FORS CLAVIGERA.

LETTER LXX.

I have been not a little pestered this month by the quantities of letters, which I can’t wholly cure myself of the weakness of reading, from people who fancy that, like other political writers of the day, I print, on the most important subjects, the first thing that comes into my head; and may be made immediately to repent of what I have said, and generally to see the error of my ways, by the suggestions of their better judgment.

Letters of this sort do not surprise me if they have a Scottish postmark, the air of Edinburgh having always had a curiously exciting quality, and amazing power over weak heads; but one or two communications from modest and thoughtful English friends have seriously troubled me by the extreme simplicity of their objections to statements which, if not acceptable, I had at least hoped would have been intelligible to them. [[312]]

I had, indeed, expected difficulty in proving to my readers the mischievousness of Usury; but I never thought to find confusion in their minds between Property itself, and its Interest. Yet I find this singular confusion at the root of the objections made by most of my cavilling correspondents: “How are we to live” (they say) “if, when we have saved a hundred pounds, we can’t make a hundred and five of them, without any more trouble?”

Gentlemen and ladies all,—you are to live on your hundred pounds, saved; and if you want five pounds more, you must go and work for five pounds more; just as a man who hasn’t a hundred pounds must work for the first five he gets.

The following sentence, written by a man of real economical knowledge, expresses, with more than usual precision, the common mistake: “I much fear if your definition of Usury be correct, which is to the effect that it is a sin to derive money from the possession of capital, or otherwise than by our own personal work. Should we follow this proposition to its final logical conclusion, we must preach communism, pure and simple, and contend that property is theft,—which God forbid.”

To this correspondent I answered briefly, “Is my house not my property unless I let it for lodgings, or my wife not my property unless I prostitute her?” [[313]]

But I believe it will be well, though I intended to enter on other matters this month, to repeat instead once more, in the shortest and strongest terms I can find, what I have now stated at least a hundred times respecting the eternal nature and sanctity of ‘Property.’

A man’s ‘Property,’ the possession ‘proper’ to him, his own, rightly so called, and no one else’s on any pretence of theirs—consists of,

A, The good things,

B, Which he has honestly got,

C, And can skilfully use.

That is the A B C of Property.

A. It must consist of good things—not bad ones. It is rightly called therefore a man’s ‘Goods,’ not a man’s ‘Bads.’

If you have got a quantity of dung lodged in your drains, a quantity of fleas lodged in your bed, or a quantity of nonsense lodged in your brains,—that is not ‘Property,’ but the reverse thereof; the value to you of your drains, bed, and brains being thereby diminished, not increased.

Can you understand that much, my practical friend?[1]

B. It must be a good thing, honestly got. Nothing that you have stolen or taken by force, nor anything that your fathers stole or took by force, is your property. Nevertheless, the benignant law of Nature concerning [[314]]any such holding, has always been quite manifestly that you may keep it—if you can,—so only that you acknowledge that and none other to be the condition of tenure.[2]

Can you understand that much more, my practical friend?

C. It must be not only something good, and not only something honestly got, but also something you can skilfully use.

For, as the old proverb, “You can’t eat your pudding and have it,” is utterly true in its bearing against Usury,—so also this reverse of it is true in confirmation of property—that you can’t ‘have’ your pudding unless you can eat it. It may be composed for you of the finest plums, and paid for wholly out of your own pocket; but if you can’t stomach it—the pudding is not for you. Buy the finest horse on four legs, he is not ‘proper’ to you if you can’t ride him. Buy the best book between boards,—Horace, or Homer, or Dante,—and if you don’t know Latin, nor Greek, nor Christianity, the paper and boards are yours indeed, but the books—by no means.

You doubt this, my practical friend?

Try a child with a stick of barley-sugar;—tell him it is his, but he mustn’t eat it; his face will express to [[315]]you the fallaciousness of that principle of property in an unmistakable manner. But by the time he grows as old and stupid as you, perhaps he will buy barley-sugar that he can’t taste, to please the public.

“I’ve no pleasure in that picture of Holman Hunt’s,” said a highly practical man of business to a friend of mine the other day, “nor my wife neither, for that matter; but I always buy under good advice as to market value; and one’s collection isn’t complete without one.”

I am very doubtful, my stupid practical friend, whether you have wit enough to understand a word more of what I have got to say this month. However, I must say it on the chance. And don’t think I am talking sentiment or metaphysics to you. This is the practicallest piece of lessoning you ever had in your days, if you can but make it out;—that you can only possess wealth according to your own capacity of it. An ape can only have wealth of nuts, and a dog of bones,[3] an earth-worm of earth, a charnel-worm of flesh, a west-end harlot of silk and champagne, an east-end harlot of gauze and gin, a modern average fine lady of such meat and drink, dress, jewels, and furniture, as the vile tradesmen of the day [[316]]can provide, being limited even in the enjoyment of these,—for the greater part of what she calls ‘hers,’ she wears or keeps, either for the pleasure of others, if she is good, or for their mortification, if she is wicked,—but assuredly not for herself. When I buy a missal, or a picture, I buy it for myself, and expect everybody to say to me, What a selfish brute you are. But when a lady walks about town with three or four yards of silk tied in a bundle behind her, she doesn’t see it herself, or benefit by it herself. She carries it for the benefit of beholders. When she has put all her diamonds on in the evening, tell her to stay at home and enjoy them in radiant solitude; and the child, with his forbidden barley-sugar, will not look more blank. She carries her caparison either for the pleasure or for the mortification of society; and can no more enjoy its brilliancy by herself than a chandelier can enjoy having its gas lighted.

We must leave out of the question, for the moment, the element of benevolence which may be latent in toilette[4]; for the main economical result of the action of the great law that we can only have wealth according to our capacity, in modern Europe at this hour, is that the greater part of its so-called wealth is composed of things suited to the capacity of harlots and their keepers,—(including in the general term harlot, or daughter of Babylon, both the unmarried ones, and [[317]]the married ones who have sold themselves for money,)—as of watches, timepieces, tapestries, china, and any kind of pictures or toys good for bedrooms and boudoirs; but that, of any wealth which harlots and keepers of harlots have no mind to, Europe at present takes no cognizance whatsoever.

Now what the difference may be in the quality of property which honest and dishonest women like is—for you, my practical friend—quite an unfathomable question; but you can at least understand that all the china, timepieces, and lewd pictures, which form the main ‘property’ of Paris and her imitators, are verily, in the commercial sense of the word, property; and would be estimated as such by any Jew in any bankruptcy court; yet the harlots don’t lend their china, or timepieces, on usury, nor make an income out of their bed-hangings,—do they? So that you see it is perfectly possible to have property, and a very costly quantity of it, without making any profit of such capital?

But the harlots have another kind of capital which you, my blind practical friend, don’t call ‘Property’; but which I, having the use of my eyes as well as of my hands, do. They have beauty of body;—many of them, also, wit of mind. And on these two articles of property, you observe, my friend, being much more their own, and much more valuable things, if they knew it, than china and timepieces—on these they [[318]]do make an annual income, and turn them over, as you call it, several times perhaps in the year.

Now if beauty of body and wit of tongue can be thus made sources of income, you will rank them perhaps, even as I do, among articles of wealth.

But, in old usury, there was yet another kind of treasure held account of, namely—Beauty of Heart, and Wit of Brains;—or what was shortly called by the Greek usurers, Psyche—(you may have heard the word before, my practical friend; but I do not expect you to follow me further). And this Psyche, or Soul, was held by the two great old masters of economy—that is to say, by Plato and David—the best property of all that a man had; except only one thing, which the soul itself must be starved without, yet which you would never guess, my practical friend, if you guessed yourself into your grave, to be an article of property at all! The Law of God, of which David says, “My soul fainteth for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments,” or in terms which you can perhaps better understand, “The law of thy mouth is dearer unto me than thousands of gold and silver.”

But indeed the market value of this commodity has greatly fallen in these times. “Damn the Laws of God,” answered a City merchant of standing to a personal friend of mine, who was advising him the other day to take a little of that capital into his business. [[319]]

Then, finally, there is just one article of property more to be catalogued, and I have done. The Lawgiver Himself, namely; the Master of masters, whom, when, as human dogs, we discover, and can call our own Master, we are thenceforth ready to die for, if need be. Which Mr. Harrison and the other English gentlemen who are at present discussing, in various magazines, the meaning of the word ‘religion’[5] (appearing never to have heard in the course of their education, of either the word ‘lictor’ or ‘ligature’) will find, is, was, and will be, among all educated scholars, the perfectly simple meaning of that ancient word; and that there can be no such thing, even for sentimental Mr. Harrison, as a religion of Manity, nor for the most orthodox hunting parson, as a religion of Dogity; nor for modern European civilization as a religion of Bitchity, without such submission of spirit to the worshipped Power as shall in the most literal sense ‘bind’ and chain us to it for ever.

And now, to make all matters as clear as may be, I will put down in the manner of a Dutch auction—proceeding to the lower valuation,—the articles of property, rightly so called, which belong to any human creature.

I. The Master, or Father, in the old Latin phrase, [[320]]‘Pater Noster;’ of whom David wrote, “Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee;” but this possession, includes in Plato’s catalogue, the attendant spirits, “θεοὺς, ὄντας δεσπότας, καὶ τοὺς τούτοις ἑπομένους”—“the Gods, being Masters, and those next to them,” specially signified in another place as “the Gods, and the Angels, and the Heroes, and the Spirits of our Home, and our Ancestors.”

II. The Law or Word of God, which the Bible Society professes to furnish for eighteenpence. But which, indeed, as often heretofore stated in Fors Clavigera, is by no means to be had at that low figure; the whole long hundred and nineteenth Psalm being little more than one agonizing prayer for the gift of it: and a man’s life well spent if he has truly received and learned to read ever so little a part of it.

III. The Psyche, in its sanity, and beauty (of which, when I have finished my inventory, I will give Plato’s estimate in his own words). Some curious practical results have followed from the denial of its existence by modern philosophers; for the true and divine distinction between ‘genera’ of animals, and quite the principal ‘origin of species’ in them, is in their Psyche: but modern naturalists, not being able to vivisect the Psyche, have on the whole resolved that animals are to be classed by their bones; and whereas, for instance, [[321]]by divine distinction of Psyche, the Dog and Wolf are precisely opposite creatures in their function to the sheepfold; and, spiritually, the Dominican, or Dog of the Lord, is for ever in like manner opposed to the Wolf of the Devil, modern science, finding Dog and Wolf indistinguishable in their Bones, declares them to be virtually one and the same animal.[6]

IV. The Body, in its sanity and beauty: strength of it being the first simple meaning of what the Greeks called virtue: and the eternity of it being the special doctrine of the form of religion professed in Christendom under the name of Christianity.

V. The things good and pleasing to the Psyche; as the visible things of creation,—sky, water, flowers, and the like; and the treasured-up words or feats of other Spirits.

VI. The things good and pleasing to the Body; summed under the two heads of Bread and Wine, brought forth by the Amorite King of Salem.

VII. The documents giving claim to the possession [[322]]of these things, when not in actual possession; or ‘money.’

This catalogue will be found virtually to include all the articles of wealth which men can either possess or lend, (for the fourth, fully understood, means the entire treasure of domestic and social affection;) and the law of their tenure is that a man shall neither sell nor lend that which is indeed his own; neither his God, his conscience, his soul, his body, or his wife’s; his country, his house, nor his tools. But that things which are not ‘his own,’ but over which he has charge or authority, (as of more land than he can plough, or more books than he can read,) these he is bound to lend or give, as he sees they may be made serviceable to others; and not for farther gain to himself. Thus his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury is, under penalties, bound to make his very excellent library at Lambeth serviceable to other scholars; but it is not at all permitted to his Grace, by the laws of God, to use any part of the income derived from his pretty estate on the slope of the Addington Hills, for the purchase of books, by the loan of which, in the manner of Mr. Mudie, to the ignorant inhabitants of the village of Croydon, his Grace may at once add to his income (not more than) five per cent. on the capital thus laid out in literature; and to his dignity as a Christian pastor. I know, as it happens, more about the heather than the rents of his Grace’s [[323]]estate at Addington; my father and I having taken much pleasure in its bloom, and the gleaming of bluebells amongst it—when he, in broken health, sought any English ground that Scottish flowers grew on, and I was but a child;—so that I thought it would please him to be laid in his last rest at the feet of those brown hills. And thus, as I say, I know somewhat of their flowers, but never inquired into their rents; and perhaps, as I rather hope, the sweet wood and garden ground serve only for his Grace’s entertainment—not emolument: but even if only so, in these hard times his Grace must permit me to observe that he has quite as much earthly ground and lodging as any angel of the Lord can be supposed to require; and is under no necessity of adding to his possessions by the practice of usury. I do not know if the Archbishop has in his library the works of Mr. Thackeray; but he probably has sometimes relieved his studies of the Christian Fathers with modern literature, and may remember a figure of an amiable and economical little school-boy who begins life by lending three halfpence, early in the week, to the boys who had outrun their income, for four halfpence at the week’s end. The figure of the same little boy grown into an Archbishop, and making a few pence extra on his episcopal income by the loan of his old school books, did not, it appears, suggest itself to the lamented author; but here it is, in relief, for us:— [[324]]

East Surrey Hall, Museum and Library Company

(LIMITED).

Registered under the Companies Acts, 1862 and 1867.

President.

His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Vice-Presidents.

It is proposed to found at Croydon[7] an Institution to be called the East Surrey Hall, Museum and Library. This Institution, to be placed in the largest town of Surrey, is intended for the benefit and use of the whole county.

The Hall will be adapted for public meetings of every description, and it is hoped that it will also be an ornament to the town.

In the Museum it is intended to form a collection of objects of historic, scientific, and artistic interest, particularly of such as may be found in the County of Surrey. The Museum will be free.

The Library will consist of standard works of reference, arranged in rooms suitably furnished for the [[325]]purposes of reading and study. In addition to works on general literature, it is intended to place in this Library, Books, Maps, and everything of the like nature, tending to elucidate the History, Topography, etc., of the County of Surrey, and especially of the Parish of Croydon. In the Company’s Memorandum of Association it is expressly stipulated that one department of this Library shall be Free.

Other parts of the building will be so arranged as to be suitable for occupation, or for letting as offices to Friendly Societies and other Public Bodies.

The Capital required to found this Institution will be raised by means of Donations and One Pound Shares.

The Donations will be applied to carrying out all or any of the above objects, according as the Donor may desire.

The Articles of Association provide that “no dividend shall be declared in any one year exceeding in amount £5 per cent. per annum upon the amount of the Capital of the Company for the time being called up. If, in any one year, the net earnings of the Company would allow of a dividend exceeding in amount the said dividend of £5 per cent. per annum being declared, the Directors shall employ the surplus earnings in improving the buildings of the Company, or in the purchase of additional stock or effects, or otherwise, for the benefit of the Company, as the Directors for the time being shall from time to time determine.” [[326]]

Venice, 16th September, 1876.

I am weary, this morning, with vainly trying to draw the Madonna-herb clustered on the capitals of St. Mark’s porch; and mingling its fresh life with the marble acanthus leaves which saw Barbarossa receive the foot of the Primate of Christendom on his neck;—wondering within myself all the while, which did not further my painting, how far the existing Primate of Canterbury, in modestly declining to set his foot upon the lion and the adder, was bettering the temper of the third Alexander; and wondering yet more whether the appointment—as vice-defender of the Faith for Her Majesty—of Lord Lonsdale to be curator of Lancashire souls, in the number implied by the catalogue of livings in his patronage, given in our fourth article of Correspondence, gave to the Lord of the Dales of Lune more of the character of the Pope, or the Lion?

What may be the real value of the Lancashire souls as a property in trust, we may, perhaps, as clearly gather from the following passage of Plato as from any Christian political economist.

“And now, whosoever has been content to hear me speaking of the Gods, and of our dear ancestors, let him yet hear me in this. For next to the Gods, of all his possessions his soul is the mightiest, being the most his own.

“And the nature of it is in all things twofold; the part that is stronger and better, ruling, and the part that is [[327]]weaker and worse, serving; and the part of it that rules is always to be held in honour before that that serves. I command, therefore, every man that he should rightly honour his soul, calling it sacred, next to the Gods and the higher Powers attendant on them.

“And indeed, to speak simply, none of us honours his soul rightly, but thinks he does. For Honour is a divine good, nor can any evil thing bring it,[8] or receive; and he who thinks to magnify his soul by any gifts to it, or sayings, or submittings, which yet do not make it better, from less good, seems indeed to himself to honour it, but does so in nowise.

“For example, the boy just become man thinks himself able to judge of all things; and thinks that he honours his own soul in praising it; and eagerly commits to its doing whatsoever it chooses to do.

“But, according to what has been just said, in doing this he injures and does not honour his soul, which, second to the Gods, he is bound to honour.

“Neither when a man holds himself not guilty of his own errors, nor the cause of the most and the greatest evils that befall him[9]; but holds others to be guilty of them, and himself guiltless, always;—honouring his own [[328]]soul, as it seems; but far away is he from doing this, for he injures it; neither when he indulges it with delights beyond the word and the praise of the Lawgiver[10];—then he in nowise honours it, but disgraces, filling it with weaknesses and repentances; neither when he does not toil through, and endure patiently, the contraries of these pleasures, the divinely praised Pains, and Fears, and Griefs, and Mournings, but yields under them; then he does not honour it in yielding; but, in doing all these things, accomplishes his soul in dishonour; neither (even if living honourably)[11] when he thinks that life is wholly good, does he honour it, but shames it, then also weakly allowing his soul in the thought that all things in the invisible world are evil; and not resisting it, nor teaching it that it does not know but that, so far from being evil, the things that belong to the Gods of that world may be for us the best of all things. Neither when we esteem beauty of body more than beauty of soul, for nothing born of the Earth is more honourable than what is born of Heaven; and he who thinks so of his soul knows not that he is despising his marvellous possession: neither when one desires to obtain money in any dishonourable way, or having so obtained it, is not indignant and unhappy [[329]]therefore—does he honour his soul with gifts; far otherwise; he has given away the glory and honour of it for a spangle of gold; and all the gold that is on the earth, and under the earth, is not a price for virtue.”

That is as much of Plato’s opinions concerning the Psyche as I can write out for you to-day; in next Fors, I may find you some parallel ones of Carpaccio’s: meantime I have to correct a mistake in Fors, which it will be great delight to all Amorites to discover; namely, that the Princess, whom I judged to be industrious because she went on working while she talked to her father about her marriage, cannot, on this ground, be praised beyond Princesses in general; for, indeed, the little mischief, instead of working, as I thought,—while her father is leaning his head on his hand in the greatest distress at the thought of parting with her,—is trying on her marriage ring!

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