Evolution of Expression Volume I Part 4

JEAN INGELOW.

FREEDOM.

1. No quality of Art has been more powerful in its influence on public mind; none is more frequently the subject 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.

2. Try to draw a circle with the "free" hand, 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 "free." 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. And yet it must move, under this necessary control, with perfect, untormented serenity of ease.

3. I believe we can nowhere find a better type of a perfectly free creature than in the common house-fly. Nor free only, but brave; and irreverent to a degree which I think no human republican could by any philosophy exalt himself to. There is no courtesy in him; he does not care whether it is king or clown whom he teases; and in every step of his swift mechanical march, and in every pause of his resolute observation, there is one and the same expression of perfect egotism, perfect independence and self-confidence, and conviction of the world's having been made for flies.

4. Strike at him with your hand, and to him, the mechanical 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 ma.s.sive 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 momentary conditions of his active life. He steps out of the way of your hand, and alights on the back of it.

5. You cannot terrify 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--no tyrannical instinct to obey.

The earthworm 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.

6. But your fly, free in the air, free in the chamber--a black incarnation of caprice, wandering, investigating, flitting, flirting, feasting at his will, with rich variety 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 spot in the road, from which, as the hoof disturbs him, he rises with angry republican buzz--what freedom is like his?

7. Indeed, the first point we have all to determine is not how free we are, but what kind of creatures we are. It is of small importance to any of us whether we get liberty; but of the greatest that we deserve it. Whether we can win it, fate must determine; but that we will be worthy of it we may ourselves determine; and the sorrowfulest fate of all that we can suffer is to have it WITHOUT deserving it.

8. I have hardly patience to hold my pen and go on writing, as I remember the infinite follies of modern thought in this matter, centered in the notion that liberty is good for a man, irrespectively of the use he is likely to make of it. Folly unfathomable! unspeakable! You will send your child, will you, into a room 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 freedom of choice; it forms your character--your individuality! 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."

9. You think that puts the case too sharply? I tell you, lover of liberty, there is no choice offered to you, but 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 eternity can you be as you might have been had you not done that--chosen that.

10. You have "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. 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 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.

11. "What!" a wayward youth might perhaps answer, incredulously, "no one ever gets wiser by doing wrong? Shall I not know the world best by trying the wrong of it, and repenting? Have I not, even as it is, learned much by many of my errors?" Indeed, the effort by which partially you recovered yourself was precious: that part of your thought by which you discerned the error was precious. What wisdom and strength you kept, and rightly used, are rewarded; and in the pain and the repentance, and in the acquaintance with the aspects of folly and sin, you have learned SOMETHING; how much less than you would have learned in right paths can never be told, but that it IS less is certain.

12. Your liberty of choice has simply destroyed for you so much life and strength, never regainable. 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 as sweeter, than that you have gained? But "it so forms my individuality to be free!"

Your individuality was given you by G.o.d, and in your race, and if you have any to speak of, you will want no liberty.

13. In fine, the arguments for liberty may in general be summed in a few very simple forms, as follows:

Misguiding is mischievous: therefore guiding is.

If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch: therefore, n.o.body should lead anybody.

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.

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.

14. 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 discernible by human reason. So far as these are discovered and obeyed, by whatever machinery or authority the obedience 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 sorrow.

15. The first duty of every man in the world is to find his true master, and, for his own good, submit to him; 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 wise nation obeys the one, restrains the other, and cherishes all.

JOHN RUSKIN.

A LAUGHING CHORUS.

I.

Oh, such a commotion under the ground When March called "Ho, there! ho!"

Such spreading of rootlets far and wide, Such whispering to and fro.

And "Are you ready?" the Snowdrop asked; "'Tis time to start, you know."

"Almost, my dear, "the Scilla replied; "I'll follow as soon as you go."

Then, "Ha! ha! ha!" a chorus came Of laughter soft and low From the millions of flowers under the ground-- Yes--millions--beginning to grow.

II.

"I'll promise my blossoms," the Crocus said, "When I hear the bluebirds sing."

And straight thereafter Narcissus cried, "My silver and gold I'll bring."

"And ere they are dulled," another spoke, "The Hyacinth bells shall ring."

And the Violet only murmured, "I'm here,"

And sweet grew the air of spring.

Then, "Ha! ha! ha!" a chorus came Of laughter soft and low From the millions of flowers under the ground-- Yes--millions--beginning to grow.

III.

Oh, the pretty, brave things! through the coldest days, Imprisoned in walls of brown, They never lost heart, though the blast shrieked loud, And the sleet and the hail came down, But patiently each wrought her beautiful dress, Or fashioned her beautiful crown; And now they are coming to brighten the world, Still shadowed by winter's frown; And well may they cheerily laugh, "Ha! ha!"

In a chorus soft and low, The millions of flowers hid under the ground-- Yes--millions--beginning to grow.

Yes--millions--beginning to grow.

THE CHEERFUL LOCKSMITH.

1. From the workshop of the Golden Key there issued forth a tinkling sound, so merry and good-humored that it suggested the idea of some one working blithely, and made quite pleasant music.

Tink, tink, tink--clear as a silver bell, and audible at every pause of the streets' harsher noises, as though it said, "I don't care; nothing puts me out; I am resolved to be happy."

2. Women scolded, children squalled, heavy carts went rumbling by, horrible cries proceeded from the lungs of hawkers; still it struck in again, no higher, no lower, no louder, no softer; not thrusting itself on people's notice a bit the more for having been outdone by louder sounds--tink, tink, tink, tink, tink.

3. It was a perfect embodiment of the still, small voice, free from all cold, hoa.r.s.eness, huskiness, or unhealthiness of any kind. Foot-pa.s.sengers slackened their pace, and were disposed to linger near it; neighbors who had got up splenetic that morning, felt good-humor stealing on them as they heard it, and by degrees became quite sprightly; mothers danced their babies to its ringing;--still the same magical tink, tink, tink came gaily from the workshop of the Golden Key.

4. Who but the locksmith could have made such music? A gleam of sun, shining through the unsashed window and checkering the dark workshop with a broad patch of light, fell full upon him, as though attracted by his sunny heart. There he stood working at his anvil, his face radiant with exercise and gladness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed off his shining forehead--the easiest, freest, happiest man in all the world.

5. Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and winking in the light, and falling every now and then into an idle doze, as from excess of comfort. The very locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust, and seemed like gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their infirmities.

6. There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene. It seemed impossible that any of the innumerable keys could fit a churlish strong-box or a prison door. Storehouses of good things, rooms where there were fires, books, gossip, and cheering laughter-- these were their proper sphere of action. Places of distrust, and cruelty, and restraint they would have quadruple-locked forever.

7. Tink, tink, tink. No man who hammered on at a dull, monotonous duty could have brought such cheerful notes from steel and iron; none but a chirping, healthy, honest-hearted fellow, who made the best of everything and felt kindly towards everybody, could have done it for an instant. He might have been a coppersmith, and still been musical. If he had sat in a jolting wagon, full of rods of iron, it seemed as if he would have brought some harmony out of it.

CHARLES d.i.c.kENS.

HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD.

Oh, to be in England now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England--now!

And after April, when May follows And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!