Friends in Council Part 13

CHAPTER X.

After the reading in the last chapter, my friends walked homewards with me as far as Durley Wood, which is about half-way between Worth-Ashton and my house. As we rested here, we bethought ourselves that it would be a pleasant spot for us to come to sometimes and read our essays. So we agreed to name a day for meeting there. The day was favourable, we met as we had appointed, and finding some beech logs lying very opportunely, took possession of them for our council. We seated Ellesmere on one that we called the woolsack, but which he said he felt himself unworthy to occupy in the presence of King Log, pointing to mine. These nice points of etiquette being at last settled, Milverton drew out his papers and was about to begin reading, when Ellesmere thus interrupted him: --

Ellesmere. You were not in earnest, Milverton, about giving us an essay on population? Because if so, I think I shall leave this place to you and Dunsford and the ants.

Milverton. I certainly have been meditating something of the sort; but have not been able to make much of it.

Ellesmere. If I had been living in those days when it first beamed upon mankind that the earth was round, I am sure I should have said, "We know now the bounds of the earth: there are no interminable plains joined to the regions of the sun, allowing of indefinite sketchy outlines at the edges of maps. That little creature man will immediately begin to think that his world is too small for him."

Milverton. There has probably been as much folly uttered by political economy as against it, which is saying something. The danger as regards theories of political economy is the obvious one of their abstract conclusions being applied to concrete things.

Ellesmere. As if we were to expect mathematical lines to bear weights.

Milverton. Something like that. With a good system of logic pervading the public mind, this danger would of course be avoided; but such a state of mind is not likely to occur in any public that we or our grandchildren are likely to have to deal with. As it is, an ordinary man hears some conclusion of political economy, showing some particular tendency of things, which in real life meets with many counteractions of all kinds: but he, perhaps, adopts the conclusion without the least abatement, and would work it into life, as if all went on there like a rule-of-three sum.

Ellesmere. After all, this error arises from the man's not having enough political economy. It is not that a theory is good on paper, but unsound in real life. It is only that in real life you cannot get at the simple state of things to which the theory would rightly apply. You want many other theories and the just composition of them all to be able to work the whole problem. That being done (which, however, scarcely can be done), the result on paper might be read off as applicable at once to life. But now, touching the essay; since we are not to have population, what is it to be?

Milverton. Public improvements.

Ellesmere. Nearly as bad; but as this is a favourite subject of yours, I suppose it will not be polite to go away.

Milverton. No; you must listen.

PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS.

What are possessions? To an individual, the stores of his own heart and mind pre-eminently. His truth and valour are amongst the first.

His contentedness, or his resignation may be put next. Then his sense of beauty, surely a possession of great moment to him. Then all those mixed possessions which result from the social affections- -great possessions, unspeakable delights, much greater than the gift last mentioned in the former cla.s.s, but held on more uncertain tenure. Lastly, what are generally called possessions? However often we have heard of the vanity, uncertainty, and vexation that beset these last, we must not let this repet.i.tion deaden our minds to the fact.

Now, national possessions must be estimated by the same gradation that we have applied to individual possessions. If we consider national luxury, we shall see how small a part it may add to national happiness. Men of deserved renown, and peerless women, lived upon what we should now call the coa.r.s.est fare, and paced the rushes in their rooms with as high, or as contented thoughts, as their better-fed and better-clothed descendants can boast of. Man is limited in this direction; I mean, in the things that concern his personal gratification; but when you come to the higher enjoyments, the expansive power both in him and them is greater. As Keats says,

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever; Its loveliness increases; it will never Pa.s.s into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

What then are a nation's possessions? The great words that have been said in it; the great deeds that have been done in it; the great buildings, and the great works of art, that have been made in it. A man says a n.o.ble saying: it is a possession, first to his own race, then to mankind. A people get a n.o.ble building built for them: it is an honour to them, also a daily delight and instruction. It perishes. The remembrance of it is still a possession. If it was indeed pre-eminent, there will be more pleasure in thinking of it than in being with others of inferior order and design.

On the other hand, a thing of ugliness is potent for evil. It deforms the taste of the thoughtless: it frets the man who knows how bad it is: it is a disgrace to the nation who raised it; an example and an occasion for more monstrosities. If it is a great building in a great city, thousands of people pa.s.s it daily, and are the worse for it, or at least not the better. It must be done away with. Next to the folly of doing a bad thing is that of fearing to undo it. We must not look at what it has cost, but at what it is.

Millions may be spent upon some foolish device which will not the more make it into a possession, but only a more noticeable detriment.

It must not be supposed that works of art are the only, or the chief, public improvements needed in any country. Wherever men congregate, the elements become scarce. The supply of air, light, and water is then a matter of the highest public importance: and the magnificent utilitarianism of the Romans should precede the nice sense of beauty of the Greeks. Or rather, the former should be worked out in the latter. Sanitary improvements, like most good works, may be made to fulfil many of the best human objects.

Charity, social order, conveniency of living, and the love of the beautiful, may all be furthered by such improvements. A people is seldom so well employed as when, not suffering their attention to be absorbed by foreign quarrels and domestic broils, they bethink themselves of winning back those blessings of Nature which a.s.semblages of men mostly vitiate, exclude, or destroy.

Public improvements are sometimes most difficult in free countries.

The origination of them is difficult there, many diverse minds having to be persuaded. The individual, or cla.s.s, resistance to the public good is harder to conquer than in despotic states. And, what is most embarra.s.sing, perhaps, individual progress in the same direction, or individual doings in some other way, form a great hindrance, sometimes, to public enterprise. On the other hand, the energy of a free people is a mine of public welfare; and individual effort brings many good things to bear in much shorter time than any government could be expected to move in. A judicious statesman considers these things; and sets himself especially to overcome those peculiar obstacles to public improvement which belong to the inst.i.tutions of his country. Adventure in a despotic state, combined action in a free state, are the objects which peculiarly demand his attention.

To return to works of art. In this also the genius of the people is to be heeded. There may have been, there may be, nations requiring to be diverted from the love of art to stern labour and industrial conquests. But certainly it is not so with the Anglo-Saxon race, or with the Northern races generally. Money may enslave them; logic may enslave them; art never will. The chief men, therefore, in these races will do well sometimes to contend against the popular current, and to convince their people that there are other sources of delight, and other objects worthy of human endeavour, than severe money-getting or more material successes of any kind.

In fine, the substantial improvement, and even the embellishment of towns, is a work which both the central and local governing bodies in a country should keep a steady hand upon. It especially concerns them. What are they there for but to do that which individuals cannot do? It concerns them, too, as it tells upon the health, morals, education, and refined pleasures of the people they govern.

In doing it, they should avoid pedantry, parsimony, and favouritism; and their mode of action should be large, considerate, and foreseeing. Large; inasmuch as they must not easily be contented with the second best in any of their projects. Considerate; inasmuch as they have to think what their people need most, not what will make most show. And therefore, they should be contented, for instance, at their work going on underground for a time, or in byways, if needful; the best charity in public works, as in private, being often that which courts least notice. Lastly, their work should be with foresight, recollecting that cities grow up about us like young people, before we are aware of it.

Ellesmere. Another very merciful essay! When we had once got upon the subject of sanitary improvements, I thought we should soon be five fathom deep in blue-books, reports, interminable questions of sewerage, and horrors of all kinds.

Milverton. I am glad you own that I have been very tender of your impatience in this essay. People, I trust, are now so fully aware of the immense importance of sanitary improvements, that we do not want the elementary talking about such things that was formerly necessary. It is difficult, though, to say too much about sanitary matters, that is, if by saying much one could gain attention. I am convinced that the most fruitful source of physical evil to mankind has been impure air, arising from circ.u.mstances which might have been obviated. Plagues and pestilences of all kinds, cretinism too, and all scrofulous disorders, are probably mere questions of ventilation. A district may require ventilation as well as a house.

Ellesmere. Seriously speaking, I quite agree with you. And what delights me in sanitary improvements is, that they can hardly do harm. Give a poor man good air, and you do not diminish his self- reliance. You only add to his health and vigour--make more of a man of him. But now that the public mind, as it is facetiously called, has got hold of the idea of these improvements, everybody will be chattering about them.

Milverton. The very time when those who really do care for these matters should be watchful to make the most of the tide in their favour, and should not suffer themselves to relax their efforts because there is no originality now about such things.

Dunsford. Custom soon melts off the wings which Novelty alone has lent to Benevolence.

Ellesmere. And down comes the charitable Icarus. A very good simile, my dear Dunsford, but rather of the Latin-verse order. I almost see it worked into an hexameter and pentameter, and delighting the heart of an Eton boy.

Dunsford. Ellesmere is more than usually vicious to-day, Milverton.

A great "public improvement" would be to clip the tongues of some of these lawyers.

Ellesmere. Possibly. I have just been looking again at that part of the essay, Milverton, where you talk of the little gained by national luxury. I think with you. There is an immensity of nonsense uttered about making people happy, which is to be done, according to happiness-mongers, by quant.i.ties of sugar and tea, and such-like things. One knows the importance of food, but there is no Elysium to be got out of it.

Milverton. I know what you mean. There is a kind of pity for the people now in vogue which is most effeminate. It is a sugared sort of Robespierre talk about "The poor but virtuous People." To address such stuff to the people is not to give them anything, but to take away what they have. Suppose you could give them oceans of tea and mountains of sugar, and abundance of any luxury that you choose to imagine, but at the same time you inserted a hungry, envious spirit in them, what have you done? Then, again, this envious spirit, when it is turned to difference of station, what good can it do? Can you give station according to merit? Is life long enough for it?

Ellesmere. Of course we cannot always be weighing men with nicety, and saying, "Here is your place, here yours."

Milverton. Then, again, what happiness do you confer on men by teaching them to disrespect their superiors in rank, by turning all the embellishments which adorn various stations wrong side out, putting everything in its lowest form, and then saying, "What do you see to admire here?" You do not know what injury you may do a man when you destroy all reverence in him. It will be found out some day that men derive more pleasure and profit from having superiors than from having inferiors.

Dunsford. It is seldom that I bring you back to your subject, but we are really a long way off at present; and I want to know, Milverton, what you would do specifically in the way of public improvements. Of course you cannot say in an essay what you would do in such matters, but amongst ourselves. In London, for instance.

Milverton. The first thing for Government to do, Dunsford, in London, or any other great town, is to secure open s.p.a.ces in it and about it. Trafalgar Square may be dotted with hideous absurdities, but it is an open s.p.a.ce. They may collect together there specimens of every variety of meanness and bad taste; but they cannot prevent its being a better thing than if it were covered with houses.

Public money is scarcely ever so well employed as in securing bits of waste ground and keeping them as open s.p.a.ces. Then, as under the most favourable circ.u.mstances, we are likely to have too much carbon in the air of any town, we should plant trees to restore the just proportions of the air as far as we can. {161} Trees are also what the heart and the eye desire most in towns. The Boulevards in Paris show the excellent effect of trees against buildings. There are many parts of London where rows of trees might be planted along the streets. The weighty dulness of Portland Place, for instance, might be thus relieved. Of course, in any scheme of public improvements, the getting rid of smoke is one of the first objects.

Ellesmere. Yes, smoke is a great abuse; but then there is something ludicrous about it, just as there is about sewerage. I believe, myself, that for one person that the Corn Laws have injured, a dozen have had their lives shortened and their happiness abridged in every way by these less palpable nuisances. But there is no grandeur in opposing them--no "good cry" to be raised. And so, as abuses cannot be met in our days but by agitation--a committee, secretaries, clerks, newspapers, and a review--and as agitation in this case holds out fewer inducements than usual, we have gone on year after year being poisoned by these various nuisances, at an incalculable expense of life and money.

Milverton. There is something in what you say, I think, but you press it too far; for of late these sanitary subjects have worked themselves into notice, as you yourself admit.

Ellesmere. Late indeed.

Milverton. Well, but to go on with schemes for improving London.

Open s.p.a.ces, trees--then comes the supply of water. This is one of the first things to be done. Philadelphia has given an example which all towns ought to imitate. It is a matter requiring great thought, and the various plans should be thoroughly canva.s.sed before the choice is made. Great beauty and the highest utility may be combined in supplying a town like London with water. By the way, how much water do you think London requires daily?

Ellesmere. As much as the Serpentine and the water in St. James's Park.

Milverton. You are not so far out.

Well, then, having gone through the largest things that must be attended to, we come to minor matters. It is a great pity that the system of building upon leases should be so commonly adopted.

n.o.body expects to live out the leasehold term which he takes to build upon. But things would be better done if people were more averse to having anything to do with leasehold property. C. always says that the modern lath-and-plaster system is a wickedness, and upon my word I think he is right. It is inconceivable to me how a man can make up his mind to build, or to do anything else, in a temporary, slight, insincere fas.h.i.+on. What has a man to say for himself who must sum up the doings of his life in this way, "I chiefly employed myself in making or selling things which seemed to be good and were not, and n.o.body has occasion to bless me for anything I have done."