THE PARISH TRILOGY - Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood, The Seaboard Parish & The Vicar's Daughter. George MacDonald
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I said. "I should always like things perfect myself."
"Doubtless," I answered; and thought it better to try another direction.
"How is Mrs Oldcastle?" I asked, feeling in its turn the reproach of hypocrisy; for though I could have suffered, I hope, in my person and goods and reputation, to make that woman other than she was, I could not say that I cared one atom whether she was in health or not. Possibly I should have preferred the latter member of the alternative; for the suffering of the lower nature is as a fire that drives the higher nature upwards. So I felt rather hypocritical when I asked Miss Oldcastle after her.
"Quite well, thank you," she answered, in a tone of indifference, which implied either that she saw through me, or shared in my indifference. I could not tell which.
"And how is Miss Judy?" I inquired.
"A little savage, as usual."
"Not the worse for her wetting, I hope."
"Oh! dear no. There never was health to equal that child's. It belongs to her savage nature."
"I wish some of us were more of savages, then," I returned; for I saw signs of exhaustion in her eyes which moved my sympathy.
"You don't mean me, Mr Walton, I hope. For if you do, I assure you your interest is quite thrown away. Uncle will tell you I am as strong as an elephant."
But here came a slight elevation of her person; and a shadow at the same moment passed over her face. I saw that she felt she ought not to have allowed herself to become the subject of conversation.
Meantime her uncle was busy at one of his benches filing away at a piece of brass fixed in the vice. He had thick gloves on. And, indeed, it had puzzled me before to think how he could have so many kinds of work, and yet keep his hands so smooth and white as they were. I could not help thinking the results could hardly be of the most useful description if they were all accomplished without some loss of whiteness and smoothness in the process. Even the feet that keep the garments clean must be washed themselves in the end.
When I glanced away from Miss Oldcastle in the embarrassment produced by the repulsion of her last manner, I saw Judy in the room. At the same moment Miss Oldcastle rose.
"What is the matter, Judy?" she said.
"Grannie wants you," said Judy.
Miss Oldcastle left the room, and Judy turned to me. "How do you do, Mr Walton?" she said.
"Quite well, thank you, Judy," I answered. "Your uncle admits you to his workshop, then?"
"Yes, indeed. He would feel rather dull, sometimes, without me. Wouldn't you, Uncle Stoddart?"
"Just as the horses in the field would feel dull without the gad-fly, Judy," said Mr Stoddart, laughing.
Judy, however, did not choose to receive the laugh as a scholium explanatory of the remark, and was gone in a moment, leaving Mr Stoddart and myself alone. I must say he looked a little troubled at the precipitate retreat of the damsel; but he recovered himself with a smile, and said to me,
"I wonder what speech I shall make next to drive you away, Mr Walton."
"I am not so easily got rid of, Mr Stoddart," I answered. "And as for taking offence, I don't like it, and therefore I never take it. But tell me what you are doing now."
"I have been working for some time at an attempt after a perpetual motion, but, I must confess, more from a metaphysical or logical point of view than a mechanical one."
Here he took a drawing from a shelf, explanatory of his plan.
"You see," he said, "here is a top made of platinum, the heaviest of metals, except iridium—which it would be impossible to procure enough of, and which would be difficult to work into the proper shape. It is surrounded you will observe, by an air-tight receiver, communicating by this tube with a powerful air-pump. The plate upon which the point of the top rests and revolves is a diamond; and I ought to have mentioned that the peg of the top is a diamond likewise. This is, of course, for the sake of reducing the friction. By this apparatus communicating with the top, through the receiver, I set the top in motion—after exhausting the air as far as possible. Still there is the difficulty of the friction of the diamond point upon the diamond plate, which must ultimately occasion repose. To obviate this, I have constructed here, underneath, a small steam-engine which shall cause the diamond plate to revolve at precisely the same rate of speed as the top itself. This, of course, will prevent all friction."
"Not that with the unavoidable remnant of air, however," I ventured to suggest.
"That is just my weak point," he answered. "But that will be so very small!"
"Yes; but enough to deprive the top of PERPETUAL motion."
"But suppose I could get over that difficulty, would the contrivance have a right to the name of a perpetual motion? For you observe that the steam-engine below would not be the cause of the motion. That comes from above, here, and is withdrawn, finally withdrawn."
"I understand perfectly," I answered. "At least, I think I do. But I return the question to you: Is a motion which, although not caused, is ENABLED by another motion, worthy of the name of a perpetual motion; seeing the perpetuity of motion has not to do merely with time, but with the indwelling of self-generative power—renewing itself constantly with the process of exhaustion?"
He threw down his file on the bench.
"I fear you are right," he said. "But you will allow it would have made a very pretty machine."
"Pretty, I will allow," I answered, "as distinguished from beautiful. For I can never dissociate beauty from use."
"You say that! with all the poetic things you say in your sermons! For I am a sharp listener, and none the less such that you do not see me. I have a loophole for seeing you. And I flatter myself, therefore, I am the only person in the congregation on a level with you in respect of balancing advantages. I cannot contradict you, and you cannot address me."
"Do you mean, then, that whatever is poetical is useless?" I asked.
"Do you assert that whatever is useful is beautiful?" he retorted.
"A full reply to your question would need a ream of paper and a quarter of quills," I answered; "but I think I may venture so far as to say that whatever subserves a noble end must in itself be beautiful."
"Then a gallows must be beautiful because it subserves the noble end of ridding the world of malefactors?" he returned, promptly.
I had to think for a moment before I could reply.
"I do not see anything noble in the end," I answered.
"If the machine got rid of malefaction, it would, indeed, have a noble end. But if it only compels it to move on, as a constable does—from this world into another—I do not, I say, see anything so noble in that end. The gallows cannot be beautiful."
"Ah, I see. You don't approve of capital punishments."
"I do not say that. An inevitable necessity is something very different from a noble end. To cure the diseased mind is the noblest of ends; to make the sinner forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, the loftiest of designs; but to punish him for being wrong, however necessary it may be for others, cannot, if dissociated from the object of bringing good out of evil, be called in any sense a NOBLE end. I think now, however, it would be but fair in you to give me some answer to my question. Do you think the poetic useless?"
"I think it is very like my machine. It may exercise the faculties without subserving any immediate progress."
"It is so difficult to get out of the region of the poetic, that I cannot think it other than useful: it is so widespread. The useless could hardly be so nearly universal. But I should like to ask you another question: What is the immediate effect of anything poetic upon your mind?"
"Pleasure," he answered.
"And is pleasure good or bad?"
"Sometimes the one,