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The Business Student's Guide to

Sustainable Management -Principles


and Practice 2nd Edition Molthan-Hill
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Praise for the second edition:
The Business Student’s Guide to Sustainable Management: Principles and
Practice provides students and educators with a tangible guide to effectively
and meaningfully embed sustainability across the curriculum. By
addressing not only content but also creative pedagogical approaches to
teaching, learning, and assessment, the book ensures a high-quality
experience for learners. Through the adoption of content and methods
outlined in this book, graduates will be better equipped with the 21st-
century knowledge, skills, and attributes that are required to lead the
business community to creating a better future for all. I particularly
appreciate the way it is designed to allow educators to pick it up and run
with it, knowing that they can trust the high quality content of the seminars,
whilst also enabling students to independently increase their understanding
of how sustainability links to a particular topic within business. The world
is in desperate need of business leaders who deeply understand
sustainability and have the skills and determination to make a positive
impact—this book will help to make that a reality!
Quinn Runkle, Senior Project Officer—Communities and Curriculum
Department for Sustainability, National Union of Students, UK

This is an excellent and timely book. It is excellent because of the breadth


and depth of coverage, the multiple ways in which it can be used to support
different approaches to embedding sustainability in the curriculum, and the
teaching and learning resources it provides. It is timely because of the way
in which it integrates the Sustainable Development Goals, and so draws on
and develops this new world agenda. It is also timely because of the
increasingly urgent need to tackle the very significant sustainability
challenges facing the planet. If this generation of business students does not
act swiftly and decisively in this regard as they progress through their
careers, it will quite simply be too late. This book can play an important
role in helping them to move in a sustainable direction.
Geoff A. Moore, Professor of Business Ethics, Durham University, UK
One of the first textbooks I have come across to integrate the Sustainable
Development Goals into its teaching material—excellent for both business
students and students and lecturers from other disciplines, or for anyone
who wants to contribute to a more sustainable future for all!
Walter Leal Filho, Head of Research and Transfer Centre, Hamburg
University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Building on the impact of the first edition of The Business Student’s Guide
to Sustainable Management, this revised handbook is an invaluable
resource for students and educators alike. It includes a wide array of
learning resources—overview essays, case examples, curricular
supplements (film and print), reference lists, instructional guides available
to faculty—to empower the business practitioner who recognizes the
necessity for, and the opportunities of, sustainable management. The
impressive list of contributors insures that discussions are both practical and
relevant across all the business functions. But perhaps the most compelling
aspect of this book is its intention: that is, to provide a resource that not
only enables faculty to teach about sustainability but also allows students to
take control and responsibility for their own learning. In this way, the guide
helps future managers to voice and enact their values effectively and
responsibly in a world that sorely needs such confident and competent
leaders.
Mary C. Gentile, Creator/Director of Giving Voice To Values, University
of Virginia Darden School of Business, US

The concept of sustainability is critical for graduates to understand the


increasing complexity of the business reality of today and tomorrow.
Equipping them with the necessary knowledge is a significant challenge for
business education. This book is an important contribution towards this goal
and shows how to embed the concept of sustainability throughout the
business school curriculum. As a very applicable guide, it is useful for both
interested educators and students.
Joris-Johann Lenssen, Managing Director, ABIS—The Academy of
Business in Society

We have a challenging and pressing journey to make in sustainability. Take


this book with you—the “Sat Nav” of sustainable management.
Alison Edmonds, Director, Epic Steps CIC—building leadership, career
awareness and social responsibility in our young generation.

Like all students, business students (and their lecturers) have a choice to
make: to use the opportunity of studying for a degree to become part of the
solution or a part of the problem. Migration, technology, climate change,
resource depletion and other soaring megatrends make the latter career
choice a deeply risky prospect for a recent graduate and one which every
one of us—university managers, academics and executives—has a
responsibility to avoid. This book will certainly help to become part of the
solution.
Iain Patton, CEO, EAUC

The SDGs are the framework to make tangible our global common purpose
for sustainable wellbeing. They should provide an umbrella that other key
sustainability and management initiatives can map to. This edited book
provides this mapping, against a broad range of management topics
business schools can tackle. Furthermore, it gives practical and detailed
examples of how a contribution to the SDGs might be achieved through the
classroom. An invaluable multi- and inter-disciplinary resource for business
schools beginning their paradigm shift and those already on the journey.
Victoria Hurth, Associate Professor in Marketing and Business
Sustainability, Plymouth University, UK

Praise for the first edition:


In 400 pages of easy-to-read text, this book explains what sustainability
means for management … provides fully developed seminars for teaching
sessions and an excellent collection of additional learning materials and
further readings … the textbook really is a most useful guide as well for
business managers who are interested in making their companies more
sustainable.
With new textbooks like The Business Student’s Guide to Sustainable
Management, students, teachers and managers alike now have an
opportunity to see how sustainability affects all aspects of a business and
how profit-seeking businesses can indeed be good for both people and our
planet.
Francis Vorhies, Forbes

In what might serve as a textbook, editor Molthan-Hill (Nottingham Trent


University, UK) provides an introduction to sustainable management with
30 chapters that are very accessible for self-directed study. The topics
covered include: sustainability reporting; environmental economics;
sustainable marketing, operations management, and supply chain
management; sustainable business strategy development; climate change
and greenhouse gas management; stakeholder engagement and corporate
peacemaking; and systems making for sustainable management. Each
chapter has three fully developed seminars intended to be used by teams of
students. For each key subject area, these seminars are crafted on the basis
of different learning methods, such as artwork, games, or case studies. Each
chapter provides authors’ suggestions for digging deeper into the topic
through other media, such as films or websites. Each chapter also contains
at least five further readings—most of them very current—each described
in a paragraph. In addition, the book is very rich in tables and charts that
analytically present the landscape of sustainable management in ways that
will help students develop a sophistication—even a facility—in handling
the topic.
C. Wankel, St. John’s University, New York, US

An important contribution for embedding sustainability into the business


school curriculum, this book can be used by students and professors alike to
advance the very necessary and critical discussions about how business can
truly become sustainable.
Katrin Muff, Dean, Business School Lausanne, Switzerland

This book is far more than a “how to” guide. With the range of ideas and
inspiration it provides it really leaves little excuse not to do what we can to
make our curriculum fit for graduates who will need to lead the change for
a fairer and more sustainable society.
Zoe Robinson, Director of Education for Sustainability, Keele University,
UK

[This chapter] covers all the basic areas of Marketing and overlays the
concept of Sustainability, demonstrating how it can and should have a
positive impact on Marketing. It … engages the reader and … provides
useful activities and exercises to allow the students to relate Sustainability
to their everyday life.
Alastair Allen, Principal Lecturer and Course Leader in Business
Management & Marketing, Nottingham Business School, UK
THE BUSINESS
STUDENT’S GUIDE
TO SUSTAINABLE
MANAGEMENT
Principles and Practice
Second Edition
THE BUSINESS
STUDENT’S GUIDE
TO SUSTAINABLE
MANAGEMENT
Principles and Practice
Second Edition

Edited by Petra Molthan-Hill


First published 2017 by Greenleaf Publishing Limited

Published 2017 by Routledge


2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 2017 Taylor & Francis

The right of Petra Molthan-Hill to be identified as Editor of this Work has been asserted by
her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cover by Sadie Gornall-Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:


A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78353-319-0 (pbk)


ISBN-13: 978-1-78353-318-3 (hbk)
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it
from our Children
Anon.

In a finite world you cannot have infinite desires,


Money really does grow on trees!
Though we are tethered to the Earth from death to birth
We can fill the universe with our hopes and dreams.
Jerome Baddley

Sustainability is about protecting our options. This requires a


new economic paradigm that allows humans to live and
work in ways that can be maintained for decades and
generations without depleting or causing harm to our
environmental, social and economic resources.
Bob Doppelt, Leading Change toward
Sustainability, 2nd edn (Sheffield, UK:
Greenleaf Publishing, 2010), page 40
Contents

Foreword Jonas Haertle


Foreword Zoe Robinson

Introduction

1. The structure and purpose of this book Petra Molthan-Hill

2. A new framework for embedding sustainability into the business


school curriculum
Petra Molthan-Hill, Susan Hill and Carole Parkes

3. Exploring sustainability and your employability


Richard Howarth and Fiona Winfield
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

4. Integrating the three pillars of sustainability: social, environmental


and economic
Aldilla Dharmasasmita, Lina Erlandsson, Jessica Willats and
Seraphina Brown
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading
5. PRME, the UN Global Compact and the Sustainable Development
Goals Tabani Ndlovu
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

Embedding sustainability into core subjects

6. Sustainability reporting
Christian Herzig and Biswaraj Ghosh
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

7. Designing sustainable business with the base of the pyramid


Angelo P. Bisignano, Patricia H. Werhane and Michael Ehret
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

8. Environmental economics Rosa Maria Fernandez


Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching materials and ideas
Further reading

9. Human resource management: developing sustainability mindsets


Elaine Cohen and Daniel King
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

10. Sustainable marketing Helen Goworek


Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

11. Crowdsourcing for sustainable solutions


Lorinda R. Rowledge
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

12. Sustainable operations management


Maggie Zeng and Roy Stratton
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

13. Sustainable supply chain management


Lynn Oxborrow and Peter Lund-Thomsen
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

Adding core topics to the curriculum

14. Climate change and greenhouse gas management


Aldilla Dharmasasmita, Ellie Kennedy, Helen Puntha and Richard
Holmes
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

15. Stakeholder engagement and corporate peacemaking


Natalie Ralph and Ellie Kennedy
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

Bringing it all together

16. Systems thinking and sustainable management


Néstor Valero-Silva
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

17. Developing sustainably responsible strategies in business


Mathias Schüz
Introduction
Suggested seminars
Additional teaching material and ideas
Further reading

Acknowledgements
Biographies
Index
Foreword
Jonas Haertle

Is there any job more important, and more influential, than that of a
manager? Good management allows our organisations to succeed, our
governments to take wise decisions, our scientists to innovate, our
entrepreneurs to flourish, our health professionals to have the resources to
treat. Whether or not they carry the designation of ‘manager’, those who
practise management, and how well they are able to execute the role, shape
our world.
And for more than 100 years, we have formally schooled managers in the
art, or science, or philosophy, of management. Now more than 10,000
institutions worldwide describe themselves as schools of management or
schools of business, and millions of graduates of those schools go into the
workplace armed with what they have learned. In 2013, for the first time,
more people graduated with MBA degrees—more than 25% of the total—
than any other postgraduate designation in the USA.
The very real and very important discussion about what being a ‘good
manager’ means, lies behind this book. In 2006, the United Nations Global
Compact introduced the idea of setting guiding principles for business
educators to help encourage business to be ‘an Agent of World Benefit’. A
year later, an international task force of 60 deans, university presidents and
official representatives of leading business schools and academic
institutions had developed the six Principles for Responsible Management
Education, which set the foundation for a global platform for responsible
management education, known as the PRME initiative, by the UN Global
Compact with support of leading business school associations.
PRME now has more than 650 of the world’s leading business schools
who have pledged to follow the six guiding principles of responsible
management education in their teaching, research and practices. And,
increasingly, whether a school of business and management is a PRME
signatory or not, sustainability and responsibility are ever more centre
stage.
This movement is increasingly hungry for effective research and teaching
resources, and the first edition of The Business Student’s Guide to
Sustainable Management, published by Greenleaf in 2014, made a major
contribution to feeding that hunger. For teaching staff and students alike,
The Business Student’s Guide is an extra ordinarily useful and practical
handbook.
But, more than that, The Business Student’s Guide addresses a point
which those of us in and around business education must keep reminding
ourselves. Sustainability is not anti-profit, or anti-success, or, indeed, anti-
growth. A responsible business is neither soft-hearted nor soft-headed.
Increasingly, consumers prefer to buy from responsible organisations.
Investors like to invest in sustainable businesses. A business which properly
understands long-term risk and limitation, and innovates to address it, is a
better investment proposition than one which blindly ignores them. The
world’s best graduates want, by preference, to work for organisations which
reflect their values, take sensible long-term decisions, and are liked and
valued by stakeholders and society at large.
The mix of teaching insights, case studies, exercises, discussion points
and insights into the classic business school disciplines of finance,
marketing, strategy, operations and HR should be a part of every business
academic’s armoury, and Petra Molthan-Hill should be commended for
assembling contributors with depth of content, in a highly readable format.
To all who read this book, whether you are a teacher, researcher, student
or librarian—I wish you the best of luck with your journey. It is one of
matchless importance. Your choices as an educator of business students, or
a practitioner of management in an organisation, will help shape our world
to come. This second edition of The Business Student’s Guide to
Sustainable Management is as useful a handbook on that journey as you are
likely to find.

Jonas Haertle
Head, Principles for Responsible Management Education, UN Global
Compact, United Nations, New York
Foreword
Zoe Robinson

The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development is


behind us, but the need for education to help drive us towards a more
sustainable society is just as strong. The ‘Decade’ came to a close in 2014,
and 2015 also saw the end of the Millennium Development Goals. That
these major United Nations programmes have each been replaced, with the
UN Global Action Plan on Education for Sustainability replacing the UN
Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, and the Sustainable
Development Goals replacing the Millennium Development Goals, shows
continued commitment to improvements and actions in these areas.
Throughout all of these, education is consistently seen as a key part of
achieving these goals specifically and a more sustainable society more
widely. At the same time, year on year, we see consistent student demand to
have sustainability as part of their university experience.
The Sustainable Development Goals aim to ‘stimulate action over the
next fifteen years in areas of critical importance for humanity and the
planet’. A world where business leaders framed their business operations
and decisions with achievement of these goals in mind would both change
and speed our trajectory to a more sustainable society. It is only a few years
since the first edition of this book was published, in the same year that the
Decade of Education for Sustainable Development ended, yet with the
ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals our international
framework for moving towards a more sustainable society has changed
significantly. This new edition is therefore welcomed, for its emphasis on
the Sustainable Development Goals as well as other important UN
business-focused initiatives, such as the Principles for Responsible
Management Education and the Global Compact, which are driving major
developments in business education across the world.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of
Percival's picture gallery
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Percival's picture gallery

Author: A. L. O. E.

Release date: February 26, 2024 [eBook #73027]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Morgan and Scott, 1887

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERCIVAL'S


PICTURE GALLERY ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as
printed.

The Persian listened with curiosity, and the Afghan


with some attention; but it was on the old Sikh that the holy
words
fell like rain from Heaven.

PERCIVAL'S

PICTURE GALLERY.

BY

A. L. O. E.

Authoress of "Pearls of Wisdom from the Parables,"


"The Young Pilgrim," "The Shepherd of Bethlehem," &c., &c.
LONDON: MORGAN AND SCOTT

(OFFICE OF "The Christian")

12, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.

And may be ordered of any Bookseller.

PREFACE.

THIS little volume may, I hope, awaken in some minds


thoughts of a devotional character. Some of the ideas
contained in it came to me in a chamber of sickness,
which was at one time expected to be my chamber of
death.

The thoughts were pleasant and soothing to myself.


May they, by God's blessing, be so also to some of my
fellow-pilgrims.

A
. L. O. E.
Contents.

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTORY

II. THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE RED SEA

III. KING DAVID'S VISION

IV. THE CARPENTER'S DEATH

V. HOMELESS

VI. LEGEND OF THE SELF-MADE GRAVE

VII. THE THREE "BIHISTIS"

VIII. LEGEND OF THE SHEKEL

IX. THE NIGHT AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION

X. THE LEGEND OF THE ROMAN SOLDIER

XI. ASLEEP!

PERCIVAL'S
PICTURE GALLERY.

CHAPTER I.
Introductory.

"NO, Sir, no; the doctor gives no hope that the poor young
gentleman will ever walk again; and as for life, the doctor
says that it may be a matter of months, or perhaps of
years. But Mr. Percival is going down to the grave sure and
certain; and he knows that himself."
Such was the sad reply given by his landlady, to my
enquiries regarding my old schoolfellow, when I called at his
lodging in London. I had been absent on the Continent for
six weeks in the long vacation. A painful malady in his knee
had prevented Percival's being, as we had both hoped, my
travelling companion; and it was no small disappointment to
us both when he had to be left behind.

How we had looked forward to a visit to Italy, to luxuriate


amongst the treasures of art; which Percival's cultivated
taste and knowledge of painting, would enable him so
thoroughly to appreciate! I had however felt no serious
anxiety regarding my friend; his letters had been cheerful,
and contained little allusion to the state of his health. It was
therefore with a shock of surprise that I heard that Percival
was now a hopeless invalid, unable to rise from the couch
on which he had suffered so long.

I held no long parley with the landlady, but hurried up the


long narrow staircase to the attic-room, in which Percival
expected to pass the remainder of his days under constant
medical care. A lonely life his must be, for he had lost every
near relative in the world; and, at the season when London
is comparatively empty, few acquaintances were likely to
find their way to a dull lodging in the neighbourhood of
Russell Square.

Slender means; solitude and sickness; confinement to one


small room, when others were enjoying fresh breezes on
the ocean or the heathery moor—what a combination of
trials for one still in the flower of his youth! I had known
Percival as the cleverest, handsomest boy in our school; the
hero of the cricket-ground; the first in the race; the winner
of numerous prizes: I could hardly realize the possibility of
such a deep shadow falling on a life so bright.
From early childhood, Percival had had a remarkable talent
for drawing, which had occasionally led him into trouble.
Before the boy's small fingers could write one word, they
had begun to use a pencil; and quaint grotesque figures
were scrawled on the nursery door.

At school Percival fell into many a scrape from scribbling


faces over the margins of books—not always his own; and
from making curious illustrations in dictionaries and
grammars. We saw our own likenesses, unmistakable ones,
drawn in charcoal on the whitewashed walls. Every Panel of
the door served as a canvas: and the young artist was
sometimes rewarded for his skill by long impositions of
Latin verses, which he learned with the book in one hand
and the pencil in the other.

On reaching the landing-place, I did not stop to knock at


the door before me; but at once entered the attic-room
where Percival lay on his couch, an easel beside him, and a
palette bedaubed with many colours, a box of oil-paints,
and brushes, on a small table placed within easy reach of
his arm. Unframed paintings hanging on the dingy wall
somewhat relieved the dull effect of scanty third-rate
furniture, and of an old carpet with the pattern well-nigh
worn-out of it, which looked as if it had never been new.

Percival's pale face flushed with sudden pleasure as he


caught sight of mine. He dropped the brush with which he
had been painting, and holding out his thin hand, grasped
mine with the joyous exclamation, "Seyton, old boy! who
thought of seeing you here!"

Then he added, smiling, "Take a chair—no, not that with the


broken back—sit down, and tell me about your travels. I
want to see all that you have seen, hear all that you have
heard, and enjoy a trip to Italy by proxy."
I seated myself by my suffering friend, and did what I could
to divert his mind from his affliction, by describing whatever
I thought most likely to interest him. Percival showed keen
pleasure in hearing about the works of art which I had seen
in foreign galleries: of the principal ones he had already
gathered a fair knowledge from books.

When I paused at last, Percival remarked, "Will you think


me a Goth or a Vandal, Seyton, if I own to you that there
seems to me a good deal of sameness in these subjects
chosen by Italian artists: so many 'Madonnas' clad as Mary
of Nazareth never was dressed; so many 'Saints' with
haloes round their heads; so many 'Holy Families' and
pictures of the 'Last Supper,' where none of the accessories
convey to the mind a true idea of the actual scene. If I were
an artist—"

"You are one," I interrupted; "if artists, like poets, are born
—not made. With a little study of the Old Masters you
would, I am certain, have made your mark amongst English
painters."

"I doubt whether I should ever have earned butter to my


bread," observed Percival. "I am too fond of striking out a
line of my own. But I do intensely love the art; and am
heartily glad that I have lost the use of my knee instead of
that of my hand."

"I see that you paint still," said I, glancing at the palette.
"Have you no difficulty in procuring models?"

"You think that my good old landlady, Mrs. Bond, in her


black lace cap and false front, would hardly serve as one,"
laughed Percival. "She is the only specimen of the fair sex
that I ever see; except, indeed, the red-haired maid of all
work, who is only remarkable for the number of cups and
glasses which she breaks. I have to do without models,
Seyton; or rather to content myself with the forms which I
see in my dreams."

"In your dreams?" I repeated enquiringly.

"I mean waking dreams," said my friend. "I often cannot


get rest at night; or at least, till—

"'Yon dull steeple's drowsy chime—'

"has struck one or more of the small hours. So, making a


virtue of necessity, I lie still, and amuse myself with my
thoughts."

"I am so grieved—" I began; but Percival cut me short.

"Grieve not for me, dear friend. Some of the happiest


moments which I have ever spent, have been in those still
night hours. I have sometimes felt as if admitted to a
private interview with the King. He giveth 'songs in the
night.' I have thrown that idea into the form of rhyme.
Would you care to hear the lines? They are of no value but
as the transcript of the experience of a sick man."

On my expressing a wish to hear the little poem, Percival


repeated it with a good deal of feeling; warming into
joyousness as he recited the concluding verse.

Song in the Night.


O thou, on thy sick-bed kept watchful and waking
By pain, all the weary night through!
It seems as if God were His servant forsaking,
His servant—so trustful and true.

Oh no! For He giveth me songs in the darkness


That never were heard in the day:
"Thine eyes shall behold the King in His beauty,
The land that is far, far away."

Poor sufferer! The noises of earth must oppress thee,


That rise through the sullen night air;
The sound of the world's mirth must surely distress
thee,
That mirth which thou never may'st share.

Oh no! For an angel is sitting beside me,


And warbling so low—yet so clear,
"Thine eyes shall behold the King in His beauty:"
And this is the song which I hear.

The Angel's Song.

"I come down to cheer thee, O happy immortal!


From sin's condemnation set free;
Whilst yet thou art ling'ring beside the high portal,
Whose door soon will open for thee.

"I bring thee a promise, the sweetest—the surest—


'Tis sent by the God who is Love,
'Thine eyes shall behold the King in His beauty,'
When thou art with angels above.

"I saw Him when in His own world, as a stranger,


Appeared the Omnipotent Lord;
I hovered in ecstasy over His manger
With worshipping shepherds adored:
I the first faint infant cry from the Monarch
Whose voice bade the universe be;
Mine eyes then beheld the King in His weakness,
I saw Him, and marvelled to see.

"I saw Him in manhood, despised and neglected,


A mourner, 'acquainted with grief,'
I longed—how I longed!—that when mortals rejected
The angels might bring Him relief!
I heard the fierce blasphemies scornfully uttered
By Scribe and by proud Pharisee;
Mine eyes then beheld the King in His trials,
I saw—much perplexed to see.

"I saw—but the tongue of a seraph must falter


Such myst'ry of love to declare!—
I saw upon Calvary raised the high Altar,
A Cross—and the Victim was there!
There was silence in Heaven—strange wonder in
Heaven—
All gazing on that awful tree;
Mine eyes then beheld the King in His anguish,
I saw Him—and trembled to see!

"And thou too shalt see Him—such bliss is before thee



But not in His weakness and pain;
When girded with power, and mantled in glory
The Victim returneth—to reign:
Shalt see Him, no stranger, but One whom thou
lovest,
Thy Saviour, Redeemer, and Friend;
'Thine eyes shall behold the King in His beauty,'
Through ages that never shall end!"

CHAPTER II.
The Passage through the Red Sea.

A PAUSE followed the recital: Percival's deep blue eyes


seemed to be full of the light of another world.

After awhile I observed, "Poetry soothes your wakeful


hours; but you have not at night the resource of painting."

"It is at night that I form my designs," he replied, "and


draw in imagination scenes that look meagre enough when
transferred to canvas. My execution falls sadly short of what
I see in my waking dreams."

"I suppose that you choose subjects from Scripture," said I.


"Not exactly," answered my friend; "I take subjects rather
from what Scripture suggests, than follow in the beaten
track of innumerable artists by actually illustrating
Scripture."

"I do not quite understand you," said I.

"Well, take for example the subject of the Children of Israel


crossing the Red Sea. You must have seen pictures of that.
What impression have they left on your mind?"

"That of a vast multitude of men, women and children, with


large flocks and herds, passing through something like a
deep valley, with a pillar of light above to guide them on
their way."

"Amongst multitudes we are apt to forget the units,"


Percival observed. "Have you never thought how many
episodes of deep interest must have occurred during that
hasty flight—incidents which would draw out the characters
of individuals? Has your fancy never imagined some single
family group separate from the mass of fugitives flying from
their oppressors?"

"My fancy is not so lively as yours," I replied.

"You have never pictured to yourself what the Israelites


may have seen of the wonders of the deep, hitherto as a
locked casket, in—

"'Those profound abysses where


Was never voice from upper air'?"
"What could the people have seen but sand; and perchance,
sea-weed?" said I.

"Would it trouble you, Seyton, to lift yon picture from the


nail, and bring it here? MY pictures are guiltless of frames,
so they are more easily moved. You will see on the canvas
my idea of an episode which may have occurred during the
passage through the Red Sea."

I did as desired, and brought the picture to the side of my


friend.

Poor Percival! His paintings are framed now; and the one
which I am about to describe hangs opposite to the table at
which I am writing. He bequeathed to me the sketches
which were the children of his brain, his hand, his heart.

To avoid needless repetition of the objectionable "I" in my


brief descriptions of Percival's picture gallery, I shall make
my recollections take the form of dialogue: except where
what my friend called "A Legend" comes in, which I will
copy from the MS * left by the author.

* Manuscript

It is impossible, however, to give on paper the charm of


Percival's voice; the lighting up of his countenance; his
soul-absorption in his subjects. My description looks to me
like the colourless photograph of a window of fine stained
glass; the beauty lost; the bare outline of the pattern
depicted.

But it may be that friendship for the departed "casts a halo"


over works on which he so lovingly wrought. Percival did not
himself set a high value on his pictures; though their
subjects had a fascination for his mind. He often lamented
his want of finish, and said that he could not delineate as an
artist what he might dream as a poet.

The Passage through the Red Sea.

Seyton. Why, Percival, this strange, weird production of


yours must have been the outcome of a nightmare!

Percival. The idea of it came to my mind during a night


somewhat more painful and restless than usual.

Seyton. Let me see what I can make out of it. Here, in the
centre, the first object to catch the eye is the skeleton of
some huge leviathan; some monster unknown to modern
science, who might have taken his pastime in the deep
waters, or lashed the surface of the sea into foam in the
days of Noah. Half of the picture is in light, and half in
shadow, for in upper air hangs the pillar of cloud and fire;
thus one half of the skeleton reflects the ruddy glare, which
gilds the bare ribs, and partly reveals the vast proportions
of the sea monster; while darkness on the other hand
conceals the length of the leviathan, as he lies on his bed of
sea-weed, green and brown, with the glimmering glassy
wall of water as a background behind him.

Percival. Is the skeleton the only object seen in the sketch?

Seyton. No, no; let me examine more closely. Here, to the


left, I dimly trace the heads and fore-parts of two horses;
the animals, with distended nostrils and ears turned back,
evidently starting in fear at suddenly coming on such an
object of grisly horror lying right in their path.
The horses appear to belong to some Egyptian of rank: they
wear the cumbrous trappings with which the antiquities at
the Museum make us familiar. Had there been space on
your canvas, we should doubtless have traced on it the
outline of some gorgeous chariot, perhaps that of Pharaoh
himself.

Percival. I have tried, by the tightly-drawn reins, to show


that the driver of the chariot has suddenly perceived the
ghastly obstacle in his path. By that skeleton, I intended to
convey to the mind an image of death—that sudden death
which was so close to Pharaoh and his godless hosts, even
while they were pressing forward in eager pursuit of spoil
and revenge.

Seyton. Now let us turn to the right hand of the picture


which your pencil has bathed in mysterious light. I see an
Israelite mother. Her mantle, falling back, shows a face of
Oriental beauty, full of anxiety and fear.

Percival. Yes, she has heard the tramp and the snorting of
the war-horses of Pharaoh; and she knows that she is the
last of all the fugitives, the one nearest to the enemy. She
has been left behind the rest: for in the confusion she had
been separated from her child; and she has wildly sought
him, and found him at last almost close to the fierce
pursuers.

Seyton. And evidently utterly unconscious of danger. That


bare-footed, beautiful little boy, whose face beams with
delight, presents an expressive contrast to the anxious
mother, who, grasping one of his small hands, is trying to
draw him hastily away.

Percival. The child is exulting; for he has found a prize in


the leviathan's fleshless jaws. His hand holds a beautiful

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