Sesame and Lilies
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John Ruskin >> Sesame and Lilies
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11 Sesame and Lilies
Contents:
Lecture I--Sesame
Lecture II--Lilies
Preface to the Later Editions
Lecture III--The Mystery of Life and its Arts
LECTURE I--SESAME. OF KING'S TREASURIES
"You shall each have a cake of sesame,--and ten pound."
Lucian: The Fisherman.
My first duty this evening is to ask your pardon for the ambiguity
of title under which the subject of lecture has been announced: for
indeed I am not going to talk of kings, known as regnant, nor of
treasuries, understood to contain wealth; but of quite another order
of royalty, and another material of riches, than those usually
acknowledged. I had even intended to ask your attention for a
little while on trust, and (as sometimes one contrives, in taking a
friend to see a favourite piece of scenery) to hide what I wanted
most to show, with such imperfect cunning as I might, until we
unexpectedly reached the best point of view by winding paths. But--
and as also I have heard it said, by men practised in public
address, that hearers are never so much fatigued as by the endeavour
to follow a speaker who gives them no clue to his purpose,--I will
take the slight mask off at once, and tell you plainly that I want
to speak to you about the treasures hidden in books; and about the
way we find them, and the way we lose them. A grave subject, you
will say; and a wide one! Yes; so wide that I shall make no effort
to touch the compass of it. I will try only to bring before you a
few simple thoughts about reading, which press themselves upon me
every day more deeply, as I watch the course of the public mind with
respect to our daily enlarging means of education; and the
answeringly wider spreading on the levels, of the irrigation of
literature.
It happens that I have practically some connexion with schools for
different classes of youth; and I receive many letters from parents
respecting the education of their children. In the mass of these
letters I am always struck by the precedence which the idea of a
"position in life" takes above all other thoughts in the parents'--
more especially in the mothers'--minds. "The education befitting
such and such a STATION IN LIFE"--this is the phrase, this the
object, always. They never seek, as far as I can make out, an
education good in itself; even the conception of abstract rightness
in training rarely seems reached by the writers. But, an education
"which shall keep a good coat on my son's back;--which shall enable
him to ring with confidence the visitors' bell at double-belled
doors; which shall result ultimately in establishment of a double-
belled door to his own house;--in a word, which shall lead to
advancement in life;--THIS we pray for on bent knees--and this is
ALL we pray for." It never seems to occur to the parents that there
may be an education which, in itself, IS advancement in Life;--that
any other than that may perhaps be advancement in Death; and that
this essential education might be more easily got, or given, than
they fancy, if they set about it in the right way; while it is for
no price, and by no favour, to be got, if they set about it in the
wrong.
Indeed, among the ideas most prevalent and effective in the mind of
this busiest of countries, I suppose the first--at least that which
is confessed with the greatest frankness, and put forward as the
fittest stimulus to youthful exertion--is this of "Advancement in
life." May I ask you to consider with me, what this idea
practically includes, and what it should include?
Practically, then, at present, "advancement in life" means, becoming
conspicuous in life; obtaining a position which shall be
acknowledged by others to be respectable or honourable. We do not
understand by this advancement, in general, the mere making of
money, but the being known to have made it; not the accomplishment
of any great aim, but the being seen to have accomplished it. In a
word, we mean the gratification of our thirst for applause. That
thirst, if the last infirmity of noble minds, is also the first
infirmity of weak ones; and, on the whole, the strongest impulsive
influence of average humanity: the greatest efforts of the race
have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its greatest
catastrophes to the love of pleasure.
I am not about to attack or defend this impulse. I want you only to
feel how it lies at the root of effort; especially of all modern
effort. It is the gratification of vanity which is, with us, the
stimulus of toil and balm of repose; so closely does it touch the
very springs of life that the wounding of our vanity is always
spoken of (and truly) as in its measure MORTAL; we call it
"mortification," using the same expression which we should apply to
a gangrenous and incurable bodily hurt. And although a few of us
may be physicians enough to recognise the various effect of this
passion upon health and energy, I believe most honest men know, and
would at once acknowledge, its leading power with them as a motive.
The seaman does not commonly desire to be made captain only because
he knows he can manage the ship better than any other sailor on
board. He wants to be made captain that he may be CALLED captain.
The clergyman does not usually want to be made a bishop only because
he believes that no other hand can, as firmly as his, direct the
diocese through its difficulties. He wants to be made bishop
primarily that he may be called "My Lord." And a prince does not
usually desire to enlarge, or a subject to gain, a kingdom, because
he believes no one else can as well serve the State, upon its
throne; but, briefly, because he wishes to be addressed as "Your
Majesty," by as many lips as may be brought to such utterance.
This, then, being the main idea of "advancement in life," the force
of it applies, for all of us, according to our station, particularly
to that secondary result of such advancement which we call "getting
into good society." We want to get into good society, not that we
may have it, but that we may be seen in it; and our notion of its
goodness depends primarily on its conspicuousness.
Will you pardon me if I pause for a moment to put what I fear you
may think an impertinent question? I never can go on with an
address unless I feel, or know, that my audience are either with me
or against me: I do not much care which, in beginning; but I must
know where they are; and I would fain find out, at this instant,
whether you think I am putting the motives of popular action too
low. I am resolved, to-night, to state them low enough to be
admitted as probable; for whenever, in my writings on Political
Economy, I assume that a little honesty, or generosity,--or what
used to be called "virtue,"--may be calculated upon as a human
motive of action, people always answer me, saying, "You must not
calculate on that: that is not in human nature: you must not
assume anything to be common to men but acquisitiveness and
jealousy; no other feeling ever has influence on them, except
accidentally, and in matters out of the way of business." I begin,
accordingly, tonight low in the scale of motives; but I must know if
you think me right in doing so. Therefore, let me ask those who
admit the love of praise to be usually the strongest motive in men's
minds in seeking advancement, and the honest desire of doing any
kind of duty to be an entirely secondary one, to hold up their
hands. (About a dozen hands held up--the audience, partly, not
being sure the lecturer is serious, and, partly, shy of expressing
opinion.) I am quite serious--I really do want to know what you
think; however, I can judge by putting the reverse question. Will
those who think that duty is generally the first, and love of praise
the second, motive, hold up their hands? (One hand reported to have
been held up behind the lecturer.) Very good: I see you are with
me, and that you think I have not begun too near the ground. Now,
without teasing you by putting farther question, I venture to assume
that you will admit duty as at least a secondary or tertiary motive.
You think that the desire of doing something useful, or obtaining
some real good, is indeed an existent collateral idea, though a
secondary one, in most men's desire of advancement. You will grant
that moderately honest men desire place and office, at least in some
measure for the sake of beneficent power; and would wish to
associate rather with sensible and well-informed persons than with
fools and ignorant persons, whether they are seen in the company of
the sensible ones or not. And finally, without being troubled by
repetition of any common truisms about the preciousness of friends,
and the influence of companions, you will admit, doubtless, that
according to the sincerity of our desire that our friends may be
true, and our companions wise,--and in proportion to the earnestness
and discretion with which we choose both,--will be the general
chances of our happiness and usefulness.
But, granting that we had both the will and the sense to choose our
friends well, how few of us have the power! or, at least, how
limited, for most, is the sphere of choice! Nearly all our
associations are determined by chance or necessity; and restricted
within a narrow circle. We cannot know whom we would; and those
whom we know, we cannot have at our side when we most need them.
All the higher circles of human intelligence are, to those beneath,
only momentarily and partially open. We may, by good fortune,
obtain a glimpse of a great poet, and hear the sound of his voice;
or put a question to a man of science, and be answered good-
humouredly. We may intrude ten minutes' talk on a cabinet minister,
answered probably with words worse than silence, being deceptive; or
snatch, once or twice in our lives, the privilege of throwing a
bouquet in the path of a princess, or arresting the kind glance of a
queen. And yet these momentary chances we covet; and spend our
years, and passions, and powers, in pursuit of little more than
these; while, meantime, there is a society continually open to us,
of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank
or occupation;--talk to us in the best words they can choose, and of
the things nearest their hearts. And this society, because it is so
numerous and so gentle, and can be kept waiting round us all day
long,--kings and statesmen lingering patiently, not to grant
audience, but to gain it!--in those plainly furnished and narrow
ante-rooms, our bookcase shelves,--we make no account of that
company,--perhaps never listen to a word they would say, all day
long!
You may tell me, perhaps, or think within yourselves, that the
apathy with which we regard this company of the noble, who are
praying us to listen to them; and the passion with which we pursue
the company, probably of the ignoble, who despise us, or who have
nothing to teach us, are grounded in this,--that we can see the
faces of the living men, and it is themselves, and not their
sayings, with which we desire to become familiar. But it is not so.
Suppose you never were to see their faces;--suppose you could be put
behind a screen in the statesman's cabinet, or the prince's chamber,
would you not be glad to listen to their words, though you were
forbidden to advance beyond the screen? And when the screen is only
a little less, folded in two instead of four, and you can be hidden
behind the cover of the two boards that bind a book, and listen all
day long, not to the casual talk, but to the studied, determined,
chosen addresses of the wisest of men;--this station of audience,
and honourable privy council, you despise!
But perhaps you will say that it is because the living people talk
of things that are passing, and are of immediate interest to you,
that you desire to hear them. Nay; that cannot be so, for the
living people will themselves tell you about passing matters much
better in their writings than in their careless talk. Yet I admit
that this motive does influence you, so far as you prefer those
rapid and ephemeral writings to slow and enduring writings--books,
properly so called. For all books are divisible into two classes,
the books of the hour, and the books of all time. Mark this
distinction--it is not one of quality only. It is not merely the
bad book that does not last, and the good one that does. It is a
distinction of species. There are good books for the hour, and good
ones for all time; bad books for the hour, and bad ones for all
time. I must define the two kinds before I go farther.
The good book of the hour, then,--I do not speak of the bad ones,--
is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot
otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often,
telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a
sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of
travels; good-humoured and witty discussions of question; lively or
pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by
the real agents concerned in the events of passing history;--all
these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes
more general, are a peculiar possession of the present age: we
ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of
ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worst
possible use if we allow them to usurp the place of true books:
for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely
letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be
delightful, or necessary, to-day: whether worth keeping or not, is
to be considered. The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast
time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So, though bound
up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an
account of the inns, and roads, and weather, last year at such a
place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real
circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for
occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a
"book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read." A book is
essentially not a talking thing, but a written thing; and written,
not with a view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book
of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands
of people at once; if he could, he would--the volume is mere
MULTIPLICATION of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in
India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere
CONVEYANCE of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the
voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The
author has something to say which he perceives to be true and
useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet
said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to
say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly at all events.
In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of
things, manifest to him;--this, the piece of true knowledge, or
sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to
seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if
he could; saying, "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and
drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the
vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of
mine, is worth your memory." That is his "writing;" it is, in his
small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in
him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book."
Perhaps you think no books were ever so written?
But, again, I ask you, do you at all believe in honesty, or at all
in kindness, or do you think there is never any honesty or
benevolence in wise people? None of us, I hope, are so unhappy as
to think that. Well, whatever bit of a wise man's work is honestly
and benevolently done, that bit is his book or his piece of art. {5}
It is mixed always with evil fragments--ill-done, redundant,
affected work. But if you read rightly, you will easily discover
the true bits, and those ARE the book.
Now books of this kind have been written in all ages by their
greatest men:- by great readers, great statesmen, and great
thinkers. These are all at your choice; and Life is short. You
have heard as much before;--yet have you measured and mapped out
this short life and its possibilities? Do you know, if you read
this, that you cannot read that--that what you lose to-day you
cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip with your housemaid,
or your stable-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings; or
flatter yourself that it is with any worthy consciousness of your
own claims to respect, that you jostle with the hungry and common
crowd for ENTREE here, and audience there, when all the while this
eternal court is open to you, with its society, wide as the world,
multitudinous as its days, the chosen, and the mighty, of every
place and time? Into that you may enter always; in that you may
take fellowship and rank according to your wish; from that, once
entered into it, you can never be outcast but by your own fault; by
your aristocracy of companionship there, your own inherent
aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and the motives with which you
strive to take high place in the society of the living, measured, as
to all the truth and sincerity that are in them, by the place you
desire to take in this company of the Dead.
"The place you desire," and the place you FIT YOURSELF FOR, I must
also say; because, observe, this court of the past differs from all
living aristocracy in this:- it is open to labour and to merit, but
to nothing else. No wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice
deceive, the guardian of those Elysian gates. In the deep sense, no
vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the portieres of that
silent Faubourg St. Germain, there is but brief question:- "Do you
deserve to enter? Pass. Do you ask to be the companion of nobles?
Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the
conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall
hear it. But on other terms?--no. If you will not rise to us, we
cannot stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the
living philosopher explain his thought to you with considerate pain;
but here we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the level
of our thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and share our
feelings, if you would recognise our presence."
This, then, is what you have to do, and I admit that it is much.
You must, in a word, love these people, if you are to be among them.
No ambition is of any use. They scorn your ambition. You must love
them, and show your love in these two following ways.
(1) First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and to enter into
their thoughts. To enter into theirs, observe; not to find your own
expressed by them. If the person who wrote the book is not wiser
than you, you need not read it; if he be, he will think differently
from you in many respects.
(2) Very ready we are to say of a book, "How good this is--that's
exactly what I think!" But the right feeling is, "How strange that
is! I never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true; or if
I do not now, I hope I shall, some day." But whether thus
submissively or not, at least be sure that you go to the author to
get at HIS meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterwards if you
think yourself qualified to do so; but ascertain it first. And be
sure, also, if the author is worth anything, that you will not get
at his meaning all at once;--nay, that at his whole meaning you will
not for a long time arrive in any wise. Not that he does not say
what he means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all;
and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in
parables, in order that he may be sure you want it. I cannot quite
see the reason of this, nor analyse that cruel reticence in the
breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper
thought. They do not give it you by way of help, but of reward; and
will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you
to reach it. But it is the same with the physical type of wisdom,
gold. There seems, to you and me, no reason why the electric forces
of the earth should not carry whatever there is of gold within it at
once to the mountain tops, so that kings and people might know that
all the gold they could get was there; and without any trouble of
digging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste of time, cut it away, and
coin as much as they needed. But Nature does not manage it so. She
puts it in little fissures in the earth, nobody knows where: you
may dig long and find none; you must dig painfully to find any.
And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. When you come to a
good book, you must ask yourself, "Am I inclined to work as an
Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order,
and am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and
my breath good, and my temper?" And, keeping the figure a little
longer, even at cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful
one, the metal you are in search of being the author's mind or
meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt
in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit,
and learning; your smelting furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do
not hope to get at any good author's meaning without those tools and
that fire; often you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and
patientest fusing, before you can gather one grain of the metal.
And, therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly and
authoritatively (I KNOW I am right in this), you must get into the
habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their
meaning, syllable by syllable--nay, letter by letter. For though it
is only by reason of the opposition of letters in the function of
signs, to sounds in the function of signs, that the study of books
is called "literature," and that a man versed in it is called, by
the consent of nations, a man of letters instead of a man of books,
or of words, you may yet connect with that accidental nomenclature
this real fact:- that you might read all the books in the British
Museum (if you could live long enough), and remain an utterly
"illiterate," uneducated person; but that if you read ten pages of a
good book, letter by letter,--that is to say, with real accuracy,--
you are for evermore in some measure an educated person. The entire
difference between education and non-education (as regards the
merely intellectual part of it), consists in this accuracy. A well-
educated gentleman may not know many languages,--may not be able to
speak any but his own,--may have read very few books. But whatever
language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces,
he pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned in the PEERAGE of
words; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a
glance, from words of modern canaille; remembers all their ancestry,
their intermarriages, distant relationships, and the extent to which
they were admitted, and offices they held, among the national
noblesse of words at any time, and in any country. But an
uneducated person may know, by memory, many languages, and talk them
all, and yet truly know not a word of any,--not a word even of his
own. An ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will be able to make
his way ashore at most ports; yet he has only to speak a sentence of
any language to be known for an illiterate person: so also the
accent, or turn of expression of a single sentence, will at once
mark a scholar. And this is so strongly felt, so conclusively
admitted, by educated persons, that a false accent or a mistaken
syllable is enough, in the parliament of any civilized nation, to
assign to a man a certain degree of inferior standing for ever.
And this is right; but it is a pity that the accuracy insisted on is
not greater, and required to a serious purpose. It is right that a
false Latin quantity should excite a smile in the House of Commons;
but it is wrong that a false English MEANING should NOT excite a
frown there. Let the accent of words be watched; and closely: let
their meaning be watched more closely still, and fewer will do the
work. A few words well chosen, and distinguished, will do work that
a thousand cannot, when every one is acting, equivocally, in the
function of another. Yes; and words, if they are not watched, will
do deadly work sometimes. There are masked words droning and
skulking about us in Europe just now,--(there never were so many,
owing to the spread of a shallow, blotching, blundering, infectious
"information," or rather deformation, everywhere, and to the
teaching of catechisms and phrases at school instead of human
meanings)--there are masked words abroad, I say, which nobody
understands, but which everybody uses, and most people will also
fight for, live for, or even die for, fancying they mean this or
that, or the other, of things dear to them: for such words wear
chameleon cloaks--"ground-lion" cloaks, of the colour of the ground
of any man's fancy: on that ground they lie in wait, and rend them
with a spring from it. There never were creatures of prey so
mischievous, never diplomatists so cunning, never poisoners so
deadly, as these masked words; they are the unjust stewards of all
men's ideas: whatever fancy or favourite instinct a man most
cherishes, he gives to his favourite masked word to take care of for
him; the word at last comes to have an infinite power over him,--you
cannot get at him but by its ministry.
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