LETTER VI.

"One momentunamused a miseryNot made for feeble men."

Perhaps you have been in the habit of despising them for this; and thinking how much worthier and nobler it was to work all day, and care at night only for food and rest, than to do no useful thing all day, eat unearned food, and spend the evening, as the morning, in "change of follies and relays of joy." No, my good friend, that is one of the fatalest deceptions. It is not a noble thing, in sum and issue of it, not to care to be amused. It is indeed a far highermoralstate, but is a much lowercreaturestate, than that of the upper classes.

20. Yonder poor horse, calm slave in daily chains at the railroad siding, who drags the detached rear of the train to the front again, and slips aside so deftly as the buffers meet; and, within eighteen inches of death every ten minutes, fulfils his changeless duty all day long, content, for eternal reward, with his night's rest, and his champed mouthful of hay;—anything more earnestly moral and beautiful one cannot image—I never see the creature without a kind of worship. And yonder musician, who used the greatest power which (in the art he knew) the Father of spirits ever yet breathed into the clay of this world;—who used it, I say, to follow and fit with perfect sound the words of the 'Zauberflöte' and of 'Don Giovanni'—foolishest and most monstrous of conceivable human words and subjects of thought—for the future "amusement" of his race!—No such spectacle of unconscious (and in that unconsciousness all the more fearful) moral degradation of the highest faculty to the lowest purpose can be found in history. But Mozart is nevertheless a nobler creature than the horse at the siding; nor would it be the least nearer the purpose of his Maker that he, and all his frivolous audiences, should evade the degradation of the profitless piping, only by living, like horses, in daily physical labor for daily bread.

21. There are three things to which man is born[A]—labor, and sorrow, and joy. Each of these three things has its basenessand its nobleness. There is base labor, and noble labor. There is base sorrow, and noble sorrow. There is base joy, and noble joy. But you must not think to avoid the corruption of these things by doing without the things themselves. Nor can any life be right that has not all three. Labor without joy is base. Labor without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labor is base. Joy without labor is base.

22. I dare say you think I am a long time in coming to the pantomime; I am not ready to come to it yet in due course, for we ought to go and see the Japanese jugglers first, in order to let me fully explain to you what I mean. But I can't write much more to-day; so I shall merely tell you what part of the play set me thinking of all this, and leave you to consider of it yourself, till I can send you another letter. The pantomime was, as I said, 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.' The forty thieves were girls. The forty thieves had forty companions, who were girls. The forty thieves and their forty companions were in some way mixed up with about four hundred and forty fairies, who were girls. There was an Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, in which the Oxford and Cambridge men were girls. There was a transformation scene, with a forest, in which the flowers were girls, and a chandelier, in which the lamps were girls, and a great rainbow which was all of girls.

23. Mingled incongruously with these seraphic, and, as far as my boyish experience extends, novel, elements of pantomime, there were yet some of its old and fast-expiring elements. There were, in speciality, two thoroughly good pantomime actors—Mr. W. H. Payne and Mr. Frederick Payne. All that these two did, was done admirably. There were two subordinate actors, who played, subordinately well, the fore and hind legs of a donkey. And there was a little actress of whom I have chiefly to speak, who played exquisitely the little part she had to play. The scene in which she appeared was the only one in the whole pantomime in which there was any dramatic effort, or, with a few rare exceptions, any dramatic possibility. It was the home scene, in which Ali Baba'swife, on washing day, is called upon by butcher, baker, and milkman, with unpaid bills; and in the extremity of her distress hears her husband's knock at the door, and opens it for him to drive in his donkey, laden with gold. The children who have been beaten instead of getting breakfast, presently share in the raptures of their father and mother; and the little lady I spoke of, eight or nine years old,—dances apas-de-deuxwith the donkey.

24. She did it beautifully and simply, as a child ought to dance. She was not an infant prodigy; there was no evidence, in the finish or strength of her motion, that she had been put to continual torture through half her eight or nine years. She did nothing more than any child well taught, but painlessly, might easily do. She caricatured no older person,—attempted no curious or fantastic skill. She was dressed decently,—she moved decently,—she looked and behaved innocently,—and she danced her joyful dance with perfect grace, spirit, sweetness, and self-forgetfulness. And through all the vast theater, full of English fathers and mothers and children, there was not one hand lifted to give her sign of praise but mine.

Presently after this, came on the forty thieves, who, as I told you, were girls; and, there being no thieving to be presently done, and time hanging heavy on their hands, arms, and legs, the forty thief-girls proceeded to light forty cigars. Whereupon the British public gave them a round of applause. Whereupon I fell a thinking; and saw little more of the piece, except as an ugly and disturbing dream.

[A]I ask the reader's thoughtful attention to this paragraph, on which much of what else I have to say depends.

THE CORRUPTION OF MODERN PLEASURE.—(THE JAPANESE JUGGLERS.)

February 28, 1867.

25. I have your pleasant letter with references to Frederick. I will look at them carefully.[II]Mr. Carlyle himself will be pleased to hear this letter when he comes home. I heard from him last week at Mentone. He is well, and glad of the light and calm of Italy. I must get back to the evil light and uncalm, of the places I was taking you through.

(Parenthetically, did you see the article in the 'Times' of yesterday on bribery, and the conclusion of the commission—"No one sold any opinions, for no one had any opinions to sell"?)

Both on Thursday and Friday last I had been tormented by many things, and wanted to disturb my course of thought any way I could. I have told you what entertainment I got on Friday, first, for it was then that I began meditating over these letters; let me tell you now what entertainment I found on Thursday.

26. You may have heard that a company of Japanese jugglers has come over to exhibit in London. There has long been an increasing interest in Japanese art, which has been very harmful to many of our own painters, and I greatly desired to see what these people were, and what they did. Well, I have seen Blondin, and various English and French circus work, but never yet anything that surprised me so much as one of these men's exercises on a suspended pole. Its special character was a close approximation to the action and power of the monkey; even to the prehensile power in the foot; so that I asked a sculptor-friend who sat in front of me, whether he thought such a grasp could be acquired by practice, or indicated difference in race. He said he thoughtit might be got by practice. There was also much inconceivably dexterous work in spinning of tops,—making them pass in balanced motion along the edge of a sword, and along a level string, and the like;—the father performing in the presence of his two children, who encouraged him continually with short, sharp cries, like those of animals. Then there was some fairly good sleight-of-hand juggling of little interest; ending with a dance by the juggler, first as an animal, and then as a goblin, Now, there was this great difference between the Japanese masks used in this dance and our common pantomime masks for beasts and demons,—that our English masks are only stupidly and loathsomely ugly, by exaggeration of feature, or of defect of feature. But the Japanese masks (like the frequent monsters of Japanese art) were inventively frightful, like fearful dreams; and whatever power it is that acts on human minds, enabling them to invent such, appears to me not only to deserve the term "demoniacal," as the only word expressive of its character; but to be logically capable of no other definition.

27. The impression, therefore, produced upon me by the whole scene, was that of being in the presence of human creatures of a partially inferior race, but not without great human gentleness, domestic affection, and ingenious intellect; who were, nevertheless, as a nation, afflicted by an evil spirit, and driven by it to recreate themselves in achieving, or beholding the achievement, through years of patience, of a certain correspondence with the nature of the lower animals.

28. These, then, were the two forms of diversion or recreation of my mind possible to me, in two days, when I needed such help, in this metropolis of England. I might, as a rich man, have had better music, if I had so chosen, though, even so, not rational or helpful; but a poor man could only have these, or worse than these, if he cared for any manner of spectacle. (I am not at present, observe, speaking of pure acting, which is a study, and recreative only as a noble book is; but of means ofmereamusement.)

Now, lastly, in illustration of the effect of these and othersuch "amusements," and of the desire to obtain them, on the minds of our youth, read the 'Times' correspondent's letter from Paris, in the tenth page of the paper, to-day;[III]and that will be quite enough for you to read, for the present, I believe.

OF THE VARIOUS EXPRESSIONS OF NATIONAL FESTIVITY.

March 4, 1867.

29. The subject which I want to bring before you is now branched, and worse than branched, reticulated, in so many directions, that I hardly know which shoot of it to trace, or which knot to lay hold of first.

I had intended to return to those Japanese jugglers, after a visit to a theater in Paris; but I had better, perhaps, at once tell you the piece of the performance which, in connection with the scene in the English pantomime, bears most on matters in hand.

It was also a dance by a little girl—though one older than Ali Baba's daughter, (I suppose a girl of twelve or fourteen). A dance, so called, which consisted only in a series of short, sharp contractions and jerks of the body and limbs, resulting in attitudes of distorted and quaint ugliness, such as might be produced in a puppet by sharp twitching of strings at its joints: these movements being made to the sound of two instruments, which between them accomplished only a quick vibratory beating and strumming, in nearly the time of a hearth-cricket's song, but much harsher, and of course louder, and without any sweetness; only in the monotony and unintended aimless construction of it, reminding one of various other insect and reptile cries or warnings: partly of the cicala's hiss; partly of the little melancholy German frog which says "Mu, mu, mu," all summer-day long, with its nose out of the pools by Dresden and Leipsic; and partly ofthe deadened quivering and intense continuousness of the alarm of the rattlesnake.

While this was going on, there was a Bible text repeating itself over and over again in my head, whether I would or no:—"And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances." To which text and some others, I shall ask your attention presently; but I must go to Paris first.

30. Not at once, however, to the theater, but to a bookseller's shop, No. 4, Rue Voltaire, where, in the year 1858, was published the fifth edition of Balzac's 'Contes Drôlatiques,' illustrated by 425 designs by Gustave Doré.

Both text and illustrations are as powerful as it is ever in the nature of evil things to be (there is nofinalstrength but in rightness). Nothing more witty, nor more inventively horrible, has yet been produced in the evil literature, or by the evil art, of man: nor can I conceive it possible to go beyond either in their specialities of corruption. The text is full of blasphemies, subtle, tremendous, hideous in shamelessness, some put into the mouths of priests; the illustrations are, in a word, one continuous revelry in the most loathsome and monstrous aspects of death and sin, enlarged into fantastic ghastliness of caricature, as if seen through the distortion and trembling of the hot smoke of the mouth of hell. Take this following for a general type of what they seek in death: one of the most labored designs is of a man cut in two, downwards, by the sweep of a sword—one half of him falls toward the spectator; the other half is elaborately drawn in its section—giving the profile of the divided nose and lips; cleft jaw—breast—and entrails; and this is done with farther pollution and horror of intent in the circumstances, which I do not choose to describe—still less some other of the designs which seek for fantastic extreme of sin, as this for the utmost horror of death. But of all the 425, there is not one, which does not violate every instinct of decency and law of virtue or life, written in the human soul.

31. Now, my friend, among the many "Signs of the Times" the production of a book like this is a significant one: but it becomes more significant still when connected with the farther fact, that M. Gustave Doré, the designer of this series of plates, has just been received with loud acclaim by the British Evangelical Public, as the fittest and most able person whom they could at present find to illustrate, to their minds, and recommend with grace of sacred art, their hitherto unadorned Bible for them.

Of which Bible, and of the use we at present make of it in England, having a grave word or two to say in my next letter (preparatory to the examination of that verse which haunted me through the Japanese juggling, and of some others also), I leave you first this sign of the public esteem of it to consider at your leisure.

THE FOUR POSSIBLE THEORIES RESPECTING THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE.

March 7, 1867.

32. I have your yesterday's letter, but must not allow myself to be diverted from the business in hand for this once, for it is the most important of which I have to write to you.

You must have seen long ago that the essential difference between the political economy I am trying to teach, and the popular science, is, that mine is based onpresumably attainable honestyin men, and conceivable respect in them for the interests of others, while the popular science founds itself wholly on their supposed constant regard for their own, and on their honesty only so far as thereby likely to be secured.

It becomes, therefore, for me, and for all who believe anything I say, a great primal question on what this presumably attainable honesty is to be based.

33. "Is it to be based on religion?" you may ask. "Arewe to be honest for fear of losing heaven if we are dishonest, or (to put it as generously as we may) for fear of displeasing God? Or, are we to be honest on speculation, because honesty is the best policy; and to invest in virtue as in an undepreciable stock?"

And my answer is—not in any hesitating or diffident way (and you know, my friend, that whatever people may say of me, I often do speak diffidently; though, when I am diffident of things, I like to avoid speaking of them, if it may be; but here I say with no shadow of doubt)—your honesty isnotto be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based onit. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night. If you ask why you are to be honest—you are, in the question itself, dishonored. "Because you are a man," is the only answer; and therefore I said in a former letter that to make your childrencapable of honestyis the beginning of education. Make them men first, and religious men afterwards, and all will be sound; but a knave's religion is always the rottenest thing about him.

34. It is not, therefore, because I am endeavoring to lay down a foundation of religious concrete, on which to build piers of policy, that you so often find me quoting Bible texts in defense of this or that principle or assertion. But the fact that such references are an offense, as I know them to be, to many of the readers of these political essays, is one among many others, which I would desire you to reflect upon (whether you are yourself one of the offended or not), as expressive of the singular position which the mind of the British public has at present taken with respect to its worshiped Book. The positions, honestly tenable, before I use any more of its texts, I must try to define for you.

35. All the theories possible to theological disputants respecting the Bible are resolvable into four, and four only.

(1.) The first is that of the illiterate modern religious world, that every word of the book known to them as "TheBible" was dictated by the Supreme Being, and is in every syllable of it His "Word."

This theory is of course tenable by no ordinarily well-educated person.

(2.) The second theory is, that, although admitting verbal error, the substance of the whole collection of books called the Bible is absolutely true, and furnished to man by Divine inspiration of the speakers and writers of it; and that every one who honestly and prayerfully seeks for such truth in it as is necessary for his salvation, will infallibly find it there.

This theory is that held by most of our good and upright clergymen, and the better class of the professedly religious laity.

(3.) The third theory is that the group of books which we call the Bible were neither written nor collected under any Divine guidance, securing them from substantial error; and that they contain, like all other human writings, false statements mixed with true, and erring thoughts mixed with just thoughts; but that they nevertheless relate, on the whole, faithfully, the dealings of the one God with the first races of man, and His dealings with them in aftertime through Christ: that they record true miracles, and bear true witness to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

This is a theory held by many of the active leaders of modern thought.

(4.) The fourth, and last possible, theory is that the mass of religious Scripture contains merely the best efforts which we hitherto know to have been made by any of the races of men towards the discovery of some relations with the spiritual world; that they are only trustworthy as expressions of the enthusiastic visions or beliefs of earnest men oppressed by the world's darkness, and have no more authoritative claim on our faith than the religious speculations and histories of the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, and Indians; but are, in common with all these, to be reverently studied, as containing a portion, divinely appointed, of the best wisdom which humanintellect, earnestly seeking for help from God, has hitherto been able to gather between birth and death.

This has been, for the last half-century, the theory of the soundest scholars and thinkers of Europe.

36. There is yet indeed one farther condition of incredulity attainable, and sorrowfully attained, by many men of powerful intellect—the incredulity, namely, of inspiration in any sense, or of help given by any Divine power to the thoughts of men. But this form of infidelity merely indicates a natural incapacity for receiving certain emotions; though many honest and good men belong to this insentient class.

37. The educated men, therefore, who may be seriously appealed to, in these days, on questions of moral responsibility, as modified by Scripture, are broadly divisible into three classes, severally holding the last three theories above stated.

Now, whatever power a passage from the statedly authoritative portions of the Bible may have over the mind of a person holding the fourth theory, it will have a proportionately greater over that of persons holding the third or the second. I, therefore, always imagine myself speaking to the fourth class of theorists. If I can persuade or influencethem, I am logically sure of the others. I say "logically," for the actual fact, strange as it may seem, is that no persons are so little likely to submit to a passage of Scripture not to their fancy, as those who are most positive on the subject of its general inspiration.

38. Addressing, then, this fourth class of thinkers, I would say to them, when asking them to enter on any subject of importance to national morals, or conduct, "This book, which has been the accepted guide of the moral intelligence of Europe for some fifteen hundred years, enforces certain simple laws of human conduct which you know have also been agreed upon, in every main point, by all the religious, and by all the greatest profane writers, of every age and country. This book primarily forbids pride, lasciviousness, and covetousness; and you know that all great thinkers, in every nationof mankind, have similarly forbidden these mortal vices. This book enjoins truth, temperance, charity, and equity; and you know that every great Egyptian, Greek, and Indian, enjoins these also. You know besides, that through all the mysteries of human fate and history, this one great law of fate is written on the walls of cities, or in their dust; written in letters of light, and letters of blood,—that where truth, temperance, and equity have been preserved, all strength, and peace, and joy have been preserved also;—that where lying, lasciviousness, and covetousness have been practised, there has followed an infallible, and, for centuries, irrecoverable ruin. And you know, lastly, that the observance of this common law of righteousness, commending itself to all the pure instincts of men, and fruitful in their temporal good, is by the religious writers of every nation, and chiefly in this venerated Scripture of ours, connected with some distinct hope of better life, and righteousness, to come.

39. "Let it not then offend you if, deducing principles of action first from the laws and facts of nature, I nevertheless fortify them also by appliance of the precepts, or suggestive and probable teachings of this Book, of which the authority is over many around you, more distinctly than over you, and which, confessing to be divine,they, at least, can only disobey at their moral peril."

On these grounds, and in this temper, I am in the habit of appealing to passages of Scripture in my writings on political economy; and in this temper I will ask you to consider with me some conclusions which appear to me derivable from that text about Miriam, which haunted me through the jugglery; and from certain others.

THE USE OF MUSIC AND DANCING UNDER THE JEWISH THEOCRACY, COMPARED WITH THEIR USE BY THE MODERN FRENCH.

March 10, 1867.

40. Having, I hope, made you now clearly understand with what feeling I would use the authority of the book which the British public, professing to consider sacred, have lately adorned for themselves with the work of the boldest violator of the instincts of human honor and decency known yet in art-history, I will pursue by the help of that verse about Miriam, and some others, the subject which occupied my mind at both theaters, and to which, though in so apparently desultory manner, I have been nevertheless very earnestly endeavoring to lead you.

41. The going forth of the women of Israel after Miriam with timbrels and with dances, was, as you doubtless remember, their expression of passionate triumph and thankfulness, after the full accomplishment of their deliverance from the Egyptians. That deliverance had been by the utter death of their enemies, and accompanied by stupendous miracle; no human creatures could in an hour of triumph be surrounded by circumstances more solemn. I am not going to try to excite your feelings about them. Consider only for yourself what that seeing of the Egyptians "dead upon the sea-shore" meant to every soul that saw it. And then reflect that these intense emotions of mingled horror, triumph, and gratitude were expressed, in the visible presence of the Deity, by music and dancing. If you answer that you do not believe the Egyptians so perished, or that God ever appeared in a pillar of cloud, I reply, "Be it so—believe or disbelieve, as you choose;—This is yet assuredly the fact, that the author of the poem or fable of the Exodus supposed that, under such circumstances of Divine interposition as he had invented, the triumph of the Israelitish women would have been, and oughtto have been, under the direction of a prophetess, expressed by music and dancing."

42. Nor was it possible that he should think otherwise, at whatever period he wrote; both music and dancing being, among all great ancient nations, an appointed and very principal part of the worship of the gods.

And that very theatrical entertainment at which I sate thinking over these things for you—that pantomime, which depended throughout for its success on an appeal to the vices of the lower London populace, was, in itself, nothing but a corrupt remnant of the religious ceremonies which guided the most serious faiths of the Greek mind, and laid the foundation of their gravest moral and didactic—more forcibly so because at the same time dramatic—literature.

43. Returning to the Jewish history, you find soon afterwards this enthusiastic religious dance and song employed, in their more common and habitual manner, in the idolatries under Sinai; but beautifully again and tenderly, after the triumph of Jephthah, "And behold his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances." Again, still more notably, at the triumph of David with Saul, "the women came out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music." And you have this joyful song and dance of the virgins of Israel not only incidentally alluded to in the most solemn passages of Hebrew religious poetry (as in Psalm lxviii. 24, 25, and Psalm cxlix. 2, 3), but approved, and the restoration of it promised as a sign of God's perfect blessing, most earnestly by the saddest of the Hebrew prophets, and in one of the most beautiful of all his sayings.

"The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, 'Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.—I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O Virgin of Israel; thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and thou shalt go forth in dances with them that make merry,'" (Jer. xxxi. 3, 4; and compare v. 13). And finally, you have in two of quite the mostimportant passages in the whole series of Scripture (one in the Old Testament, one in the New), the rejoicing in the repentance from, and remission of, sins, expressed by means of music and dancing, namely, in the rapturous dancing of David before the returning ark; and in the joy of the father's household at the repentance of the prodigal son.

44. I could put all this much better, and more convincingly, before you, if I were able to take any pains in writing at present; but I am not, as I told you; being weary and ill; neither do I much care now to use what, in the very truth, are but tricks of literary art, in dealing with this so grave subject. You see I write you my letter straightforward, and let you see all my scratchings out and puttings in; and if the way I say things shocks you, or any other reader of these letters, I cannot help it; this only I know, that what I tell you is true, and written more earnestly than anything I ever wrote with my best literary care; and that you will find it useful to think upon, however it be said. Now, therefore, to draw towards our conclusion. Supposing the Bible inspired, in any of the senses above defined, you have in these passages a positively Divine authority for the use of song and dance, as a means of religious service, and expression of national thanksgiving. Supposing it not inspired, you have (taking the passages for as slightly authoritative as you choose) record in them, nevertheless, of a state of mind in a great nation, producing the most beautiful religious poetry and perfect moral law hitherto known to us, yet only expressible by them, to the fulfilment of their joyful passion, by means of professional dance and choral song.

45. Now I want you to contrast this state of religious rapture with some of our modern phases of mind in parallel circumstances. You see that the promise of Jeremiah's, "Thou shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry," is immediately followed by this, "Thou shalt yetplant vinesupon the mountains of Samaria." And again, at the yearly feast to the Lord in Shiloh, the dancing of the virgins was in the midst of the vineyards (Judges xxi. 21), the feast of thevintage being in the south, as our harvest home in the north, a peculiar occasion of joy and thanksgiving. I happened to pass the autumn of 1863 in one of the great vine districts of Switzerland, under the slopes of the outlying branch of the Jura which limits the arable plain of the Canton Zurich, some fifteen miles north of Zurich itself. That city has always been a renowned, stronghold of Swiss Protestantism, next in importance only to Geneva; and its evangelical zeal for the conversion of the Catholics of Uri, and endeavors to bring about that spiritual result by stopping the supplies of salt they needed to make their cheeses with, brought on (the Uri men reading their Matt. v. 13, in a different sense) the battle of Keppel, and the death of the reformer Zwinglius. The town itself shows the most gratifying signs of progress in all the modern arts and sciences of life. It is nearly as black as Newcastle—has a railroad station larger than the London terminus of the Chatham and Dover—fouls the stream of the Limmat as soon as it issues from the lake, so that you might even venture to compare the formerly simple and innocent Swiss river (I remember it thirty years ago—a current of pale green crystal) with the highly educated English streams of Weare or Tyne; and, finally, has as many French prints of dissolute tendency in its principal shop windows as if they had the privilege of opening on the Parisian Boulevards.

46. I was somewhat anxious to see what species of thanksgiving or exultation would be expressed attheirvintage, by the peasantry in the neighborhood of this much enlightened, evangelical, and commercial society. It consisted in two ceremonies only. During the day, the servants of the farms where the grapes had been gathered, collected in knots about the vineyards, and slowly fired horse-pistols, from morning to evening. At night they got drunk, and staggered up and down the hill paths, uttering, at short intervals, yells and shrieks, differing only from the howling of wild animals by a certain intended and insolent discordance, only attainable by the malignity of debased human creatures.

47. I must not do the injustice to the Zurich peasantry ofimplying that this manner of festivity is peculiar to them. A year before, in 1862, I had formed the intention of living some years in the neighborhood of Geneva, and had established myself experimentally on the eastern slope of the Mont Salève; but I was forced to abandon my purpose at last, because I could not endure the rabid howling, on Sunday evenings, of the holiday-makers who came out from Geneva to get drunk in the mountain village. By the way, your last letter, with its extracts about our traffic in gin, is very valuable. I will come to that part of the business in a little while. Meantime, my friend, note this, respecting what I have told you, that in the very center of Europe, in a country which is visited for their chief pleasure by the most refined and thoughtful persons among all Christian nations—a country made by God's hand the most beautiful in the temperate regions of the earth, and inhabited by a race once capable of the sternest patriotism and simplest purity of life, your modern religion, in the very stronghold of it, has reduced the song and dance of ancient virginal thanksgiving to the howlings and staggerings of men betraying, in intoxication, a nature sunk more than half-way towards the beasts; and you will begin to understand why the Bible should have been "illustrated" by Gustave Doré.

48. One word more is needful, though this letter is long already. The peculiar ghastliness of this Swiss mode of festivity is in its utter failure of joy; the paralysis and helplessness of a vice in which there is neither pleasure, nor art. But we are not, throughout Europe, wholly thus. There is such a thing, yet, as rapturous song and dance among us, though not indicative, by any means, of joy over repentant sinners. You must come back to Paris with me again. I had an evening to spare there, last summer, for investigation of theaters; and as there was nothing at any of them that I cared much about seeing, I asked a valet-de-place at Meurice's what people were generally going to. He said, "All the English went to see theLanterne Magique." I do not care to tell you what general entertainment I received in following, for once, thelead of my countrymen; but it closed with the representation of the characteristic dancing of all ages of the world; and the dance given as characteristic of modern time was the Cancan, which you will see alluded to in the extract given in the note at page 80 of 'Sesame and Lilies' (the small edition; and page 54 of Vol. I. of the Revised Series of the Entire Works). "The ball terminated with a Devilish Chain and a Cancan of Hell, at seven in the morning." It was led by four principal dancers (who have since appeared in London in theHuguenot Captain), and it is many years since I have seen such perfect dancing, as far as finish and accuracy of art and fulness of animal power and fire are concerned. Nothing could be better done, in its own evil way, the object of the dance throughout being to express, in every gesture, the wildest fury of insolence and vicious passions possible to human creatures. So that you see, though, for the present, we find ourselves utterly incapable of a rapture of gladness or thanksgiving, the dance which is presented as characteristic of modern civilization is still rapturous enough—but it is with rapture of blasphemy.

THE MEANING AND ACTUAL OPERATION OF SATANIC OR DEMONIACAL INFLUENCE.

March 16, 1867.

49. You may gather from the facts given you in my last letter that, as the expression of true and holy gladness was in old time statedly offered up by men for a part of worship to God their Father, so the expression of false and unholy gladness is in modern times, with as much distinctness and plainness, asserted by them openly to be offered to another spirit: "Chain of the Devil," and "Cancan of Hell" being the names assigned to these modern forms of joyous procession.

Now, you know that, among the best and wisest of ourpresent religious teachers, there is a gradual tendency to disbelieve, and to preach their disbelief, in the commonly received ideas of the Devil, and of his place, and his work. While, among some of our equally well-meaning, but far less wise, religious teachers, there is, in consequence, a panic spreading in anticipation of the moral dangers which must follow on the loss of the help of the Devil. One of the last appearances in public of the author of the 'Christian Year' was at a conclave of clergymen assembled in defense of faith in damnation.[A]The sense of the meeting generally was, that theremustbe such a place as hell, because no one would ever behave decently upon earth unless they were kept in wholesome fear of the fires beneath it: and Mr. Keble, especially insisting on this view, related a story of an old woman who had a wicked son, and who, having lately heard with horror of the teaching of Mr. Maurice and others, exclaimed pathetically, "My son is bad enough as it is, and if he were not afraid of hell, what would become of him!" (I write from memory, and cannot answer for the words, but I can for their purport.)

50. Now, my friend, I am afraid that I must incur the charge of such presumption as may be involved in variance fromboththese systems of teaching.

I do not merelybelievethere is such a place as hell. Iknowthere is such a place; and I know also that when men have got to the point of believing virtue impossible but through dread of it, they have gotintoit.

I mean, that according to the distinctness with which they hold such a creed, the stain of nether fire has passed upon them. In the depth of his heart Mr. Keble could not have entertained the thought for an instant; and I believe it was only as a conspicuous sign to the religious world of the state into which they were sinking, that this creed, possible in its sincerity only to the basest of them, was nevertheless appointedto be uttered by the lips of the most tender, gracious, and beloved of their teachers.

51. "Virtue impossible but for fear of hell"—a lofty creed for your English youth—and a holy one! And yet, my friend, there was something of right in the terrors of this clerical conclave. For, though you should assuredly be able to hold your own in the straight ways of God, without always believing that the Devil is at your side, it is a state of mind much to be dreaded, that you should notknowthe Devil when youseehim there. For the probability is that when you do see him, the way you are walking in is not one of God's ways at all, but is leading you quite into other neighborhoods than His. On His way, indeed, you may often, like Albert Dürer's Knight, see the Fiend behind you, but you will find that he drops always farther and farther behind; whereas, if he jogs with you at your side, it is probably one of his own bypaths you are got on. And, in any case, it is a highly desirable matter that you should know him when you set eyes on him, which we are very far from doing in these days, having convinced ourselves that the graminivorous form of him, with horn and tail, is extant no longer. But in fearful truth, the Presence and Power of Himishere; in the world, with us, and within us, mock as you may; and the fight with him, for the time, sore, and widely unprosperous.

Do not think I am speaking metaphorically or rhetorically, or with any other than literal and earnest meaning of words. Hear me, I pray you, therefore, for a little while, as earnestly as I speak.

52. Every faculty of man's soul, and every instinct of it by which he is meant to live, is exposed to its own special form of corruption: and whether within Man, or in the external world, there is a power or condition of temptation which is perpetually endeavoring to reduce every glory of his soul, and every power of his life, to such corruption as is possible to them. And the more beautiful they are, the more fearful is the death which is attached as a penalty to their degradation.

53. Take, for instance, that which, in its purity, is the source of the highest and purest mortal happiness—Love. Think of it first at its highest—as it may exist in the disciplined spirit of a perfect human creature; as it has so existed again and again, and does always, wherever it truly exists at all, as thepurifyingpassion of the soul. I will not speak of the transcendental and imaginative intensity in which it may reign in noble hearts, as when it inspired the greatest religious poem yet given to men; but take it in its true and quiet purity in any simple lover's heart,—as you have it expressed, for instance, thus, exquisitely, in the 'Angel in the House':—

"And there, with many a blissful tear,I vowed to love and prayed to wedThe maiden who had grown so dear;—Thanked God, who had set her in my path;And promised, as I hoped to win,I never would sully my faithBy the least selfishness or sin;Whatever in her sight I'd seemI'd really be; I ne'er would blend,With my delight in her, a dream'Twould change her cheek to comprehend;And, if she wished it, would preferAnother's to my own success;And always seek the best for herWith unofficious tenderness."

Take this for the pure type of it in its simplicity; and then think of what corruption this passion is capable. I will give you a type of that also, and at your very doors. I cannot refer you to the time when the crime happened; but it was some four or five years ago, near Newcastle, and it has remained always as a ghastly landmark in my mind, owing to the horror of the external circumstances. The body of the murdered woman was found naked, rolled into a heap of ashes, at the mouth of one of your pits.

54. You have thus two limiting examples, of the Pure Passion, and of its corruption. Now, whatever influence it is, without or within us, which has a tendency to degrade the one towards the other, is literally and accurately "Satanic."And this treacherous or deceiving spirit is perpetually at work, so that all the worst evil among us is a betrayed or corrupted good. Take religion itself: the desire of finding out God, and placing one's self in some true son's or servant's relation to Him. The Devil, that is to say, the deceiving spirit within us, or outside of us, mixes up our own vanity with this desire; makes us think that in our love to God we have established some connection with Him which separates us from our fellow-men, and renders us superior to them. Then it takes but one wave of the Devil's hand; and we are burning them alive for taking the liberty of contradicting us.

55. Take the desire of teaching—the entirely unselfish and noble instinct for telling to those who are ignorant, the truth we know, and guarding them from the errors we see them in danger of;—there is no nobler, no more constant instinct in honorable breasts; but let the Devil formalize it, and mix the pride of a profession with it—get foolish people entrusted with the business of instruction, and make their giddy heads giddier by putting them up in pulpits above a submissive crowd—and you have it instantly corrupted into its own reverse; you have an allianceagainstthe light, shrieking at the sun, and the moon, and stars, as profane spectra:—a company of the blind, beseeching those they lead to remain blind also. "The heavens and the lights that rule them are untrue; the laws of creation are treacherous; the poles of the earth are out of poise. Butweare true. Light is in us only. Shut your eyes close and fast, and we will lead you."

56. Take the desire and faith of mutual help; the virtue of vowed brotherhood for the accomplishment of common purpose, (without which nothing great can be wrought by multitudinous bands of men); let the Devil put pride of caste into it, and you have a military organization applied for a thousand years to maintain that higher caste in idleness by robbing the laboring poor; let the Devil put a few small personal interests into it, and you have all faithful deliberation on national law rendered impossible in the parliaments of Europe, by the antagonism of parties.

57. Take the instinct for justice, and the natural sense of indignation against crime; let the Devil color it with personal passion, and you have a mighty race of true and tender-hearted men living for centuries in such bloody feud that every note and word of their national songs is a dirge, and every rock of their hills is a gravestone. Take the love of beauty, and power of imagination, which are the source of every true achievement in art; let the Devil touch them with sensuality, and they are stronger than the sword or the flame to blast the cities where they were born, into ruin without hope. Take the instinct of industry and ardor of commerce, which are meant to be the support and mutual maintenance of man; let the Devil touch them with avarice, and you shall see the avenues of the exchange choked with corpses that have died of famine.

58. Now observe—I leave you to call this deceiving spirit what you like—or to theorize about it as you like. All that I desire you to recognize is the fact of its being here, and the need of its being fought with. If you take the Bible's account of it, or Dante's, or Milton's, you will receive the image of it as a mighty spiritual creature, commanding others, and resisted by others: if you take Æschylus's or Hesiod's account of it, you will hold it for a partly elementary and unconscious adversity of fate, and partly for a group of monstrous spiritual agencies connected with death, and begotten out of the dust; if you take a modern rationalist's, you will accept it for a mere treachery and want of vitality in our own moral nature exposing it to loathsomeness or moral disease, as the body is capable of mortification or leprosy. I do not care what you call it,—whose history you believe of it,—nor what you yourself can imagine about it; the origin, or nature, or name may be as you will, but the deadly reality of the thing is with us, and warring against us, and on our true war with it depends whatever life we can win. Deadly reality, I say. The puff-adder or horned asp is not more real. Unbelievable,—those,—unless you had seen them; no fable could have been coined out of any human brain so dreadful, within its own poormaterial sphere, as that blue-lipped serpent—working its way sidelong in the sand. As real, but with sting of eternal death—this worm that dies not, and fire that is not quenched, within our souls or around them. Eternal death, I say—sure, that, whatever creed you hold;—if the old Scriptural one, Death of perpetual banishment from before God's face; if the modern rationalist one, Death Eternal forus, instant and unredeemable ending of lives wasted in misery.

This is what this unquestionably present—this, according to his power,omni-present—fiend, brings us towards, daily. He is the person to be "voted" against, my working friend; it is worth something, having a vote againsthim, if you can get it! Which you can, indeed; but not by gift from Cabinet Ministers; you must work warily with your own hands, and drop sweat of heart's blood, before you can record that vote effectually.

Of which more in next letter.

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