Chapter XXXVI: Preface (3)

L. No, Isabel; and there are countless Cains among us now, who kill their brothers by the score a day, not only for less provocation than Cain had, but for _no_ provocation,--and merely for what they can make of their bones,--yet do not think they are doing wrong in the least. Then sometimes you have the business reversed, as over in America these last years, where you have seen Abel resolutely killing Cain, and not thinking he is doing wrong. The great difficulty is always to open people's eyes: to touch their feelings, and break their hearts, is easy; the difficult thing is to break their heads. What does it matter, as long as they remain stupid, whether you change their feelings or not? You cannot be always at their elbow to tell them what is right: and they may just do as wrong as before, or worse; and their best intentions merely make the road smooth for them,--you know where, children. For it is not the place itself that is paved with them, as people say so often. You can't pave the bottomless pit; but you may the road to it.

MAY. Well, but if people do as well as they can see how, surely that is the right for them, isn't it?

L. No, May, not a bit of it; right is right, and wrong is wrong. It is only the fool who does wrong, and says he 'did it for the best.' And if there's one sort of person in the world that the Bible speaks harder of than another, it is fools. Their particular and chief way of saying 'There is no God' is this, of declaring that whatever their 'public opinion' may be, is right: and that God's opinion is of no consequence.

MAY. But surely nobody can always know what is right?

L. Yes, you always can, for to-day; and if you do what you see of it to-day, you will see more of it, and more clearly, to-morrow. Here, for instance, you children are at school, and have to learn French, and arithmetic, and music, and several other such things. That is your 'right' for the present; the 'right' for us, your teachers, is to see that you learn as much as you can, without spoiling your dinner, your sleep, or your play; and that what you do learn, you learn well. You all know when you learn with a will, and when you dawdle. There's no doubt of conscience about that, I suppose?

VIOLET. No; but if one wants to read an amusing book, instead of learning one's lesson?

L. You don't call that a 'question,' seriously, Violet? You are then merely deciding whether you will resolutely do wrong or not.

MARY. But, in after life, how many fearful difficulties may arise, however one tries to know or to do what is right!

L. You are much too sensible a girl, Mary, to have felt that, whatever you may have seen. A great many of young ladies' difficulties arise from their falling in love with a wrong person: but they have no business to let themselves fall in love, till they know he is the right one.

DORA. How many thousands ought he to have a year?

L. (_disdaining reply_). There are, of course, certain crises of fortune when one has to take care of oneself, and mind shrewdly what one is about. There is never any real doubt about the path, but you may have to walk very slowly.

MARY. And if one is forced to do a wrong thing by some one who has authority over you?

L. My dear, no one can be forced to do a wrong thing, for the guilt is in the will: but you may any day be forced to do a fatal thing, as you might be forced to take poison; the remarkable law of nature in such cases being, that it is always unfortunate _you_ who are poisoned, and not the person who gives you the dose. It is a very strange law, but it _is_ a law. Nature merely sees to the carrying out of the normal operation of arsenic. She never troubles herself to ask who gave it you. So also you may be starved to death, morally as well as physically, by other people's faults. You are, on the whole, very good children sitting here to-day;--do you think that your goodness comes all by your own contriving? or that you are gentle and kind because your dispositions are naturally more angelic than those of the poor girls who are playing, with wild eyes, on the dustheaps in the alleys of our great towns; and who will one day fill their prisons,--or, better, their graves? Heaven only knows where they, and we who have cast them there, shall stand at last. But the main judgment question will be, I suppose, for all of us, 'Did you keep a good heart through it?' What you were, others may answer for;--what you tried to be, you must answer for, yourself. Was the heart pure and true--tell us that?

And so we come back to your sorrowful question, Lucilla, which I put aside a little ago. You would be afraid to answer that your heart _was_ pure and true, would not you?

LUCILLA. Yes, indeed, sir.

L. Because you have been taught that it is all evil--'only evil continually.' Somehow, often as people say that, they never seem, to me, to believe it? Do you really believe it?

LUCILLA. Yes, sir; I hope so.

L. That you have an entirely bad heart?

LUCILLA (_a little uncomfortable at the substitution of the monosyllable for the dissyllable, nevertheless persisting in her orthodoxy_). Yes, sir.

L. Florrie, I am sure you are tired; I never like you to stay when you are tired; but, you know, you must not play with the kitten while we're talking.

FLORRIE. Oh! but I'm not tired; and I'm only nursing her. She'll be asleep in my lap directly.

L. Stop! that puts me in mind of something I had to show you, about minerals that are like hair. I want a hair out of Tittie's tail.

FLORRIE (_quite rude, in her surprise, even to the point of repeating expressions_). Out of Tittie's tail!

L. Yes; a brown one: Lucilla, you can get at the tip of it nicely, under Florrie's arm; just pull one out for me.

LUCILLA. Oh! but, sir, it will hurt her so!

L. Never mind; she can't scratch you while Florrie is holding her. Now that I think of it, you had better pull out two.

LUCILLA. But then she may scratch Florrie! and it will hurt her so, sir! if you only want brown hairs, wouldn't two of mine do?

L. Would you really rather pull out your own than Tittie's?

LUCILLA. Oh, of course, if mine will do.

L. But that's very wicked, Lucilla!

LUCILLA. Wicked, sir?

L. Yes; if your heart was not so bad, you would much rather pull all the cat's hairs out, than one of your own.

LUCILLA. Oh! but sir, I didn't mean bad, like that.

L. I believe, if the truth were told, Lucilla, you would like to tie a kettle to Tittie's tail, and hunt her round the playground.

LUCILLA. Indeed, I should not, sir.

L. That's not true, Lucilla; you know it cannot be.

LUCILLA. Sir?

L. Certainly it is not;--how can you possibly speak any truth out of such a heart as you have? It is wholly deceitful.

LUCILLA. Oh! no, no; I don't mean that way; I don't mean that it makes me tell lies, quite out.

L. Only that it tells lies within you?

LUCILLA. Yes.

L. Then, outside of it, you know what is true, and say so; and I may trust the outside of your heart; but within, it is all foul and false. Is that the way?

LUCILLA. I suppose so: I don't understand it, quite.

L. There is no occasion for understanding it; but do you feel it? Are you sure that your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked?

LUCILLA (_much relieved by finding herself among phrases with which she is acquainted_). Yes, sir. I'm sure of that.

L. (_pensively_). I'm sorry for it, Lucilla.

LUCILLA. So am I, indeed.

L. What are you sorry with, Lucilla?

LUCILLA. Sorry with, sir?

L. Yes; I mean, where do you feel sorry? in your feet?

LUCILLA (_laughing a little_). No, sir, of course.

L. In your shoulders, then?

LUCILLA. No, sir.

L. You are sure of that? Because, I fear, sorrow in the shoulders would not be worth much.

LUCILLA. I suppose I feel it in my heart, if I really am sorry.

L. If you really are! Do you mean to say that you are sure you are utterly wicked, and yet do not care?

LUCILLA. No, indeed; I have cried about it often.

L. Well, then, you are sorry in your heart?

LUCILLA. Yes, when the sorrow is worth anything.

L. Even if it be not, it cannot be anywhere else but there. It is not the crystalline lens of your eyes which is sorry, when you cry?

LUCILLA. No, sir, of course.

L. Then, have you two hearts; one of which is wicked, and the other grieved? or is one side of it sorry for the other side?

LUCILLA (_weary of cross-examination, and a little vexed_). Indeed, sir, you know I can't understand it; but you know how it is written--'another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.'

L. Yes, Lucilla, I know how it is written; but I do not see that it will help us to know that, if we neither understand what is written, nor feel it. And you will not get nearer to the meaning of one verse, if, as soon as you are puzzled by it, you escape to another, introducing three new words--'law,' 'members,' and 'mind'; not one of which you at present know the meaning of; and respecting which, you probably never will be much wiser; since men like Montesquieu and Locke have spent great part of their lives in endeavouring to explain two of them.

LUCILLA. Oh! please, sir, ask somebody else.

L. If I thought anyone else could answer better than you, Lucilla, I would; but suppose I try, instead, myself, to explain your feelings to you?

LUCILLA. Oh, yes; please do.

L. Mind, I say your 'feelings,' not your 'belief.' For I cannot undertake to explain anybody's beliefs. Still I must try a little, first, to explain the belief also, because I want to draw it to some issue. As far as I understand what you say, or any one else, taught as you have been taught, says, on this matter,--you think that there is an external goodness, a whited-sepulchre kind of goodness, which appears beautiful outwardly, but is within full of uncleanness: a deep secret guilt, of which we ourselves are not sensible; and which can only be seen by the Maker of us all. (_Approving murmurs from audience._)

L. Is it not so with the body as well as the soul?

(_Looked notes of interrogation._)

L. A skull, for instance, is not a beautiful thing?

(_Grave faces, signifying 'Certainly not,' and 'What
next?'_)

L. And if you all could see in each other, with clear eyes, whatever God sees beneath those fair faces of yours, you would not like it?

(_Murmured 'No's.'_)

L. Nor would it be good for you?

(_Silence._)

L. The probability being that what God does not allow you to see, He does not wish you to see; nor even to think of?

(_Silence prolonged._)

L. It would not at all be good for you, for instance, whenever you were washing your faces, and braiding your hair, to be thinking of the shapes of the jawbones, and of the cartilage of the nose, and of the jagged sutures of the scalp?

(_Resolutely whispered No's._)

L. Still less, to see through a clear glass the daily processes of nourishment and decay?

(_No._)

L. Still less if instead of merely inferior and preparatory conditions of structure, as in the skeleton,--or inferior offices of structure, as in operations of life and death,--there were actual disease in the body; ghastly and dreadful. You would try to cure it; but having taken such measures as were necessary, you would not think the cure likely to be promoted by perpetually watching the wounds, or thinking of them. On the contrary, you would be thankful for every moment of forgetfulness: as, in daily health, you must be thankful that your Maker has veiled whatever is fearful in your frame under a sweet and manifest beauty; and has made it your duty, and your only safety, to rejoice in that, both in yourself and in others:--not indeed concealing, or refusing to believe in sickness, if it come; but never dwelling on it.

Now, your wisdom and duty touching soul-sickness are just the same. Ascertain clearly what is wrong with you; and so far as you know any means of mending it, take those means, and have done: when you are examining yourself, never call yourself merely a 'sinner,' that is very cheap abuse; and utterly useless. You may even get to like it, and be proud of it. But call yourself a liar, a coward, a sluggard, a glutton, or an evil-eyed jealous wretch, if you indeed find yourself to be in any wise any of these. Take steady means to check yourself in whatever fault you have ascertained, and justly accused yourself of. And as soon as you are in active way of mending, you will be no more inclined to moan over an undefined corruption. For the rest, you will find it less easy to uproot faults, than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of your faults; still less of others' faults: in every person who comes near you, look for what is good and strong: honour that; rejoice in it; and, as you can, try to imitate it: and your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes. If, on looking back, your whole life should seem rugged as a palm tree stem; still, never mind, so long as it has been growing; and has its grand green shade of leaves, and weight of honied fruit, at top. And even if you cannot find much good in yourself at last, think that it does not much matter to the universe either what you were, or are; think how many people are noble, if you cannot be; and rejoice in _their_ nobleness. An immense quantity of modern confession of sin, even when honest, is merely a sickly egotism; which will rather gloat over its own evil, than lose the centralisation of its interest in itself.

MARY. But then, if we ought to forget ourselves so much, how did the old Greek proverb 'Know thyself' come to be so highly esteemed?

L. My dear, it is the proverb of proverbs; Apollo's proverb, and the sun's;--but do you think you can know yourself by looking _into_ yourself? Never. You can know what you are, only by looking _out_ of yourself. Measure your own powers with those of others; compare your own interests with those of others; try to understand what you appear to them, as well as what they appear to you; and judge of yourselves, in all things, relatively and subordinately; not positively: starting always with a wholesome conviction of the probability that there is nothing particular about you. For instance, some of you perhaps think you can write poetry. Dwell on your own feelings and doings:--and you will soon think yourselves Tenth Muses; but forget your own feelings; and try, instead, to understand a line or two of Chaucer or Dante: and you will soon begin to feel yourselves very foolish girls--which is much like the fact.

So, something which befalls you may seem a great misfortune;--you meditate over its effects on you personally; and begin to think that it is a chastisement, or a warning, or a this or that or the other of profound significance; and that all the angels in heaven have left their business for a little while, that they may watch its effects on your mind. But give up this egotistic indulgence of your fancy; examine a little what misfortunes, greater a thousandfold, are happening, every second, to twenty times worthier persons: and your self-consciousness will change into pity and humility; and you will know yourself, so far as to understand that 'there hath nothing taken thee but what is common to man.'

Now, Lucilla, these are the practical conclusions which any person of sense would arrive at, supposing the texts which relate to the inner evil of the heart were as many, and as prominent, as they are often supposed to be by careless readers. But the way in which common people read their Bibles is just like the way that the old monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselves (it was said), over and over, where the grapes lay on the ground. What fruit stuck to their spines, they carried off, and ate. So your hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and declare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture; and that nothing else is. But you can only get the skins of the texts that way. If you want their juice, you must press them in cluster. Now, the clustered texts about the human heart, insist, as a body, not on any inherent corruption in all hearts, but on the terrific distinction between the bad and the good ones. 'A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth that which is evil.' 'They on the rock are they which, in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it.' 'Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.' 'The wicked have bent their bow, that they may privily shoot at him that is upright in heart.' And so on; they are countless, to the same effect. And, for all of us, the question is not at all to ascertain how much or how little corruption there is in human nature; but to ascertain whether, out of all the mass of that nature, we are of the sheep or the goat breed; whether we are people of upright heart, being shot at, or people of crooked heart, shooting. And, of all the texts bearing on the subject, this, which is a quite simple and practical order, is the one you have chiefly to hold in mind. 'Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.'

LUCILLA. And yet, how inconsistent the texts seem!

L. Nonsense, Lucilla! do you think the universe is bound to look consistent to a girl of fifteen? Look up at your own room window;--you can just see it from where you sit. I'm glad that it is left open, as it ought to be, in so fine a day. But do you see what a black spot it looks, in the sunlighted wall?

LUCILLA. Yes, it looks as black as ink.

L. Yet you know it is a very bright room when you are inside of it; quite as bright as there is any occasion for it to be, that its little lady may see to keep it tidy. Well, it is very probable, also, that if you could look into your heart from the sun's point of view, it might appear a very black hole indeed; nay, the sun may sometimes think good to tell you that it looks so to Him; but He will come into it, and make it very cheerful for you, for all that, if you don't put the shutters up. And the one question for _you_, remember, is not 'dark or light?' but 'tidy or untidy?' Look well to your sweeping and garnishing; and be sure it is only the banished spirit, or some of the seven wickeder ones at his back, who will still whisper to you that it is all black.

LECTURE VI.

_CRYSTAL QUARRELS._

_Full conclave, in Schoolroom. There has been a game at
crystallisation in the morning, of which various account has
to be rendered. In particular, everybody has to explain why
they were always where they were not intended to be._

L. (_having received and considered the report_). You have got on pretty well, children: but you know these were easy figures you have been trying. Wait till I have drawn you out the plans of some crystals of snow!

MARY. I don't think those will be the most difficult:--they are so beautiful that we shall remember our places better; and then they are all regular, and in stars: it is those twisty oblique ones we are afraid of.

L. Read Carlyle's account of the battle of Leuthen, and learn Freidrich's 'oblique order.' You will 'get it done for once, I think, provided you _can_ march as a pair of compasses would.' But remember, when you can construct the most difficult single figures, you have only learned half the game--nothing so much as the half, indeed, as the crystals themselves play it.

MARY. Indeed; what else is there?

L. It is seldom that any mineral crystallises alone. Usually two or three, under quite different crystalline laws, form together. They do this absolutely without flaw or fault, when they are in fine temper: and observe what this signifies. It signifies that the two, or more, minerals of different natures agree, somehow, between themselves, how much space each will want;--agree which of them shall give away to the other at their junction; or in what measure each will accommodate itself to the other's shape! And then each takes its permitted shape, and allotted share of space; yielding, or being yielded to, as it builds, till each crystal has fitted itself perfectly and gracefully to its differently-natured neighbour. So that, in order to practise this, in even the simplest terms, you must divide into two parties, wearing different colours; each must choose a different figure to construct; and you must form one of these figures through the other, both going on at the same time.

MARY. I think _we_ may, perhaps, manage it; but I cannot at all understand how the crystals do. It seems to imply so much preconcerting of plan, and so much giving way to each other, as if they really were living.

L. Yes, it implies both concurrence and compromise, regulating all wilfulness of design: and, more curious still, the crystals do _not_ always give way to each other. They show exactly the same varieties of temper that human creatures might. Sometimes they yield the required place with perfect grace and courtesy; forming fantastic, but exquisitely finished groups: and sometimes they will not yield at all; but fight furiously for their places, losing all shape and honour, and even their own likeness, in the contest.

MARY. But is not that wholly wonderful? How is it that one never sees it spoken of in books?

L. The scientific men are all busy in determining the constant laws under which the struggle takes place; these indefinite humours of the elements are of no interest to them. And unscientific people rarely give themselves the trouble of thinking at all when they look at stones. Not that it is of much use to think; the more one thinks, the more one is puzzled.

MARY. Surely it is more wonderful than anything in botany?

L. Everything has its own wonders; but, given the nature of the plant, it is easier to understand what a flower will do, and why it does it, than, given anything we as yet know of stone-nature, to understand what a crystal will do, and why it does it. You at once admit a kind of volition and choice, in the flower, but we are not accustomed to attribute anything of the kind to the crystal. Yet there is, in reality, more likeness to some conditions of human feeling among stones than among plants. There is a far greater difference between kindly-tempered and ill-tempered crystals of the same mineral, than between any two specimens of the same flower: and the friendships and wars of crystals depend more definitely and curiously on their varieties of disposition, than any associations of flowers. Here, for instance, is a good garnet, living with good mica; one rich red, and the other silver white: the mica leaves exactly room enough for the garnet to crystallise comfortably in; and the garnet lives happily in its little white house; fitted to it, like a pholas in its cell. But here are wicked garnets living with wicked mica. See what ruin they make of each other! You cannot tell which is which; the garnets look like dull red stains on the crumbling stone. By the way, I never could understand, if St. Gothard is a real saint, why he can't keep his garnets in better order. These are all under his care; but I suppose there are too many of them for him to look after. The streets of Airolo are paved with them.

MAY. Paved with garnets?

L. With mica-slate and garnets; I broke this bit out of a paving stone. Now garnets and mica are natural friends, and generally fond of each other; but you see how they quarrel when they are ill brought up. So it is always. Good crystals are friendly with almost all other good crystals, however little they chance to see of each other, or however opposite their habits may be; while wicked crystals quarrel with one another, though they may be exactly alike in habits, and see each other continually. And of course the wicked crystals quarrel with the good ones.

ISABEL. Then do the good ones get angry?

L. No, never: they attend to their own work and life; and live it as well as they can, though they are always the sufferers. Here, for instance, is a rock-crystal of the purest race and finest temper, who was born, unhappily for him, in a bad neighbourhood, near Beaufort in Savoy; and he has had to fight with vile calcareous mud all his life. See here, when he was but a child, it came down on him, and nearly buried him; a weaker crystal would have died in despair; but he only gathered himself together, like Hercules against the serpents, and threw a layer of crystal over the clay; conquered it,--imprisoned it,--and lived on. Then, when he was a little older, came more clay; and poured itself upon him here, at the side; and he has laid crystal over that, and lived on, in his purity. Then the clay came on at his angles, and tried to cover them, and round them away; but upon that he threw out buttress-crystals at his angles, all as true to his own central line as chapels round a cathedral apse; and clustered them round the clay; and conquered it again. At last the clay came on at his summit, and tried to blunt his summit; but he could not endure that for an instant; and left his flanks all rough, but pure; and fought the clay at his crest, and built crest over crest, and peak over peak, till the clay surrendered at last; and here is his summit, smooth and pure, terminating a pyramid of alternate clay and crystal, half a foot high!

LILY. Oh, how nice of him! What a dear, brave crystal! But I can't bear to see his flanks all broken, and the clay within them.

L. Yes; it was an evil chance for him, the being born to such contention; there are some enemies so base that even to hold them captive is a kind of dishonour. But look, here has been quite a different kind of struggle: the adverse power has been more orderly, and has fought the pure crystal in ranks as firm as its own. This is not mere rage and impediment of crowded evil: here is a disciplined hostility; army against army.

LILY. Oh, but this is much more beautiful!

L. Yes, for both the elements have true virtue in them; it is a pity they are at war, but they war grandly.

MARY. But is this the same clay as in the other crystal?

L. I used the word clay for shortness. In both, the enemy is really limestone; but in the first, disordered, and mixed with true clay; while, here, it is nearly pure, and crystallises into its own primitive form, the oblique six-sided one, which you know: and out of these it makes regiments; and then squares of the regiments, and so charges the rock crystal literally in square against column.

ISABEL. Please, please, let me see. And what does the rock crystal do?

L. The rock crystal seems able to do nothing. The calcite cuts it through at every charge. Look here,--and here! The loveliest crystal in the whole group is hewn fairly into two pieces.

ISABEL. Oh, dear; but is the calcite harder than the crystal then?

L. No, softer. Very much softer.

MARY. But then, how can it possibly cut the crystal?

L. It did not really cut it, though it passes through it. The two were formed together, as I told you; but no one knows how. Still, it is strange that this hard quartz has in all cases a good-natured way with it, of yielding to everything else. All sorts of soft things make nests for themselves in it; and it never makes a nest for itself in anything. It has all the rough outside work; and every sort of cowardly and weak mineral can shelter itself within it. Look; these are hexagonal plates of mica; if they were outside of this crystal they would break, like burnt paper; but they are inside of it,--nothing can hurt them,--the crystal has taken them into its very heart, keeping all their delicate edges as sharp as if they were under water, instead of bathed in rock. Here is a piece of branched silver: you can bend it with a touch of your finger, but the stamp of its every fibre is on the rock in which it lay, as if the quartz had been as soft as wool.

LILY. Oh, the good, good quartz! But does it never get inside of anything?

L. As it is a little Irish girl who asks, I may perhaps answer, without being laughed at, that it gets inside of itself sometimes. But I don't remember seeing quartz make a nest for itself in anything else.

ISABEL. Please, there was something I heard you talking about, last term, with Miss Mary. I was at my lessons, but I heard something about nests; and I thought it was birds' nests; and I couldn't help listening; and then, I remember, it was about 'nests of quartz in granite.' I remember, because I was so disappointed!

L. Yes, mousie, you remember quite rightly; but I can't tell you about those nests to-day, nor perhaps to-morrow: but there's no contradiction between my saying then, and now; I will show you that there is not, some day. Will you trust me meanwhile?

ISABEL. Won't I!

L. Well, then, look, lastly, at this piece of courtesy in quartz; it is on a small scale, but wonderfully pretty. Here is nobly born quartz living with a green mineral, called epidote; and they are immense friends. Now, you see, a comparatively large and strong quartz-crystal, and a very weak and slender little one of epidote, have begun to grow, close by each other, and sloping unluckily towards each other, so that they at last meet. They cannot go on growing together; the quartz crystal is five times as thick, and more than twenty times as strong,[151] as the epidote; but he stops at once, just in the very crowning moment of his life, when he is building his own summit! He lets the pale little film of epidote grow right past him; stopping his own summit for it; and he never himself grows any more.

LILY (_after some silence of wonder_). But is the quartz _never_ wicked then?

L. Yes, but the wickedest quartz seems good-natured, compared to other things. Here are two very characteristic examples; one is good quartz, living with good pearlspar, and the other, wicked quartz, living with wicked pearlspar. In both, the quartz yields to the soft carbonate of iron: but, in the first place, the iron takes only what it needs of room; and is inserted into the planes of the rock crystal with such precision, that you must break it away before you can tell whether it really penetrates the quartz or not; while the crystals of iron are perfectly formed, and have a lovely bloom on their surface besides. But here, when the two minerals quarrel, the unhappy quartz has all its surfaces jagged and torn to pieces; and there is not a single iron crystal whose shape you can completely trace. But the quartz has the worst of it, in both instances.

VIOLET. Might we look at that piece of broken quartz again, with the weak little film across it? it seems such a strange lovely thing, like the self-sacrifice of a human being.

L. The self-sacrifice of a human being is not a lovely thing, Violet. It is often a necessary and noble thing; but no form nor degree of suicide can be ever lovely.

VIOLET. But self-sacrifice is not suicide!

L. What is it then?

VIOLET. Giving up one's self for another.

L. Well; and what do you mean by 'giving up one's self?'

VIOLET. Giving up one's tastes, one's feelings, one's time, one's happiness, and so on, to make others happy.

L. I hope you will never marry anybody, Violet, who expects you to make him happy in that way.

VIOLET (_hesitating_). In what way?

L. By giving up your tastes, and sacrificing your feelings, and happiness.

VIOLET. No, no, I don't mean that; but you know, for other people, one must.

L. For people who don't love you, and whom you know nothing about? Be it so; but how does this 'giving up' differ from suicide then?

VIOLET. Why, giving up one's pleasures is not killing one's self?

L. Giving up wrong pleasure is not; neither is it self-sacrifice, but self-culture. But giving up right pleasure is. If you surrender the pleasure of walking, your foot will wither; you may as well cut it off: if you surrender the pleasure of seeing, your eyes will soon be unable to bear the light; you may as well pluck them out. And to maim yourself is partly to kill yourself. Do but go on maiming, and you will soon slay.

VIOLET. But why do you make me think of that verse then about the foot and the eye?

L. You are indeed commanded to cut off and to pluck out, if foot or eye offend you; but why _should_ they offend you?

VIOLET. I don't know; I never quite understood that.

L. Yet it is a sharp order; one needing to be well understood if it is to be well obeyed! When Helen sprained her ancle the other day, you saw how strongly it had to be bandaged: that is to say, prevented from all work, to recover it. But the bandage was not 'lovely.'

VIOLET. No, indeed.

L. And if her foot had been crushed, or diseased, or snake-bitten, instead of sprained, it might have been needful to cut it off. But the amputation would not have been 'lovely.'

VIOLET. No.

L. Well, if eye and foot are dead already, and betray you--if the light that is in you be darkness, and your feet run into mischief, or are taken in the snare,--it is indeed time to pluck out, and cut off, I think: but, so crippled, you can never be what you might have been otherwise. You enter into life, at best, halt or maimed; and the sacrifice is not beautiful, though necessary.

VIOLET (_after a pause_). But when one sacrifices one's self for others?

L. Why not rather others for you?

VIOLET. Oh! but I couldn't bear that.

L. Then why should they bear it?

DORA (_bursting in, indignant_). And Thermopylae, and Protesilaus, and Marcus Curtius, and Arnold de Winkelried, and Iphigenia, and Jephthah's daughter?

L. (_sustaining the indignation unmoved_). And the Samaritan woman's son?

DORA. Which Samaritan woman's?

L. Read 2 Kings vi. 29.

DORA (_obeys_). How horrid! As if we meant anything like that!

L. You don't seem to me to know in the least what you do mean, children. What practical difference is there between 'that,' and what you are talking about? The Samaritan children had no voice of their own in the business, it is true; but neither had Iphigenia: the Greek girl was certainly neither boiled, nor eaten; but that only makes a difference in the dramatic effect; not in the principle.

DORA (_biting her lip_). Well, then, tell us what we ought to mean. As if you didn't teach it all to us, and mean it yourself, at this moment, more than we do, if you wouldn't be tiresome!

L. I mean, and have always meant, simply this, Dora;--that the will of God respecting us is that we shall live by each other's happiness, and life; not by each other's misery, or death. I made you read that verse which so shocked you just now, because the relations of parent and child are typical of all beautiful human help. A child may have to die for its parents; but the purpose of Heaven is that it shall rather live for them;--that, not by its sacrifice, but by its strength, its joy, its force of being, it shall be to them renewal of strength; and as the arrow in the hand of the giant. So it is in all other right relations. Men help each other by their joy, not by their sorrow. They are not intended to slay themselves for each other, but to strengthen themselves for each other. And among the many apparently beautiful things which turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that the thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men must be named as one of the fatallest. They have so often been taught that there is a virtue in mere suffering, as such; and foolishly to hope that good may be brought by Heaven out of all on which Heaven itself has set the stamp of evil, that we may avoid it,--that they accept pain and defeat as if these were their appointed portion; never understanding that their defeat is not the less to be mourned because it is more fatal to their enemies than to them. The one thing that a good man has to do, and to see done, is justice; he is neither to slay himself nor others causelessly: so far from denying himself, since he is pleased by good, he is to do his utmost to get his pleasure accomplished. And I only wish there were strength, fidelity, and sense enough, among the good Englishmen of this day, to render it possible for them to band together in a vowed brotherhood, to enforce, by strength of heart and hand, the doing of human justice among all who came within their sphere. And finally, for your own teaching, observe, although there may be need for much self-sacrifice and self-denial in the correction of faults of character, the moment the character is formed, the self-denial ceases. Nothing is really well done, which it costs you pain to do.

VIOLET. But surely, sir, you are always pleased with us when we try to please others, and not ourselves?

L. My dear child, in the daily course and discipline of right life, we must continually and reciprocally submit and surrender in all kind and courteous and affectionate ways: and these submissions and ministries to each other, of which you all know (none better) the practice and the preciousness, are as good for the yielder as the receiver: they strengthen and perfect as much as they soften and refine. But the real sacrifice of all our strength, or life, or happiness to others (though it may be needed, and though all brave creatures hold their lives in their hand, to be given, when such need comes, as frankly as a soldier gives his life in battle), is yet always a mournful and momentary necessity; not the fulfilment of the continuous law of being. Self-sacrifice which is sought after, and triumphed in, is usually foolish; and calamitous in its issue: and by the sentimental proclamation and pursuit of it, good people have not only made most of their own lives useless, but the whole framework of their religion so hollow, that at this moment, while the English nation, with its lips, pretends to teach every man to 'love his neighbour as himself,' with its hands and feet it clutches and tramples like a wild beast; and practically lives, every soul of it that can, on other people's labour. Briefly, the constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts; and to strengthen them for the help of others. Do you think Titian would have helped the world better by denying himself, and not painting; or Casella by denying himself, and not singing? The real virtue is to be ready to sing the moment people ask us; as he was, even in purgatory. The very word 'virtue' means not 'conduct' but 'strength,' vital energy in the heart. Were not you reading about that group of words beginning with V,--vital, virtuous, vigorous, and so on,--in Max Muller, the other day, Sibyl? Can't you tell the others about it?

SIBYL. No, I can't; will you tell us, please?

L. Not now, it is too late. Come to me some idle time to-morrow, and I'll tell you about it, if all's well. But the gist of it is, children, that you should at least know two Latin words; recollect that 'mors' means death and delaying; and 'vita' means life and growing: and try always, not to mortify yourselves, but to vivify yourselves.

VIOLET. But, then, are we not to mortify our earthly affections? and surely we are to sacrifice ourselves, at least in God's service, if not in man's?

L. Really, Violet, we are getting too serious. I've given you enough ethics for one talk, I think! Do let us have a little play. Lily, what were you so busy about, at the ant-hill in the wood, this morning?

LILY. Oh, it was the ants who were busy, not I; I was only trying to help them a little.

L. And they wouldn't be helped, I suppose?

LILY. No, indeed. I can't think why ants are always so tiresome, when one tries to help them! They were carrying bits of stick, as fast as they could, through a piece of grass; and pulling and pushing, _so_ hard; and tumbling over and over,--it made one quite pity them; so I took some of the bits of stick, and carried them forward a little, where I thought they wanted to put them; but instead of being pleased, they left them directly, and ran about looking quite angry and frightened; and at last ever so many of them got up my sleeves, and bit me all over, and I had to come away.

L. I couldn't think what you were about. I saw your French grammar lying on the grass behind you, and thought perhaps you had gone to ask the ants to hear you a French verb.

ISABEL. Ah! but you didn't, though!

L. Why not, Isabel? I knew, well enough, Lily couldn't learn that verb by herself.

ISABEL. No; but the ants couldn't help her.

L. Are you sure the ants could not have helped you, Lily?

LILY (_thinking_). I ought to have learned something from them, perhaps.

L. But none of them left their sticks to help you through the irregular verb?

LILY. No, indeed. (_Laughing, with some others._)

L. What are you laughing at, children? I cannot see why the ants should not have left their tasks to help Lily in her's,--since here is Violet thinking she ought to leave _her_ tasks, to help God in His. Perhaps, however, she takes Lily's more modest view, and thinks only that 'He ought to learn something from her.'

(_Tears in_ VIOLET'S _eyes._)

DORA (_scarlet_). It's too bad--it's a shame:--poor Violet!

L. My dear children, there's no reason why one should be so red, and the other so pale, merely because you are made for a moment to feel the absurdity of a phrase which you have been taught to use, in common with half the religious world. There is but one way in which man can ever help God--that is, by letting God help him: and there is no way in which his name is more guiltily taken in vain, than by calling the abandonment of our own work, the performance of His.

God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where He wishes us to be employed; and that employment is truly 'our Father's business.' He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him, if we are not happy ourselves. Now, away with you, children; and be as happy as you can. And when you cannot, at least don't plume yourselves upon pouting.

FOOTNOTES:

[151] Quartz is not much harder than epidote; the strength is only supposed to be in some proportion to the squares of the diameters.

LECTURE VII.

_HOME VIRTUES._

_By the fireside, in the Drawing-room. Evening._

DORA. Now, the curtains are drawn, and the fire's bright and here's your arm-chair--and you're to tell us all about what you promised.

L. All about what?

DORA. All about virtue.

KATHLEEN. Yes, and about the words that begin with V.

L. I heard you singing about a word that begins with V, in the playground, this morning, Miss Katie.

KATHLEEN. Me singing?

MAY. Oh tell us--tell us.

L. 'Vilikens and his----'

KATHLEEN (_stopping his mouth_). Oh! please don't. Where were you?

ISABEL. I'm sure I wish I had known where he was! We lost him among the rhododendrons, and I don't know where he got to; oh, you naughty--naughty--(_climbs on his knee_).

DORA. Now, Isabel, we really want to talk.

L. _I_ don't.

DORA. Oh, but you must. You promised, you know.

L. Yes, if all was well; but all's ill. I'm tired, and cross; and I won't.

DORA. You're not a bit tired, and you're not crosser than two sticks; and we'll make you talk, if you were crosser than six. Come here, Egypt; and get on the other side of him.

(EGYPT _takes up a commanding position near the
hearth-brush._)

DORA (_reviewing her forces_). Now, Lily, come and sit on the rug in front.

(LILY _does as she is bid._)

L. (_seeing he has no chance against the odds_.) Well, well; but I'm really tired. Go and dance a little, first; and let me think.

DORA. No; you mustn't think. You will be wanting to make us think next; that will be tiresome.

L. Well, go and dance first, to get quit of thinking; and then I'll talk as long as you like.

DORA. Oh, but we can't dance to-night. There isn't time; and we want to hear about virtue.

L. Let me see a little of it first. Dancing is the first of girl's virtues.

EGYPT. Indeed! And the second?

L. Dressing.

EGYPT. Now, you needn't say that! I mended that tear the first thing before breakfast this morning.

L. I cannot otherwise express the ethical principle, Egypt; whether you have mended your gown or not.

DORA. Now don't be tiresome. We really must hear about virtue, please; seriously.

L. Well. I'm telling you about it, as fast as I can.

DORA. What! the first of girls' virtues is dancing?

L. More accurately, it is wishing to dance, and not wishing to tease, nor hear about virtue.

DORA (_to_ EGYPT). Isn't he cross?

EGYPT. How many balls must we go to in the season, to be perfectly virtuous?

L. As many as you can without losing your colour. But I did not say you should wish to go to balls. I said you should be always wanting to dance.

EGYPT. So we do; but everybody says it is very wrong.

L. Why, Egypt, I thought--

'There was a lady once,
That would not be a queen,--that would she not,
For all the mud in Egypt.'

You were complaining the other day of having to go out a great deal oftener than you liked.

EGYPT. Yes, so I was; but then, it isn't to dance. There's no room to dance: it's--(_Pausing to consider what it is for_).

L. It is only to be seen, I suppose. Well, there's no harm in that. Girls ought to like to be seen.

DORA (_her eyes flashing_). Now, you don't mean that; and you're too provoking; and we won't dance again, for a month.

L. It will answer every purpose of revenge, Dora, if you only banish me to the library; and dance by yourselves: but I don't think Jessie and Lily will agree to that. You like me to see you dancing, don't you Lily?

LILY. Yes, certainly,--when we do it rightly.

L. And besides, Miss Dora, if young ladies really do not want to be seen, they should take care not to let their eyes flash when they dislike what people say; and, more than that, it is all nonsense from beginning to end, about not wanting to be seen. I don't know any more tiresome flower in the borders than your especially 'modest' snowdrop; which one always has to stoop down and take all sorts of tiresome trouble with, and nearly break its poor little head off, before you can see it; and then, half of it is not worth seeing. Girls should be like daisies; nice and white, with an edge of red, if you look close; making the ground bright wherever they are; knowing simply and quietly that they do it, and are meant to do it, and that it would be very wrong if they didn't do it. Not want to be seen, indeed! How long were you in doing your back hair, this afternoon, Jessie?

(JESSIE _not immediately answering_, DORA _comes to her
assistance._)

DORA. Not above three-quarters of an hour, I think, Jess?

JESSIE (_putting her finger up_). Now, Dorothy, _you_ needn't talk, you know!

L. I know she needn't, Jessie; I shall ask her about those dark plaits presently. (DORA _looks round to see if there is any way open for retreat._) But never mind; it was worth the time, whatever it was; and nobody will ever mistake that golden wreath for a chignon; but if you don't want it to be seen, you had better wear a cap.

JESSIE. Ah, now, are you really going to do nothing but play? And we all have been thinking, and thinking, all day; and hoping you would tell us things; and now--!

L. And now I am telling you things, and true things, and things good for you; and you won't believe me. You might as well have let me go to sleep at once, as I wanted to.

(_Endeavours again to make himself comfortable._)

ISABEL. Oh, no, no, you sha'n't go to sleep, you naughty--Kathleen, come here.

L. (_knowing what he has to expect if_ KATHLEEN _comes_). Get away, Isabel, you're too heavy. (_Sitting up._) What have I been saying?

DORA. I do believe he has been asleep all the time! You never heard anything like the things you've been saying.

L. Perhaps not. If you have heard them, and anything like them, it is all I want.

EGYPT. Yes, but we don't understand, and you know we don't; and we want to.

L. What did I say first?

DORA. That the first virtue of girls was wanting to go to balls.

L. I said nothing of the kind.

JESSIE. 'Always wanting to dance,' you said.

L. Yes, and that's true. Their first virtue is to be intensely happy;--so happy that they don't know what to do with themselves for happiness,--and dance, instead of walking. Don't you recollect 'Louisa,'

'No fountain from a rocky cave
E'er tripped with foot so free;
She seemed as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.'

A girl is always like that, when everything's right with her.

VIOLET. But, surely, one must be sad sometimes?

L. Yes, Violet; and dull sometimes, and stupid sometimes, and cross sometimes. What must be, must; but it is always either our own fault, or somebody else's. The last and worst thing that can be said of a nation is, that it has made its young girls sad, and weary.

MAY. But I am sure I have heard a great many good people speak against dancing?