The Ethics of the Dust

NOTE V

"St. Barbara."

I WOULD have given the legends of St. Barbara, and St. Thomas, if I had thought it always well for young readers to have everything at once told them which they may wish to know. They will remember the stories better after taking some trouble to find them; and the text is intelligible enough as it stands. The idea of St. Barbara, as there given, is founded partly on her legend in Peter de Natahbus, partly on the beautiful photograph of Van Eyck's picture of her at Antwerp: which was some time since published at Lille.

NOTE VI

"King of the Valley of Diamonds."

ISABEL interrupted the Lecturer here, and was briefly bid to hold her tongue; which gave rise to some talk, apart, afterwards, between L. and Sibyl, of which a word or two may be perhaps advisably set down.

SIBYL. We shall spoil Isabel, certainly, if it don't mind: I was glad you stopped her, and yet sorry, for she wanted so much to ask about the Valley of Diamonds again, and she has worked so hard at it, and made it nearly all out by herself. She recollected Elisha's throwing in the meal, which nobody else did.

L. But what did she want to ask?

SIBYL. About the mulberry trees and the serpents; we are all stopped by that. Won't you tell us what it means?

L. Now, Sibyl, I am sure you, who never explained yourself, should be the last to expect others to do so. I hate explaining myself.

SIBYL. And yet how often you complain of other people for not saying what they meant. How I have heard you growl over the three stone steps to purgatory, for instance!

L. Yes; because Dante's meaning is worth getting at, but mine matters nothing at least, if ever I think it is of any consequence so I speak it as clearly as may be. But you may make anything you like of the serpent forests I could have helped you to find out what they were, by giving a little more detail, but it would have been tiresome.

SIBYL. It is much more tiresome not to find out Tell us, please, as Isabel says, because we feel so stupid.

L. There is no stupidity, you could not possibly do more than guess at anything so vague. But I think, you, Sibyl, at least, might have recollected what first dyed the mulberry.

SIBYL. So I did, but that helped little, I thought of Dante's forest of suicides, too, but you would not simply have borrowed that.

L. No! If I had had strength to use it, I should have stolen it, to beat into another shape; not borrowed it. But that idea of souls in trees is as old as the world; or at least, as the world of man. And I DID mean that there were souls in those dark branches,—the souls of all those who had perished in misery through the pursuit of riches, and that the river was of their blood, gathering gradually, and flowing out of the valley. Then I meant the serpents for the souls of those who had lived carelessly and wantonly in their riches; and who have all their sins forgiven by the world, because they are rich: and therefore they have seven crimson crested heads, for the seven mortal sins; of which they are proud: and these, and the memory and report of them, are the chief causes of temptation to others, as showing the pleasantness and absolving power of riches; so that thus they are singing serpents. And the worms are the souls of the common money getters and traffickers, who do nothing but eat and spin: and who gain habitually by the distress or foolishness of others (as you see the butchers have been gaining out of the panic at the cattle plague, among the poor),—so they are made to eat the dark leaves, and spin, and perish.

SIBYL. And the souls of the great, cruel, rich people who oppress the poor, and lend money to government to make unjust war, where are they?

L. They change into the ice, I believe, and are knit with the gold, and make the grave dust of the valley I believe so, at least, for no one ever sees those souls anywhere.

(SIBYL ceases questioning.)

ISABEL (who has crept up to her side without any one seeing). Oh, Sibyl, please ask him about the fireflies!

L. What, you there, mousie! No; I won't tell either Sibyl or you about the fireflies, nor a word more about anything else you ought to be little fireflies yourselves, and find your way in twilight by your own wits.

ISABEL. But you said they burned, you know?

L. Yes; and you may be fireflies that way too, some of you, before long, though I did not mean that. Away with you, children. You have thought enough for to-day.

NOTE TO SECOND EDITION

Sentence out of letter from May (who is staying with Isabel just now at Cassel), dated 15th June, 1877:—

"I am reading the Ethics with a nice Irish girl who is staying here, and she's just as puzzled as I've always been about the fireflies, and we both want to know so much.—Please be a very nice old Lecturer, and tell us, won't you?"

Well, May, you never were a vain girl; so could scarcely guess that I meant them for the light, unpursued vanities, which yet blind us, confused among the stars. One evening, as I came late into Siena, the fireflies were flying high on a stormy sirocco wind,—the stars themselves no brighter, and all their host seeming, at moments, to fade as the insects faded.