The Ethics of the Dust

A girl is always like that, when everything's right with her.

VIOLET. But, surely, one must be sad sometimes?

L. Yes, Violet and dull sometimes and stupid sometimes, and cross sometimes. What must be, must; but it is always either our own fault, or somebody else's. The last and worst thing that can be said of a nation is, that it has made its young girls sad, and weary.

MAY. But I am sure I have heard a great many good people speak against dancing?

L. Yes, May, but it does not follow they were wise as well as good. I suppose they think Jeremiah liked better to have to write Lamentations for his people, than to have to write that promise for them, which everybody seems to hurry past, that they may get on quickly to the verse about Rachel weeping for her children, though the verse they pass is the counter blessing to that one: "Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance; and both young men and old together, and I will turn their mourning into joy."

(The children get very serious, but look at each other, as if pleased.)

MARY. They understand now: but, do you know what you said next?

L. Yes, I was not more than half asleep. I said their second virtue was dressing.

MARY. Well! what did you mean by that?

L. What do YOU mean by dressing?

MARY. Wearing fine clothes.

L. Ah! there's the mistake. I mean wearing plain ones.

MARY. Yes, I daresay I but that's not what girls understand by dressing, you know.

L. I can't help that. If they understand by dressing, buying dresses, perhaps they also understand by drawing, buying pictures. But when I hear them say they can draw, I understand that they can make a drawing; and when I hear them say they can dress, I understand that they can make a dress and—which is quite as difficult—wear one.

DORA. I'm not sure about the making; for the wearing, we can all wear them—out, before anybody expects it.

EGYPT (aside to L., piteously). Indeed I have mended that torn flounce quite neatly; look if I haven't!

L. (aside, to EGYPT). All right; don't be afraid. (Aloud to DORA.)

Yes, doubtless; but you know that is only a slow way of

UNdressing.

DORA. Then, we are all to learn dress-making, are we?

L. Yes; and always to dress yourselves beautifully—not finely, unless on occasion; but then very finely and beautifully, too. Also, you are to dress as many other people as you can; and to teach them how to dress, if they don't know; and to consider every ill-dressed woman or child whom you see anywhere, as a personal disgrace; and to get at them, somehow, until everybody is as beautifully dressed as birds.

(Silence; the children drawing their breaths hard, as if they had come from under a shower bath.)

L. (seeing objections begin to express themselves in the eyes). Now you needn't say you can't; for you can, and it's what you were meant to do, always; and to dress your houses, and your gardens, too; and to do very little else, I believe, except singing; and dancing, as we said, of course and—one thing more.

DORA. Our third and last virtue, I suppose?

L. Yes; on Violet's system of triplicities.

DORA. Well, we are prepared for anything now. What is it?

L. Cooking.

DORA. Cardinal, indeed! If only Beatrice were here with her seven handmaids, that she might see what a fine eighth we had found for her!

MARY. And the interpretation? What does "cooking" mean?

L. It means the knowledge of Medea, and of Circe, and of Calypso, and of Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices; and of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, and savory in meats, it means carefulness, and inventiveness, and watchfulness, and willingness, and readiness of appliance, it means the economy of your great-grandmothers, and the science of modern chemists; it means much tasting, and no wasting, it means English thoroughness, and French art, and Arabian hospitality, and it means, in fine, that you are to be perfectly and always "ladies"—"loaf-givers;" and, as you are to see, imperatively, that everybody has something pretty to put on,—so you are to see, yet more imperatively, that everybody has something nice to eat.

(Another pause, and long drawn breath.)

DORA (slowly recovering herself) to EGYPT. We had better have let him go to sleep, I think, after all!

L. You had better let the younger ones go to sleep now: for I haven't half done.

ISABEL (panic-struck). Oh! please, please! just one quarter of an hour.

L. No, Isabel, I cannot say what I've got to say in a quarter of an hour; and it is too hard for you, besides:—you would be lying awake, and trying to make it out, half the night. That will never do.

ISABEL. Oh, please!

L. It would please me exceedingly, mousie: but there are times when we must both be displeased; more's the pity. Lily may stay for half an hour, if she likes.

LILY. I can't, because Isey never goes to sleep, if she is waiting for me to come.

ISABEL. Oh, yes, Lily, I'll go to sleep to-night. I will, indeed.

LILY. Yes, it's very likely, Isey, with those fine round eyes! (To L.) You'll tell me something of what you we been saying, to- morrow, won't you?

L. No, I won't, Lily. You must choose. It's only in Miss Edgeworth's novels that one can do right, and have one's cake and sugar afterwards as well (not that I consider the dilemma, to- night, so grave).

(LILY, sighing, takes ISABEL'S hand.)

Yes, Lily dear, it will be better, in the outcome of it, so, than if you were to hear all the talks that eer were talked, and all the stories that ever were told. Good-night.

(The door leading to the condemned cells of the Dormitory closes on LILY, ISABEL, FLORRIE, and other diminutive and submissive victims.)

JESSIE (after a pause). Why, I thought you were so fond of Miss Edgeworth.

L. So I am, and so you ought all to be. I can read her over and over again, without ever tiring; there's no one whose every page is so full, and so delightful, no one who brings you into the company of pleasanter or wiser people; no one who tells you more truly how to do right. And it is very nice, in the midst of a wild world, to have the very ideal of poetical justice done always to one's hand:—to have everybody found out, who tells lies; and everybody decorated with a red riband, who doesn't; and to see the good Laura, who gave away her half sovereign, receiving a grand ovation from an entire dinner party disturbed for the purpose; and poor, dear, little Rosamond, who chooses purple jars instead of new shoes, left at last without either her shoes or her bottle. But it isn't life: and, in the way children might easily understand it, it isn't morals.

JESSIE. How do you mean we might understand it?

L. You might think Miss Edgeworth meant that the right was to be done mainly because one was always rewarded for doing it. It is an injustice to her to say that: her heroines always do right simply for its own sake, as they should; and her examples of conduct and motive are wholly admirable. But her representation of events is false and misleading. Her good characters never are brought into the deadly trial of goodness,—the doing right, and suffering for it, quite finally. And that is life, as God arranges it. "Taking up one's cross" does not at all mean having ovations at dinner parties, and being put over everybody else's head.

DORA. But what does it mean then? That is just what we couldn't understand, when you were telling us about not sacrificing ourselves, yesterday.

L. My dear, it means simply that you are to go the road which you see to be the straight one; carrying whatever you find is given you to carry, as well and stoutly as you can; without making faces, or calling people to come and look at you. Above all, you are neither to load, nor unload, yourself; nor cut your cross to your own liking. Some people think it would be better for them to have it large; and many, that they could carry it much faster if it were small; and even those who like it largest are usually very particular about its being ornamental, and made of the best ebony. But all that you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it—above all, not to boast of what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of "virtue" is in that straightness of back. Yes; you may laugh, children, but it is. You know I was to tell you about the words that began with V. Sibyl, what does "virtue" mean literally?