Now note, first, in this passage what material of loyalty and affection there was still in the French heart before the Revolution; and, secondly, how useless it is to be a good King, if the good King allows his officers to live upon the cost of compulsory measures.[5] [[79]]And remember that the French Revolution was the revolt of absolute loyalty and love against the senseless cruelty of a “good King.”
Next, for a little specimen of the state of our own working population; and the “compulsory—not measures, but measureless license,” under which their loyalty and love are placed,—here is a genuine working woman’s letter; and if the reader thinks I have given it him in its own spelling that he may laugh at it, the reader is wrong.
“May 12, 1873.
“Dear ——
“Wile Reading the herald to Day on the subject on shortor houers of Labour[6] I was Reminded of A cercomstance that came under my hone notis when the 10 hours sistom Began in the cotton mills in Lancashire I was Minding a mesheen with 30 treds in it I was then maid to mind 2 of 30 treds each with one shilling Advance of wages wich was 5s for one and 6s for tow with an increes of speed and with improved mecheens in A few years I was minding tow mecheens with tow 100 trads Each and Dubel speed for 9s perweek so that in our improved condation we had to turn out some 100 weght per day and we went as if the Devel was After us for 10 houers per day and with that comparetive small Advance in money and the feemals have [[80]]ofton Been carred out fainting what with the heat and hard work and those that could not keep up mst go and make room for a nother and all this is Done in Christian England and then we are tould to Be content in the station of Life in wich the Lord as places us But I say the Lord never Did place us there so we have no Right to Be content o that Right and not might was the Law yours truely C. H. S.”
Next to this account of Machine-labour, here is one of Hand-labour, also in a genuine letter,—this second being to myself; (I wish the other had been also, but it was to one of my friends.)
“Beckenham, Kent,
“Sept. 24, 1873.
“That is a pleasant evening in our family when we read and discuss the subjects of ‘Fors Clavigera,’ and we frequently reperuse them, as for instance, within a few days, your August letter. In page 16 I was much struck by the notice of the now exploded use of the spinning wheel. My mother, a Cumberland woman, was a spinner, and the whole process, from the fine thread that passed through her notable fingers, and the weaving into linen by an old cottager—a very ‘Silas Marner,’—to the bleaching on the orchard grass, was well known to my sister[7] and myself, when children.
“When I married, part of the linen that I took to [[81]]my new home was my mother’s spinning, and one fine table-cloth was my grandmother’s. What factory, with its thousand spindles, and chemical bleaching powders, can send out such linen as that, which lasted three generations?[8]
“I should not have troubled you with these remarks, had I not at the moment when I read your paragraph on hand-spinning, received a letter from my daughter, now for a time resident in Coburg, (a friend of Octavia Hill’s,) which bears immediately on the subject. I have therefore ventured to transcribe it for your perusal, believing that the picture she draws from life, beautiful as it is for its simplicity, may give you a moment’s pleasure.”
“Coburg, Sept. 4, 1873.
“On Thursday I went to call on Frau L.; she was not in; so I went to her mother’s, Frau E., knowing that I should find her there. They were all sitting down to afternoon coffee, and asked me to join them, which I gladly did. I had my work-basket with me, and as they were all at work, it was pleasant to do the same thing. Hildigard was there; in fact she lives there, to take care of Frau E. since she had her fall and stiffened her ankle, a year ago. Hildigard took her spinning, and tied on her white apron, filled the little brass basin of the spinning-wheel with water, to wet her fingers, and set the wheel a-purring. I have never seen [[82]]the process before, and it was very pretty to see her, with her white fingers, and to hear the little low sound. It is quite a pity, I think, ladies do not do it in England,—it is so pretty, and far nicer work than crotchet, and so on, when it is finished. This soft linen made by hand is so superior to any that you get now. Presently the four children came in, and the great hunting dog, Feldman; and altogether I thought, as dear little Frau E. sat sewing in her arm-chair, and her old sister near her at her knitting, and Hildigard at her spinning, while pretty Frau L. sewed at her little girl’s stuff-skirt,—all in the old-fashioned room full of old furniture, and hung round with miniatures of still older dames and officers, in, to our eyes, strange stiff costumes, that it was a most charming scene, and one I enjoyed as much as going to the theatre,—which I did in the evening.”
A most charming scene, my dear lady, I have no doubt; just what Hengler’s Circus was, to me, this Christmas. Now for a little more of the charming scenery outside, and far away.
“12, Tunstall Terrace, Sunderland,
“14th Feb., 1874.
“My dear Sir,—The rice famine is down upon us in earnest, and finds our wretched ‘administration’ unprepared—a ministration unto death!
“It can carry childish gossip ‘by return of post’ into [[83]]every village in India, but not food; no, not food even for mothers and babes. So far has our scientific and industrial progress attained.
“To-night comes news that hundreds of deaths from starvation have already occurred, and that even high-caste women are working on the roads;—no food from stores of ours except at the price of degrading, health-destroying, and perfectly useless toil. God help the nation responsible for this wickedness!
“Dear Mr. Ruskin, you wield the most powerful pen in England, can you not shame us into some sense of duty, some semblance of human feeling? [Certainly not. My good sir, as far as I know, nobody ever minds a word I say, except a few nice girls, who are a great comfort to me, but can’t do anything. They don’t even know how to spin, poor little lilies!]
“I observe that the ‘Daily News’ of to-day is horrified at the idea that Disraeli should dream of appropriating any part of the surplus revenue to the help of India in this calamity [of course], and even the ‘Spectator’ calls that a ‘dangerous’ policy. So far is even ‘the conscience of the Press’ [What next?] corrupted by the dismal science.
“I am, yours truly.”
So far the Third Fors has arranged matters for me; but I must put a stitch or two into her work.
Look back to my third letter, for March, 1871, page 5. You see it is said there that the French war [[84]]and its issues were none of Napoleon’s doing, nor Count Bismarck’s; that the mischief in them was St. Louis’s doing; and the good, such as it was, the rough father of Frederick the Great’s doing.