On the Old Road Volume Ii Part 15

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 17: Preface to the above-named book by Miss A. C. Owen, edited by Mr. Ruskin. London: Mozley & Smith, 1876.--ED.]

[Footnote 18: _The Monthly Packet._--ED.]

THE EXTENSION OF RAILWAYS IN THE LAKE DISTRICT.[19]

A PROTEST.

261. The evidence collected in the following pages, in support of their pleading, is so complete, and the summary of his cause given with so temperate mastery by Mr. Somervell, that I find nothing to add in circ.u.mstance, and little to re-enforce in argument. And I have less heart to the writing even of what brief preface so good work might by its author's courtesy be permitted to receive from me, occupied as I so long have been in efforts tending in the same direction, because, on that very account, I am far less interested than my friend in this local and limited resistance to the elsewhere fatally victorious current of modern folly, cruelty, and ruin. When the frenzy of avarice is daily drowning our sailors, suffocating our miners, poisoning our children, and blasting the cultivable surface of England into a treeless waste of ashes,[20] what does it really matter whether a flock of sheep, more or less, be driven from the slopes of Helvellyn, or the little pool of Thirlmere filled with shale, or a few wild blossoms of St. John's vale lost to the coronal of English spring? Little to anyone; and--let me say this, at least, in the outset of all saying--_nothing_ to _me_. No one need charge me with selfishness in any word or action for defense of these mossy hills. I do not move, with such small activity as I have yet shown in the business, because I live at Coniston (where no sound of the iron wheels by Dunmail Raise can reach me), nor because I can find no other place to remember Wordsworth by, than the daffodil margin of his little Rydal marsh. What thoughts and work are yet before me, such as he taught, must be independent of any narrow a.s.sociations. All my own dear mountain grounds and treasure-cities, Chamouni, Interlachen, Lucerne, Geneva, Venice, are long ago destroyed by the European populace; and now, for my own part, I don't care what more they do; they may drain Loch Katrine, drink Loch Lomond, and blow all Wales and c.u.mberland into a heap of slate s.h.i.+ngle; the world is wide enough yet to find me some refuge during the days appointed for me to stay in it. But it is no less my duty, in the cause of those to whom the sweet landscapes of England are yet precious, and to whom they may yet teach what they taught me, in early boyhood, and would still if I had it now to learn,--it is my duty to plead with what earnestness I may, that these sacred sibylline books may be redeemed from peris.h.i.+ng.

262. But again, I am checked, because I don't know how to speak to the persons who _need_ to be spoken to in this matter.

Suppose I were sitting, where still, in much-changed Oxford, I am happy to find myself, in one of the little latticed cells of the Bodleian Library, and my kind and much-loved friend, Mr. c.o.xe, were to come to me with news that it was proposed to send nine hundred excursionists through the library every day, in three parties of three hundred each; that it was intended they should elevate their minds by reading all the books they could lay hold of while they stayed;--and that practically scientific persons accompanying them were to look out for and burn all the ma.n.u.scripts that had any gold in their illuminations, that the said gold might be made of practical service; but that he, Mr. c.o.xe, could not, for his part, sympathize with the movement, and hoped I would write something in deprecation of it! As I should then feel, I feel now, at Mr. Somervell's request that I would write him a preface in defense of Helvellyn. What could I say for Mr. c.o.xe? Of course, that nine hundred people should see the library daily, instead of one, is only fair to the nine hundred, and if there is gold in the books, is it not public property? If there is copper or slate in Helvellyn, shall not the public burn or hammer it out--and they say they will, of course--in spite of us? What does it signify to _them_ how we poor old quiet readers in this mountain library feel? True, we know well enough,--what the nine hundred excursionist scholars don't--that the library can't be read quite through in a quarter of an hour; also, that there is a pleasure in real reading, quite different from that of turning pages; and that gold in a missal, or slate in a crag, may be more precious than in a bank or a chimney-pot. But how are these practical people to credit us,--these, who cannot read, nor ever will; and who have been taught that nothing is virtuous but care for their bellies, and nothing useful but what goes into them?

263. Whether to be credited or not, the real facts of the matter, made clear as they are in the following pages, can be briefly stated for the consideration of any candid person.

The arguments in favor of the new railway are in the main four, and may be thus answered.

1. "There are mineral treasures in the district capable of development."

_Answer._ It is a wicked fiction, got up by whosoever has got it up, simply to cheat shareholders. Every lead and copper vein in c.u.mberland has been known for centuries; the copper of Coniston does not pay; and there is none so rich in Helvellyn. And the main central volcanic rocks, through which the track lies, produce neither slate nor hemat.i.te, while there is enough of them at Llanberis and Dalton to roof and iron-grate all England into one vast Bedlam, if it honestly perceives itself in need of that accommodation.

2. "The scenery must be made accessible to the public."

_Answer._ It is more than accessible already; the public are pitched into it head-foremost, and necessarily miss two-thirds of it. The Lake scenery really begins, on the south, at Lancaster, where the c.u.mberland hills are seen over Morecambe Bay; on the north, at Carlisle, where the moors of Skiddaw are seen over the rich plains between them and the Solway. No one who loves mountains would lose a step of the approach, from these distances, on either side. But the stupid herds of modern tourists let themselves be emptied, like coals from a sack, at Windermere and Keswick. Having got there, what the new railway has to do is to shovel those who have come to Keswick to Windermere, and to shovel those who have come to Windermere to Keswick. And what then?

3. "But cheap and swift transit is necessary for the working population, who otherwise could not see the scenery at all."

_Answer._ After all your shrieking about what the operatives spend in drink, can't you teach them to save enough out of their year's wages to pay for a chaise and pony for a day, to drive Missis and the Baby that pleasant twenty miles, stopping when they like, to unpack the basket on a mossy bank? If they can't enjoy the scenery that way, they can't any way; and all that your railroad company can do for them is only to open taverns and skittle grounds round Grasmere, which will soon, then, be nothing but a pool of drainage, with a beach of broken gingerbeer bottles; and their minds will be no more improved by contemplating the scenery of such a lake than of Blackpool.

4. What else is to be said? I protest I can find nothing, unless that engineers and contractors must live. Let them live, but in a more useful and honorable way than by keeping Old Bartholomew Fair under Helvellyn, and making a steam merry-go-round of the lake country.

There are roads to be mended, where the parish will not mend them, harbors of refuge needed, where our deck-loaded s.h.i.+ps are in helpless danger; get your commissions and dividends where you know that work is needed, not where the best you can do is to persuade pleasure-seekers into giddier idleness.

264. The arguments brought forward by the promoters of the railway may thus be summarily answered. Of those urged in the following pamphlet in defense of the country as it is, I care only myself to direct the reader's attention to one (see pp. 27, 28), the certainty, namely, of the deterioration of moral character in the inhabitants of every district penetrated by a railway. Where there is little moral character to be lost, this argument has small weight. But the Border peasantry of Scotland and England, painted with absolute fidelity by Scott and Wordsworth (for leading types out of this exhaustless portraiture, I may name Dandie Dinmont and Michael), are hitherto a scarcely injured race, whose strength and virtue yet survive to represent the body and soul of England before her days of mechanical decrepitude and commercial dishonor. There are men working in my own fields who might have fought with Henry the Fifth at Agincourt without being discerned from among his knights; I can take my tradesmen's word for a thousand pounds; my garden gate opens on the latch to the public road, by day and night, without fear of any foot entering but my own, and my girl-guests may wander by road, or moorland, or through every bosky dell of this wild wood, free as the heather bees or squirrels.

What effect, on the character of such a population, will be produced by the influx of that of the suburbs of our manufacturing towns, there is evidence enough, if the reader cares to ascertain the facts, in every newspaper on his morning table.

265. And now one final word concerning the proposed beneficial effect on the minds of those whom you send to corrupt us.

I have said I take no selfish interest in this resistance to the railroad. But I do take an unselfish one. It is precisely because I pa.s.sionately wish to improve the minds of the populace, and because I am spending my own mind, strength, and fortune, wholly on that object, that I don't want to let them see Helvellyn while they are drunk. I suppose few men now living have so earnestly felt--none certainly have so earnestly declared--that the beauty of nature is the blessedest and most necessary of lessons for men; and that all other efforts in education are futile till you have taught your people to love fields, birds, and flowers. Come then, my benevolent friends, join with me in that teaching. I have been at it all my life, and without pride, do solemnly a.s.sure you that I know how it is to be managed. I cannot indeed tell you, in this short preface, how, completely, to fulfill so glorious a task. But I can tell you clearly, instantly, and emphatically, in what temper you must set about it. _Here_ are you, a Christian, a gentleman, and a trained scholar; _there_ is your subject of education--a G.o.dless clown, in helpless ignorance. You can present no more blessed offering to G.o.d than that human creature, raised into faith, gentleness, and the knowledge of the works of his Lord. But observe this--you must not hope to make so n.o.ble an offering to G.o.d of that which doth cost you nothing!

You must be resolved to labor, and to lose, yourself, before you can rescue this overlabored lost sheep, and offer it alive to its Master. If then, my benevolent friend, you are prepared to take out your two pence, and to give them to the hosts here in c.u.mberland, saying--"Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, I will repay thee when I come to c.u.mberland myself," on _these_ terms--oh my benevolent friends, I am with you, hand and glove, in every effort you wish to make for the enlightenment of poor men's eyes. But if your motive is, on the contrary, to put two pence into your own purse, stolen between the Jerusalem and Jericho of Keswick and Ambleside, out of the poor drunken traveler's pocket;--if your real object, in your charitable offering, is, not even to lend unto the Lord by _giving_ to the poor, but to lend unto the Lord by making a dividend out of the poor;--then, my pious friends, enthusiastic Ananias, pitiful Judas, and sanctified Korah, I will do my best in G.o.d's name, to stay your hands, and stop your tongues.

BRANTWOOD, _22nd June, 1876._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 19: Preface to a pamphlet (1876) ent.i.tled "A Protest against the Extension of Railways in the Lake District," compiled by Robert Somervell (Windermere, J. Garnett; London, Simpkin, Marshall & Co.). The pamphlet also contained a printed announcement as follows:--"The author of 'Modern Painters' earnestly requests all persons who may have taken interest in his writings, or who have any personal regard for him, to a.s.sist him now in the circulation of the inclosed paper, drawn up by his friend Mr. Somervell, for the defense of the Lake District of England, and to press the appeal, so justly and temperately made in it, on the attention of their personal friends."--ED.]

[Footnote 20: See--the ill.u.s.tration being coincidently given as I correct this page for press--the description of the horrible service, and history of the fatal explosion of dynamite, on the once lovely estates of the Duke of Hamilton, in the _Hamilton Advertiser_ of 10th and 17th June.]

THE STUDY OF BEAUTY AND ART IN LARGE TOWNS.[21]

266. I have been asked by Mr. Horsfall to write a few words of introduction to the following papers. The trust is a frank one, for our friends.h.i.+p has been long and intimate enough to a.s.sure their author that my feelings and even practical convictions in many respects differ from his, and in some, relating especially to the subjects here treated of, are even opposed to his; so that my private letters (which, to speak truth, he never attends to a word of) are little more than a series of exhortations to him to sing--once for all--the beautiful Cavalier ditty of "Farewell, Manchester," and pour the dew of his artistic benevolence on less recusant ground. Nevertheless, as a.s.suredly he knows much more of his own town than I do, and as his mind is evidently made up to do the best he can for it, the only thing left for me to do is to help him all I can in the hard task he has set himself, or, if I can't help, at least to bear witness to the goodness of the seed he has set himself to sow among thorns. For, indeed, the principles on which he is working are altogether true and sound; and the definitions and defense of them, in this pamphlet, are among the most important pieces of Art teaching which I have ever met with in recent English literature; in past Art-literature there cannot of course be anything parallel to them, since the difficulties to be met and mischiefs to be dealt with are wholly of to-day. And in all the practical suggestions and recommendations given in the following pages I not only concur, but am myself much aided as I read them in the giving form to my own plans for the museum at Sheffield; nor do I doubt that they will at once commend themselves to every intelligent and candid reader. But, to my own mind, the statements of principle on which these recommendations are based are far the more valuable part of the writings, for these are true and serviceable for all time, and in all places; while in simplicity and lucidity they are far beyond any usually to be found in essays on Art, and the political significance of the laws thus defined is really, I believe, here for the first time rightly grasped and ill.u.s.trated.

267. Of these, however, the one whose root is deepest and range widest will be denied by many readers, and doubted by others, so that it may be well to say a word or two farther in its interpretation and defense--the saying, namely, that "faith cannot dwell in hideous towns," and that "familiarity with beauty is a most powerful aid to belief." This is a curious saying, in front of the fact that the primary force of infidelity in the Renaissance times was its pursuit of carnal beauty, and that nowadays (at least, so far as my own experience reaches) more faith may be found in the back streets of most cities than in the fine ones. Nevertheless the saying is wholly true, first, because carnal beauty is not true beauty; secondly, because, rightly judged, the fine streets of most modern towns are more hideous than the back ones; lastly--and this is the point on which I must enlarge--because universally the first condition to the believing there is Order in Heaven is the Sight of Order upon Earth; Order, that is to say, not the result of physical law, but of some spiritual power prevailing over it, as, to take instances from my own old and favorite subject, the ordering of the clouds in a beautiful sunset, which corresponds to a painter's invention of them, or the ordering of the colors on a bird's wing, or of the radiations of a crystal of h.o.a.rfrost or of sapphire, concerning any of which matters men, so called of science, are necessarily and forever silent, because the distribution of colors in spectra and the relation of planes in crystals are final and causeless facts, _orders_, that is to say, not _laws_. And more than this, the infidel temper which is incapable of perceiving this spiritual beauty has an instant and constant tendency to delight in the reverse of it, so that practically its investigation is always, by preference, of forms of death or disease and every state of disorder and dissolution, the affectionate a.n.a.lysis of vice in modern novels being a part of the same science. And, to keep to my own special field of study--the order of clouds,--there is a grotesquely notable example of the connection between infidelity and the sense of ugliness in a paper in the last _Contemporary Review_, in which an able writer, who signs Vernon Lee, but whose personal view or purpose remains to the close of the essay inscrutable, has rendered with considerable acuteness and animation the course of a dialogue between one of the common modern men about town who are the parasites of their own cigars and two more or less weak and foolish friends of hesitatingly adverse instincts: the three of them, however, practically a.s.suming their own wisdom to be the highest yet attained by the human race; and their own diversion on the mountainous heights of it being by the aspect of a so-called "preposterous" sunset, described in the following terms:--

A brilliant light, which seemed to sink out of the landscape all its reds and yellows, and with them all life; bleaching the yellowing cornfields and brown heath; but burnis.h.i.+ng into demoniac[22] energy of color the pastures and oak woods, brilliant against the dark sky, as if filled with green fire.

Along the roadside the poppies, which an ordinary sunset makes flame, were quite extinguished, like burnt-out embers; the yellow hearts of the daisies were quite lost, merged into their s.h.i.+ning white petals. And, striking against the windows of the old black and white checkered farm (a ghastly skeleton in this light), it made them not flare, nay, not redden in the faintest degree, but reflect a brilliant speck of white light. Everything was unsubstantial, yet not as in a mist, nay, rather substantial, but flat, as if cut out of paper and pasted on the black branches and green leaves, the livid, glaring houses, with roofs of dead, scarce perceptible rod (as when an iron turning white-hot from red-hot in the st.i.thy grows also dull and dim).

"It looks like the eve of the coming of Antichrist, as described in mediaeval hymns," remarked Vere: "the sun, before setting nevermore to rise, sucking all life out of the earth, leaving it but a mound of livid cinders, barren and crumbling, through which the buried nations will easily break their way when they rise."

As I have above said, I do not discern the purpose of the writer of this paper; but it would be impossible to ill.u.s.trate more clearly this chronic insanity of infidel thought which makes all nature spectral; while, with exactly correspondent and reflective power, whatever _is_ dreadful or disordered in external things reproduces itself in disease of the human mind affected by them.

268. The correspondent relations of beauty to morality are ill.u.s.trated in the following pages in a way which leaves little to be desired, and scarcely any room for dissent; but I have marked for my own future reference the following pa.s.sages, of which I think it will further the usefulness of the book that the reader should initially observe the contents and connection.[23]

1 (p. 15, line 6--10). Our idea of beauty in all things depends on what we believe they ought to be and do.

2 (p. 17, line 8--17). Pleasure is most to be found in safe and pure ways, and the greatest happiness of life is to have a great many _little_ happinesses.

3 (p. 24, line 10--30). The wonder and sorrow that in a country possessing an Established Church, no book exists which can be put into the hands of youth to show them the best things that can be done in life, and prevent their wasting it.

4 (p. 28, line 21--36). There is every reason to believe that susceptibility to beauty can be gained through proper training in childhood by almost everyone.

5 (p. 29, line 33--35). But if we are to attain to either a higher morality or a strong love of beauty, such attainment must be the result of a strenuous effort and a strong will.

6 (p. 41, line 16--22). Rightness of form and aspect must first be shown to the people in things which interest them, and about the rightness of appearance in which it is possible for them to care a great deal.

7 (p. 42, line 1--10). And, therefore, rightness of appearance of the bodies, and the houses, and the actions of the people of these large towns, is of more importance than rightness of appearance in what is usually called art, and pictures of n.o.ble action and pa.s.sion and of beautiful scenery are of far greater value than art in things which cannot deeply affect human thought and feeling.

The practical suggestions which, deduced from these principles, occupy the greater part of Mr. Horsfall's second paper, exhibit an untried group of resources in education; and it will be to myself the best encouragement in whatever it has been my hope to inst.i.tute of Art School at Oxford if the central influence of the University may be found capable of extension by such means, in methods promoting the general happiness of the people of England.