These are to be taught by the study of beautiful Nature; the sight and history of noble persons; and the setting forth of noble objects of action.
16. Since all noble persons hitherto existent in the world have trusted in the government of it by a supreme Spirit, and in that trust, or faith, have performed all their great actions, the history of these persons will finally mean the history of their faith; and the sum of intellectual education will be the separation of what is inhuman, in such faiths, and therefore perishing, from what is human, and, for human creatures, eternally true.
These sixteen aphorisms contain, as plainly as I can speak it, the substance of what I have hitherto taught, and am now purposed to enforce practice of, as far as I am able. It is no business of mine to think about possibilities;—any day, any moment, may raise up some one to take the carrying forward of the plan out of my hands, or to furnish me with larger means [[227]]of prosecuting it; meantime, neither hastening nor slackening, I shall go on doing what I can, with the people, few or many, who are ready to help me.
Such help, (to conclude with what simplest practical direction I can,) may be given me by any persons interested in my plans, mainly by sending me money; secondly, by acting out as much as they agree with of the directions for private life given in Fors; and thirdly, by promulgating and recommending such principles. If they wish to do more than this, and to become actual members of the Company, they must write to me, giving a short and clear account of their past lives, and present circumstances. I then examine them on such points as seem to me necessary; and if I accept them, I inscribe their names in the roll, at Corpus Christi College, with two of our masters for witnesses. This roll of the Company is written, hitherto, on the blank leaves of an eleventh-century MS. of the Gospels, always kept in my rooms; and would enable the Trustees, in case of my death, at once to consult the Companions respecting the disposition of the Society’s property. As to the legal tenure of that property, I have taken counsel with my lawyer-friends till I am tired; and, as will be seen by the statement in the first page of the Correspondence, I purpose henceforward to leave all such legal arrangements to the discretion of the Companions themselves. [[229]]
[1] They may serve for the defence of the store, of course;—so may the broken bottles, stuck on the top of a wall. But the lock of your cupboard is not the contents of it. [↑]
[2] See Letter XI. (November ’71,) pages 3 to 7, the most pregnant five pages in the entire series of these letters; and compare that for January of this year, pp. 8–11, and for April, p. 113. [↑]
[3] Again, I have more myself—but that is because I have been ill-bred; and I shall be most thankful to take less, as soon as other people cease to be paid for doing nothing. People cry out upon me for asking ten shillings for a year’s Fors; but never object to Mr. Barber’s paying his clerk a guinea for opening his study door to me five times, charging the same to St. George’s account. (See Fors of April, pp. 134, 135, 136.) [↑]
[4] See Fors for January of this year, pp. 21, 22. [↑]
[5] This book I shall extend, if time be given me, from its first proposed form into a parallel one with the two others. [↑]