The Crown of Wild Olive
selling of clothes, old, or new, has never taken any colour of
magnanimity. Yet one does not see why feeding the hungry and clothing
the naked should ever become base businesses, even when engaged in on a
large scale. If one could contrive to attach the notion of conquest to
them anyhow? so that, supposing there were anywhere an obstinate race,
who refused to be comforted, one might take some pride in giving them
compulsory comfort; and as it were, 'occupying a country' with one's
gifts, instead of one's armies? If one could only consider it as much a
victory to get a barren field sown, as to get an eared field stripped;
and contend who should build villages, instead of who should 'carry'
them. Are not all forms of heroism, conceivable in doing these
serviceable deeds? You doubt who is strongest? It might be ascertained
by push of spade, as well as push of sword. Who is wisest? There are
witty things to be thought of in planning other business than campaigns.
Who is bravest? There are always the elements to fight with, stronger
than men; and nearly as merciless. The only absolutely and
unapproachably heroic element in the soldier's work seems to be--that he
is paid little for it--and regularly: while you traffickers, and
exchangers, and others occupied in presumably benevolent business, like
to be paid much for it--and by chance. I never can make out how it is
that a knight-errant does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a
pedlar-errant always does;--that people are willing to take hard knocks
for nothing, but never to sell ribands cheap;--that they are ready to go
on fervent crusades to recover the tomb of a buried God, never on any
travels to fulfil the orders of a living God;--that they will go
anywhere barefoot to preach their faith, but must be well bribed to
practise it, and are perfectly ready to give the Gospel gratis, but
never the loaves and fishes. If you chose to take the matter up on any
such soldierly principle, to do your commerce, and your feeding of
nations, for fixed salaries; and to be as particular about giving people
the best food, and the best cloth, as soldiers are about giving them the
best gunpowder, I could carve something for you on your exchange worth
looking at. But I can only at present suggest decorating its frieze with
pendant purses; and making its pillars broad at the base for the
sticking of bills. And in the innermost chambers of it there might be a
statue of Britannia of the Market, who may have, perhaps advisably, a
partridge for her crest, typical at once of her courage in fighting for
noble ideas; and of her interest in game; and round its neck the
inscription in golden letters, 'Perdix fovit quae non peperit.'[4] Then,
for her spear, she might have a weaver's beam; and on her shield,
instead of her Cross, the Milanese boar, semi-fleeced, with the town of
Gennesaret proper, in the field and the legend 'In the best market,' and
her corslet, of leather, folded over her heart in the shape of a purse,
with thirty slits in it for a piece of money to go in at, on each day of
the month. And I doubt not but that people would come to see your
exchange, and its goddess, with applause.
Nevertheless, I want to point out to you certain strange characters in
this goddess of yours. She differs from the great Greek and Mediaeval
deities essentially in two things--first, as to the continuance of her
presumed power; secondly, as to the extent of it.
1st, as to the Continuance.
The Greek Goddess of Wisdom gave continual increase of wisdom, as the
Christian Spirit of Comfort (or Comforter) continual increase of
comfort. There was no question, with these, of any limit or cessation of
function. But with your Agora Goddess, that is just the most important
question. Getting on--but where to? Gathering together--but how much? Do
you mean to gather always--never to spend? If so, I wish you joy of your
goddess, for I am just as well off as you, without the trouble of
worshipping her at all. But if you do not spend, somebody else
will--somebody else must. And it is because of this (among many other
such errors) that I have fearlessly declared your so-called science of
Political Economy to be no science; because, namely, it has omitted the
study of exactly the most important branch of the business--the study of
_spending_. For spend you must, and as much as you make, ultimately. You
gather corn:--will you bury England under a heap of grain; or will you,
when you have gathered, finally eat? You gather gold:--will you make
your house-roofs of it, or pave your streets with it? That is still one
way of spending it. But if you keep it, that you may get more, I'll give
you more; I'll give you all the gold you want--all you can imagine--if
you can tell me what you'll do with it. You shall have thousands of gold
pieces;--thousands of thousands--millions--mountains, of gold: where
will you keep them? Will you put an Olympus of silver upon a golden
Pelion--make Ossa like a wart? Do you think the rain and dew would then
come down to you, in the streams from such mountains, more blessedly
than they will down the mountains which God has made for you, of moss
and whinstone? But it is not gold that you want to gather! What is it?
greenbacks? No; not those neither. What is it then--is it ciphers after
a capital I? Cannot you practise writing ciphers, and write as many as
you want? Write ciphers for an hour every morning, in a big book, and
say every evening, I am worth all those noughts more than I was
yesterday. Won't that do? Well, what in the name of Plutus is it you
want? Not gold, not greenbacks, not ciphers after a capital I? You will
have to answer, after all, 'No; we want, somehow or other, money's
_worth_.' Well, what is that? Let your Goddess of Getting-on discover
it, and let her learn to stay therein.
II. But there is yet another question to be asked respecting this
Goddess of Getting-on. The first was of the continuance of her power;
the second is of its extent.
Pallas and the Madonna were supposed to be all the world's Pallas, and
all the world's Madonna. They could teach all men, and they could
comfort all men. But, look strictly into the nature of the power of your
Goddess of Getting-on; and you will find she is the Goddess--not of
everybody's getting on--but only of somebody's getting on. This is a
vital, or rather deathful, distinction. Examine it in your own ideal of
the state of national life which this Goddess is to evoke and maintain.
I asked you what it was, when I was last here;[5]--you have never told
me. Now, shall I try to tell you?
Your ideal of human life then is, I think, that it should be passed in a
pleasant undulating world, with iron and coal everywhere underneath it.
On each pleasant bank of this world is to be a beautiful mansion, with
two wings; and stables, and coach-houses; a moderately sized park; a
large garden and hot houses; and pleasant carriage drives through the
shrubberies. In this mansion are to live the favoured votaries of the
Goddess; the English gentleman, with his gracious wife, and his
beautiful family; always able to have the boudoir and the jewels for the
wife, and the beautiful ball dresses for the daughters, and hunters for
the sons, and a shooting in the Highlands for himself. At the bottom of
the bank, is to be the mill; not less than a quarter of a mile long,
with a steam engine at each end, and two in the middle, and a chimney
three hundred feet high. In this mill are to be in constant employment
from eight hundred to a thousand workers, who never drink, never strike,
always go to church on Sunday, and always express themselves in
respectful language.
Is not that, broadly, and in the main features, the kind of thing you
propose to yourselves? It is very pretty indeed seen from above; not at
all so pretty, seen from below. For, observe, while to one family this
deity is indeed the Goddess of Getting on, to a thousand families she is
the Goddess of _not_ Getting on. 'Nay,' you say, 'they have all their
chance.' Yes, so has every one in a lottery, but there must always be
the same number of blanks. 'Ah! but in a lottery it is not skill and
intelligence which take the lead, but blind chance.' What then! do you
think the old practice, that 'they should take who have the power, and
they should keep who can,' is less iniquitous, when the power has become
power of brains instead of fist? and that, though we may not take
advantage of a child's or a woman's weakness, we may of a man's
foolishness? 'Nay, but finally, work must be done, and some one must be
at the top, some one at the bottom.' Granted, my friends. Work must
always be, and captains of work must always be; and if you in the least
remember the tone of any of my writings, you must know that they are
thought unfit for this age, because they are always insisting on need of
government, and speaking with scorn of liberty. But I beg you to observe
that there is a wide difference between being captains or governors of
work, and taking the profits of it. It does not follow, because you are
general of an army, that you are to take all the treasure, or land, it
wins (if it fight for treasure or land); neither, because you are king
of a nation, that you are to consume all the profits of the nation's
work. Real kings, on the contrary, are known invariably by their doing
quite the reverse of this,--by their taking the least possible quantity
of the nation's work for themselves. There is no test of real kinghood
so infallible as that. Does the crowned creature live simply, bravely,
unostentatiously? probably he _is_ a King. Does he cover his body with
jewels, and his table with delicates? in all probability he is _not_ a
King. It is possible he may be, as Solomon was; but that is when the
nation shares his splendour with him. Solomon made gold, not only to be
in his own palace as stones, but to be in Jerusalem as stones. But even
so, for the most part, these splendid kinghoods expire in ruin, and only
the true kinghoods live, which are of royal labourers governing loyal
labourers; who, both leading rough lives, establish the true dynasties.
Conclusively you will find that because you are king of a nation, it
does not follow that you are to gather for yourself all the wealth of
that nation; neither, because you are king of a small part of the
nation, and lord over the means of its maintenance--over field, or mill,
or mine, are you to take all the produce of that piece of the foundation
of national existence for yourself.
You will tell me I need not preach against these things, for I cannot
mend them. No, good friends, I cannot; but you can, and you will; or
something else can and will. Do you think these phenomena are to stay
always in their present power or aspect? All history shows, on the
contrary, that to be the exact thing they never can do. Change _must_
come; but it is ours to determine whether change of growth, or change of
death. Shall the Parthenon be in ruins on its rock, and Bolton priory in
its meadow, but these mills of yours be the consummation of the
buildings of the earth, and their wheels be as the wheels of eternity?
Think you that 'men may come, and men may go,' but--mills--go on
forever? Not so; out of these, better or worse shall come; and it is for
you to choose which.
I know that none of this wrong is done with deliberate purpose. I know,
on the contrary, that you wish your workmen well; that you do much for
them, and that you desire to do more for them, if you saw your way to it
safely. I know that many of you have done, and are every day doing,
whatever you feel to be in your power; and that even all this wrong and
misery are brought about by a warped sense of duty, each of you striving
to do his best, without noticing that this best is essentially and