The Crown of Wild Olive
beauty, shut it in; all is human, true, and wholesome in it,
interesting to look upon, and rare among sovereign persons.
Louisa died in 1667, twenty-one years before her husband, who married
again--(little to his contentment)--died in 1688; and Louisa's second
son, Friedrich, ten years old at his mother's death, and now therefore
thirty-one, succeeds, becoming afterwards Friedrich I. of Prussia.
And here we pause on two great questions. Prussia is assuredly at this
point a happier and better country than it was, when inhabited by Wends.
But is Friedrich I. a happier and better man than Henry the Fowler? Have
all these kings thus improved their country, but never themselves? Is
this somewhat expensive and ambitious Herr, Friedrich I. buttoned in
diamonds, indeed the best that Protestantism can produce, as against
Fowlers, Bears, and Red Beards? Much more, Friedrich Wilhelm, orthodox
on predestination; most of all, his less orthodox son;--have we, in
these, the highest results which Dr. Martin Luther can produce for the
present, in the first circles of society? And if not, how is it that the
country, having gained so much in intelligence and strength, lies more
passively in their power than the baser country did under that of nobler
men?
These, and collateral questions, I mean to work out as I can, with
Carlyle's good help;--but must pause for this time; in doubt, as
heretofore. Only of this one thing I doubt not, that the name of all
great kings, set over Christian nations, must at last be, in fufilment,
the hereditary one of these German princes, "Rich in Peace;" and that
their coronation will be with Wild olive, not with gold.
FOOTNOTES:
[142] The late Sir Herbert Edwardes.
[143] I would much rather print these passages of Carlyle in large
golden letters than small black ones; but they are only here at all for
unlucky people who can't read them with the context.
THE
ETHICS OF THE DUST
TEN LECTURES
TO
LITTLE HOUSEWIVES
ON
THE ELEMENTS OF CRYSTALLISATION
CONTENTS.
ETHICS OF THE DUST.
LECTURE I. PAGE
THE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS 1
LECTURE II.
THE PYRAMID BUILDERS 21
LECTURE III.
THE CRYSTAL LIFE 31
LECTURE IV.
THE CRYSTAL ORDERS 43
LECTURE V.
CRYSTAL VIRTUES 56
LECTURE VI.
CRYSTAL QUARRELS 70
LECTURE VII.
HOME VIRTUES 82
LECTURE VIII.
CRYSTAL CAPRICE 98
LECTURE IX.
CRYSTAL SORROWS 111
LECTURE X.
THE CRYSTAL REST 125
NOTES 143
FICTION--FAIR AND FOUL 153
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.
LETTER I.
ON FIRST PRACTICE 233
LETTER II.
SKETCHING FROM NATURE 293
LETTER III.
ON COLOUR AND COMPOSITION 331
APPENDIX: THINGS TO BE STUDIED 403
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.
FIGURE PAGE
1. SQUARES 237
2. GRADATED SPACES 241
3. OUTLINE OF LETTER 245
4. OUTLINE OF BOUGH OF TREE 248
5. CHARRED LOG 257
6. SHOOT OF LILAC 272
7. LEAF 274
8. BOUGH OF PHILLYREA 275
9. SPRAY OF PHILLYREA 276
10. TRUNK OF TREE, BY TITIAN 284
11. SKETCH FROM RAPHAEL 285
12. OUTLINES OF A BALL 287
13. WOODCUT OF DURER'S 289
14, 15, 16. MASSES OF LEAVES 290, 291
17, 18, 19. CURVATURES IN LEAVES 295, 296
20. FROM AN ETCHING, BY TURNER 297
21. ALPINE BRIDGE 307
22. ALPINE BRIDGE AS IT APPEARS AT VARIOUS DISTANCES 308
23. OUTLINES EXPRESSIVE OF FOLIAGE 314
24. SHOOT OF SPANISH CHESTNUT 315
25. YOUNG SHOOT OF OAK 316
26, 27, 28. WOODCUTS AFTER TITIAN 321, 322
29. DIAGRAM OF WINDOW 339
30. SWISS COTTAGE 355
31. GROUPS OF LEAVE 350
32. PAINTING, by Turner 361
33. SKETCH ON CALAIS SANDS, by Turner 365
34. DRAWING OF AN IDEAL BRIDGE, by Turner 369
35. PROFILE OF THE TOWERS OF EHRENBREITSTEIN 370
36. CURVES 371
37, 38, 39. CURVES FOUND IN LEAVES 372
40. OUTLINES OF A TREE TRUNK 373
41-44. TREE RADIATION 374, 375
45, 46. WOODCUTS OF LEAF 376
47. LEAF OF COLUMBINE 378
48. TOP OF AN OLD TOWER 385
PERSONAE.
OLD LECTURER (of incalculable age)
FLORRIE, on astronomical evidence presumed to be aged 9.
ISABEL " 11.
MAY " 11.
LILY " 12.
KATHLEEN " 14.
LUCILLA " 15.
VIOLET " 16.
DORA (who has the keys and is housekeeper) " 17.
EGYPT (so called from her dark eyes) " 17.
JESSIE (who somehow always makes the room look
brighter when she is in it) " 18.
MARY (of whom everybody, including the Old Lecturer,
is in great awe) " 20.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
I have seldom been more disappointed by the result of my best pains
given to any of my books, than by the earnest request of my publisher,
after the opinion of the public had been taken on the 'Ethics of the
Dust,' that I would "write no more in dialogue!" However, I bowed to
public judgment in this matter at once, (knowing also my inventive
powers to be of the feeblest,); but in reprinting the book, (at the
prevailing request of my kind friend, Mr. Henry Willett,) I would pray
the readers whom it may at first offend by its disconnected method, to
examine, nevertheless, with care, the passages in which the principal
speaker sums the conclusions of any dialogue: for these summaries were
written as introductions, for young people, to all that I have said on
the same matters in my larger books; and, on re-reading them, they
satisfy me better, and seem to me calculated to be more generally
useful, than anything else I have done of the kind.
The summary of the contents of the whole book, beginning, "You may at
least earnestly believe," at p. 130, is thus the clearest exposition I
have ever yet given of the general conditions under which the Personal
Creative Power manifests itself in the forms of matter; and the analysis
of heathen conceptions of Deity, beginning at p. 131, and closing at p.
138, not only prefaces, but very nearly supersedes, all that in more
lengthy terms I have since asserted, or pleaded for, in 'Aratra
Pentelici,' and the 'Queen of the Air.'
And thus, however the book may fail in its intention of suggesting new
occupations or interests to its younger readers, I think it worth
reprinting, in the way I have also reprinted 'Unto this Last,'--page for
page; that the students of my more advanced works may be able to refer
to these as the original documents of them; of which the most essential
in this book are these following.
I. The explanation of the baseness of the avaricious functions of the
Lower Pthah, p. 39, with his beetle-gospel, p. 41, "that a nation can
stand on its vices better than on its virtues," explains the main motive
of all my books on Political Economy.
II. The examination of the connexion between stupidity and crime, pp.
57-62, anticipated all that I have had to urge in Fors Clavigera against
the commonly alleged excuse for public wickedness,--"They don't mean
it--they don't know any better."
III. The examination of the roots of Moral Power, pp. 90-92, is a
summary of what is afterwards developed with utmost care in my inaugural
lecture at Oxford on the relation of Art to Morals; compare in that
lecture, Secs. 83-85, with the sentence in p. 91 of this book, "Nothing
is ever done so as really to please our Father, unless we would also have
done it, though we had had no Father to know of it."
This sentence, however, it must be observed, regards only the general
conditions of action in the children of God, in consequence of which it
is foretold of them by Christ that they will say at the Judgment, "When
saw we thee?" It does not refer to the distinct cases in which virtue
consists in faith given to command, appearing to foolish human judgment
inconsistent with the Moral Law, as in the sacrifice of Isaac; nor to
those in which any directly-given command requires nothing more of
virtue than obedience.
IV. The subsequent pages, 92-97, were written especially to check the
dangerous impulses natural to the minds of many amiable young women, in
the direction of narrow and selfish religious sentiment: and they
contain, therefore, nearly everything which I believe it necessary that
young people should be made to observe, respecting the errors of
monastic life. But they in nowise enter on the reverse, or favourable
side: of which indeed I did not, and as yet do not, feel myself able to
speak with any decisiveness; the evidence on that side, as stated in the
text, having "never yet been dispassionately examined."
V. The dialogue with Lucilla, beginning at p. 63, is, to my own fancy,
the best bit of conversation in the book, and the issue of it, at p. 67,
the most practically and immediately useful. For on the idea of the
inevitable weakness and corruption of human nature, has logically
followed, in our daily life, the horrible creed of modern "Social
science," that all social action must be scientifically founded on
vicious impulses. But on the habit of measuring and reverencing our
powers and talents that we may kindly use them, will be founded a true
Social science, developing, by the employment of them, all the real
powers and honourable feelings of the race.
VI. Finally, the account given in the second and third lectures, of the
real nature and marvellousness of the laws of crystallization, is
necessary to the understanding of what farther teaching of the beauty of
inorganic form I may be able to give, either in 'Deucalion,' or in my
'Elements of Drawing.' I wish however that the second lecture had been
made the beginning of the book; and would fain now cancel the first
altogether, which I perceive to be both obscure and dull. It was meant
for a metaphorical description of the pleasures and dangers in the
kingdom of Mammon, or of worldly wealth; its waters mixed with blood,
its fruits entangled in thickets of trouble, and poisonous when
gathered; and the final captivity of its inhabitants within frozen walls