The Ethics of the Dust
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John Ruskin >> The Ethics of the Dust
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12 THE ETHICS OF THE DUST
TEN LECTURES TO LITTLE HOUSEWIVES
ON THE ELEMENTS OF CRYSTALLIZATION
BY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D.,
HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART
DEDICATION.
TO THE REAL LITTLE HOUSEWIVES, WHOSE GENTLE LISTENING AND
THOUGHTFUL QUESTIONING ENABLED THE WRITER TO WRITE THIS BOOK, IT
IS DEDICATED WITH HIS LOVE.
CHRISTMAS, 1875.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE
I. THE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS
II. THE PYRAMID BUILDERS
III. THE CRYSTAL LIFE
IV. THE CRYSTAL ORDERS
V. CRYSTAL VIRTUES
VI. CRYSTAL QUARRELS
VII. HOME VIRTUES
VIII. CRYSTAL CAPRICE
IX. CRYSTAL SORROWS
X. THE CRYSTAL REST
NOTES
PERSONAE
OLD LECTURER (of incalculable age).
FLORRIE,
on astronomical evidence presumed to be aged 9.
ISABEL ..................................... " 11.
MAY ........................................ " 11.
LILY ....................................... " 12.
KATHLEEN.................................... " 14.
LUCILLA..................................... " 15.
VIOLET ..................................... " 16.
DORA (who has the keys and is housekeeper)... " 17.
EGYPT (so called from her dark eyes) ....... " 17.
JESSIE (who somehow always makes the room
look brighter when she is in it) ........... " 18.
MARY (of whom everybody, including the Old
Lecturer, is in great awe) ................. " 20.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
I have seldom been more disappointed by the result of my best
pains given to any of my books, than by the earnest request of my
publisher, after the opinion of the public had been taken on the
"Ethics of the Dust," that I would "write no more in dialogue!"
However, I bowed to public judgment in this matter at once
(knowing also my inventive powers to be of the feeblest); but in
reprinting the book (at the prevailing request of my kind friend,
Mr. Henry Willett), I would pray the readers whom it may at first
offend by its disconnected method, to examine, nevertheless, with
care, the passages in which the principal speaker sums the
conclusions of any dialogue: for these summaries were written as
introductions, for young people, to all that I have said on the
same matters in my larger books; and, on re-reading them, they
satisfy me better, and seem to me calculated to be more generally
useful, than anything else I have done of the kind.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The summary of the contents of the whole book, beginning, "You may
at least earnestly believe," at p. 215, is thus the clearest
exposition I have ever yet given of the general conditions under
which the Personal Creative Power manifests itself in the forms of
matter; and the analysis of heathen conceptions of Deity,
beginning at p. 217, and closing at p. 229, not only prefaces, but
very nearly supersedes, all that in more lengthy terms I have
since asserted, or pleaded for, in "Aratra Pentelici," and the
"Queen of the Air."
And thus, however the book may fail in its intention of suggesting
new occupations or interests to its younger readers, I think it
worth reprinting, in the way I have also reprinted "Unto this
Last,"--page for page; that the students of my more advanced works
may be able to refer to these as the original documents of them;
of which the most essential in this book are these following.
I. The explanation of the baseness of the avaricious functions of
the Lower Pthah, p. 54, with his beetle-gospel, p. 59, "that a
nation can stand on its vices better than on its virtues,"
explains the main motive of all my books on Political Economy.
II. The examination of the connection between stupidity and crime,
pp. 87-96, anticipated all that I have had to urge in Fors
Clavigera against the commonly alleged excuse for public
wickedness,--"They don't mean it--they don't know any better."
III. The examination of the roots of Moral Power, pp. 145-149, is
a summary of what is afterwards developed with utmost care in my
inaugural lecture at Oxford on the relation of Art to Morals;
compare in that lecture, sections 83-85, with the sentence in p.
147 of this book, "Nothing is ever done so as really to please our
Father, unless we would also have done it, though we had had no
Father to know of it."
This sentence, however, it must be observed, regards only the
general conditions of action in the children of God, in
consequence of which it is foretold of them by Christ that they
will say at the Judgment, "When saw we thee?" It does not refer to
the distinct cases in which virtue consists in faith given to
command, appearing to foolish human judgment inconsistent with the
Moral Law, as in the sacrifice of Isaac; nor to those in which any
directly-given command requires nothing more of virtue than
obedience.
IV. The subsequent pages, 149-158, were written especially to
check the dangerous impulses natural to the minds of many amiable
young women, in the direction of narrow and selfish religious
sentiment: and they contain, therefore, nearly everything which I
believe it necessary that young people should be made to observe,
respecting the errors of monastic life. But they in nowise enter
on the reverse, or favorable side: of which indeed I did not, and
as yet do not, feel myself able to speak with any decisiveness;
the evidence on that side, as stated in the text, having "never
yet been dispassionately examined."
V. The dialogue with Lucilla, beginning at p. 96, is, to my own
fancy, the best bit of conversation in the book; and the issue of
it, at p. 103, the most practically and immediately useful. For on
the idea of the inevitable weakness and corruption of human
nature, has logically followed, in our daily life, the horrible
creed of modern "Social science," that all social action must be
scientifically founded on vicious impulses. But on the habit of
measuring and reverencing our powers and talents that we may
kindly use them, will be founded a true Social science,
developing, by the employment of them, all the real powers and
honorable feelings of the race.
VI. Finally, the account given in the second and third lectures,
of the real nature and marvelousness of the laws of
crystallization, is necessary to the understanding of what farther
teaching of the beauty of inorganic form I may be able to give,
either in "Deucalion," or in my "Elements of Drawing." I wish
however that the second lecture had been made the beginning of the
book; and would fain now cancel the first altogether, which I
perceive to be both obscure and dull. It was meant for a
metaphorical description of the pleasures and dangers in the
kingdom of Mammon, or of worldly wealth; its waters mixed with
blood, its fruits entangled in thickets of trouble, and poisonous
when gathered; and the final captivity of its inhabitants within
frozen walls of cruelty and disdain. But the imagery is stupid and
ineffective throughout; and I retain this chapter only because I
am resolved to leave no room for any one to say that I have
withdrawn, as erroneous in principle, so much as a single sentence
of any of my books written since 1860.
One license taken in this book, however, though often permitted to
essay-writers for the relief of their dullness, I never mean to
take more,--the relation of composed metaphor as of actual dream,
pp. 27 and 171. I assumed, it is true, that in these places the
supposed dream would be easily seen to be an invention; but must
not any more, even under so transparent disguise, pretend to any
share in the real powers of Vision possessed by great poets and
true painters.
BRANTWOOD:
10th October, 1877.
PREFACE.
The following lectures were really given, in substance, at a
girls' school (far in the country); which, in the course of
various experiments on the possibility of introducing some better
practice of drawing into the modern scheme of female education, I
visited frequently enough to enable the children to regard me as a
friend. The Lectures always fell more or less into the form of
fragmentary answers to questions; and they are allowed to retain
that form, as, on the whole, likely to be more interesting than
the symmetries of a continuous treatise. Many children (for the
school was large) took part, at different times, in the
conversations; but I have endeavored, without confusedly
multiplying the number of imaginary speakers, to represent, as far
as I could, the general tone of comment and inquiry among young
people.
[Footnote: I do not mean, in saying "imaginary," that I have not
permitted to myself, in several instances, the affectionate
discourtesy of some reminiscence of personal character; for which
I must hope to be forgiven by my old pupils and their friends, as
I could not otherwise have written the book at all. But only two
sentences in all the dialogues, and the anecdote of "Dotty," are
literally "historical."]
It will be at once seen that these Lectures were not intended for
an introduction to mineralogy. Their purpose was merely to awaken
in the minds of young girls, who were ready to work earnestly and
systematically, a vital interest in the subject of their study. No
science can be learned in play; but it is often possible, in play,
to bring good fruit out of past labor, or show sufficient reasons
for the labor of the future.
The narrowness of this aim does not, indeed, justify the absence
of all reference to many important principles of structure, and
many of the most interesting orders of minerals; but I felt it
impossible to go far into detail without illustrations; and if
readers find this book useful, I may, perhaps, endeavor to
supplement it by illustrated notes of the more interesting
phenomena in separate groups of familiar minerals;--flints of the
chalk;--agates of the basalts;--and the fantastic and exquisitely
beautiful varieties of the vein-ores of the two commonest metals,
lead and iron. But I have always found that the less we speak of
our intentions, the more chance there is of our realizing them;
and this poor little book will sufficiently have done its work,
for the present, if it engages any of its young readers in study
which may enable them to despise it for its shortcomings.
DENMARK HILL: Christmas, 1865.
LECTURE 1.
THE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS
A very idle talk, by the dining-room fire, after raisin-and-almond
time.
OLD LECTURER; FLORRIE, ISABEL, MAY, LILY, and SIBYL.
OLD LECTURER (L.). Come here, Isabel, and tell me what the make-
believe was, this afternoon.
ISABEL (arranging herself very primly on the foot-stool). Such a
dreadful one! Florrie and I were lost in the Valley of Diamonds.
L. What! Sindbad's, which nobody could get out of? ISABEL. Yes;
but Florrie and I got out of it.
L. So I see. At least, I see you did; but are you sure Florrie
did?
ISABEL. Quite sure.
FLORRIE (putting her head round from behind L.'s sofa-cushion).
Quite sure. (Disappears again.)
L. I think I could be made to feel surer about it.
(FLORRIE reappears, gives L. a kiss, and again exit.)
L. I suppose it's all right; but how did you manage it?
ISABEL. Well, you know, the eagle that took up Sindbad was very
large--very, very large--the largest of all the eagles.
L. How large were the others?
ISABEL. I don't quite know--they were so far off. But this one
was, oh, so big! and it had great wings, as wide as--twice over
the ceiling. So, when it was picking up Sindbad, Florrie and I
thought it wouldn't know if we got on its back too: so I got up
first, and then I pulled up Florrie, and we put our arms round its
neck, and away it flew.
L. But why did you want to get out of the valley? and why haven't
you brought me some diamonds?
ISABEL. It was because of the serpents. I couldn't pick up even
the least little bit of a diamond, I was so frightened.
L. You should not have minded the serpents.
ISABEL. Oh, but suppose that they had minded me?
L. We all of us mind you a little too much, Isabel, I'm afraid.
ISABEL. No--no--no, indeed.
L. I tell you what, Isabel--I don't believe either Sindbad, or
Florrie, or you, ever were in the Valley of Diamonds.
ISABEL. You naughty! when I tell you we were!
L. Because you say you were frightened at the serpents.
ISABEL. And wouldn't you have been?
L. Not at those serpents. Nobody who really goes into the valley
is ever frightened at them--they are so beautiful.
ISABEL (suddenly serious). But there's no real Valley of Diamonds,
is there?
L. Yes, Isabel; very real indeed.
FLORRIE (reappearing). Oh, where? Tell me about it.
L. I cannot tell you a great deal about it; only I know it is very
different from Sindbad's. In his valley, there was only a diamond
lying here and there; but, in the real valley, there are diamonds
covering the grass in showers every morning, instead of dew: and
there are clusters of trees, which look like lilac trees; but, in
spring, all their blossoms are of amethyst.
FLORRIE. But there can't be any serpents there, then?
L. Why not?
FLORRIE. Because they don't come into such beautiful places.
L. I never said it was a beautiful place.
FLORRIE. What! not with diamonds strewed about it like dew?
L. That's according to your fancy, Florrie. For myself, I like dew
better.
ISABEL. Oh, but the dew won't stay; it all dries!
L. Yes; and it would be much nicer if the diamonds dried too, for
the people in the valley have to sweep them off the grass, in
heaps, whenever they want to walk on it; and then the heaps
glitter so, they hurt one's eyes.
FLORRIE. Now you're just playing, you know.
L. So are you, you know.
FLORRIE. Yes, but you mustn't play.
L. That's very hard, Florrie; why mustn't I, if you may?
FLORRIE. Oh, I may, because I'm little, but you mustn't, because
you're--(hesitates for a delicate expression of magnitude).
L. (rudely taking the first that comes). Because I'm big? No;
that's not the way of it at all, Florrie. Because you're little,
you should have very little play; and because I'm big I should
have a great deal.
ISABEL and FLORRIE (both). No--no--no--no. That isn't it at all.
(ISABEL sola, quoting Miss Ingelow.) "The lambs play always--they
know no better." (Putting her head very much on one side.) Ah, now
--please--please--tell us true; we want to know.
L. But why do you want me to tell you true, any more than the man
who wrote the "Arabian Nights"?
ISABEL. Because--because we like to know about real things; and
you can tell us, and we can't ask the man who wrote the stories.
L. What do you call real things?
ISABEL. Now, you know! Things that really are.
L. Whether you can see them or not?
ISABEL. Yes, if somebody else saw them.
L. But if nobody has ever seen them?
ISABEL. (evading the point). Well, but, you know, if there were a
real Valley of Diamonds, somebody MUST have seen it.
L. You cannot be so sure of that, Isabel. Many people go to real
places, and never see them; and many people pass through this
valley, and never see it.
FLORRIE. What stupid people they must be!
L. No, Florrie. They are much wiser than the people who do see it.
MAY. I think I know where it is.
ISABEL. Tell us more about it, and then we'll guess.
L. Well. There's a great broad road, by a river-side, leading up
into it.
MAY (gravely cunning, with emphasis on the last word). Does the
road really go UP?
L. You think it should go down into a valley? No, it goes up; this
is a valley among the hills, and it is as high as the clouds, and
is often full of them; so that even the people who most want to
see it, cannot, always.
ISABEL. And what is the river beside the road like?
L. It ought to be very beautiful, because it flows over diamond
sand--only the water is thick and red.
ISABEL. Red water?
L. It isn't all water.
MAY. Oh, please never mind that, Isabel, just now; I want to hear
about the valley.
L. So the entrance to it is very wide, under a steep rock; only
such numbers of people are always trying to get in, that they keep
jostling each other, and manage it but slowly. Some weak ones are
pushed back, and never get in at all; and make great moaning as
they go away: but perhaps they are none the worse in the end.
MAY. And when one gets in, what is it like?
L. It is up and down, broken kind of ground: the road stops
directly; and there are great dark rocks, covered all over with
wild gourds and wild vines; the gourds, if you cut them, are red,
with black seeds, like water-melons, and look ever so nice; and
the people of the place make a red pottage of them: but you must
take care not to eat any if you ever want to leave the valley
(though I believe putting plenty of meal in it makes it
wholesome). Then the wild vines have clusters of the color of
amber; and the people of the country say they are the grape of
Eshcol; and sweeter than honey: but, indeed, if anybody else
tastes them, they are like gall. Then there are thickets of
bramble, so thorny that they would be cut away directly, anywhere
else; but here they are covered with little cinque-foiled blossoms
of pure silver; and, for berries, they have clusters of rubies.
Dark rubies, which you only see are red after gathering them. But
you may fancy what blackberry parties the children have! Only they
get their frocks and hands sadly torn.
LILY. But rubies can't spot one's frocks, as blackberries do?
L. No; but I'll tell you what spots them--the mulberries. There
are great forests of them, all up the hills, covered with silk-
worms, some munching the leaves so loud that it is like mills at
work; and some spinning. But the berries are the blackest you ever
saw; and, wherever they fall, they stain a deep red; and nothing
ever washes it out again. And it is their juice, soaking through
the grass, which makes the river so red, because all its springs
are in this wood. And the boughs of the trees are twisted, as if
in pain, like old olive branches; and their leaves are dark. And
it is in these forests that the serpents are; but nobody is afraid
of them. They have fine crimson crests, and they are wreathed
about the wild branches, one in every tree, nearly; and they are
singing serpents, for the serpents are, in this forest, what birds
are in ours.
FLORRIE. Oh, I don't want to go there at all, now.
L. You would like it very much indeed, Florrie, if you were there.
The serpents would not bite you; the only fear would be of your
turning into one!
FLORRIE. Oh, dear, but that's worse.
L. You wouldn't think so if you really were turned into one,
Florrie; you would be very proud of your crest. And as long as you
were yourself (not that you could get there if you remained quite
the little Florrie you are now), you would like to hear the
serpents sing. They hiss a little through it, like the cicadas in
Italy; but they keep good time, and sing delightful melodies; and
most of them have seven heads, with throats which each take a note
of the octave; so that they can sing chords--it is very fine
indeed. And the fireflies fly round the edge of the forests all
the night long; you wade in fireflies, they make the fields look
like a lake trembling with reflection of stars; but you must take
care not to touch them, for they are not like Italian fireflies,
but burn, like real sparks.
FLORRIE. I don't like it at all; I'll never go there.
L. I hope not, Florrie; or at least that you will get out again if
you do. And it is very difficult to get out, for beyond these
serpent forests there are great cliffs of dead gold, which form a
labyrinth, winding always higher and higher, till the gold is all
split asunder by wedges of ice; and glaciers, welded, half of ice
seven times frozen, and half of gold seven times frozen, hang down
from them, and fall in thunder, cleaving into deadly splinters,
like the Cretan arrowheads; and into a mixed dust of snow and
gold, ponderous, yet which the mountain whirlwinds are able to
lift and drive in wreaths and pillars, hiding the paths with a
burial cloud, fatal at once with wintry chill, and weight of
golden ashes. So the wanderers in the labyrinth fall, one by one,
and are buried there:--yet, over the drifted graves, those who are
spared climb to the last, through coil on coil of the path;--for
at the end of it they see the king of the valley, sitting on his
throne: and beside him (but it is only a false vision), spectra of
creatures like themselves, sit on thrones, from which they seem to
look down on all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.
And on the canopy of his throne there is an inscription in fiery
letters, which they strive to read, but cannot; for it is written
in words which are like the words of all languages, and yet are of
none. Men say it is more like their own tongue to the English than
it is to any other nation; but the only record of it is by an
Italian, who heard the king himself cry it as a war cry, "Pape
Satan, Pape Satan Aleppe." [Footnote: Dante, Inf. 7, I.]
SIBYL. But do they all perish there? You said there was a way
through the valley, and out of it.
L. Yes; but few find it. If any of them keep to the grass paths,
where the diamonds are swept aside; and hold their hands over
their eyes so as not to be dazzled, the grass paths lead forward
gradually to a place where one sees a little opening in the golden
rocks. You were at Chamouni last year, Sibyl; did your guide
chance to show you the pierced rock of the Aiguille du Midi?
SIBYL. No, indeed, we only got up from Geneva on Monday night; and
it rained all Tuesday; and we had to be back at Geneva again,
early on Wednesday morning.
L. Of course. That is the way to see a country in a Sibylline
manner, by inner consciousness: but you might have seen the
pierced rock in your drive up, or down, if the clouds broke: not
that there is much to see in it; one of the crags of the aiguille-
edge, on the southern slope of it, is struck sharply through, as
by an awl, into a little eyelet hole; which you may see, seven
thousand feet above the valley (as the clouds flit past behind it,
or leave the sky), first white, and then dark blue. Well, there's
just such an eyelet hole in one of the upper crags of the Diamond
Valley; and, from a distance, you think that it is no bigger than
the eye of a needle. But if you get up to it, they say you may
drive a loaded camel through it, and that there are fine things on
the other side, but I have never spoken with anybody who had been
through.
SIBYL. I think we understand it now. We will try to write it down,
and think of it.
L. Meantime, Florrie, though all that I have been telling you is
very true, yet you must not think the sort of diamonds that people
wear in rings and necklaces are found lying about on the grass.
Would you like to see how they really are found?
FLORRIE. Oh, yes--yes.
L. Isabel--or Lily--run up to my room and fetch me the little box
with a glass lid, out of the top drawer of the chest of drawers.
(Race between LILY and ISABEL.)
(Re-enter ISABEL with the box, very much out of breath. LILY
behind.)
L. Why, you never can beat Lily in a race on the stairs, can you,
Isabel?
ISABEL (panting). Lily--beat me--ever so far--but she gave me--the
box--to carry in.
L. Take off the lid, then; gently.
FLORRIE (after peeping in, disappointed). There's only a great
ugly brown stone!
L. Not much more than that, certainly, Florrie, if people were
wise. But look, it is not a single stone; but a knot of pebbles
fastened together by gravel: and in the gravel, or compressed
sand, if you look close, you will see grains of gold glittering
everywhere, all through; and then, do you see these two white
beads, which shine, as if they had been covered with grease?
FLORRIE. May I touch them?
L. Yes; you will find they are not greasy, only very smooth. Well,
those are the fatal jewels; native here in their dust with gold,
so that you may see, cradled here together, the two great enemies
of mankind,--the strongest of all malignant physical powers that
have tormented our race.
SIBYL. Is that really so? I know they do great harm; but do they
not also do great good?
L. My dear child, what good? Was any woman, do you suppose, ever
the better for possessing diamonds? but how many have been made
base, frivolous, and miserable by desiring them? Was ever man the
better for having coffers full of gold? But who shall measure the
guilt that is incurred to fill them? Look into the history of any
civilized nations; analyze, with reference to this one cause of
crime and misery, the lives and thoughts of their nobles, priests,
merchants, and men of luxurious life. Every other temptation is at
last concentrated into this: pride, and lust, and envy, and anger
all give up their strength to avarice. The sin of the whole world
is essentially the sin of Judas. Men do not disbelieve their
Christ; but they sell Him.
SIBYL. But surely that is the fault of human nature? it is not
caused by the accident, as it were, of there being a pretty metal,
like gold, to be found by digging. If people could not find that,
would they not find something else, and quarrel for it instead?
L. No. Wherever legislators have succeeded in excluding, for a
time, jewels and precious metals from among national possessions,
the national spirit has remained healthy. Covetousness is not
natural to man--generosity is; but covetousness must be excited by
a special cause, as a given disease by a given miasma; and the
essential nature of a material for the excitement of covetousness
is, that it shall be a beautiful thing which can be retained
without a use. The moment we can use our possessions to any good
purpose ourselves, the instinct of communicating that use to
others rises side by side with our power. If you can read a book
rightly, you will want others to hear it; if you can enjoy a
picture rightly, you will want others to see it: learn how to
manage a horse, a plough, or a ship, and you will desire to make
your subordinates good horsemen, ploughmen, or sailors; you will
never be able to see the fine instrument you are master of,
abused; but, once fix your desire on anything useless, and all the
purest pride and folly in your heart will mix with the desire, and
make you at last wholly inhuman, a mere ugly lump of stomach and
suckers, like a cuttle-fish.
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