31. “In Memoriam” 5 0 0 32. (The tenth of a tenth) 1 1 0 33. Gift 20 0 0 34. An Old Member of the Working Men’s College-Gift 5 0 0 35. H. T. S 9 0 0 36. 5 0 0 7. Second Donation 5 0 0 15. ,, ,, 5 0 0 ---------- £ 55 1 0 FORS CLAVIGERA. LETTER L. A friend, in whose judgment I greatly trust, remonstrated sorrowfully with me, the other day, on the desultory character of Fors; and pleaded with me for the writing of an arranged book instead. But he might as well plead with a birch-tree growing out of a crag, to arrange its boughs beforehand. The winds and floods will arrange them according to their wild liking; all that the tree has to do, or can do, is to grow gaily, if it may be; sadly, if gaiety be impossible; and let the black jags and scars rend the rose-white of its trunk where Fors shall choose. But I can well conceive how irritating it must be to any one chancing to take special interest in any one part of my subject—the life of Scott for instance,—to find me, or lose me, wandering away from it for a year or two; and sending roots into new ground in every direction: or (for my friend taxed me with this graver error also) needlessly re-rooting myself in the old. And, all the while, some kindly expectant people are waiting for ‘details of my plan.’ In the presentment of which, this main difficulty still lets me; that, if I told them, or tried to help them definitely to conceive, the ultimate things I aim at, they would at once throw the book down as hopelessly Utopian; but if I tell them the immediate things I aim at, they will refuse to do those instantly possible things, because inconsistent with the present vile general system. For instance—I take (see Letter V.) Wordsworth’s single line, “We live by admiration, hope, and love,” for my literal guide, in all education. My final object, with every child born on St. George’s estates, will be to teach it what to admire, what to hope for, and what to love: but how far do you suppose the steps necessary to such an ultimate aim are immediately consistent with what Messrs. Huxley and Co. call ‘Secular education’? Or with what either the Bishop of Oxford, or Mr. Spurgeon, would call ‘Religious education’? What to admire, or wonder at! Do you expect a child to wonder at—being taught that two and two make four—(though if only its masters had the sense to teach that, honestly, it would be something)—or at the number of copies of nasty novels and false news a steam-engine can print for its reading?