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The Treasure Chamber
Edmond was seized with vertigo; he cocked his gun and laid it beside him. He then closed his eyes as children do in order that they may see in the resplendent night of their own imagination more stars than are visible in the firmament; then he re-opened them, and stood motionless with amazement.
Three compartments divided the coffer. In the first, blazed piles of golden coin; in the second, were ranged bars of unpolished gold […]; in the third, Edmond grasped handfuls of diamonds, pearls, and rubies, which, as they fell on one another, sounded like hail against glass. After having touched, felt, examined these treasures, Edmond rushed through the caverns like a man seized with frenzy; he leaped on a rock, from whence he could behold the sea. He was alone – alone with these countless, these unheard-of treasures! Was he awake, or was it but a dream? Was it a transient vision, or was he face to face with reality? […]
[H]e fell on his knees, and, clasping his hands convulsively, uttered a prayer intelligible to God alone. He soon became calmer and more happy, for only now did he begin to realize his felicity.
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
“Hullo, you fellows,” he cried, “here’s a recess. Great heavens! see here.”
We hurried up to where he was standing in a nook, shaped something like a small bow window. Against the wall of this recess were placed three stone chests, each about two feet square. Two were fitted with stone lids, the lid of the third rested against the side of the chest, which was open.
“See!” he repeated hoarsely, holding the lamp over the open chest. We looked, and for a moment could make nothing out, on account of a silvery sheen which dazzled us. When our eyes grew used to it we saw that the chest was three-parts full of uncut diamonds, most of them of considerable size. Stooping, I picked some up. Yes, there was no doubt of it […].
I fairly gasped as I dropped them.
“We are the richest men in the whole world,” I said. “Monte Christo was a fool to us.”
H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines
At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing my candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues and gold – everywhere the glint of gold.
Howard Carter, on the discovery of the tomb of Tutanhkamun
It’s been a staple of adventure writing for centuries: the sudden discovery of the treasure chamber, filled with unimaginable riches, just sitting there, ready for the lucky finder. Left by the ages, forgotten, neglected, it waits dusty years, decades, centuries for the right person, the true treasure seeker, to inherit it all.
It is a metaphor, of course: a metaphor for all the wisdom and beauty that past generations have stored up and left for those who come after. Painting, poetry, architecture, music, sculpture, stories, philosophy, drama: they are all piled to the ceiling, jostling with each other for space, cramming every nook and corner, every niche and cranny of the treasure chamber, strewn across the floor and hung on the walls, overflowing from chests and cupboards and wedged three-deep on the shelves, great tottering piles of every shape and colour, and everywhere the glint of gold. Wonderful things.
We live in a society where, ironically, while it has never been easier to get our hands on all the cultural treasures that mankind, across every age and civilisation, has bequeathed to us, probably fewer of us than ever before seem interested in filling our pockets. It is the aim of the ‘cultural’ threads of the Food for Thought Programme to inspire and encourage our children to peek inside the secret chamber and catch a glimpse of what is there to be discovered.
This is, of course, a deeply personal thing. There are too many gems to hope to carry them all away, too many golden ingots for one man to lift. Each will be drawn into different corners; each eye will be caught by different gleams and glimmers. But what fun there is to be had in sharing what we’ve found! “Hey, have you seen this?” “Come and look at what I’ve just spotted?” “Can you believe what I’ve uncovered here?”
Culture is a great treasure, then, and if we care for our children, we will want to leave them so vast an inheritance – and help them see where to look for it.
But precisely because it can be shared, ‘culture’ is also a language and a means of communication. ‘Cultural Literacy’ is the suggestive and provocative phrase coined by E. D. Hirsch in the 1980s to mean someone’s grasp of the basic knowledge needed to understand and function fully within society. But, from my point of view, it’s greatest value as a means of communication is perhaps not just that it allows us to communicate with each other, and allows pupils to read with comprehension broadsheet newspaper columns and scholarly articles. There are more interesting people to talk to than just our contemporaries.
To persevere with the metaphor of treasure-seekers, arch-nemesis Dr René Belloq famously says in Raiders of the Lost Ark, ‘Jones, do you realize what the Ark is? It's a transmitter. It's a radio for speaking to God. And it's within my reach.’ Well, the cultural treasures that we have been left, are a radio for speaking with Aristotle and Aesop, with Monet, Monteverdi and Michelangelo, with Beethoven, with Hardy, with Praxiteles of Athens. And that radio is within our reach, and within the reach of our children.
Strange and wonderful voices are waiting on the other end of the line. We just need to pick up the receiver.
The treasure is all there. It’s our job to pass on the treasure map.
There’s more to be said about what is the ‘purpose’ of great works of art – I think it is in some ways the opposite of what many people assume. But I’ll leave that for another time. For now, it is enough to acknowledge, with gratitude, the glories that are there for the taking; and to accept our responsibility, as teachers and as parents, for showing the next generation how to find them. And that is one of the things the Food for Thought Programme is trying to begin to achieve.
One resource I have recommended to the pupils on the Food for Thought Programme to try is the Twitter account, ‘The Cultural Tutor’ (with due scholarly care and healthy reserve – it’s not, of course, perfect).
Why not try it out yourself? It will add a few minutes of beauty and wonder into the greyest of days…
