The Crown of Wild Olive
perfectly formed, and have a lovely bloom on their surface besides. But
here, when the two minerals quarrel, the unhappy quartz has all its
surfaces jagged and torn to pieces; and there is not a single iron
crystal whose shape you can completely trace. But the quartz has the
worst of it, in both instances.
VIOLET. Might we look at that piece of broken quartz again, with the
weak little film across it? it seems such a strange lovely thing, like
the self-sacrifice of a human being.
L. The self-sacrifice of a human being is not a lovely thing, Violet. It
is often a necessary and noble thing; but no form nor degree of suicide
can be ever lovely.
VIOLET. But self-sacrifice is not suicide!
L. What is it then?
VIOLET. Giving up one's self for another.
L. Well; and what do you mean by 'giving up one's self?'
VIOLET. Giving up one's tastes, one's feelings, one's time, one's
happiness, and so on, to make others happy.
L. I hope you will never marry anybody, Violet, who expects you to make
him happy in that way.
VIOLET (_hesitating_). In what way?
L. By giving up your tastes, and sacrificing your feelings, and
happiness.
VIOLET. No, no, I don't mean that; but you know, for other people, one
must.
L. For people who don't love you, and whom you know nothing about? Be it
so; but how does this 'giving up' differ from suicide then?
VIOLET. Why, giving up one's pleasures is not killing one's self?
L. Giving up wrong pleasure is not; neither is it self-sacrifice, but
self-culture. But giving up right pleasure is. If you surrender the
pleasure of walking, your foot will wither; you may as well cut it off:
if you surrender the pleasure of seeing, your eyes will soon be unable
to bear the light; you may as well pluck them out. And to maim yourself
is partly to kill yourself. Do but go on maiming, and you will soon
slay.
VIOLET. But why do you make me think of that verse then about the foot
and the eye?
L. You are indeed commanded to cut off and to pluck out, if foot or eye
offend you; but why _should_ they offend you?
VIOLET. I don't know; I never quite understood that.
L. Yet it is a sharp order; one needing to be well understood if it is
to be well obeyed! When Helen sprained her ancle the other day, you saw
how strongly it had to be bandaged: that is to say, prevented from all
work, to recover it. But the bandage was not 'lovely.'
VIOLET. No, indeed.
L. And if her foot had been crushed, or diseased, or snake-bitten,
instead of sprained, it might have been needful to cut it off. But the
amputation would not have been 'lovely.'
VIOLET. No.
L. Well, if eye and foot are dead already, and betray you--if the light
that is in you be darkness, and your feet run into mischief, or are
taken in the snare,--it is indeed time to pluck out, and cut off, I
think: but, so crippled, you can never be what you might have been
otherwise. You enter into life, at best, halt or maimed; and the
sacrifice is not beautiful, though necessary.
VIOLET (_after a pause_). But when one sacrifices one's self for others?
L. Why not rather others for you?
VIOLET. Oh! but I couldn't bear that.
L. Then why should they bear it?
DORA (_bursting in, indignant_). And Thermopylae, and Protesilaus, and
Marcus Curtius, and Arnold de Winkelried, and Iphigenia, and Jephthah's
daughter?
L. (_sustaining the indignation unmoved_). And the Samaritan woman's
son?
DORA. Which Samaritan woman's?
L. Read 2 Kings vi. 29.
DORA (_obeys_). How horrid! As if we meant anything like that!
L. You don't seem to me to know in the least what you do mean, children.
What practical difference is there between 'that,' and what you are
talking about? The Samaritan children had no voice of their own in the
business, it is true; but neither had Iphigenia: the Greek girl was
certainly neither boiled, nor eaten; but that only makes a difference in
the dramatic effect; not in the principle.
DORA (_biting her lip_). Well, then, tell us what we ought to mean. As
if you didn't teach it all to us, and mean it yourself, at this moment,
more than we do, if you wouldn't be tiresome!
L. I mean, and have always meant, simply this, Dora;--that the will of
God respecting us is that we shall live by each other's happiness, and
life; not by each other's misery, or death. I made you read that verse
which so shocked you just now, because the relations of parent and child
are typical of all beautiful human help. A child may have to die for its
parents; but the purpose of Heaven is that it shall rather live for
them;--that, not by its sacrifice, but by its strength, its joy, its
force of being, it shall be to them renewal of strength; and as the
arrow in the hand of the giant. So it is in all other right relations.
Men help each other by their joy, not by their sorrow. They are not
intended to slay themselves for each other, but to strengthen themselves
for each other. And among the many apparently beautiful things which
turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that the
thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men must be named
as one of the fatallest. They have so often been taught that there is a
virtue in mere suffering, as such; and foolishly to hope that good may
be brought by Heaven out of all on which Heaven itself has set the stamp
of evil, that we may avoid it,--that they accept pain and defeat as if
these were their appointed portion; never understanding that their
defeat is not the less to be mourned because it is more fatal to their
enemies than to them. The one thing that a good man has to do, and to
see done, is justice; he is neither to slay himself nor others
causelessly: so far from denying himself, since he is pleased by good,
he is to do his utmost to get his pleasure accomplished. And I only wish
there were strength, fidelity, and sense enough, among the good
Englishmen of this day, to render it possible for them to band together
in a vowed brotherhood, to enforce, by strength of heart and hand, the
doing of human justice among all who came within their sphere. And
finally, for your own teaching, observe, although there may be need for
much self-sacrifice and self-denial in the correction of faults of
character, the moment the character is formed, the self-denial ceases.
Nothing is really well done, which it costs you pain to do.
VIOLET. But surely, sir, you are always pleased with us when we try to
please others, and not ourselves?
L. My dear child, in the daily course and discipline of right life, we
must continually and reciprocally submit and surrender in all kind and
courteous and affectionate ways: and these submissions and ministries to
each other, of which you all know (none better) the practice and the
preciousness, are as good for the yielder as the receiver: they
strengthen and perfect as much as they soften and refine. But the real
sacrifice of all our strength, or life, or happiness to others (though
it may be needed, and though all brave creatures hold their lives in
their hand, to be given, when such need comes, as frankly as a soldier
gives his life in battle), is yet always a mournful and momentary
necessity; not the fulfilment of the continuous law of being.
Self-sacrifice which is sought after, and triumphed in, is usually
foolish; and calamitous in its issue: and by the sentimental
proclamation and pursuit of it, good people have not only made most of
their own lives useless, but the whole framework of their religion so
hollow, that at this moment, while the English nation, with its lips,
pretends to teach every man to 'love his neighbour as himself,' with its
hands and feet it clutches and tramples like a wild beast; and
practically lives, every soul of it that can, on other people's labour.
Briefly, the constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain
his own powers and special gifts; and to strengthen them for the help of
others. Do you think Titian would have helped the world better by
denying himself, and not painting; or Casella by denying himself, and
not singing? The real virtue is to be ready to sing the moment people
ask us; as he was, even in purgatory. The very word 'virtue' means not
'conduct' but 'strength,' vital energy in the heart. Were not you
reading about that group of words beginning with V,--vital, virtuous,
vigorous, and so on,--in Max Muller, the other day, Sibyl? Can't you
tell the others about it?
SIBYL. No, I can't; will you tell us, please?
L. Not now, it is too late. Come to me some idle time to-morrow, and
I'll tell you about it, if all's well. But the gist of it is, children,
that you should at least know two Latin words; recollect that 'mors'
means death and delaying; and 'vita' means life and growing: and try
always, not to mortify yourselves, but to vivify yourselves.
VIOLET. But, then, are we not to mortify our earthly affections? and
surely we are to sacrifice ourselves, at least in God's service, if not
in man's?
L. Really, Violet, we are getting too serious. I've given you enough
ethics for one talk, I think! Do let us have a little play. Lily, what
were you so busy about, at the ant-hill in the wood, this morning?
LILY. Oh, it was the ants who were busy, not I; I was only trying to
help them a little.
L. And they wouldn't be helped, I suppose?
LILY. No, indeed. I can't think why ants are always so tiresome, when
one tries to help them! They were carrying bits of stick, as fast as
they could, through a piece of grass; and pulling and pushing, _so_
hard; and tumbling over and over,--it made one quite pity them; so I
took some of the bits of stick, and carried them forward a little, where
I thought they wanted to put them; but instead of being pleased, they
left them directly, and ran about looking quite angry and frightened;
and at last ever so many of them got up my sleeves, and bit me all over,
and I had to come away.
L. I couldn't think what you were about. I saw your French grammar lying
on the grass behind you, and thought perhaps you had gone to ask the
ants to hear you a French verb.
ISABEL. Ah! but you didn't, though!
L. Why not, Isabel? I knew, well enough, Lily couldn't learn that verb
by herself.
ISABEL. No; but the ants couldn't help her.
L. Are you sure the ants could not have helped you, Lily?
LILY (_thinking_). I ought to have learned something from them, perhaps.
L. But none of them left their sticks to help you through the irregular
verb?
LILY. No, indeed. (_Laughing, with some others._)
L. What are you laughing at, children? I cannot see why the ants should
not have left their tasks to help Lily in her's,--since here is Violet
thinking she ought to leave _her_ tasks, to help God in His. Perhaps,
however, she takes Lily's more modest view, and thinks only that 'He
ought to learn something from her.'
(_Tears in_ VIOLET'S _eyes._)
DORA (_scarlet_). It's too bad--it's a shame:--poor Violet!
L. My dear children, there's no reason why one should be so red, and the
other so pale, merely because you are made for a moment to feel the
absurdity of a phrase which you have been taught to use, in common with
half the religious world. There is but one way in which man can ever
help God--that is, by letting God help him: and there is no way in which
his name is more guiltily taken in vain, than by calling the abandonment
of our own work, the performance of His.
God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where He wishes us to
be employed; and that employment is truly 'our Father's business.' He
chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if
they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and
sense enough, for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves or