Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne Part 6

LETTER XVIII.

THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF SERVILE EMPLOYMENTS. THE POSSIBLE PRACTICE AND EXHIBITION OF SINCERE HUMILITY BY RELIGIOUS PERSONS.

_April 7, 1867._

107. I have been waiting these three days to know what you would say to my last questions; and now you send me two pamphlets of Combe's to read! I never read anything in spring-time (except the Ai, Ai, on the "sanguine flower inscribed with woe"); and, besides, if, as I gather from your letter, Combe thinks that among well-educated boys there would be a percentage const.i.tutionally inclined to be cobblers, or looking forward with unction to establishment in the oil and tallow line, or fretting themselves for a flunkey's uniform, nothing that he could say would make me agree with him. I know, as well as he does, the unconquerable differences in the clay of the human creature: and I know that, in the outset, whatever system of education you adopted, a large number of children could be made nothing of, and would necessarily fall out of the ranks, and supply candidates enough for degradation to common mechanical business: but this enormous difference in bodily and mental capacity has been mainly brought about by difference in occupation, and by direct maltreatment; and in a few generations, if the poor were cared for, their marriages looked after, and sanitary law enforced, a beautiful type of face and form, and a high intelligence, would become all but universal, in a climate like this of England. Even as it is, the marvel is always to me, how the race resists, at least in its childhood, influences of ill-regulated birth, poisoned food, poisoned air, and soul neglect. I often see faces of children, as I walk through the black district of St. Giles's (lying, as it does, just between my own house and the British Museum), which, through all their pale and corrupt misery, recall the old "Non Angli," and recall it, not by their beauty, but by their sweetness of expression, even though signed already with trace and cloud of the coming life,--a life so bitter that it would make the curse of the 137th Psalm true upon our modern Babylon, though we were to read it thus, "Happy shall _thy children_ be, if one taketh and dasheth them against the stones."

108. Yes, very solemnly I repeat to you that in those worst treated children of the English race, I yet see the making of gentlemen and gentlewomen--not the making of dog-stealers and gin-drinkers, such as their parents were; and the child of the average English tradesman or peasant, even at this day, well schooled, will show no innate disposition such as must fetter him forever to the clod or the counter. You say that many a boy runs away, or would run away if he could, from good positions to go to sea. Of course he does. I never said I should have any difficulty in finding sailors, but I shall in finding fishmongers. I am at no loss for gardeners either, but what am I to do for greengrocers?

109. The fact is, a great number of quite necessary employments are, in the accuratest sense, "Servile;" that is, they sink a man to the condition of a serf, or unthinking worker, the proper state of an animal, but more or less unworthy of men; nay, unholy in some sense, so that a day is made "holy" by the fact of its being commanded, "Thou shalt do no _servile_ work therein." And yet, if undertaken in a certain spirit, such work might be the holiest of all. If there were but a thread or two of sound fiber here and there left in our modern religion, so that the stuff of it would bear a real strain, one might address our two opposite groups of evangelicals and ritualists somewhat after this fashion:--"Good friends, these differences of opinion between you cannot but be painful to your Christian charity, and they are unseemly to us, the profane; and prevent us from learning from you what, perhaps, we ought. But, as we read your Book, we, for our part, gather from it that you might, without danger to your own souls, set an undivided example to us, for the benefit of ours. You, both of you, as far as we understand, agree in the necessity of humility to the perfection of your character. We often hear you, of Calvinistic persuasion, speaking of yourselves as 'sinful dust and ashes,'--would it then be inconsistent with your feelings to make yourselves into 'serviceable' dust and ashes? We observe that of late many of our roads have been hardened and mended with cinders; now, if, in a higher sense, you could allow us to mend the roads of the world with _you_ a little, it would be a great proof to us of your sincerity. Suppose, only for a little while, in the present difficulty and distress, you were to make it a test of conversion that a man should regularly give Zaccheus's portion, half his goods, to the poor, and at once adopt some disagreeable and despised, but thoroughly useful, trade? You cannot think that this would finally be to your disadvantage; you doubtless believe the texts, 'He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord,' and 'He that would be chief among you, let him be your servant.' The more you parted with, and the lower you stooped, the greater would be your final reward, and final exaltation.

You profess to despise human learning and worldly riches; leave both of these to _us_; undertake for us the illiterate and ill-paid employments which must deprive you of the privileges of society and the pleasures of luxury. You cannot possibly preach your faith so forcibly to the world by any quant.i.ty of the finest words, as by a few such simple and painful acts; and over your counters, in honest retail business, you might preach a gospel that would sound in more ears than any that was ever proclaimed over pulpit cushions or tabernacle rails.

And, whatever may be your gifts of utterance, you cannot but feel (studying St. Paul's Epistles as carefully as you do) that you might more easily and modestly emulate the practical teaching of the silent Apostle of the Gentiles than the speech or writing of his companion.

Amidst the present discomforts of your brethren you may surely, with greater prospect of good to them, seek the t.i.tle of Sons of Consolation, than of Sons of Thunder, and be satisfied with Barnabas's confession of faith, (if you can reach no farther,) who, 'having land, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the Apostles' feet.'

110. "To you, on the other hand, gentlemen of the embroidered robe, who neither despise learning nor the arts, we know that sacrifices such as these would be truly painful, and might at first appear inexpedient. But the doctrine of self-mortification is not a new one to you; and we should be sorry to think--we would not, indeed, for a moment dishonor you by thinking--that these melodious chants, and prismatic brightnesses of vitreous pictures, and floral graces of deep-wrought stone, were in any wise intended for your own poor pleasures, whatever profane attraction they may exercise on more fleshly-minded persons. And as you have certainly received no definite order for the painting, carving, or lighting up of churches, while the temple of the body of so many poor living Christians is so pale, so mis-shapen, and so ill-lighted; but have, on the contrary, received very definite orders for the feeding and clothing of such sad humanity, we may surely ask you, not unreasonably, to humiliate yourselves in the most complete way--not with a voluntary, but a sternly _in_voluntary humility--not with a show of wisdom in will-worship, but with practical wisdom, in all honor, to the satisfying of the flesh; and to a.s.sociate yourselves in monasteries and convents for the better practice of useful and humble trades. Do not burn any more candles, but mould some; do not paint any more windows, but mend a few where the wind comes in, in winter time, with substantial clear gla.s.s and putty. Do not vault any more high roofs, but thatch some low ones; and embroider rather on backs which are turned to the cold, than only on those which are turned to congregations. And you will have your reward afterwards, and attain, with all your flocks thus tended, to a place where you may have as much gold, and painted gla.s.s, and singing, as you like."

Thus much, it seems to me, one might say with some hope of acceptance, to any very earnest member of either of our two great religious parties, if, as I say, their faith could stand a strain. I have not, however, based any of my imaginary political arrangements on the probability of its doing so; and I trust only to such general good nature and willingness to help each other, as I presume may be found among men of the world; to whom I should have to make quite another sort of speech, which I will endeavor to set down the heads of, for you, in next letter.

LETTER XIX.

THE GENERAL PRESSURE OF EXCESSIVE AND IMPROPER WORK, IN ENGLISH LIFE.

_April 10, 1867._

111. I cannot go on to-day with the part of my subject I had proposed, for I was disturbed by receiving a letter last night, which I herewith enclose to you, and of which I wish you to print, here following, the parts I have not underlined--

1, Phene Street, Chelsea, April 8, 1867.

MY DEAR R----,--

It is long since you have heard of me, and now I ask your patience with me for a little. I have but just returned from the funeral of my dear, dear friend ----, the first artist friend I made in London--a loved and prized one. For years past he had lived in the very humblest way, fighting his battle of life against mean appreciation of his talents, the wants of a rising family, and frequent attacks of illness, crippling him for months at a time, the wolf at the door meanwhile.

But about two years since his prospects brightened * * * and he had but a few weeks since ventured on removal to a larger house. His eldest boy of seventeen years, a very intelligent youth, so strongly desired to be a civil engineer that Mr.

----, not being able to pay the large premium required for his apprenticeship, had been made very glad by the consent of Mr. Penn, of Millwall, to receive him without a premium after the boy should have spent some time at King's College in the study of mechanics. The rest is a sad story. About a fortnight ago Mr. ---- was taken ill, and died last week, the doctors say, of sheer physical exhaustion, not thirty-nine years old, leaving eight young children, and his poor widow expecting her confinement, and so weak and ill as to be incapable of effort. This youth is the eldest, and the other children range downwards to a babe of eighteen months.

There is not one who knew him, I believe, that will not give cheerfully, to their ability, for his widow and children; but such aid will go but a little way in this painful case; and it would be a real boon to this poor widow if some of her children could be got into an Orphan Asylum. * * *

If you are able to do anything I would send particulars of the age and s.e.x of the children.

I remain, dear Sir, ever obediently yours, FRED. J. SHIELDS.

P.S.--I ought to say that poor ---- has been quite unable to save, with his large family; and that they would be utterly dest.i.tute now, but for the kindness of some with whom he was professionally connected.

112. Now this case, of which you see the entire authenticity, is, out of the many of which I hear continually, a _notably_ sad one only in so far as the artist in question has died of distress while he was catering for the public amus.e.m.e.nt. Hardly a week now pa.s.ses without some such misery coming to my knowledge; and the quant.i.ty of pain, and anxiety of daily effort, through the best part of life, ending all at last in utter grief, which the lower middle cla.s.ses in England are now suffering, is so great that I feel constantly as if I were living in one great churchyard, with people all round me clinging feebly to the edges of the open graves, and calling for help, as they fall back into them, out of sight.

113. Now I want you to observe here, in a definite case, the working of your beautiful modern political economy of "supply and demand."

Here is a man who could have "supplied" you with good and entertaining art,--say for fifty good years,--if you had paid him enough for his day's work to find him and his children peacefully in bread. But you like having your prints as cheap as possible--you triumph in the little that your laugh costs--you take all you can get from the man, give the least you can give to him,--and you accordingly kill him at thirty-nine; and thereafter have his children to take care of, or to kill also, whichever you choose; but, now, observe, you must take care of _them_ for nothing, or not at all; and what you might have had good value for, if you had given it when it would have cheered the father's heart, you now can have no return for at all, to yourselves; and what you give to the orphans, if it does not degrade them, at least afflicts, coming, not through their father's hand, its honest earnings, but from strangers.

Observe, farther, whatever help the orphans may receive, will not be from the public at all. It will not be from those who profited by their father's labors; it will be chiefly from his fellow-laborers; or from persons whose money would have been beneficially spent in other directions, from whence it is drawn away to this need, which ought never to have occurred,--while those who waste their money without doing any service to the public will never contribute one farthing to this distress.

114. Now it is this double fault in the help--that it comes too late, and that the burden of it falls wholly on those who ought least to be charged with it--which would be corrected by that inst.i.tution of overseers of which I spoke to you in the twelfth of these letters, saying, you remember, that they were to have farther legal powers, which I did not then specify, but which would belong to them chiefly in the capacity of public almoners, or help-givers, aided by their deacons, the reception of such help, in time of true need, being not held disgraceful, but honorable; since the fact of its reception would be so entirely public that no impostor or idle person could ever obtain it surrept.i.tiously.

115. (11th April.) I was interrupted yesterday, and I am glad of it, for here happens just an instance of the way in which the unjust distribution of the burden of charity is reflected on general interests; I cannot help what taint of ungracefulness you or other readers of these letters may feel that I incur, in speaking, in this instance, of myself. If I could speak with the same accurate knowledge of any one else, most gladly I would; but I also think it right that, whether people accuse me of boasting or not, they should know that I practise what I preach. I had not intended to say what I now shall, but the coming of this letter last night just turns the balance of the decision with me. I enclose it with the other; you see it is one from my bookseller, Mr. Quaritch, offering me Fischer's work on the _Flora of Java_, and Latour's on _Indian Orchidaceae_, bound together, for twenty guineas. Now, I am writing a book on botany just now, for young people, chiefly on wild flowers, and I want these two books very much; but I simply cannot afford to buy them, because I sent my last spare twenty guineas to Mr. Shields yesterday for this widow. And though you may think it not the affair of the public that I have not this book on Indian flowers, it is their affair finally, that what I write for them should be founded on as broad knowledge as possible; whatever value my own book may or may not have, it will just be in a given degree worth _less_ to them, because of my want of this knowledge.

116. So again--for having begun to speak of myself I will do so yet more frankly--I suppose that when people see my name down for a hundred pounds to the Cruikshank Memorial, and for another hundred to the Eyre Defense Fund, they think only that I have more money than I know what to do with. Well, the giving of those subscriptions simply decides the question whether or no I shall be able to afford a journey to Switzerland this year, in the negative; and I wanted to go, not only for health's sake, but to examine the junctions of the mola.s.se sandstones and nagelfluh with the Alpine limestone, in order to complete some notes I meant to publish next spring on the geology of the great northern Swiss valley; notes which must now lie by me at least for another year; and I believe this delay (though I say it) will be really something of a loss to the traveling public, for the little essay was intended to explain to them, in a familiar way, the real wonderfulness of their favorite mountain, the Righi; and to give them some amus.e.m.e.nt in trying to find out where the many-colored pebbles of it had come from. But it is more important that I should, with some stoutness, a.s.sert my respect for the genius and earnest patriotism of Cruikshank, and my much more than disrespect for the Jamaica Committee, than that I should see the Alps this year, or get my essay finished next spring; but I tell you the fact, because I want you to feel how, in thus leaving their men of worth to be a.s.sisted or defended only by those who deeply care for them, the public more or less cripple, to their own ultimate disadvantage, just the people who could serve them in other ways; while the speculators and money-seekers, who are only making their profit out of the said public, of course take no part in the help of anybody. And even if the willing bearers could sustain the burden anywise adequately, none of us would complain; but I am certain there is no man, whatever his fortune, who is now engaged in any earnest offices of kindness to these sufferers, especially of the middle cla.s.s, among his acquaintance, who will not bear me witness that for one we can relieve, we must leave three to perish. I have left three, myself, in the first three months of this year. One was the artist Paul Gray, for whom an appeal was made to me for funds to a.s.sist him in going abroad out of the bitter English winter. I had not the means by me, and he died a week afterwards. Another case was that of a widow whose husband had committed suicide, for whom application was made to me at the same time; and the third was a personal friend, to whom I refused a sum which he said would have saved him from bankruptcy. I believe six times as much would not have saved him; however, I refused, and he is ruined.

117. And observe, also, it is not the mere crippling of my means that I regret. It is the crippling of my temper, and waste of my time. The knowledge of all this distress, even when I can a.s.sist it,--much more when I cannot,--and the various thoughts of what I can and cannot, or ought and ought not, to do, are a far greater burden to me than the mere loss of the money. It is peremptorily not my business--it is not my gift, bodily or mentally, to look after other people's sorrow. I have enough of my own; and even if I had not, the sight of pain is not good for me. I don't want to be a bishop. In a most literal and sincere sense, "_nolo episcopari_." I don't want to be an almoner, nor a counselor, nor a Member of Parliament, nor a voter for Members of Parliament. (What would Mr. Holyoake say to me if he knew that I have never voted for anybody in my life, and never mean to do so!) I am essentially a painter and a leaf dissector; and my powers of thought are all purely mathematical, seizing ultimate principles only--never accidents; a line is always, to me, length without breadth; it is not a cable or a crowbar; and though I can almost infallibly reason out the final law of anything, if within reach of my industry, I neither care for, nor can trace, the minor exigencies of its daily appliance.

So, in every way, I like a quiet life; and I don't like seeing people cry, or die; and should rejoice, more than I can tell you, in giving up the full half of my fortune for the poor, provided I knew that the public would make Lord Overstone also give the half of his, and other people who were independent give the half of theirs; and then set men who were really fit for such office to administer the fund, and answer to us for n.o.body's perishing innocently; and so leave us all to do what we chose with the rest, and with our days, in peace.

Thus far of the public's fault in the matter. Next, I have a word or two to say of the sufferers' own fault--for much as I pity them, I conceive that none of them _do_ perish altogether innocently. But this must be for next letter.

LETTER XX.

OF IMPROVIDENCE IN MARRIAGE IN THE MIDDLE CLa.s.sES; AND OF THE ADVISABLE RESTRICTIONS OF IT.

_April 12, 1867._

118. It is quite as well, whatever irregularity it may introduce in the arrangement of the general subject, that yonder sad letter warped me away from the broad inquiry, to this speciality, respecting the present distress of the middle cla.s.ses. For the immediate cause of that distress, in their own imprudence, of which I have to speak to you to-day, is only to be finally vanquished by strict laws, which, though they have been many a year in my mind, I was glad to have a quiet hour of sunshine for the thinking over again, this morning.

Sunshine which happily rose cloudless; and allowed me to meditate my tyrannies before breakfast, under the just opened blossoms of my orchard, and a.s.sisted by much melodious advice from the birds; who (my gardener having positive orders never to trouble any of them in anything, or object to their eating even my best peas if they like their flavor) rather now get _into_ my way, than out of it, when they see me about the walks; and take me into most of their counsels in nest-building.

119. The letter from Mr. Shields, which interrupted us, reached me, as you see, on the evening of the 9th instant. On the morning of the 10th, I received another, which I herewith forward to you, for verification. It is--characteristically enough--dateless, so you must take the time of its arrival on my word. And subst.i.tuting M. N. for the name of the boy referred to, and withholding only the address and name of the writer, you see that it may be printed word for word--as follows:--

SIR,--

May I beg for the favor of your presentation to Christ's Hospital for my youngest son, M. N.? I have nine children, and no means to educate them. I ventured to address you, believing that my husband's name is not unknown to you as an artist.

Believe me to remain faithfully yours, * * *

120. Now this letter is only a typical example of the entire cla.s.s of those which, being a governor of Christ's Hospital, I receive, in common with all the other governors, at the rate of about three a day, for a month or six weeks from the date of our names appearing in the printed list of the governors who have presentations for the current year. Having been a governor now some twenty-five years, I have doc.u.mentary evidence enough to found some general statistics upon; from which there have resulted two impressions on my mind, which I wish here specially to note to you, and I do not doubt but that all the other governors, if you could ask them, would at once confirm what I say. My first impression is, a heavy and sorrowful sense of the general feebleness of intellect of that portion of the British public which stands in need of presentations to Christ's Hospital. This feebleness of intellect is mainly shown in the nearly total unconsciousness of the writers that anybody else may want a presentation, besides themselves. With the exception here and there of a soldier's or a sailor's widow, hardly one of them seems to have perceived the existence of any distress in the world but their own: none know what they are asking for, or imagine, unless as a remote contingency, the possibility of its having been promised at a prior date. The second most distinct impression on my mind, is that the portion of the British public which is in need of presentations to Christ's Hospital considers it a merit to have large families, with or without the means of supporting them!

121. Now it happened also (and remember, all this is strictly true, nor in the slightest particular represented otherwise than as it chanced; though the said chance brought thus together exactly the evidence I wanted for my letter to you)--it happened, I say, that on this same morning of the 10th April, I became accidentally acquainted with a case of quite a different kind: that of a n.o.ble girl, who, engaged at sixteen, and having received several advantageous offers since, has remained for ten years faithful to her equally faithful lover; while, their circ.u.mstances rendering it, as they rightly considered, unjustifiable in them to think of marriage, each of them simply and happily, aided and cheered by the other's love, discharged the duties of their own separate positions in life.

122. In the nature of things, instances of this kind of n.o.ble life remain more or less concealed, (while imprudence and error proclaim themselves by misfortune,) but they are a.s.suredly not unfrequent in our English homes. Let us next observe the political and national result of these arrangements. You leave your marriages to be settled by "supply and demand," instead of wholesome law. And thus, among your youths and maidens, the improvident, incontinent, selfish, and foolish ones marry, whether you will or not; and beget families of children necessarily inheritors in a great degree of these parental dispositions; and for whom, supposing they had the best dispositions in the world, you have thus provided, by way of educators, the foolishest fathers and mothers you could find; (the only rational sentence in their letters, usually, is the invariable one, in which they declare themselves "incapable of providing for their children's education"). On the other hand, whosoever is wise, patient, unselfish, and pure among your youth, you keep maid or bachelor; wasting their best days of natural life in painful sacrifice, forbidding them their best help and best reward, and carefully excluding their prudence and tenderness from any offices of parental duty.

Is not this a beatific and beautifully sagacious system for a Celestial Empire, such as that of these British Isles?

123. I will not here enter into any statement of the physical laws which it is the province of our physicians to explain; and which are indeed at last so far beginning to be understood, that there is hope of the nation's giving some of the attention to the conditions affecting the race of man, which it has. .h.i.therto bestowed only on those which may better its races of cattle.

It is enough, I think, to say here that the beginning of all sanitary and moral law is in the regulation of marriage, and that, ugly and fatal as is every form and agency of license, no licentiousness is so mortal as licentiousness in marriage.