LETTER XXXVI.

Three years have passed since I began these letters. Of the first, and another, I forget which, a few more than a thousand have been sold; and as the result of my begging for money, I have got upwards of two hundred pounds. The number of the simple persons who have thus trusted me is stated at the end of this letter. Had I been a swindler, the British public would delightedly have given me two hundred thousand pounds instead of two hundred, of which I might have returned them, by this time, say, the quarter, in dividends; spent a hundred and fifty thousand pleasantly, myself, at the rate of fifty thousand a year; and announced, in this month's report, with regret, the failure of my project, owing to the unprecedented state of commercial affairs induced by strikes, unions, and other illegitimate combinations among the workmen.

And the most curious part of the business is that I fancy I should have been a much more happy and agreeable member of society, spending my fifty thousand a year thus, in the way of business, than I have been in giving away my own seven thousand, and painfully adding to it this collection of two hundred, for a piece of work which is to give me a great deal of trouble, and be profitable only to other people.

Happy, or sulky, however, I have got this thing to do; and am only amused, instead of discouraged, by the beautiful reluctance of the present English public to trust an honest person, without being flattered, or promote a useful work, without being bribed.

It may be true that I have not brought my plan rightly before the public yet. "A bad thing will pay, if you put it properly before the public," wrote a first-rate man of business the other day, to one of my friends. But what the final results of putting bad things properly before the public will be to the exhibitor of them, and the public also, no man of business that I am acquainted with is yet aware.

I mean, therefore, to persist in my own method; and to allow the public to take their time. One of their most curiously mistaken notions is that they can hurry the pace of Time itself, or avert its power. As to these letters of mine, for instance, which all my friends beg me not to write, because no workman will understand them now;--what would have been the use of writing letters only for the men who have been produced by the instructions of Mr. John Stuart Mill? I write to the labourers of England; but not of England in 1870-73. A day will come when we shall have men resolute to do good work, and capable of reading and thinking while they rest; who will not expect to build like Athenians without knowing anything about the first king of Athens, not like Christians without knowing anything about Christ: and then they will find my letters useful, and read them. And to the few readers whom these letters now find, they will become more useful as they go on, for they are a mosaic-work into which I can put a piece here and there as I find glass of the colour I want; what is as yet done being set, indeed, in patches, but not without design.

One chasm I must try to fill to-day, by telling you why it is so grave a heresy (or wilful source of division) to call any book, or collection of books, the 'Word of God.'

By that Word, or Voice, or Breath, or Spirit, the heavens and earth, and all the host of them, were made; and in it they exist. It is your life; and speaks to you always, so long as you live nobly;--dies out of you as you refuse to obey it; leaves you to hear, and be slain by, the word of an evil spirit, instead of it.

It may come to you in books,--come to you in clouds,--come to you in the voices of men,--come to you in the stillness of deserts. You must be strong in evil, if you have quenched it wholly;--very desolate in this Christian land, if you have never heard it at all. Too certainly, in this Christian land you do hear, and loudly, the contrary of it,--the doctrine or word of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy; forbidding to marry, recommending women to find some more lucrative occupation than that of nursing the baby; and commanding to abstain from meats, (and drinks,) which God has appointed to be received with thanksgiving. For "everything which God has made is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be sanctified by the Word of God." And by what else?

If you have been accustomed to hear the clergyman's letter from which I have just been quoting, as if it were itself the word of God,--you have been accustomed also to hear our bad translation of it go on saying, "If it be sanctified by the Word of God, and prayer." But there is nothing whatever about prayer in the clergyman's letter,--nor does he say, If it be sanctified. He says, "For it is sanctified by the Word of God, and the chance that brings it." [102] Which means, that when meat comes in your way when you are hungry, or drink when you are thirsty, and you know in your own conscience that it is good for you to have it, the meat and drink are holy to you.

But if the Word of God in your heart is against it, and you know that you would be better without the extra glass of beer you propose to take, and that your wife would be the better for the price of it, then it is unholy to you: and you can only have the sense of entire comfort and satisfaction, either in having it, or going without it, if you are simply obeying the Word of God about it in your mind, and accepting contentedly the chances for or against it; as probably you have heard of Sir Philip Sidney's accepting the chance of another soldier's needing his cup of water more than he, on his last battle-field, and instantly obeying the Word of God coming to him on that occasion. Not that it is intended that the supply of these good creatures of God should be left wholly to chance; but that if we observe the proper laws of God concerning them, and, for instance, instead of forbidding marriage, duly and deeply reverence it, then, in proper time and place, there will be true Fors, or chancing on, or finding of, the youth and maid by each other, such in character as the Providence of Heaven appoints for each: and, similarly, if we duly recognize the laws of God about meats and drinks, there will for every labourer and traveller be such chancing upon meat and drink and other entertainment as shall be sacredly pleasant to him. And there cannot indeed be at present imagined a more sacred function for young Christian men than that of hosts or hospitallers, supplying, to due needs, and with proper maintenance of their own lives, wholesome food and drink to all men: so that as, at least, always at one end of a village there may be a holy church and vicar, so at the other end of the village there may be a holy tavern and tapster, ministering the good creatures of God, so that they may be sanctified by the Word of God and His Providence.

And as the providence of marriage, and the giving to each man the help meet for his life, is now among us destroyed by the wantonness of harlotry, so the providence of the Father who would fill men's hearts with food and gladness is destroyed among us by prostitution of joyless drink; and the never to be enough damned guilt of men, and governments, gathering pence at the corners of the streets, standing there, pot in hand, crying, 'Turn in hither; come, eat of my evil bread, and drink of my beer, which I have venomously mingled.'

Against which temptations--though never against the tempters--one sometimes hears one's foolish clergy timorously inveighing; and telling young idlers that it is wrong to be lustful, and old labourers that it is wrong to be thirsty: but I never heard a clergyman yet, (and during thirty years of the prime of my life I heard one sermon at least every Sunday, so that it is after experience of no fewer than one thousand five hundred sermons, most of them by scholars, and many of them by earnest men,) that I now solemnly state I never heard one preacher deal faithfully with the quarrel between God and Mammon, or explain the need of choice between the service of those two masters. And all vices are indeed summed, and all their forces consummated, in that simple acceptance of the authority of gold instead of the authority of God; and preference of gain, or the increase of gold, to godliness, or the peace of God.

I take then, as I promised, the fourteenth and fifteenth Psalms for examination with respect to this point.

The second verse of the fourteenth declares that of the children of men, there are none that seek God.

The fifth verse of the same Psalm declares that God is in the generation of the righteous. In them, observe; not needing to be sought by them.

From which statements, evangelical persons conclude that there are no righteous persons at all.

Again, the fourth verse of the Psalm declares that all the workers of iniquity eat up God's people as they eat bread.

Which appears to me a very serious state of things, and to be put an end to, if possible; but evangelical persons conclude thereupon that the workers of iniquity and the Lord's people are one and the same. Nor have I ever heard in the course of my life any single evangelical clergyman so much as put the practical inquiry, Who is eating, and who is being eaten?

Again, the first verse of the Psalm declares that the fool hath said in his heart there is no God; but the sixth verse declares of the poor that he not only knows there is a God, but finds Him to be a refuge.

Whereupon evangelical persons conclude that the fool and the poor mean the same people; and make all the haste they can to be rich.

Putting them, and their interpretations, out of our way, the Psalm becomes entirely explicit. There have been in all ages children of God and of man: the one born of the Spirit, and obeying it; the other born of the flesh, and obeying it. I don't know how that entirely unintelligible sentence, "There were they in great fear," got into our English Psalm; in both the Greek and Latin versions it is, "God hath broken the bones of those that please men."

And it is here said of the entire body of the children of men, at a particular time, that they had at that time all gone astray beyond hope; that none were left who so much as sought God, much less who were likely to find Him; and that these wretches and vagabonds were eating up God's own people as they ate bread.

Which has indeed been generally so in all ages; but beyond all recorded history is so in ours. Just and godly people can't live; and every clever rogue and industrious fool is making his fortune out of them, and producing abominable works of all sorts besides,--material gasometers, furnaces, chemical works, and the like,--with spiritual lies and lasciviousness unheard of till now in Christendom. Which plain and disagreeable meaning of this portion of Scripture you will find pious people universally reject with abhorrence,--the direct word and open face of their Master being, in the present day, always by them, far more than His other enemies, "spitefully entreated, and spitted on."

Next for the fifteenth Psalm.

It begins by asking God who shall abide in His tabernacle, or movable tavern; and who shall dwell in His holy hill. Note the difference of those two abidings. A tavern, or taberna, is originally a hut made by a traveller, or sticks cut on the spot; then, if he so arrange it as to be portable, it is a tabernacle; so that, generally a portable hut or house, supported by rods or sticks when it is set up, is a tabernacle;--on a large scale, having boards as well as curtains, and capable of much stateliness, but nearly synonymous with a tent, in Latin.

Therefore, the first question is, Who among travelling men will have God to set up his tavern for him when he wants rest?

And the second question is, Who, of travelling men, shall finally dwell, desiring to wander no more, in God's own house, established above the hills, where all nations flow to it?

You, perhaps, don't believe that either of these abodes may, or do, exist in reality: nor that God would ever cut down branches for you; or, better still, bid them spring up for a bower; or that He would like to see you in His own house, if you would go there. You prefer the buildings lately put up in rows for you "one brick thick in the walls," [103] in convenient neighbourhood to your pleasant business? Be it so;--then the fifteenth Psalm has nothing to say to you. For those who care to lodge with God, these following are the conditions of character.

They are to walk or deal uprightly with men. They are to work or do justice; or, in sum, do the best they can with their hands. They are to speak the truth to their own hearts, and see they do not persuade themselves they are honest when they ought to know themselves to be knaves; nor persuade themselves they are charitable and kind, when they ought to know themselves to be thieves and murderers. They are not to bite people with their tongues behind their backs, if they dare not rebuke them face to face. They are not to take up, or catch at, subjects of blame; but they are utterly and absolutely to despise vile persons who fear no God, and think the world was begot by mud, and is fed by money; and they are not to defend a guilty man's cause against an innocent one. Above all, this last verse is written for lawyers, or professed interpreters of justice, who are of all men most villainous, if, knowingly, they take reward against an innocent or rightfully contending person. And on these conditions the promise of God's presence and strength is finally given. He that doeth thus shall not be moved, or shaken: for him, tabernacle and rock are alike safe: no wind shall overthrow them, nor earthquake rend.

That is the meaning of the fourteenth and fifteenth Psalms; and if you so believe them, and obey them, you will find your account in it. And they are the Word of God to you, so far as you have hearts capable of understanding them, or any other such message brought by His servants. But if your heart is dishonest and rebellious, you may read them for ever with lip-service, and all the while be 'men-pleasers,' whose bones are to be broken at the pit's mouth, and so left incapable of breath, brought by any winds of Heaven. And that is all I have to say to you this year.

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

As I send these last sheets to press, I get from the Cheap-Fuel Supply Association, Limited, a letter advising me that the Right Hon. Lord Claud Hamilton, M.P., and the late Director of Stores at the War Office, and Michael Angelo, Esq., of St. James's Square, and the late Controller of Military Finance in Calcutta, with other estimable persons, are about to undertake the manufacture of peat into cheap fuel, for the public benefit; and promise a net profit on the operation, of six shillings and sixpence a ton; of which I am invited to secure my share. The manufacture of peat into portable fuel may, or may not, be desirable; that depends on what the British public means to do after they have burnt away all their bituminous and boggy ground in driving about at forty miles an hour, and making iron railings, and other such valuable property, for the possession of their posterity. But granting the manufacture desirable, and omitting all reference to its effect on the picturesque, why Lord Claud Hamilton and Michael Angelo, Esq., should offer me, a quiet Oxford student, any share of their six-and-sixpences, I can't think. I could not cut a peat if they would give me six-and-sixpence the dozen--I know nothing about its manufacture. What on earth do they propose to pay me for?

The following letter from an old friend, whose manner of life, like my own, has been broken up, (when it was too late to mend it again,) by modern improvements, will be useful to me for reference in what I have to say in my January letter:--

"About myself--ere long I shall be driven out of my house, the happiest refuge I ever nested in. It is again, like most old rooms, very lofty, is of wood and plaster, evidently of the Seventh Harry's time, and most interesting in many ways. It belonged to the Radcliffe family,--some branch, as I understand, from the scanty information I can scrape, of the Derwentwater family. Lord ---- owns it now, or did till lately; for I am informed he has sold it and the lands about it to an oil-cloth company, who will start building their factory behind it shortly, and probably resell the land they do not use, with the hall, to be demolished as an incumbrance that does not pay. Already the 'Egyptian plague of bricks' has alighted on its eastern side, devouring every green blade. Where the sheep fed last year, five streets of cheap cottages--one brick thick in the walls--(for the factory operatives belonging to two great cotton mills near) are in course of formation--great cartloads of stinking oyster-shells having been laid for their foundations; and the whole vicinity on the eastern side, in a state of mire and débris of broken bricks and slates, is so painful to my eyes that I scarce ever go out in daylight.

"Fifteen years ago a noble avenue of sycamores led to the hall, and a large wood covered the surface of an extensive plateau of red sandstone, and a moat surrounded the walls of the hall. Not a tree stands now, the moat is filled up, and the very rock itself is riddled into sand, and is being now carted away."

ADVICE.

I have now published my Fors Clavigera during three years, at a price which (some of my first estimates having been accidentally too low) neither pays me, for my work, nor my assistant for his trouble. To my present subscribers, nevertheless, it will be continued at its first price. To new subscribers or casual purchasers, the price of each number, after the 31st December, 1873, will be tenpence, carriage paid as hitherto; and there will be no frontispieces.

Total Subscriptions to St. George's Fund

TO THE END OF THE YEAR 1873.

(The Subscribers each know his or her number in this List.)

1. Annual, £4 0 0 (1871, '72) £8 0 0 2. Annual, £20 0 0 (1871, '72, '73) 60 0 0 3. Gift 5 0 0 4. Gifts, (1871) £30 0 0 (1873) 20 0 0 -------- 50 0 0 5. Gift, (1872) 20 0 0 6. Annual, £1 1 0 (1872, '73) 2 2 0 7. Gift, (1872) 10 0 0 8. Annual, £20 0 0 (1872) 20 0 0 9. Annual, £25 0 0 (1872) 25 0 0 10. Annual, £5 0 0 (1872, '73) 10 0 0 11. Annual, £1 1 0 (1873) 1 1 0 12. Gift, (1873) 4 0 0 13. Annual, (1873) 3 0 0 14. Gift, (1873) 13 10 0 15. Gift, (1873) 5 0 0 --------- £236 13 0

NOTES

[1] Guillim, Ed. 1638.

[2] The reason of this honour to Sir Walter was that he had been the first English knight who rode into France after the king had quartered the Fleur-de-Lys.

[3] I omit much, without putting stars, in these bits of translation. By the way, in last 'Fors,' p. 21, note, for "insert," read "omit."

[4] Not unfairly; only having to fight for their Calais instead of getting in for a bribe.

[5] Besogne. "The thing that has to be done"--word used still in household service, but impossible to translate; we have no such concentrated one in English.

[6] The passage is entirely spoiled in Johnes' translation by the use of the word 'gallant' instead of 'gentle' for the French 'gentil.' The boy was not yet nineteen, (born at Woodstock, June 15, 1330,) and his father thirty-six: fancy how pretty to see the one waiting on the other, with the French knights at his side.

[7] Sacred fillet, or "diadema," the noblest, as the most ancient, crown.

[8] The best is on George III.'s pound, 1820, the most finished in work on George IV.'s crown-piece, 1821.

[9] More properly 'named from the husbandman.' Thus Lycus is 'a wolf,' Lycius, 'named from the wolf,' or 'wolfish.' So, Georgus is 'a husbandman,' Georgius, 'named from the husbandman,' or 'husbandmannish.'

[10] See the complete series of subjects as given by M. Didron in his 'Iconographie Chrétienne' (8vo. Paris, 1845, p. 369), and note the most interesting trace of the idea of Triptolemus, in the attendant child with the water-pitcher behind the equestrian figure of the Saint.

[11] You will find that in my 19th letter, p. 11, I propose that our St. George's Company in England shall be under the patronage also of St. Anthony in Italy. And in general, we will hold ourselves bound to reverence, in one mind, with Carpaccio and the good Painters and Merchants of Venice, the eight great Saints of the Greek Church,--namely (in the order M. Didron gives them)--the Archangel Michael, the Precursor (John Baptist), St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Nicholas, St. George, Ste. Catherine of Sinai, and St. Anthony, these being patrons of our chief occupations, (while, over our banking operations we will have for patron or principal manager, the more modern Western Saint, Francis of Assisi;) meaning always no disrespect to St. Jerome or Ste. Cecilia, in case we need help in our literature or music.

[12] "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." Our mona,--as in the 2nd verse (John xiv.)

[13] Humboldt, Personal Narrative, London, 1827, vol. v., p. 640 et seq. I quote, as always, accurately, but missing the bits I don't want.

[14] The saying is only quoted in 'Munera Pulveris' to be denied, the reader must observe.

[15] See terminal notes.

[16] Compare XXIII. 12.

[17] See Miss Edgeworth's Story, 'Forgive and Forget,' in the 'Parents' Assistant.'

[18] 21st March: one just received, interesting, and to be answered next month.

[19] I observed nothing of the kind. It was the previous speaker (unknown to me, but, according to the 'Pall Mall' Mr. Dering) who not merely 'observed' but positively affirmed, as the only groundwork of sound political economy, that the nature of man was that of a beast of prey, to all his fellows.

[20] My dear friend, I can't bear to interrupt your pretty letter; but, indeed, one should not worship God on one day more, or less, than on another; and one should rest when one needs rest, whether on Sunday or Saturday.

[21] My correspondent will perhaps be surprised to hear that I have never in my life voted for any candidate for Parliament, and that I never mean to.

[22] Far wiser than letting him gather them as valueless.

[23] Not translateable. In French, it has the form of a passionate oath, but the spirit of a gentle one.

[24] Head of house doing all he can do well, himself. If he had not had time to make the brooms well, he would have bought them.

[25] Do not calculate so closely how much you can afford to give for the price.

[26] Not meaning "you can cheat them afterwards," but that the customer would not leave him for another broom-maker.

[27] Sold.

[28] "Aussi" also how happy she felt. Aussi is untranslateable in this pretty use; so hereafter I shall put it, as an English word, in its place.

[29] "Nigaud," good for nothing but trifles; worthless, but without sense of vice; (vaut-rien, means viciously worthless). The real sense of this word here would be "Handless fool," but said good-humouredly.

[30] Se mit à regarder. I shall always translate such passages with the literal idiom--put himself.

[31] A single batz, about three halfpence in bad silver, flat struck: I shall use the word without translating henceforward.

[32] Pushed it. No horse wanted.

[33] Coup de main, a nice French idiom meaning the stroke of hand as opposed by that of a senseless instrument. The phrase "Taking a place by a coup de main" regards essentially not so much the mere difference between sudden and long assault, as between assault with flesh or cannon.

[34] Assez clair semées.

[35] He is now a capitalist, in the entirely wholesome and proper sense of the word. See answer of 'Pall Mall Gazette,' driven to have recourse to the simple truth, to my third question in last 'Fors.'

[36] See above, the first speech of the farmer to Hansli, "Many's the year now," etc. It would be a shame for a well-to-do farmer to have to buy brooms; it is only the wretched townspeople whom Hansli counts on for custom.

[37] Copeaux, I don't understand this.

[38] The mistress of a farm; paysan, the master. I shall use paysanne, after this, without translation, and peasant, for paysan; rarely wanting the word in our general sense.

[39] "Du battu," I don't know if it means the butter, or the buttermilk.

[40] "Le bout du monde," meaning, he never thought of going any farther.

[41] Compare, if you can get at the book in any library, my article on 'Home and its Economies' in the 'Contemporary Review' for May.

[42] Colonel Talbot, in 'Waverley;' I need not, surely, name the other:--note only that, in speaking of heroism, I never admit into the field of comparison the merely stage-ideals of impossible virtue and fortune--(Ivanhoe, Sir Kenneth, and the like)--but only persons whom Scott meant to be real. Observe also that with Scott, as with Titian, you must often expect the most tender pieces of completion in subordinate characters.

[43] I beg my readers to observe that I never flinch from stating a fact that tells against me. This George's Square is in that New Town of Edinburgh which I said, in the first of these letters, I should like to destroy to the ground.

[44] Lockhart's Life, 8vo. Edinburgh: Cadell, 1837. Vol. i. p. 65. In my following foot-notes I shall only give volume and page--the book being understood.

[45] i. 67. What sort of tender mercies were to be expected?

[46] His name unknown, according to Leyden, is perhaps discoverable; but what songs? Though composed by an Englishman, have they the special character of Scottish music?

[47] Dinlay;--where?

[48] Pensil, a flag hanging down--'pensile.' Pennon, a stiff flag sustained by a cross arm, like the broad part of a weathercock. Properly, it is the stiff-set feather of an arrow.

"Ny autres riens qui d'or ne fust Fors que les pennons, et le fust."

'Romance of the Rose,' of Love's arrows: Chaucer translates,

"For all was gold, men might see, Out-take the feathers and the tree."

[49] People would not have me speak any more harm of Mr. Mill, because he's dead, I suppose? Dead or alive, all's one to me, with mischievous persons; but alas! how very grievously all's two to me, when they are helpful and noble ones.

[50] Out of the first of Scott's notes to the Lay, but the note is so long that careless readers are sure to miss the points; also I give modern spelling for greater ease.

[51] A walled group of houses: tynen, Saxon, to shut in (Johnson).

[52] i. 68. "The indignant laird was on the point of desiring his prisoner to say a last prayer, when his more considerate dame interposed milder counsels, suggesting that the culprit was born to a good estate, and that they had three unmarried daughters. Young Harden, it is said, not without hesitation, agreed to save his life by taking the plainest of the three off their hands."

[53] Eldest son, or grandson, of Sir William Scott of Harden, the second in our genealogy.

[54] Came, by invitation from his landlord, Scott of Harden.

[55] Here, you see, our subject begins to purpose!

[56] I give the round numbers for better remembering. Wat of Harden married the Flower of Yarrow in 1567; Robert of Sandy-Knowe married Barbara Haliburton in 1728.

[57] Vol. vi., p. 164.

[58] Portion omitted short, and of no moment just now. I shall refer to it afterwards.

[59] The actual toil gone through by him is far greater during the last years than before--in fact it is unceasing and mortal; but I count only as the true labour-time that which is healthy and fruitful.

[60] If my own life is spared a little longer, I can at least rescue Pope from the hands of his present scavenger biographer; but alas, for Scott's loving hand and noble thought, lost to him!

[61] To the speech of Mr. Baillie of Jerviswoode; vol. vii., p. 221.

[62] Vol. vii., p. 213.

[63] Not to break away from my text too long, I add one or two farther points worth notice, here:--

"Boerhaave lost none of his hours, but when he had attained one science attempted another. He added physick to divinity, chemistry to the mathematicks, and anatomy to botany.

"He knew the importance of his own writings to mankind, and lest he might, by a roughness and barbarity of style too frequent among men of great learning, disappoint his own intentions, and make his labours less useful, he did not neglect the politer arts of eloquence and poetry. Thus was his learning at once various and exact, profound and agreeable.

"But his knowledge, however uncommon, holds in his character but the second place; his virtue was yet much more uncommon than his learning.

"Being once asked by a friend, who had often admired his patience under great provocations, whether he knew what it was to be angry, and by what means he had so entirely suppressed that impetuous and ungovernable passion, he answered, with the utmost frankness and sincerity, that he was naturally quick of resentment, but that he had, by daily prayer and meditation, at length attained to this mastery over himself."

[64] See terminal notes.

[65] Autobiography, p. 15.

[66] His own words to Mr. Skene of Rubislaw, vol. i., p. 83, spoken while Turner was sketching Smailholm Tower, vol. vii., p. 302.

[67] The Ballad of Hardiknute is only a fragment--but one consisting of forty-two stanzas of eight lines each. It is the only heroic poem in the Miscellany; of which--and of the poem itself--more hereafter. The first four lines are ominous of Scott's own life:--

"Stately stept he East the wa', And stately stept he West; Full seventy years he now had seen, With scarce seven years of rest."

[68] Lockhart, in the extract just below, calls them "milk-white." This is exactly right of the pale bluish translucent quartz, in which the agatescent veins are just traceable, and no more, out of the trap rocks; but the gneissitic hills give also exquisitely brilliant pure white and cream-coloured quartz, rolled out of their vein stones.

[69] With your pardon, Mr. Lockhart, neither ducks nor duckweed are in the least derogatory to the purity of a pool.

[70] Vol. ii., p. 358; compare ii., 70. "If it seemed possible to scramble through, he scorned to go ten yards about, and in fact preferred the ford," etc.

[71] 8vo, 1806, p. 119.

[72] Vol. vii., pp. 164, 166, 196.

[73] Vol. vii., p. 9.

[74] Fourth Report of Rivers Pollution Commission, p. 52.

[75] See Analysis of Water of Leith, the Foul Burn, and Pow Burn, same Report, p. 21.

[76] Same Report; so also the River Almond, pp. 22-45.

[77] See terminal Notes.

[78] Blood-hound, from 'lym,' Saxon for leash.

[79] Introduction to Border Minstrelsy, p. 86.

[80] "The Capacity and Extent of the Human Understanding; exemplified in the extraordinary case of Automathes, a young nobleman who was accidentally left in his infancy upon a desolate island, and continued nineteen years in that solitary state, separate from all human society." By John Kirkby. 1745. Small 8vo.

[81] It is impossible to concentrate the vulgar modern vices of art and literature more densely than has been done in this--in such kind, documental--book. Here is a description of the 'Queen of the Flowers' out of it, which is so accurately characteristic of the 'imagination' of an age of demand and supply, that I must find space for it in small print. She appears in a wood in which "here and there was a mulberry tree disporting itself among the rest." (Has Mr. Huguessen, M.P., ever seen a mulberry tree, or read as much of Pyramus and Thisbe as Bottom?)

"The face was the face of a lady, and of a pretty, exceedingly good-humoured lady too; but the hair which hung down around her head"--(the author had better have written hung up)--"was nothing more or less than festoons of roses,--red, lovely, sweet-scented" (who would have thought it!) "roses; the arms were apparently entirely composed of cloves and" (allspice? no) "carnations; the body was formed of a multitude of various flowers--the most beautiful you can imagine, and a cloak of honeysuckle and sweetbriar was thrown carefully over the shoulders." (Italics mine--care being as characteristic of the growth of the honeysuckle as disport is that of the mulberry.)

[82] Robert, who comes to visit them in Bath, to little Walter's great joy.

[83] See first terminal note.

[84] Or Méhun, near Beaugency, Loire.

[85] On Mr. M'Fie's motion for a committee to consider the relations that subsist between the United Kingdom and the Colonies. On the varieties of filial sentiment, compare Herodotus, iii. 38; iv. 26.

[86] Much the most important part of the service in Protestant Switzerland, and a less formal one than in Scotland.

[87] Utmost wisdom is not in self-denial, but in learning to find extreme pleasure in very little things.

[88] This pleasure is a perfectly natural and legitimate one, and all the more because it is possible only when the riches are very moderate. After getting the first shilling of which I told you, I set my mind greatly upon getting a pile of new "lion shillings," as I called them--the lion standing on the top of the crown; and my delight in the bloomy surface of their dead silver is quite a memorable joy to me. I have engraved, for the frontispiece, the two sides of one of Hansli's Sunday playthings; it is otherwise interesting as an example of the comparatively vulgar coinage of a people uneducated in art.

[89] Has quarrelled with them.

[90] "Les ont brusquées." I can't get the derivation beyond Johnson: "Fr. brusque; Gothic, braska." But the Italian brusco is connected with the Provençal brusca, thicket, and Fr. broussaille.

[91] Paysan--see above.

[92] 'The Forms of Water.' King and Co., Cornhill. 1872.

[93] When next the reader has an opportunity of repeating Professor Tyndall's experiments (p. 92) in a wreath of dry snow, I recommend him first to try how much jumping is necessary in order to get into it "breast-deep"; and secondly, how far he can "wade" in that dramatic position.

[94] See the last terminal note.

[95] I have long since expressed these facts in my 'Ethics of the Dust,' but too metaphorically. "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."

[96] See terminal Notes, 1.

[97] If you don't know your Scott properly, it is of no use to give you references.

[98] "Dicimus, et stabilito tenore firmamus, amorem non posse, inter duos jugales, suas extendere vires."

[99] He meant the Bible; having learned Evangelical views at the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

[100] For the present, the daughters seem to take the initiative. See story from Halifax in the last terminal Note.

[101] Italics mine.

[102] The complete idea I believe to be "the Divine Fors," or Providence, accurately so called, of God. "For it is sanctified by the Word of God, and the granting."

[103] See p. 14 in the Notes.

End of Project Gutenberg's Fors Clavigera (Volume 3 of 8), by John Ruskin