LETTER XI.
The Satanic Power is mainly Twofold: the Power of causing Falsehood and the Power of causing Pain, The Resistance is by Law of Honour and Law of Delight.
59. You may perhaps have thought my last three or four letters mere rhapsodies. They are nothing of the kind; they are accurate accounts of literal facts, which we have to deal with daily. This thing, or power, opposed to God's power, and specifically called "Mammon" in the Sermon on the Mount, is, in deed and in truth, a continually present and active enemy, properly called "Arch-enemy," that is to say, "Beginning and Prince of Enemies," and daily we have to record our vote for, or against him. Of the manner of which record we were next to consider.
60. This enemy is always recognisable, briefly in two functions. He is pre-eminently the Lord of Lies and the Lord of Pain. Wherever Lies are, he is; wherever Pain is, he has been—so that of the Spirit of Wisdom (who is called God's Helper, as Satan His Adversary) it is written, not only that by her Kings reign, and Princes decree justice, but also that her ways are ways of Pleasantness, and all her paths Peace.
Therefore, you will succeed, you working men, in recording your votes against this arch-enemy, precisely in the degree in which you can do away with falsehood and pain in your work and lives; and bring truth into the one, and pleasure into the other; all education being directed to make yourselves and your children capable of Honesty and capable of Delight; and to rescue yourselves from iniquity and agony. And this is what I meant by saying in the preface to 'Unto this Last' that the central requirement of education consisted in giving habits of gentleness and justice; "gentleness" (as I will show you presently) being the best single word I could have used to express the capacity for giving and receiving true pleasure; and "justice" being similarly the most comprehensive word for all kind of honest dealing.
61. Now, I began these letters with the purpose of explaining the nature of the requirements of justice first, and then those of gentleness, but I allowed myself to be led into that talk about the theatres, not only because the thoughts could be more easily written as they came, but also because I was able thus to illustrate for you more directly the nature of the enemy we have to deal with. You do not perhaps know, though I say this diffidently (for I often find working men know many things which one would have thought were out of their way), that music was, among the Greeks, quite the first means of education; and that it was so connected with their system of ethics and of intellectual training, that the God of Music is with them also the God of Righteousness ;—the God who purges and avenges iniquity, and contends with their Satan as represented under the form of Python, "the corrupter." And the Greeks were incontrovertibly right in this. Music is the nearest at hand, the most orderly, the most delicate, and the most perfect, of all bodily pleasures; it is also the only one which is equally helpful to all the ages of man,—helpful from the nurse's song to her infant, to the music, unheard of others, which so often haunts the deathbed of pure and innocent spirits. And the action of the deceiving or devilish power is in nothing shown quite so distinctly among us at this day,—not even in our commercial dishonesties, nor in our social cruelties,—as in its having been able to take away music, as an instrument of education, altogether; and to enlist it almost wholly in the service of superstition on the one hand, and of sensuality on the other.
62. This power of the Muses, then, and its proper influence, over you workmen, I shall eventually have much to insist upon with you; and in doing so I shall take that beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son (which I have already referred to), and explain, as far as I know, the significance of it, and then I will take the three means of festivity, or wholesome human joy, therein stated,—fine dress, rich food, and music;—("bring forth the fairest robe for him,"—"bring forth the fatted calf, and kill it;" "as he drew nigh, he heard music and dancing"); and I will show you how all these three things, fine dress, rich food, and music (including ultimately all the other arts) are meant to be sources of life, and means of moral discipline, to all men; and how they have all three been made, by the Devil, the means of guilt, dissoluteness, and death.[1] But first I must return to my original plan of these letters, and endeavour to set down for you some of the laws which, in a true Working Men's Parliament, must be ordained in defence of Honesty.
Of which laws (preliminary to all others, and necessary above all others), having now somewhat got my ravelled threads together again, I will begin talk in my next letter.
- ↑ See 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXIV.