that I am, weave my laborious songs as earnestly as the bee among the bells of thyme® on the Matin® mountains. Yes, and he dedicates his favorite pine to Diana, and he chants 20 his autumnal hymn to the Faun® that guards his fields, and he guides the noble youth and maids of Rome® in their choir to Apollo, and he tells the farmer^s little girl that the gods will love her, though she has only a handful of salt and meal to give them — just as earnestly as ever 25 English gentleman taught Christian faith to English youth in England's truest days. 49. Then, lastly, the creed of the philosophers or sages varied according to the character and knowledge of each ; their relative acquaintance with the secrets of natural 30 science, their intellectual and sectarian egotism, and their mystic or monastic tendencies, for there is a classic as well as a mediaeval monasticism. They end in losing the life of 166 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR Greece in play upon words; but we owe to their early thought some of the soundest ethics, and the foundation of the best practical laws, yet known to mankind. cO. Such was the general vitality of the heathen creed 5 in its strength. Of its direct influence on conduct, it is, as I said, impossible for me to speak now; only, remember always, in endeavoring to form a judgment of it, that what of good or right the heathens did, they did looking for no reward. The purest forms of our own religion have al- io ways consisted in sacrificing less things to win greater, time to win eternity, the world to win the skies. The order, ^^sell that thou hast,^' is not given without the promise, ‘^thou shalt have treasure in heaven®;^’ and well for the modern Christian if he accepts the alternative as his 15 Master left it, and does not practically read the command and promise thus : Sell that thou hast in the best market, and thou shalt have treasure in eternity also.^' But the poor Greeks of the great ages expected no reward from heaven but honor, and no reward from earth but rest ; 20 though, when, on those conditions, they patiently, and proudly, fulfilled their task of the granted day, an un- reasoning instinct of an immortal benediction broke from their lips in song : and thev, even the}', had sometimes a prophet to tell them of a land where there is sun alike 2^ by day and alike by night, where they shall need no more to trouble the earth by strength of hands for daily bread : but the ocean breezes blow around the blessed islands, and golden flowers burn on their bright trees for evermore/^ II ATHENA KERAMITIS* {Athena m the Earth) STUDY, SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE PRECEDING LECTURE, OF THE SUPPOSED AND ACTUAL RELATIONS OF ATHENA TO THE VITAL FORCE IN MATERIAL ORGANISM 51 . It has been easy to decipher approximately the Greek conception of the physical power of Athena in cloud and sky, because we know ourselves what clouds and skies are, and what the force of the wind is in forming them. But it is not at all easy to trace the Greek thoughts about 5 the power of Athena in giving life, because we do not our- selves know clearly what life is, or in what way the air is necessary to it, or what there is, besides the air, shaping the forms that it is put into. And it is comparatively of small consequence to find out what the Greeks thought or 10 meant, until we have determined what we ourselves think, or mean, when we translate the Greek word for ^‘breath- ing into the Latin-English word “spirit/^ 52. But it is of great consecjuence that you should fix in your minds — and hold, against the baseness of mere 15 materialism on the one hand, and against the fallacies of controversial speculation on the other — the certain and ^ Athena, fit for being made into pottery.’^ I coin the expres- sion as a counterpart of 77} irapOevLa, ‘‘Clay intact.’' 167 168 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR practical sense of this word “ spirit the sense in which you all know that its reality exists, as the power which shaped you into your shape, and by which you love and hate when you have received that shape. You need not 5 fear, on the one hand, that either the sculpturing or the loving power can ever be beaten down by the philosophers into a metal, or evolved by them into a gas, but on the other hand, take care that you yourselves, in trying to elevate your conception of it, do not lose its truth in a lo dream, or even in a word. Beware always of contending for words : you will find them not easy to grasp, if }mu know them in several languages. This very word, which is so solemn in your mouths, is one of the most doubtful. In Latin it means little more than breathing, and may IS mean merely accent ; in French it is not breath, but wit, and our neighbors are therefore obliged, even in their most solemn expressions, to say ^Svit^^ when we say ghost. In Greek, ^^pneuma,^' the word we translate ghost, means either wind or breath, and the relative word 20^^ psyche has, perhaps, a more subtle power; yet St. PauFs° words pneumatic body^^ and psychic body^' involve a difference in his mind which no words will ex- plain. But in Greek and in English, and in Saxon and in Hebrew, and in every articulate tongue of humanity the 25 spirit of man^^ truly means his passion and virtue, and is stately according to the height of his conception, and stable according to the measure of his endurance. 53 . Endurance, or patience, that is the central sign of spirit ; a constancy against the cold and agony of death ; 30 and as, physically, it is by the burning power of the air that the heat of the flesh is sustained, so this Athena, spiritually, is the queen of all glowing virtue, the uncon- suming fire and inner lamp of life. And thus, as Heplues- ATHENA IN THE EARTH 169 tus is lord of the fire of the hand, and Apollo of the fire of the brain, so Athena of the fire of the heart ; and as Hercules wears for his chief armor the skin of the Nemean lion,° his chief enemy, whom he slew; and Apollo has for his highest name ^Hhe Pythian,^Hrom his chief enemy, the s Python,® slain; so Athena bears always on her breast the deadly face of her chief enemy slain, the Gorgonian cold, and venomous agony, that turns living men to stone. 54. And so long as you have that fire of the heart within you, and know the reality of it, you need be under no alarm iq as to the possibility of its chemical or mechanical analysis. The philosophers are very humorous in their ecstasy of hope about it ; but the real interest of their discoveries in this direction is very small to humankind. It is quite true that the tympanum of the ear vibrates under sound, 15 and that the surface of the water in a ditch vibrates too ; but the ditch hears nothing for all that ; and my hearing is still to me as blessed a mystery as ever, and the interval between the ditch and me quite as great. If the trembling sound in my ears was once of the marriage-bell which be- 20 gan my happiness, and is now of the passing-bell which ends it, the difference between those two sounds to me can- not be counted by the number of concussions. There have been some curious speculations lately as to the conveyance of mental consciousness by brain-waves.” 25 What does it matter how it is conveyed ? The conscious- ness itself is not a wave. It may be accompanied here or there by any quantity of quivers and shakes, up or down, of anything you can find in the universe that is shakable — what is that to me ? My friend is dead, and 30 my — according to modern views — vibratory sorrow is not one whit less, or less mysterious, to me, than my old quiet one. 170 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR 55. Beyond, and entirely unaffected by, any question- ings of this kind, there are, therefore, two plain facts which we should all know: first, that there is a power which gives their several shapes to things, or capacities 5 of shape ; and, secondly, a power which gives them their several feelings, or capacities of feeling ; and that we can increase or destroy both of these at our will. By care and tenderness, we can extend the range of lovely life in plants and animals ; by our neglect and cruelty, we can arrest it, lo and bring pestilence in its stead. Again, by right disci- pline we can increase our strength of noble will and pas- sion or destroy both. And whether these two forces are local conditions of the elements in which they appear, or are part of a great force in the universe, out of which they 15 are taken, and to which they must be restored, is not of, the slightest importance to us in dealing with them; neither is the manner of their connection with light and air. What precise meaning we ought to attach to expres- sions such as that of the prophecy to the four winds that 20 the dry bones might be breathed upon, and might live,® or why the presence of the vital power should be dependent on the chemical action of the air, and its awful passing away materially signified by the rendering up of that breath or ghost, we cannot at present know, and need not 25 at any time dispute. What we assuredly know is that the states of life and death are different, and the first more desirable than the other, and by effort attainable, whether we understand being born of the spirit to signify having the breath of heaven in our flesh, or its power in our hearts. 30 56. As to its power on the body, I will endeavor to tell you, having been myself much led into studies involving necessary reference both to natural science imd mental phenoiiK'iia, what, at least, remains lo us after science ATHENA IN THE EARTH 171 has done its worst ; what the myth of Athena, as a forma- tive and decisive power, a spirit of creation and volition, must eternally mean for all of us. 57 . It is now (I believe I may use the strong word) '^ascertained that heat and motion are fixed in quan-5 tity, and measurable in the portions that we deal with. We can measure our portions of power, as we can measure portions of space ; while yet, as far as we know, space may be infinite, and force infinite. There may be heat as much greater than the sun^s, as the sun^s heat is greater than a 10 candle ^s ; and force as much greater than the force by which the world swings, as that is greater than the force by which a cobweb trembles. Now, on heat and force, life is inseparably dependent ; and I believe, also”, on a form of substance, which the philosophers call "protoplasm.” 15 I wish they would use English instead of Greek words. When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is colored by "chlorophyll,” which at first sounds very in- structive ; but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is colored green by a thing which is called "green leaf,^^ we 20 should see more precisely how far we had got. However, it is a curious fact that life is connected with a cellular structure called protoplasm, or in English, "first stuck together whence, conceivably through deuteroplasms, or second stickings, and tritoplasms, or third stickings,^ 25 ^ Or, perhaps, we may be indulged with one consummating gleam of ‘‘glycasm,’’ visible ^‘Sweetness,” — according to the good old monk, ‘‘Full moon,’^ or “All moonshine.” I cannot get at his original Greek, but am content with M. Durand’s clear French (Manuel d’Iconographie Chretienne.® Paris, 1845)130 “Lorsque vous aurez fait le proplasme, et esquisse un visage, vous ferez les chairs avec le glycasme dont nous avons donne la re- cette. Chez les vieillards, vous indiquerez les rirles, et chez les jeunes gens, les angles dez yeux. C’est ainsi qui Ton fait les chairs, suivant Panselinos.”® 35 172 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR we reach the highest plastic phase in the human pottery, which differs from common chinaware, primarily, by a measurable degree of heat, developed in breathing, which it borrows from the rest of the universe while it lives, and 5 which it as certainly returns to the rest of the universe, when it dies. 58. Again, with this heat certain assimilative powers are connected, which the tendency of recent discovery is to simplify more and more into modes of one force ; or finally lo into mere motion, communicable in various states, but not destructible. We will assume that science has done its utmost ; and that every chemical or animal force is demon- strably resolvable into heat or motion, reciprocally chang- ing into eacli other. I would myself like better, in order 15 of thought, to consider motion as a mode of heat than heat as a mode of motion ; still, granting that we have got thus far, we have yet to ask. What is heat ? or what motion ? What is this ^^primo mobile,'^ this transitional power, in which all things live, and move, and have their being®? 20 It is by definition something different from matter, and we may call it as we choose, first cause,^^ or first light,"' or first heat"; but we can show no scientific proof of its not being personal, and coinciding with the ordinary conception of a supporting spirit in all things. 25 59. Still, it is not advisable to apply the word ‘^spirit" or ^‘breathing" to it, while it is only enforcing chemical affinities; but, when the chemical affinities are brought under the influence of the air, and of the sun's heat, the formative force enters an entirely different phase. It does 30 not now merely crystallize indefinite masses, but it gives to limited portions of matter the power of gathering, selec- tively, other elements proper to them, and binding these elements into their own peculiar and adopted form. ATHElSrA IN THE EARTH 173 This force^ now properly called life, or breathing, or spirit, is continually creating its own shell of definite shape out of the wreck round it ; and this is what I meant by saying, in the Ethics of the Dust,'’^° ^^you may always stand by form against foreed' For the mere force of 5 junction is not spirit; but the power that catches out of chaos charcoal, water, lime, or what not, and fastens them down into a given form, is properly called spirit ; and we shall not diminish, but strengthen our conception of tliih' creative energy by recognizing its presence in lower states vs of matter than our owm ; such recognition being enforced upon us by delight we instinctively receive from, all the forms of matter which manifest it ; and yet more, by the glorifying of those forms, in the parts of them that are most animated, with the colors that are pleasantest to our 15 senses. The most familiar instance of this is the best, and also the most wonderful : the blossoming of plants. 60 . The spirit in the plant — that is to say, its power of gathering dead matter out of the wreck round it, and shap- ing it into its own chosen shape — is of course strongest 20 at the moment of its flowering, for it then not only gathers, but forms, with the greatest energy. And where this life is in it at full powder, its form be- comes invested with aspects that are chiefly delightful to our own human passions ; namely, first, with the loveliest 25 outlines of shape; and, secondly, with the most brilliant phases of the primary colors, blue, yellow, and red or white, the unison of all ; and, to make it all more strange, this time of peculiar and perfect glory is associated with relations of the plants or blossoms to each other, corre- 30 spondent to the joy of love in human creatures, and having the same object in the continuance of the race. Only, with respect to plants, as animals, we are wrong in speak- 174 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR ing as if the object of this strong life were only the bequeath- ing of itself. The flower is the end or proper object of the seed, not the seed of the flower. The reason for seeds is that flowers may be ; not the reason of flowers that seeds 5 may be. The flower itself is the creature which the spirit makes; only, in connection with its perfectness is placed the giving birth to its successor. 61 . The main fact, then, about a flower is that it is the part of the plant ^s form developed at the moment of its lo intensest life ; and this inner rapture is usually marked externally for us by the flush of one or more of the primary colors. What the character of the flower shall be, depends entirely upon the portion of the plant into which this rap- ture of spirit has been put. Sometimes the life is put into 15 its outer sheath, and then the outer sheath becomes white and pure, and full of strength and grace ; sometimes the life is put into the common leaves, just under the blossom, and they become scarlet or purple; sometimes the life is put into the stalks of the flower and the}" flush blue ; some- 20 times into its outer enclosure or calyx ; mostly into its inner cup ; but, in all cases, the presence of the strongest life is asserted by characters in which the human sight takes pleasure, and which seem prepared with distinct reference to us, or rather, bear, in being delightful, evi- 25 dence of having been produced by the power of the same spirit as our own. 62 . And we are led to feel this still more strongly because all the distinctions of species,^ both in plants and ^ The facts on which T am about to dwell are in nowise antago- 30 nistic to the theories which Mr. Darwin’s® unwearied and unerr- ing investigations are every day rendering more probable. The aesthetic relations of species are independent of their origin. Nevertheless, it has alway s seemed to me, in what little wojk I 1 as'e done upon organic forms, as if the sjK'cies mocked us by ATHENA IN THE EAETH 175 animals, appear to have similar connection with human character. Whatever the origin of species may be, or however those species, once formed, may be influenced by external accident, the groups into which birth or accident reduce them have distinct relation to the spirit of man. It 5 is perfectly possible, and ultimately conceivable, that the crocodile and the lamb may have descended from the same anc^estral atom of protoplasm ; and that the physical laws of the operation of calcareous slime® and of meadow grass, on that protoplasm, may in time have de- 10 veloped the opposite natures and aspects of the living frames ; but the practically important fact for us is the existence of a power which creates that calcareous earth itself, — which creates, that separately — and quartz, separately ; and gold, separately ; and charcoal, separately ; 15 and then so directs the relation of these elements as that the gold shall destroy the souls of men by being yellow; and the charcoal destroy their souls by being hard and bright ; and the quartz represent to them an ideal purity ; and the calcareous earth, soft, shall beget crocodiles, and, 20 dry and hard, sheep ; and that the aspects and qualities of these two products, crocodiles and lambs, shall be, the one repellent to the spirit of man, the other at tract iv’e to it, in a quite inevitable way ; representing to him states of moral evil and good ; and becoming myths to him of de- 25 struction or redemption, and, in the most literal sense, words of God. 63 . And the force of these facts cannot be escaped from by the thought that there are species innumerable, passing into each other by regular gradations, out of which we 3c choose what we most love or dread, and say they were their deliberate imitation of each other when they met; yet did not pass one into another. 176 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR indeed prepared for us. Species are not innumerable; neither are they now connected by consistent gradation. They touch at certain points only ; and even then are con- nected, when we examine them deeply, in a kind of reticu- 5 lated way, not in chains, but in chequers ; also, however connected, it is but by a touch of the extremities, as it were, and the characteristic form of the species is entirely individual. The rose nearly sinks into a grass in the san- guisorba ; but the formative spirit does not the less clearly lo separate the ear of wheat from the dog-rose, and oscillate with tremulous constancy round the central forms of both, having each their due relation to the mind of man. The great animal kingdoms are connected in the same way. The bird through the penguin drops tow^ards the fish, and 15 the fish in the cetacean reascends to the mammal, yet there is no confusion of thought possible between the perfect forms of an eagle, a trout, and a war-horse, in their re- lations to the elements, and to man. 64. Now we have two orders of animals to take some 20 note of in connection with Athena, and one vast order of plants, which will illustrate this matter very sufficiently for us. The orders of animals are the serpent and the bird: the serpent, in which the breath or spirit is less than in any 25 other creature, and the earth-power greatest ; the bird, in which the breath or spirit is more full than in any other creature, and the earth-power least. 65. We will take the bird first. It is little more than a drift of the air brought into form by plumes ; the air is in 30 all its quills, it breathes through its whole frame and flesh, and glows with air in its flying, like blown flame ; it rests upon the air, subdues it, surpasses it, outraces it, — is the air, conscious of itself, conquering itself, ruling itself. ATHENA IN THE EARTH 177 Also, in the throat of the bird is given the voice of the air. All that in the wind itself is weak, wild, useless in sweetness, is knit together in its song. As we may imagine the wild form of the cloud closed into the perfect form of the bird^s wings, so the wild voice of the cloud into its 5 ordered and commanded voice ; unwearied, rippling through the clear heaven in its gladness, interpreting all intense passion through the soft spring nights, bursting into acclaim and rapture of choir at daybreak, or lisping and twittering among the boughs and hedges through heat lo of day, like little winds that only make the cowslip bells shake, and ruffle the petals of the wild rose. 66. Also, upon the plumes of the bird are put the colors of the air ; on these the gold of the cloud, that cannot be gathered by any covetousness ; the rubies of the clouds, 15 that are not the price of Athena, but are Athena ; the ver- milion of the cloud-bar, and the flame of the cloud-crest, and the snow of the cloud, and its shadow, and the melted blue of the deep wells of the sky, — all these, seized by the creating spirit, and woven by Athena herself into films 20 and threads of plume ; with wave on wave following and fading along breast, and throat, and opened wings, infi- nite as the dividing of the foam and the sifting of the sea- sand ; even the white down of the cloud seeming to flutter up between the stronger plumes, — seen, but too soft for 25 touch. And so the Spirit of the Air is put into, and upon, this created form ; and it becomes, through twenty centuries, the symbol of divine help, descending, as the Fire, to speak, ° but as the Dove, to bless.® 30 67. Next, in the serpent we approach the source of a group of myths, world-wide, founded on great and com- mon human instincts, respecting which I must note one or N 178 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR two points which bear intimately on all our subject. For it seems to me that the scholars who are at present oc- cupied in interpretation of human myths have most of them forgotten that there are any such thing as natural 5 myths, and that the dark sayings of men may be both difficult to read, and not always worth reading, but the dark sayings of nature will probably become clearer for the looking into, and will very certainly be worth reading. And, indeed, all guidance to the right sense of the human lo and variable myths will probably depend on our first get- ting at the sense of the natural and invariable ones. The ■ dead hieroglyph® may have meant this or that ; the living hieroglyph means always the same; but remember, it is just as much a hieroglyph as the other ; nay, more, — a 15 sacred or reserved sculpture, a thing with an inner language. The serpent crest of the king^s crown, or of the god^s, on the pillars of Egypt, is a mystery, but the ser- pent itself, gliding past the pillar’s foot, is it less a mystery ? Is there, indeed, no tongue, except the mute forked flash 20 from its lips, in that running brook of horror on the ground ? 68 . Why that horror ? We all feel it, yet how imagina- tive it is, how disproportioned to the real strength of the creature ! There is more poison in an ill-kept drain, in a 25 pool of dish-washings at a cottage door, than in the dead- liest asp of Nile. Every back yard which you look down into from the railway, as it carries you out by Vauxhall or Deptford, holds its coiled serpent; all the walls of those ghastly suburbs are enclosures of tank temples for serpent- 30 worship ; yet you feel no horror in looking down into them, as you would if you saw the livid scales and lifted head. There is more venom, mortal, inevital)le, in a single word, sometimes, or in the gliding entrance of a wordless thought, ATHENA IN THE EARTH 179 than ever “vanti Libia con sua rena/^° But that liorror is of the myth, not of the creature. There are myriads lower than this, and more loathsome, in the scale of being ; the links between dead matter and animation drift every- where unseen. But it is the strength of the base element that is so dreadful in the serpent ; it is the very omnipo- tence of the earth. That rivulet of smooth silver, how does it flow, think you? It literally rows on the earth, with every scale for an oar; it bites the dust with the ridges of its body. Watch it, when it moves slowly. A wave, but without wind ! a current, but with no fall ! all the body moving at the same instant, yet some of it to one side, some to another, or some forward, and the rest of the coil backwards, but all with the same calm will and equal way, no contraction, no extension ; one sound- less, causeless, march of 'sequent rings, and spectral pro- cessions of spotted dust, with dissolution in its fangs, dis- location in its coils. Startle it, the winding stream will become a twisted arrow; the wave of poisoned life will lash through the grass like a cast lance. ^ It scarcely ^ T cannot understand this swift forward motion of serpents. 'Hie seizure of prey by tlie constrictor, though invisibly swift, is quite simple in mechanism; it is simply the return to its coil of an opened watch-spring, and i« just as instantaneous. But the steady and continuous motion, without a visible fulcrum (for the whole body moves at the same instant, and I have often seen even small snakes glide as fast as I could walk), seems to involve a vibration of the scales quite too rapid to be conceived. The motion of the crest and dorsal fin of the hippocampus,® which is one of the intermediate types between serpent and fish, perhaps gives some resemblance of it, dimly visible, for the quivering turns the fin into a mere mist. The entrance of the two barbs of a bee's sting by alternate motion, ‘The teeth < f one barb act- ing as a fulcrum for the other,’' must be something like the serpent motion on a small scale. 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 180 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR breathes with its one lung (the other shrivelled and abor- tive) ; it is passive to the sun and shade, and is cold or hot like a stone; yet ‘^it can outclimb the monkey, out- swim the fish, outleap the zebra, outwrestle the athlete, 5 and crush the tiger/^^ It is a divine hieroglyph of the demoniac power of the earth, of the entire earthly nature. As the bird is the clothed power of the air, so this is the clothed power of the dust ; as the bird the symbol of the spirit of life, so this of the grasp and sting of death, lo 69. Hence the continual change in the interpretation put upon it in various religions. As the worm of corrup- tion, it is the mightiest of all adversaries of the gods — the special adversary of their light and creative power — - Python against Apollo. As the power of the earth against IS the air, the giants are serpent-bodied in the Gigantoma- chia° ; but as the power of the earth upon the seed — con- suming it into new life (^Hhat which thou sowest is not quickened except it die^0° — serpents sustain the chariot of the spirit of agriculture. 20 70. Yet, on the other hand, there is a power in the earth to take away corruption, and to purify (hence the very fact of burial, and many uses of earth, only lately known) ; and in this sense the serpent is a healing spirit, — the representative of ^sculapius,® and of Hygieia°; and is a 25 sacred earth-type in the temple of the Dew, being there es- pecially a symbol of the native earth of Athens ; so that its departure from the temple was a sign to the Athenians that they were to leave their homes. And then, lastly, as there is a strength and healing in the earth, no less than 30 the strength of air, so there is conceived to be a wisdom of earth no less than a wisdom of the spirit ; and when its deadly power is killed, its guiding power becomes true ; so ^ Richard Owen. ATHENA IN THE EARTH 181 that the Python serpent is killed at Delphi,® where yet the oracle is from the breath of the earth. 71. You must remember, however, that in this, as in every other instance, I take the myth at its central time. This is only the meaning of the serpent to the Greek mind which could conceive an Athena. Its first meaning to the nascent eyes® of men, and its continued influence over degraded races, are subjects of the most fearful mys- tery. Mr. Fergusson has just collected the principal evi- dence bearing on the matter in a work of very great value, and if you read his opening chapters, they will put you in possession of the circumstances needing chiefly to be con- sidered. I cannot touch upon any of them here, except only to point out that, though the doctrine of the so-called corruption of human nature,^^ asserting that there is nothing but evil in humanity, is just as blasphemous and false as a doctrine of the corruption of physical nature would be, asserting there was nothing but evil in the earth, — there is yet the clearest evidence of a disease, plague, or cretinous imperfection of development, hitherto allowed to prevail against the greater part of the races of men; and this in monstrous ways, more full of mystery than the serpent-being itself. I have gathered for you to-night only instances of what is beautiful in Greek religion ; but even in its best time there were deep corruptions in other phases of it, and degraded forms of many of its deities, all originating in a misunderstood worship of the principle of life ; while in the religions of lower races, little less than these corrupted forms of devotion can be found, all having a strange and dreadful consistency with each other, and infecting Christianity, even at its strongest periods, with fatal terror of doctrine, and ghastliness of symbolic con- ception, passing through fear into frenzied grotesque,® and thence into sensuality. 5 10 15 20 25 30 ‘ THE QLEEN OF THE AIR 1 S‘J In the Psalter of St. Louis® itself, half of its letters are t\\*isted snakes ; there is seareely a wreathed ornament employed in Christian dress, or architecture, which can- not be traced back to the serpent ^s coil ; and there is rarely 5 a piece of monkish decorated writing in the world that is not tainted with some ill-meant vileness of grotesque, — nay, the very leaves of the twisted hy-pattern of the fourteenth century can be followed back to wreaths for the foreheads of bacchanalian gods. And truly, it seems lo to me, as I gather in my mind the evidences of insane religion, degraded art, merciless war, sullen toil, detestable pleasure, and vain or vile hope, in which th^ nations of the world have lived since fii'st they could bear record of themselves — it seems to me, I say, as if the race itself 15 were stiU haK-serpent, not extricated yet from its clay; a lacertine® breed of bitterness — the glory of it emaciate with cruel hunger, and blotted with venomous stain, and the track of it, on the leaf a glittering slime, and in the sand a useless furrow. 20 72. There are no m^qhs, therefore, by which the moral state and fineness of intelligence of different races can be so deeply tried or measured, as by those of the serpent and the bird ; both of them having an especial relation to the kind of remorse for sin, or for grief in fate, of which the 25 national minds that spoke by them had been capable. The serpent and vulture are alike emblems of immortality and purification among races which desired to be immortal and pure; and as they recognize their own misery, the .serpent becomes to them the scourge of the Fjries, and 30 the vulture finds its eternal prey in their breast. The bird long contests among the Eg}q:>tians with the still received serpent .yrnbol of power. But the Draconian image of evil is established in the serpent Apap ; while ATHENA IN THE EARTH 18.3 the bird^s wings, with the globe, become part of a better symbol of deity, and the entire form of the vulture, as an emblem of purification, is associated with the earliest con- ception of Athena. In the type of the dove with the olive branch, ° the conception of the spirit of Athena in renewed 5 life prevailing over ruin is embodied for the whole of fu- turity; while the Greeks, to whom, in a happier climate and higher life than that of Egypt, the vulture symbol of cleansing became unintelligible, took the eagle instead for their hieroglyph of supreme spiritual energy, and it thence- 10 forward retains its hold on the human imagination, till it is established among Christian myths as the expression of the most exalted form of evangelistic teaching. The special relation of Athena to her favorite bird we will trace presently ; the peacock of Hera,° and dove of Aphro- 15 dite,° are comparatively unimportant myths; but the bird power is soon made entirely human by the Greeks in their flying angel of victory (partially human, with modified meaning of evil, in the Harpy and Siren) ; and thence- forward it associates itself with the Hebrew cherubim,® 2c and has had the most singular influence on the Christian religion by giving its wings to render the conception of angels mysterious and untenable, and check rational en- deavor to determine the nature of subordinate spiritual agency ; while yet it has given to that agency a vague poet - 25 ical influence of the highest value *in its own imaginative way. 73 . But with the earlv serpent-worship there was as- sociated another, that of the groves, of which you will also find the evidenc^e exhaustively collected in Mr. Fergus- 3c son’s® work. This tree-worship may have taken a dark form when associated with the Draconian one® ; or opposed, as in Judea,® to a purer faith; but in itself, I believe, it 184 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR was always healthy, and though it retains little definite hieroglyphic power in subsequent religion, it becomes, in- stead of symbolic, real; the flowers and trees are them- selves beheld and beloved with a half -worshipping delight 5 which is always noble and healthful. And it is among the most notable indications of tns vo- lition of the animating power that we find the ethicai s gns of good and evil set on these also, as well as upon animals ; the venom of the serpent, and in some respects its image lo also, being associated even with the passicr attached to the side instead of the base of the tube, its base becomes a spur, and thus all the grotesque forms of the mints, violets, and larkspurs, gradually might be com- posed. But, however this may be, there is one great tribe 30 of plants separate from the rest, and of which the influence seems shed u])on Ihe rest in different degrees; and these would give the impression, not so much of having been developed by change, as of being stamped with a character ATHENA IN THE EARTH 193 of their own, more or less serpentine or dragon-like. And I think you will find it convenient to call these generally, Draconidce; disregarding their present ugly botanical name which I do not care even to write once — you may take for their principal types the foxglove, snapdragon, and calceolaria ° ; and you will find they all agree in a tendency to decorate themselves by spots, and with bosses or swollen places in their leaves, as if they had been touched by poison. The spot of the foxglove is especially strange, because it draws the color out of the tissue all around it, as if it had been stung, and as if the central color was really an inflamed spot, with paleness round.® Then also they carry to its extreme the decoration by bulging or pouting the petal, — often beautifully used by other flowers in a minor degree, like the beating out of bosses in hollow silver, as in the kalmia, beaten out apparently in each petal by the stamens instead of a hammer; or the borage,® pouting inwards ; but the snapdragons and calceolarias carry it to its extreme. 87. Then the spirit of these Draconidse seems to pass more or less into other flowers, whose forms are properly pure vases ; but it affects some of them slightly, others not at all. It never strongly affects the heaths; never once the roses ; but it enters like an evil spirit into the butter- cup, and turns it into a larkspur, with a black, spotted, gro- tesque centre, and a strange, broken blue, gorgeous and intense, yet impure, glittering on the surface as if it were strewn with broken glass, and stained or darkening irregu- larly into red. And then at last the serpent charm changes the ranunculus into monkshood, and makes it poisonous. It enters into the forget-me-not, and the star of heavenly turquoise is corrupted into the viper^s bugloss, darkened with the same strange red as the larkspur, and fretted into 5 10 15 20 25 30 o 194 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR a fringe of thorn ; it enters, together with a strange insect- spirit, into the asphodels, and (though with a greater inter- val between the groups) they change into spotted orchideae ; it touches the poppy, it becomes a fumaria; the iris, 5 and it pouts into a gladiolus ; the lily, and it chequers it- self into a snake Vhead, and secretes in the deep of its bell, drops, not of venom indeed, but honey-dew, as if it were a healing serpent. For there is an ^sculapian® as well as an evil serpentry among the Draconidse, and the fairest of lo them, the ^^erba della Madonna of Venice (Linaria Cymbalaria), descends from the ruins it delights in to the herbage at their feet, and touches it ; and behold, instantly, a vast group of herbs for healing, — all draconid in form, — spotted and crested, and from their lip-like corollas 15 named ^^labiatse ° ; full of various balm, and warm strength for healing,® yet all of them without splendid honor or perfect beauty, “ground ivies, richest when crushed under the foot ; the best sweetness and gentle brightness of the robes of the field, — thyme, and mar- 20 joram, and Euphrasy. 88. And observe, again and again, with respect to all these divisions and powers of plants: it does not matter in the least by what concurrences of circumstance or necessity they may gradually have been developed; the 25 concurrence of circumstance is itself the supreme and in- explicable fact. We always come at last to a formative cause, which directs the circumstance, and mode of meet- ing it. If you ask an ordinary botanist® the reason of the form of a leaf, he will tell you it is a “ developed tuber- 30 cle,^' and that its ultimate form “is owing to the directions of its vascular threads. But what directs its vascular threads? “They are seeking for something they want/' he will probably answer. What made them want that? ATHENA IN THE EAliTH v.):> What made them seek for it thus? Seek for it, in five fibres or in three? Seek for it, in serration, or in vsweep- ing curves? Seek for it, in servile tendrils, or impetuous spray? Seek for it, in woollen wrinkles rough with stings, or in glossy surfaces, green with pure strength, and winter- 5 less delight? 89 . There is no answer. But the sum of all is, that over the entire surface of the earth, and its waters, as influenced by the power of the air under solar light, there is developed a series of changing forms, in clouds, plants, and animals, ic all of whicn have reference in their action, or nature, to the human intelligence that perceives them ; and on which, in their aspects of horror and beauty, and their qualities of good and evil, there is engraved a series of myths, or words of the forming power, which, according to the true passion 15 and energy of the human race, they have been enabled to read into religion. And this forming power has been by all nations partly confused with the breath or air through which it acts, and partly understood as a creative wisdom, proceeding from the Supreme Deity ; but entering into 20 and inspiring all intelligences that work in harmony with Him. And whatever intellectual results may be in mod- ern days obtained by regarding this effluence only as a motion of vibration, every formative human art hitherto, and the best states of human happiness and order, have 25 depended on the apprehension of its mystery (which is certain), and of its personality, which is probable. 90 . Of its influence on the formative arts, I have a few words to say separately : my present business is only to interpret, as we are now sufficiently enabled to do, the ex- 30 ternal symbols of the myth under which it was represented by the Greeks as a goddess of counsel, taken first into the breast of their supreme Deity, then created out of his 196 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR thoughts, and abiding closely beside him ; always sharing and consummating his power. 91 . And in doing this we have first to note the meaning of the principal epithet applied to Athena, ^‘Glaukopis,^^® 5 ^^with eyes full of light,'^ the first syllable being connected, by its root, with words signifying sight, not with words signifying color. As far as I can trace the color percep- tion of the Greeks, I find it all founded primarily on the degree of connection between color and light; the most lo important fact to them in the color of red being its con- nection with fire and sunshine; so that purple is, in its original sense, fire-color,'^ and the scarlet, or orange, of dawn, more than any other fire-color. I was long puzzled by Homer's calling the sea purple ; and misled into think- 15 ing he meant the color of cloud shadows on green sea; whereas he really means the gleaming blaze of the waves under wide light. Aristotle's® idea (partly true) is that light, subdued by blackness, becomes red ; and blackness, heated or lighted, also becomes red. Thus, a color may 20 be called purple because it is light subdued (and so death is called purple " or shadowy " death) ; or else it may be called purple as being shade kindled with fire, and thus said of the lighted sea ; or even of the sun itself, when it is thought of as a red luminary opposed to the whiteness 25 of the moon: ‘^purpureos inter soles, et Candida lunae sidera® ; " or of golden hair : pro purpureo poenam solvens scelerata capillo® ; " while both ideas are modified by the influence of an earlier form of the word, which has nothing to do with fire at all, but only with mixing or staining ; and 30 then, to make the whole group of thoughts inextricably complex, yet rich and subtle in proportion to their in- tricacy, the various rose and crimson colors of the murex- dye,® — the crimson and purple of the poppy, and fruit ATHENA IN THE EARTH 197 of the palm, — and the association of all these with the hue of blood, — partly direct, partly through a confusion between the word signifying slaughter and palm-fruit color,’' mingle themselves in, and renew the whole nature of the old word; so that, in later literature, it means a 5 different color, or emotion of color, in almost every place where it occurs ; and casts forever around the reflection of all that has been dipped in its dyes. 92. So that the word is really a liquid prism, and stream of opal. And then, last of all, to keep the whole history ig of it in the fantastic course of a dream, warped here and there into wild grotesque, we moderns, who have pre- ferred to rule over coal-mines instead of the sea (and so have turned the everlasting lamp of Athena into a Davy’s safety-lamp® in the hand of Britannia, and Athenian 15 heavenly lightning into British subterranean ^^damp”),® have actually got our purple out of coal instead of the sea ! And thus, grotesquely, we have had enforced on us the doubt that held the old word between blackness and fire, and have completed the shadow, and the fear of it, by 20 giving it a name from battle, Magenta.” 93. There is precisely a similar confusion between light and color in the word used for the blue of the eyes of Athena — a noble confusion, however, brought about by the intensity of the Greek sense that the heaven is light, 25 more than it is blue. I was not thinking of this when I wrote, in speaking of pictorial chiaroscuro,® The sky is not blue color merely : it is blue fire and cannot be painted ” (Mod. P. iv. p. 36) ; but it was this that the Greeks chiefly felt of it, and so ^^Glaukopis” chiefly means gray- 3 c eyed ; gray standing for a pale or luminous blue ; but it only means ‘^owl-eyed” in thought of the roundness and expansion, not from the color; this breadth and 198 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR brightness being, again, in their moral sense typical of the breadth, intensity, and singleness of the sight in prudence (^^if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light ^ 0 *^ Then the actual power of the bird to see in twi- 5 light enters into the type, and perhaps its general fineness of sense. ''Before the human form was adopted, her (Athena's) proper symbol was the owl, a bird which seems to surpass all other creatures in acuteness of organic perception, its eye being calculated to observe objects lo which to all others are enveloped in darkness, its ear to hear sounds distinctly, and its nostrils to discriminate effluvia with such nicety that it has been deemed pro- phetic, from discovering the putridity of death even in the first stages of disease." ^ 15 I cannot find anywhere an account of the first known oc- currence of the type ; but, in the early ones oh Attic coins, ° the wide round eyes are clearly the principal things to be made manifest. 94 . There is yet, however, another color of great im- 20 portance in the conception of Athena — the dark blue of her aegis. Just as the blue or gray of her eyes was con- ceived as more light than color, so her aegis was dark blue, because the Greeks thought of this tint more as shade than color, and, w'hile they used various materials in ornamenta- 25 tion, lapislazuli,® carbonate of copper, or, perhaps, smalt,® with real enjoyment of the blue tint, it was yet in their minds as distinctly representative of darkness as scarlet was of light, and, therefore, anything dark,^ but especially 1 Payne Knight® in his Inquiry into the Symbolical Language 30 of Ancient Art/’ not trustworthy, being little more than a mass of conjectural memoranda, but the heap is suggestive, if well sifted. 2 In the breastplate and shield of Atrides® the serpents and bosses are all of this dark color, yet the serpents are said to bo ATHENA IN THE EARTH 199 the color of heavy thunder-cloud, was described by the same term. The physical power of this darkness of the like rainbows; but through all this splendor and opposition of hue, I feel distinctly that the literal splendor,’’ with its relative shade, are prevalent in the conception ; and that there is always a 5 tendency to look through the hue to its cause. And in this feel- ing about color the Greeks are separated from the eastern nations, and from the best designers of Christian times. I cannot find that they take pleasure in color for its own sake; it may be in something more than color, or better; but it is not in the hue it- lo • self. When Homer describes cloud breaking from a mountain summit, the crags become visible in light, not in color; he feels only their flashing out in bright edges and trenchant shadows; above, the ^^nfinite,” ^^unspeakable” aether is torn open — but not the blue of it. He has scarcely any abstract pleasure in blue, 1 5 or green, or gold ; but only in their shade or flame. I have yet to trace the causes of this (which will be a long task, belonging to art questions, not to mythological ones) ; but it is, I believe, much connected with the brooding of the shadow of death over the Greeks without any clear hope of immortality. 20 The restriction of the color on their vases to dim red (or yellow) with black and white, is greatly connected with their sepulchral use, and with all the melancholy of Greek tragic thought ; and in this gloom the failure of color-perception is partly noble, partly base : noble, in its earnestness, which raises the design of Greek 2 5 vases as far above the designing of mere colorist nations like the Chinese, as men’s thoughts are above children’s; and yet it is partly base and earthly, and inherently defective in one human faculty; and I believe it was one cause of the perishing of their art so swiftly, for indeed there is no decline so sudden, or down 30 to such utter loss and ludicrous depravity, as the fall of Greek design on its vases from the fifth to the third century B.C. On the other hand, the pure colored-gift, when employed for pleasure only, degrades in another direction; so that among the Indians, Chinese, and Japanese all intellectual progress in art has been 35 for ages rendered impossible by the prevalence of that faculty; and 3’^et it is, as I have said again and again, the spiritual power of art ; and its true brightness is the essential characteristic of all healthy schools. 200 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR segis, fringed with lightning, is given quite simply when Jupiter himself uses it to overshadow Ida and the Plain of Troy,° and withdraws it at the prayer of Ajax° for light; and again when he grants it to be worn for a 5 time by Apollo, who is hidden by its cloud when he strikes down Patroclus; but its spiritual power is chiefly ex- pressed by a word signifying deeper shadow, — the gloom of Erebus, ° or of our evening, which when spoken of the segis, signifies, not merely the indignation of Athena, but * lo the entire hiding or withdrawal of her help, and beyond even this, her deadliest of all hostility, — the darkness by w^hich she herself deceives and beguiles to final ruin those to whom she is wholly adverse ; this contradiction of her own glory being the uttermost judgment upon human 15 falsehood. Thus it is she who provokes Pandarus° to the treachery which purposed to fulfil the rape of Helen® by the murder of her husband in time of truce ; and then the Greek king, holding his wounded brother’s hand, prophesies against Troy the darkness of the aegis which 20 shall be over all and forever.^ 95. This, then, finally, was the perfect color-conception of Athena : the flesh, snow-white (the hands, feet, and face of marble, even when the statue was hewm roughly in wood) ; the eyes of keen pale blue, often in statues repre- 25 sented by jewels ; the long robe to the feet, crocus-colored ; and the aegis thrown over it of thunderous purple; the helmet golden (II. v. 744), and I suppose its crest also, as that of Achilles. If you think carefully of the meaning and character 30 which is now enough illustrated for you in each of these colors, and remember that the crocus-color and the purple ^ ipejxt'rjv Aiyida ttclctl. — II. iv. 166. ATHENA IN THE EARTH 201 were both of them developments, in opposite directions, of the great central idea of fire-color, or scarlet, you will see that this form of the creative spirit of the earth is con- ceived as robed in the blue, and purple, and scarlet, the white, and the gold, which have been recognized for the 5 sacred chords of colors, from the day when the cloud descended on a Rock more mighty than Ida. 96. I have spoken throughout, hitherto, of the concep- tion of Athena, as it is traceable in the Greek mind ; not as it was rendered by Greek art. It is matter of extreme 10 difficulty, requiring a sympathy at once affectionate and cautious, and a knowledge reaching the earliest springs of the religion of many lands, to discern through the imper- fection, and, alas ! more dimly yet, through the triumphs, of formative art, what kind of thoughts they were that ap- 15 pointed for it the tasks of its childhood, and watched by the awakening of its strength. The religious passion is nearly always vividest when the art is weakest ; and the technical skill only reaches its deliberate splendor when the ecstasy which gave it birth 20 has passed away forever.® It is as vain an attempt to reason out the visionary power or guiding influence of Athena in the Greek heart, from anything we now read, or possess, of the work of Phidias,® as it would be for the disciples of some new religion to infer the spirit of Chris- 25 tianity from Titian ^s Assumption.’^ The effective vital- ity of the religious conception can be traced only through the efforts of trembling hands, and strange pleasures of untaught eyes ; and the beauty of the dream can no more be found in the first symbols by which it is expressed, than 30 a child’s idea of fairyland can be gathered from its pencil scrawl, or a girl’s love for her broken doll explained by the defaced features. On the other band, the Athena of 202 THE QVEEN OF THE AIR Phidias was, in very fact, not so much the deity, as the darling, of the Athenian people. Her magnificence repre sented their pride and fondness, more than their piety; and the great artist, in lavishing upon her dignities which 5 might be ended abruptly by the pillage they provoked, resigned, apparently without regret, the awe of her ancient memory; and (with only the careless remonstrance of a workman too strong to be proud) even the perfectness of his own art. Rejoicing in the protection of their goddess, lo and in their own hour of glory, the people of Athena robed her, at their will, with the preciousness of ivory and gems ; forgot or denied the darkness of the breastplate of judg- ment, and vainly bade its unappeasable serpents relax their coils in gold. 15 97. It will take me many a day yet — if days, many or few, are given me — to disentangle in anywise the proud and practised disguises of religious creeds from the instinc- tive arts v/hich, grotescjuely and indecorously, yet with sincerity, strove to embody them, or to relate. But I 20 think the reader, by help even of the imperfect indications already given to him, will be able to follow, with a continu- ally increasing security, the vestiges of the Myth of Athena ; and to reanimate its almost evanescent shade, by connect- ing it with the now recognized facts of existent nature 25 which it, more or less dimly, reflected and foretold. I gather these facts together in brief sum. 98. The deep of air that surrounds the earth enters into union with the earth at its surface, and with its waters, so as to be the apparent cause of their ascending into life. 30 First, it warms them, and shades, at once, staying the heat of the sun’s rays in its own body, but warding their force with its clouds. It warms and cools at once, with traffic of l)alm and frost ; so (hat the white wreaths are with- ATHENA IN THE EARTH 2 ():> drawn from the field of the Swiss peasant by the glow of Libyan® rock. It gives its own strength to the sea ; forms and fills every cell of its foam; sustains the precipices, and designs the valleys of its waves ; gives the gleam to their moving under the night, and the white fire to their 5 plains under sunrise; lifts their voices along the rocks, bears above them the spray of birds, pencils through them the dimpling of unfooted sands. It gathers out of them a portion in the hollow of its hand : dyes, with that, the hills into dark blue, and their glaciers with dying rose ; ic inlays with that, for sapphire, the dome in which it has to set the cloud ; shapes out of that the heavenly flocks : di- vides them, numbers, cherishes, bears them on its bosom, calls them to their journeys, waits by their rest ; feeds from them the brooks that cease not, and strews with them 15 the dews that cease. It spins and weaves their fleece into wild tapestry, rends it, and renews ; and flits and flames, and whispers, among the golden threads, thrilling them with a plectrum® of strange Are that traverses them to and fro, and is enclosed in them like life. 20 It enters into the surface of the earth, subdues it, and falls together with it into fruitful dust, from which can be moulded flesh ; it joins itself, in dew, to the substance of adamant, and becomes the green leaf out of the dry ground ; it enters into the separated shapes of the earth 25 it has tempered, commands the ebb and flow of the current of their life, fills their limbs with its own lightness, meas- ures their existence by its indwelling pulse, moulds upon their lips the words by which one soul can be known to another ; is to them the hearing of the ear, and the beating 30 of the heart ; and, passing away, leaves them to the peace that hears and moves no more. 99 . This was the Athena of the greatest people of the 204 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR days of old. And opposite to the temple of this Spirit of the breath, and life-blood, of man and of beast, stood, on the Mount of Justice, and near the chasm which \vas haunted by the goddess- Avengers, an altar to a God un- 5 known,® — proclaimed at last to them, as one who, in- deed, gave to ail men, life, and breath, and all things ; and rain from heaven, filling their hearts with food and gladness ; a God who had made of one blood all nations of men who dwell on the face of all the earth,® and had deter- lo mined the times of their fate, and the bounds of their habitation. 100 . We ourselves, fretted here in our narrow days, know less, perhaps, in very deed, than they, what manner of spirit we are of, or what manner of spirit we ignorantly 15 worship. Have we, indeed, desired the Desire of all nations ? and will the Master whom we meant to seek, and the Messenger in whom we thought we delighted, confirm, when He comes to His temple, — or not find in its midst, — the tables heavy with gold for bread, and the seats that 20 are bought with the price of the dove® ? Or is our own land also to be left by its angered Spirit, — left among those, where sunshine vainly sweet, and passionate folly of storm, waste themselves in the silent places of knowledge that has passed away, and of tongues that have ceased? 25 This only we may discern assuredly : this, every true light of science, every mercifully-granted power, every wisely- restricted thought, teach us more clearly day by day, that in the heavens above, and the earth beneath, there is one continual and omnipotent presence of help, and of peace, 30 for all men who know that they live, and remember that they die. r III ATHENA ERGANEi {Athena in the Heart) VARIOUS NOTES RELATING TO THE CONCEPTION OF ATHENA AS THE DIRECTRESS OF THE IMAGINATION AND WILL 101. I HAVE now only a few words to say, bearing on what seems to me present need, respecting the third function of Athena, conceived as the directress of human passion, resolution, and labor. Few words, for I am not yet prepared to give accurate 5 distinction between the intellectual rule of Athena and that of the Muses; but, broadly, the Muses, with their king, preside over meditative, historical, and poetic arts, whose end is the discovery of light or truth, and the crea- tion of beauty ; but Athena rules over moral passion, and ic practically useful art. She does not make men learned, but prudent and subtle ; she does not teach them to make their work beautiful, but to make it right. In different places of my writings, and through many years of endeavor to define the laws of art, I have insisted 15 on this rightness in work, and on its connection with virtue of character, in so many partial ways, that the ^ ‘^Athena the worker, or having rule over work/’ was first given to her by the Athenians. 205 The name 206 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR impression left on the reader^s mind — if, indeed, it was ever impressed at all — has been confused and uncertain. In beginning the series of my corrected works, I wish this principle (in my own mind the foundation of every other) to 5 be made plain, if nothing else is ; and will try, therefore, to make it so, as far as, by any effort, I can put it into un- mistakable words. And, first, here is a ver\^ simpb state- ment of it, given lately in a lecture on the Architecture of the Valley of the Somme,® which will be better read in lo this place than in its incidental connection with my account of the porches of Abbeville. 102 . I had used, in a preceding part of the lecture, the expression, “by what faults'^ this Gothic architecture fell. We continually speak thus of works of art. We talk of 15 their faults and merits, as of virtues and vices. What do we mean by talking of the faults of a picture, or the merits of a piece of stone? The faults of a work of art are the faults of its workman, and its virtues his virtues.® 20 Great art is the expression of the mind of a great man, and mean art, that of the want of mind of a weak man. A foolish person builds foolishly, and a wise one. sensibly® ; a virtuous one, beautifull)^ ; and a vicious one, basely. If stone work is well put together, it means that a thought- 25 ful man planned it, and a careful man cut it, and an honest man cemented it. If it has too much ornament, it means that its carver was too greedy of pleasure; if too little, that he was rude, or insensitive, or stupid, and the like. So that when once you have learned how to spell these 30 most precious of all legends, — pictures and buildings, — you may read the characters of men, and of nations, in their art, as in a mirror ; nay, as in a micros(‘ope, and magnified a hundredfold; for the character becomes j)as- ATHENA IN THE HEART 207 sionate in the art, and intensifies itself in all its noldest or meanest delights. Nay, not onhr as in a microscope, hut as under a scalpel, and in dissection ; for a man may hide himself from you, or misrepresent himself to you, every other way ; but he cannot in his work : there, be sure, you 5 have him to the inmost. All that he likes, all that he sees, — all that he can do, — his imagination, his affections, his perseverance, his impatience, his clumsiness, cleverness, everything is there. If the work is a cobweb, you know it was made by a spider ; if a honey-comb, by a bee ; a 10 wormcast is thrown up by a worm, and a nest wreathed by a bird ; and a house built by a man, worthily, if he is worthy, and ignobly, if he is ignoble. And always, from the least to the greatest, as the made thing is good or bad, so is the maker of it. 15 103. You all use this faculty of judgment more or less, whether you theoretically admit the principle or not. Take that floral gable you don't suppose the man who built Stonehenge® could have built that, or that the man who built that, would have built Stonehenge ? Do you 20 think an old Roman would have liked such a piece of filigree work? or that Michael Angelo® would have spent his time in twisting these stems of roses in and out? Or, of modern handicraftsmen, do you think a burglar, or a brute, or a pickpocket could have carved it ? Could 25 Bill Sykes® ha^^e done it? or the Dodger, dexterous with finger and tool? You will find in the end, that no man could have done it hut exactly the man who did it; and by looking close at it, you may, if you know your letters, read precisely the manner of man he was. 30 ^ The elaborate pediment above the central porch at the west end of Rouen Cathedral,® pierced into a transparent web of tracery, and enriched with a border of ‘^twisted eglantine.” 20b THE QUEEN OF THE AIR 104 . Now I must insist on this matter, for a grave reason. Of all facts concerning art, this is the one most necessary to be known, that, while manufacture is the work of hands only, art is the work of the whole spirit of 5 man ; and as that spirit is, so is the deed of it ; and by whatever power of vice or virtue any art is produced, the same vice or virtue it reproduces and teaches. That which is born of evil begets eviP ; and that which is born of valor and honor, teaches valor and honor. All art is 10 either infection or education. It must be one or other of these. 105 . This, I repeat, of all truths respecting art, is the one of which understanding is the most precious, and denial the most deadly. And I assert it the more, because it has 15 of late been repeatedly, expressly, and with contumely, denied, and that by high authority ; and I hold it one of the most sorrowful facts connected with the decline of the arts among us, that English gentlemen, of high standing as scholars and artists, should have been blinded into the 20 acceptance, and betrayed into the assertion, of a fallacy which only authority such as theirs could have rendered for an instant credible. For the contrary of it is written in the history of all great nations ; it is the one sentence always inscribed on the steps of their thrones ; the one con- 25 cordant voice in which they speak to us out of their dust. All such nations first manifest themselves as a pure and beautiful animal race, with intense energy and imagina- tion. They live lives of hardship by choice, and b}" grand instinct of manly discipline ; they become fierce and ir- 30 resistible soldiers ; the nation is always its own army, and their king, or chief head of government, is always their first soldier. Pharaoh, or David, or Leonidas, or \’alerius, or Barbarossa, or Coeur de Lion, or St. Louis, or Dandolo, ATHENA IN THE HEART ' 209 or Frederick the Great, — Egyptian, Jew, Greek, Roman, German, English, French, Venetian, ° — that is inviolable law for them all; their king must be their first soldier, or they cannot be in progressive power. Then, after their great military period, comes the domestic period ; in 5 which, without betraying the discipline of war, they add to their great soldiership the delights and possessions of a delicate and tender home-life ; and then, for all nations, is the time of their perfect art, which is the fruit, the evi- dence,' the reward of their national ideal of character, ig developed by the finished care of the occupations of peace. That is the history of all true art that ever was, or can be ; palpably the history of it, — unmistakably, — written on the forehead of it in letters of light, in tongues of fire, by which the seal of virtue is branded as deep as ever 1 5 iron burnt into a convict ^s flesh the seal of crime. But always, hitherto, after the great period, has followed the day of luxury, and pursuit of the arts for pleasure only. And all has so ended. 106.° Thus far of Abbeville building. Now I have 20 here asserted two things, — first, the foundation of art in moral character ; next, the foundation of moral character in war. I must make both these assertions clearer, and prove them. First, of the foundation of art in moral character. Of 25 course art-gift and amiability of disposition are two differ- ent things; for a good man is not necessarily a painter, nor does an eye for color necessarily imply an honest mind. But great art implies the union of both powers ; it is the expression, by an art-gift, of a pure soul. If the gift is not 30 there, we can have no art at all ; and if the soul — and a riaht soul too — is not there, the art is bad. however dexterous. p 210 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR 107 . But also, remember, that the art -gift itself is onh the result of the moral character of generations. A bad woman may have a sweet voice; but that sweetness of voice comes of the past morality of her race. That she 5 can sing with it at all, she owes to the determination of laws of music by the morality of the past. Every act, every impulse, of virtue and vice, affects in any creature, face, voice, nervous power, and vigor and harmony of invention, at once. Perseverance in rightness of human conduct 10 renders, after a certain number of generations, human art possible ; every sin clouds it, be it ever so little a one ; and persistent vicious living and following of pleasure render, after a certain number of generations, all art im- possible. Men are deceived by the long-suffering of the 15 laws of nature, and mistake, in a nation, the reward of the virtue of its sires, for the issue of its own sins. The time of their visitation will come, and that inevitably ; for it is always true, that if the fathers have eaten sour grapes, the children's teeth are set on edge.® And for the indi- 20 vidual, as soon as you have learned to read, you may, as I said, know him to the heart’s core, through his art. Let his art-gift be never so great, and cultivated to the height by the schools of a great race of men, and it is still but a tapestry thrown over his own being and inner soul; and 25 the bearing of it will show, infallibly, whether it hangs on a man or on a skeleton. If you are dim-eyed, you may not see the difference in the fall of the folds at first, but learn how to look, and the folds themselves will become trans- parent, and you shall see through them the death’s shape, 30 or the divine one, making the tissue above it as a cloud of light, or as a winding-sheet. 108 . Thenfurther, observe, I have said (and you will find it (rue, and that to the uttermost) that, as all lov('ly art is ATHENA IN THE HEART 211 rooted in virtue, so it bears fruit of virtue, and is didactic in its own nature. It is often didactic also in actually ex- pressed thought, as Giotto^s,° Michael Angelovs, Diirer’s,® and hundreds more; but that is not its special function; it is didactic chiefly by being beautiful ; but beautiful with 5 haunting thought, no less than with form, and full of myths that can be read only with the heart. For instance, at this moment there is open beside me as I write, a page of Persian manuscript, wrought with wreathed azure and gold, and soft green, and violet, and 10 ruby and scarlet, into one field of pure resplendence. It is wrought to delight the eyes only ; and does delight them ; and the man who did it assuredly had eyes in his head; but not much more. It is not didactic art, but its author was happy ; and it will do the good, and the harm, that 1 5 mere pleasure can do. But, opposite me, is an early Turner drawing of the lake of Geneva, taken about two miles from Geneva, on the I^ausanne road, with Mont Blanc® in the distance. The old city is seen lying beyond the waveless waters, veiled with a sweet misty veil of 20 Athena ^s weaving ; a faint light of morning, peaceful ex- ceedingly, and almost colorless, shed from behind the Voi- rons,® increases into soft amber along the slope of the Saleve, and is just seen, and no more, on the fair warm fields of its summit, between the folds of a white cloud 25 that rests upon the grass, but rises, high and tower-like, into the zenith of dawn above. 109 . There is not as much color in that low amber light upon the hill-side as there is in the palest dead leaf. The lake is not blue, but gray in mist, passing into deep shadow 30 beneath the Voirons^® pines ; a few dark clusters of leaves, a single white flower, — scarcely seen, — are all the glad- ness given to the rocks of the shore. One of the ruby 212 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR spots of the eastern manuscript would give color enough for all the red that is in Turner ^s entire drawing. For the mere pleasure of the eye, there is not so much in all those lines of his, throughout the entire landscape, as in 5 half an inch square of the Persian's page. What made him take pleasure in the low color that is only like the brown of a dead leaf ? in the cold gray of dawn — in the one white flower among the rocks — in these — and no more than these ? lo 110 . He took pleasure in them because he had been bred among English fields and hills ; because the gentleness of a great race was in his heart, and its powers of thought in his brain ; because he knew the stories of the Alps, and of the cities at their feet ; because he had read the Homeric 15 legends of the clouds, and beheld the gods of dawn, and the givers of dew to the fields ; because he knew the faces of the crags, and the imagery of the passionate mountains, as a man knows the face of his friend ; because he had in him the wonder and sorrow concerning life and death, 20 which are the inheritance of the Gothic soul from the days of its first sea kings®; and also the compassion and the joy that are woven into the innermost fabric of every great imaginative spirit, born now in countries that have lived by the Christian faith with any courage or truth. 25 And the picture contains also, for us, just this which its maker had in him to give; and can conve}^ it to us, just so far as we are of the temper in which it must be received. It is didactic if we are worthy to be taught, not otherwise. The pure heart it vvill make more pure®; the thoughtful, 30 more thoughtful. It has in it no words for the reckless or the base. 111. As I myself look at it, there is no fault nor folly of my life — and both have been many and great — that ATHENA IN THE HEART 213 does not rise up against me, and take away my joy, and shorten my power of possession of sight, of understanding. And every past effort of my life, every gleam of rightness or good in it, is with me now, to help me in my grasp of this art, and its vision. So far as I can rejoice in, or interpret 5 either, my power is owing to what of right there is in me. I dare to say it, that, because through all my life I have desired good, and not evil; because I have been kind to many; have wished to be kind to all; have wilfully injured none; and because I have loved much, and ic not selfishly; therefore, the morning light is yet visible to me on those hills, and you, who read, may trust my thought and word in such work as I have to do for you ; and you will be glad afterwards that you have trusted them. 15 112. Yet, remember, — I repeat it again and yet again, — that I may for once, if possible, make this thing as- suredly clear : the inherited art-gift must be there, as well as the life in some poor measure, or rescued fragment, right. This art-gift of mine could not have been v;on by 20 any work or by any conduct : it belongs to me by birthright, and came by A thenars will, from the air of English country villages, and Scottish hills. I will risk whatever charge of folly may come on me, for printing one of my many childish rhymes, written on a frosty day in Glen Farg, just 25 north of Loch Leven. It bears date 1st January, 1828. I was born on the 8th of February, 1819 ; and all that I ever could be, and all that t cannot be, the weak little rhyme already shows. Papa, how pretty those icicles are, That are seen so near, — that are seen so far ; — Those dropping waters that come from the rocks And many a hole, like the haunt of a fox. 30 214 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR That silvery stream that runs babbling: along, Making a murmuring, dancing song. Those trees that stand waving upon the rock’s side, And men, that, like spectres, among them glide. 5 And waterfalls that are heard from far, And come in sight when very near. And the water-wheel that turns slowly round. Grinding the corn .that — requires to be ground, — (Political Economy of the future !) TO And mountains at a distance seen. And rivers winding through the plain. And quarries with their craggy stones, And the wind among them moans.” So foretelling Stones of Venice, ° and this essay on Athena. 15 Enough novv concerning myself. 113. Of Turner’s life, and of its good and evil, both great, but the good immeasurably the greater, his work is in all things a perfect and transparent evidence. His biography is simply, ^‘He did this, nor will ever another do 20 its like again.” Yet read what I have said of him, as compared with the great Italians, in the passages taken from the ‘‘Cestus of Aglaia,” farther on, §158, pp. 21)7, 298. 114. This, then, is the nature of the connection between 25 morals with art. Now, secondly, I have asserted the foundation of both these, at least hitherto, in war. The reason of this too manifest fact is, that, until now, it has been impossible for any nation, ekcept a warrior one, to fix its mind wholly on its men, instead of on their posses- 30 sions. Every great soldier nation thinks, necessarily, first of multiplying its bodies and souls of men, in good temper and strict discipline. As long as this is its political aim, it does not matter what it temporarily suffers, or loses, ATHENA IN THE HEART 215 either in numbers or in wealth ; its morality and its arts (if it have national art-gift) advance together; but so soon as it ceases to be a warrior nation, it thinks of its possessions instead of its men; and then the moral and poetic powers vanish together. 5 115. It is thus, however, absolutely necessary to the virtue of war that it should be waged by personal strength, not by money or machinery. A nation that fights with a mercenary force, or with torpedoes instead of iti own arms, is dying. Not but that there is more true courage in 10 modern than even in ancient war; but this is, first, be- cause all the remaining life of European nations is with a morbid intensity thrown into their soldiers ; and, secondly, because their present heroism is the culmination of centu- ries of inbred and traditional valor, which Athena taught 15 them by forcing them to govern the foam of the sea- wave and of the horse, — not the steam of kettles. 116. And further, note this, which is vital to us in the present crisis : If war is to be made by money and ma- chinery, the nation which is the largest and most covetous 20 multitude will win. You may be as scientific as you choose ; the mob that can pay more for sulphuric acid and gunpowder will at last poison its bullets, throw acid in your faces, and make an end of you ; of itself, also, in good time, but of you first. And to the English people the choice of 25 its fate is very near now. It may spasmodically defend its property with iron walls a fathom thick, a few years longer — a very few. No walls will defend either it, or its havings, against the multitude that is breeding and spread- ing, faster than the clouds, over the habitable earth. We 3 ° shall be allowed to live by small pedler’s business, and iron- mongery — since we have chosen those for our line of life — as long as we are found useful black servants to the 216 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR Americans,® and are content to dig coals and sit in the cinders ; and have still coals to dig, — they once ex- hausted, or got cheaper elsewhere, we shall be abolished. But if we think more wisely, while there is yet time, and set 5 our minds again on multiplying Englishmen, and not on cheapening English wares; if we resolve to submit to wholesome laws of labor and economy, and, setting our political squabbles aside, try how many strong creatures, friendly and faithful to each other, we can crowd into every lo spot of English dominion, neither poison nor iron will prevail against us; nor traffic, nor hatred; the noble nation will yet, by the grace of Heaven, rule over the ignoble,® and force of heart hold its own against fire-balls.® 117 . But there is yet a further reason for the dependence 15 of the arts on war. The vice and injustice of the world are constantly springing anew, and are only to be sub- dued by battle ; the keepers of order and law^ must always be soldiers. And now, going back to the myth of Athena, we see that though she is first a warrior maid, she detests 20 war for its own sake ; she arms Achilles and Ulysses in just quarrels, but she disarms Ares. She contends, herself, continually against disorder and convulsion, in the earth giants; she stands by Hercules’ side in victory over all monstrous evil ; in justice only she judges and makes war.® 25 But in this war of hers she is wholly implacable. She has little notion of converting criminals. There is no faculty of mercy in her when she has been resisted. Her word is only, will mock when your fear cometh.” Note the words that follow: ^Uvhen your fear cometh as 30 desolation, and your destruction as a whirlwind®;” for her wrath is of irresistible tempest : om*e roused, it is blind and deaf — • rabies — madness of anger — darkness of Dies Irae.® ATHENA IN THE HEART 217 And that is, indeed, the sorrowfuilest fact we have to know about our own several lives. Wisdom never for- gives. Whatever resistance we have offered to her law, she avenges forever ; the lost hour can never be redeemed, and the accomplished wrong never atoned for. The best 5 that can be done afterwards, but for that, had been better ; the falsest of all the cries of peace, where there is no peace, ° is that of the pardon of sin, as the mob expect it. Wisdom can ‘'put away’^ sin, but she cannot pardon it; and she is apt, in her haste, to put away the sinner as well, when 10 the black a'gis is* on her breast. 118. And this is also a fact we have to know about our national life, that it is ended as soon as it has lost the power of noble /Vnger. When it paints over, and apologizes for its pi(ii j 1 criminalities; and endures its false weights, and 15 its adulterated food; dares not to decide practically be- tween good and evil, and can neither honor the one, nor smite the other, but sneers at the good, as if it were hidden evil, and consoles the evil with pious sympathy, and con- serves it in the sugar of its leaden heart, — the end is 20 come. 119. The first sign, then, of Athena ^s presence with any people is that they become warriors, and that the chief thought of every man of them is to stand rightly in his rank, and not fail from his brother's side in battle. 25 Wealth, and pleasure, and even love, are all, under Athe- na ^s orders, sacrificed to this duty of standing fast in the rank of war. But further : Athena presides over industry, as well as battle ; typically, over women ^s industry ; that brings 30 comfort with pleasantness. Her word to us all is : “Be well exercised, and rightly clothed. Clothed, and in your right minds'^; not insane and in rags, nor in soiled fine 218 TUK QUEEN OF THE AIR clothes clutched from eacli other’s shoulders. Fight and weave. Then I myself will answer for the course of the lance and the colors of the loom.” And now I will ask the reader to look with some care 5 through these following passages respecting modern mul- titudes and their occupations, written long ago, but left in fragmentary form, in which they must now stay, and be of what use the}^ can. 120 . It is not political economy to put a number of strong lo men down on an acre of ground, with no lodging, and noth- ing to eat. Nor is it political economy td build a city on good ground, and fill it with store of corn and treasure, and put a score of lepers to live in it. Political economy cre- ates together the means of life, and the living persons 15 who are to use them ; and of both, the best and the most that it can, but imperatively the best, not the most. A few good and healthy men, rather than a multitude of diseased rogues ; and a little real milk and wine rather than much chalk and petroleum ; but the gist of the whole busi- 20 ness is that the men and their property must both be pro- duced together — not one to the loss of the other. Prop- erty must not be created in lands desolate by exile of their people, nor multiplied and depraved humanity in land: barren of bread. 25 121. Nevertheless, though the men and their possessions are to be increased at the same time, the first object ot thought is always to be the multiplication of a worthy people. The strength of the nation is in its multitude, not in its territory ; but only in its sound multitude. It is one 30 thing, both in a man and a nation, to gain flesh, and an- other to be swollen with putrid humors. Not that multi- tude ever ought to be inconsistent with virtue. Two men should be wiser than one, and two thousand than two; ATHENA IN THE HEART 2 J 9 nor do I know anolluM* so gross falkuy in the records of human stupidity as that excuse for neglect of crime by greatness of cities. As if the first purpose of congregation were not to devise laws and^ repress crimes ! As if bees and wasps could live honestly in flocks, — men, only ins separate dens ! As if it were easy to help one another on the opposite sides of a mountain, and impossible on the opposite sides of a street ! But when the men are true and good, and stand shoulder to shoulder, the strength of any nation is in its quantity of life, not in its land nor lo gold. The more good men a state has, in proportion to its territory, the stronger the state. And as it has been the madness of economists to seek for gold instead of life, so it has been the madness of kings to seek for land instead of life. They want the town on the other side of the river, 15 and seek it at the spear point ; it never enters their stupid heads that to double the honest souls in the town on this side of the river would make them stronger kings®; and that this doubling might be done by the ploughshare instead of the spear, and through happiness instead of 20 misery. Therefore, in brief, this is the object of all true policy and true economy: utmost. multitude of good men on every given space of ground — imperatively always good, sound, honest men, — not a mob of white-faced 25 thieves. So that, on the one hand all aristocracy is wrong which is inconsistent with numbers ; and on the other all numbers are wrong which are inconsistent with breeding. 122 . Then, touching the accumulation of wealth for the maintenance of such men, observe, that you must never 30 use the terms money and 'Avealth'^ as synonymous. Wealth consists of the good, and therefore useful, things in the possession of the nation ; money is only the written 220 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR or coined sign of the relative quantities of wealth in each personas possession. All money is a divisible title-deed, of immense importance as an expression of right to property, but absolutely valueless as property itself. Thus, supposing 5 a nation isolated from all others, the money in its posses- sion is, at its maximum value, worth all the property of the nation, and no more, because no more can be got for it. And the money of all nations is worth, at its maximum, the property of all nations, and no more, for no more can lo be got for it. Thus, every article of property produced increases, by its value, the value of all the money in the world, and every article of property destroyed, diminishes the value of all the money in the world. If ten men are cast away on a rock, with a thousand pounds in their 15 pockets, and there is on the rock neither food nor shelter, their money is worth simply nothing, for nothing i^ to be had for it. If they build ten huts, and recover a cask of biscuit from the wreck, then their thousand pounds, at its maximum value, is worth ten huts and a cask of 20 biscuit. If they make their thousand pounds into two thousand by writing new notes, their two thousand pounds are still worth ten huts and a cask of biscuit. And the law of relative value is the same for all the world, and all the people in it, and all their property, as for ten men on a 25 rock. Therefore, money is truly and finally lost in the degree in which its value is taken from it (ceasing in that degree to be money at all) ; and it is truly gained in the degree in which value is added to it. Thus, suppose the money coined by the nation be a fixed sum, divided very 30 minutely (say into francs and cents), and neither to be added to nor diminished. Then every grain of food and inch of lodging added to its possessions makes every cent in its pockets worth proportionally more, and every grain ATHENA IN THE HEART -21 of food it consumes, and inch of roof it allovrs to fall to ruin, makes every cent in its pockets worth less ; and this with mathematical precision. The immediate value of the money at particular times and places depends, indeed, on the humors of the possessors of property ; but the 5 nation is in the one case gradually getting richer, and will feel the pressure of poverty steadily everywhere relaxing, whatever the humors of individuals may be ; and, in the other case, is gradually growing poorer, and the pressure of its poverty will every day tell more and more, in ways 10 that it cannot explain, but will most bitterly feel. 123 . The actual quantity of money which it coins, in relation to its real property, is therefore only of conse- quence for convenience of exchange; but the proportion in which this quantity of money is divided among in- 15 dividuals expresses their various rights to greater or less proportions of the national property, and must not, there- fore, be tampered with. The government may at any time, with perfect justice, double its issue of coinage, if it gives every man who had ten pounds in his pocket another 20 ten pounds, and every man who had ten pence another ten pence ; for it thus does not make any of them richer ; it merely divides their counters for them into tvvdce the number. But if it gives the newly-issued coins to other people, or keeps them itself, it simply robs the former 25 holders to precisely that extent. This most important function of money, as a title-deed, on the non-violation of which all national soundness of commerce and peace of life depend, has been never rightly distinguished by econo- mists from the quite unimportant function of money as a 3° means of exchange. You can exchange goods — at some in- convenience, indeed, but still you can contrive to do it — without money at all ; but you cannot maintain your claim THE QUEEN OF THE AIR 222 to the savings of your past life without a document declar- ing the amount of them, which the nation and its govern- ment will respect. 124 . And as economists have lost sight of this great 5 function of money in relation to individual rights, so they have equally lost sight of its function as a representative of good things. That, for every good thing produced, so much money is put into everybody's pocket, is the one simple and primal truth for the public to know, and for lo economists to teach. How many of them have taught it? Some have; l)ut only incidentally; and others will say it is a truism. ° If it be, do the public know it? Does your ordinary English householder know that every costly dinner he gives has destroyed forever as much money as it 15 is worth? Does ever}" well-educated girl — do even the women in high political position — know that every fine dress they wear themselves, or cause to be worn, destroys precisely so much of the national money as the labor and material of it are worth ? If this be a truism, it is one that 20 needs proclaiming somewhat louder. 125 . That, then, is the relation of money and goods. So much goods, so much money ; so little goods, so little money. But, as there is this true relation between money and “ goods, or good things, so there is a false relation 25 between money and “bads,^' or bad things. Many bad things will fetch a price in exchange ; but they do not in- crease the wealth of the country. Good wine is wealth, drugged wine is not; good meat is wealth, putrid meat is not; good pictures are wealth, bad pictures are not. 30 A thing is worth precisely what it can do for you ; not what you choose to pay for it. You may pay a thousand pounds for a cracked pipkin, if you please: but you do not by that transaction make the cracked pii^kin wortli ATHENA IN THE HEART one that will hold water, nor that, nor any })ii)kin what- soever, worth more than it was before you paid such sum for it. You may, perhaps, induce many potters to manu- facture fissured pots, and many amateurs of clay to bu}^ them ; but the nation is, through the whole business so 5 encouraged, rich by the addition to its wealth of so many potsherds — and there an end. The thing is worth what it CAN do for you, not what you think it can ; and most national luxuries, now-a-days, are a form of potsherd, provided for the solace of a self-complacent Job, voluntary ic sedent on his ash-heap. ° 126 . And, also, so far as good things already exist, and have become media of exchange, the variations in their prices are absolutely indifferent to the nation. Whether Mr. A. buys a Titian from Mr. B. for twenty, or for two 15 thousand, pounds, matters not sixpence to the national revenue ; that is to say, it matters in nowise to the revenue whether Mr. A. has the picture, and Mr. B. the money, or Mr. B.. the picture, and Mr. A. the money. Which of them will spend the money most wisely, and which of them will 20 keep the picture most carefully, is, indeed, a matter of some importance ; but this cannot be known by the mere fact of exchange. 127 . The wealth of a nation then, first, and its peace and well-being besides, depend on the number oi persons it 25 can employ in making good and useful things. I say its well-being also, for the character of men depends more on their occupations than on any teaching we can give them, or principles wdth which we can imbue them. The em- ployment forms the habits of body and mind, and these 30 are the constitution of the man, — the greater part of his moral or persistent nature, whatever effort, under special excitement, he may make to change or overcome them. 224 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR Employment is the half, and the primal half, of education — it is the warp of it ; and the fineness or the endurance of all subsequently woven pattern depends wholly on its straightness and strength. And, whatever difficulty there 5 may be in tracing through past history the remoter con- nections of event and cause, one chain of sequence is always clear: the formation, namely, of the character of nations by their employments, and the determination of their final fate by their character. The moment, and the first direc- lo tion of decisive revolutions, often depend on accident ; but their persistent course, and their consequences, depend wholly on the nature of the people. The passing of the Reform Bill by the late English Parliament may have been more or less accidental; the results of the measure now 15 rest on the character of the English people, as it has been developed by their recent interests, occupations, and habits of life. Whether, as a body, they employ their new powers for good or evil will depend, not on their facilities of knowl- edge, nor even on the general intelligence they may possess, 20 but on the number of persons among them whom whole- some employments have rendered familiar with the duties, and modest in their estimate of the promises, of life. 128 . But especially in framing laws respecting the treatment or employment of improvident and more or less 25 vicious persons, it is to be remembered that as men are not made heroes by the performance of an act of heroism, but must be brave before they can perform it, so they are not made villains by the commission of a crime, ])ut were vil- lains before they committed it : and the right of public 30 interference with their conduct begins when they begin to corrupt themselves, — not merely at tlie moment when they have provc'd tliernselves liopelessly corrupt. All measures of reformation are effective in exact pro- ATHENA IN THE HEART 225 portion to their timeliness : partial decay may be cut away and cleansed ; incipient error corrected ; but there is a point at which corruption can no more be stayed, nor wandering recalled. It has been the manner of modern philanthropy to remain passive until that precise period, and to leave the sick to perish, and the foolish to stray, while it spent itself in frantic exertions to raise the dead and reform the dust. The recent direction of a great weight of public opinion against capital punishment is, I trust, the sign of an awakening perception that punishment is the last and worst instrument in the hands of the legislator for the pre- vention of crime. The true instruments of reformation are employment and reward ; not punishment. Aid the willing, honor the virtuous, and compel the idle into occu- pation, and there will be no need for the compelling of any into the great and last indolence of death. 129. The beginning of all true reformation among the criminal classes depends on the establishment of institu- tions for their active employment, while their criminality is still unripe, and their feelings of self-respect, capacities of affection, and sense of justice, not altogether quenched. That those who are desirous of employment should always be able to find it, will hardly, at the present day, be dis- puted ; but that those who are undesirous of employment should of all persons be the most strictly compelled to it, the public are hardly yet convinced; and they must be convinced. If the danger of the principal thoroughfares in their capital city, and the multiplication of crimes more ghastly than ever yet disgraced a nominal civilization, are not enough, they will not have to wait long before they receive sterner lessons. For our neglect of the lower orders has reached a point at which it begins to bear its necessary Q 5 10 15 20 25 ! 30 226 THE QUEEN OF THE Alh fruit, and every day makes the fields, not whitei , but more sable, to harvest. 130. The general principles by which emplo\nment should be regulated may be briefly stated as follows : 5 1. There being three great classes of mechanical pow- ers at our disposal, namely, (a) vital or muscular power ; [h) natural mechanical power of wind, water, and electric- ity ; and (c) artificially produced mechanical power ; it is the first principle of economy to use all available vital power lo first, then the inexpensive natural forces, and only at last to have recourse to artificial power. And this because it is aiwa}^s better for a man to work with his own hands to feed and clothe himself, than to stand idle while a machine works for him ; and if he cannot by all the labor healthily 15 possible to him feed and clothe himself, then it is better to use an inexpensive machine — as a windmill or water- mill — than a costly one like a steam-engine, so long as we have natural force enough at our disposal. Whereas at present we continually hear economists regret that the 20 water-power of the cascades or streams of a country should be lost, but hardly ever that the muscular power of its idle inliabitants should be lost; and, again, we see vast districts, as the south of Provence,® where a strong wind^ blows steadily all day long for six days out of seven 25 throughout the year, without a windmill, while men are continually employed a hundred miles to the north, in digging fuel to obtain artificial power. But the principal point of all to be kept in view is, that in every idle arm and shoulder throughout the country there is a certain quan- 30 tity of force, equivalent to the force of so much fuel ; and 1 In order fully to utilize this natural power, we only require machinery to turn the variable into a constant velocity — no in- surmountable difficulty. ATHENA IN THE BEAUT 22 ' that it is mere insane waste to dig for coal for our force, while the vital force is unused, and not only unused, but in being so, corrupting and polluting itself. We waste our coal, and spoil our humanity at one and the same instant. Therefore, wherever there is an idle arm, always save coal 5 with it, and the stores of England will last all the longer. And precisely the same argument answers the common one about ^Haking employment out of the hands of the industrious laborer. Why, what is '^employment’' but the putting out of vital force instead of mechanical force ^ 10 We are continually in search of means of strength to pull, to hammer, to fetch, to carry. We waste our future resources to get this strength, while we leave all the living fuel to burn itself out in mere pestiferous breath, and production of its variously noisome forms of ashes ! Clearly, if we 1 5 want fire for force, we want men for force first. The in- dustrious hands must already have so much to do that they can do no more, or else we need not use machines to help them. Then use the idle hands first. Instead of dragging petroleum with a steam-engine, put it on a canal, and 20 drag it with human arms and shoulders. Petroleum can- not possibly be in a hurry to arrive anywhere. ° We can always order that, and many other things, time enough before we want it. So, the carriage of everything which does not spoil by keeping may most wholesomely and 25 safely be done by water-traction and sailing-vessels ; and no healthier work can men be put to, no better discipline, than such active porterage. 131 . ( 2 d.) In employing all the muscular power at our disposal we are to make the employments we choose as 30 educational as possible ; for a wholesome human employ- ment is the first and best method of education, mental as well as bodily.® A man taught to plough, row, or steer 228 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR well, and a woman taught to cook properly, and make a dress neatly, are already educated in man)^ essential moral habits. Labor considered as a discipline has hitherto been thought of only for criminals; but the real 5 and noblest function of labor is to prevent crime, and not to be /Reformatory, but Format ory. 132. The third great principle of employment is, that whenever there is pressure of poverty to be met, all enforced occupation should be directed to the production lo of useful articles only ; that is to say, of food, of simple clothing, of lodging, or of the means of conveying, dis- tributing, and preserving these. It is yet little under- stood by economists, and not at all by the public, that the emplo 3 ^ment of persons in a useless business cannot relieve 15 ultimate distress. The money given to employ riband- makers® at Coventry is merely so much money withdrawn from what would have employed lace-makers at Honiton ; or makers of something else, as useless, elsewhere. We must spend our money in some way, at some time, and it 20 cannot at any time be spent without employing some- body. If we gamble it away, the person who wins it must spend it ; if we lose it in a railroad speculation, it has gone into some one else’s pockets, or merely gone to pay navvies® for making a useless embankment, instead of to 25 pay riband or button makers for making useless ribands or buttons; we cannot lose it (unless bv actually destro\^- ing it) without giving emplo}^ment of some kind; and, therefore, whatever quantit}^ of money exists, the relative quantity of emplo^^ment must some day crme cut of it; 30 but the distress of the nation signifies that the emplo\’- ments given have produced nothing that will support its existence. Men cannot live on ribands, or buttons, or velvet, or by going quickly from place to place ; and every ATHENA IN THE HEART 229 coin spent in useless ornament, or useless motion, is so much withdrawn from the national means of life. One of the most beautiful uses of railroads is to enable A to travel from the town of X to take away the business of B in the town of Y ; while, in the meantime, B travels from the town of Y to take away A^s business in the town of X. But the national wealth is not increased by these opera- tions. Whereas every coin spent in cultivating ground, in repairing lodging, in making necessary and good roads, in preventing danger by sea or land, and in carriage of food or fuel where they are required, is so much absolute and direct gain to the whole nation. To cultivate land round Coventry makes living easier at Honiton, and every acre of sand gained from the sea in Lincolnshire makes life easier all over England. 4th, and lastly. Since for every idle person some one else must be working somewhere to provide him with clothes and food, and doing, therefore, double the quantity of work that would be enough for his own needs, it is onl}^ a matter of pure justice to compel the idle person to work for his maintenance himself. The conscription has been used in many countries to take away laborers who supported their families, from their useful work, and maintain them for purposes chiefly of military display at the public expense. Since this has been long endured by the most civilized nations, let’ it not be thought they would not much more gladly endure a conscription which should seize only the vicious and idle, already living by criminal pro- cedures at the public expense ; and which should discipline and educate them to labor which would not only maintain tliemselves, but be serviceable to the commonwealth. The question is simply this : we must feed the drunkard, vaga- bond, and thief ; but shall we do so by letting them steal 5 10 15 20 25 30 230 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR their food, and do no work for it ? or shall we give them their food in appointed quantity, and enforce their doing work which shall he worth it, and which, in process of time, will redeem their own characters and make them happy and 5 serviceable members of society ? I find by me a violent little fragment of undelivered lecture, which puts this, perhaps, still more clearl}^ Your idle people (it says), as they are now, are not merely waste coal-beds. They are explosive coal-beds^ TO which you pay a high annual rent for. You are keep- ing all these idle persons, remember, at far greater cost than if they vrere busy. Do you think a vicious person eats less than an honest one ? or that it is cheaper to keep a bad man drunk, than a good man sober? There is, I 15 suppose, a dim idea in the mind of the public, that they don’t pay for the maintenance of people they don’t em- ploy. Those staggering rascals at the street corner, grouped around its splendid angle of public-house, we fancy that they are no servants of ours ! that we pay them no 20 wages ! that no cash out of our pockets is spent over that beer-stained counter ! Whose cash is it then they are spending ? It is not got honestly by work. You know that much. Where do they get it from ? Who has paid for their dinner and their 25 pot? Those fellows can only live in one of two ways — by pillage or beggary. Their annual income by thieving comes out of the public pocket, you will admit. They are not cheaply fed, so far as they are fed by theft. But the rest of their living — all that they don’t steal — they 30 must beg. Not with success from you, you think. Wise, as benevolent, you never gave a penn}^ in “indiscriminate charity.” Well, I congratulate you on the freedom of your conscience from that sin, mine being bitterly burdened ATIIKNA IN THE HEART 231 with the memory of many a sixpence given to beggars of whom I knew nothing but that they had pale faces and thin waists. But it is not that kind of street beggary that the vagabonds of our people chiefly practise. It is home beggary that is the worst beggars' trade. Home alms which it is their worst degradation to receive. Those scamps know well enough that you and your wisdom are worth nothing to them. They won't beg of you. They will beg of their sisters, and mothers, and wives, and children, and of any one else who is enough ashamed of being of the sam.e blood with them to pay to keep them out of sight. Every one of those blackguards is the bane of a family. That is the deadly ^^indiscriminate charity " — the charity which each household pays to maintain its own private curse. 133. And you think that is no affair of yours? and that every family ought to watch over and subdue its own living plague? Put it to yourselves this way, then : suppose you knew every one of those families kept an idol in an inner room — a big-bellied bronze figure, to which daily sacrifice and oblation was made ; at whose feet so much beer and brandy was poured out every morning on the ground ; and before which, every night, good meat, enough for two men's keep, was set, and left, till it was putrid, and then carried out and thrown on the dunghill ; you would put an end to that form of idolatry with your best diligence, I suppose. You would understand then that the beer, and brandy, and meat, were wasted ; and that the burden imposed by each household on itself lay heavily through them on the whole community ? But, suppose further, that this idol were not of silent and quiet bronze only, but an ingenious mechan- ism, wound up every morning, to run itself down in auto- 5 10 15 20 25 30 232 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR matic blasphemies ; that it struck and tore with its hands the people who set food before it ; that it was anointed with poisonous unguents, ° and infected the air for miles round. You would interfere with the idolatry then, 5 straightway ? Will you not interfere with it now, when the infection that the venomous idol spreads is not merely death, but sin ? 134. So far the old lecture. Returning to cool English,'^ ' the end of the matter is, that, sooner or later, we shall have lo to register our people ; and to know how they live ; and to make sure, if they are capable of work, that right work is given them to do. The different classes of wmrk for which bodies of men could be consistently organized, might ultimately become 15 numerous ; these following divisions of occupation may at once be suggested : — 1 . Road-making. — Good roads to be made, wherever needed, and kept in repair ; and the annual loss on unfre- quented roads, in spoiled horses, strained wheels, and time, 20 done away with. 2 . Bringing in of icaste land. — All waste lands not nec- essary for public health, to be made accessible and gradu- ally reclaimed ; chiefly our wide and waste seashores. Not our mountains nor moorland. Our life depends on them, 25 more than on the best arable we have. 3. Harhor-making. — The deficiencies of safe or con- venient harborage in our smaller ports to be remedied ; other harbors built at dangerous points of coast, and a disciplined body of men always kept in connection with 30 the pilot and life-boat services. There is room for every order of intelligence in this work, and for a large body of superior officers. 4. Porterage. — All heavy goods, not requiring speed in ATHENA IN THE HEART 233 transit, to be carried (under preventive duty on transit by railroad) by canal-boats, employing men for draught ; and the merchant-shipping service extended by sea ; so that no ships may be wrecked for want of hands, while there are idle ones in mischief on shore. 5 5 . Repair of buildings. — A body of men in various trades to be kept at the disposal of the authorities in every large town, for repair of buildings, especially the houses of the poorer orders, who, if no such provisions were made, could not employ workmen on their own houses, but would ic simply live with rent walls and roofs. 6. Dressmaking. — Substantial dress, of standard ma- terial and kind, strong shoes, and stout bedding, to be manufactured for the poor, so as to render it unnecessary for them, unless by extremity of im.providence, to wear 15 cast clothes, or be without sufficiency of clothing. 7 . Works of art. — Schools to be established on thor- oughly sound principles of manufacture, and use of materials, and with sample and, for given periods, unalterable modes of work ; first, in pottery, and embracing gradually metal 20 work, sculpture, and decorative painting ; the two points insisted upon, in distinction from ordinary commercial establishments, being perfectness of materials to the ut- most attainable degree ; and the production of everything by hand-work, for the special purpose of developing per- 25 sonal power and skill in the workman. The last two departments, and some subordinate branches of others, would include the service of women and children. I give now, for such further illustration as they contain 3c of the points I desire most to insist upon with respect both to education and employment, a portion of the series of notes published some time ago in the ^^Art 234 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR Journal/' on the opposition of Modesty and Liberty, and the unescapable law of wise restraint. I am sorry that they are written obscurely — and it may be thought affectedly ; but the fact is, I have always had three differ- 5 ent ways of writing® : one, with the single view of making myself understood, in which I necessarily omit a great deal of what comes into my head; another, in which I say what I think ought to be said, in what I suppose to be the best words I can find for it (which is in reality an affected lo style — be it good or bad) ; and my third way of writing is to say all that comes into my head for my own pleasure, in the first words that come, retouching them afterwards into (approximate) grammar. These notes for the ^^Art Journal" were so written; and I like them myself, of 15 course ; but ask the reader's pardon for their confusedness. 135 . Sir, it cannot be better done." We will insist, with the reader's permission, on this comfortful saying of Albert Diirer's® in order to find out, if we may, what Modesty is ; which it will be well for paint- 20 ters, readers, and especially critics, to know, before going farther. What it is; or, rather, who she is, her fingers being among the deftest in laying the ground-threads of Aglaia's cestus.® For this same opinion of Albert's is entertained by many 25 other people respecting their own doings® — a very preva- lent opinion, indeed, I find it ; and the answer itself, though rarely made with the Nuremberger's crushing de- cision, is nevertheless often enough intimated, with deli- cacy, by artists of all countries, in their various dialects. 30 Neither can it always be held an entirely modest one, as it assuredly was in the man who would sometimes estimate a piece of his uncomjuerable work at only the worth of a plate of fruit, or a flask of wine - woiihl have taken even ATHENA IN THE HEART 235 one ^^fig for it/^ kindly offered; or given it royally for nothing, to show his hand to a fellow-king of his own, or any other craft — as Cainsborough® gave the ^^Boy at the Stile/^ for a solo on the violin. An entirely modest saying, I repeat, in him — not always in us. For Modesty 5 is ‘^the measuring virtue,^^ the virtue of modes or limits. She is, indeed, said to be only the third or youngest of the children of the cardinal virtue, Temperance ; and aj)t to be despis(‘d, being more given to arithmetic, and other vulgar studies (Cinderella°-like), than her elder sisters; but she is useful in the household, and arrives at great results with her yard-measure and slate-pencil — a pretty little Marchande des Modes,® cutting her dress always according to the silk (if this be the proper feminine reading of ‘^coat according to the cloth so that, consulting with her carefully of a 15 morning, men get to know not only their income, but their inbeing — to kno^v themselves, that is, in a gauger^s man- ner, round, and up and down — surface and contents ; wdiat is in them, and w^hat may be got out of them and, in fine, their entire canon of weight and capacity. That 20 yard-measure of Modesty \s, lent to those who will use it, is a curious musical reed, and wdll go I'ound and round waists that are slender enough, w ith latent melody in every joint of it, the dark root only being soundless, moist from the wave wherein 25 ^^Nuir altra pianta che facesse fronda O che ^n durasse, vi puote aver vita.^'°^ But when the little sister herself takes it in hand, to measure things outside of us with, the joints shoot out in an amazing manner : the four-square w^alls even of celestial 3° cities being measurable enough by that reed® ; and the 1 ‘^Purgatorio/’ i. 108, 109. 236 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR way pointed to them, though only to be followed, or even seen, in the dim starlight shed down from worlds amidst which there is no name of Measure any more, though the reahty of it alwa3"s. For, indeed, to all true modesty the 5 necessar}^ business is not inlook, but outlook, and espe- cially i/plook : it is only her sister Shamefacedness, who is known by the drooping lashes — ]\Iodesty, quite other- wise, b}" her large eyes full. of wonder; for she never con- temns herself, nor is ashamed of herself, but forgets lo herself — at least until she has done something worth memory. It is eas}^ to peep and potter about one^s own deficiencies in a quiet immodest discontent ; but ^lodesty is so pleased with other people's doings, that she has no leisure to lament her own: and thus, knowing the fresh 15 feeling of contentment, unstained with thought of self, she does not fear being pleased, when there is cause, with her own rightness, as with another's, sa\ung calmly, “ Be it mine, or yours, or whose else 's it may, it is no matter; this also is well." But the right to say such a thing de- 20 pends on continual reverence, and manifold sense of failure. If you have known j-ourself to have failed, you may trust, when it comes, the strange consciousness of success; if you have faithfully loved the noble work of others, you need not fear to speak with respect of things 25 duly done, of your own. 136 . But the principal good that comes of art being followed in this reverent feeling is vitally manifest in the associative conditions of it. Men who know their place can take it and keep it, be it low or high, contentedly and 30 firmly, neither ^fielding nor grasping ; and the harmony of hand and thought follows, rendering all great deeds of art possible — deeds in which the souls of men meet like the jewels in the windows of Aladdin's palace,® the little gems ATHENA IN THE HEART 231 and the large all equally pure, needing no cement but the fitting of facets ; while the associative work of immodest men is all jointless, and astir with wormy ambition; pu- tridly dissolute, and forever on the crawl : so that if it come together for a time, it can only be by metamorphosis 5 through flash of volcanic fire out of the vale of Siddim,® vitrifying the clay of it, and fastening the slime, only to end in wilder scattering; according to the fate of those oldest, mightiest, immodestest of builders, of whom it is told in scorn, ^^They had brick for stone, and slime had ig they for mortar/^® 137 . The first function of Modesty, then, being this recognition of place, her second is the recognition of law, and delight in it, for the sake of law itself, whether her part be to assert it, or obey. For as it belongs to all im- 15 modesty to defy or deny law, and assert privilege and license, according to its own pleasure (it being therefore rightly called insolent/^ that is, custom-breaking,^^ violating some usual and appointed order to attain for itself greater forwardness or power), so it is the habit of 20 all modesty to love the constancy and solemnity or, literally, accustomedness, of law, seeking first what are the solemn, appointed, inviolable customs and general orders of nature, and of the Master of nature, touching the matter in hand ; and striving to put itself, as habitu- 25 ally and inviolably, in compliance with them. Out of which habit, once established, arises what is rightly called conscience, not science merely, but ^Svith-science,^^ a science ^^with us,^’ such as only modest creatures can have — with or within them — and within all creation be- 3^ sides, every member of it, strong or weak, witnessing to- gether, and joining in the happy consciousness that each one's work is good ; the bee also being profoundly of that 238 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR opinion ; and the lark ; and the swallow, in that noisy, but modestly upside-down, Babel® of hers, under the eaves, with its un volcanic slime for mortar; and the two ants who are asking of each other at the turn of that little ant V 5 foot-worn path through the moss lor via e lor fortuna® and the builders also, who built yonder pile of cloud-marble in the west, and the gilder who gilded it, and is gone down behind it. 138 . But I think we shall better understand what we lo ought of the nature of Modesty, and of her opposite, by taking a simple instance of both, in the practice of that art of music which the wisest have agreed in thinking the first element of education; only I must ask the reader^s patience with me through a parenthesis. 15 Among the foremost men whose power has had to as- sert itself, though with conquest, }"et with countless loss, through peculiarly English disadvantages of circumstance, are assuredly to be ranked together, both for honor, and for mourning, Thomas Bewick® and George Cruikshank.® 20 There is, however, less cause for regret in the instance of Bewick. We may understand that it was well for us once to see what an entirely powerful painter^s genius, and an entirely keen and true man^s temper, could achieve, to- gether, unhelped, but also unharmed, among the black 25 banks and wolds of Tyne.® But the genius of Cruikshank has been cast away in an utterly ghastly and lamentable manner : his superb line-work, worthy of any class of subject, and his powers of conception and composition, of which I cannot venture to estimate the range in their 30 degraded application, having been condemned, by his fate, to be spent either in rude jesting, or in vain war with con- ditions of vice too low alike for record or rebuke, among the dregs of the British populace. Yet j)erhaps I am ATHENA IN THE HEART 239 wrong in regretting even this : it may be an appointed lesson for futurity, that the art of the best English etcher in the nineteenth century, spent on illustrations of the lives of burglars and drunkards, should one day be seen in museums beneath Greek vases fretted with drawings of the 5 wars of Troy, or side by side with Diirer^s “ Knight and Death 139 . .Be that as it may, I am at present glad to be able to refer to one of these perpetuations, by his strong hand, of such human character as our faultless British constitu- 10 tion occasionally produces in out-of-the-way corners. It is among his illustrations of the Irish Rebellion, and repre- sents the pillage and destruction of agentleman^s house by the mob. They have made a heap in the drawing-room of the furniture and books, to set first fire to ; and are tearing 15 up the floor for its more easily kindled planks, the less busily-disposed meanwhile hacking roun^ in rage, with axes, and smashing what they can with butt-ends of guns. I do not care to follow with words the ghastly truth of the picture into its detail ; but the most expressive incident 20 of the whole, and the one immediately to my purpose, is this, that one fellow has sat himself at the piano, on which, hitting down fiercely with his clenched fists, he plays, grin- ning, such tune as may be so producible, to which melody two of his companions, flourishing knotted sticks, dance, 25 after their manner, on the top of the instrument. 140 . I think we have in this conception as perfect an in- stance as we require of the lowest supposable phase of im- modest or licentious art in music ; the inner consciousness of good being dim, even in the musician and his audience, 3c and wholly unsympathized with, and unacknowledged by (he Delphian, Vestal, and all other prophetic and cosmic powers. ° This represented scene came into my mind such 240 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR denly one evening, a few weeks ago, in contrast with an- other which I was watching in its reality ; namely, a group of gentle school-girls, leaning over Mr. Charles Halle, as he was playing a variation on Home, Sweet Home.^^° They 5 had sustained with unwonted courage the glance of sub- dued indignation with which, having just closed a rip- pling melody of Sebastian Bach^s° (much like what one might fancy the singing of nightingales would be if they fed on honey instead of flies) , he turned to the slight, popular lo air. But they had their own associations with it, and besought for, and obtained it, and pressed close, at first, in vain, to see what no glance could follow, the traversing of the fingers. They soon thought no more of seeing. The wet eyes, round-open, and the little scarlet upper lips, 15 lifted, and drawn slightly together, in passionate glow of utter wonder, became picture-like, porcelain-like, in mo- tionless joy, as ^ the sweet multitude of low notes fell, in their timely infinities, like summer rain. Only La Robbia® himself (nor even he, unless with tenderer use of color than 20 is usual in his work) could have rendered some image of that listening. 141. But if the reader can give due vitality in his fancy to these two scenes, he will have in them representative types, clear enough for all future purpose, of the several 25 agencies of debased and perfect art. And the interval may easily and continuously be filled by mediate grada- tions. Between the entirely immodest, unmeasured, and (in evil sense) unmannered, execution with the fist ; and the entirely modest, measured, and (in the noblest sense) 30 mannered, or moralkl execution with the finger; between the impatient and unpractised doing, containing in itself the witness of lasting impatience and idleness through all previous life, and the patient and practised doing, con- ATHENA IN THE HEART 241 taining in itself the witness of self-restraint and un- wearied toil through all previous life; between the ex- pressed subject and sentiment of home violation, and the expressed subject and sentiment of home love; between the sympathy of audience, given in irreverent and con- 5 temptuous rage, joyless as the rabidness of a dog, and the sympathy of audience given in an almost appalled humil- ity of intense, rapturous, and yet entirely reasoning and reasonable pleasure; between these two limits of octave, the reader will find he can class, according to its modesty, 10 usefulness, and grace, or becomingness, all other musical art. For although purity of purpose and fineness of execu- tion by no means go together, degree to degree (since fine, and indeed all but the finest, work is often spent in the most wanton purpose — as in all our modern opera — 15 and the rudest execution is again often joined with purest purpose, as in a mother^s song to her child), still the entire accomplishment of music is only in the union of both. For the difference between that ^^all but^' finest and finest is an infinite one; and besides this, however 20 the power of the performer, once attained, may be after- wards misdirected, in slavery to popular passion or child- ishness, and spend itself, at its sweetest, in idle melodies, cold and ephemeral (like Michael Angelovs snow statue in the other art), or else in vicious difficulty and miserable 25 noise — crackling of thorns under the pot° of public sensu- ality — still, the attainment of this power, and the main- tenance of it, involve always in the executant some virtue or courage of high kind ; the understanding of which, and of the difference between the discipline which develops it 3c and the disorderly efforts of the amateur, it will be one of our first businesses to estimate rightly. And though not indeed by degree to degree, yet in essential relation 242 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR (as of winds to waves, the one bein^ always the true cause of the other, though they are not necessarily of equal force at the same time), we shall find vice in its varieties, with art -failure, — and virtue in its varieties, with art-success, 5 — fall and rise together : the peasant -girl's song at her spinning-wheel, the peasant laborer's ‘^to the oaks and rills," — domestic music, feebly yet sensitively skilful, — music for the multitude, of beneficent or of traitorous powder, — dance-melodies, pure and orderly, or foul and lo frantic, — march-music, blatant in mere fever of animal pugnacity, or majestic with force of national duty and memory, — song-music, reckless, sensual, sickly, slovenly, forgetful even of the foolish words it effaces with fool- ish noise, — or thoughtful, sacred, healthful, artful, for- 15 ever sanctifying noble thought with separately distin- guished loveliness of belonging sound, — all these families and gradations of good or evil, however mingled, follow, in so far as they are good, one constant law of virtue (or ^dif e-strength," which is the literal meaning of the word, 20 and its intended one, in wise men's mouths), and in so far as they are evil, are evil by outlawry and unvirtue, or death- weakness. Then, passing wholly beyond the domain of death, we may still imagine the ascendant nobleness of the art, through all the concordant life of incorrupt crea- 25 tures, and a continually deeper harmony of '‘puissant words and murmurs made to bless, until we reach ^^The undisturbed song of pure consent, Aye sung before the sapphire-colored throne." 142 . And so far as the sister arts can be conceived to have 30 place or office, their virtues are subject to a law absolutely the same as that of music, only extending its authority into more various conditions, owing to the introduction of a ATHENA IN THE HEART 243 distinctly rei)resentative and historical power, which acts under logical as well as mathematical restrictions, and is capable of endlessly changeful fault, fallacy, and defeat, as well as of endlessly manifold victory. 143. Next to Modesty, and her delight in measures, let 5 us reflect a little on the character of her adversary, the Goddess of Liberty, and her delight in absence of meas- ures, or in false ones. It is true that there are liberties and liberties. Yonder torrent, crystal-clear, and arrow-swift, with its spray leaping into the air like white troops of 10 fawns, is free enough. Lost, presently, amidst bankless, boundless marsh — soaking in slow shallowness, as it will, hither and thither, listless, among the poisonous reeds and unresisting slime — it is free also. We may choose which liberty we like, — the restraint of voiceful rock, 15 or the dumb and edgeless shore of darkened sand. Of that evil liberty which men are now glorifying, and pro- claiming as essence of gospel to all the earth, and will presently, I suppose, proclaim also to the stars, with in- vitation to them out of their courses, — and of its opposite 2 c continence, which is the clasp and of Aglaia's cestus, we must try to find out something true. For no quality of Art has been more powerful in its in- fluence on |)ublic mind ; none is more frequently the sub- ject of popular praise, or the end of vulgar effort, than what we call Freedom. It is necessary to determine the justice or injustice of this popular praise. 144. I said, a little while ago, that the practical teaching of the masters of Art was summed by the O of Giotto. You may judge my masterhood of craft, Giotto tells us, 3 c ^‘by seeing that I can draw a circle unerringly.^' And we may safely believe him, understanding him to mean that, though more may be necessary to an artist than such a 244 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR power, at least this power is necessary. The qualities of hand and eye needful to do this are the first conditions of artistic craft. 145. Try to draw a circle yourself with the ^^free hand, 5 and with a single line. You cannot do it if your hand trembles, nor if it hesitates, nor if it is unmanageable, nor if it is in the common sense of the word ^Tree.^^ So far from being free, it must be under a control as absolute and accurate as if it were fastened to an inflexible bar of steel, lo And yet it must move, under this necessary control, with perfect, untormented serenity of ease. 146. That is the condition of all good work whatsoever. All freedom is error. Every line you lay down is either right or wrong ; it may be timidly and awkwardly wrong, 15 or fearless!}^ and impudently wrong. The aspect of the impudent wrongness is pleasurable to vulgar persons, and is what they commonly call ^Tree^^ execution; the timid, tottering, hesitating wrongness is rarely so attractive ; yet, sometimes, if accompanied with good qualities, and right 20 aims in other directions, it becomes in a manner charm- ing, like the inarticulateness of a child ; but, whatever the charm or manner of the error, there is but one question ultimately to be asked respecting every line you draw. Is it right or wrong? If right, it most assuredly is not a 25 ^^ free line, but an intensely continent, restrained, and considered line ; and the action of the hand in laying it is just as decisive, and just as ‘‘free,^^ as the hand of a first- rate surgeon in a critical incision. A great operator told me that his hand could check itself within about the two- 30 hundredth of an inch, in penetrating a membrane ; and this, of course, without the help of sight, by sensation only. With help of sight, and in action on a substance which does not quiver nor yield, a fine artist’s line is meas- ATHENA IN THE HEART 245 urable in its proposed direction to considerably less than the thousandth of an inch. A wide freedom, truly ! 147 . The conditions of popular art which most foster the common ideas about freedom, are merely results of 5 irregularly energetic effort by men imperfectly educated ; these conditions being variously mingled with cruder mannerisms resulting from timidity, or actual imperfec- tion of body. Northern hands and eyes are, of course, never so subtle as Southern® ; and in very cold countries, 10 artistic execution is palsied. The effort to break through this timidity, or to refine the bluntness, may lead to a licentious impetuosity, or an ostentatious minuteness. Every man^s manner has this kind of relation to some defect in his physical powers or modes of thought ; so 15 that in the greatest work there is no manner visible. It is at first uninteresting from its quietness ; the majesty of restrained power only dawns gradually upon us, as we walk towards its horizon. There is, indeed, often great delightfulness in the inno- 20 cent manners of artists who have real power and honesty, and draw, in this way or that, as best they can, under such and such untoward circumstances of life. But the greater part of the looseness, fiimsiness, or audacity of modern work is the expression of an inner spirit of license 25 in mind and heart, connected, as I said, with the peculiar folly of this age, its hope of, and trust in, liberty, of which we must reason a little in more general terms. 148 . I believe we can nowhere find a better type of a perfectly free creature than in the common house-fly. 30 Nor free only, but brave; and irreverent to a degree which I think no human republican could by any philoso- phy exalt himself to. There is no courtesy in him; he THE QEEEN OF THE AIR 24 (; does not rare whetlier it is kin.o; or down whom he teases ; ana in every step of his swift meehanieal march, and in every pause of his resolute observation, there is one and the same expression of perfect egotism, perfect independ- 5 ence and self-confidence, and conviction of the world’s having been made for flies. Strike at him with your hand, and to him, the me(*hanical fact and external aspect of the matter is, what to you it would be if an acre of red clay, ten feet thick, tore itself up from the ground in one mas- losive field, hovered over you in the air for a second, and came crashing down with an aim. That is the external aspect of it ; the inner aspect, to his fly’s mind, is of a quite natural and unimportant occurrence — one of the mo- mentary conditions of his active life. He steos out of the 15 way of your hand, and alights on the back of it. You cannot terrif}^ him, nor govern him, nor persuade him, nor convince him. He has his own positive opinion on all matters ; not an unwise one, usually, for his own ends ; and will ask no advice of yours. He has no work to do — 20 no tyrannical instinct to obey. The earthv orm has his digging ; the bee her gathering and building ; the spider her cunning network; the ant her treasury and accounts. All these are comparatively slaves, or people of vulgar business. But your fly, free in the air, free in the chamber 25 — a black incarnation of caprice, wandering, im estigating, flitting, flirting, feasting at his will, with rich Aariety of choice in feast, from the heaped sweets in the grocer’s window to those of the butcher’s back yard, and from the galled place on your cab-horse’s back, to the brown sf)ot 30 in the road, from which, as the hoof disturbs him, he rises with angry republican buzz — what freedom is like his? 149 . For captivity, again, perha})s your poor watch- dog is as sorrowful a ty[)e as you will easily find. Aline ATHENA IN THE HEART 1M7 certainly is. The day is lovely, but I must write this, and cannot go out with him. He is chained in the yard because I do not like dogs in rooms, and the gardener does not like dogs in gardens. He has no books, — nothing but his own weary thoughts for com})any, and a group of 5 those free flies, whom he sna})s at, with sullen ill success. Such dim hope as he may have that I may take him out with me, will be, hour by hour, Avearily disa})pointed ; or, worse, darkened at once into a leaden despair by an author- itative ‘^No^' — too well understood. His fidelity only 10 seals his fate ; if he wmuld not w atch for me, he would be sent away, and go hunting with some hajjpier master : but he w’^atches, and is wise, and faithful, and miserable ; and his high animal intellect only gives him the wistful powers of wmnder, and sorrow, and desire, and affection, 15 which embitter his captivity. Yet of the two, would we rather be watch-dog or fly? 150 . Indeed, the first point we have all to determine is not hoW' free w^e are, but wdiat kind of creatures we are. It is of small importance to any of us whether wm get 20 liberty ; but of the greatest that wm deserve it. Whether we can win it, fate must determine; but that wx will be worthy of it we may ourselves determine ; and the sorrow^- fullest fate of all that we can suffer is to have it without deserving it. 25 151 . I have hardly patience to hold my pen and go on wi-iting, as I remember (I would that it w^ere possible for a few consecutive instants to forget) the infinite follies of modern thought in this matter, centred in the notion that liberty is good for a man, irrespectively of the use he is 30 likely to make of it. Folly unfathomable! unspeakable! unendurable to look in the full face of, as the laugh of a cretin. ° You will send your child, will you, into a room 248 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR where the table is loaded with sweet wine and fruit — some poisoned, some not ? — you will say to him, ‘^Choose freely, my little child ! It is so good for you to have free- dom of choice ; it forms your character — your individu- 5 ality ! If you take the wrong cup or the wrong berry, you will die before the day is over, but you will have acquired the dignity of a Free child 152. You think that puts the case too sharply? I tell you, lover of liberty, there is no choice offered to you, but lo it is similarly between life and death. There is no act, nor option of act, possible, but the wrong deed or option has poison in it which will stay in your veins thereafter forever. Never more to all eternit}^ can you be as }mu might have been had you not done that — chosen that. You have i5 ^'formed your character, forsooth ! No; if you have chosen ill, you have De-formed it, and that forever ! In some choices it had been better for you that a red-hot iron bar struck you aside, scarred and helpless, than that you had so chosen. You will know better next time \ No. 20 Next time will never come. Next time the choice will be in quite another aspect — between quite different things, — you, weaker than you were by the evil into which you have fallen; it, more doubtful than it was, by the increased dimness of your sight. No one ever gets wiser by doing 25 wrong, nor stronger. You will get wiser and stronger only by doing right, whether forced or not ; the prime, the one need is to do that, under whatever compulsion, until you can do it without compulsion. And then you are a Man.° 30 153. What ! a wayward youth might perhaps answer, incredulously, ^^no one ever gets wiser by doing wrong? Shall I not know the world best by tr\ ing the wrong of it, and repenting ? Have I not, even as it is, learned much by ATHENA IN THE HEART 249 many of my errors Indeed, the effort by which par- tially you recovered yourself was precious; that part of your thought by w^hich you discerned the error was pre- cious. What wisdom and strength you kept, and rightly used, are rewarded ; and in the pain and the repentance, 5 and in the acquaintance with the aspects of folly and sin, you have learned something; how much less than }mu would have learned in right paths can never be told, but that it is less is certain. Your liberty of choice has simply destroyed for you so much life and strength, never regain- 10 able. It is true, you now know the habits of swine, and the taste of husks ; do you think your father could not have taught you to know better habits and pleasanter tastes, if you had stayed in his house®; and that the knowledge you have lost would not have been more, as well 15 as sw^eeter, than that you have gained ? But ^^it so forms my individuality to be free!^^ Your individuality was given you by God, and in your race, and if you have any to speak of, you will want no liberty. You will want a den to work in, and peace, and light — no more, — in absolute 20 need ; if more, in anywdse, it will still not be liberty, but direction, instruction, reproof, and sympathy. But if you have no individuality, if there is no true character nor true desire in you, then you will indeed w^ant to be free. You will begin early, and, as a boy, desire to be a man ; 25 and, as a man, think yourself as good as every other. You will choose freely to eat, freely to drink, freely to stagger and fall, freely, at last, to curse yourself and die. Death is the only real freedom possible to us ; and that is consummate freedom, permission for every particle in the 30 rotting body to leave its neighbor particle, and shifr for itself. You call it corruptions^ in the flesh; but before it comes to that, all liberty ig an equal corruption in mind. 250 THE QUEEN OE THE AIH You ask for freedom of thought ; but if you have not suffix cient grounds for thought, you have no business to think; and if you have sufficient grounds, you have no business to think wrong. Only one thought is possible to you if 5 you are wise — your liberty is geometrically proportionate to your folly. 154 . ‘‘But all this glory and activity of our age; what are they owing to, but to our freedom of thought ? In a measure, they are owing — what good is in them — to the lo discovery of many lies, and the escape from the power of evil. Not to liberty, but to the deliverance from evil or cruel masters. Brave men have dared to examine lies which had long been taught, not because they were free- thinkers, but because they were such stern and close 15 thinkers that the lie could no longer escape them. Of course the restriction of thought, or of its expression, by persecution, is merely a form of violence, justifiable or not, as other violence is, according to the character of the persons against whom it is exercised, and the divine and 20 eternal laws which it vindicates or violates. We must not burn a man alive for saying that the Athanasian creed° is ungrammatical, nor stop a bishop ^s salary because we are getting the worst of an argument with him ; neither must we let drunken men howl in the public streets at night. 25 There is much that is true in the part of Mr. ^lill’s® essay on Liberty which treats of freedom of thought ; some im- portant truths are there beautifully expressed, but many, quite vital, are omitted ; and the balance, therefore, is wrongly struck. The liberty of expression, with a great 30 nation, would become like that in a well-educated com- pany, in which there is indeed freedom of speech, but not of clamor; or like that in an ordevlv senate, in which men who deserve to be heard, are heard in du(‘ time, and under ATHENA IN THE HEART 251 determined restrictioiLS. The degree of liberty you can rightly grant to a number of men is in the inverse ratio of their desire for it ; and a general hush, or call to order, would be often very desirable in this England of ours. For the rest, of any good or evil extant, it is impossible to 5 say what measure is owing to restraint, and what to license where the right is balanced between them. I was not a little provoked one day, a summer or two since, in Scot- land, because the Duke of Athol hindered me from ex- amining the gneiss and slate junctions in Glen Tilt,® at 10 the hour convenient to me ; but I saw them at last, and in (piietness; and to the very restriction that annoyed me, owed, probably, the fact of their being in existence, in- stead of being blasted away by a mob-company ; while the ^Tree^’ paths and inlets of Loch Katrine® and the Lake 15 of Geneva are forever trampled down and destroyed, not by one duke, but by tens of thousands of ignorant tyrants. 155 . So, a Dean and Chapter® may, perhaps, unjusti- fiably charge me twopence for seeing a cathedral ; but 20 your free mob pulls spire and all down about my ears, and I can see it no more forever. And even if I cannot get up to the granite junctions in the glen, the stream comes down from them pure to the Garry ; but in Beddington Park I am stopped by the newly-erected fence of a building 25 speculator; and the bright Wandel, divine of waters as Castaly,® is filled by the free public with old shoes, obscene crockery, and ashes. 156 . In fine, the arguments for liberty may in general be summed in a few very simple forms, as follows-: — 30 Misguiding is mischievous : therefore guiding is. If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch®: therefore, nobody should lead ;mybod}v 252 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR Lambs and fawns should be left free in the fields ; much more bears and wolves. If a man^s gun and shot are his own, he may fire in any direction he pleases. 5 A fence across a road is inconvenient ; much more one at the side of it. Babes should not be swaddled with their hands bound down to their sides : therefore they should be thrown out to roll in the kennels naked. lo None of these arguments are good, and the practical issues of them are worse. For there are certain eternal laws for human conduct which are quite clearly discern- ible by human reason. So far as these are discovered and obeyed, by whatever machinery or authority the obedi- 15 ence is procured, there follow life and strength. So far as they are disobeyed, by whatever good intention the disobedience is brought about, there follow ruin and sor- row. And the first duty of every man in the world is to find his true master, and, for his own good, submit to him ; 20 and to find his true inferior, and, for that inferior's good, conquer him. The punishment is sure, if we either refuse the reverence, or are too cowardly and indolent to enforce the compulsion. A base nation crucifies or poisons its wise men, and lets its fools rave and rot in its streets. A 25 wise nation obeys the one, restrains the other, and cher- ishes all. 157 . The best examples of the results of wise normal discipline in Art will be foimd in whatever evidence re- mains respecting the lives of great Italian painters, though, 30 unhappily, in eras of progress, but just in proportion to the admirableness and efficiency of the life, will be usually the scantiness of its history. The individualities and lib- erties which are causes of destruction may be recorded ; ATHENA IN THE HEART . but the loyal conditions of daily breath are never told. Because Leonardo made models of machines, dug canals, built fortifications, and dissipated half his art-power in capricious ingenuities, we have many anecdotes of him ; — but no picture of importance on canvas, and only a few 5 withered stains of one upon a wall. But because his pupil, or reputed pupil, Luini,° labored in constant and successful simplicity, we have no anecdotes of him ; — only hundreds of noble works. Luini is, perhaps, the best central type of the highly-trained Italian painter. He is the only man ic who entirely united the religious temper which was the spirit-life of art, with the physical power which was its bodily life. He joins the purity and passion of Angelico® to the strength of Veronese® : the two elements, poised in perfect balance, are so calmed and restrained, each by the 15 other, that most of us lose the sense of both. The artist does not see the strength, by reason of the chastened spirit in which it is used : and the religious visionary does not recognize the passion, by reason of the frank human truth with w^hich it is rendered. He is a man ten times greater 20 than Leonardo ; — a mighty colorist, while Leonardo was only a fine draughtsman in black, staining the chiaroscuro drawing, like a colored print : he perceived and rendered the delicatest types of human beauty that have been painted since the days of the Greeks, while Leonardo de- 25 praved his finer instincts by caricature, and remained to the end of his days the slave of an archaic smile : and he is a designer as frank, instinctive, and exhaustless as Tin- toret, while Leonardo's design is only an agony of sci- ence, admired chiefly because it is painful, and capable of 3^ analysis in its best accomplishment. Luini has left noth- ing behind him that is not lovely ; but of his life I believe hardly anything is known beyond remmants of tradition 254 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR which murmur about Lugano® and Saronno,® and which, remain ungleaned. This onlv is certain, that he was born in the loveliest district of North Italy, where hills, and streams, and air meet in softest harmonies. Child of 5 the Alps, and of their divinest lake, he is taught, without doubt or dismay, a lofty religious creed, and a sufficient law of life and of its mechanical arts. Whether les- soned by Leonardo himself, or merely one of many disci^ jdined in the system of the Milanese school,® he learns lo unerringly to draw, unerringly and ' enduringly to paint. His tasks are set him without cjuestion day by day, by men who are justly satisfied with his work, and who accept it without any harmful praise, or senseless blame. Place, scale, and subject are determined for him on the 15 cloister wall or the church dome ; as he is required, and for sufficient daily bread, and little more, he paints what he has been taught to design wisely, and has passion to realize gloriously : every touch he lays is eternal, every thought he conceives is beautiful and pure: his hand 20 moves always in radiance of blessing ; from day to day his life enlarges in power and peace ; it passes away cloud- lessly, the starry twilight remaining arched ar agains^ the night. 158. Oppose to such a life as this that of a great painter 25 amidst the elements of modern English liberty. Take the life of Turner, in whom the artistic energy and inherent love of beauty were at least as strong as in Luir A : but, amidst the disorder and ghastliness of the lower streets of London, his instincts in early .infancy were warped into 30 toleration of evil, or even into delight in it.® He gathers what he can of instruction by (|uestioning and prying among half-informed masters ; spells out some knowledge of classical fable ; educates himself, by an admirable force, ATHENA IN THE HEART to the i)rocluction of wildly majestic or pathetically tender and pure pictures, by which he cannot live. There is no one to judge them, or to command him : only some of the English upper classes hire him to paint their houses and parks, and destroy the drawings afterwards by the most 5 wanton neglect. Tired of laboring carefully, without either reward or praise, he dashes out into various experi- mental and popular works — makes himself the servant of the lower public, and is dragged hither and thither at their will; while yet, helpless and guideless, he indulges 10 his idiosyncrasies till they change into insanities ; the strength of his soul increasing its sufferings, and giving force to its errors ; all the purpose of life degenerating into instinct; and the web of his work wrought, at last, of beauties too subtle to be understood, his liberty, with 1 5 vices too singular to be forgiven — all useless, because magnificent idiosyncrasy^ had become solitude, or conten- tion, in the midst of a reckless populace, instead of sub- mitting itself in loyal harmony to the Art-laws of an un - derstanding nation. And the life passed away in darkness ; 20 and its final work, in all the best beauty of it, has already perished, only enough remaining to teach us what we have lost. 159 . These are the opposite effects of Law and of Liberty on men of the highest powers. In the case of inferiors 25 the contrast is still more fatal : under strict law, they become the subordinate workers in great schools, healthily aiding, echoing, or supplying, with multitudinous force of hand, the mind of the leading masters : they are the name- less carvers of great architect ure — stainers of glass — 3c hammerers of iron — helpful scholars, whose work ranks ^round, if not with, their master’s, and never disgraces it. But the inferiors under a system of license for the most 256 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR part perish in miserable effort ; ^ a few struggle into perni- cious eminence — harmful alike to themselves and to all who admire them ; many die of starvation ; many insane, either in weakness of insolent egotism, like Haydon,® or in 5 a conscientious agony of beautiful purpose and warped power, like Blake.® There is no probability of the persistence of a licentious school in any good accidentally 1 As I correct this sheet for press, my “PaU Mall Gazette” of last Saturday, April 17 , is lying on the table by me. I print a lo few lines out of it: — ‘‘An Artist’s Death. — A sad story was told at an inquest held in St. Pancras last night by Dr. Lankester on the body of . . ., aged fifty-nine, a French artist, who was found dead in his bed at his rooms in . . . Street. M. . . ., also an artist, said he 15 had known the deceased for fifteen years. He once held a high position, and being anxious to make a name in the world, he live years ago commenced a large picture, which he hoped, when com- pleted, to have in the gallery at Versailles; and with that view he sent a photograph of it to the French Emperor.® He also had an 20 idea of sending it to the English Royal Academy. He labored on this picture, neglecting other work which would have paid him well, and gradually sank lower and lower into poverty. His friends assisted him, but being absorbed in his great work, he did not heed their advice, and they left him. He was, however, 25 assisted by the French Ambassador, and last Saturday, he (the witness) saw deceased, who was much depressed in spirits, as he expected the brokers to be put in possession for rent. He said his troubles were so great that he feared his brain would give way. The witness gave him a shilling, for y/hich he appeared 30 very thankful. On Monday the witness called upon him, but received no answer to his knock. He went again on. Tuesday, and entered the deceased’s bedroom, and found him dead. Dr. George Ross said that when called in to the deceased he had been dead at least two days. The room was in a filthy, dirty condition, 35 and the picture referred to — certainly a very fine one — was in that room. The post-mortem examination showed that the cause of death was fatty degenerntion of the heart, the latter probably having ceased its action through the mental excitement of thC' deceased.” ATHENA IN THE IIEAHT 25 ? discovered by them; there is an approximate certainty of their gathering, with acclaim, round any shadow of evil, and following to whatever quarter of destruction it may lead. 160. Thus far the notes on Freedom. Now, lastly, here 5 is some talk w^hich I tried at the time to make intelligible ; and wuth which I close^this volume, because it will serve sufficiently to express the practical relation in which I think the art and imagination of the Greeks stand to our own ; and will show the reader that my view of that re- 10 lation is unchanged, from the first day on which I began to write, until now. THE HERCULES OF CAMARINA ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ART SCHOOL OF SOUTH LAMBERT, MARCH 15, 1869 15 161. Among the photographs of Greek coins which present so many admirable subjects for your study, I must speak for the present of one only : the Hercules of Cama- rina.° You have, represented by a Greek workman, in that coin, the face of a man, and the skin of a lion^s head. And 20 the man^s face is like a man^s face, but the lion^s skin is not like a lion’s skin. 162. Now there are some people who will tell you that Greek art is fine, because it is true ; and because it carves men’s faces as like men’s as it can. 25 And there are other people who will tell you that Greek art is fine, because it is not true ; and carves a lion’s skin so as to look not at all like a lion’s skin. s 258 THE QUEEN OF THE Aik And you fancy that one or other of these sets of people must be wrong, and are perhaps much puzzled to find out which you should believe. But neither of them are^ wrong, and you will have 5 eventually to believe, or rather to understand and know, in reconciliation, the truths taught by each ; but for the present, the teachers of the first group are those you must follow. It is they who tell you the deepest and usefullest truth, ro which involves all others in time. Greek art, and all other art, is fine when it makes a maids face as like a man’s face as it can. Hold to that. All kinds of nonsense are talked to you, now-a-days, ingeniously and irrelevantly about art. Therefore, for the most part of the da}", shut your ears, and 15 keep your eyes open : and understand primarily, what you may, I fancy, understand easily, that the greatest masters of all greatest schools — Phidias, Donatello, Titian, Velas- quez, or Sir Joshua Reynolds® — all tried to make human creatures as like human creatures as they could ; and that 20 anything less like humanity than their work, is not so good as theirs. Get that well driven into your heads ; and doiiT let it out again, at your peril. 163 . Having got it well in, you may then further under- 25 stand, safely, that there is a great deal of secondary work in pots, and pans, and floors, and carpets, and shawls, and architectural ornament, which ought, essentially, to be unlike reality, and to depend for its charm on (luite other qualities than imitative ones. But all such art is 30 inferior and secondary — much of it more or less instinc- tive and animal, and a civilized human creature can only learn its principles rightly, by knowing those of great civ- ilized art first — which is always the representation, to thu ’[is] ATHKNA IN' TUK HKAKT utmost of its power, of whatever it has got to sliow - - made to look as like the thing as possible. Go into th(‘ National Gallery, and look at the foot of Correggio’s"^ \’^enus there. Correggio made it as like a foot as he coukl, and you won’t easily find anything liker.° Now, you will 5 find on any Greek vase something meant for a foot, or a hand, which is not at all like one. The Greek vase is a good thing in its way, but Correggio’s picture is the best work. 164. So, again, go into the Turner room of the National ic Galler}^, and look at Turner’s drawing of ^^Ivy Bridge.” You will find the water in it is like real water, and the ducks in it are like real ducks. Then go into the British ^lu- seum, and look for an Egyptian landscape, and you will find the water in that constituted of blue zigzags, not at all 15 like water ; and ducks in the middle of it made of red lines, looking not in the least as if they could stand stuffing with sage and onions. They are very good in their way, but Turner’s are better. 165. I will not pause to fence my general principle 20 against what you perfectly well know of the due con- tradiction, — that a thing may be painted very like, yet painted ill. Rest content with knowing that it must be like, if it is painted well ; and take this further general law : Imitation is like charity. When it is done for love it 25 is lovely ; when it is done for show, hateful. 166. Well, then, this Greek coin is fine, first because the face is like a face. Perhaps you think there is some- thing particularly handsome in the face, which you can’t see in the photograph, or can’t at present appreciate. But 30 there is nothing of the kind. It is a very regular, quiet, commonplace sort of face; and any average English gentleman’s, of good descent, would be far handsomer. 260 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR 167. Fix that in your heads also, therefore, that Greek faces are not particularly beautiful. Of the much non- sense against which you are to keep your ears shut, that which is talked to you of the Greek ideal of beauty is 5 among the absolutest. There is not a single instance of a very beautiful head left by the highest school of Greek art. On coins, there is even no approximately beautiful one. The Juno of Argos® is a virago; the Athena of Athens grotesque, the Athena of Corinth® is insipid ; and lo of Thurium,® sensual. The Siren Ligeia,® and fountain of Arethusa,® on the coins of Terina and Syracuse,® are prettier, but totally without expression, and chiefly set off by their well-curled hair. You might have ex- pected something subtle in Mercuries ; but the Mercury of 15 iEnus® is a very stupid-looking fellow, in a cap like a bowl, with a knob on the top of it. The Bacchus of Thasos® is a drayman with his hair pomatumM.® The Jupiter of Syracuse is, however, calm and refined; and the Apollo of Clazomenae® would have been impressive, if he had not 20 come down to us much flattened by friction. But on the whole, the merit of Greek coins does not primarily depend on beauty of features, nor even, in the period of highest art, that of the statues. You may take the Venus of Melos® as a standard of beauty of the central Greek type. 25 She has tranquil, regular, and lofty features; but could not hold her own for a moment against the beauty of a simple English girl, of pure race and kind heart. 168. And the reason that Greek art, on the whole, bores you (and you know it does), is that you are always forced 30 to look in it for something that is not there ; but which may be seen every day, in real life, all round you ; and which you are naturally disposed to delight in, and ought to delight in. For the Greek race was not at all one of ATHENA IN THE HEART 261 exalted beauty, but only of general and healthy complete- ness of form. They were only, and could be only, beauti- ful in body to the degree that they were beautiful in soul (for you will find, when you read deeply into the matter, that the body is only the soul made visible) . And the s Greeks were indeed very good people, much better people than most of us think, or than many of us are ; but there are better people alive now than the best of them, and lovelier people to be seen now than the loveliest of them. 169. Then what are the merits of this Greek art, which lo make it so exemplary for you ? Well, not that it is beauti- ful, but that it is Right. ^ All that it desires to do, it does, and all that it does, does well. You will find, as you ad- vance in the knowledge of art, that its laws of self-restraint are very marvellous ; that its peace of heart, and content- 15 ment in doing a simple thing, with only one or Gvo fjuali- ties, restrictedly desired, and sufficiently attained, are a most wholesome element of education for you, as opposed to the wdld writhing, and wrestling, and longing for the moon, and tilting at windmills, and agony of eyes, and 20 torturing of fingers, and general spinning out of one^s soul into fiddle-strings, ° which constitute the ideal life of a modern artist. Also observe, there is entire masterhood of its business up to the required point. A Greek does not reach after 25 other people’s strength, nor outreach his own. He never tries to paint before he can draw; he never tries to lay on flesh where there are no bones ; and he never expects to find the bones of anything in his inner consciousness. Those are his first merits — sincere and innocent purpose, 30 strong common sense and principle, and all the strength ^ Compare above, § 101. 262 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR that comes of these, and all the grace that follows on that strength. 170 . But, secondly, Greek art is always exemplary in disposition of masses, which is a thing that in modern days 5 students rarely look for, artists not enough, and the public never. But, whatever else Greek work ma'; fail of, you may be always sure its masses are well placed, and their placing has been the object of the most subtle care. Look, for instance, at the inscription in front of this Her- lo cules of the name of the town — Camarina. You can’t read it, even though you may know Greek, without some pains ; for the sculptor knew well enough that it mattered very little whether you read it or not, for the Camarina Hercules could tell his own story ; but what did above all 15 things matter was, that no K or A or M should come in a wrong place with respect to the outline of the head, and divert the eye from it, or spoil any of its lines. So the whole inscription is thrown into a sweeping curve of gradually diminishing size, continuing from the lion’s 20 paws, round the neck, up to the forehead, and answering a decorative purpose as completely as the curls of the mane opposite. Of these, again, you cannot change or displace one without mischief ; they are almost as even in reticula- tion as a piece of basket-work ; but each has a different 25 form and a due relation to the rest, and if you set to work to draw that mane rightly, you will find that, whatever time you give to it, you can’t get the tresses quite into their places, and that every tress out of its place does an injury. If you want to test your powers of accurate drawing, you 30 may make that lion’s mane your nsinorum,^ I have never yet met with a student who didn’t make an ass in a lion’s skin of him -elf, when he tried it. 171 . Granted, however, that these tresses may be ATHENA IN THE HEART 2G3 finely placed, still they are not like a lion^s mane. So we come back to the (piestion, — if the face is to be like a. man^s face, why is not the lion^s mane to be like a lion^s mane? Well, because it can't be like a lion's mane with- out too much trouble, — and inconvenience after that, 5 and poor success after all. Too much trouble, in cutting the die into fine fringes and jags ; inconvenience after that, — because fringes and jags would spoil the surface of a coin; poor success after all, — because, though you can easily stamp cheeks and foreheads smooth at a blow, lo you can't stamp projecting tresses fine at a blow, whatever pains you take with your die. So your Greek uses his common sense, wastes no time, uses no skill, and says to you, ‘‘Here are beautifully set tresses, which I have carefully designed and easily stamped. 15 Enjoy them, and if you cannot understand that they mean lion's mane, heaven mend your wits." 172 . See, then, you have in this work well-founded knowledge, simple and right aims, thorough mastery of handicraft, splendid invention in arrangement, unerring 20 common sense in treatment, — merits, these, I think, ex- emplary enough to justify our tormenting you a little with Greek art. But it has one merit more than these, the greatest of all. It always means something worth saying. Not merely worth saying for that time only, but for all 25 time. What do you think this helmet of lion's hide is always given to Hercules for ? You can't suppose it means only that he once killed a lion, and always carried its skin afterwards to show that he had, as Indian sportsmen send home stuffed rugs, with claws at the corners, and a 3a lump in the middle which one tumbles over every time one stirs the fire. What was this Nemean Lion, whose spoils were evermore to cover Hercules from the cold? Not 264 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR merely a large specimen of Felis Leo,° ranging the fields of Nemea, be sure of that. This Nemean cub was one of a bad litter. Born of Typhon and Echidna,® — - of the whirl- wind and the snake, — Cerberus his brother, the Hydra of 5 Lerna® his sister, — it must have been difficult to get his hide off him. He had to be found in darkness, too, and dealt upon without weapons, by grip at the throat — ar- rows and club of no avail against him. What does all that mean ? lo 173. It means that the Nemean Lion is the first great adversary of life, whatever that may be — to Hercules, or to any of us, then or now. The first monster we have to strangle, or be destroyed by, fighting in the dark, and with none to help us, only Athena standing by to encourage 15 with her smile. Every man^s Nemean Lion lies in wait for him somewhere. The slothful man says, there is a lion in the path.® He says well. The quiet ttnslothful man says the same, and knows it too. But they differ in their further reading of the text. The slothful man says, I shall 20 be slain, and the unslothful, it shall be. It is the first ugly and strong enemy that rises against us, all future victory depending on victory over that. Kill it; and through all the rest of life, what was once dreadful is your armor, and you are clothed with that conquest for every 25 other, and helmed with its crest of fortitude for evermore. Alas, we have most of us to walk bare-headed ; but that is the meaning of the story of Nemea, — worth laying to heart and thinking of sometimes, when you see a dish garnished with parsley, which was the crown at the Ne- 30 mean games. 174. How far, then, have we got in our list of the merits of Greek art now ? Sound knowledge. ATHENA IN THE HEART 265 Simple aims. Mastered craft. Vivid invention. Strong common sense. And eternally true and wise meaning. 5 Are these not enough? Here is one more, then, which will find favor, I should think, with the British Lion. Greek art is never frightened at anything ; it is always cool. 175. It differs essentially from all other art, past or present, in this incapability of being frightened. Half ic the power and imagination of every other school depend on a certain feverish terror mingling v/ith their sense of beauty, — the feeling that a child has in a dark room, or a sick person in seeing ugly dreams. But the Greeks never have ugly dreams, ^'hey cannot draw anything ugly 15 when they try. Sometimes they put themselves to their wits^-end to draw an ugly thing, — the Medusa’s head, for instance, — but they can’t do it, not they, because nothing frightens them. They widen the mouth, and grind the teeth, and puff the cheeks, and set the 20 eyes a goggling; and the thing is only ridiculous after all, not the least dreadful, for there is no dread in their hearts. Pensiveness; amazement; often deepest grief and desolateness. All these; but terror never. Ever- lasting calm in the presence of all fate ; and joy such as 25 they could win, not indeed in a perfect beauty, but in beauty at perfect rest ! A kind of art this, surely, to be looked at, and thought upon sometimes with profit, even in these latter days. 176. To be looked at sometimes. Not continually, and 30 never as a model for imitation. For you are not Greeks ; but, for better or worse, English creatures ; and cannot do, even if it were a thousand times better worth doing, 266 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR anything well, except what }"our English licarts shall prompt, and your English skies teach you. For all good art is the natural utterance of its own people in its own day. But also, your own art is a better and brighter one than 5 ever this Greek art was. Many motives, powers, and in- sights have been added to those elder ones. The very corruptions into which we have fallen are signs of a subtle life, higher than theirs was, and therefore more fearful in its faults and death. Christianity has neither superseded, lo nor, by itself, excelled heathenism; but it has added its own good, won also by many a Nemean contest in dark valleys, to all that was good and noble in heathenism ; and our present thoughts and work, when they are right, are nobler than the heathen ^s. And we are not reverent 15 enough to them, because we possess too much of them. That sketch of four cherub heads from an English girl, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, at Kensington, is an incom- parably finer thing than ever the Greeks did. Ineffably tender in the touch, yet Herculean in power; innocent, 20 yet exalted in feeling ; pure in color as a pearl ; reserved and decisive in design, as this Lion crest, — if it alone existed of such, — if it were a pi(*ture by Zeuxis, ° the only one left in the world, and you build a shrine for it, and were allowed to see it only seven days in a year, it alone 25 would teach you all of art that you ever needed to know. But you do not learn fro)n this or any other such work, be- cause you have not reverence enough for them, and are trying to learn from all at once, and from a hundred other masters besides. 30 177 . Here, then, is the practical advice which I would venture to deduce from what I have tried to show you. Use Greek nrl as a first, not a final, teacher. TiCarn to draw carefully fi’nin Grc'ck work ; above all, to place forms ATUKNA IN Tim HEART 2G7 correctiy, and to use light and shade tenderly. Never allow yourselves black shadows. It is easy to make things look round and projecting; but the things to exercise yourselves in are the placing of the masses, and the model- ling of the lights. It is an admirable exercise to take a 5 pale wash of color for all the shadows, never reinforcing it everywhere, but drawing the statue as if it were in far distance, making all the darks one flat pale tint. Then model from those into the lights, rounding as well as you can, on those subtle conditions. In your chalk drawings, ic separate the lights from the darks at once all over ; then reinforce the darks slightly where absolutely necessary, and put your whole strength on the lights and their limits. Then, when you have learned to draw thoroughly, take one master for your painting, as you would have done 15 necessarily in old times by being put into his school (were I to choose for you, it should be among six men only — Titian, Correggio, Paul Veronese, Velasquez, Reynolds, or Holbein). ° If you are a landscapist. Turner must be your only guide (for no other great landscape painter has 20 yet lived) ; and having chosen, do your best to understand your own chosen master, and obey him, and no one else, till you have strength to deal with the nature itself round you, and then, be your own master, and see with your own eyes. If you have got masterhood or sight in you, that is 25 the way to make the most of them ; and if you have neither, you will at least be sound in your work, prevented from immodest and useless effort, and protected from vulgar and fantastic error. And so I wish you all, good speed, and the favor of 3c Hercules and of the Muses ; and to those who shall best deserve them, the crown of Prrsley first and then of the Laurel. ° -fm NOTES THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE INTRODUCTION Ruskin took ^'extreme pains’^ (see footnote, § 1) with this revised Introduction. For this reason it seems worth while to give, in the following notes, the more important variants. 1 : 5. Wandel. “ The Springs of Wandel '' is the title of the first chapter of Ruskin ^s Prceterita. 1 : 9. “Giveth rain from heaven.’* A combination of Joh V, 10: . who giveth rain upon the earth, and Is. Iv, 10: . as the rain cometh down from heaven.’^ See also Acts xiv, 17. 1 : 12. Confessed. N o sweeter homes ever hallowed the heart of the passer-by with their pride of peaceful gladness — fain-hidden — yet fully confessed.’^ Note the alliteration, and observe the extent to which Ruskin uses this embellish- ment in these lectures. 1 : 13. 1870. Instead of this date, the first edition, 1866, had: ^^or, until a few months ago, remained.’^ 1 : 16. Pisan Maremma. Pisa, city and province of Italy, part of the former grand duchy of Tuscany. Ma- remma, Italian, corrupted from marittima, country by the seashore, from mare, the sea. Also known as Tuscan Maremma. — Campagna. Town in Salerno, Italy. 1 : 17. Torcellan. Torcella, a small island near Venice. 2 : 8. Chalcedony. A variety of quartz, the name of which is derived from Chalcodon, a town in Asia Minor. 269 NOTES 2 : 9. Grenouillette. See French Dictionary. 2:13. Shreds'of old metal. Compare potsherd shard, and shear d. 2:14. Which, having . . . they. Originally: ‘‘they hav- ing . . . thus.’’ 2 : 15. Dig into the ground. Bury. 2 : 21. Gentler hands. People of more refinement. 2 : 23. Scoria. Slag, dross. 2 : 28. The accumulation of indolent years. What figure of speech? 2 : 33. Porch of Bethesda. John v, 2-4. Bethesda (House of Mercy) had five porches. “ In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down av a certain season in the pool, and troubled the water : whoso- ever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” 3:1. I suppose. Not in the original. Does this indi- cate a change in Ruskin’s attitude towards the villagers? 3:8. In so wise manner. In such a way, or manner. 3 : 15. Freehold. A legal term. See Dictionary. 3 : 21. Dead ground. Unproductive, idle. 3 : 24. Open-handed. Is this meant for a pun? 3 : 25. Habitually scatters. Originally: “ habitually scat- ters from its presence.” 3:30. Perilous. Originally: “deadly.” 3 : 31. Partly grievous and horrible. Originally : “partly fierce and exhaustive.” 4:3. This paragraph was the last sentence of the original paragraph 2. 5:1. Percentage. Three years before Ruskin invari- ably wrote “ per-centage.” 5:3. By-ways. Originally :“ bye-ways.” NOTES 271 5 : 10. Filchings. Things, commonly of small value, stolen or taken privately. 5 : 12. The original § 4 embraced the present §§ 5, 6, and 7. — Croydon publican. This adaptation is not from Luke (v, 27), whose publican, Levi, was a tax-collector; but from Matthew (xi, 19) and Luke (vii, 34), who speak of ‘‘the Son of Man^’ as being called “ a wine-bibber, a friend of pub- licans and sinners.^’ 5 : 15. Out-rail. Note the pun. 5 : 17. Both are, as to their relative attractiveness, just where they were before. Ruskin improves this by omitting an ironical pun that appeared between “attractiveness^^ and “just,’’ in the original : “to customers of taste.” 5:19. The amateurs of railings. Originally : “ customers of taste.” Has Ruskin simply substituted one pun for another? 5 : 22. Precisely what the capitalist has gained. Origi- nally not italicized. What does the change indicate? 5 : 29. Blackmail. Compare Unto this Last, § 45. ( Unto this Last was written in 1860, ten years before the revision of this Introduction, and six years before the writing of Crown of Wild Olive,) 5 : 30. Cozening. Deceiving, or cheating, by claiming relationship — cousining. — Reiver. Compare reave, be- reave, rob. — Quartered. Lodged, sheltered. 5 : 33. Robber. What is the difference between a robber and a burglar? 6:8. The proceeding. Originally: “it.” — Political econ- omy. Ruskin defines true political economy ( Unto this Last, § 28) as follows : “ Political economy (the economy of a State, or of a citizen) consists simply in production, preservation, and distribution, at fittest time and place, of useful or pleasurable things.” 272 NOTES 6 : 20. No excuse for the theft. Compare Unto this Last, §§ 43, 54. 6 : 21. Turnpike. Riiskin means a turnstile, or a toll- gate. In America the turnpike is the roadway. 6 : 26. Out-facing. Is this intended for a pun of the “ out-rail’^ type (§ 5)? 7:7. Which. Would ‘Hhat^^ be better? ‘‘Ruskin, at this time [Modern Painters, Part I, Section 1] and ever after, used Svhich^ where ‘that^ would be both more correct and less inelegant. He probably had the habit from him who did more than any other to disorganize the English language — that is, Gibbon. — Mrs. Mynell, John Ruskin, New York, 1890, p. 16. 7:11. Destroy. Originally not italicized. 7 : 14. Final inconvenience. In addition to what we have here, this paragraph originally closed with the sentence, “ So that, conclusively, in political as in household economy the great question is, not so much what you have in your pocket, as what you buy with it, and do with it.^^ Compare Unto this Last, § 72. 7 : 15. The original § 5 embraced the present §§ 8, 9, 10,* 11, and 12. 7:17. Statements laughed at for years before thej^ are examined or believed. Compare Joseph Salyards, Idothea, I, 776: — “We burn the martyr, then adopt the creed.” 7 : 24. Intrinsic. Not in the original. 7:26. “Practical.” Originally used, but not quoted. 7 : 28. Modern school of economists. Reference to J. Stuart Mill, his forebears and followers in economics. David Ricardo (1772-1823) was not in sympathy with the working classes. Mill (1806-1873), in his doctrines concern- ing the experiences of the soul of man, did not please Ruskin. NOTES 273 It is interesting to trace the influence of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1766) in the works of Ricardo, Mill, and Ruskin. Read Ruskin’s ‘^Ad Valorem,” the fourth and last essay in Unto this Last. See also Mrs. Mynell, John Ruskin, New York, 1900, p. 150 ff. 7:33. Labor. Originally labors.’’ 8 : 2. Heads of the following lectures. Note in this para- graph the terms : — Operatives Merchants Soldiers Manufacture Selling Killing Craftsmen Salesmen Swordsmen ^ out of which he evolves his simple titles : — Work Traffic War 8:10. Chiefly desired. Originally followed by: (as I have just said).” 8 : 22. Face the difficulty. Originally followed by : just spoken of.” 8 : 27. Then. Not in original. 8 : 30. “ What you say,’’ etc. Not originally included with quotation marks. 8 : 31. Unbelievers. Un- not originally italicized. 8:34. Shake off the dust. Matt, x, 14; Mark vi, 11; but Ruskin probably has in mind Luke ix, 5; Acts xiii, 51. 9:1. I had got to say. Improve this expression. 9 : 3. Intractable question. Originally : “ Intractable part of the subject.” 9 : 14. Property . . . invisible. Luke xvii, 20 : ‘^The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” 9 : 21. More blessed, etc. Allusion to Acts xx, 35. 9:28. Of first forward youth. Originally: ‘^of my first forward youth.” T 274 NOTES 9:29. To believe anything. Originally: “of what, in such matters 1 thought myself.’^ 9 : 31. I take for the time his creed. Possibly suggested by 1 Cor. ix, 22. 10:4. Forty years. See Prceterita, pp. 1, 2, 52-58. When this lecture was written (1866), Ruskin was only about forty-five; but his statement is not very wide of the mark. 10 : 8. Fetish. Also fetich. A material substance used as a charm by certain African tribes, as the rabbit^s foot among uneducated American negroes. — Talisman. A magi- cal image, usually engraved on stone or metal. See Spenser^s Faerie Queene, Canto I, stanza 2, line 5. 10 : 17. Life c . . meat . . . body . . . raiment. Matt. vi, 25; Luke xii, 23. 10:18. Without being accused of fanaticism. Originally : “without accusation or fanaticism.” 10:21. After all these things. Matt, vi, 52, Section 13. § 6 of the original. 11 : 7. All things ended in order for his sleep, or left in order for his awakening. Originall}^ : “all things in order for his sleep, or in readiness for his awakening.” When Hezekiah was “sick unto death . . . Isaiah, the prophet, . . . said unto him . . . Set thine house in order.” — Is. xxxviii, 1; 2 Kings xx, 1. Section 14. § 7 of the original. 11:10. End. Originally: “put.” 11 : 14. Rooms in their Falhens house . . . mansions. John xiv, 2 : “In my Father's house are many man- sions.” 11 : 16. Live at court. Originally : “Live at Court.” 11 : 18. “Desire to depart, and be with Christ.” Phil, i, 23 : . . dcsir(‘ to depart, and to be with (4irist.” T NOTES 275 11 : 27. Drunkard. Is. xxii, 13 : . . eating flesh and drinking wine : let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die/^ 11 : 29. Device in the grave. Eccl. ix, 10 : . there is no . . . device, ... in the grave, whither thou goest.” 12 : 8. What a man soweth that shall he also reap.^^ Gal. vi, 7 : Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.^^ 12 : 8. Pestilence . . . darkness. Ps. xci, 6 : . the pestilence that walketh in darkness.’^ Section 15. The eighth and final paragraph of the original Preface embraced the fifteenth and sixteenth paragraphs of this Introduction. 12 : 10. Offence. Possibly an allusion to Rom. xiv, 20, 21. 12:13. Which. Or ^Hhat’’? 12 : 16. Hill of Mars. Acts xvii, 22 : Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill ’’ and addressed the men of Athens. — Eumenides. The Furies (Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megara), who punished with stinging remorse those who had escaped or defied public justice. 12 : 17. Might not a preacher . . . say to them. In place of this, Ruskin said, originally : I would fain, if I might offencelessly, have spoken to them as if none others heard; and have said thus:’' Does the change strengthen the appeal? 12 : 29. Fruit of righteousness. Compare 2 Cor. ix, 10. 12 : 31. Iniquity . . . remembered no more. Heh. viii, 12 : Their iniquities will I remember no more.” 13 : 1. You. Originally not italicized. 13 : 4. Before the moth. Easier than you can crush the moth. 276 NOTES 13 : 6. Fails for lack of food. See Ps. xxxiv, 10; Lam. ii, 11 12. ^ ‘^Sucking children in the street do die. When they had cried unto their mothers, ‘ Where Shall we find bread and drink?’ they fainted there.” — Donne, The Lamentations, etc., 132-134. 13 : 7. Whisper . . . dust. Possibly suggested by Is. xxix, 4. 13 : 9. Lie down ... in the dust. See Job xx, 11. — Worms cover you. Job vii, 5. 13 : 17. More prompt . . . more niggardly. Originally : ‘'readier . . . and niggardly.” 13 : 21. Well understanding your act. Originally: “well understood.” 13 : 23. When brought into these curt limits. Originally: “in these curt limits.” — Curt. Latin curtus, short, very brief. What additional meaning has this word? 13 : 24. Fever fit. “ After lifers fitful fever he sleeps well.” — Macbeth, III, ii, 23. 13 : 30. Are health and heaven to come? Then. Not in the original. 13 : 32. Crowns. First suggestion of the title of the three essays, or lectures. 13 : 33. Though. Not in the original. 14 : 2. No. Not italicized in the original. 14 ; 3. But your Palace-inheritance. Not in original. 14:7. Rest which remaineth. Heb. iv, 9: “There re- maineth therefore a rest for the people of God.” 14 : 12. The heathen, in their saddest hours, thought not so. Originally : “The heathen, to whose creed you have returned, thought not so.” Suggest reasons for the change. 14 : 13. Crown. Second suggestion of title. NOTES 277 14 : 16. [Crown of] Wild Olive. Title complete, but not fully explained. 14 : 18. It should have been of gold. See title-page. 14 : 23. [Crown of] Wild Olive, mark you . . . gray leaf and thornset stem; . . . sharp embroidery. Title com- plete and explained. See The Queen of the Air, § 38: Hercules plants the wild olive, for its shade, on the course of Olympia, and it thenceforward gives the Olympic crown of consummate honor and rest.^^ 14 : Note. /xeXiroea-o-a, 7* epcKcv. Pindar, Olymp., I, 157-159: — “6 vlkCjv de XoiTTbp ^Lotop fJ.e\LT6eS2 28 : 25. Ten years without it. See “Traffic/’ paragraph 75. 28 : 31. Clergyman’s object. Compare Chaucer’s ‘‘povre Persoun/’ The Prologue, lines 477-529. 28 : 33. Doctors . . . like fees. Compare Chaucer’s “ Doc- tour of Phisik/’ The Prologue, 411-444. 29 : 14. You cannot serve two masters. Matt, vi, 24; Luke XV?; 13. 29 : 20. Least erected fiend that fell. ” Evidently Ruskin quotes from memory. ^‘Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From heaven.” — Milton, Paradise Lost, I, 679-680. 29 : 24. King of Kings. Rev. xix, 16 : ‘L\nd he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, AND Lord of Lords.” 29 : 33. Judas bargain. Matt, xxvi, 14, 15; Mark xiv, 10, 11; Luke xxii, 3, 4, 5; John xviii, 2. Only Matthew mentions the thirty pieces of silver. 30 : 1. Judas . . . Iscariot. Judas, Graecized form of Judah, means praise. Iscariot, a man of Kerioth {Josh, xv, 25). Judas Iscariot is mentioned in Matt, x, 4; xxvi, 14; Mark iii, 19; xiv, 10; Luke vi, 16; xxii, 3 : John vi, 71; xiii, 26. 30 : 5. He never thought He would be killed. 1866 : “ He didn’t want Him to be killed.” 30 : 13. Helpless to understand Christ. 1866 : “He didn’t understand Christ.” 30 : 17. Christ would come out of it well enough. See W. W. Story, A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem, pp. 112- 114. 30 : 31. Carrying the bag. John xii, 6. NOTES 283 31 : 5. Cunningest. Riiskin often forms such superlatives by adding -c.s*b instead of using most. See § 39 : ‘^ad- visablest/^ profitablest/^ 31 : 15. Bags and crags have just the same result on rags. Note the epigrammatic nature of this sentence. Would effect on’’ be better than ‘^result on”? 31 : 18. One great principle. Originally followed by: “I have to assert.” — You will find it unfailing. 1866: ''You will find it quite undisputably true.” Is the change for the better? Why? 32 : 4. Value and use. Originally followed by : "This is the true law of life.” 32 : 29. Bishop Colenso. John William Colenso (1814- 1883), Bishop of Natal, South Africa. Ruskin refers to Colenso’s The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined. 32 : 31. Primary orders. This paragraph formerly ended as follows : "... primary orders; and as if, for most of the rich men of England at this moment, it were indeed to be desired, as the best thing at least for them, that the Bible should not be true, since against them these words are written in it : 'The rust of your gold and silver shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh, as it were fire ’ [Jas. V, 3].” 32 : 34. Hand . . . head. A modified designation of "lower class,” and "upper class.” 33 : 11. Dignity of humanity. Originally there followed this sentence : "That is a grand old proverb of Sancho Panza’s, ' Fine words butter no parsnips,’ and I can tell you that, all over England just now, you workmen are buy- ing a great deal too much butter at that dairy.” By "dairy,” Ruskin means the English Parliament. See para- graphs 41, 42. Sancho Panza is the counterpart of the 284 NOTES hero in Cervantes’s Don Quixote. Sancho means spindle* shanks, and Panza means paunch. 33 : 15. Collier’s helm. The helm of a vessel engaged in the coal trade. — Lee-shore. The shore on the lee side of a vessel. See lee and windward. 33 : 20. Reading books, classing butterflies, painting pictures. Is there nothing else a gentleman can do? 33 : 28. The hand’s the ignoble? Do you agree with this? 33 : 31. ‘^In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread.” Gen. iii. 19 : In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Note the difference in the order of the words. Is there a difference in the meaning? 34 : 9. Blessed are the dead . . . they rest from their labors.” Rev. xiv, 13 : ‘^They rest,” should be, ‘Hhey may rest.” May not the head-ledoorer hope for a holiday, be blessed,” and rest from his labors? 34:15. Laborious friends. 1866: '^working friends.” See § 42. 34 : 16. Must. Originally not italicized. 34 : 18. Doing. Being done. Compare : The house is building. 34:23. Soft work. Would not ^^easy work” sound better? ‘^Soft work” is at least suggestive of the slang phrase, “A soft snap.” 34 : 25. Because we cannot help ourselves. Compare Johnson’s Rasselas, Chapter XVI, next to the last paragraph. 34 : 31. Disorderly — ordered. Scrambling — soldierly; doggish — human. Note the contrasts. 34 : 32. A lawful or loyal ” way. 1866 : ‘‘ a lawful way.” 34 : 33. The labor that kills — the labor of war. The sword. 35 : 2. The labor that feeds. The plough. NOTES 285 35 : 10. Gentleman . . . justice. Is Ruskin consistent? Does he not here admit that the rough hand-worker, who does justice to the gentle head-worker, is a “ gentleman and that the gentle head-worker, who is unjust to the rough hand-worker, is a “rough man'^? 35 : 14. But they never . . . ever ask. Is this “ ever a slip, or does it give emphasis? “ But they never ever ask,^^ is suggestive of Riley’s Hoosier verse. 35 : 19. “Do justice and judgment.” Gen. xviii, 19. Also mentioned in 2 Sam. viii, 15; 1 Chron. xviii, 14; Jer. xxiii, 5; Ps. Ixxxix, 14. “Judgment and justice” : Is. ix, 7. “Do justice” : Ps. Ixxxii, 3; Is. Ivi, 1. “Execute justice” : Jer. xxiii, 5. 35:21. Sing psalms. Ps. xlvii, 1; Ixvi, 1; Ixxxi, 1; xcii, 1; xcv, 1; xcvi, 1; xcvii, 1; xcviii, 1; c, 1; cv, 2, etc. 35 : 22. Pray when you need. Matt, vi, 8, 32; Luke xii, 30; Phil, iv, 19; Heb. iv, 16. 35 : 29. He likes to hear. Compare Matt, vii, 11; Luke xi, 13. 36 : 2. It doesn’t call that serving its father. But what does the father call it? 36:4. Most probably it is nothing. Fie, Fie, Ruskin! Csesar had some fear of Cassius, because “ he loves no plays . . he hears no music.” {Julius Caesar, I, ii, 203-204.) Even the conspirator, Brutus, loved “a strain or two” of a “sleepy tune,” and was gentle to the boy. (IV, iii, 255- 274.) 36:8. Performed. Note the punning explanation. — at so-and-so o’clock. 1866: “at eleven o’clock.” Suggest a reason for the change. 36 : 13. Charity. Does Ruskin mean almsgiving, or love? Note the word “love” in the paragraph below. 2m 2^0TES 36 : 23. Don’t love him. Would do not love him/’ be stronger? 36 : 27. Got. If the sense of '^got^’ may not be spared, suggest a better word. — Begins at home. Compare the saying : ‘^Charity begins at home.” 36 : 32. Little children . . . little boots . . . little feath- ers. Why the repetition of ‘Mittle”? 37 : 5. Crossing-sweeper. One who sweeps the foot- paths, at the intersection of streets, for small pay, and the privilege of begging at that place. 37 :7. You will give . . . good you are. 1866: ‘^we ... we are.” 37 : 11. God , . . for them. This sentence is not in the original. 37 : 13. Justice . . . blind. How is Justice usually pic- tured? Why? 37 : 25. How can she, etc. . . . You don’t, because, etc. . . . Position in which, etc. Should Ruskin have used quotation marks? 38 : 4. That’s modern Christianity. Is it? Is Ruskin pessimistic? 38 : 6. We shall never know . . . undone. 1866 : ^^How do you know what you have done, or are doing?” There are some unimportant changes in the next sentence. 38 : 23. People . . . pay . . . for being amused or cheated. Southey tells the story, in his Letters of Espriella, that English people paid an admission fee to see a shaved monkey, exhibited as a fairy. 38 : 24. Talker. Member of Parliament. See § 42. 38 : 28. Homer . . . Iliad. Homer, the greatest epic poet the world has known. It is believed that he was an Asiatic Greek, native of Smyrna. He is accredited with the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey, in celebrat>'*»j NOTES 287 3f the Trojan War. Homer is supposed to have lived about 850 B.c.j 400 years before the time of Flerodotus the his- torian. The Iliad and the Odyssey are thought to be of ballad origin. — Dante . . . Paradise. Alighieri Dante (Durante), 1265-1321, the greatest of Italian poets, author of Divina Commedia: ^Hnferno^’; Purgatorio’’; Para- diso.^’ Among the later translations, in English, are those by Longfellow (1867, blank verse) and Charles Eliot Norton (Revised edition, 1902, prose). 38 : 30. Telescope. The telescope was probably invented by Hans Leppershey; but Ruskin refers to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642. Galileo was born the day Michelangelo died, and died the day Isaac Newton was born. 38 : 32. Microscope. The question as to who invented the microscope seems to be unanswered. Ruskin possibly refers to Zacharias Jansen. He cannot mean the Isle of Wight man, Robert Hooke, who had plenty of money when he died. 39 : 2. Done for nothing. Is this true of our day? — Baruch. Jer. xxxvi, 32. Baruch wrote also Jeremiah’s first roll for him. See same chapter, verse 4. 39 : 4. St. Stephen. Acts vii, 58. 39 : 6. World-father. What is meant by this? For what two reasons can it not mean God? 39 : 11. Not bread; a stone. Matt, vii, 10; Luke xi, 11. 39 : 12. To keep you quiet. Surely Ruskin offers this pun to please his ‘Gower class.” Compare the puns and the punners in the opening scene of Julius Ccesar. 39 : 13. And tell to future ages, etc. Not in the original. Should not “tell” have “to” before it? 39 : 17. Better payment. Between this and “we shall pay,” there was (1866), “someday, assuredly, more pence will be paid to Peter the Fisherman, and less to Peter the Pope.” 288 NOTES 40 : 1. Children playing in the [streets]. Zech. viii, 5 : And the streets of the city [Jerusalem] shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.^^ 40 : 6. Laborious friends. 1866 : ‘^working friends.^' See § 37. 40 : 9. Wise . . . and foolish work. It is evident that ^^wise’^ and foolish'^ were suggested by the wise and fool- ish builders (Matt, vii, 24, 26), since all the Biblical refer- ences in the following paragraph (1866, but here omitted), except the one on wages, are to this book and chapter. The omitted paragraph : — Well, wise work is, briefly, work with God. Foolish work is work against God. And work done with God, which he will help, may be briefly described as ^ Putting in Order ^ — ■ that is, enforcing God^s law of order, spiritual and material, over men and things. The first thing you have to do, essen- tially; the real ^good work^ is, with respect to men, to en- force justice, and with respect to things, to enforce tidiness, and fruitfulness. And against these two great human deeds [needs?], justice and order, there are perpetually two great demons contending, — the devil of iniquity, or inequity, and the devil of disorder, or of death; for death is only consum- mation of disorder. You have to fight these two fiends daily. So far as you don’t fight against the fiend of iniquit}^, you work for him. You ^work iniquity’ [Matt, vii, 23], and judgment upon you, for all your ^ Lord, Lord’s’ [Matt, vii, 21, 22] will be 'Depart from me, ye that work iniquity, [Matt, vii, 23]. And so far as you do not resist the fiend of disorder, you work disorder, and you yourself do the work of Death, which is sin, and has for its wages. Death himself [ Rom. vi, 23].” 40 : 18. Fair-play . . . foul-play. No italics in the orig- inal. NOTES 289 40 : 19. Never. 1866 ; ‘^ever.^^ What is the difference? 40 : 20. And bitterer. Not in the original. 40 : 21. Fair-work . . . foul-work. No italics in the original. 40 : 26. Loads dice. Secretly inserts lead to make the dice turn in a desired way. 40 : 27. Loads scales. Would putting lead (usually shot) in the weight-holder of scales be loading or unloading? 40:29. What difference does it make? 1866:^' What does it matter? 40 : 31. Unless that flaw ... of the two. 1866 : ‘‘The fault in the fabric is incomparably the worst of the two.'' 41 : 2. To us who help you. Ruskin had a way of talking down to his audience. 41 : 9. Right hand . . . wrong hand. Is this two puns, or one? 41 : 22. Exert. 1866 : “use." 41:25. And found. 1866 : “and you found." Why the change? 41 : 29. Cream. 1866 : “milk." 42 : 2. Golden bowl at the fountain. EccL xii, 6. See also Poe's Lenore: — “Ah, broken is the golden bowl ! the spirit flown forever !" 42:3. Life. 1866 :“ blood." 42 : 10. The whistling bullets. 1866 : “ the little whistling bullets." 42:12. Messages to many a man. 1866 : “messages from us to many a man." 42 : 15. Shorten his life. Compare Julius Coesar, III i, 101, 102. 42 : 19. Strength. Not in the original. 42 : 24. Hold closer. What does Ruskin mean? u 290 N^OTEb 42 : 31. Thy kingdom come. Matt, vi, 10. ^‘The Lord's Prayer.'' 42 : 33. God's name in vain. Ex. xx, 7. The reference is to the third of the Ten Commandments. 43 : 5. Insult. 1866 : ''mock." 43 : 6. With the reed. Matt, xxvii, 30. 43 : 16. The kingdom of God, etc. Luke xvii, 20, 21. 43 : 21. Joy in the Holy Ghost. Rom. xiv, 17. 43:24. There's one curious condition. 1866 : "there's just one condition." 43 : 26. Whosoever will not . . , shall not enter therein. Mark x, 15 : " Whosoever shall not, etc." 43 : 28. Of such is the kingdom of heaven. Matt, xix, 14; Mark x, 14; Luke xviii, 16. Ruskin does not quote exactly either passage. There are no italics, and no foot- note, in the original. On the statement made in the foot- note, see the some twenty-five Biblical references and allu- sions in the last two paragraphs of this lecture — eighteen of them in the last. 44 : 3. Or the earth — when it gets to be like heaven. Not in the original. 44 : 4. But that's not so. 1866, followed by the sentence : " There will be children there, but the hoary head is the crown [" if it be found in the way of righteousness," Prov. xvi, 31]." 44 : 5. Length of days, etc. Prov. hi, 2. — Still less to live. Not in the original. — Babyhood. Between this, and the closing sentence of the present paragraph, the original had : " Children die but for their parents' sins [Does this agree with John ix, 1-3?]; God means them to live, but he can't let them always [always let them?]; then they have their earlier place in heaven: and the little child of David, vainly prayed for [2 Sam. xii, 15-23. First-born and unnamed child of David and Bath-sheba. The next child NOTE^ 291 of this union was Solomon.]; the little child of Jeroboam, killed by its mother's step on its own threshold [1 Kings xiv, 1, 17. This child was Abijah, brother of King Nadab.j; — they will be there. But weary old David [Seventh son of Jesse {1 Chron. ii, 15); seven years King over Judah, in He- bron; thirty-three years King of Israel, in Jerusalem (1 Kings ii, 11)], and weary old Barzillai [The Gileadite of Rogelim {2 Sam. xvii, 27; xix, 31-39; 1 Kings ii, 7)], having learned children's lessons at last, will be there too : and the one question for us ail, young or old, is, how we have learned our child's lesson?" Should this sentence be followed by an interrogation point? 44 : 20. Plato. A Greek philosopher, 427-347 b.c. Ruskin seems to be referring to the Republic of Plato, Book I, Chapters XVIII, XIX ff. He seems, furthermore, to have misunderstood Plato. 45 : 4. Possible to man. In the original there follows, in this paragraph : “ Among all the nations it is only when this faith is attained by them that they become great : the Jew, the Greek, and the Mohametan, agree at least in testifying to this. It was a deed of this absolute trust which made Abraham the father of the faithful [Gen. xv, 6; xvii, 3] ; it was the declaration of the power of God as captain over all men, and the acceptance of a leader appointed by Him as commander of the faithful, which laid the foundation of whatever national power yet exists in the East; and the deed of the Greeks, which has become the type of unselfish and noble soldiership to all lands, and to all times, was com- memorated, on the tomb of those who gave their lives to do it, in the most pathetic, so far as I know, or can feel, of all human utterances : ^Oh, stranger, go and tell our people [the Lacedaemonians] that we are lying here, having obeyed their words.'" See Hiller's Anthologia Lyrica, Simonides (of Ceos), No. 78. Also Myers's Ancient History, p. 196. 292 nOTES 45 : 6. Loving. 1866 . Loving and Generous/’ 45:12. Humble. 1866 : ‘Gittle.” 45 : 15. Careful lor nothing. Compare Phil. iv. 6. 45 : 18. No thought for the morrow. Reference to Matt vi, 34. 45 : 25. Rejoiceth as a strong man. Ps. xix, 5. “ With a ray here and a flash there, And a shower of jewels everywhere.” Note the rhythm and the rime. 46 : 1. Except ye be converted. Matt, xviii, 3. 46 : 7. Conventicle. A small and, formerly, secret, as- sembly for religious worship. Does Ruskin use the word opprobriously, or merely to indicate that the worshippers were Nonconformists or Dissenters? 46 : 8. Backsliding. “ Falling from grace,” — sliding back into sinful life. Backsliding is a term used among the Wesleyan Methodists, and their followers (‘‘Ranters,” Wordsworth quotes them as being called; see the Fenwdck note on “ Peter Bell,” Dowden’s Wordsworth, Vol. II, p. 334) wRo do not believe in the doctrine : “ Once in grace, always in grace.” 46 : 14. Medicine for your healing. See Mai. iv, 2; Rev. xxii, 2. 46 : 15. True wisdom for your teaching. Compare Jas. in, 17. 46 : 18. The poison of asps. Rom. iii, 13. — The sucking child shall play by the hole of the asp. Is. xi, 8 : “ The suck- ing child shall play on the hole of the asp.” 46 : 19. Their eyes are privily set. Ps. x, 8. 46 : 22. The weaned child shall lay his hand, etc. Is. xi, 8 : “The w^eaned child shall put his hand, etc.” 46 : 25. Their feet are swift to shed blood, etc. This is a combination of Rom. iii, 15 and Ps. xvii, 11, 12. NOTES 293 46 : 28. The wolf shall lie down with the lamb A garbled paraphrase, and a quotation from Is. xi, 6. 46 : 31. Lord of heaven and earth. Matt, xi, 25; Luke X, 21. 46 : 33. He has hidden these things. Matt, xi, 25; Luke X, 21. Why should Ruskin have left off the quotation marks? 47 : 2. Principalities and powers. See Rom. viii, 38; Eph. vi, 12. — As far as the east, etc. Ps. chi, 12. ‘^Transgressions removed,’^ not “sins set from’^ (King Jameses version). 47 : 4. The Sun . . , rejoices. Ps. xix, 5. 47 : 6. Sun . , . red . . . with blood. Suggested by the moon being turned to blood. Acts ii, 20; or by the moon be- coming as blood. Rev. vi, 12. See also Rev. viii, 8. 47:8. Early and latter rain. “ Former and latter rain,” Jer. V, 24; Joel hi, 23. “Latter and former,” Hos. vi, 3. “First and latter,” Deut. xi, 14. “Latter,” Job xxix, 23; Zech. x, 1. “The former rain in Judea was at the beginning of the civil year, about September or October; the latter rain was in Abib, or March.” (Cruden.) — Red rain. Com- pare Ps. xi, 6; Rev. viii, 7. Ruskin’s thought is more prob- ably suggested by the latter. 47 : 14. Out of the mouths, etc. Ps. viii, 2. LECTURE II Traffic This lecture was delivered 1864; published 1866. The reference, R. to N., in these notes, is to Letters of John Ruskin to Charles Eliot Norton, Boston, 1905, 2 vols. 48 : Title. Traffic. See Introduction, § 9. 294 NOTES 48 ; 3. Exchange. A place wliere mercantile or pro- le^sional men meet at stated times to transact business. 49 : 1. Conditions. 1866 : ‘^circumstances.'’ 49 : 11. Architectural man-milliner, etc. This playful- ness comes in well, as a relief to the tension that must have been caused by his blunt beginning. 49 : 18. All good architecture. Note this partial defi- nition, and the comment. 49:26. But we need no sermons, etc. 1866: “but preach no sermons to us.” 49 : 32. Tell me what you like, and 111 tell you what you are. A commonplace thought so briefly and beautifully expressed as to be worthy of memorizing. Compare the aphorism : “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Prov. xxiii, 7. 50 : 3. Quartern. The fourth of a pint; a gill. 50 : 11. A shy at the sparrows. Shy, to fling or throw stones sidewise with a jerk. See next paragraph. 50 : 12. Pitch farthing. A game played by pitching farthings to see who can put the coin nearer, or nearest, to a line. A farthing, a copper coin the fourth of a penny- in value; equal to half a cent in United States currency. 50:29. Thinking of the bottle. 1866: “thirsting for the bottle.” 51 : 4. Hunger and thirst after justice. Matt, v, 6 : “ Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after right- eousness, etc.” 51 : 8. Rightly set liking. Fixed, adjusted, established appreciation. 51 : 12. Teniers. David Teniers, the Elder (1582- 1649), and his son David Teniers, the Younger (1610- 1690), were both Flemish artists, of Antwerp. There was a thiid David Teniers, an artist of some note, but he died NOTES 295 before attaining the rank of either his father, or his grand- father. Ruskin’s reference may be to Teniers, the Elder, as the subjects of his pencil are generally public-houses, smoking-rooms, rustic games, and the like, done in vividly realistic manner. Teniers, the Younger, was a more prolific painter than his father, and England is said to be specially rich in specimens of his work; but his attention was more upon outdoor scenes, skies, trees, etc. See Modern Painters, Part 1, Section I. 51 : 20. Titian. Tiziano Vecellio, or Vecelli, 1477-1576, was head of the Venetian school of painters, and was him- self so great as to be classed with Raphael, Michelangelo, and. Leonardo da Vinci. He was personally acquainted with the poet Ariosto, and painted his portrait. At, or about, the age of ninety-nine, Aug. 27, 1576, Titian died of the plague in Venice. Modern Painters, Vol. V (1860) is largely a matter of praise of the leaf-drawing of Titian and Holbein. Titian also receives high praise in The Two Paths (1859). — Turner. Joseph Mallard William Turner, 1775-1851, the greatest of British landscape painters. Ruskin was his intimate friend for ten years, wrote De- fence of Turner, 1836, and planned Modern Painters with a view to teaching appreciation of Turner’s work. 51 : 24. Delight in fine art. 1866 : ‘'delight in art.” 52:11. Costermonger. An apple-seller; a huckster. See costard, in any good dictionary. — Newgate Calendar. A local, current almanac, containing weather forecasts, jokes, and receipts. 52 : 12. Pop goes the Weasel. The refrain of a foolish song, far removed from the classical in style or treat- ment. 52:13. Dante. See note on “Work,” J 41. Also R. to \ Vol. II, p. 130. — Beethoven. Ludwig van Bve- 296 NOTES thoven, a world-famous composer of music; born in Bonn, 1770; died in Vienna, 1827. 52 : 14. I wish you joy. Compare § 77. What does Ruskin mean by this? 52 : 28. Cast and hammer iron. To cast iron — also called puddling — means to run the melted ore into sand moulds; to hammer iron, to hammer or roll it into sheets. 52 : 30. Infernos. The openings at the base of the fur- nace, from which the white-hot iron pours into the sand- trench leading to the moulds. Inferno is the Italian for hell. 53 : 2. Worlds that roll or shine. Compare Addison's Hymn, beginning : — *‘The spacious firmament on high," and containing the lines: — ^^What though in solemn silence all Move round the dark terrestrial ball? ^ ^ Forever singing as they shine, ' The hand that made us is divine.' " 53 : 7. Next neighboring nation. France. 53 : 8. Mail. See chain mail; coat of mail. 53 : 17. They carved at the meal With gloves of steel, And they drank the red wine through the hehnet barr'd." — • Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I, stanza 4 Compare Scott, On the Massacre of Glencoe, lines 25-26: — *‘The hand that mingled in the meal. At midnight drew the felon steel.'* NOTES 297 53 : 20. Iron armor. Armor plates ; plates of metal for covering ships. These plates are now made of steel. The first armor-plated steam frigate in Great Britain was launched, 1860, four years before this lecture was delivered. See London Times, Dec. 29, 1860. 53 : 23. Ludicrous. Producing laughter without scorn or contempt. From Indus, play. Compare pre-lude, inter-lude, post-lude. — Melancholy. Gloomy; literally : melan = black, cholly = bile. Compare Melancthon = black earth. 53 : 31. Fresco. Painting on plaster; originally, fresh painting on plaster. Italian fresco, fresh; pan fresco, fresh bread. What is the origin of our word frisky? 54 : 1. Damask curtains. Curtains with flowers and rich designs, originally from Damascus. 54 : 11. Spring guns. A spring gun is a gun so arranged that when an intruder comes in contact with a string or wire attached to the trigger, the gun fires in the direction of the disturbance. 54 : 14. Fifteen millions a year. What would Ruskin think now? France, 1907, spent $253,000,000 in her ‘Hraps,^^ — Army and Navy; the United States of America, 1908, $207,000,000. England, 1909, is spending $308- 800,000. 54 : 18. Bedlam. A place for the insane; a madhouse. Compare Bethlehem. Ruskin, who was not in sympathy with either side in the Civil War, wrote to Professor Charles Eliot Norton, 6th August, 1864, ‘L . . you are living peaceably in Bedlam.” R. to N., Vol. II, p. 146. 54 : 19. Pantomime. Representing in mute actions ; imitating without words. 54 : 22. Vermilion. A brilliant scarlet pigment com- posed of the sulphide of mercury, HgS. The best ver- 298 NOTES iiiilion comes from China. See Matthew Arnold’s Sohrah and Rustum, lines 669-678. 54 : 26. Cricketing. Cricket, an English game, played with balls, bats, and wickets. See Work,’' § 23. 54 : 29. Armstrongs. Wrought iron, breech-loading can- non, named for the inventor, an Englishman, Sir William .Armstrong. 54 : 33. Not . . . neither. One of Ruskin’s peculiarities of idiom, suggestive of Shakespeare influence. See the Merchant of Venice, I, hi, 162, and elsewhere. — Black eagles. The flag of Austria. 55:2. Farther. Ruskin is careless in using ‘^farther” for ‘‘further.” What is the difference? 55 : 4. Soldiership of early Greece. Ruskin does not refer to “vice’’ of the early times of Ancient Greece, but to the period approximating 404-352 b.c. He may have reference to the “virtue” of the Heroic Age. 55 : 5. Sensuality of late Italy. The period of its Re- naissance architecture. See § 65. — The visionary religion of Tuscany. See article on “ Florence,” in an encyclopaedia. 55 : 6. Venice. A famous city of Italy, “The bride of the Adriatic,” built on a cluster of marshy islands on the north- west border of the Adriatic Sea. 55 : 8. I have done it elsewhere before now. “ Elsewhere” refers to other writings (see § 65), and to other places : he had been delivering lectures and addresses more than ten years. 55 : 14. Gothic. A style of architecture with pointed arches, steep roofs, large window- s, and high w\alls; the pre- vailing type of architecture in western Europe, 1200-1475. 55 : 17. Phenomenon. A strange, unusual occurrence. 55 : 19. Italian style. Road the articles on Grecian, Roman, and Italian Architecture, in any good encyclopiedia. NOTES 299 55 : 21. Cathedral of Antwerp. Antwerp is one of tlie chief commercial cities of Belgium. Her Cathedral is one of the noblest structures in the world. It is 500 feet long and 240 feet wide; the lofty spire is in keeping with its Gothic style of architecture. 55 : 22. Hotel de Ville at Brussels. Brussels is the capital of Belgium. The Hotel de Ville, located in the Grand Place, is a Gothic structure erected in the beginning of the fifteenth century. Its pyramid tower, 361 feet high, is sur- mounted by a statue of St. Michael, the patron saint of Belgium. — Inigo Jones . . . Italian Whitehall. Inigo Jones (about 1572-1651) studied architecture in France, Ger- many, and Italy, introducing the style of Palladio into England. Whitehall is considered his masterpiece. He was employed by James I. in arranging the scenery for Ben Jonson’s Masques. Jonson afterwards satirized Jones in his Bartholomew Fair. 55 : 23. Sir Christopher Wren ... St. PauPs. Sir Christopher Wren, 1632-1723, was England's most re- nowned architect. He designed many of the most notable buildings of London : the Royal Exchange, Custom House, Temple Bar, etc. The restored St. PauPs he designed on the model of St. Peter’s, at Rome. 55 : 32. Frankincense. A precious gum. See Ex. xxx, 34; Lev. ii, 1, 15; v, 11; Num. v, 15; 1 Chron. ix, 29; Neh. xiii, 5, 9. 56 : 11. ^^This is the house of God, etc.’’ Gen. xxviii, 17 : ^‘This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” The quotation is given more accurately later in this paragraph ; but there Ruskin puts in surely.” 56 : 14. A boy leaves his father’s house, etc. This is a paraphrase of Jacob’s journey to the home of his uncle. Laban. See Gen. xxviii. 300 NOTES 56 : 16. Wolds. Forests; woods; the word is now little used except in poetry. Compare the German, Wald. — To cross the wolds. 1866 : ‘'to cross the wolds of West- moreland.^^ — Carlisle. On a map trace , this imaginary English boy’s trip front Bradford to Carlisle, via Hawes and Brough. 56 : 18. Moors. Wild, waste land. See also morass and heath. The combination “wild moors is much used by English poets. 56 : 19. Boggy. Wet, spongy, mirey. Compare Peat Bogs of Ireland. 56 : 26. Angels of God are seen ascending. 1866 : “angels of God are ascending.” 56 : 33. Torrent-bitten. Poetic expression, meaning furrowed by the waters of many rains. Compare hunger- bitten, Job. xviii, 12. 57 : 4. Ready for it always. Reference to Matt, xxv, 13; Mark xiii, 33; Luke xii, 40. 57 : 6. You can guide the lightning. Reference to the lightning-rod, contrived by Benjamin Franklin as a result of his kite-flying experiment, 1752. George III. hated Franklin, but his faith in the discovery was such that he had lightning-rods put on Buckingham Palace and on the Royal Powder Magazines. 57 : 7. The going forth of the Spirit. Compare Matt. xxv, 13; Luke xii, 40; Ps. civ, 30; cxxxix, 7. 57 : 8. Lightning when it shines, etc. Reference to Matt, xxiv, 27. 57 : 12. Judaism. “The religious doctrines and rites of the Jews as enjoined in the laws of Moses.” — J. S. Mill. 57 : 13. Temples. Ruskin is holding to the original meaning of the word : a piece of land marked off; land NOTES 301 dedicated to a god. It is a fact, however, that the Jews in early times built a temple at Jerusalem for the worship of Jehovah. See the use of the word temple , 1 Cor. hi, 16. 67 : 14. Now, you know perfectly well they are not temples. 1866 : ‘^Now, you know, or ought to know, they are not temples. Which declaration is more polite? 57 : 15. Synagogues. Primarily synagogue does not mean gathering place, but to lead with; to bring to- gether; furthermore, whether applied to assembly, or build- ing, the word is, and was in Ruskin’s day, inseparably con- nected with the name of the Jews. 57 : 20. Churches. Why should we translate it churches^’? The Vulgate has synagogis. Ruskin is in- sisting on the KURIAKON, of the Greek. 57 : 24. Thou, when thou prayest, etc . Paraphrase of Matt, vi, 5, 6. 57 : 28. And your hills. Originally followed by : 1 am trying to show you.^’ 58 : 4. Lares . . . Lar. Mythological household gods; deceased ancestors supposed to protect the family. Com- pare Milton, Od. Nat., line 191. 68 : 12. The Seven Lamps. The Seven Lamps of Archi- tecture, 1848 or 1849. ‘‘These seven ‘lamps^ are Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, Obedience. The book . . . deals with the spirit in which the architect should work, and the national spirit which makes great national architecture possible.’^ — Herbert Bates. 58 : 16. The Stones of Venice. Vol. I, 1851; Vols. II, III, 1853. Read first The Seven Lamps. 58 : 20. Renaissance architecture. The style of architec- ture accompanying the revival of classical learning and art in Italy in the fifteenth century. 58 : 27. Honest Infidels. What is an honest infidel? 302 NOTES 58:30. Exchange business. ‘‘Business'^ appears twice in this sentence. Does the same spirit prompt both uses? 58 : 32. Farther. See note on § 61. 59 : 6. Ecclesiastical. Pertaining to the clergy. An ec- clesiastic is one called out to the service of the church. 59 : 15. Laity. Compare laymen, 59 : 16. Good architecture. No footnote in the origi- nal. 59 : 21. Baron’s castle. The home of the possessor of a fief who had feudal tenants under him. — Burgher’s street. The homes along the streets of a borough. 59:23. Warrior kings. 1866: '^soldier kings.” 59 : 26. Cloister. An enclosed place; a place of retire- ment for religious duties. See monastery, nunnery, con- vent, abbey, and priory. 59 : 27. Crusade. A military expedition undertaken for the purpose of recovering the Holy Land from the Mohammedans. What is the origin of the word crusade ? 60 : 2. The gist. The main point. 60 : 9. Hieroglyphic. Emblematic, or of mysterious significance. 60 : 18. Egypt. That large area of country, in north- eastern Africa, watered by the Nile. — Syria. A division of Asiatic Turkey, extending about 380 miles along the Mediterranean coast. — India. A [)art of the British Em- pire is the region south of the Himalaya Mountains, in- cluding Baluchistan on the west and part of Indo-China on the east. 60 : 20. Bosphorus. The Bosphoi-us connects the Black Sea and the S(‘a of Marmora, and forms part of the boundary between Euro})(‘ and .Asia. 60 : 22. Mediaeval. The .Middle .\ges. 60 : 24. Rennaisance. See note on § 65. NOTES ^50o 60 : 32. Stumbling block . . . Foolishness. Reference to 1 Cor. i, 23. 61 : 3. Athena. Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, war, and all the liberal arts. 61 : 8. ^gis. A shield or protective armor; literally, a goatskin. The shield of Jupiter which he gave to Minerva. 61 : 10. Gorgon. Gorgon, or Medusa, one of the three fabled sisters, Stheno, Eluryale, and Medusa, with snaky hair and frightful aspect, the sight of whom turned the beholder to stone. 61 : 19. Crowned with the olive spray. See the notes on § 16, Introduction. 61 : Note. Dorian Apollo-worship. The worship of Apollo, the god of the fine arts. — Athenian Virgin -worship. The worship of Minerva, in whose honor the Parthenon was erected. Read Lord Byron’s scathing satire. The Curse of Minerva, which bears on the removal of sculpture from the Parthenon to the British Museum some eighty years ago. — Dionysus. A name for Bacchus, the god of wine. — Ceres. Daughter of Saturn; the goddess of agriculture and fruit-culture. Ceres was the mother of Proserpine. — Hercules. The son of Jupiter and Alcrnena. Consult an encyclopaedia for the Twelve Labors of Hercules.” — Venus- worship. The worship of beauty. If a victim was offered on her altar, it was a white goat; usually incense alone was offered. — Muses. The nine daughters of Jupitsr and Mnemosyne : Calliope, Clio, Erato, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Euterpe, Polyhymnia, and Urania. — Aratra Pentelici. To the original note Ruskin adds : ‘'Compare Aratra Pentelici, § 200.” The six lectures included under this title were delivered at the University of Oxford in 1870-1872, six to eight years later than the date of “Traffic.” 304 NOTES 62 : 8. Remission of sins. See Matt, xxvi, 28; Mark i, 4; Luke i, 77; iii, 3; xxiv, 47; Acts ii, 38; x, 43. See also Heh. ix, 22; x, 18. 62 : 15. Melancholy. See note on § 59. 62 : 16. Aspiration. The act of ardently hoping or desiring. 62 : 28. Selling of absolution. This refers to the ^^Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Pair is et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen,’’ of the priest, who received pay for the forgiving of sins. 63 : 3. Compounding. Mixing simples, or ingredients, for a remedy. 63 : 6. Low Church or high. The High Church holds to apostolic succession, the divine right of episcopacy; the Low Church does not regard episcopacy as essential to the life of the church. In doctrine the Low Church is generally Calvinistic. There is also a Broad Church, the church » to which Charles Kingsley belonged. The members of this church are sometimes called ‘‘Liberals.^' 63 : 7. Tetzebs trading. Johann Tetzel, the Dominican monk whose frivolous traffic in indulgences caused Martin Luther to take the first, and many subsequent, steps tow- ards the Reformation. 63 : 10. Bals masques. Mask-balls. 63 : 11. Guillotines. A machine formerly used in France for beheading people. The name comes from Dr. Guillotin, a French physician, wffio, in the Constitutional Assembly, 1789, proposed to abolish decapitation with the axe or sword. The machine was originally called Louison,^^ or Louisette,” for the inventor. Dr. Antoine Louis. Read Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Book III, Chapter V. 63 : 13. Parthenon. Marble temple of the Greek god' dess Athene, or Pallas, on the Acropolis at Athens. NOTES 305 63 : 16. Lady of Salvation. The Virgin Mary. — Revival- ist. People of the Renaissance period. 63 : 17. Versailles. A city in France some ten miles from Paris. Ruskin has reference to the palace, the chief attraction of the place, which has a long and interesting history. — Vatican. The Pope’s palace and other buildings, — museum, library, chapel, etc., — on the western banks of the Tiber, in Rome. 63 : 23. Tithes of property. The Old English tithe, tenth. Tenths of income. — Sevenths of time. Sunday, or Sabbath. 63 : 31. Athena Agoraia. Ayopa, the forum, market- place, public square. Agorscan, an epithet of Jupiter and Mercury, as having statues or altars in the market-place. See § 77. — Athena. 1866 : “Minerva.” 64 : 2. Built to her. Built in her honor. See also the end of this paragraph. 64 : 5. To make it an Acropolis. 1866 : “taking it for an Acropolis.” Acropolis, the citadel of Athens. 64:6. Vaster than the walls of Babylon. 1866: “pro- longed masses of Acropolis.” 64 : 7. The temple of Ephesus. 1866 : “ Parthenon.” 64 : 9. Harbor piers. 1866 : “harbor-piers.” 64 : 25. Apollo. Son of Jupiter and Latona. His favor- ite residence was Mount Parnassus, where he presided over the Muses. 64 : 26. Bacchus. The god of wine, son of Jupiter and Semele. See Dionysus, § 70, note. 64 : 32. Direction. 1866 : “manners.” 65 : 3. Strong evidence of his dislike, etc. Matt, xxi, 12; Mark xi, 15; John ii, 14, 16. Is not Ruskin overzeal ous here? Surely the “Master of Christians” was not eviden- cing his dislike for proper mercantile transactions, conducted in the right place ; but for buying and selling in the temple X 306 NOTES of God, and especially for selling doves, intended for sacri- fice, at an exorbitant price, — such a price that the dove- pedlers were “thieves/^ 65 : 9. Quartering. See note, Introduction, § 6. « 65 : 13. Magnanimity. Here means dignity, elevation From magnus = great; animus = mind. 65 : 14. Feeding the hungry, etc. Compare Matt, xxv, 36, 38, 43, 44. 65 : 17. Anyhow! 1866 : “anyhow?^’ 65 : 19. Compulsory comfort. Originally followed by a semicolon, and with no footnote. 65 : 20. Occupying. Originally unitalicized. 65 : 24. ‘Xarry ” them! Originally followed by a period. 65 : 28. Witty. Wise; requiring knowledge. 65 : 30. The elements. Clouds, winds, etc. 66 : 3. Paid little . . . regularly. See § 32. 66 : 7. Knight-errant. Ruskin refers to the knight who travels for the purpose of exhibiting generosity. 66 : 8. Pedler. Pedlar, or peddler. 66 : 9. Ribands. Ribbons. 66 : 10. Crusades. See note on § 66. 66 : 16. Loaves and fishes. See Matt, xiv, 17, 19; xv, 36; Mark vi, 38, 41, 43; Luke ix, 13, 16. The footnote was not in the original ; note it carefully. 66 : 21. Best gunpowder. Note the grim humor. 66 : 24. Frieze. A sculptured or ornamented band of a building. ^‘Nor did there want Cornice or frieze with bossy sculptures graven.” — Paradise Lost, I, 715—716. 66 : 25. For the sticking of bills. Hill-boards, for adver- tising purposes. NOTES 307 67 : Note. Jerem. xvii, 11, etc. The Vulgate : Perdix fovit quoB peperit: fecit divitias, et non in judicio : in dimidio dierum suorum derelinquet eas, et in novissimo suo erit in- sipiens. 67:3. St. George’s Cross. 1866 : ‘Mier Cross.” The banner of the patron saint of England. The Union Jack” of the British Navy is a combination of the banners of St. George and St. Andrew. For the story of the legendary St. George, see Percy’s Reliques, Vol. II, pp. 160, 187-189. See Ruskin’s Queen of the Air, § 4. 67 : 4. Milanese boar . . . Gennesaret proper. Compare Gennesaret pigs, R. to N., Vol. I, p. 84. Ruskin’s allusion is to the herd of swine into which the devils were cast, Matt, viii, 82; Mark v, 13; Luke viii, 33. See also the Merchant of Venice, I, iii, 30-35. — Field. The whole sur- face of a shield, or as much of it as is not covered by the figures upon it. 67 : 5. In the best market. The original has no footnote. 67 : 7. Thirty slits. Since the number of days in the months varies from twenty-eight to thirty-one, this may be a sly hint that the members of the Exchange are not averse to the Judas bargain.” 67 : 17. Greek Goddess of Wisdom. Minerva; Pallas Athene. Section 78. 67 : 21. Agora Goddess. See note on § 72. 68:7. Gather gold. See Hawthorne’s ‘^Old Gather- gold,” in The Great Stone Face. 68 : 8. House-roofs [of gold]. Are not the domes of some important buildings now finished in pure gold? For ex- ample, the Congressional Library, Washington; and the Cathedral, Baltimore. 68 : 15. Olympus. A mountain 9000 feet high, on the coast of Thessaly, where the gods were supposed to I'eside. 308 NOTES — Pelion. A wooded mountain where the wars between the giants and the gods took place. 68 : 16. Ossa. A mountain of Thessaly which the giants piled on top of Pelion to enable them to attack the gods. Olympus upon Pelion would be so much taller than Ossa upon Pelion, as to make Ossa appear insignificant, — ‘Mike a wart.^’ {Hamlet, V, i, 306.) The phraseology of this question is suggestive of Biblical influence. Compare Job xxxviii, 31 : “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? 68 : 20. Whinstone. A provincial name, in England, for basaltic rock. Consult the dictionary for whin-dikes and whin-sills, 68 ; 21. Not . . . neither. See note on § 60. 68 : 27. Plutus. The blind, lame god of riches, son of Jason and Ceres. Why blind and lame? Is Ruskin taking the name of Plutus in vain? 69 : 2. Pallas. When Minerva destroyed the giant, Pallas, she was given his name. Pallas Athene is the Gre- cian goddess of wisdom. See § 77. — The Madonna. The mother of Christ. 69 : 8. Vital . . . deathful. What is the origin of the word “ vitaP^? 69 : 11. Last here. Original note : “‘Two Paths,’ p. 98.^^ 69 : 14. Undulating world. Highlands and lowlands. 69 : 20. Votaries. Those consecrated to the worship of the goddess. 69 : 22. Boudoir. An elegantly furnished private room. Literally, a place where one may be alone to pout. 69 : 28. The mill, etc. Ruskin, like Wordsworth, hated steam-engines and coal smoke. In letters to Professor Norton, Ruskin speaks of “ that infernal invention of steam’* NOTES 309 (Vol. I, p. 77); Dickens . . . a pure modernist — a leader of the steam-whistle party’’ (Vol. II, p. 5). 70 : 5. Seen from above. Seen by the employer, Ruskin means; but such conditions as he suggests would be ‘‘very pretty indeed,” seen from Higher Above. 70 : 6. Seen from below. Seen by the laborer, Ruskin means; but why “not as all so pretty” to from eight hun- dred to a thousand workers, who never suffer the tempta- tions or the evils of drink; who are well paid, for they “ never strike”; who have respectable clothes, and are in good health, for they “always go to church on Sunday”; whose children are properly trained, and probably educated, for they, parents and children, “always express themselves in respectful language” to each other and to their employers. “Not at all so pretty, seen from below.” If from very far below, — granted. 70 : 11. Lottery . . . blanks. Lottery, casting or draw- ing lots; a gambling scheme in which some tickets have numbers drawing prizes; others are blank. 70 ; 14. “They should take who have the power, and they should keep who can.” — Wordsworth, Roh Roy’s Grave, lines 39, 40. 70 : 25. Government . . . liberty. What is liberty? Does not the best government afford the largest liberty? Com- pare Russia and the United States of America. 71 : 5. Delicates. Delicacies. Compare the German, Delikatessen. 71 : 6. Solomon, etc. See 1 Kings vi. 71 : 25. Even good things have no abiding power — and shall these evil things persist in victorious evil ? 1866 : “ Do you think these phenomena are to stay always in their present power or aspect? ” 71 : 29. Parthenon. See notes on §§ 70, 72. NOTES .‘ilo 71 : 30. Priory. See note on Cloister, § 66. 71 : 33. Men may come, and men may go, etc. An adaptation from the refrain of Tennyson’s The Brook. 72:7. Such benevolence. 1866 : “it.” — I know that even all this wrong. 1866 : “ I know that many of you have done, and are every day doing, whatsoever you feel to be in your power; and that even all this wrong, etc.” Why this change? 72 : 12. To do his best . . . modern economist. 1866 : “to do his best, not noticing that this best is essentialb and centrally the best for himself, not for others. And all this has come of the spreading of that thrice accursed, thrice impious doctrine of the modern economist.” Consider this carefully, for the change from “thrice accursed, thrice im- pious doctrine,” to “plausible iniquity,” is no small stej). See Introduction, note, § 8. See also R. to N., Vol. I, pp. 230-233. 72 : 13. Do the best for yourself, etc. What is the “ Gol- den Rule”? What was David Harum’s golden rule, in a horse trade? 72 : 14. Our great Master said not so. Reference to Matt. xxiii, 11; Mark x, 44. 72 : 17. Pagans. Worshippers of false gods. 72 : 20. Plato. A celebrated philosopher and teacher of Athens, who died on his eighty-first birthday, about 348 B.c. He was a pupil of Socrates. See note on § 47. 72 : 28. They are at the close, etc. 1866 : “ It is at the close, etc.” Why the change? — Athens. Athenae, the capital of Attica, reached its greatest splendor in the time of Pericles, 460-429 b.c. 72 : 30. Genesis. Formation, or origination. 72 : 31. Atlantis. See Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis, the A nte- Deluvian World. NOTES 311 73:1. Sons of God . . . daughters of men. 8ee6Vn. vi,2. 73 : 11. All meekness of wisdom, etc. Oi iginally un- italicized. 73 : 16. Only their common love, etc. Originally un- italicized. 73 : 23. Prevalent mortality. The prevailing character- istics of the ‘daughters of inen.^^ 73 : 27. Blind hearts. Compare Milton^s ‘‘ Blind mouths/’ Lycidas, 119, and Ruskin’s comment, Sesame and Lilies, § 22. 74 : 5. Last words, etc. 1866 : ‘‘So ended are the last words.” Note the improvement : the present form refers to the whole quotation from Plato; the original referred to the dash at the end. — The rest is silence. Hamlet, V, ii, 368. 74 : 7. Cubits. A cubit is a measure of length, — the distance from the elbow to the end of the middle finger : Roman, 17.47 inches; Greek, 18.20; English, 18. 74 : 9. Plain of Dura. Dura Den, between Cupar and St. Andrews, in Fifeshire, Scotland. 74 : 10. Forbidden ... by our Master. The reference is to the second commandment, Ex. xx, 4. See also Mark x, 23, 24; Luke xviii, 24. 74 : 17. 'Hades. The nether world; the abode of evil sf:)irits, ruled over by Pluto (Latin), Hades (Greek). A synonym for hell (English), Hiille (German), sheol (He- brew). 74 : 19. Life good for all men. 1866 : “life for all men.” 74 : 23. Ways of . . . pleasantness . . . paths of peace. Prov. iii, 17. The note is not in the original. 74 : 24. Wealth into commonwealth. Is he still [miming? 74 : 30. Temples not made with hands . . , eternal. 2 Cor. V, 1. 312 NOTES LECTURE III War In Ruskin’s Notes on the Political Economy of Prussia, he says: “I am often accused of inconsistency; but believe myself defensible against the charge with respect to what I have said on nearly every subject except that of war. It is impossible for me to write consistently of war, for the group of facts I have gathered about it lead me to two precisely opposite conclusions. When I find this the case, in other matters, I am silent, till I can choose my conclusion : but, with respect to war, I am forced to speak, by the necessities of time; and forced to act, one way or another. The conviction on which I act is, that it causes an incalculable amount of avoidable human suffering, and that it ought to cease among Christian na- tions ; and if therefore any of my boy-friends desire to be soldiers, I try my utmost to bring them into what I conceive to be a better mind. But, on the other hand, I know cer- tainly that the most beautiful characters yet developed among men have been formed in w^ar ; — that all great na- tions have been warrior nations, and that the pnly kinds of peace which we are likely to get in the present age are ruinous alike to the intellect and the heart. *‘The third lecture ... [in Crown of Wild Olive] ad- dressed to young soldiers, had for its object to strengthen their trust in the virtue of their profession. It is inconsist- ent with itself, in its closing appeal to women, praying them to use their influence to bring wars to an end. . . . How far, in the future, it may be possible for men to gain the kingship without either fronting death, or inflicting it, seems to me not at present determinable. The historical NOTES 313 facts are that, broadly speaking, none but soldiers, or per- sons with a soldierly faculty, have ever yet shown themselves fit to be kings; and that no other men are so gentle, so just, and so clear-sighted. • Wordsworth’s character of the happy warrior [see Wordsworth’s poem entitled Character of the Happy Warrior] cannot be reached in the height of it but by a warrior; nay so much is it beyond common strength that I had supposed the entire meaning of it to be meta- phorical, until one of the best soliders in England himself read me the poem [Footnote : The late Sir Herbert Edwardes.], and taught me, what I might have known, had I enough watched his own life, that it was entirely literal. ...” That Ruskin thought deeply and seriously on the subject of war is clear to those familiar with his works. In Sesame and Lilies (Lecture I, § 47) he says : ‘'Have patience with me, while I read you a single sentence out of the only book [ Unto this Last] properly to be called a book, that I have yet written myself, the one that will stand (if anything stand) surest and. longest of all work of mine.” (Here follows two long sentences- — footnote to § 76 — on the subject of unjust wars supported by the wealth of capitalists.) In connection with this lecture on war, one should read also §§ 11, 17, 21, and 57 of Unto this Last. It would be well to reread, from the text in hand, §§ 9, 28, 32, 38, 45, 48, and 75; and to read, in advance, §§ 105, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, and 119. Note the felicitous opening of this lecture as compared with the first paragraph on "Traffic.’^ 75 : 17. Knightly example. The example of protecting the distressed, maintaining the right, and living a stainless life. 76 : 18. Few words. Men of great deeds are usually men of few words. We have this idea in some plain sayings 314 NOTES “Barking dogs never bite^'; “The emptier the wagon the louder it sounds.” 76 : 28. Tintoret. Jacopo Robusti (II Tintoretto or Tintoret) (1518-1594) was one of the greatest painters of the Venetian school, or of the world. His father was a dyer (Italian, Tintore); hence the son’s nickname, which means little dyer. 77 : 19. Samuel. As a religious judge, see 1 Sam. vii; viii, 1. 78 : 1. Lyre. A musical instrument from which we get the word lyric. 78 : 17. Modern. Xo footnote in the original. ' 78 : 23. A gift for fighting. Keats was a pugnacious schoolboy; but all boys who love a fight are not poets. 78 : 28. Paradoxical. Seemingly contradictory. 78 : 30. Born of Mars, etc. Romulus, twin brother of Remus. 79 : 4. Pads imponere morem. To enforce the habit or custom of peace. 79 : 12. Lombardy. The name is supposed to be from the Longohardi or Langohardi, a people of northern Ger- many, west of the Elbe, and afterwards in northern Italy. Lombardy was at one time the name of Italy. 79 : 14. Alps. Some sixteen groups of mountains, among which are the Swiss Alps, the Lombard Alps, the Tyrol and Venetian Alps. — Apennines. A range of mountains forming the backbone of the peninsula of Italy. A southern branch of the Alpine system. 79 : 19. Their king. X'o footnote in the original. 79 : 29. Philanthropist. From philos -f- anthropos: phil + anthropia: loving -}- man. 80 : 20. Muse of History. Clio, daughter of Jupiter and Mnemosyne. NOTES 315 80 : 2S. Expired in peace. In time of peace. 80 : 31. Dragon's teeth . . . men. These men sprang, armed, from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus. They were called Sparti (The Sown-Men). — Genseric or Genserich {cir. 406-477), king of the Vandals. Though a small, lame, mean man, he was a renowned warrior. — Suwarrow. Count Alexander Suwaroff (or Suwarrow), born in Finland, Nov. 25, 1729; died in St. Petersburg, May 18, 1800. A celebrated Russian field-marshal, of Swedish descent. He was specially noted for his cruelty. 81 : 1. Borders of Scotland. Between Scotland and England; the section of country that furnishes Scott, and other balladists and novelists, with many thrilling scenes and events. 81 : 3. Swiss with Austria. See articles on Austria and Switzerland, in history or cyclopaedia. 81 : 5. France under Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). First consul of the Republic, 1799-1804; Emperor, 1804-1814. 81 : 6. War in America. The Civil War, 1861-1865. 81 : 17. Out of such war. Originally : ‘'forth from such war." 81 : 27. Conscript . . . pressed sailor. A sailor enrolled, by compulsion, for naval service. 82 : 8. Calamity. The footnote is not in the original. 82 : 20. Laborious orders. Laborers. 82 : 21. Puppets, etc. Things to shoot at. 82 : 22. The footnote is not in the original. 82 : 25. Multitude of human pawns. Originally : “ mul- titude of small human pawns." 83 : 3. Checker of forest and field. Originally : “green fielded board." 83 : 5. Olympic dust. Dust in the arena of the Olympic 316 NOTES games. See notes, Olympic games, § 38; Isthmian games, § 29. 83 : 6. Be with you in. Can this construction be im- proved? 83 : 8. Amphitheatre . . . arena . . . peasant . . . glad- iatorial war. The text seems to be sufficiently explanatory. If it is not, any school dictionary will give the meanings of these words. 83 : 14. Jousting. Engaging in mock combat on horse- back, as knights in the lists. The word is also spelled just, and seems to be akin to jostle. See note on § 100. 84 : 1. Speaking with them. Originally : ‘‘speaking for them.^’ 84 : 22. Battersea. A suburb of London, in Surrey, on the Thames. 84 : 25. Arbitrament. Here the word means decision. 84 : 30. Laws of honor. This means here : Certain rules regulating duelling, and making it a social crime to decline a challenge to a duel. 85 : 9. Greatest of English thinkers. Thomas Carlyle. 85 : 21. Thirty stone avoirdupois. The stone is legally fourteen pounds. 30 x 14 = 420 pounds, a pretty heavy weight for the weakest to stand under. The stone, however, varies, from five to thirty-two pounds, according to the article weighed. 86 : 3. Busy as the devil is. The reference seems to be to 1 Peter, v, 8 : “The devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” 86 : 9. Sartor Resartus. The title of one of Carlyle’s books. The title means : The tailor retailored. 86 : 18. Fine race of them. Is this irony? 86 : 20. Tournament . . . steeple chase. Tournament, a mock fight in which a number of combatants w^ere en- NOTES 317 gaged. The joust was a trial of the skill of two, one against the other. See note on § 97. Steeple chase, a cross-country ride, over ditches, walls, or natural barriers, towards sofne visible object — as a church steeple. 86 : 22. Hurdle-races . . . cricketing. Hurdle-race, a race in which artificial barriers, hurdles, fences, etc., must be leaped. Cricketing. See note on § 60. 86 : 27. Westminster Abbey. The coronation church of the sovereigns of England, containing monuments to kings, poets, warriors, statesmen, scientists, and others. 87 : 10. Rather slay him . . . than cheat him. Is not Ruskin extreme? A cheated man may be a brisk, useful craftsman, whereas a slain man would be but a ^Mead carcase. 87 : 31. Power both in the making, etc. Originally : “a tendency both to the making, etc.” 88 : 3. Got. Suggest a better word, or a better construc- tion. 88 : 12. Rightly. The footnote is not in the original. 88 : 20. Mr. Helps. Sir Arthur Helps (1813-1857). Rus- kin calls attention to his beautiful quiet English,” and the sincerity of his thinking, in Modern Painters, 1856, III, 268. 88 : 29. Destructive machines. Implements of warfare, as machine guns. 89:3. Leave the living creatures. Originally: ‘Meave the fragments of living creatures.” 89 : 10. Poisoned arrows. The Indians are said to have poisoned the points of their arrows, so that an otherwise slight wound meant death. 89 : 21. Muller’s ‘‘Dorians.” Karl Otfried Muller (1797- 1840). A noted archaeologist; author of Die Dorier (The Dorians), and many other works. There is no footnote in the original. 318 NOTES 89 : 23. Sparta. The original name of this country, Laconia, was changed to Lacedaemon, for the king, and then by him to Sparta, for his wife. 89 : 25. Xvo-cra. Madness, frenzy. In the Iliad, ix, 305, \e peacock is proud of his brilliant plumage. Is he proud of his feet? 320 NOTES 99 : 12. SxRy scabbarded. Keep swords, or daggers, in the scabbard. 99 : 15. Britomart. In Spenser ^s Faerie Queene, Books III and IV. Britomart represents armed Chastity over- coming all who battle with her. Ruskin mentions her in Sesame and Lilies, § 62. 99 : 17. Sheathed in darkness. Scabbarded in the grave; dead. 100 : 25. Exeter Hall. A large building, in London, on the north side of the Strand, used for religious, dramatic, and musical purposes. 100 : 30. Beadles of her little Bethels. Hebrew Beth-el, house of God. Beaale here means an inferior parish officer who preserves order in church service, and chastises petty offenders. 100 : 31. Originally, sections 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, were one. Why the breaking up? 101 : 29. Only. Is this word in the right place? 102 : 3. Aristocracy of England. Superiors in rank or fortune. 102 : 9. A bit of paper in my hand. Ruskin clipped freely from current newspapers, and often carried clip- pings with him and read them to his audience, — possibly for the effect the presentation of the original would have. 102 : Note. Left the number, etc. How would this ^‘en- able the audience to verify the quoted sentence ^^? — Baron Liebig. Justus, Baron von Liebig (1803-1873). A cele- brated chemist; professor of chemistry at Giessen, and later, at Munich. — Alembics. An apparatus formerly used in distillation, 103:4. Ashes to ashes. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’' This sentence is used in the burial service. NOTES ^21 103 : 6. Gentlemen of England. In the original (1866) Ruskin said, ‘‘I tell you, gentlemen of England.'' Which is better? 103 : 13. Field . . . faces. What is the connection be- tween green fields and ruddy faces? 103 : 16. Nor the sky black over their heads. Originally, this v/as followed by : “ and that, when the day comes for their country to lay her honours in the dust, her crest will not rise from it more loftily because of its dust of coal. Gentlemen, I tell you, solemnly, that the day is coming when the soldiers of England must be her tutors and the captains of her army, captains also of her mind." Ruskin's omitting this does not indicate a change in his opinion, but rather, an unwillingness to prophesy what he was opposed to. 103 : 17. And bear with me, etc. Originally : And now, remember, etc." 103:21. If I urge you, etc. Originally: ‘^Remember that your fitness for all future trust depends upon what you are now." 104 : 7. When his every act, etc. Originally : When his every act is a foundation of future conduct." Which is better? 104 : 12. There. Unitalicized in the original. 104 : 13. This and the succeeding sections were, origi- nally, one. 106 : 2. Integer vitae, scelerisque purus. The man pure in life and free from guilt. Horace, Ode, xxii, 1. 106 : 4. A knightly life. See note below on Vow of stainless truth." 106 : 9. Equites . . . chivalry. See the Latin and the French for horse, and note the difference between the Eng- lish words equestrian and chivalrous. Y 322 NOTES 106 : 16. You must bind them, etc. The allusion is to Prov. hi, 3. 106 : 18. Vow of stainless truth. *^The King Will bind thee by such vows as is a shame A man should not be bound by, yet the whicl No man can keep.^^ — Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette, lines 265-268. 106 : 31. This number (129) covers practically two sec- tions of the same paragraph, since the first is merely intro- ductory to the second. 108 : 3. Watch . . . and pray . . . temptation. Prob- ably suggested by Matt, xxvi, 41 : Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.” 108 : 23. Whatever of best. Originally : Whatever of the best.” The change was doubtless made in conformity to “whatever of highest,” which follows, and which is the same in both original and revision. 109 : 1 . Beat swords into ploughshares. Is. ii, 4 ; Micah iv, 3. 109 : 16. Put a period to war. End it. 109 : 26. Obedience. Compare 1 Sam. xv, 22. 110 : 2. Bibles being attacked. See note on Bishop Colenso, § 34. 110 ; 7. Dress plainly. See 2 Tim. ii, 9. 110 : 9. Have pity on the poor. See Matt, xix, ; Prov. xiv, 21; xvii, 5, and elsewhere. 110 : 19. Prince of Peace. The name given to Christ. See Is. ix, 6. 110 : 20. In righteousness, etc. Exact quotation of Rev. xix, 11, except that the commn is inserted. NOTES 323 THE QUEEN OF THE AIR I. ATHENA CHALINITIS . {Athena in the Heavens) Denmark Hill, April 12, 1869, ‘‘ Dearest Charles. — “ I must stay six days longer [‘ He was about setting out for Italy, with intent to make a long stay at Verona/ — Pro- fessor Norton.] — till Monday fortnight, this work has grown under my hands so. It is to be called ^ Queen of the Air/ and [is to be] divided into three sections : — 1 Athena in the Heavens 2 Athena in the Earth 3 Athena in the Heart ^^That is to say, of course, the spirit in the winds, the spirit in the potter’s clay, and in the Invention of Arts; and I’m going to get what I mainly mean about ‘didactic Art’ said unmistakably in the last section, against the rascally im- moral Gift’ set of people on the one side. . . . Ever Yours, J. R.” {R. to N., Vol. I, pp. 199, 200.) A few days later (April 28, 1869), Ruskin wrote to Pro- fessor Norton (Vol. I, p. 204), ‘V . . Write me a title- page ... to go with all the series, and with ' Queen of the Air’ subordinate.” The fact that ‘^The Queen of the Air” is the title, rather than the sub-title, of the series, is probably due to a suggestion by Professor Norton. 324 NOTES For the meaning ana derivation of Athene, see Gayley’s Classic Myths, Boston, 1900, p. 416, § 35. Read, at once, also, §§ 10 and 14 of this Lecture Athena in the Heavens and the footnote, p. 153. Ruskin did not revise the Queen of the Air. PREFACE 113 : 15. Charles Newton. Charles Thomas Newton (1816-1866), classical archaeologist, author, and diplomat. He married the daughter of Joseph Severn, Keats's friend, who inspired the latter with such themes as the Ode to a Grecian Urn. 114 : 6. Professor Tyndall. John Tyndall (1820-1893), a noted English scientist; professor of natural philosophy in the Royal Institution. 114 : 16. Athena. Sesame and Lilies, §§ 45 and 62; Cayley's Classic Myths, pp. 7, 16-18. 115 : 10. Smoke . . . volcanic fires. Compare note, § 79. 115 : 24. Neuchatel. Port, town, canton, and lake in the valley of the Aar, Switzerland. — Jura. An extensive range of mountains in Switzerland and France. 115 : 26. Saponaria. Saponaria officinalis, or soapwort, a plant containing saponin, which, like soap, is soluble, in all proportions, in water. 115 ^ 34. “Aux Botanistes, Le club Jurassique." To the botanists, Of the club of Jura. 116 : 3. Asmodeus. In latter Jewish demonology, a destructive devil. See Paradise Lost, iv, 168. Read the interesting story of how Asmodeus became a “lame devil." NOTES 325 LECTURE I 117 : 2. Greek Mythology. Myths, or fables, of the gods of the Greeks. 117 : Note. Bellerophon. The hero who destroyed Chimsera. — Pegasus. The winged horse which was said to have sprung from the blood of Medusa, when Perseus cut off her head. 118 : 6. There is no God/^ ^^The fool hath said in his heart. There is no God.^^ Ps. liii, 1. 118 : 15. Lerna. The lake, or swamp, near Argos. The water-serpent slain by Hercules was the Lern^ean Hydra. 118 : 19. Miasmata. The plural of miasma, which means infectious germs floating in the air. 120 : 11. St. George and the Dragon. The Faerie Queene, Canto XI, describes the dragon, tells of the three days’ fight, and of the knight’s victory on the third day. 120 : 16. Hercules and the Hydra. See notes on the preceding section, and on § 70. 120 : 21. Original. Some of the texts have origin ” here. 120 : 28. St. George, the Red Cross Knight of Spenser. See note, § 3, p. 142. Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), one of the greatest of English poets. Pan coast {Introduction to English Literature, New York, 1907, pp. 207, 208) says : Spenser stands alone. He is the one supremely great un- dramatic poet of a play-writing time.” 120 : 33. Knight of the Garter. The highest order of knighthood in Great Britain, instituted by Edward III. 121 : 1. George and Dragon of a public-house. The painted sign at, or over, the door, such as the King George- General Washington sign at the Union Hotel, kept by Jonathan Doolittle. See Rip Van Winkle. 326 NOTES 121 : 3. The mean person. The uneducated, or unin- formed. 121 : 8. Hercules. The lines quoted are from jEneid, viii, 299, 300. 123 : 8. Don’t. Would not ‘'do not^’ look better, and sound better? 123 : 28. Legend. The word means here, a wonderful story of the past. 123 : 31. Burgeons out. Old English burjoun, a bud. Burgeons, or bourgeons, to sprout, to put forth buds. 123 : 32. Leaf by leaf . . . milky stem and honied bell. What figure of speech? 124 : 18. Fantasy. Fancy, an imaginative conception, 125 : 11. Rejoiced as a strong man, etc. The reference is to Ps. xix, 5, 6. The preceding eight paragraphs are in the nature of an introduction. 125 : 16. Pindar. A lyric poet of Thebes. He is said to have died at the age of eighty-six, 435 b.c. What is the story about the swarm of bees leaving some honey on his lips when he was young? — iEschylus. A soldier and dramatic poet of Athens, son of Euphorion. He was in the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Platsea. A tortoise fell on his head and killed him, 456 b.c. Where did the tortoise fall from? What is the story “Uncle Remus” tells about “Brer Tarrypin” on the water-shelf, in Mr. Terrapin Appears upon the Scene? 125 ; 27. Earth . . . water . . . fire . . . air. In ^Milton’s day, matter was thought to be subject to four primar}" forces — “ Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry,” and objects fell into four classes, of which earth, air, water, and fire were types. 125 : 28. Demeter (Ceres). See note, $ 70. 125 : 29. Poseidon (Neptune). God of the sea; son of Saturn and Cybele; brother to Jupiter and Pluto; husband NOTES 327 of Amphitrite; father of Triton, Polyphemus, Phoreus, and Proteus. With a trident he ruled the waves. When he appeared on the ocean there was a dead calm. 126 : 14. ‘^Dust thou art, etc.” Gen. hi, 19. 126 : 18. Proserpine . . . Queen of Fate. Daughter of Jupiter and Ceres. She became the wife of Pluto, and was known as ‘^The Queen of Hell.” The Greeks called her Persephone. Read Swinburne’s Garden of Prosperine. 126 : 24. The voice of thy brother’s blood, etc. Gen. iv, 10. 126 : 26. Lord of grain. Side by side,” seems to indicate that Ruskin refers to Pluto; but Cronus is the god of ripen- ing, harvest, and maturity. 127 : 1. (i) Neptune ... (2) Nereus ... (3) Palaemon . . . (4) Leucothea ... (5) Thetis. (1) See note, § 10, (2) Nereus, son of Pontus and Gaea, husband of Diros, father of the fifty Nereides; (3) Palaemon, or Palemon, a god of the sea, son of Athamas and I no — originally named Malicerta, he assumed the name of Palaemon when Neptune changed him into a sea-god, (4) Lucothea, the name of Ino after she became a sea-nymph; (5) Thetis, a sea-god- dess, daughter of Nereus and Doris, wife of Peleus, mother of Achilles. 127 : c. '^Suffer a sea change.’’ The Tempest, I, ii, line 398. 127 : 9. “ Fountain Arethuse, etc.” Milton’s Lycidas, lines 85, 86. 127 : 13. Hair, as the sign of the strength of life. Com- pare Judges xvi, 17. See {1 Cor. xi, 14) what St. Paul has to say of a man Avho has long hair. 127 : 18. Horse . . . sea-wave, animated and bridled. “The wild white horses foam and fret.” — Matthew Arnold, The Forsaken Merman, line 21. 328 NOTES 127 : 20. Hephaestus. The Greek Vulcan, smith of the gods. 127 : 30. Mars. The god of war; son of Jupiter and Juno; husband of Venus; father of Cupid, Anteros, and Harmonia. What connection is there between the month of March and Mars? 128 : 1. Queen of the breath of man. See note, § 31. 129 : 4. Gorgonian cold. See note, § 69. Perseus cut off the head of Medusa and gave it to Minerva. She placed it on her aegis (shield), and it turned into stone all who gazed upon it. 129 : 8. Queen of maidenhood — stainless as the air of heaven. Compare Tennyson ^s Lancelot and Elaine, lines 1 and 2: — ^‘Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat.’^ 129 : 19. Odysseus. Latin, Ulysses, or Ulixes. See note, § 39. 129 : 26. Note, § 41. 130 : 1. Didactic in their essence, as all good art is. Read Poe’s essay, “The Poetic Principle,” especially §§ Il- ls, noting how, in so far as poetry is concerned, he dis- agrees with Ruskin. 130 : 25. Chrysippus. A stoic philosopher of Tarsus, who wrote over three hundred treatises. There is a story that he died from laughing too much at the sight of an ass eating figs from a silver plate, 130 : 26. Grantor. A philosopher of Soli; he was among the pupils of Plato, 510 b.c. 131 : 13. Hesiod. A celebrated Greek poet, and supposed contemporary ot Homer. 131 : 32. See visions and dream dreams. Compare Joel ii, 28 . NOTES 329 132 : 2. Keats. John Keats (1795-1821), an English poet who has hardly been surpassed in “ exquisite sensibility to the beauty of the things of sense. (Pancoast.) 132 : 3. Morris. William Morris (1834-1896), English painter, a.rchitect, and poet. His life was devoted to stim- ulating a love of the beautiful in household decoration, book-making, literature, etc. In his later years, he faced, as Ruskin did, the pressing social questions of his time, and strove manfully to set the crooked straight.’^ (Pan- coast.) 132 : 7. Reynolds. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1793), one of the greatest portrait-painters of England. He was a contemporary and friend of Goldsmith, Burke, and John- son. — Gainsborough. Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), a noted English painter. 133 : 1. ^olus. Son of Hippotas, inventor of sails, ruler of storms and winds. What is an ^olian harp? Where is ^olia, or ^olis? 133 : 2. ^‘Sage Hippotades’’ of Milton. SeeLycic^as, line 96. John Milton (1608-1674), the greatest epic poet known to the world of English literature. 133 : 6. But hear Homer, etc. The description which follows is taken from the beginning of the tenth book of the Cdyssey. 133 : 20. Danae. Daughter of Acrisius and Eurydice, mother of Perseus. 133 : 30. JEolns gives them to Ulysses, all but one, bound in leathern bags. Professor Norton (R. to A^., Vol. Ill, pp. 20, 21) called Ruskin^s attention to a mistake here: “But it was only Hhe blustering wind^ . . . (Od[yssey] X, 20) that iEolus had tied up.^’ To this Ruskin replied: “That is indeed an important mistake about the bag. Of course these stories are all first fixed in my mind by my boy’s 330 NOTES [his own] reading of Pope — then I read in the Greek rapidly to hunt out the points I want to work on, and I am always liable to miss an immaterial point . . 134 : 8. Lipari. The largest of the ^Eolian Islands, on the coast of Sicily. See VirgiPs JEneid, viii, 417. 134 : 9. Diodorus. Siculus Diodorus, author of histories of Egypt, Persia, S 3 rria, Media, Greece, and Carthage. 134 : 10. Sorrento. A town in the province of Naples, Italy. It is located on the Bay of Naples, sixteen miles from the city of Naples. 134 : 13. Boreas. Boreas, or Aquilo, the north wind. Homer {Iliad, 223), says Boreas, out of love for the muses of Ericthonius, turned himself into a horse. 134 : 16. Oreithyia. Oreithyia (Orithyia), daughter of Erectheus, king of Athens, was loved by Boreas. He had to take her by force, because he could not play the lover’s part by breathing gently or sighing. 134 : 17. Ilissus. A river of Attica. 134 : 21. The Harpies, .^llo, Ocypete, and Celeno, half- birds, half-maidens, with heads and breasts of women, bodies of birds, and claws of lions. They were demons of destruc- tion. 134 : Note. Max Muller. 1823-1900. A German scholar of international reputation, professor of comparative phi- lology at Oxford. See reference to him in Sesame and Lilies, § 19. 135 : 7. This is a month, etc. What month? 135 : 14. And if you do not . . . I’ll give up, etc. The playfulness here attempted gives the paragraph a weak ending. 135 : 29. Charybdis. See note, § 39. On the Sicilian side Charybdis dwelt under an immense fig tree, vswallowing down and sending forth the waters of tlie sea. NOTES 331 136 : 9. Harpy Celaeno. See note, § 20. 136 : 10. Seventh circle of the “Inferno.’’ Dante’s “Inferno^’ had seven circles. 136 : 20. Arabesque. Arab-esque, an imaginary and fantastic ornamentation. Edgar Allan Poe seems to have liked this word. 136 : 25. Sirens. Sea-nymphs, who, by their music, drew mariners to destruction. How did Ulysses and his companions get by, and what became of the Sirens? 137 : 3. Tantalus. A king of Lydia, father of Niobe and Pelops. See next note. 137 : 7. Forever kept hungry in sight of food. Was he not forever thirsty in a pool (in hell), the waters of which receded from him when he tried to drink? 137 : 17. Pelops. Son of Tantalus. The gods restored him to life, and he became the husband of Hippodamia. 137 : 20. Pandareos. In Greek legend it was he who stole the golden dog made by Hephaestus. 137 : 27. Cerberus. Plato’s three-headed dog, crouched at the gate of the infernal regions to keep the inhabitants in, and the living out. 137 : 30. “Facilis descensus.” An easy descent. 138 : 5. Sirius . . . the dog-star of ruin. According to ancient belief, epidemic diseases prevailed under the as- cendancy of Sirius. ‘^Blazed bright and baleful like that autumn-star, The baleful sign of fevers.” — Matthew Arnold, Sohrah and Rustuin, lines 452, 453. 138 : 9. Icarius. An Athenian who gave the peasants wine to drink. When intoxication bereft them of their reason, their friends and neighbors slew Icarius. He was changed into the star Bootes. 332 NOTES 138 : 10. Drunkenness of Noah. Gen. ix, 21. 138 : 11. Actaeon. Son of Aristaeus. Because he in- truded himself at Diana’s bath, she changed him into a deer. He was hunted and torn to pieces by his own dogs. — Hecuba. The wife of Priam, the mother of Paris. After the destruction of Troy, she fell to the lot of Ulysses and was afterwards changed into a hound. Her supposed tomb, in the Thracian Chersonesus, is called Cynossema (Dog’s Tomb). 138 : 13. Cynosarges. A surname of Hercules, also the name of a village in Attica where the cynic philosophers established their school. 138 : 17. Deadly madness. Rabies, hydrophobia. 138 : 24. Pandareos’ dog. See note, § 23. 139 : 5. Artemis. The Greek name of Diana, goddess of hunting and chastity; daughter of Jupiter and Latona; sister of Apollo. She has the names Phoebe, Luna, Dictynna, and Hecate. 139 : 6. Hera. The Greek name of Juno, daughter of Saturn and Ops; wife of Jupiter; mother of Mars, Vulcan, Hebe, and Lucinia; queen of all the gods and goddesses; mistress of heaven and earth. 139 : 7. Aphrodite. The Greek name of Venus, the god- dess of beauty and the mother of love. She sprang from the foam of the sea. 139 : 12. The Furies. Tisiphone (Rage), Megaera (Slaugh- ter), and Alecto (Envy), daughters of Acheron "'nd Nox, and punishers of evil-doers. 139 : 16. London season. Evidently Ruskin means just the opposite. What figure of speech is this, and what purpose does it serve? 139 : 21. Polygnotus. A celebrated painter of Thasos, who lived about 442 b.c. NOTES 333 139 : 22, Delphi. A town on Mount Parnassus, where the temple of Apollo was located. What is meant by The Oracle of Delphi 139 : 23. Playing at dice. In Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, who play dice, and for what purpose? — Penelope. Daugh- ter of Icarius, wife of Ulysses, mother of Telemachus. 140 : 3. Hermes. The Greek name of Mercury, the messenger of the gods; the inventor of the lyre, which he gave to Apollo; the conductor of the dead into the infernal regions. 140 : 4. Proteus. A god of the sea who had the power to convert himself into various shapes. He was also a prophet. 140 : Note. Grotesque. Grotto-like, wildly or fantasti- cally formed. Poe liked this word. See arabesque, and note, § 22, p. 161. What special use did Poe make of the two words grotesque and arabesque 141 : 15. Mother of Lacedaemon [and Eurotas] . . . Taygeta. Daughter of Atlas and Pleione. She was one of the Pleiades. (See next note.) Lacedaemon was king of Sparta. 141 : 16. Pleiades. The seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. After death they v/ere placed in the heavens, becoming a constellation. — “ Canst thou bind, etc.^' Job xxxviii, 31. 141 : 20. Arcadia. A country in the middle of Pelopon- nesus, surrounded on all sides by land. It received its name from Areas, son of Jupiter. The inhabitants — shepherds, warriors, and musicians — thought themselves more ancient than the moon. Read the story of Evangeline. Is it appropriate that a town in Louisiana should have the name Arcadia f What is the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney? 141 : 23. Voice of waters. Wordsworth is not the only person that has heard the waters laugh and sing. Read NOTES r>84 the opening lines of Thanatopsis. See Ps. xlii, 7 : ‘‘Deep calleth unto deep/^ 141 : Note. Hera. See note, § 24. 142 : 8. Shepherd of the clouds. See § 28, ‘^The shep- herd of the flocks of the sky,” and the note on it. 142 : 9. Argus. A god with a hundred eyes which took it turn-about watching and sleeping. Juno set him to watch To; he was slain by Mercury, and changed, by Juno, into a peacock. 142 : 13. After reading this paragraph, and the footnote, see the note on philologists, § 28. 142 : 28. Pecuniarily. From pecus, cattle. What is the origin of peculiar f 143 : 4. Priam. King of Troy, father of Paris, whose carrying Helen to Troy, in the absence of Menelaus, of Sparta, caused the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. 143 : 6. Diomed. A legendary Thracian king, son of Ares. 143 : 12. Autolycus. Son of Hermes (Mercury) and Chione. The daughter of Autolycus, Anticlea, was the mother of Ulysses. 143 : 13. Myrtilus. The charioteer of ffinomaus. 143 : 16. The shepherd of the flocks of the sky. In Autumn ** The shepherd winds are driving Along the ways on high A merry flock of cloudland sheep To meadows in the sky.” — Robert Loveman, Poems, Pliiladelphia, 1897, p. 40. 143 : 23. Jupiter. Son of Saturn and ( ybelc (Ops). Jupiter, with the aid of Hercules, defeated the giants of NOTES earth when they made war against heaven. (See note, § 77 , p. 81.) He was woi-shipf)ed by many of the heathen nations. 143 : 26. Euripides. A tragic poet, pupil of Prodicus, Socrates, and Anaxagoras. — Hippomedon. Son of Nisi- machus and Mythidice. He was one of the seven chiefs who went against Thebes. He was killed by Ismarus. 144 : 1. “Primo mobile.’^ Italian for first movements j oi- first moveables. 144 : 5. Foray. Another form of forage, meaning a raid, an irregular or sudden incursion for battle or for spoils. 144 : 17. Athamas. A king of Thebes, son of ^Eolus. Read the story of his temporary insanity as a result of anger. 144 ; 18. Phrixus. Phryxus carried the Golden Fleece, a ram's hide, to Calchis, where he was entertained by King ^etes. The Argonauts, Jason, and fifty other heroes, carried back the Golden Fleece. 144 : 19. Helle. Daughter of Athamas and Nephele. That is a pretty story about the sea receiving from Helle the name Hellespont. 144 : 21. Salmoneus. King of Elis. He tried to imitate Jupiter's thunders, and was immediately sent to the in- fernal regions. — Glaucus. A son of Sisyphus, king of Corinth. He was the owner of mares that w^ere sv/.ft in the races. For a reason, Venus inspired the mares with such fury that they tore the body of Glaucus to pieces as he was returning from the games. 144 : 24. Bellerophon . . . Chimaera. Bellerophon, son of Glaucus and Eurymede, was sent by lobates, king of Lycia, to conquer the monster Chimaera. With the assistance of Minerva, and by the aid of Pegasus — the wdnged horse — he was successful. See Milton's Paradise Lost, vii, 1 336 NOTES 144 : 31. Sisyphus. Son of iEolus and Enaretta. He meddled in the love affair of Jupiter and iEgina and for this was condemned to eternal punishment, which is, to roll a stone to the summit of a hill in the infernal regions. The stone always rolls back to the foot of the hill. 145 : 7. Isthmian games. The public and solemn games of the Greeks were : the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmian. These games, in which there were physical, mental, and musical contests, derived their names from persons or places. The Isthmian was named for the Corinthian Isthmus, which joins the Peloponnesus with the continent. 145 : 8. KcpSuTTos dvSpcov. The greediest, shrewdest, or craftiest of men. Compare Iliad, vi, 153. 145 : 19. Ixion. King of Thessaly, of uncertain parentage. At the table of the gods in heaven where Jupiter had carried him, he displeased his benefactor, was banished to hell and tied, by Mercury, to a whirling wheel, which, it was supposed, would never cease to turn. 145 : 25. Aristophanes. Son of Philip of Rhodes, and a comic poet of Athens. He lived 434 b.c. 145 : 29. Sivos. Literally, a whirlwind. 146 : 3. Semele, the mother of Bacchus. The daughter of Cadmus. After death she was deified, and became Thyone. 146 : 8. Taw€0€ipa. raw, altogether, exceedingly; edcLpa, the hair of the head. 146 : 9. Danaides. . The fifty daughters of Danaus, king of Argos. They married their fifty cousins, sons of Egyptus. Forty-nine of them, in obedience to their father^s wish, slew their husbands the first night of their nuptials. 146 : 10. Danae. See note, § 19. — Perseus. Son of Jupiter and Danae. Read the story of Perseus’s successful combat with the Gorgon Medusa. NOTES 337 146:11. Gorgons. See note, § 69. — Graiae. Graiae, or Grsese, the Gray-women : Dino, Pephredo, and Enyo. 146:14. Medusa. One of the three Gorgons. See note, §69. 146 : 27. Reread paragraph 14. 148 : 3. Shakespeare. William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the greatest dramatist in the history of English literature 148 : 4. Mortimer. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. [In] changing hardiment . . . Three times they breathed, etc.^^ 1 Henry IV., I, hi, 101-103. 148 : 8. Hotspur. Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, son of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. The quotation is from 1 Henry IV., V, ii, 48, 49. 148 : 11. Hamlet. Prince of Denmark. The Queen says of Hamlet: ‘'He’s fat and scant of breath.” Hamlet, V, ii, 302. 148 : 13. Orlando. One of the three sons of Sir Rowland de Boys. The quotation is from As You Like It, I, ii, 233. 148 : 20. Ares. Mars. 148 : 22. Camilla. Queen of the Volsci, daughter of Metabus and Casmilla. She was so fleet, or swift, that she could run (or fly) over a field of corn without bending the blades, and over the sea without wetting her feet. 149 : 4. Fresh air, etc. Is this “popular” touch out of place? 149 : 6. Achilles. Son of Peleus and Thetis, the greatest of the Greek heroes in the Trojan War. 149 : 10. Ambrosia. Ambrosia, from the Greek, means immortal, — food for the immortals. The fabled food of the gods, which was supposed to confer immortality on those who partook of it. 149 : 12. Harpy falcon. Falcon, a bird trained to catch other birds, or game. Harpy, in Grecian mythology, a ravenous, filthy, woman -faced vulture. z 338 NOTES 149 : 19. As a falcon . . . straight at him. Compare Arnold s Sohrab and Rustum, lines 398-402 ; — “ Rustum . . . hurl’d His spear; down from the shoulder, down it came, As on some partridge in the corn a hawk, That long has tower’d in the airy clouds Drops like a plummet.” 149 : 29. Menelaus. King of Sparta, husband of Helen. Read the note on Priam, § 27. 149 : 30. Hector. Son of Priam and Hecuba, chief of the Trojan forces when the Greeks besieged Troy. He slew many of the bravest Greek chiefs, but fled at the presence of Achilles, who pursued and killed him. 151 : 23. Pope. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), a noted English writer in his day. Many of his smooth classical couplets are very quotable. He came near to being dis- honest in the attempt to further his inordinate literary ambition. 152 : 10. Atreides. Atreides (Atrides), son of Atreus Agamemnon. The ending -ides means son c. . 152 : 19. Patroclus. The intimate friend and constant companion of Achilles in the Trojan War. He was slain by Hector, who, in turn, was killed by Achilles. 152:23. Fresh turned. Would not “freshly turned,” or “fresh-turned” be better. 152 : 29. Hephaestus. Vulcan. 152 : 31. Erichthonius. The fourth king of Athens. He had the tails of serpents instead of legs. The invention of chariots is attributed to him. He reigned fifty years, and died 1437 b.c. 152 : 33. Attica. A triangular division of Greece, bounded on two sides by 1 !h‘ .Egean Sea, on the other by tlie moun- NOTES 339 tains Cithaeron and ParnCvS. Athens was its principal city. 153 : 2. Aglauros. When Erich thoni us was n l)abe, Minerva placed him in a basket and gave strict orders that no one should open it. This was because^ of the cliild’s terrible deformity. (See note above.) Aglauros had the curiosity to open the basket, and Minerva punished her by making her jealous of her sister Herse. 153 : 3. Envy of Cain. See Gen. iv, 2-4. 153 : 5. Herse. See note above on Aglauros. 153 : 6. Mercury. Hermes. 153 : 7. Pandrosos. I)aught(T of Cecrops, sister of Aglauros and Herse. (See notes above.) Because she had not the curiosity to open the basket containing Erichthonius, a temple was erected in her honor. 153 : 10. Blessing of Esau. Gen. xxvii, 28. 153 : 14. ‘‘lo sono Aglauro, chi divenne sasso.^’ See Dante, Purgatorio, xiv, 142. 153 : 32. Primrose. An early (Latin 'primus, first) flowering plant. 154 : 1. Asphodel. The asphodel of the early English and French poets was the daffodil. The pale asphodel is said to be the only flower that blooms in hell. In Foe's Eleonora, the asphodels are "'ruby-red." 154 : 3. Crocus flame. The saffron bloom of the crocus. 154 : 4. Ida. A mountain range in Asia Minor. 154 ; 5. Elysian fields. Elysium, a place in the infernal regions where the souls of the righteous were supposed to repose after death. 154 : 8. Maia. Daughter of Atlas and Pleione. The most beautiful of the Pleiades. 154 : 13. Vergil. Publius Maro Virgilius (70-19 b.c.) the greatest of the Latin poets. 340 NOTES 154 : 15. Chaucer. Geoffrey Chaucer {cir. 1340-1400) England's first great poet to break away from the native literary traditions of his people. 154 : 17. Pastorals and Georgies. Works of Vergil. 154 : 32. “There shall come forth a rod, etc.^^ Is. xi, 1. 155 : 1. Almond rod of Aaron. See Ex. vii, 10. 155 : 7. Course of Olympia. The place of the Olympic games, dedicated to Jupiter Olympius. See note on Isthmian games, § 29. 155 : 9. Panathenaic. All the Athenian games. Similai to our modern “Field Day.^^ 155 : 14. Moriai. The Mora is a leguminous tree. 155 : 15. Erecthemn. Of, or pertaining to Arectheus, a mythic king of Athens. 155 : 17. “Children like olive plants, etc.’' See Ps, cxxviii, 3. 155 : 19. Rod ... of the stem of Jesse. Is. xi, 1: ‘‘And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem [or stump] of Jesse.^’ 155 : 21. Antioch. A city in Asia Minor, founded by Seleucus, and named by him in honor of his father, Antiochus. 155 : 22. Extreme unction. The sacrament of anoint- ing in the ^st hours. 155 : 29. Agonia. Italian for horror, or agony. Latin Agonia is another name for Agonalia, a Roman festival, — ■ from agon, a struggle, contest, or combat. What is the origin of agonize? 155 : 31. Palestine. Called also Canaan, and The Holy Land. The name in Greek (JlaXauTTlvy)) means the country of the Philistines. It is the land of the Hebrews; Jeru- salem is the chief city. 156 ; i. British Museum. The building, in London, in which England’s greatest art collection is kept. It contains, J^OTES 341 also, a vast library of between two and three millions of books. The circular reading room is one hundred and forty feet in diameter, and over a hundred feet high. — Dolphin. A fish from five to eight feet long; a constellation between Aquila and Pegasus. Read the story of Arion and the dolphin. 156 : 13. Cretan colonists. People of Crete. 156 : 14. Pytho. The ancient name of Delphi. 156 : 17. Hydria. An urn. 156 : 19. Tarentum . . . Taras. Tarenium, also called Taras, an Italian city on the western coast of Calabria. Taras, p, son of Neptune, supposed to have built Taren- tum. 156 : 24. Magna Grsecia. A part of Italy, where the Greeks planted colonies. — Arion. A noted lyric poet on the island of Lesbos. It w^as he whose harp so charmed the dolphins. See the note on dolphin, § 39. 156 ; 26. ^neas. Son of Anchises and Venus; husband of Creusa; father of Ascanius. After the destruction of Troy he built a fleet of twenty ships and escaped to the coasts of Africa. How did he save his father when Troy was in flames? 156 : 29. Merlin prophecy, etc. About 1200 a.d. Helie de Barron wrote the French prose romance of Merlin, which contained, in the apoendix. Merlin’s Prophecies. See 1 Henry IV, III, i, 149. 157 : 8. Laocoon. In die Trojan War, Laocoon, a priest of Apollo, opposed the admission of the wooden horse into the city. For this, two great serpents crushed him and his sons. See Byron’s Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza clx. 157 : 12. Scyila. Between Italy and Sicily are two rocks called Scylla and Charybdis. On the Italian side, in a cave, dwelt Scylla, a tv/elve-footed, six -headed monster. NOTES 157 : 16. Peplus. An upper garment worn b}" Grecian and R(niian women. 157 : 23. Turner. See note, $ 56. 157 : 24. Ulysses and Polyphemus. Ulysses, a king of Ithaca, whose adventures in the Trojan War furnished Homer the subject for his Odyssey: the Greek name of Ulys.ses is Odysseus. See note, $ 1 6. Polyphemus a Cyclops, s(jn of Neptune (Poseidon) and Thoosa. Ulysses and som(‘ of his companions {)ut out the one eye of Poly{)hemus witli a fire-brand. 158:1. Cloud-phantasm. A cloud-fancy. 158 : 14. The race is not to the swift. Eccl. ix, „ . “ The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.” 158 : 24. Parable of the ten virgins. See Matt, xxv, 1. Sidney Lanier says there were ten virgins, and five of them were foolish; there were ten lilies, and all of them were wise. 158 : 26. Pentecost. See Acts ii, 2. 158 : 31. The zeal of thine house, etc. Ps. cxix, 139. 159 : 1. Ares. Mars. 159 : 17. Melody. An agreeable succession of sounds How does melody differ from harmony? 159 : 21. Measured and designed . . . impulsive and passionate. What is said here of music may also be appli(‘d to poetry. An example of a measured and designed poem is Poe's The Bells, the four stanzas of which may be tabulated as to the kinds of bells, the metals, what they tell, how they tell it, etc. An exam])le of an impulsive and [>as- sionate poem is Poe’s Annabel Lee, or Pinkney’s A Health. 159 : 22. Athena . . . aids the shout of Achilles. Read Browning’s A Tale (Epilogue to The Two Poets of Croisic) for the story of the cricket that “ Lighted on the crippl(‘d lyre,” and aided the player in winning the prize. NOTES M3 159 : 24. Demeter. See note on Ceres, § 70. 160 : 1. Apolline lyre . . . Doric fiute. The lyre was the most famous of ancient stringed instruments. At first there were three strings, afterwards eight, and, finally, through a long process of development, we have the piano. The flute, or pipe, was the wind instrument. They were made of reeds, and of the bones of stags, fawns, asses, and elephants. Flute-music was thought to exert a strong in- fluence on the minds and bodies of men — to the extent of curing certain diseases. 160 : 2. Pipe of Pan. Pan, a man with horns, long ears, and the lower half of his body like a goat. The Pan-pipes (Syrinx) were reeds fashioned by himself. What is the ori- gin of the word panic f 160 : 3. Double pipe of Marsyas. Marsyas, the supposed inventor of the flute, challenged Apollo to a musical contest. Apollo defeated him and then beat him to death. 160 : 6. Gorgonian serpents. Instead of hair, the heads of the Gorgons were covered with vipers. 161 : 11. Music ... in her health, the teacher of perfect order. Read Browning^s Saul. IGl : 15. Gloria in Excelsis. Glory in the highest. — The Marseillaise. La Marseillaise, a French patriotic song, composed at Strasburg, on the night of April 21, 1792, by t hi’ide Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a captain of engineers. Wiien, wncre, and by whom was ‘^The Star Spangled Ban- ner’’ Avritten? 161 ; 31. [1869.] The year is not given in the original. 163 : 14. Spirit . . . quench . . . grieve. This refers quench to 1 Thes. v, 19; grieve to Eph. iv, 30. 163 : 30. Pisistratus. An Athenian who ordered a com- mission of scholars, about 537 b.c., to collect and revise the Iliad and the Odyssey. 344 NOTES 164 : 1. A beautiful woman, armed like Athena. This woman was Phya. 164 : 5. Antiparos. An island in the ^Egean Sea, op- posite Paros. 164 : 19. St. Louis. Brother of Charles I., king of Naples. 164 : 20. The Cid {cir. 1010-1099), called also El Cam- peador. The Cid, master. Campeador, champion, or chal- lenger. He is the principal national hero of Spain, and is famed for his exploits with the Moors. — Chevalier Bayard. A French national hero (1475-1521), called ‘Hhe knight without fear, and without reproach. 165 : 2. Horace. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 b.c.), a poet whose talents were recognized by Virgil. The special qualities of his Satires and Epistles are humor and wit. 165 ; 3. Wordsworth. William Wordsworth (1770-1850), one of England’s greatest poets. His works are inspired by love of Nature and of man. His poetry is simple and true, in comparison with the shams and artificialities of Pope. 165 : 6. Mechanical drill in verse-writing. Writing verse by pattern, or by the foot, without proper reference to poetic thought. 165 : 10. Hexameter. A line of verse having six metrical feet. 165 : 19. Thyme. A sweet-smelling flower. — Matin. Morning. 165 : 21. Faun. A god, of fields and shepherds, some- thing like the Satyr. 165 : 22. Rome. The capital of Italy, and the centre of the Roman Catholic Church. 166 : 13. Sell that thou hast, etc. See Matt, xix, 21; Mark x, 21; Luke xii, 33; xviii, 22. NOTES 345 II. ATHENA KERAMITIS {Athena in the Earth) 167:13. The Greek word for breathing. Jlvica or ^v(rdu), 168: 21. St. Paul. An early apostle the Christian Church. See Acts xiii, 9. 169 : 4. Nemean lion. The first of the Twelve Labors of Hercules was the combat with the lion that infested the valley of Nemea. 169 : 6. Python. A serpent which sprang from stagnant waters and mud^ after the deluge of Deucalion. 170 : 28. “Born of the spirit.’’ See John hi, 6. 171: 5.. The strong word “ascertained.” Make a list of the synonyms of ascertained, arranging them . in the order of their strength. 171 : Note. Manuel d^ Iconographie Chretienne. Hand- book of Christian Iconography. — Iconography, the art of representation by pictures or images. Christian Iconog- raphy , the study of the representations in art of the Deity, the persons of the Trinity, angels, saints, etc. — Lorsque vous aurez fait le proplasme, etc. When you will have made protoplasm, and outlined a face, you will have made flesh with glycasm for which we have given the receipt. In old men you will indicate the wrinkles and, in young people, the corners of the eyes. Thus it is, according to Panselinos, that flesh is made. 172 : 19. In which all things live, move, and have their being. Acts xvii, 28. 173 : 4. Ethics of the Dust. Published, 1866. 174 : Note. Mr. Darwin. Charles Darwin (1809-1882), an illustrious English biologist, grandson of Erasmus Dar» 346 NOTES win, the poet. See Professor WinclielPs article, ‘^Darwin- ism/’ in the Encyclopcedia Americana. The Cambridge (England) Daily News, Thursday, June 24, 1909, contains an account of the Darwin Centenary Banquet, at which Mr. William Erasmus Darwin spoke of his father “as a man and as he knew him from a child.” 175 : 9. Calcareous slime. Slime consisting of, or con- taining, calcium carbonate or carbonate of lime. 177 : 30. Fire to speak. See Ex. iii, 2; xiii, 21; xix, 18; Lev. ix, 24; x, 2; Num. xi, 1, 3; xvi, 35; Deut. iv, 12, 15, 33, 36; V, 24, 26; 1 Kings xviii, 24; 1 Chr. xxi, 26; Is, Ixvi, 16, etc. — Dove, to bless. See Matt, iiij 16; Mark i, 10; Luke iii, 22; John i, 32. 178 : 12. Hieroglyph. A character in picture writing. The word here means a character or figure with a hidden meaning. . 179 : 1. Than ever “vanti Libia con sua rena.” Than ever boasted Libya with her sand. 180 : Note. Richard Owen. Sir Richard Owen (1804- 1892), an English anatomist and paleontologist. — Hippo- campus. A sea-horse. 180 : 16. Gigantomachia. This is the Latin form. Eng- lish, Gigantomachy , a war of giants, especially the mythic war of the giants against heaven. See the notes on Ossa and Pelion, § 77. In some of the texts this word is hyphen- ated : Giganto-machia. 180 : 18. “That which thou sowest, etc.” 1 Cor. xv, 36. 180 : 24. jEsculapius. Son of Apollo, husband of Epi- one, father of Machaon and Padalirus, who were skilled in medicine. One of the four daughters, Hygeia, is the god- dess of health. 181 : 7. Nascent eyes. Eyes just beginning to see and discriminate. NOTES 347 181 : 33. Frenzied grotesque. This should be ‘'frenzied grotes(|ueness/' or “the frenzied grotesque.’^ Ruskin, however, uses grotesque elsewhere as here. 182 : 1. Psalter of St. Louis. See note, § 46. 182 : 16. Lacertine. Also lacertain, like a lizard. 183 : 5. Dove with the olive branch. See Gen. vii, 11. 183 : 15. Peacock pf Hera. Hera (Juno) rode in a chariot drawn by peacocks. 183 : 16. Dove of Aphrodite. Aphrodite (Venus) was specially fond of the dove, the sparrow, the swan, and the dolphin. 183 : 20. Cherubim. The Hebrew plural of cherub . 183 : 31. Mr. Fergusson. James Fergusson (1808-1886), a Scottish writer on architecture. His Fire and Serpent Worship was published 1868. 183:32. Draconian. From Draco, a dragon; also the name of a famous lawgiver of Athens, 621 b.c. 183 : 33. Judea. In Bethlehem of Judea Jesus was born. See Matt, ii, 1. 184:31. “Leguminous^^ plants. Such as beans, peas, clover, etc. Legumen is an albuminous substance char- acteristic of grain -bearing plants. 184:33. “Laetum siliqua quassante legumen.” Pod shaking its joyful (or joy-giving) legumen. 185 : 9. Acacia, laburnum, Judas-tree . . . vetch. Con- sult dictionary or botany. Why is the Judas-tree so called? 185 : 11. Trefoil tracery. Three-leaf tracery. 186 : 4. Henbane . . . mandrake . . . tobacco . . • cyclamen . . . primulas . . . stamens . . . lobes . . . corolla, are all botanical terms. Consult botany or dictionary. 186 : 6. Umbelled and cruciferous plants. Latin umhella, a shade. Such plants as milkweed and carrot. Crucifer- ous, having four petals arranged lik(‘ tlu' arms of a cross. Such plants as mustard and turnip. 348 NOTES 186 : 13. Hemlock drink. Socrates, by the perjury of witnesses, was tried for corrupting the Athenian youth, making innovations in the religion of the Greeks, and ridi- culing their gods. He was condemned to drink hemlock. See Keats^s Ode to a Nightingale, lines 1 and 2. 186 : 14. Chervil. A plant with pinnately divided, aromatic leaves. ^ 187 : 1. Catkined trees. Such as the willow, poplar, and chestnut. The flowers are along the sides of a slender axis. Called catkined, because of the resemblance to a cat^s tail. 187 : 5. Coveting of Eve. See Gen. iii, 6. 187 : 9. Rosa sempiterna, Che si dilata, rigrada, e ridole Odor di lode al Sol.’’ The rose eternal, Which spreads herself, divides, and scents Odor of praise to the Sun. 188 : 1. Spinous process. Having the form of a spine or thorn. 188 : 2. Awn or beard. What is the origin of the word awning f 189 : 2. Lilies, asphodels, amaryllids, irids, rushes. See footnote to the next paragraph. 189 : 15. Crocus . . . hyacinth . . . star of Bethlehem . . . gladiolus . . . water lilies (Nereid sisters). Consult diction- ary or botany. Why is the “Star of Bethlehem” so called? 189 : 19. Ganges, Nile, Arno, and Avon. Ganges, a large river of India, emptying into the Indian Ocean. Nile, the longest river in Africa, and one of the longest in the world. Arno, a river in Tuscany, Italy. Avon, an English river on which Shakespeare’s Stratford is located. NOTES 349 189 : 22. The Annunciation. The festival (March 25) in memory of Gabriel’s announcement of the incarnation to the Virgin Mary. 189 : 23. Fleur-de-lys. French for flower of the lily. 189 : 24. Christ’s lily of the field. See Matt, vi, 28; Luke xii, 27. ^ 190 : 1. Perdita’s ^^The crown imperial, lilies of all kinds.’’ The Winter^ s Tale, IV, iii, 126. 190:7. ^^Giglio.” Italian for lily. 190 : 22. Loved better than the gray nettles, etc. Ruskin seems here to be contrasting country (‘Gowly”) life with suburban or city life. Which does he prefer? 191 : 4. Hyacinth and convallaria. Consult dictionar}^ or botany. Explain ‘^hyacinth hair,” in Poe’s poem To Helen. 191 : 25. Narcissus. A handsome youth who became enamored of his own image in a fountain. Because he could not reach the object of his affection, he killed himself, and his blood was changed into the flower w^hich bears his name. 192 : 18. Quatrefoil, cinquefoil, sixfoil. Four-, five-, and six -leaved. 193 : 6. Foxglove, snapdragon, and calceolaria. Consult dictionary or botany. 193 : i2. With paleness round. For poetry this would do; for prose ^Svith paleness around” is better. 193 : 17. Kalmia . . . stamens . . . borage. Botanical terms. 194 : C. AEsculapian. Medicinal plants, named for iEscu- lapius, the god of medicine. 194:10. ‘^Erba della Madonna.” The flower of the Virgin Mary. Literally, the grass of the Virgin Mary. 194 : 15. ^^Labiatae.” From the Latin labium, lip. 194 : 16. Strength for healing. Compare Rev. xxii, 2. 350 NOTES 194 ; 28. Ordinary botanist. Does Ruskin^s answer, in § 89, to the questions proposed in this paragraph (§ 88), indicate that he regards himself as an extraordinary botanist? 196:4. ‘'Glaukopis.^^ Literally blue-eyed. Ruskin says gray-eyed/^ § 93, p. 232. 196 : 17. Aristotle. A famous philosopher and pupil of Plato who called him the philosopher of truth. He died 322 B.c. 196 : 26. ‘^Purpureos inter soles, et Candida lunae sidera.^’ Among the purple suns, and the white sides of the moon. 196 : 27. Pro purpureo pcenam solvens scelerata capillo.^' The wicked woman paying the penalty for golden hair. 196 : 33. Murex-dye. Dye made from the shell of the murex. 197 : 15. Davy’s safety-lamp. Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), a celebrated English chemist. He invented the safety-lamp in 1815. A safety-lamp does not ignite the gas in a coal mine. 197 : 16. Subterranean ^^damp.” Called also ^'fire- damp.” Consists chiefly of light carbureted hydrogen. 197 : 27. "Chiaroscuro.” The arrangement of light and dark parts in a work of art. 198 : 4. "If thine eye be single, etc.” See Matt, vi, 22; Luke xi, 34. 198 : 16. Attic coins. Coins of Attica. 198 : 25. Lapislazuli. A rich blue aluminous mineral. — Smalt. A deep blue pigment. 198 : Note. Payne Knight. Richard Payne Knight (1750-1824), an English numismatist and archaeologist. See Cayley’s Classic Myths, Boston, 1900, p. iG, note. 200 : 3. Troy. The capital of Troas in Asia Minor. Here the siege was conducted by the Creeks under Agamem- non. - Ajax. A brave Ci(>(‘k in tin* Trojan War. NOTES 351 200 : 8. Erebus. Son of Chaos, a god of Hades. 200 : 15. Pandarus. Son of Lycaon. He aided the Tro- jans in the war with the Greeks. 200 : 16. Helen. The beautiful, unfortunate wife of Menelaus. Her flight to Troy with Paris, 1198 b.c., brought about the Trojan War. See note on Priam, § 27, and note on Menelaus, § 34, 201 : 21. When the ecstasy which gave it birth has passed away forever. This reminds one of Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality, lines 17 and 18: — But yet I know, where’er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.” 201 : 24. Phidias. An Athenian sculptor who died 432 B.c. His statue of Minerva was in the Pantheon. 203 : 2. Libyan. The Libyan Desert in Africa. Libia, the daughter of Epaphus, king of Egypt. 203 : 19. Plectrum. A small instrument used in playing upon the lyre. 204 ; 5. Altar to a God unknown. See Acts xvii, 23. 204 : 9. A God who made of one blood, etc. See Acts xvii, 26. 204 : 20. Seats bought . . . price of a dove. See Matt. xxi, 12; Mark xi, 15; John ii, 14, 16. III. ATHENA ERGANE {Athena in the Heart) 206 : 9. Valley of the Somme. The Somme, a river in northern France, which flows into the English Channel. 206 : 19. The faults of a work of art, etc. In connect i( U with this paragraph, read Sesame and Lilies, § 10. 352 NOTES 206 : 22, A foolish person builds foolishly, etc. Compare Matt, vii, 24-27. 207 : 19. Stonehenge. A prehistoric monument in Salis- bury Plain, Wiltshire, England. 207 : 22. Michael Angelo. A famous Italian sculptor and painter (1475-1564), 207 : 26. Bill Sykes. The burglar in Dickenses Oliver Twist. Ruskin mentions Bill and his mistress, Nancy, in Sesame and Lilies, § 22. 207 : Note. Rouen Cathedral. Rouen is the capital of Seine-Inf erieure, France. Its cathedral is one of the most impressive in existence 208 : 8. That which is born of evil begets evil. Probably suggested by John hi, 6 : ^'That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. 209 : 2. Pharaoh, or David, etc. Pharaoh, a title given to Egyptian kings. David, the second king of Israel. Leoni- das, a Greek hero, king of Sparta, slain at Thermopylae, 480 B.c. Valerius, Publius Valerius, supposed to have been the colleague of Brutus in the first year of the Roman Republic. (Marcus Valerius was a distinguished Roman general). Barbarossa (Italian Redbeard’0> a Mohamme- dan corsair, who conquered and became ruler of Algiers about 1517. He was succeeded by his brother Khair-ed- Din. Coeur de Lion (French, Coeur de Leon, Lion-hearted), a name given, on account of their valor, to Richard I. of Eng- land, and Louis VIII. of France. Dandolo, Andrea Dandolo (1310-1354), Doge of Venice, 1343-1354. The reference may be to Enrico Dandolo (1108-1205), Doge of Venice, 1192-1205, as both were first successful soldiers, then chiefs or head of government. Frederick the Great, Frederick IT. (1712- 1786), king of Prussia. It will be observed that Ruskin NOTES 353 gives nine names and eight nationalities. Which Coeur de Leon does he refer to? 209 : 20. In connection with this paragraph, read Sesame and Lilies, paragraph 10. 210 : 19o The fathers have eaten sour grapes, etc. See Jer. xxxi, 29; Ezek. xviii, 2. How may we know that the allusion is to Ezekiel? What time I hear the storming sea, Blood of my ancestor stirs in me; ^ ^ Hi )(: Thrustararorum was his name. The brave old fisher from whom I camef Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi With brawny arm he hauled the net. And I see in my hands the mark of it yetP — Henry Nehemiah Dodge, Mystery of the West, Boston, 1906, Foreword, lines 1, 2, 13, 14, 41, 42. 211 : 3. Giotto. Giotto di Bondone (1276-1337), an Italian painter, architect, and sculptor. — Diirer. Albrecht Diirer (1471-1528), a German painter and engraver. 211 : 19. . . . Mont Blanc. Geneva, the capital of the canton of Geneva, Switzerland. Mont Blanc (French), White Mountain, the highest mountain of the Alps. Its summit is crossed by French -Italian boundary. 211 : 31. Voirons. mountain range in Haute-Savoie, France, ten miles east oi C eneva, Switzerland. 212 :21. Wonder and cc learning life an i r ath etc. Possibly this ‘inheritance^’ is as much from ishop Ulfilas, the teacher and apostle of the Goths about the middle of the fourth century, as from the jngs.'’ What is the inheritance of the Celtic soul? 2 A NOTES 212 : 29. The pure heart it will make pure. Compare Titus i, 15 : Unto the pure all things are pure.’' See also the title-page of Abram Lent Slnith^s Lava Fires, New York, 1888: — ** Kerens a truth that will endure, ^To the pure all things are pure/ ” 214 : 14. Stones of Venice.” Published, Vol. I, 1851; Vols. IT, III, 1853. 216 : 1. Useful black servants to the Americans. Why black? Do the Americans now buy their coal from Eng- land? Even brick used to be brought to America from England. Old Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia, and ‘^Old Pohick,^’ near Mount Vernon, the churches Washing- ton attended, were built of brick that came from England. 216 : 13. The ignoble. Surely Ruskin does not mean to refer to Americans as ‘^ignoble.” For the sake of Charles Eliot Norton alone he would have spared America this thrust — even had it been in his mind. — Fire balls. Bullets and cannon-balls. 216 : 24. In justice only she judges and makes war. Compare Is. xxiii, 5. 216 : 30. I will mock you, etc. Prov. i, 26, 27. King James’s version : and your destruction cometh as a whirl- wind.” 216 : 33. Dies Irae. The day of wrath (ire); the Judg- ment Day. 217 : 7. Cries of peace, where there is no peare. See Jer. vi, 14; viii, 11. 217 : 33. Clothed, and in your right minds. See Mark v, 15; Luke v, 35. 219 : 18. But when men are good and true . . . stronger kings. Read, in connection with this, Sesame and Lilies, § 44. NOTES 355 222 : 12. Truism. The truth is so obvious as to make a statement unnecessary. 223 : 11. Job . . . ash heap. Job ii, 8. 226 : 23. Provence. An ancient government of south- eastern France. 227 : 22. Petroleum cannot possibly be in a hurry to arrive anywhere. Is this humor? 227 : 33. A wholesome human employment is the first and best method of education, mental as well as bodily. Judged by the ever multiplying agricultui-al, mechanical, and technical schools in America, and elsewhere, the world has adopted Ruskin^s view. 228 : 16. Riband-makers. Ribbon -makers. 228 : 24. Navvies. Laborers on canals or other public works. 232 : 3. Unguents. Ointments. 232 : 8. Returning to cool English. Notice RusKin’s remark, paragraph 132, concerning “a violent little frag- ment of an undelivered lecture.’^ 234 : 5. Three different ways of writing. Note Ruskin’s three ways of writing, remembering that these notes (1 to 7) belong to his third way or manner. 234 : 18. Albert Diirer. See note on Albrecht Diirer. Albrecht is the German for Albert. 234 : 23. Aglaia’s cestus. In Greek mythology, Aglaia is one of the three graces. Cestus, a girdle, particularly that of Aphrodite (Venus), which gave the wearer the power of exciting love. In § 42, Athena in the Heavens,^' Rus- kin speaks of his essay, ‘^The Cestus of Aglaia.’' 234 : 25. This same opinion, etc. Compare Browning’s Andrea del Sarto, line 69. 235 : 10. Cinderella. In a fairy tale, she is a beautiful girl who drudges for her sisters and stepmother. 356 yOTES 235 : 13. Marchande des Modes. Milliner, merchant of fashions. 235 : 27. Nuy/ altra pianta. etc. H. F. Cary's transla- tion gives this in Purgatory, I, 102-1 04: — Xo other plant. Cover’d with leaves, or harden’d in its stalk. There lives. . . . 236 : 33. Aladdin’s palace. See the story in Arabian Xighis* Entertainments, and learn the meaning of the say- ings, “To finish Aladdin’s window,” and “To exchange old lamps for new ones.” 237 : 6. Siddim. A valley mentioned in Gen. 3dv, 3, 8, 10. 237 : 11. They had brick for stone, etc. Exact quotation cf the latter part of Gen. xi, 3. 237:21. Insolent . . . solemnity, /n = not; solens = accustomed; insolent = not accustomed. SoUus = all, en- tire; annus = a year; solemnity = that which takes place annually. See note on philologists, § 28, p. 32. 238 : 2. Upside-down,. Babel. The swallow’s nest. 238 : 5. “Lor via e lor fortuna.” Their way and their fortime. 238 : 19. Thomas Bewick. An English wood-engraver (1753-1 S2S). — George Cruikshank. .\n English artist and caricaturist (1792-1878). 238 : 25. Wold^ of Tyne. Woods on the river Tyne, in the north of England. 239 : 33. Delphian, Vestal . . . cosmic. Delphian, of or pertaining to Delphi. (See note, § 24, p. 154.) Vestal of or pertaining to Vesta, the virgin goddess of the hearth. Cosmic, ha\’ing reference to universal law or order. 240:4. “Home. Sweet Home.” It is said that John Howard Payne, when writing this song, had in min d the NOTES 357 home of Miss Mary Harden^ Athens, Georgia, which ho visited in October, 1835. Afterwards, by letter, he made her this proposal of marriage: — am conscious of my own un worthiness of the boon which I desire from you, and cannot, dare not, ask you to give a decisive answer in my favor now, only permit me to hope that at some future time I may have the happiness of believing my affections returned, but at the same time I conjure you to remember in making your decision that it is in your power to render me happy or miserable.” — Extract from the Annols of AthenSy Georgia. 240 : 7. Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685- 1750), one of the greatest composers of Church music. He was born in Eisenach, and died in Leipsic. 240 : 18. La Robbia. Luca della Robbia, whose real name was Luca di Simone di Marco della Robbia (1400- 1482), a celebrated Italian sculptor. His son Andrea, and his grandsons, Giovanni and Girolamo, were noted for their work in terra-cotta. 241 : 26. Crackling of thorns under the pot. See Eccl. vii, 6. 242 : 26. “ With puissant words, and murmurs made to bless.” Milton, Arcades, line 60. “This undisturbed song of pure consent. Aye sung before the sapphire-colored throne To him that sits thereon.” — Milton, Ode : At a Solemn Music, lines 6-8. 243:21. ‘n’^pdv’n. golden; irepbv'q, buckle. 245 : 10. Northern hands and eyes are, of course, never so subtle as Southern. It is interesting to make a study of tlie degrees of latitude that have furnished the best poets, 358 JVOTES orators, artists, statesmen, warriors, etc. Climate and contour affect not only the body — hand, eye, voice; but also physical and mental energy. See what is said of Luini, § 157, and of Turner, § 158. 247 : 33. Cretin. A degenerate, deformed idiot. 248 : 29. And then you are a man. Mark iVntony says of Brutus {Julius Ccesar, V, v, 73-75 ):- — His life was gentle, and the elements So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, ‘This was a man!’ ” Read Burnses poem: For a’ That and a’ That: — The rank is but the guinea stamp ^ 4 : ^ A man’s a man for a’ that. 249 : 14. Habits of swine . . . taste of husks, etc. The allusion is to the story of the Prodigal Son, Luke xv, 11-23, particularly to verse 16. 260 : 21. Athanasian creed. One of the three great creeds of the Christian Church, dating from the sixth century. The name is from Saint Athanasius, a father of the Church, who was the chief defender of the orthodox faith against Arianism. 250 : 25. Mr. Mill. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), an English philosophical writer, logician, and economist. 251 : 10. Athol . . . Glen Tilt. Athol, a district in northern Perthshire, Scotland. Glen Tilt, a valley in north- ern Perthshire, Scotland. The road follows the river Tilt through the glen. 251 : 15. Loch Katrine. A lake in southwestern Perth- shire, 25 miles north of Glasgow. This lake furnishes the water-supply of Glasgow. ‘^Ellen’s Isle,” ScotCs Lady oj the Lake, is located in this lake. NOTES 359 251 : 19. Dean and Chapter. Dean, an ecclesiastical digni- tary, subordinate to a bishop, and the chief officer of a chapter, which is an assembly of monks, prebends, or other clergymen. 251 : 27. Castaly. The English form of Castalia, an ancient fountain on the slope of Mount Parnassus, Greece, sacred to the Muses and Apollo. 251 : 32. If the blind lead the blind, etc. Matt, xv, 14; Luke vi, 39. 253 : 7. Luini. Bernardino Luini (or Luvini), an Italian painter of the Lombard school. He was born about 1475, and died about 1535. 253 : 13. Angelico. Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (1387- 1455), an Italian painter of religious subjects. 253 : 14. Veronese. Paul (Paolo Cagliari) Veronese (1528-1588), an Italian painter of the Venetian school. 254 : 1. Lugano. Town and lake in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. — Saronno. A town in the province of Milan, Italy. The Sanctuary of the Virgin, a church of the six- teenth century, has a series of frescoes by Luini. 254 : 9. Milanese school. The school of Milan. 254 : 30. His instincts in early infancy were warped into toleration of evil, or even into delight in it. This reminds one of Pope's lines (Essay on Man, lines 217-220): — Vice is a monster of so frightful mien. As, to be hated, needs but to be seen: Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face. We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 256 : 4. Haydon. Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786- 1846), an English historical painter. His life was full of struggle and disappointment, and ended with suicide. 256 : 6. Blake. William Blake (1757-1827), an English poet, engraver, and painter. 256 ; Note. French Emperor (1869). Louis Napoleon. o60 NOTES The Hercules of Camarina 267 : 19. Camarina. An ancient city on the southern coast of Italy, 45 miles southwest of Syracuse. 258 : 18. Donatello, Velasquez. Donatello, Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi (1386-1466), a Florentine sculptor, and one of the leaders in restoring sculpture in Italy. Velas- quez, Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velasquez, or Velazquez {cir. 1599-1660), a celebrated Spanish painter. 259 : 3. Correggio. Antonio Allegri da Correggio (1494- 1534), an Italian painter of the Lombard school. 259 : 5. Liker. More like a foot. 260 : 8. Argos. A city in Argolis, Greece. It produced many noted sculptors. 260 : 9. Corinth. A city of Greece, situated near the Isthmus and Gulf of Corinth. 260 : 10. Thurium. Or Thurii, an ancient city of Magna Grajcia, situated near the modern city of Terranova. — The Siren Ligeia. Siren, from the Greek, means to pipe or whistle. The Siren Ligeia, on the coin, as in other works of art, is represented as having the head, arms, and bust of a young woman, and the wings and lower part of the body of a bird. What American writer is the author of a ‘^grotesque arabesque’^ story with the title Ligeia^’? 260 : 11. Fountain of Arethusa. The name of a spring in ancient Greece, on the island of Ortygia, in the harbor of Syracuse. Other ancient Grecian springs bore the same name. See Milton’s Lycidas, line 85. — Terina and Syracuse. Terina, a town of the Brutii, a people of Italy. Syracuse, the capital of the province of Syracuse, on the island of Ortygia, Sicily. 260 : 15. ^nus. Or jEnos, now Eno, a city of Thrace at the eastern mouth of the Hebrus. NOTES 3Gi 260 : 16. Bacchus of Thasos. See note on Bacchus, § 70, p. 74. Thasos, or Thasus, a small island in the JEgean Sea on the coast of Thrace. 260 : 17. Pomatum’d. Dressed with pomade, a per- fumed ointment originally made of apples. 260 : 19. Apollo of Clazomenae. Clazomence, an ancient Ionian city of Asia Minor, near the modern Vurla. 260 : 24. Venus of Melos. Melos, Italian Milo, an island in the monarchy of Cyclades, Greece. It is noted for the Venus of Melos {Venus di Milo) found in the ruins of the city of Melos. 261 : 22. Wild writhing . . . longing for the moon . . . agony of eyes . . . fiddle-strings. Pretty plain talk, but probably delivered in a half-humorous way. 262 : 30. Pons asinorum. Bridge of asses. 264 : 1. Felis Leo. Latin feles, felis, a cat; leo, a lion. 264 : 3. Typhon and Echidna. Typhon, a monster giant with an hundred heads. He made war against the gods, and was put to flight by Jupiter’s thunderbolts. See Milton’s Christ's Nativity, line 226. Echidna, the mother of dragons, Gorgons, the Nemean Lion, and all other adver- saries. 264 : 5. Cerberus . . . the Hydra of Lerna. See note on Cerberus, § 23, p. 162. Lerna, a country of Argolis, cele- brated for a grove and lake where the Danaides are said to have thrown the heads of their husbands. 266 : 22. Zeuxis. A celebrated painter, born at Her- aclea. He flourished about 468 b.c. He was the disciple of Apollodorus, and contemporary with Parrhasius. 267:19. Holbein. Hans Holbein — “The Younger” (1497-1543), a German historical and portrait painter and wood engraver, son of Hans Holbein, “The Elder." 362 yOTES 267 : 33. Crown of Parsley first and then of the Laurel. In the Olympic games, the \ictor's prize was a wreath of wild olive; in the Pythian, the prizes for musical excellence were gold and silver, for gymnastic exercises a crown of laurel; in the Nemean, at first a wreath of olive, after- wards of parsley; in the Isthmian, at first a crown of pine, afterwards of parsley, and still later the crown of pine was resumed. What is the origin of the term Poet Laureate f INDEX TO NOTES Aaron, 340. Abijah, 291. Achilles, 337. Acropolis, 304, 305. Actseon, 332. Addison, 296. .®]gis, 303. ^neas, 341. ^^neid, 326. jEnus, 360. J^olus, 329. ^Eschylus, 326. ^sculapian, 349, ^sculapius, 346. Africa, 302. Aglaia^s Cestus, 355. Aglauros, 339. Agonia, 340. Ajax, 350. Alcmena, 303, Alecto, 275. Alembics, 320. Alexandria, Virgirda, Alps, 314. Ambrosia, 337. Amphitheatre, 316. Angelico, 359. Antioch, 340. Antiparos, 344. Antwerp, 299. Apennines, 314. Aphrodite, 332, 347. Apolline lyre, 343. Apollo, 303, 305. Apollo-worship, 303. 354. Arabian Nights* Entertainments , 356. Aratra Pentelici, 303. Arcadia, 333. Arcadia (Louisiana), 333. Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney, 33c Ares, 337, 342. Argos, 360. Argus, 334. Aristocracy, 320. Aristodemus, 318. Aristophanes, 336. Aristotle, 350. Armstrong, Sir William, 298. Arno, 348. Arnold ^s The Forsaken Mer-^ man, 327^ Arnold's Sohrah and Rustum, 298, 331, 338. A Roman Lawyer in JerusaXem, 282. Artemis, 332. Asmodeus, 324. Asphodel, 339. As You Like It, 337. Athamas, 335. Athanasian creed, 358, Athena, 303, 324. Athena Agoraia, 305. Athene, 304. Athens, Georgia, 357. Athens (Greece), 275, 310. Atlantis, the Ante-Deluvian World, Ignatius Donnelly, 310. 363 364 IXDEX TO NOTES AtreidevS, 338. Attica, 338. Austria, 298, 319. Autolycus, 334. Avon, 348. Babylon, 305 Bacchus, 303, 305, 361. Bach, Sebastian, 357. Backsliding, 292. Baden-Baden. 280. Barbarians, 318. Barbarossa, 352. Bartiwlomew Fair, Ben Jonson, 299. Baruch, 287. Barzillai, 291. Bates, Herbert, 301. Battersea, 316. BaA^ard, Chevalier, 344. Belles, 320. Beethoven, 295. Belgium, 299. Bellerophon, 325, 335. Bethels, 320. Be^^dck, Thomas, 356. Birmingham (England), 280. Blackmail, 271. Blake, William, 359. Bond Street (London), 279. Bone-picker, 281. Boreas, 330. Bosphorus, 302. Bradford, 300. British Museum, 303, 340. Britomart, 320. Broad Church, 304. Brough, 300. Browning. A Talc, .342. B^owning^<^ .1 nHrrn Hrl Sm'fo, 355. I Brus.sels, 299. Buckingham Palace, 300. Burns, Robert, 358. Byron’s Childe Harold, 341. Cain, 339. Calliope, 303. Camarina, 360. Cambridge (England), Daily Neivs, 346. Camilla, 337. Campagna, 269. Carlisle, 300. Carlyle, Thomas, 316. Cary, H. F., 356. Castaly, 359. Cathedral, Baltimore, 307. Cerberus, 331, 361. Ceres, 303, 308. Cervantes, 284. Chalcedony, 269. Character of the Happy Warrior, Wordsworth, 313. CharA^bdis, 330. Chaucer, 280, 282, 340. Chimjera, 335. Chrvsippus, 328. Cid, The, 344. Cinderella, 355. Civil War, 278. Clazomenje, 361. Clio, 303. Cloister, 302. Coeur de Lion, 352. Colenso, Bishop, John Wulliam, 283. Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, 333. Congressional IJbrarA^, W"ash- ington, 307. Conventicle, 292. INDEX TO NOTES 365 Corinlh, 360. Corinth, Battle of, 318. Correggio, 360. Crantor, 328. Crete, 318. Cricketing, 317. Cruden, 293. Cruikshank, George, 356. Crusade, 302. Cj’nosarges, 332. Danae, 329, 336. Danaides, 336. Dandolo, 352. Dante, 287, 295. Dante ^s Inferno, 331. Dante Purgatorio, 339. Darwin,' Charles, 345. Darwin, Erasmus, 345. Darwin, William Erasmus, 346. David, 290, 291, 352. David Harum, 310. Davy, Sir Humphry, 350. Delphi, 333. Demeter, 326, 343. Dickens, 309. Dickens’s Oliver Txvist, 352. Die Dorier, Miiller^^ 317. Diodorus, 330. Diomed, 334. Dionysus, 303. Dives, 280. Divina Commedia, 287. “Dixie,” 318. Draconian, 347. Dodge, Henry N., 353. Dodge’s Mystery of the West, 353. Donatello, 360. \ Donne, John, 276. Don Quiocote, 284. Doric flute, 34-3. Dowden, Edward, 292. Diirer, 353, 355, Echidna, 361. Egypt, 302. Elysian fields, 339. Ephesus, 305. Erato, 303. Erebus, 351. Erectheum, 340. Erichthonius, 338. Esau, 339. Ethics of the Dust, 343, Euripides, 335. Eurotas, .333. Euryale, 303. Euterpe, 303. Exeter Hall, 320. Faerie Queene, 274, 320, 325. Faun, 344. Fergusson, James, 347. Fetish, 274. France, 297. Franklin, Benjamin, 300. Frederick the Great, 352. Furies, The, 275, 332. Gainsborough, J'homas, 329. Galileo, 287. Ganges, 348. Garden of Proserpine, Swin- burne, 327. Gareth and Lynette, Tennyson, 322. Gayley’s Classic Myths, 324 350. Geneva, 353. Genseric, .315. George ITT., 300. Gettysburg, .318. 366 INDEX TO NOTES Gigantomachia, 346. Giotto, 353. Glaucus, 335. Gorgons, 303, 337. Gothic, 298. Graiae, 337. Greece, 298. Guillotines, 304. Harden, Miss Mary, 357. Hades, 311. Hamlet, 308, 311, 337. Harpies, The, 330. Harpy falcon, 337. Hawes, 300. Hawthorne The Great Stone Face, 307. Haydon, Benjamin R., 359. Hector, 338. Hecuba, 332. Helen, 351. Helle, 335. Helps, Sir Artliur, 317. Hemlock drink, 348. 1 Henry IV., 337. Hephaestus, 328, 338. Hera, 332, 334, 347. Hercules, 277, 303, 325, 326. Hermes, 333. Hesiod, 328. Hezekiah, 274. Hieroglyph, 346. Hieroglyphic, 302. High Church, 304. Hiller ^s Anthologia Lyrica, 291. Hippomedon, 335. Holbein, 295, 361. ^‘Home, Sweet Home,*^ 356. Homer, 286, 329. Homer’s Iliad, 330. Hooke, Robert, 287. Horace, 344. Horace, Ode, 321. Hotspur, 337. Hurdle-races, 317. Hydria, 341. Icarius, 331. Iconography, 345. Ida, 339. Idothea, 272. Iliad, 286, 287. Ilissus, 330. India, 302, 319. Introduction to English Litera- ture, Pan coast, 325. Isadas, 318. Isthmian games, 336. Italy, 298. Ixion, 336. Jansen, Zacharias, 287. Jason, 308. Jesse, 291, 340. Johnson’s Rasselas, 284. Jones, Inigo, 299. Jousting, 316. Judas Iscariot, 282. Judea, 347. . Julius Caesar, 285, 287, 289, 358. Jupiter, 303, 305, 334. Jura, 324. Keats, John, 329. Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, 348. Kerioth, 282. Kingsley, Charles, 304. Knight, Richard Payne, 350. Knight-errant, 306. Knight of the Garter, 325. INDEX TO NOTES 367 Lacedaemon, 333. Lancelot and Elaine, Tenny- son, 328. Lanier, Sidney, 319, 342. Laocoon, 341. Latona, 305. Lazarus, 280, 281. Leonardo da Vinci, 295. Leonidas, 352. Leppershey, Hans, 287. Lerna, 325, 361. Leucothea, 327. Li pari, 330. Lombardy, 314. London Times, 297. Longfellow, 287. Lord Byron ^s The Curse of Minerva, 303. Louis, Dr. Antoine, 304. liOuis Napoleon, 359. Loveman, Robert, 334. Low Church, 304. Lugano, 359. Luini, 359. Lycidas, 311, 327, 329, 360. Macbeth, 276. Madonna, The, 308. Magna Graecia, 341. Maia, 339. Mars, 328. Marseillaise, The, 343. Mars’ hill, 275. Marsyas, 343. Masques, Ben Jonson's, 299. Medusa, 303, 337. Megara, 275. Melpomene, 303. Menelaus, 338. Merchant of Venice, 298, 307. Mercury, 305, 339. Merlin, 341. Michelangelo, 287, 295, 352. Microscope, 287. Mill, J. Stuart, 272, 273, 358. Milton, 282, 326, 329. Milton’s Arcades, 357. Milton’s Ode: At a Solemn Music, 357. Milton’s Ode: To the Nativity, 301, 361. Minerva, 303, 307. Modern Painters, 272, 295, 317. Mont Blanc, 353. Moriai, 340. Morris, William, 329. Mortimer, 337. Mount Parnassus, 305. Muller, Karl Otfried, 317. Muller, Max, 330. Muses, The, 303. Myers’s Ancient History, 291 Mynell, Mrs., 272, 273. Myrtilus, 334. Napoleon, 315. Narcissus, 349. Nemean lion, 345. Neptune, 327. Nereus, 327. Neuchatel, 324. Newton, Charles, 324. Newton, Sir Isaac, 287. Nile, 302, 348. Noah, 332. Norton, Charles Eliot, 287, 293, 308, 323, 329, 354. Ode to a Grecian Urn, Keats, 324 Odysseus, 328. Odyssey, 286, 287, 329. Olympia, 277, 340. 3G8 INDEX TO NOTES OhTiipus, 307, 308. On the Massacre of Glencoe j Scott, 296. Oreith>ia. 330. Orlando, 337. Ossa, 308. Ossa and Pelian, 346. Owen, Sir Richard, 346. Palacmon, 327. Palestine, 340. Palladio, 299. Pallas, 304, 308. Pan, 343. Panathenaic, 340. Pandareos, 331. Pandarus, 351. Pandrosos, 339. Paradise Lostj 282, 324, 335. Paris, 305. Parthenon, 303, 304. Patroclus, 338. Paul, 275. Pa>Tie, John Howard, 356. Pegasus, 325. Pelion, 308. Peloj>s, 331. Penelope, 333. Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined, The, 283. Peplus, 342. Percy ^s Reliques, 307. Perdita. 349. Perseus, 336. Peter Bell, 292. Peter the Fisherman, 287. Peter the Pope, 287. Pharaoh, 352. Phidias, 351. Philologist-', 280. Phrixus, 335. Phya. 344. Pindar, 277, 326. Pinkney’s -4 Health, 342. Pisan Maremma, 269. Pi.sistratiis, 343. Plain of Dura, 311. Plato, 310. Pleiades, 333. Plutus, 308. Poe, Edgar Allan, 331. Poe’s Annabel Lee, 342. Poe’s Lenore, 289. Poe’s The Bells, 342. Poe’s To Helen, 349. Poet Laureate, 362. Polygnotus, S132. Polyh\Tnnia, 303. Polyphemus, 342. Poor Law Act, 281. Pope, Alexander, 338. Pope’s Essay on Man, 359. Poseidon, 326. Proeterita, 274, 281. Priam, 334. Prologue, The, 280, 282. Proserpine, 303, 327. Proteus, 333. Provence, 355. Purgatory, 356. P>^ho, 341. Python, 345. Raphael, 295. Remus, 314. Renaissance architectuio, 301 Republic of Plato, 291. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 329. Ricardo, Da\5d, 272, 273. Riley, James Whitcornb, 285. Rip Van inkle, 325. Robbia, Luca della, 357. INDEX TO NOTES 369 Roh Roy's Grave, Wordsworth, 309. Rornaunt of the Rose, The, 280. Rome, 305, 344. Romulus, 314. Rose Terrace, 281. Rouen Cathedral, 352. Royal Exchange, 299. St. Andrew, 307. St. George, 325. St. George’s Cross, 307. St. Louis, 344. vSt. Michael, 299. St. Paul, 327, 345. St. Paul’s, 299. St. Peter’s, 299. St. Stephen, 287. Salyards, Joseph, 272. Salmoneus, 335. Samuel, 314. Sancho Panza, 283. Saronno, 359. Sartor Resartus, 316. Saturn, 303. Scott, Sir Walter, 296. Scott’s Lady of the Lake, 358. Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 296. Scylla, 341. Selling of absolution, 304. Semele, 305, 336. Sesame and Lilies, 311, 313, 320, 324, 330, 351, 352, 353, 354. Seven Lamps of Architecture, The, 301. Severn, Joseph, 324. Shakespeare, 337. Shylock, 319. Sirens, 331. Sirius, .331. 2 B Sisyphus, 336. Smith, Abram Lent, 354. Smith, Adam, 273. Somme, 351. Sorrento, 330. Southey, Robert, 286. Sparta, 318. Spenser, Edmund, 274, 325. “Star Spangled Banner, The,” 343. Steeple chase, 317. Stevenson, Robert Louis, 278. Stheno, 303. Stonehenge, 352. Stones of Venice, 301, 354. Story, W. W., 282. Suwarrow, 315. Sykes, Bill, 352. Synagogues, 301. Syracuse, 360. Syria, 302. Tale of Two Cities, Dickens, 304. Talisman, 274. Tantalus, 331. Taras, 341. Tarentum, 341. Taygeta, 333. Telescope, 287. Temple Bar, 299. Teniers, David, the Elder, 294. Teniers, David, the Younger, 294. Tennyson’s The Brook, 310. Terpsichore, 303. Tetzel, Johann, 304. Thalia, 303. Thanatopsis, 334. Thessalv, 307. The Tempest, 327. 370 INDEX TO NOTES Thetis, 327. Thurium, 360. Tiber, 305. Tintoret, 314. Tisiphone, 275. Titian, 295. Torcella, 269. Tournament, 316. Troy, 350. Turner, J. M. W., 295. Turnpike, 272. Tuscany, 298. Tyndall, John, 324. Typhon, 361. Ulfilas, 353. Ulysses, 329, 342. ‘‘Uncle Remus, ’^326. University of Oxford, 303. Unto this Last, 271, 272, 273, 313. Urania, 303. United States, 297. Valerius, 352. Vatican, 305. Velasquez, 360. Venice, 298. Venus di Milo, 361 . Venus-worship, 303. Veronese, 359. Versailles. 305. Vergil, 339. Vergil’s Mneid, 330. Virgin-worship, 303. Voirons, 353. Von Liebig, Baron Justus, 320. Vulgate, The, 280, 307. Wandel, 269. Wealth of Notions, 273. Westminster Abbey, 317. Westmoreland, 300. Whinstone, 308. W' interns Tale, The, 349. Wordsworth, 292, 308, 333, 344. Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimo' tions of Immortality, 351. Wren, Sir Christopher, 2PP. “Yankee Doodle,” 318. Zeuxis, 361. New Testament Acts, 269, 273 (2), 275, 287, 293, 342, 345, 351. 1 Corinthians, 274, 301, 303, 327, 346. 2 Corinthians, 275, 311. Eph., 293, 343. Gal., 275. Heb., 275, 276, 285, 304. James, 283, 292. John, 270, 274, 279, 282 (3), 290, 305, 345, 346, 351, 352. Luke, 271, 273 (2), 274, 280 (3), 281, 282 (2), 285 (2), 287, 290 (2), 293 (2), 300 (2), 304, 306, 307, 311, 344, 346, 349, 350, 358, 359. Mark, 273, 282 (2), 290 (2), 300, 304, 305, 306, 307, 310, 311, 344, 346. 351, 354. Matthew, 271, 273, 274 (2), 279, 280 (2), 282 (3), 285 (2), 287, 288 (4), 290 (2), 292 (2), 293 (2), 294, 300 (3), 301, 304, 305, 306 (2), 307, 310, 322 (2), 342, 344, 346, 347, 349, 350, 351, 352, 359. 1 Peter, 31 k INDEX TO NOTES 371 Phil, 274 , 285 , 292 . Rev., 279 , 282 , 284 , 292 , 293 ( 3 ), 322 , 349 . Romans, 275 , 288 , 290 , 292 ( 2 ), 293 . 1 Thes., 343 . 1 Tim., 277 . 2 Tim., 322 . Titus, 354 . Old Testament 1 Chron., 285 , 291 , 299 , 346 . Deut., 293 , 346 . Eccl., 275 , 289 , 318 , 342 , 357 . Exodus, 290 , 299 , 311 , 340 , 346 . Ezeh., 353 . Genesis, 284 , 285 , 291 , 299 , 311 , 327 , 332 , 339 ( 2 ), 347 , 348 , 356 ( 2 ). Hos., 293 . Isaiah, 269 , 274 , 275 , 276 , 285 , 292 ( 2 ), 293 , 322 ( 2 ), 340 ( 2 ), 346 , 354 . Jeremiah, 285 ( 2 ), 287 , 293 , 307 , 353 , 354 . Job, 269 , 276 ( 2 ), 293 , 300 , 308 , 319 , 333 , 355 . Joel, 293 , 328 . Josh., 282 . Judges, 327 . 1 Kings, 291 ( 3 ), 309 , 346 . 2 Kings, 274 . Lamentations, 276 . Leviticus, 299 , 346 . Mai., 292 . Micah, 322 . Neh., 299 . Num., 299 , 346 . Proverbs, 290 ( 2 ), 294 , 311 , 322 , 354 . Psalms, 275 , 273 , 285 ( 3 ). 292 ( 3 ), 293 ( 3 ), 300 , 325 , 326 , 334 , 340 , 342 . 1 Sam., 314 , 322 . 2 Sam., 285 , 290 , 291 . Zech., 288 , 293 . Printed in the United States of America.