The Crown of Wild Olive
and the corruption and profanity are in the higher instead of the lower
orders, there arises, first, helpless confusion, then, if the lower
classes deserve power, ensues swift revolution, and they get it; but if
neither the populace nor their rulers deserve it, there follows mere
darkness and dissolution, till, out of the putrid elements, some new
capacity of order rises, like grass on a grave; if not, there is no more
hope, nor shadow of turning, for that nation. Atropos has her way with
it.
So that the law of national health is like that of a great lake or sea,
in perfect but slow circulation, letting the dregs fall continually to
the lowest place, and the clear water rise; yet so as that there shall
be no neglect of the lower orders, but perfect supervision and sympathy,
so that if one member suffer, all members shall suffer with it.
[57] "[Greek: oliges, kai allos gignomenes]." (Little, and that little
born in vain.) The bitter sentence never was so true as at this day.
[58] [This following note is a mere cluster of memoranda, but I keep it
for reference.] Thetic, or Thesmic, would perhaps be a better term than
archic; but liable to be confused with some which we shall want relating
to Theoria. The administrators of the three great divisions of law are
severally Archons, Merists, and Dicasts. The Archons are the true
princes, or beginners of things; or leaders (as of an orchestra). The
Merists are properly the Domini, or Lords of houses and nations. The
Dicasts, properly, the judges, and that with Olympian justice, which
reaches to heaven and hell. The violation of archic law is [Greek:
hamartia] (error), [Greek: poneria] (failure), or [Greek: plemmeleia]
(discord). The violation of meristic law is [Greek: anomia] (iniquity).
The violation of critic law is [Greek: adikia] (injury). Iniquity is the
central generic term; for all law is _fatal_; it is the division to men
of their fate; as the fold of their pasture, it is [Greek: nomos]; as
the assigning of their portion, [Greek: moira].
[59] [This is the only sentence which, in revising these essays, I am
now inclined to question; but the point is one of extreme difficulty.
There might be a law, for instance, of curfew, that candles should be
put out, unless for necessary service, at such and such an hour, the
idea of "necessary service" being quite indefinable, and no penalty
possible; yet there would be a distinct consciousness of illegal conduct
in young ladies' minds who danced by candlelight till dawn.]
[60] [Read this and the next paragraph with attention; they contain
clear statements, which I cannot mend, of things most necessary.]
[61] [Mainly; not altogether. Conclusive reward of high virtue is loving
and crowning, not helping; and conclusive punishment of deep vice is
hating and crushing, not merely hindering.]
[62] Compare Chaucer's "villany" (clownishness).
Full foul and chorlishe seemed she,
And eke villanous for to be,
And little coulde of norture
To worship any creature.
[63] [I leave this paragraph, in every syllable, as it was written,
during the rage of the American war; it was meant to refer, however,
chiefly to the Northerns: what modifications its hot and partial terms
require I will give in another place: let it stand now as it stood.]
[64] Supply and demand! Alas! for what noble work was there ever any
audible "demand" in that poor sense (Past and Present)? Nay, the demand
is not loud, even for ignoble work. _See_ "Average Earnings of Betty
Taylor," in _Times_ of 4th February of this year [1863]: "Worked from
Monday morning at 8 A.M. to Friday night at 5.30 P.M. for 1_s._
5-1/2_d._"--_Laissez faire._ [This kind of slavery finds no
Abolitionists that I hear of.]
[65] ["That the sacred grove is nothing but logs."]
[66] Ames, by report of Waldo Emerson, says "that a monarchy is a
merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and
go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink,
but then your feet are always in the water." Yes, that is comfortable;
and though your raft cannot sink (being too worthless for that), it may
go to pieces, I suppose, when the four winds (your only pilots) steer
competitively from its four corners, and carry it, [Greek: os oporinos
Borees phoreesin akanthas], and then more than your feet will be in the
water.
[67] ["Not with water, but with ruin." The worst ruin being that which
the Americans chiefly boast of. They sent all their best and honestest
youths, Harvard University men and the like, to that accursed war; got
them nearly all shot; wrote pretty biographies (to the ages of 17, 18,
19) and epitaphs for them; and so, having washed all the salt out of the
nation in blood, left themselves to putrefaction, and the morality of
New York.]
[68] [This paragraph contains the gist of all that precede.]
[69] [Whenever you are puzzled by any apparently mistaken use of words
in these essays, take your dictionary, remembering I had to fix terms,
as well as principles. A Duke is a "dux" or "leader;" the flying wedge
of cranes is under a "ducal monarch"--a very different personage from a
queen bee. The Venetians, with a beautiful instinct, gave the name to
their King of the Sea.]
[70] [This is a perfect picture of the French under the tyrannies of
their Pelican Kings, before the Revolution. But they must find other
than Pelican Kings--or rather, Pelican Kings of the Divine brood, that
feed their children, and with their best blood.]
[71] [Read carefully, from this point; because here begins the statement
of things requiring to be done, which I am now re-trying to make
definite in _Fors Clavigera_.]
[72] ["Evil on the top of Evil." Delphic oracle, meaning iron on the
anvil.]
[73] [Permit me to enforce and reinforce this statement, with all
earnestness. It is the sum of what needs most to be understood in the
matter of education.]
[74] [A pregnant paragraph, meant against English and Scotch landlords
who drive their people off the land.]
[75] [In Lucian's dialogue, "The sale of lives."]
[76] [I raise this analysis of the _Tempest_ into my text; but it is
nothing but a hurried note, which I may never have time to expand. I
have retouched it here and there a little, however.]
[77] Of Shakspeare's names I will afterwards speak at more length; they
are curiously--often barbarously--much by Providence,--but assuredly not
without Shakspeare's cunning purpose--mixed out of the various
traditions he confusedly adopted, and languages which he imperfectly
knew. Three of the clearest in meaning have been already noticed.
Desdemona, "[Greek: dysdaimonia]," "miserable fortune," is also plain
enough. Othello is, I believe, "the careful;" all the calamity of the
tragedy arising from the single flaw and error in his magnificently
collected strength. Ophelia, "serviceableness," the true lost wife of
Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek name by that of her brother,
Laertes; and its signification is once exquisitely alluded to in that
brother's last word of her, where her gentle preciousness is opposed to
the uselessness of the churlish clergy--"A _ministering_ angel shall my
sister be, when thou liest howling." Hamlet is, I believe, connected in
some way with "homely" the entire event of the tragedy turning on
betrayal of home duty. Hermione ([Greek: erma]), "pillar-like," ([Greek:
he eidos eche chryses 'Aphrodites]). Titania ([Greek: titene]), "the
queen;" Benedict and Beatrice, "blessed and blessing;" Valentine and
Proteus, enduring (or strong), (valens), and changeful. Iago and Iachimo
have evidently the same root--probably the Spanish Iago, Jacob, "the
supplanter," Leonatus, and other such names, are interpreted, or played
with, in the plays themselves. For the interpretation of Sycorax, and
reference to her raven's feather, I am indebted to Mr. John R. Wise.
CHAPTER VI.
MASTERSHIP.
136. As in all previous discussions of our subject, we must study the
relation of the commanding rich to the obeying poor in its simplest
elements, in order to reach its first principles.
The simplest state of it, then, is this:[78] a wise and provident person
works much, consumes little, and lays by a store; an improvident person
works little, consumes all his produce, and lays by no store. Accident
interrupts the daily work, or renders it less productive; the idle
person must then starve, or be supported by the provident one, who,
having him thus at his mercy, may either refuse to maintain him
altogether, or, which will evidently be more to his own interest, say to
him, "I will maintain you, indeed, but you shall now work hard, instead
of indolently, and instead of being allowed to lay by what you save, as
you might have done, had you remained independent, _I_ will take all the
surplus. You would not lay it up for yourself; it is wholly your own
fault that has thrown you into my power, and I will force you to work,
or starve; yet you shall have no profit of your work, only your daily
bread for it; [and competition shall determine how much of that[79]]."
This mode of treatment has now become so universal that it is supposed
to be the only natural--nay, the only possible one; and the market wages
are calmly defined by economists as "the sum which will maintain the
labourer."
137. The power of the provident person to do this is only checked by the
correlative power of some neighbour of similarly frugal habits, who says
to the labourer--"I will give you a little more than this other
provident person: come and work for me."
The power of the provident over the improvident depends thus, primarily,
on their relative numbers; secondarily, on the modes of agreement of the
adverse parties with each other. The accidental level of wages is a
variable function of the number of provident and idle persons in the
world, of the enmity between them as classes, and of the agreement
between those of the same class. _It depends, from beginning to end, on
moral conditions._
138. Supposing the rich to be entirely selfish, _it is always for their
interest that the poor should be as numerous as they can employ, and
restrain_. For, granting that the entire population is no larger than
the ground can easily maintain--that the classes are stringently
divided--and that there is sense or strength of hand enough with the
rich to secure obedience; then, if nine-tenths of a nation are poor, the
remaining tenth have the service of nine persons each;[80] but, if
eight-tenths are poor, only of four each; if seven-tenths are poor, of
two and a third each; if six-tenths are poor, of one and a half each;
and if five-tenths are poor, of only one each. But, practically, if the
rich strive always to obtain more power over the poor, instead of to
raise them--and if, on the other hand, the poor become continually more
vicious and numerous, through neglect and oppression,--though the
_range_ of the power of the rich increases, its _tenure_ becomes less
secure; until, at last the measure of iniquity being full, revolution,
civil war, or the subjection of the state to a healthier or stronger
one, closes the moral corruption, and industrial disease.[81]
139. It is rarely, however, that things come to this extremity. Kind
persons among the rich, and wise among the poor, modify the connexion of
the classes: the efforts made to raise and relieve on the one side, and
the success of honest toil on the other, bind and blend the orders of
society into the confused tissue of half-felt obligation,
sullenly-rendered obedience, and variously-directed, or mis-directed
toil, which form the warp of daily life. But this great law rules all
the wild design: that success (while society is guided by laws of
competition) _signifies always so much victory over your neighbour_ as