And, for the matter of that, why need we depend upon the State to do this great thing? Florence hath taught us that the royal heart is fully equal to any other royalty; woman in her mercy, is a royalty; she commands, entreats, and man obeys. Woman! Have mercy upon the children!
If I were a young and lovely woman, I well know what I should say, and what I should do. I should have all around me my magnificence and my luxury, and when on some fine day, my lover in his love should be eager, passionate, ready to give great gifts, I would say to him:—
"Please offer me none of your Cachemires, designed in England and woven in India; for Diamonds I really care nothing; Berthollet who knows so well how to imitate Nature can make Diamonds, if he so please. But if you really wish to make me a present which I shall love, and for which I shall love you, be so good as to get me a nice well sheltered, yet beautifully sunny home, in which I can lodge some three score, or so, of poor children. They will want no fine furniture; not much of any kind. Once established in that sunny, quiet, and kindly home, they will be well fed, and well cared for; and, my word for it, not a woman will go to the sea-side for her own health who will not give her mite towards the support of those poor children. If Beatrice of Florence could influence her father to found such a home, such a saving refuge, cannot we women of France do as much? Is it that we are less beautiful, or are you less truly in Love?"
"If the Sea, as you every morning tell me, has beautified and improved me so much; surely, your best gift would be my keepsake for the beach. And if you really love me, you will share with me in this work, this great work of bringing to the bosom of the great Ocean-mother a whole family of these perishing children. Let her take our pledges of a durable tenderness and purest love! Let her bear witness that, in the presence of the Infinite, we were, in very truth, united in one holy thought!"
One woman has thus commenced and another will continue, the common mother, France. No Institution more useful, no money better expended. And, in fact, not much needs to be expended. The chief thing necessary will be to transfer some of our charitable institutions from the interior. For many of those institutions expend their funds in mere waste; in fact, some of them might be quite truly termed Pauper Manufactories.
The Romans had the good sense never to grudge expense for anything that concerned the public health. Just look at their splendid aqueducts, just consider their public baths where quite gratuitously, or, at the utmost, at the charge of a half cent, the meanest could bathe, and you will at once understand their public spirit, their really large and grand patriotism. Fresh water baths, salt water baths, everything was provided for that lazy and non-producing plebeianism! Perhaps, in fact, in the politico-economical sense, the Patricians of Rome did too much for that, at once indolent and seditious Plebs. And shall we, WE, WE hesitate to do far less to save our own race, that one creative and laborious race that creates all that is really progressive on our globe?
I speak not here merely, or even principally, of the children; but of all. Every town, at this very instant, has a town within a town, a town of horrible sufferers; of the poor, and the afflicted; they are going to be Paupers not only now, but for the whole remainder of their lives. Again, and again, and again they will come; cured to-day, and returning to-morrow worse and more helpless than ever. They must be enormously expensive; and who pays the cost? Why their hardier fellow workmen who, in the ultimate result, pay all our expenses! And the laborer dies young, and leaves his young ones a burthen on the public purse.
Prevention is better than cure. You can do far more for the man who is in danger of being sick than for him who is already worn out. Ten days or a fortnight of rest and good living at the sea-side, will restore him to you, a good, sound, solid laborer. His carriage, and the cheap shelter, for so few days! by that recuperating sea-side, I tell you again, will restore him to you, a good sound, honest, and independent laborer. And the man will be saved, and his young family; and such a man as, if you once lose him, you cannot easily replace. No! You cannot replace him, for, as I have already said, every really working man is the slow product, of a long tradition of thought and of labor, and he himself is a work of art; of that so much misunderstood human art in which Humanity itself becomes a creative Power.
Who shall give me to see that crowd of inventive people, that creating and manufacturing people, who in the world's service are hourly wearing themselves out; who, I ask, will give me to see that People, that true People, enabled to repair their shattered frames at the magnificent sea-side? Let this ability be provided for them, and all classes and conditions will equally share the benefit. And let it not be forgotten that all classes and conditions owe thus much to the worn toilers, for by their toil, their excessive toil, all classes are benefited. It is by their very blood, by their very marrow, that all classes receive their enjoyments, their elegance, and their enlightenment. Let society, then, give to them the repose, the saline air, the restoring waters of the great restoring Sea. In doing thus much, society will benefit itself; while doing the simplest justice to its worn toilers.
Have pity upon yourselves, all ye poor men of the West. Consult upon, and act for, the common weal. Earth entreats you to live and offers you that which is her best, the SEA, to repair your own strength and thus secure your children against your weakness. Earth would be ruined if you persist in ruining yourselves, for you are her Genius, her inventive and working Soul. She lives by your life, and if you die she also will die. In the name, then, of Humanity and of Nature, too, Nations! Attention! Mercy for yourselves; Earth supplies you with the means of laboring and living; THE SEA offers you the still better means of living WELL.