The Ethics of the Dust
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John Ruskin >> The Ethics of the Dust
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L. Now, Sibyl, I am sure you, who never explained yourself, should
be the last to expect others to do so. I hate explaining myself.
SIBYL. And yet how often you complain of other people for not
saying what they meant. How I have heard you growl over the three
stone steps to purgatory, for instance!
L. Yes; because Dante's meaning is worth getting at, but mine
matters nothing at least, if ever I think it is of any consequence
so I speak it as clearly as may be. But you may make anything you
like of the serpent forests I could have helped you to find out
what they were, by giving a little more detail, but it would have
been tiresome.
SIBYL. It is much more tiresome not to find out Tell us, please,
as Isabel says, because we feel so stupid.
L. There is no stupidity, you could not possibly do more than
guess at anything so vague. But I think, you, Sibyl, at least,
might have recollected what first dyed the mulberry.
SIBYL. So I did, but that helped little, I thought of Dante's
forest of suicides, too, but you would not simply have borrowed
that.
L. No! If I had had strength to use it, I should have stolen it,
to beat into another shape; not borrowed it. But that idea of
souls in trees is as old as the world; or at least, as the world
of man. And I DID mean that there were souls in those dark
branches,--the souls of all those who had perished in misery
through the pursuit of riches, and that the river was of their
blood, gathering gradually, and flowing out of the valley. Then I
meant the serpents for the souls of those who had lived carelessly
and wantonly in their riches; and who have all their sins forgiven
by the world, because they are rich: and therefore they have seven
crimson crested heads, for the seven mortal sins; of which they
are proud: and these, and the memory and report of them, are the
chief causes of temptation to others, as showing the pleasantness
and absolving power of riches; so that thus they are singing
serpents. And the worms are the souls of the common money getters
and traffickers, who do nothing but eat and spin: and who gain
habitually by the distress or foolishness of others (as you see
the butchers have been gaining out of the panic at the cattle
plague, among the poor),--so they are made to eat the dark leaves,
and spin, and perish.
SIBYL. And the souls of the great, cruel, rich people who oppress
the poor, and lend money to government to make unjust war, where
are they?
L. They change into the ice, I believe, and are knit with the
gold, and make the grave dust of the valley I believe so, at
least, for no one ever sees those souls anywhere.
(SIBYL ceases questioning.)
ISABEL (who has crept up to her side without any one seeing). Oh,
Sibyl, please ask him about the fireflies!
L. What, you there, mousie! No; I won't tell either Sibyl or you
about the fireflies, nor a word more about anything else you ought
to be little fireflies yourselves, and find your way in twilight
by your own wits.
ISABEL. But you said they burned, you know?
L. Yes; and you may be fireflies that way too, some of you, before
long, though I did not mean that. Away with you, children. You
have thought enough for to-day.
NOTE TO SECOND EDITION
Sentence out of letter from May (who is staying with Isabel just
now at Cassel), dated 15th June, 1877:--
"I am reading the Ethics with a nice Irish girl who is staying
here, and she's just as puzzled as I've always been about the
fireflies, and we both want to know so much.--Please be a very
nice old Lecturer, and tell us, won't you?"
Well, May, you never were a vain girl; so could scarcely guess
that I meant them for the light, unpursued vanities, which yet
blind us, confused among the stars. One evening, as I came late
into Siena, the fireflies were flying high on a stormy sirocco
wind,--the stars themselves no brighter, and all their host
seeming, at moments, to fade as the insects faded.
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