The Ethics of the Dust | Page 5

John Ruskin
what is it like?
L. It is up and down, broken kind of ground: the road stops directly;
and there are great dark rocks, covered all over with wild gourds and
wild vines; the gourds, if you cut them, are red, with black seeds, like
water-melons, and look ever so nice; and the people of the place make
a red pottage of them: but you must take care not to eat any if you ever
want to leave the valley (though I believe putting plenty of meal in it
makes it wholesome). Then the wild vines have clusters of the color of
amber; and the people of the country say they are the grape of Eshcol;
and sweeter than honey: but, indeed, if anybody else tastes them, they
are like gall. Then there are thickets of bramble, so thorny that they
would be cut away directly, anywhere else; but here they are covered
with little cinque-foiled blossoms of pure silver; and, for berries, they
have clusters of rubies. Dark rubies, which you only see are red after
gathering them. But you may fancy what blackberry parties the children
have! Only they get their frocks and hands sadly torn.
LILY. But rubies can't spot one's frocks, as blackberries do?
L. No; but I'll tell you what spots them--the mulberries. There are great
forests of them, all up the hills, covered with silk- worms, some

munching the leaves so loud that it is like mills at work; and some
spinning. But the berries are the blackest you ever saw; and, wherever
they fall, they stain a deep red; and nothing ever washes it out again.
And it is their juice, soaking through the grass, which makes the river
so red, because all its springs are in this wood. And the boughs of the
trees are twisted, as if in pain, like old olive branches; and their leaves
are dark. And it is in these forests that the serpents are; but nobody is
afraid of them. They have fine crimson crests, and they are wreathed
about the wild branches, one in every tree, nearly; and they are singing
serpents, for the serpents are, in this forest, what birds are in ours.
FLORRIE. Oh, I don't want to go there at all, now.
L. You would like it very much indeed, Florrie, if you were there. The
serpents would not bite you; the only fear would be of your turning into
one!
FLORRIE. Oh, dear, but that's worse.
L. You wouldn't think so if you really were turned into one, Florrie;
you would be very proud of your crest. And as long as you were
yourself (not that you could get there if you remained quite the little
Florrie you are now), you would like to hear the serpents sing. They
hiss a little through it, like the cicadas in Italy; but they keep good time,
and sing delightful melodies; and most of them have seven heads, with
throats which each take a note of the octave; so that they can sing
chords--it is very fine indeed. And the fireflies fly round the edge of the
forests all the night long; you wade in fireflies, they make the fields
look like a lake trembling with reflection of stars; but you must take
care not to touch them, for they are not like Italian fireflies, but burn,
like real sparks.
FLORRIE. I don't like it at all; I'll never go there.
L. I hope not, Florrie; or at least that you will get out again if you do.
And it is very difficult to get out, for beyond these serpent forests there
are great cliffs of dead gold, which form a labyrinth, winding always
higher and higher, till the gold is all split asunder by wedges of ice; and
glaciers, welded, half of ice seven times frozen, and half of gold seven
times frozen, hang down from them, and fall in thunder, cleaving into
deadly splinters, like the Cretan arrowheads; and into a mixed dust of
snow and gold, ponderous, yet which the mountain whirlwinds are able
to lift and drive in wreaths and pillars, hiding the paths with a burial

cloud, fatal at once with wintry chill, and weight of golden ashes. So
the wanderers in the labyrinth fall, one by one, and are buried
there:--yet, over the drifted graves, those who are spared climb to the
last, through coil on coil of the path;--for at the end of it they see the
king of the valley, sitting on his throne: and beside him (but it is only a
false vision), spectra of creatures like themselves, sit on thrones, from
which they seem to look down on all the kingdoms of the world, and
the glory of them. And on the canopy of his throne there
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