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014 - Of Queens' Gardens Part 4 · Sesame and Lilies

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  Speaker 1: Section fourteen of Sesame and Lilies Revised and Enlarged edition
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  Speaker 1: by John Ruskin. This libribox recording is in the public
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  Speaker 1: domain recording by Oxenhangler of Queen's Gardens, Part four. Then,
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  Speaker 1: in art, keep the finest models before her, and let
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  Speaker 1: her practice in all accomplishments be accurate and thorough, so
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  Speaker 1: as to enable her to understand more than she accomplishes.
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  Speaker 1: I say the finest models, that is to say, the truest, simplest,
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  Speaker 1: usefulest note. Those epithets, they will range through all the arts.
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  Speaker 1: Try them in music, where you might think them the
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  Speaker 1: least applicable. I say, the truest, that is which the
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  Speaker 1: notes most closely and faithfully express the meaning of the
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  Speaker 1: words or the character of intended emotion. Again, the simplest,
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  Speaker 1: that in which the meaning and melody are attained with
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  Speaker 1: the fewest and most significant note possible. And finally, the
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  Speaker 1: usefulest that music which makes the best words, most beautiful,
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  Speaker 1: which enchants them in our memories, each with its own
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  Speaker 1: glory of sound, and which applies them closest to the
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  Speaker 1: heart at the moment we need them. And not only
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  Speaker 1: in the material and in the course, but yet more
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  Speaker 1: earnestly in the spirit of it. Let a girl's education
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  Speaker 1: be as serious as the boys. You bring up your
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  Speaker 1: girls as if they were meant for sideboard ornaments, and
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  Speaker 1: then complain of their frivolity. Give them the same advantages
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  Speaker 1: that you give their brothers. Appeal to the same grand
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  Speaker 1: instincts of virtue in them. Teach them also that courage
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  Speaker 1: and truth are the pillars of their being. Do you
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  Speaker 1: think that they would not answer that appeal, brave and
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  Speaker 1: true as they are even now, when you know that
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  Speaker 1: there is hardly a girls school in this Christian kingdom
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  Speaker 1: where the children's courage or sincerity would be thought of
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  Speaker 1: half so much importance as their way of coming in
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  Speaker 1: at a door, And when the whole system of society,
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  Speaker 1: as respects the mode of establishing them in life is
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  Speaker 1: one rotten plague of cowardice and imposture. Cowardice in not
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  Speaker 1: daring to let them live or love except as their
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  Speaker 1: neighbors choose, and imposture in bringing for the purpose of
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  Speaker 1: our own pride, the full glow of the world's worst
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  Speaker 1: vanity upon a girl's eyes at the very period when
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  Speaker 1: the whole happiness of her future existence depends upon her
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  Speaker 1: remaining undazzled, and give them, lastly, not only noble teachings,
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  Speaker 1: but noble teachers. You consider somewhat before you send your
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  Speaker 1: boy to school, what kind of a man the master is.
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  Speaker 1: Whatsoever kind of man he is, you at least give
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  Speaker 1: him full authority over your son, and show some respect
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  Speaker 1: to him yourself. If he comes to dine with you,
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  Speaker 1: you do not put him at a side table. You
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  Speaker 1: know also that at his college, your child's immediate tutor
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  Speaker 1: will be under the direction of some still higher tutor
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  Speaker 1: for whom you have absolute reverence. You do not treat
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  Speaker 1: the Dean of Christ Church or the Master of Trinity
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  Speaker 1: as your inferiors. But what teachers do you give your girls?
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  Speaker 1: And what reverence do you show to the teachers you
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  Speaker 1: have chosen. Is a girl likely to think her own
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  Speaker 1: conduct or her own intellect of much importance when you
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  Speaker 1: trust the entire formation of her character, moral and intellectual
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  Speaker 1: to a person whom you let your servants treat with
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  Speaker 1: less respect than they do your housekeeper, as if the
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  Speaker 1: soul of your child were a less charged than jams
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  Speaker 1: and groceries, and whom you yourself think you confer an
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  Speaker 1: honor upon by letting her sometimes sit in the drawing
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  Speaker 1: room in the evening. Thus, then of literature as her help,
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  Speaker 1: and thus of art. There is one more help which
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  Speaker 1: she cannot do without, on which alone has sometimes done
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  Speaker 1: more than all other influences, besides the help of wild
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  Speaker 1: and fair nature. Hear this of the education of Joan
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  Speaker 1: of Arc. Footnote Joan of Arc in reference to m.
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  Speaker 1: Michelai's History of France de Querrey's Works, Volume three, page
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  Speaker 1: two seventeen, end of footnote. The education of this poor
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  Speaker 1: girl was mean according to the present standard, was ineffably
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  Speaker 1: grand according to purer philosophic standard, and only not good
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  Speaker 1: for our age, because for us it would be unattainable. Next,
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  Speaker 1: after her spiritual advantages, she owed most to the advantages
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  Speaker 1: of her situation. The fountain of dome Remay was on
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  Speaker 1: the brink of a boundless forest, and it was haunted
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  Speaker 1: to that degree by fairies, that the parish priest Curee
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  Speaker 1: was obliged to read mass there once a year in
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  Speaker 1: order to keep them in any decent bounds. But the
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  Speaker 1: forests of dome Remay, those were the glories of the land,
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  Speaker 1: for in them abode mysterious powers and ancient secrets that
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  Speaker 1: towered into tragic strength. Abbey there were an abbey windows
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  Speaker 1: like Moorish temples of the Hindus, that exercised even princely power,
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  Speaker 1: both in Touraine and in the German diets. These had
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  Speaker 1: their sweet bells that pierced the forests for many a
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  Speaker 1: league at Matins or Vespers, and each its own dreamy legend.
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  Speaker 1: Few enough and scattered enough were those abbeys, so as
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  Speaker 1: in no degree to disturb the deep solitude of the region,
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  Speaker 1: yet many enough to spread a network or awning of
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  Speaker 1: Christian sanctity over what else might have seemed a heathen wilderness. End.
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  Speaker 1: Now you cannot, indeed have here in England woods eighteen
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  Speaker 1: miles deep to the center. But you can perhaps keep
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  Speaker 1: a fairy or two for your children, yet, if you
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  Speaker 1: wished to keep them. But do you wish it? Suppose
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  Speaker 1: you had each at the back of your houses a
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  Speaker 1: garden large enough for your children to play in, with
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  Speaker 1: just as much long as would give them room to
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  Speaker 1: run no more, And that you could not change your abode,
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  Speaker 1: but that if you chose, you could double your income
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  Speaker 1: or quadruple it by digging a coal shaft in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the lawn and turning the flower beds into
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  Speaker 1: heaps of coke. Would you do it? I think not.
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  Speaker 1: I can tell you you would be wrong if you did,
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  Speaker 1: though it gave you income sixtyfold instead of fourfold. Yet
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  Speaker 1: this is what you are doing with all England. The
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  Speaker 1: whole country is but a little garden, not more than
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  Speaker 1: enough for your children to run on the lawns of
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  Speaker 1: if you would let them all run there, And this
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  Speaker 1: little garden you will turn into furnace ground and fill
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  Speaker 1: with heaps of cinders if you can, and those children
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  Speaker 1: of yours not you will suffer for it, for the
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  Speaker 1: fairies will not be all banished. There are fairies of
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  Speaker 1: the furnace, as of the wood, and their first gifts
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  Speaker 1: seemed to be quote sharp arrows of the mighty unquote.
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  Speaker 1: But their last gifts are quote coals of junip And
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  Speaker 1: yet I cannot though there is no part of my
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  Speaker 1: subject that I feel more pressed us upon you, For
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  Speaker 1: we made so little use of the power of nature
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  Speaker 1: while we had it, that we shall hardly feel what
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  Speaker 1: we have lost. Just on the other side of the mercy,
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  Speaker 1: you have your snowden and your Manai straits, and that
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  Speaker 1: mighty granite rock beyond the moors of Anglesea, splendid in
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  Speaker 1: its heathery crest, and foot planted in the deep sea,
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  Speaker 1: once thought of as sacred, a divine promontory. Looking westward,
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  Speaker 1: the Holy Head of Headland, still not without awe when
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  Speaker 1: its red light glares first through storm. These are the hills,
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  Speaker 1: and these the bays and blue inlets, which among the
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  Speaker 1: Greeks would have been always loved, always fateful in influence
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  Speaker 1: on the national mind. That Snowden is your Panassus, but
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  Speaker 1: where are its muses? That Holy Head Mountain is your
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  Speaker 1: island of Aegina, But where is its temple? To maner?
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  Speaker 1: Shall I read you what the Christian Minerva had achieved
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  Speaker 1: under the shadow of our Parnassus up to the year
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  Speaker 1: eighteen forty eight. Here is a little account of a
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  Speaker 1: Welsh school from page two sixty one of the Report
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  Speaker 1: on Wales published by the Committee of Council on Education.
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  Speaker 1: This is a school close to a town, containing five
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  Speaker 1: thousand persons. Quote. I then called up a larger class,
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  Speaker 1: most of whom had recently come to the school. Three
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  Speaker 1: girls repeatedly declared they had never heard of Christ, and
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  Speaker 1: two that they had never heard of God. Two out
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  Speaker 1: of six thought Christ was on earth now quote they
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  Speaker 1: might have had a worse thought, perhaps, quote three knew
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  Speaker 1: nothing about the crucifixion. Four out of seven did not
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  Speaker 1: know the names of the months, nor the number of
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  Speaker 1: days in a year. They had no notion of addition
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  Speaker 1: beyond two and two or three and three. Their minds
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  Speaker 1: were perfect blanks. Unquote. O, ye women of England, from
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  Speaker 1: the princess of that Whales to the simplest of you,
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  Speaker 1: do not think your own children can be brought into
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  Speaker 1: their true fold of rest while these are scattered on
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  Speaker 1: the hills as sheep having no shepherd. And do not
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  Speaker 1: think your daughters can be trained to the truth of
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  Speaker 1: their own human beauty, while the pleasant places which God
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  Speaker 1: made at once for their school room and their playground
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  Speaker 1: lie desolate and defiled. You cannot baptize them rightly in
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  Speaker 1: those inch deep fonts of yours, unless you baptize them
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  Speaker 1: also in the sweet waters which the Great Loggiver strikes
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  Speaker 1: forth forever from the rocks of your native land, waters
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  Speaker 1: which a pagan would have worshiped in their purity, and
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  Speaker 1: you only worship with pollution. You cannot lead your children
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  Speaker 1: faithfully to those narrow, axe hewn church altars of yours,
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  Speaker 1: While the dark azure altars in heaven, the mountains that
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  Speaker 1: sustain your island throne, mountains on which a pagan would
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  Speaker 1: have seen the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed cloud,
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  Speaker 1: remain for you without inscription, altars built not two but
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  Speaker 1: by an unknown God. Three. Thus far then, of the nature,
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  Speaker 1: thus far of the teaching of women, and thus of
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  Speaker 1: her household office and queenliness. We come now to our last,
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  Speaker 1: our wildest question. What is her queenly office? With respect
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  Speaker 1: to the state. Generally, we are under an impression that
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  Speaker 1: a man's duties are public and a woman's private. But
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  Speaker 1: this is not altogether. So a man has a personal
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  Speaker 1: work or duty relating to his own home, and a
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  Speaker 1: public work or duty, which is the expansion of the other,
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  Speaker 1: relating to the state. So a woman has a personal
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  Speaker 1: work or duty relating to her own home, and a
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  Speaker 1: public work and duty, which is also the expansion of that. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the man's work for his own home is, as has
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  Speaker 1: been said, to secure its maintenance, progress, and defense. The
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  Speaker 1: woman's to secure its order, comfort, and loveliness. Expand both
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  Speaker 1: these functions, the man's duty as a member of a
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  Speaker 1: commonwealth is to assist in the maintenance, in the advance,
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  Speaker 1: in the defense of the state. The woman's duty as
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  Speaker 1: a member of the commonwealth is to assist in the ordering,
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  Speaker 1: in the comforting, and in the beautiful adornment of the state.
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  Speaker 1: What the man is at his own gait, defending it,
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  Speaker 1: if need be, against insult and spoil, that also, not
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  Speaker 1: in a less but in a more devoted measure, he
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  Speaker 1: is to be at the gate of his country, leaving
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  Speaker 1: his home, if need be, even to the spoiler, to
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  Speaker 1: do his more incumbent work there. And in like manner,
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  Speaker 1: what the woman is to be within her gates, as
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  Speaker 1: the center of order, the bomb of distress, and the
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  Speaker 1: mirror of beauty. That she is also to be without
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  Speaker 1: her gates, where order is more difficult, distress more eminent,
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  Speaker 1: loveliness more rare. And as within the human heart there
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  Speaker 1: is always set an instruct for all its real duties,
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  Speaker 1: an instinct which you cannot quench, but only warp and
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  Speaker 1: corrupt if you withdraw it from its true purpose, As
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  Speaker 1: there is the intense instinct of love, which rightly disciplined
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  Speaker 1: maintains all the sanctities of life, and misdirected undermines them,
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  Speaker 1: and must do there the one or the other. So
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  Speaker 1: there is in the human heart an inextinguishable instinct the
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  Speaker 1: love of power, which rightly directed maintains all the majesty
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  Speaker 1: of law and life, and misdirected recks them. Deep rooted
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  Speaker 1: in the innermost life of the heart of man and
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  Speaker 1: of the heart of woman. God set it there, and
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  Speaker 1: God keeps it there vainly as falsely you blame or
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  Speaker 1: rebuke the desire of power. For Heaven's sake and for
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  Speaker 1: man's sake, desire it all you can. But what power
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  Speaker 1: that is all the question? Power to destroy the lion's
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  Speaker 1: limb and the dragon's breath, not so power to heal,
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  Speaker 1: to redeem, to guide and to guard, power of the
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  Speaker 1: scepter and shield. The power of the royal hand that
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  Speaker 1: heals in touching, that binds the fiend and loses the captive,
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  Speaker 1: The throne that is founded on the rock of justice,
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  Speaker 1: and descended from only by steps of mercy. Will you
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  Speaker 1: not covet such power as this, and seek such throne
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  Speaker 1: as this? And be no more housewives but queens. It
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  Speaker 1: is now long since the women of England arrogated universally
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  Speaker 1: a title which once belonged to nobility only, and having
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  Speaker 1: once been in the habit of accepting the simple title
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  Speaker 1: of gentlewoman as correspondent to that of gentlemen, insisted on
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  Speaker 1: the privilege of assuming the title of lady. Footnote. I
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  Speaker 1: wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for
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  Speaker 1: our English youth of certain ranks, in which both boy
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  Speaker 1: and girl should receive, at a given age their knighthood
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  Speaker 1: and ladyhood by true title, attainable only by certain probation
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  Speaker 1: and trial, both of character and accomplishment, than to be
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  Speaker 1: forfeited on conviction by their peers of any dishonorable act.
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  Speaker 1: Institution would be entirely and with all noble results possible
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  Speaker 1: in a nation which loved honor. That it would not
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  Speaker 1: be possible among us is not to be the discredit
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  Speaker 1: of the scheme and a footnote lady which properly corresponds
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  Speaker 1: only to the title of lord. I do not blame
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  Speaker 1: them for this, but only for their narrow motive in this.
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  Speaker 1: I would have them desire and claim the title of lady,
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  Speaker 1: provided they claim not merely the title, but the office
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  Speaker 1: and duty signified by it lady means bread giver or
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  Speaker 1: loaf giver, and lord means maintainer of laws. And both
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  Speaker 1: titles have reference not to the law which is maintained
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  Speaker 1: in the house, nor to the bread which is given
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  Speaker 1: to the household, but to law maintained for the multitude,
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  Speaker 1: and to bread broken among the multitude. So that a
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  Speaker 1: lord has legal claim only to his title in so
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  Speaker 1: far as he is the maintainer of the justice of
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  Speaker 1: the lord of lords, and a lady has legal claim
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  Speaker 1: to her title only so far as she communicates that
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  Speaker 1: help to the poor representatives of her master, which women,
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  Speaker 1: once ministering to him of their substance, were permitted to
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  Speaker 1: extend to that master himself, and when she is known
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  Speaker 1: as he himself once was in breaking of bread. End
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  Speaker 1: of Section fourteen.