by John Ruskin
CHAPTER III.
COIN-KEEPING.
68. It will be seen by reference to the last chapter that our presenttask is to examine the relation of holders of store to holders ofcurrency; and of both to those who hold neither. In order to do this, wemust determine on which side we are to place substances such as gold,commonly known as bases of currency. By aid of previous definitions thereader will now be able to understand closer statements than have yetbeen possible.
69. _The currency of any country consists of every documentacknowledging debt, which is transferable in the country._[33]
This transferableness depends upon its intelligibility and credit. Itsintelligibility depends chiefly on the difficulty of forging anythinglike it;--its credit much on national character, but ultimately _alwayson the existence of substantial means of meeting its demand_.[34]
As the degrees of transferableness are variable, (some documents passingonly in certain places, and others passing, if at all, for less thantheir inscribed value), both the mass, and, so to speak, fluidity, ofthe currency, are variable. True or perfect currency flows freely, likea pure stream; it becomes sluggish or stagnant in proportion to thequantity of less transferable matter which mixes with it, adding to itsbulk, but diminishing its purity. [Articles of commercial value, onwhich bills are drawn, increase the currency indefinitely; andsubstances of intrinsic value if stamped or signed without restrictionso as to become acknowledgments of debt, increase it indefinitely also.]Every bit of gold found in Australia, so long as it remains uncoined, isan article offered for sale like any other; but as soon as it is coinedinto pounds, it diminishes the value of every pound we have now in ourpockets.
70. Legally authorized or national currency, in its perfect condition,is a form of public acknowledgment of debt, so regulated and dividedthat any person presenting a commodity of tried worth in the publicmarket, shall, if he please, receive in exchange for it a documentgiving him claim to the return of its equivalent, (1) in any place, (2)at any time, and (3) in any kind.
When currency is quite healthy and vital, the persons entrusted with itsmanagement are always able to give on demand either,
A. The assigning document for the assigned quantity of goods. Or,
B. The assigned quantity of goods for the assigning document.
If they cannot give document for goods, the national exchange is atfault.
If they cannot give goods for document, the national credit is at fault.
The nature and power of the document are therefore to be examined underthe three relations it bears to Place, Time, and Kind.
71. (1.) It gives claim to the return of equivalent wealth in any_Place_. Its use in this function is to save carriage, so that partingwith a bushel of corn in London, we may receive an order for a bushel ofcorn at the Antipodes, or elsewhere. To be perfect in this use, thesubstance of currency must be to the maximum portable, credible, andintelligible. Its non-acceptance or discredit results always from someform of ignorance or dishonour: so far as such interruptions rise outof differences in denomination, there is no ground for their continuanceamong civilized nations. It may be convenient in one country to usechiefly copper for coinage, in another silver, and in anothergold,--reckoning accordingly in centimes, francs, or zecchins: but thata franc should be different in weight and value from a shilling, and azwanziger vary from both, is wanton loss of commercial power.
72. (2.) It gives claim to the return of equivalent wealth at any_Time_. In this second use, currency is the exponent of accumulation: itrenders the laying-up of store at the command of individuals unlimitedlypossible;--whereas, but for its intervention, all gathering would beconfined within certain limits by the bulk of property, or by its decay,or the difficulty of its guardianship. "I will pull down my barns andbuild greater," cannot be a daily saying; and all material investment isenlargement of care. The national currency transfers the guardianship ofthe store to many; and preserves to the original producer the right ofre-entering on its possession at any future period.
73. (3.) It gives claim (practical, though not legal) to the return ofequivalent wealth in any _Kind_. It is a transferable right, not merelyto this or that, but to anything; and its power in this function isproportioned to the range of choice. If you give a child an apple or atoy, you give him a determinate pleasure, but if you give him a penny,an indeterminate one, proportioned to the range of selection offered bythe shops in the village. The power of the world's currency is similarlyin proportion to the openness of the world's fair, and, commonly,enhanced by the brilliancy of external aspect, rather than solidity ofits wares.
74. We have said that the currency consists of orders for equivalentgoods. If equivalent, their quality must be guaranteed. The kinds ofgoods chosen for specific claim must, therefore, be capable of test,while, also, that a store may be kept in hand to meet the call of thecurrency, smallness of bulk, with great relative value, is desirable;and indestructibility, over at least a certain period, essential.
Such indestructibility, and facility of being tested, are united ingold; its intrinsic value is great, and its imaginary value greater; sothat, partly through indolence, partly through necessity and want oforganization, most nations have agreed to take gold for the only basisof their currencies;--with this grave disadvantage, that its portabilityenabling the metal to become an active part of the medium of exchange,the stream of the currency itself becomes opaque with gold--halfcurrency and half commodity, in unison of functions which partlyneutralize, partly enhance each other's force.
75. They partly neutralize, since in so far as the gold is commodity, itis bad currency, because liable to sale; and in so far as it iscurrency, it is bad commodity, because its exchange value interfereswith its practical use. Especially its employment in the higher branchesof the arts becomes unsafe on account of its liability to be melted downfor exchange.
Again. They partly enhance, since in so far as the gold has acknowledgedintrinsic value, it is good currency, because everywhere acceptable; andin so far as it has legal exchangeable value, its worth as a commodityis increased. We want no gold in the form of dust or crystal; but weseek for it coined, because in that form it will pay baker and butcher.And this worth in exchange not only absorbs a large quantity in thatuse,[35] but greatly increases the effect on the imagination of thequantity used in the arts. Thus, in brief, the force of the functions isincreased, but their precision blunted, by their unison.
76. These inconveniences, however, attach to gold as a basis of currencyon account of its portability and preciousness. But a far greaterinconvenience attaches to it as the only legal basis of currency.Imagine gold to be only attainable in masses weighing several poundseach, and its value, like that of malachite or marble, proportioned toits largeness of bulk;--it could not then get itself confused with thecurrency in daily use, but it might still remain as its basis; and thissecond inconvenience would still affect it, namely, that itssignificance as an expression of debt varies, as that of every otherarticle would, with the popular estimate of its desirableness, and withthe quantity offered in the market. My power of obtaining other goodsfor gold depends always on the strength of public passion for gold, andon the limitation of its quantity, so that when either of two thingshappen--that the world esteems gold less, or finds it more easily--_myright of claim is in that degree effaced_; and it has been even gravelymaintained that a discovery of a mountain of gold would cancel theNational Debt; in other words, that men may be paid for what costs muchin what costs nothing. Now, it is true that there is little chance ofsudden convulsion in this respect; the world will not so rapidlyincrease in wisdom as to despise gold on a sudden; and perhaps may [fora little time] desire it more eagerly the more easily it is obtained;nevertheless, the right of debt ought not to rest on a basis ofimagination; nor should the frame of a national currency vibrate withevery miser's panic, and every merchant's imprudence.
77. There are two methods of avoiding this insecurity, which would havebeen fallen upon long ago, if, in
stead of calculating the conditions ofthe supply of gold, men had only considered how the world might live andmanage its affairs without gold at all.[36] One is, to base the currencyon substances of truer intrinsic value; the other, to base it onseveral substances instead of one. If I can only claim gold, thediscovery of a golden mountain starves me; but if I can claim bread, thediscovery of a continent of corn-fields need not trouble me. If,however, I wish to exchange my bread for other things, a good harvestwill for the time limit my power in this respect; but if I can claimeither bread, iron, or silk at pleasure, the standard of value has threefeet instead of one, and will be proportionately firm. Thus, ultimately,the steadiness of currency depends upon the breadth of its base; but thedifficulty of organization increasing with this breadth, the discoveryof the condition at once safest and most convenient[37] can only be bylong analysis, which must for the present be deferred. Gold orsilver[38] may always be retained in limited use, as a luxury of coinageand questionless standard, of one weight and alloy among all nations,varying only in the die. The purity of coinage, when metallic, isclosely indicative of the honesty of the system of revenue, and even ofthe general dignity of the State.[39]
78. Whatever the article or articles may be which the national currencypromises to pay, a premium on that article indicates bankruptcy of thegovernment in that proportion, the division of its assets beingrestrained only by the remaining confidence of the holders of notes inthe return of prosperity to the firm. Currencies of forced acceptance,or of unlimited issue, are merely various modes of disguising taxation,and delaying its pressure, until it is too late to interfere with thecause of pressure. To do away with the possibility of such disguisewould have been among the first results of a true economical science,had any such existed; but there have been too many motives for theconcealment, so long as it could by any artifices be maintained, topermit hitherto even the founding of such a science.
79. And indeed, it is only through evil conduct, wilfully persisted in,that there is any embarrassment, either in the theory or working ofcurrency. No exchequer is ever embarrassed, nor is any financialquestion difficult of solution, when people keep their practice honest,and their heads cool. But when governments lose all office of pilotage,protection, or scrutiny; and live only in magnificence of authorizedlarceny, and polished mendacity; or when the people, choosingSpeculation (the s usually redundant in the spelling) instead of Toil,visit no dishonesty with chastisement, that each may with impunity takehis dishonest turn;--there are no tricks of financial terminology thatwill save them; all signature and mintage do but magnify the ruin theyretard; and even the riches that remain, stagnant or current, changeonly from the slime of Avernus to the sand of Phlegethon--_quick_sand atthe embouchure;--land fluently recommended by recent auctioneers as"eligible for building leases."
80. Finally, then, the power of true currency is fourfold.
(1.) Credit power. Its worth in exchange, dependent on public opinion ofthe stability and honesty of the issuer.
(2.) Real worth. Supposing the gold, or whatever else the currencyexpressly promises, to be required from the issuer, for all his notes;and that the call cannot be met in full. Then the actual worth of thedocument would be, and its actual worth at any moment is, therefore tobe defined as, what the division of the assets of the issuer wouldproduce for it.
(3.) The exchange power, of its base. Granting that we can get fivepounds in gold for our note, it remains a question how much of otherthings we can get for five pounds in gold. The more of other thingsexist, and the less gold, the greater this power.
(4.) The power over labour, exercised by the given quantity of the base,or of the things to be got for it. The question in this case is, howmuch work, and (question of questions!) _whose_ work, is to be had forthe food which five pounds will buy. This depends on the number of thepopulation, on their gifts, and on their dispositions, with which, downto their slightest humours, and up to their strongest impulses, thepower of the currency varies.
81. Such being the main conditions of national currency, we proceed toexamine those of the total currency, under the broad definition,"transferable acknowledgment of debt;"[40] among the many forms ofwhich there are in effect only two, distinctly opposed; namely, theacknowledgments of debts which will be paid, and of debts which willnot. Documents, whether in whole or part, of bad debt, being to those ofgood debt as bad money to bullion, we put for the present these forms ofimposture aside (as in analysing a metal we should wash it clear ofdross), and then range, in their exact quantities, the true currency ofthe country on one side, and the store or property of the country on theother. We place gold, and all such substances, on the side of documents,as far as they operate by signature;--on the side of store as far asthey operate by value. Then the currency represents the quantity of debtin the country, and the store the quantity of its possession. Theownership of all the property is divided between the holders of currencyand holders of store, and whatever the claiming value of the currency isat any moment, that value is to be deducted from the riches of thestore-holders.
82. Farther, as true currency represents by definition debts which willbe paid, it represents either the debtor's wealth, or his ability andwillingness; that is to say, either wealth existing in his handstransferred to him by the creditor, or wealth which, as he is at sometime surely to return it, he is either increasing, or, if diminishing,has the will and strength to reproduce. A sound currency therefore, asby its increase it represents enlarging debt, represents also enlargingmeans; but in this curious way, that a certain quantity of it marks thedeficiency of the wealth of the country from what it would have been ifthat currency had not existed.[41] In this respect it is like thedetritus of a mountain; assume that it lies at a fixed angle, and themore the detritus, the larger must be the mountain; but it would havebeen larger still, had there been none.
83. Farther, though, as above stated, every man possessing money hasusually also some property beyond what is necessary for his immediatewants, and men possessing property usually also hold currency beyondwhat is necessary for their immediate exchanges, it mainly determinesthe class to which they belong, whether in their eyes the money is anadjunct of the property, or the property of the money. In the first casethe holder's pleasure is in his possessions, and in his moneysubordinately, as the means of bettering or adding to them. In thesecond, his pleasure is in his money, and in his possessions only asrepresenting it. (In the first case the money is as an atmospheresurrounding the wealth, rising from it and raining back upon it; but inthe second, it is as a deluge, with the wealth floating, and for themost part perishing in it.[42]) The shortest distinction between the menis that the one wishes always to buy, and the other to sell.
84. Such being the great relations of the classes, their severalcharacters are of the highest importance to the nation; for on thecharacter of the store-holders chiefly depend the preservation, display,and serviceableness of its wealth; on that of the currency-holders, itsdistribution; on that of both, its reproduction.
We shall, therefore, ultimately find it to be of incomparably greaterimportance to the nation in whose hands the thing is put, than how muchof it is got; and that the character of the holders may be conjecturedby the quality of the store; for such and such a man always asks forsuch and such a thing; nor only asks for it, but if it can be bettered,betters it: so that possession and possessor reciprocally act on eachother, through the entire sum of national possession. The base nation,asking for base things, sinks daily to deeper vileness of nature andweakness in use; while the noble nation, asking for noble things, risesdaily into diviner eminence in both; the tendency to degradation beingsurely marked by "[Greek: ataxia];" that is to say, (expanding the Greekthought), by carelessness as to the hands in which things are put,consequent dispute for the acquisition of them, disorderliness in theaccumulation of them, inaccuracy in the estimate of them, and bluntnessin conception as to the entire nature of possession.
85. The currency-holders always increase in number a
nd influence inproportion to the bluntness of nature and clumsiness of thestore-holders; for the less use people can make of things, the more theywant of them, and the sooner weary of them, and want to change them forsomething else; and all frequency of change increases the quantity andpower of currency. The large currency-holder himself is essentially aperson who never has been able to make up his mind as to what he willhave, and proceeds, therefore, in vague collection and aggregation, withmore and more infuriate passion, urged by complacency in progress,vacancy in idea, and pride of conquest.
While, however, there is this obscurity in the nature of possession ofcurrency, there is a charm in the seclusion of it, which is to somepeople very enticing. In the enjoyment of real property, others mustpartly share. The groom has some enjoyment of the stud, and the gardenerof the garden; but the money is, or seems, shut up; it is whollyenviable. No one else can have part in any complacencies arising fromit.
The power of arithmetical comparison is also a great thing tounimaginative people. They know always they are so much better than theywere, in money; so much better than others, in money; but wit cannot beso compared, nor character. My neighbour cannot be convinced that I amwiser than he is, but he can, that I am worth so much more; and theuniversality of the conviction is no less flattering than its clearness.Only a few can understand,--none measure--and few will willingly adore,superiorities in other things; but everybody can understand money,everybody can count it, and most will worship it.
86. Now, these various temptations to accumulation would be politicallyharmless if what was vainly accumulated had any fair chance of beingwisely spent. For as accumulation cannot go on for ever, but must someday end in its reverse--if this reverse were indeed a beneficialdistribution and use, as irrigation from reservoir, the fever ofgathering, though perilous to the gatherer, might be serviceable to thecommunity. But it constantly happens (so constantly, that it may bestated as a political law having few exceptions), that what isunreasonably gathered is also unreasonably spent by the persons intowhose hands it finally falls. Very frequently it is spent in war, orelse in a stupefying luxury, twice hurtful, both in being indulged bythe rich and witnessed by the poor. So that the _mal tener_ and _maldare_ are as correlative as complementary colours; and the circulationof wealth, which ought to be soft, steady, strong, far-sweeping, andfull of warmth, like the Gulf stream, being narrowed into an eddy, andconcentrated at a point, changes into the alternate suction andsurrender of Charybdis. Which is indeed, I doubt not, the true meaningof that marvellous fable, "infinite," as Bacon said of it, "in matter ofmeditation."[43]
87. It is a strange habit of wise humanity to speak in enigmas only, sothat the highest truths and usefullest laws must be hunted for throughwhole picture-galleries of dreams, which to the vulgar seem dreams only.Thus Homer, the Greek tragedians, Plato, Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare, andGoethe, have hidden all that is chiefly serviceable in their work, andin all the various literature they absorbed and re-embodied, under typeswhich have rendered it quite useless to the multitude. What is worse,the two primal declarers of moral discovery, Homer and Plato, are partlyat issue; for Plato's logical power quenched his imagination, and hebecame incapable of understanding the purely imaginative element eitherin poetry or painting: he therefore somewhat overrates the purediscipline of passionate art in song and music, and misses that ofmeditative art. There is, however, a deeper reason for his distrust ofHomer. His love of justice, and reverently religious nature, made himdread, as death, every form of fallacy; but chiefly, fallacy respectingthe world to come (his own myths being only symbolic exponents of arational hope). We shall perhaps now every day discover more clearly howright Plato was in this, and feel ourselves more and more wonderstruckthat men such as Homer and Dante (and, in an inferior sphere, Milton),not to speak of the great sculptors and painters of every age, havepermitted themselves, though full of all nobleness and wisdom, to coinidle imaginations of the mysteries of eternity, and guide the faiths ofthe families of the earth by the courses of their own vague andvisionary arts: while the indisputable truths of human life and duty,respecting which they all have but one voice, lie hidden behind theseveils of phantasy, unsought, and often unsuspected. I will gathercarefully, out of Dante and Homer, what, in this kind, bears on oursubject, in its due place; the first broad intention of their symbolsmay be sketched at once.
88. The rewards of a worthy use of riches, subordinate to other ends,are shown by Dante in the fifth and sixth orbs of Paradise; for thepunishment of their unworthy use, three places are assigned; one for theavaricious and prodigal whose souls are lost, (_Hell_, canto 7); one forthe avaricious and prodigal whose souls are capable of purification,(_Purgatory_, canto 19); and one for the usurers, of whom _none_ can beredeemed (_Hell_, canto 17). The first group, the largest in all hell("gente piu che altrove troppa," compare Virgil's "quae maxima turba"),meet in contrary currents, _as the_ _waves of Charybdis_, castingweights at each other from opposite sides. This weariness of contentionis the chief element of their torture; so marked by the beautiful linesbeginning "Or puoi, figliuol," &c.: (but the usurers, who made theirmoney inactively, _sit_ on the sand, equally without rest, however. "Diqua, di la, soccorrien," &c.) For it is not avarice, but _contention_for riches, leading to this double misuse of them, which, in Dante'slight, is the unredeemable sin. The place of its punishment is guardedby Plutus, "the great enemy," and "la fiera crudele," a spirit quitedifferent from the Greek Plutus, who, though old and blind, is notcruel, and is curable, so as to become far-sighted. ([Greek: ou typhlosall' oxy blepon].--Plato's epithets in first book of the _Laws_.) Stillmore does this Dantesque type differ from the resplendent Plutus ofGoethe in the second part of _Faust_, who is the personified power ofwealth for good or evil--not the passion for wealth; and again from thePlutus of Spenser, who is the passion of mere aggregation. Dante'sPlutus is specially and definitely the Spirit of Contention andCompetition, or Evil Commerce; because, as I showed before, this kind ofcommerce "makes all men strangers;" his speech is thereforeunintelligible, and no single soul of all those ruined by him _hasrecognizable features_.
On the other hand, the redeemable sins of avarice and prodigality are,in Dante's sight, those which are without deliberate or calculatedoperation. The lust, or lavishness, of riches can be purged, so long asthere has been no servile consistency of dispute and competition forthem. The sin is spoken of as that of degradation by the love of earth;it is purified by deeper humiliation--the souls crawl on their bellies;their chant is, "my soul cleaveth unto the dust." But the spirits thuscondemned are all recognizable, and even the worst examples of thethirst for gold, which they are compelled to tell the histories ofduring the night, are of men swept by the passion of avarice intoviolent crime, but not sold to its steady work.
89. The precept given to each of these spirits for its deliveranceis--Turn thine eyes to the lucre (lure) which the Eternal King rollswith the mighty wheels. Otherwise, the wheels of the "Greater Fortune,"of which the constellation is ascending when Dante's dream begins.Compare George Herbert--
"Lift up thy head; Take stars for money; stars, not to be told By any art, yet to be purchased."
And Plato's notable sentence in the third book of the _Polity_.--"Tellthem they have divine gold and silver in their souls for ever; that theyneed no money stamped of men--neither may they otherwise than impiouslymingle the gathering of the divine with the mortal treasure, _forthrough that which the law of the multitude has coined, endless crimeshave been done and suffered; but in their's is neither pollution norsorrow_."
90. At the entrance of this place of punishment an evil spirit is seenby Dante, quite other than the "Gran Nemico." The great enemy is obeyedknowingly and willingly; but this spirit--feminine--and called aSiren--is the "_Deceitfulness_ of riches," [Greek: apate ploutou] of theGospels, winning obedience by guile. This is the Idol of riches, madedoubly phantasmal by Dante's seeing her in a dream. She is lovely tolook upon, and enchants by her sweet singing, but her womb
is loathsome.Now, Dante does not call her one of the Sirens carelessly, any more thanhe speaks of Charybdis carelessly; and though he had got at the meaningof the Homeric fable only through Virgil's obscure tradition of it, theclue he has given us is quite enough. Bacon's interpretation, "theSirens, _or pleasures_," which has become universal since his time, isopposed alike to Plato's meaning and Homer's. The Sirens are notpleasures, but _Desires_: in the Odyssey they are the phantoms of vaindesire; but in Plato's Vision of Destiny, phantoms of divine desire;singing each a different note on the circles of the distaff ofNecessity, but forming one harmony, to which the three great Fates putwords. Dante, however, adopted the Homeric conception of them, which wasthat they were demons of the Imagination, not carnal; (desire of theeyes; not lust of the flesh); therefore said to be daughters of theMuses. Yet not of the Muses, heavenly or historical but of the Muse ofpleasure; and they are at first winged, because even vain hope excitesand helps when first formed; but afterwards, contending for thepossession of the imagination with the Muses themselves, they aredeprived of their wings.
91. And thus we are to distinguish the Siren power from the power ofCirce, who is no daughter of the Muses, but of the strong elements, Sunand Sea; her power is that of frank, and full vital pleasure, which, ifgoverned and watched, nourishes men; but, unwatched, and having no"moly," bitterness or delay, mixed with it, turns men into beasts, butdoes not slay them,--leaves them, on the contrary, power of revival. Sheis herself indeed an Enchantress;--pure Animal life; transforming--ordegrading--but always wonderful (she puts the stores on board the shipinvisibly, and is gone again, like a ghost); even the wild beastsrejoice and are softened around her cave; the transforming poisons shegives to men are mixed with no rich feast, but with pure and rightnourishment,--Pramnian wine, cheese, and flour; that is, wine, milk, andcorn, the three great sustainers of life--it is their own fault if thesemake swine of them; (see Appendix V.) and swine are chosen merely as thetype of consumption; as Plato's [Greek: hyon polis], in the second bookof the _Polity_, and perhaps chosen by Homer with a deeper knowledge ofthe likeness in variety of nourishment, and internal form of body.
"Et quel est, s'il vous plait, cet audacieux animal qui se permet d'etrebati au dedans comme une jolie petite fille?"
"Helas! chere enfant, j'ai honte de le nommer, et il ne faudra pas m'envouloir. C'est ... c'est le cochon. Ce n'est pas precisement flatteurpour vous; mais nous en sommes tous la, et si cela vous contrarie partrop, il faut aller vous plaindre au bon Dieu qui a voulu que les chosesfussent arrangees ainsi: seulement le cochon, qui ne pense qu'a manger,a l'estomac bien plus vaste que nous et c'est toujours uneconsolation."--_(Histoire d'une Bouchee de Pain_, Lettre ix.)
92. But the deadly Sirens are in all things opposed to the Circeanpower. They promise pleasure, but never give it. They nourish in nowise; but slay by slow death. And whereas they corrupt the heart andthe head, instead of merely betraying the senses, there is no recoveryfrom their power; they do not tear nor scratch, like Scylla, but the menwho have listened to them are poisoned, and waste away. Note that theSirens' field is covered, not merely with the bones, but with the_skins_, of those who have been consumed there. They address themselves,in the part of the song which Homer gives, not to the passions ofUlysses, but to his vanity, and the only man who ever came withinhearing of them, and escaped untempted, was Orpheus, who silenced thevain imaginations by singing the praises of the gods.
93. It is, then, one of these Sirens whom Dante takes as the phantasm ordeceitfulness of riches; but note further, that she says it was her songthat deceived Ulysses. Look back to Dante's account of Ulysses' death,and we find it was not the love of money, but pride of knowledge, thatbetrayed him; whence we get the clue to Dante's complete meaning: thatthe souls whose love of wealth is pardonable have been first deceivedinto pursuit of it by a dream of its higher uses, or by ambition. HisSiren is therefore the Philotime of Spenser, daughter of Mammon--
"Whom all that folk with such contention Do flock about, my deare, my daughter is-- Honour and dignitie from her alone Derived are."
By comparing Spenser's entire account of this Philotime with Dante's ofthe Wealth-Siren, we shall get at the full meaning of both poets; butthat of Homer lies hidden much more deeply. For his Sirens areindefinite; and they are desires of any evil thing; power of wealth isnot specially indicated by him, until, escaping the 'harmonious dangerof imagination, Ulysses has to choose between two practical ways oflife, indicated by the two _rocks_ of Scylla and Charybdis. The monstersthat haunt them are quite distinct from the rocks themselves, which,having many other subordinate significations, are in the main Labour andIdleness, or getting and spending; each with its attendant monster, orbetraying demon. The rock of gaining has its summit in the clouds,invisible, and not to be climbed; that of spending is low, but marked bythe cursed fig-tree, which has leaves, but no fruit. We know the typeelsewhere; and there is a curious lateral allusion to it by Dante whenJacopo di Sant' Andrea, who had ruined himself by profusion andcommitted suicide, scatters the leaves of the bush of Lotto degli Agli,endeavouring to hide himself among them. We shall hereafter examine thetype completely; here I will only give an approximate rendering ofHomer's words, which have been obscured more by translation than even bytradition.
94. "They are overhanging rocks. The great waves of blue water breakround them; and the blessed Gods call them the Wanderers.
"By one of them no winged thing can pass--not even the wild doves thatbring ambrosia to their father Jove--but the smooth rock seizes itssacrifice of them." (Not even ambrosia to be had without Labour. Theword is peculiar--as a part of anything is offered for Sacrifice;especially used of heave-offering.) "It reaches the wide heaven with itstop, and a dark blue cloud rests on it, and never passes; neither doesthe clear sky hold it, in summer nor in harvest. Nor can any man climbit--not if he had twenty feet and hands, for it is smooth as though itwere hewn.
"And in the midst of it is a cave which is turned the way of hell. Andtherein dwells Scylla, whining for prey: her cry, indeed, is no louderthan that of a newly-born whelp: but she herself is an awful thing--norcan any creature see her face and be glad; no, though it were a god thatrose against her. For she has twelve feet, all fore-feet, and six necks,and terrible heads on them; and each has three rows of teeth, full ofblack death.
"But the opposite rock is lower than this, though but a bow-shotdistant; and upon it there is a great fig-tree, full of leaves; andunder it the terrible Charybdis sucks down the black water. Thrice inthe day she sucks it down, and thrice; casts it up again: be not thouthere when she sucks down, for Neptune himself could not save thee."
[Thus far went my rambling note, in _Fraser's Magazine_. The Editor sentme a compliment on it--of which I was very proud; what the Publisherthought of it, I am not informed; only I know that eventually he stoppedthe papers. I think a great deal of it myself, now, and have put it allin large print accordingly, and should like to write more; but will, onthe contrary, self-denyingly, and in gratitude to any reader who has gotthrough so much, end my chapter.]
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Remember this definition: it is of great importance as opposed tothe imperfect ones usually given. When first these essays werepublished, I remember one of their reviewers asking contemptuously, "Ishalf-a-crown a document?" it never having before occurred to him that adocument might be stamped as well as written, and stamped on silver aswell as on parchment.
[34] I do not mean the demand of the holder of a five-pound note forfive pounds, but the demand of the holder of a pound for a pound's worthof something good.
[35] [Read and think over, the following note very carefully.] The wasteof labour in obtaining the gold, though it cannot be estimated by helpof any existing data, may be understood in its bearing on entire economyby supposing it limited to transactions between two persons. If twofarmers in Australia have been exchanging corn and cattle with eachother for years, keeping their accounts of reciprocal debt in any simpleway, the sum of th
e possessions of either would not be diminished,though the part of it which was lent or borrowed were only reckoned bymarks on a stone, or notches on a tree; and the one counted himselfaccordingly, so many scratches, or so many notches, better than theother. But it would soon be seriously diminished if, discovering gold intheir fields, each resolved only to accept golden counters for areckoning; and accordingly, whenever he wanted a sack of corn or a cow,was obliged to go and wash sand for a week before he could get the meansof giving a receipt for them.
[36] It is difficult to estimate the curious futility of discussionssuch as that which lately occupied a section of the British Association,on the absorption of gold, while no one can produce even the simplest ofthe data necessary for the inquiry. To take the first occurringone,--What means have we of ascertaining the weight of gold employedthis year in the toilettes of the women of Europe (not to speak ofAsia); and, supposing it known, what means of conjecturing the weight bywhich, next year, their fancies, and the changes of style among theirjewellers, will diminish or increase it?
[37] See, in Pope's epistle to Lord Bathurst, his sketch of thedifficulties and uses of a currency literally "pecuniary"--(consistingof herds of cattle).
"His Grace will game--to White's a bull be led," &c.
[38] Perhaps both; perhaps silver only. It may be found expedientultimately to leave gold free for use in the arts. As a means ofreckoning, the standard might be, and in some cases has already been,entirely ideal.--_See_ Mill's _Political Economy_, book iii. chap. VII.at beginning.
[39] The purity of the drachma and zecchin were not without significanceof the state of intellect, art, and policy, both in Athens andVenice;--a fact first impressed upon me ten years ago, when, in takingdaguerreotypes at Venice, I found no purchaseable gold pure enough togild them with, except that of the old Venetian zecchin.
[40] Under which term, observe, we include all documents of debt, which,being honest, might be transferable, though they practically are nottransferred; while we exclude all documents which are in realityworthless, though in fact transferred temporarily, as bad money is. Thedocument of honest debt, not transferred, is merely to paper currency asgold withdrawn from circulation is to that of bullion. Much confusionhas crept into the reasoning on this subject from the idea that thewithdrawal from circulation is a definable state, whereas it is agraduated state, and indefinable. The sovereign in my pocket iswithdrawn from circulation as long as I choose to keep it there. It isno otherwise withdrawn if I bury it, nor even if I choose to make it,and others, into a golden cup, and drink out of them; since a rise inthe price of the wine, or of other things, may at any time cause me tomelt the cup and throw it back into currency; and the bullion operateson the prices of the things in the market as directly, though not asforcibly, while it is in the form of a cup as it does in the form of asovereign. No calculation can be founded on my humour in either case. IfI like to handle rouleaus, and therefore keep a quantity of gold, toplay with, in the form of jointed basaltic columns, it is all one in itseffect on the market as if I kept it in the form of twisted filigree,or, steadily "amicus lamnae," beat the narrow gold pieces into broadones, and dined off them. The probability is greater that I break therouleau than that I melt the plate; but the increased probability is notcalculable. Thus, documents are only withdrawn from the currency whencancelled, and bullion when it is so effectually lost as that theprobability of finding it is no greater than of finding new gold in themine.
[41] For example, suppose an active peasant, having got his ground intogood order and built himself a comfortable house, finding time still onhis hands, sees one of his neighbours little able to work, andill-lodged, and offers to build him also a house, and to put his land inorder, on condition of receiving for a given period rent for thebuilding and tithe of the fruits. The offer is accepted, and a documentgiven promissory of rent and tithe. This note is money. It can only begood money if the man who has incurred the debt so far recovers hisstrength as to be able to take advantage of the help he has received,and meet the demand of the note; if he lets his house fall to ruin, andhis field to waste, his promissory note will soon be valueless: but theexistence of the note at all is a consequence of his not having workedso stoutly as the other. Let him gain as much as to be able to pay backthe entire debt; the note is cancelled, and we have two richstore-holders and no currency.
[42] [You need not trouble yourself to make out the sentence inparenthesis, unless you like, but do not think it is mere metaphor. Itstates a fact which I could not have stated so shortly, _but_ bymetaphor.]
[43] [What follows, to the end of the chapter, was a note only, in thefirst printing; but for after service, it is of more value than anyother part of the book, so I have put it into the main text.]