Part 4 (1/2)

66. Now, the circ.u.mstances of every a.s.sociated group of human society, contending bravely for national honors and felicity of life, differ only from those thus supposed, in the greater, instead of less, necessity for the establishment of restraining law. There is no point of difference in the difficulties to be met, nor in the rights reciprocally to be exercised. Vice and indolence are not less, but more, injurious in a nation than in a boat's company; the modes in which they affect the interests of worthy persons being far more complex, and more easily concealed. The right of restraint, vested in those who labor, over those who would impede their labor, is as absolute in the large as in the small society; the equal claim to share in whatever is necessary to the common life (or commonwealth) is as indefeasible; the claim of the sick and helpless to be cared for by the strong with earnest self-sacrifice, is as pitiful and as imperative; the necessity that the governing authority should be in the hands of a true and trained pilot is as clear and as constant. In none of these conditions is there any difference between a nation and a boat's company. The only difference is in this, that the impossibility of discerning the effects of individual error and crime, or of counteracting them by individual effort, in the affairs of a great nation renders it tenfold more necessary than in a small society that direction by law should be sternly established. a.s.sume that your boat's crew is disorderly and licentious, and will, by agreement, submit to no order;--the most troublesome of them will yet be easily discerned; and the chance is that the best man among them knocks him down. Common instinct of self-preservation will make the rioters put a good sailor at the helm, and impulsive pity and occasional help will be, by heart and hand, here and there given to visible distress. Not so in the s.h.i.+p of the realm. The most troublesome persons in _it_ are usually the least recognized for such, and the most active in its management; the best men mind their own business patiently, and are never thought of; the good helmsman never touches the tiller but in the last extremity; and the worst forms of misery are hidden, not only from every eye, but from every thought. On the deck, the aspect is of Cleopatra's galley--under hatches there is a slave hospital; while, finally (and this is the most fatal difference of all), even the few persons who care to interfere energetically, with purpose of doing good, can, in a large society, discern so little of the real state of evil to be dealt with, and judge so little of the best means of dealing with it, that half of their best efforts will be misdirected, and some may even do more harm than good. Whereas it is the sorrowful law of this universe, that evil, even unconscious and unintended, never fails of _its_ effect; and in a state where the evil and the good, under conditions of individual ”liberty,” are allowed to contend together, not only every _stroke_ on the Devil's side tells--but every _slip_, (the mistakes of wicked men being as mischievous as their successes); while on the side of right, there will be much direct and fatal defeat, and, even of its measure of victory, half will be fruitless.

67. It is true, of course, that, in the end of ends, nothing but the right conquers; the prevalent thorns of wrong, at last, crackle away in indiscriminate flame: and of the good seed sown, one grain in a thousand some day comes up--and somebody lives by it; but most of our great teachers, not excepting Carlyle and Emerson themselves, are a little too encouraging in their proclamation of this comfort, not, to my mind, very sufficient, when for the present our fields are full of nothing but darnel instead of wheat, and c.o.c.kle instead of barley; and none of them seem to me yet to have enough insisted on the inevitable power and infectiousness of all evil, and the easy and utter extinguishableness of good. Medicine often fails of its effect--but poison never: and while, in summing the observation of past life, not unwatchfully spent, I can truly say that I have a thousand times seen patience disappointed of her hope, and wisdom of her aim, I have never yet seen folly fruitless of mischief, nor vice conclude but in calamity.

68. There is, however, one important condition in national economy, in which the a.n.a.logy of that of a s.h.i.+p's company is incomplete: namely, that while labor at oar or sail is necessarily united, and can attain no independent good, or personal profit, the labor properly undertaken by the several members of a political community is necessarily, and justly, within certain limits, independent; and obtains for them independent advantage, of which, if you will glance at the last paragraph of the first chapter of 'Munera Pulveris,' you will see I should be the last person to propose depriving them. This great difference in final condition involves necessarily much complexity in the system and application of general laws; but it in no wise abrogates,--on the contrary, it renders yet more imperative,--the necessity for the firm ordinance of such laws, which, marking the due limits of independent agency, may enable it to exist in full energy, not only without becoming injurious, but so as more variously and perfectly to promote the entire interests of the commonwealth.

I will address myself therefore in my next letter to the statement of some of these necessary laws.

LETTER XIII.

THE PROPER OFFICES OF THE BISHOP AND DUKE; OR, ”OVERSEER” AND ”LEADER.”

_March 21, 1867._

69. I see, by your last letter, for which I heartily thank you, that you would not sympathize with me in my sorrow for the desertion of his own work by George Cruikshank, that he may fight in the front of the temperance ranks. But you do not know what work he has left undone, nor how much richer inheritance you might have received from his hand.

It was no more _his_ business to etch diagrams of drunkenness than it is mine at this moment to be writing these letters against anarchy. It is ”the first mild day of March” (high time, I think, that it should be!), and by rights I ought to be out among the budding banks and hedges, outlining sprays of hawthorn and cl.u.s.ters of primrose. That is _my_ right work; and it is not, in the inner gist and truth of it, right nor good, for you, or for anybody else, that Cruikshank with his great gift, and I with my weak, but yet thoroughly clear and definite one, should both of us be tormented by agony of indignation and compa.s.sion, till we are forced to give up our peace, and pleasure, and power; and rush down into the streets and lanes of the city, to do the little that is in the strength of our single hands against their uncleanliness and iniquity. But, as in a sorely besieged town, every man must to the ramparts, whatsoever business he leaves, so neither he nor I have had any choice but to leave our household stuff, and go on crusade, such as we are called to; not that I mean, if Fate may be anywise resisted, to give up the strength of my life, as he has given his; for I think he was wrong in doing so; and that he should only have carried the fiery cross his appointed leagues, and then given it to another hand; and, for my own part, I mean these very letters to close my political work for many a day; and I write them, not in any hope of their being at present listened to, but to disburthen my heart of the witness I have to bear, that I may be free to go back to my garden lawns, and paint birds and flowers there.

70. For these same statutes which we are to consider to-day, have indeed been in my mind now these fourteen years, ever since I wrote the last volume of the 'Stones of Venice,' in which you will find, in the long note on Modern Education, most of what I have been now in detail writing to you, hinted in abstract; and, at the close of it, this sentence, of which I solemnly now avouch (in thankfulness that I was permitted to write it), every word: ”Finally, I hold it for indisputable, that the first duty of a State is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed, and educated, till it attain years of discretion. But in order to the effecting this the Government must have an authority over the people of which we now do not so much as dream.”

That authority I did not then endeavor to define, for I knew all such a.s.sertions would be useless, and that the necessarily resultant outcry would merely diminish my influence in other directions. But now I do not care about influence any more, it being only my concern to say truly that which I know, and, if it may be, get some quiet life, yet, among the fields in the evening shadow.

71. There is, I suppose, no word which men are prouder of the right to attach to their names, or more envious of others who bear it, when they themselves may not, than the word ”n.o.ble.” Do you know what it originally meant, and always, in the right use of it, means? It means a ”known” person; one who has risen far enough above others to draw men's eyes to him, and to be known (honorably) for such and such an one. ”Ign.o.ble,” on the other hand, is derived from the same root as the word ”ignorance.” It means an unknown, inglorious person. And no more singular follies have been committed by weak human creatures than those which have been caused by the instinct, pure and simple, of escaping from this obscurity. Instinct, which, corrupted, will hesitate at no means, good or evil, of satisfying itself with notoriety--instinct, nevertheless, which, like all other natural ones, has a true and pure purpose, and ought always in a worthy way to be satisfied.

All men ought to be in this sense ”n.o.ble”; known of each other, and desiring to be known. And the first law which a nation, desiring to conquer all the devices of the Father of Lies, should establish among its people, is that they _shall_ be so known.

72. Will you please now read -- 22 of 'Sesame and Lilies'? The reviewers in the ecclesiastical journals laughed at it, as a rhapsody, when the book came out; none having the slightest notion of what I meant: (nor, indeed, do I well see how it could be otherwise!).

Nevertheless, I meant precisely and literally what is there said, namely, that a bishop's duty being to watch over the souls of his people, and _give_ account of every one of them, it becomes practically necessary for him first to _get_ some account of their bodies. Which he was wont to do in the early days of Christianity by help of a person called ”deacon” or ”ministering servant,” whose name is still retained among preliminary ecclesiastical dignities, vainly enough! Putting, however, all questions of forms and names aside, the thing actually needing to be done is this--that over every hundred (more or less) of the families composing a Christian State, there should be appointed an overseer, or bishop, to render account, to the State, of the life of every individual in those families; and to have care both of their interest and conduct to such an extent as they may be willing to admit, or as their faults may justify: so that it may be impossible for any person, however humble, to suffer from unknown want, or live in unrecognized crime;--such help and observance being rendered without officiousness either of interference or inquisition (the limits of both being determined by national law), but with the patient and gentle watchfulness which true Christian pastors now exercise over their flocks; only with a higher legal authority presently to be defined, of interference on due occasion.

And with this farther function, that such overseers shall be not only the pastors, but the biographers, of their people; a written statement of the princ.i.p.al events in the life of each family being annually required to be rendered by them to a superior State Officer. These records, laid up in public offices, would soon furnish indications of the families whom it would be advantageous to the nation to advance in position, or distinguish with honor, and aid by such reward as it should be the object of every Government to distribute no less punctually, and far more frankly, than it distributes punishment: (compare 'Munera Pulveris,' Essay IV., in paragraph on Critic Law), while the mere fact of permanent record being kept of every event of importance, whether disgraceful or worthy of praise, in each family, would of itself be a deterrent from crime, and a stimulant to well-deserving conduct, far beyond mere punishment or reward.

73. Nor need you think that there would be anything in such a system un-English, or tending to espionage. No uninvited visits should ever be made in any house, unless law had been violated; nothing recorded, against its will, of any family, but what was inevitably known of its publicly visible conduct, and the results of that conduct. What else was written should be only by the desire, and from the communications, of its head. And in a little while it would come to be felt that the true history of a nation was indeed not of its wars, but of its households; and the desire of men would rather be to obtain some conspicuous place in these honorable annals, than to shrink behind closed shutters from public sight. Until at last, George Herbert's grand word of command would hold not only on the conscience, but the actual system and outer economy of life,

”Think the King sees thee still, for _his_ King does.”

74. Secondly, above these bishops or pastors, who are only to be occupied in offices of familiar supervision and help, should be appointed higher officers of State, having executive authority over as large districts as might be conveniently (according to the number and circ.u.mstances of their inhabitants) committed to their care; officers who, according to the reports of the pastors, should enforce or mitigate the operation of too rigid general law, and determine measures exceptionally necessary for public advantage. For instance, the general law being that all children of the operative cla.s.ses, at a certain age, should be sent to public schools, these superior officers should have power, on the report of the pastors, to dispense with the attendance of children who had sick parents to take charge of, or whose home-life seemed to be one of better advantage for them than that of the common schools; or who, for any other like cause, might justifiably claim remission. And it being the general law that the entire body of the public should contribute to the cost, and divide the profits, of all necessary public works and undertakings, as roads, mines, harbor protections, and the like, and that nothing of this kind should be permitted to be in the hands of private speculators, it should be the duty of the district officer to collect whatever information was accessible respecting such sources of public profit; and to represent the circ.u.mstances in Parliament: and then, with Parliamentary authority, but on his own sole personal responsibility, to see that such enterprises were conducted honestly and with due energy and order.

The appointment to both these offices should be by election, and for life; by what forms of election shall be matter of inquiry, after we have determined some others of the necessary const.i.tutional laws.

75. I do not doubt but that you are already beginning to think it was with good reason I held my peace these fourteen years,--and that, for any good likely to be done by speaking, I might as well have held it altogether!

It may be so: but merely to complete and explain my own work, it is necessary that I should say these things finally; and I believe that the imminent danger to which we are now in England exposed by the gradually accelerated fall of our aristocracy (wholly their own fault), and the subst.i.tution of money-power for their martial one; and by the correspondingly imminent prevalence of mob violence here, as in America; together with the continually increasing chances of insane war, founded on popular pa.s.sion, whether of pride, fear, or acquisitiveness,--all these dangers being further darkened and degraded by the monstrous forms of vice and selfishness which the appliances of recent wealth, and of vulgar mechanical art, make possible to the million,--will soon bring us into a condition in which men will be glad to listen to almost any words but those of a demagogue, and to seek any means of safety rather than those in which they have lately trusted. So, with your good leave, I will say my say to the end, mock at it who may.

P.S.--I take due note of the regulations of trade proposed in your letter just received[A]--all excellent. I shall come to them presently, ”Cash payment” above all. You may write that on your trade-banners in letters of gold, wherever you would have them raised victoriously.

[A] Appendix 6.