The Crown of Wild Olive

Well—but it is answered, are we to have no diamonds, nor china, nor pictures, nor footmen, then—but all to be farmers? I am not saying what we ought to do, I want only to show you with perfect clearness first what we are doing; and that, I repeat, is the upshot of machine-contriving in this country. And observe its effect on the national strength. Without machines, you have a hundred and fifty yeomen ready to join for defence of the land. You get your machine, starve fifty of them, make diamond-cutters or footmen of as many more, and for your national defence against an enemy, you have now, and can have, only fifty men, instead of a hundred and fifty; these also now with minds much alienated from you as their chief,¹⁴¹ and the rest, lapidaries or footmen; and a steam plough.

That is one effect of machinery; but at all events, if we have thus lost in men, we have gained in riches; instead of happy human souls, we have at least got pictures, china, horses, and are ourselves better off than we were before. But very often, and in much of our machine-contriving, even that result does not follow. We are not one whit the richer for the machine, we only employ it for our amusement. For observe, our gaining in riches depends on the men who are out of employment consenting to be starved, or sent out of the country. But suppose they do not consent passively to be starved, but some of them become criminals, and have to be taken charge of and fed at a much greater cost than if they were at work, and, others, paupers, rioters, and the like, then you attain the real outcome of modern wisdom and ingenuity. You have your hundred men honestly at country work; but you don't like the sight of human beings in your fields; you like better to see a smoking kettle. You pay, as an amateur, for that pleasure, and you employ your fifty men in picking oakum, or begging, rioting, and thieving.

By hand-labor, therefore, and that alone, we are to till the ground. By hand-labor also to plough the sea; both for food, and in commerce, and in war: not with floating kettles there neither, but with hempen bridle, and the winds of heaven in harness. That is the way the power of Greece rose on her Egean, the power of Venice on her Adria, of Amalfi in her blue bay, of the Norman sea-riders from the North Cape to Sicily:—so, your own dominion also of the past. Of the past mind you. On the Baltic and the Nile, your power is already departed. By machinery you would advance to discovery; by machinery you would carry your commerce;—you would be engineers instead of sailors; and instantly in the North seas you are beaten among the ice, and before the very Gods of Nile, beaten among the sand. Agriculture, then, by the hand or by the plough drawn only by animals; and shepherd and pastoral husbandry, are to be the chief schools of Englishmen. And this most royal academy of all academies you have to open over all the land, purifying your heaths and hills, and waters, and keeping them full of every kind of lovely natural organism, in tree, herb, and living creature. All land that is waste and ugly, you must redeem into ordered fruitfulness; all ruin, desolateness, imperfectness of hut or habitation, you must do away with; and throughout every village and city of your English dominion there must not be a hand that cannot find a helper, nor a heart that cannot find a comforter.

"How impossible!" I know, you are thinking. Ah! So far from impossible, it is easy, it is natural, it is necessary, and I declare to you that, sooner or later, it must be done, at our peril. If now our English lords of land will fix this idea steadily before them; take the people to their hearts, trust to their loyalty, lead their labor;—then indeed there will be princes again in the midst of us, worthy of the island throne,

 
"This royal throne of kings—this sceptred isle—
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection, and the hand of war;
This precious stone set in the silver sea;
This happy breed of men—this little world:
This other Eden—Demi-Paradise."
 

But if they refuse to do this, and hesitate and equivocate, clutching through the confused catastrophe of all things only at what they can still keep stealthily for themselves—their doom is nearer than even their adversaries hope, and it will be deeper than even their despisers dream.

That, believe me, is the work you have to do in England; and out of England you have room for everything else you care to do. Are her dominions in the world so narrow that she can find no place to spin cotton in but Yorkshire? We may organize emigration into an infinite power. We may assemble troops of the more adventurous and ambitious of our youth; we may send them on truest foreign service, founding new seats of authority, and centres of thought, in uncultivated and unconquered lands; retaining the full affection to the native country no less in our colonists than in our armies, teaching them to maintain allegiance to their fatherland in labor no less than in battle; aiding them with free hand in the prosecution of discovery, and the victory over adverse natural powers; establishing seats of every manufacture in the climates and places best fitted for it, and bringing ourselves into due alliance and harmony of skill with the dexterities of every race, and the wisdoms of every tradition and every tongue.

And then you may make England itself the centre of the learning, of the arts, of the courtesies and felicities of the world. Yon may cover her mountains with pasture; her plains with corn, her valleys with the lily, and her gardens with the rose. You may bring together there in peace the wise and the pure, and the gentle of the earth, and by their word, command through its farthest darkness the birth of "God's first creature, which was Light." You know whose words those are; the words of the wisest of Englishmen. He, and with him the wisest of all other great nations, have spoken always to men of this hope, and they would not hear. Plato, in the dialogue of Critias, his last, broken off at his death—Pindar, in passionate singing of the fortunate islands—Virgil, in the prophetic tenth eclogue—Bacon, in his fable of the New Atlantis—More, in the book which, too impatiently wise, became the bye-word of fools—these, all, have told us with one voice what we should strive to attain; they not hopeless of it, but for our follies forced, as it seems, by heaven, to tell us only partly and in parables, lest we should hear them and obey.

Shall we never listen to the words of these wisest of men? Then listen at least to the words of your children—let us in the lips of babes and sucklings find our strength; and see that we do not make them mock instead of pray, when we teach them, night and morning, to ask for what we believe never can be granted;—that the will of the Father,—which is, that His creatures may be righteous and happy—should be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven.

NOTES ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PRUSSIA

I am often accused of inconsistency; but believe myself defensible against the charge with respect to what I have said on nearly every subject except that of war. It is impossible for me to write consistently of war, for the groups of facts I have gathered about it lead me to two precisely opposite conclusions.

When I find this the case, in other matters, I am silent, till I can choose my conclusion: but, with respect to war, I am forced to speak, by the necessities of the time; and forced to act, one way or another. The conviction on which I act is, that it causes an incalculable amount of avoidable human suffering, and that it ought to cease among Christian nations; and if therefore any of my boy-friends desire to be soldiers, I try my utmost to bring them into what I conceive to be a better mind. But, on the other hand, I know certainly that the most beautiful characters yet developed among men have been formed in war;—that all great nations have been warrior nations, and that the only kinds of peace which we are likely to get in the present age are ruinous alike to the intellect, and the heart.

The lecture on "War," in this volume, addressed to young soldiers, had for its object to strengthen their trust in the virtue of their profession. It is inconsistent with itself, in its closing appeal to women, praying them to use their influence to bring wars to an end. And I have been hindered from completing my long intended notes on the economy of the Kings of Prussia by continually increasing doubt how far the machinery and discipline of war, under which they learned the art of government, was essential for such lesson; and what the honesty and sagacity of the Friedrich who so nobly repaired his ruined Prussia, might have done for the happiness of his Prussia, unruined.

In war, however, or in peace, the character which Carlyle chiefly loves him for, and in which Carlyle has shown him to differ from all kings up to this time succeeding him, is his constant purpose to use every power entrusted to him for the good of his people; and be, not in name only, but in heart and hand, their king.

Not in ambition, but in natural instinct of duty. Friedrich, born to govern, determines to govern to the best of his faculty. That "best" may sometimes be unwise; and self-will, or love of glory, may have their oblique hold on his mind, and warp it this way or that; but they are never principal with him. He believes that war is necessary, and maintains it; sees that peace is necessary, and calmly persists in the work of it to the day of his death, not claiming therein more praise than the head of any ordinary household, who rules it simply because it is his place, and he must not yield the mastery of it to another.

How far, in the future, it may be possible for men to gain the strength necessary for kingship without either fronting death, or inflicting it, seems to me not at present determinable. The historical facts are that, broadly speaking, none but soldiers, or persons with a soldierly faculty, have ever yet shown themselves fit to be kings; and that no other men are so gentle, so just, or so clear-sighted. Wordsworth's character of the happy warrior cannot be reached in the height of it but by a warrior; nay, so much is it beyond common strength that I had supposed the entire meaning of it to be metaphorical, until one of the best soldiers of England himself read me the poem,¹⁴² and taught me, what I might have known, had I enough watched his own life, that it was entirely literal. There is nothing of so high reach distinctly demonstrable in Friedrich: but I see more and more, as I grow older, that the things which are the most worth, encumbered among the errors and faults of every man's nature, are never clearly demonstrable; and are often most forcible when they are scarcely distinct to his own conscience,—how much less, clamorous for recognition by others!

Nothing can be more beautiful than Carlyle's showing of this, to any careful reader of Friedrich. But careful readers are but one in the thousand; and by the careless, the masses of detail with which the historian must deal are insurmountable.

My own notes, made for the special purpose of hunting down the one point of economy, though they cruelly spoil Carlyle's own current and method of thought, may yet be useful in enabling readers, unaccustomed to books involving so vast a range of conception, to discern what, on this one subject only, may be gathered from that history. On any other subject of importance, similar gatherings might be made of other passages. The historian has to deal with all at once.

I therefore have determined to print here, as a sequel to the Essay on War, my notes from the first volume of Friedrich, on the economies of Brandenburg, up to the date of the establishment of the Prussian monarchy. The economies of the first three Kings of Prussia I shall then take up in Fors Clavigera, finding them fitter for examination in connection with the subject of that book than of this.

I assume, that the reader will take down his first volume of Carlyle, and read attentively the passages to which I refer him. I give the reference first to the largest edition, in six volumes (1858-1865); then, in parenthesis, to the smallest or "people's edition" (1872-1873). The pieces which I have quoted in my own text are for the use of readers who may not have ready access to the book; and are enough for the explanation of the points to which I wish them to direct their thoughts in reading such histories of soldiers or soldier-kingdoms.

I

Year 928 to 936.—Dawn of Order in Christian Germany.

Book II. Chap. i. p. 67 (47).

Henry the Fowler, "the beginning of German kings," is a mighty soldier in the cause of peace; his essential work the building and organization of fortified towns for the protection of men.

Read page 72 with utmost care (51), "He fortified towns," to end of small print. I have added some notes on the matter in my lecture on Giovanni Pisano; but whether you can glance at them or not, fix in your mind this institution of truly civil or civic building in Germany, as distinct from the building of baronial castles for the security of robbers: and of a standing army consisting of every ninth man, called a "burgher" ("townsman")—a soldier, appointed to learn that profession that he may guard the walls—the exact reverse of our notion of a burgher.

Frederick's final idea of his army is, indeed, only this.

Brannibor, a chief fortress of the Wends, is thus taken, and further strengthened by Henry the Fowler; wardens appointed for it; and thus the history of Brandenburg begins. On all frontiers, also, this "beginning of German kings" has his "Markgraf." "Ancient of the marked place." Read page 73, measuredly, learning it by heart, if it may be. (51-2.)

II

936-1000.—History of Nascent Brandenburg.

The passage I last desired you to read ends with this sentence: "The sea-wall you build, and what main floodgates you establish in it, will depend on the state of the outer sea."

From this time forward you have to keep clearly separate in your minds, (A) the history of that outer sea, Pagan Scandinavia, Russia, and Bor-Russia, or Prussia proper; (B) the history of Henry the Fowler's Eastern and Western Marches; asserting themselves gradually as Austria and the Netherlands; and (C) the history of this inconsiderable fortress of Brandenburg, gradually becoming considerable, and the capital city of increasing district between them. That last history, however, Carlyle is obliged to leave vague and gray for two hundred years after Henry's death. Absolutely dim for the first century, in which nothing is evident but that its wardens or Markgraves had no peaceable possession of the place. Read the second paragraph in page 74 (52-3), "in old books" to "reader," and the first in page 83 (59) "meanwhile" to "substantial," consecutively. They bring the story of Brandenburg itself down, at any rate, from 936 to 1000.

III

936-1000.—State of the Outer Sea.

Read now Chapter II. beginning at page 76 (54), wherein you will get account of the beginning of vigorous missionary work on the outer sea, in Prussia proper; of the death of St. Adalbert, and of the purchase of his dead body by the Duke of Poland.

You will not easily understand Carlyle's laugh in this chapter, unless you have learned yourself to laugh in sadness, and to laugh in love.

"No Czech blows his pipe in the woodlands without certain precautions and preliminary fuglings of a devotional nature." (Imagine St. Adalbert, in spirit, at the railway station in Birmingham!)

My own main point for notice in the chapter is the purchase of his body for its "weight in gold." Swindling angels held it up in the scales; it did not weigh so much as a web of gossamer. "Had such excellent odor, too, and came for a mere nothing of gold," says Carlyle. It is one of the first commercial transactions of Germany, but I regret the conduct of the angels on the occasion. Evangelicalism has been proud of ceasing to invest in relics, its swindling angels helping it to better things, as it supposes. For my own part, I believe Christian Germany could not have bought at this time any treasure more precious; nevertheless, the missionary work itself you find is wholly vain. The difference of opinion between St. Adalbert and the Wends, on Divine matters, does not signify to the Fates. They will not have it disputed about; and end the dispute adversely, to St. Adalbert—adversely, even, to Brandenburg and its civilizing power, as you will immediately see.

IV

1000-1030.—History of Brandenburg in Trouble.

Book II. Chap. iii. p. 83 (59).

The adventures of Brandenburg in contest with Pagan Prussia, irritated, rather than amended, by St. Adalbert. In 1023, roughly, a hundred years after Henry the Fowler's death, Brandenburg is taken by the Wends, and its first line of Markgraves ended; its population mostly butchered, especially the priests; and the Wends' God, Triglaph, "something like three whales' cubs combined by boiling," set up on the top of St. Mary's Hill.

Here is an adverse "Doctrine of the Trinity" which has its supporters! It is wonderful,—this Tripod and Triglyph—three-footed, three-cut faith of the North and South, the leaf of the oxalis, and strawberry, and clover, fostering the same in their simple manner. I suppose it to be the most savage and natural of notions about Deity; a prismatic idol-shape of Him, rude as a triangular log, as a trefoil grass. I do not find how long Triglaph held his state on St. Mary's Hill. "For a time," says Carlyle, "the priests all slain or fled—shadowy Markgraves the like—church and state lay in ashes, and Triglaph, like a triple porpoise under the influence of laudanum, stood, I know not whether on his head or his tail, aloft on the Harlungsberg, as the Supreme of this Universe for the time being."

V

1030-1130.—Brandenburg under the Ditmarsch Markgraves, or Ditmarsch-Stade Markgraves.

Book II. Chap. iii. p. 85 (60).

Of Anglish, or Saxon breed. They attack Brandenburg, under its Triglyphic protector, take it—dethrone him, and hold the town for a hundred years, their history "stamped beneficially on the face of things, Markgraf after Markgraf getting killed in the business. 'Erschlagen,' 'slain,' fighting with the Heathen—say the old books, and pass on to another." If we allow seven years to Triglaph—we get a clear century for these—as above indicated. They die out in 1130.

VI

1130-1170.—Brandenburg under Albert the Bear.

Book II. Chap iv. p. 91 (64).

He is the first of the Ascanien Markgraves, whose castle of Ascanica is on the northern slope of the Hartz Mountains, "ruins still dimly traceable."

There had been no soldier or king of note among the Ditmarsch Markgraves, so that you will do well to fix in your mind successively the three men, Henry the Fowler, St. Adalbert, and Albert the Bear. A soldier again, and a strong one. Named the Bear only from the device on his shield, first wholly definite Markgraf of Brandenburg that there is, "and that the luckiest of events for Brandenburg." Read page 93 (66) carefully, and note this of his economies.

Nothing better is known to me of Albert the Bear than his introducing large numbers of Dutch Netherlanders into those countries; men thrown out of work, who already knew how to deal with bog and sand, by mixing and delving, and who first taught Brandenburg what greenness and cow-pasture was. The Wends, in presence of such things, could not but consent more and more to efface themselves—either to become German, and grow milk and cheese in the Dutch manner, or to disappear from the world.

After two-hundred and fifty years of barking and worrying, the Wends are now finally reduced to silence; their anarchy well buried and wholesome Dutch cabbage planted over it; Albert did several great things in the world; but this, for posterity, remains his memorable feat. Not done quite easily, but done: big destinies of nations or of persons are not founded gratis in this world, He had a sore, toilsome time of it, coercing, warring, managing among his fellow-creatures, while his day's work lasted—fifty years or so, for it began early. He died in his castle of Ballenstädt, peaceably among the Hartz Mountains at last, in the year 1170, age about sixty-five.

Now, note in all this the steady gain of soldiership enforcing order and agriculture, with St. Adalbert giving higher strain to the imagination. Henry the Fowler establishes walled towns, fighting for mere peace. Albert the Bear plants the country with cabbages, fighting for his cabbage-fields. And the disciples of St. Adalbert, generally, have succeeded in substituting some idea of Christ for the idea of Triglaph. Some idea only; other ideas than of Christ haunt even to this day those Hartz Mountains among which Albert the Bear dies so peacefully. Mephistopheles, and all his ministers, inhabit there, commanding mephitic clouds and earth-born dreams.

VII

1170-1320.—Brandenburg 150 years under the Ascanien Markgraves.

Vol. I. Book II Chap. viii. p. 135 (96).

"Wholesome Dutch cabbages continued to be more and more planted by them in the waste sand: intrusive chaos, and Triglaph held at bay by them," till at last in 1240, seventy years after the great Bear's death, they fortify a new Burg, a "little rampart," Wehrlin, diminutive of Wehr (or vallum), gradually smoothing itself, with a little echo of the Bear in it too, into Ber-lin, the oily river Spree flowing by, "in which you catch various fish;" while trade over the flats and by the dull streams, is widely possible. Of the Ascanien race, the notablest is Otto with the Arrow, whose story see, pp. 138-141 (98-100), noting that Otto is one of the first Minnesingers; that, being a prisoner to the Archbishop of Magdeburg, his wife rescues him, selling her jewels to bribe the canons; and that the Knight, set free on parole and promise of farther ransom, rides back with his own price in his hand; holding himself thereat cheaply bought, though no angelic legerdemain happens to the scales now. His own estimate of his price—"Rain gold ducats on my war-horse and me, till you cannot see the point of my spear atop."

Emptiness of utter pride, you think?

Not so. Consider with yourself, reader, how much you dare to say, aloud, you are worth. If you have no courage to name any price whatsoever for yourself, believe me, the cause is not your modesty, but that in very truth you feel in your heart there would be no bid for you at Lucian's sale of lives, were that again possible, at Christie and Manson's.

Finally (1319 exactly; say 1320, for memory), the Ascanien line expired in Brandenburg, and the little town and its electorate lapsed to the Kaiser: meantime other economical arrangements had been in progress; but observe first how far we have got.

The Fowler, St. Adalbert and the Bear have established order, and some sort of Christianity; but the established persons begin to think somewhat too well of themselves. On quite honest terms, a dead saint or a living knight ought to be worth their true "weight in gold." But a pyramid, with only the point of the spear seen at top, would be many times over one's weight in gold. And although men were yet far enough from the notion of modern days, that the gold is better than the flesh, and from buying it with the clay of one's body, and even the fire of one's soul, instead of soul and body with it, they were beginning to fight for their own supremacy, or for their own religious fancies, and not at all to any useful end, until an entirely unexpected movement is made in the old useful direction forsooth, only by some kind ship-captains of Lübeck!

VIII

1210-1320.—Civil work, aiding military, during the Ascanien period.

Vol. I. Book II. Chap. vi. p. 109 (77).

In the year 1190, Acre not yet taken, and the crusading army wasting by murrain on the shore, the German soldiers especially having none to look after them, certain compassionate ship-captains of Lübeck, one Walpot von Bassenheim taking the lead, formed themselves into an union for succor of the sick and the dying, set up canvas tents from the Lübeck ship stores, and did what utmost was in them silently in the name of mercy and heaven. Finding its work prosper, the little medicinal and weather-fending company took vows on itself, strict chivalry forms, and decided to become permanent "Knights Hospitallers of our dear Lady of Mount Zion," separate from the former Knights Hospitallers, as being entirely German: yet soon, as the German Order of St. Mary, eclipsing in importance Templars, Hospitallers, and every other chivalric order then extant; no purpose of battle in them, but much strength for it; their purpose only the helping of German pilgrims. To this only they are bound by their vow, "gelübde," and become one of the usefullest of clubs in all the Pall Mall of Europe.

Finding pilgrimage in Palestine falling slack, and more need for them on the homeward side of the sea, their Hochmeister, Hermann of the Salza, goes over to Venice in 1210. There the titular bishop of still unconverted Preussen advises him of that field of work for his idle knights. Hermann thinks well of it: sets his St. Mary's riders at Triglaph, with the sword in one hand and a missal in the other.

Not your modern way of affecting conversion! Too illiberal, you think; and what would Mr. J. S. Mill say?

But if Triglaph had been verily "three whales' cubs combined by boiling," you would yourself have promoted attack upon him for the sake of his oil, would not you? The Teutsch Ritters, fighting him for charity, are they so much inferior to you?

They built, and burnt, innumerable stockades for and against; built wooden forts which are now stone towns. They fought much and prevalently; galloped desperately to and fro, ever on the alert. In peaceabler ulterior times, they fenced in the Nogat and the Weichsel with dams, whereby unlimited quagmire might become grassy meadow—as it continues to this day. Marienburg (Mary's Burg), with its grand stone Schloss still visible and even habitable: this was at length their headquarter. But how many Burgs of wood and stone they built, in different parts; what revolts, surprisals, furious fights in woody, boggy places they had, no man has counted.

But always some preaching by zealous monks, accompanied the chivalrous fighting. And colonists came in from Germany; trickling in, or at times streaming. Victorious Ritterdom offers terms to the beaten heathen: terms not of tolerant nature, but which will be punctually kept by Ritterdom. When the flame of revolt or general conspiracy burnt up again too extensively, high personages came on crusade to them. Ottocar, King of Bohemia, with his extensive far-shining chivalry, "conquered Samland in a month;" tore up the Romova where Adalbert had been massacred, and burned it from the face of the earth. A certain fortress was founded at that time, in Ottocar's presence; and in honor of him they named it King's Fortress, "Königsberg." Among King Ottocar's esquires, or subaltern junior officials, on this occasion, is one Rudolf, heir of a poor Swiss lordship and gray hill castle, called Hapsburg, rather in reduced circumstances, whom Ottocar likes for his prudent, hardy ways; a stout, modest, wise young man, who may chance to redeem Hapsburg a little, if he lives.

Conversion, and complete conquest once come, there was a happy time for Prussia; ploughshare instead of sword: busy sea-havens, German towns, getting built; churches everywhere rising; grass growing, and peaceable cows, where formerly had been quagmire and snakes, and for the Order a happy time. On the whole, this Teutsch Ritterdom, for the first century and more, was a grand phenomenon, and flamed like a bright blessed beacon through the night of things, in those Northern countries. For above a century, we perceive, it was the rallying place of all brave men who had a career to seek on terms other than vulgar. The noble soul, aiming beyond money, and sensible to more than hunger in this world, had a beacon burning (as we say), if the night chanced to overtake it, and the earth to grow too intricate, as is not uncommon. Better than the career of stump-oratory, I should fancy, and its Hesperides apples, golden, and of gilt horse-dung. Better than puddling away one's poor spiritual gift of God (loan, not gift), such as it may be, in building the lofty rhyme, the lofty review article, for a discerning public that has sixpence to spare! Times alter greatly.¹⁴³

We must pause here again for a moment to think where we are, and who is with us. The Teutsch Ritters have been fighting, independently of all states, for their own hand, or St. Adalbert's; partly for mere love of fight, partly for love of order, partly for love of God. Meantime, other Riders have been fighting wholly for what they could get by it; and other persons, not Riders, have not been fighting at all, but in their own towns peacefully manufacturing and selling.

Of Henry the Fowler's Marches, Austria has become a military power, Flanders a mercantile one, pious only in the degree consistent with their several occupations. Prussia is now a practical and farming country, more Christian than its longer-converted neighbors.

Towns are built, Königsberg (King Ottocar's town), Thoren (Thorn, City of the Gates), with many others; so that the wild population and the tame now lived tolerably together, under Gospel and Lübeck law; and all was ploughing and trading.

But Brandenburg itself, what of it?

The Ascanien Markgraves rule it on the whole prosperously down to 1320, when their line expires, and it falls into the power of Imperial Austria.

IX

1320-1415.—Brandenburg under the Austrians.

A century—the fourteenth—of miserable anarchy and decline for Brandenburg, its Kurfürsts, in deadly succession, making what they can out of it for their own pockets. The city itself and its territory utterly helpless. Read pp. 180, 181 (129, 130). "The towns suffered much, any trade they might have had going to wreck. Robber castles flourished, all else decayed, no highway safe. What are Hamburg pedlars made for but to be robbed?"