INTRODUCTORY 23

manly virtue; and the truth, decision, and temperance, which we reverently regard as honourable conditions of the spiritual being, have a representative or derivative influence over the works of the hand, the movements of the frame, and the action of the intellect.

§ 5. And as thus every action, down even to the drawing of a line or utterance of a syllable, is capable of a peculiar dignity in the manner of it, which we sometimes express by saying it is truly done (as a line or tone is true), so also it is capable of dignity still higher in the motive of it. For there is no action so slight, nor so mean, but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled therefore; nor is any purpose so great but that slight actions may help it, and may be so done as to help it much, most especially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing of God. Hence George Herbert*-

“A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine;

Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,¹

Makes that and the action fine.”²

Therefore, in the pressing or recommending of any act or manner of acting, we have choice of two separate lines of argument: one based on representation of the expediency or inherent value of the work, which is often small, and always disputable; the other based on proofs of its relations to the higher orders of human virtue, and of its acceptableness, so

* George Herbert was too much of an Englishman (and of an Elizabethan tempered Englishman) to conceive that drudgery could ever be divine in its own nature, and sometimes, more divine if forced than voluntary, e.g. John Knox’s labour as a galley slave.3 [1880.]

¹ [The italics were added in 1880. To the note on this page the author has added in the corrected copy of the second edition a marginal note: “Long note needed.”]

² [The Temple: “The Elixir.” The “clause” is:-

“Teach me, my God and King,

In all things Thee to see,

And what I do in any thing

To do it as for Thee.”]

³ [See Carlyle On Heroes, Lecture iv. For other references to George Herbert, see notes in Vol. I. pp. 409, 489, and Vol. IV. p. 349.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]