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Title: Arrows of the Chace, v. 2 - being a collection of scattered letters published chiefly - in the daily newspapers 1840-1880
Author: Ruskin, John
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Arrows of the Chace, v. 2 - being a collection of scattered letters published chiefly - in the daily newspapers 1840-1880" ***
THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
JOHN RUSKIN
VOLUME XXIII
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
VOLUMES I-II
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
BEING
A COLLECTION OF
SCATTERED LETTERS
PUBLISHED CHIEFLY IN THE DAILY NEWSPAPERS
1840-1880
VOLUME II.
LETTERS ON POLITICS, ECONOMY, AND
MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS
"I NEVER WROTE A LETTER IN MY LIFE WHICH ALL THE WORLD ARE NOT WELCOME
TO READ IF THEY WILL."
_Fors Clavigera_, Letter 59, 1875.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
PAGE
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS CONTAINED IN VOL. II. x
LETTERS ON POLITICS AND WAR:
The Italian Question. 1859.
Three letters: June 6 3
June 15 8
August 1 13
The Foreign Policy of England. 1863 15
The Position of Denmark. 1864 17
The Jamaica Insurrection. 1865 20
The Franco-Prussian War. 1870.
Two letters: October 6 22
October 7 25
Modern Warfare. 1876 29
LETTERS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY:
The Depreciation of Gold. 1863 37
The Law of Supply and Demand. 1864.
Three letters: October 26 39
October 29 40
November 2 43
Mr. Ruskin and Professor Hodgson. 1873.
Two letters: November 8 44
November 15 46
Strikes _v._ Arbitration. 1865 48
Work and Wages. 1865.
Five letters: April 20 50
April 22 52
April 29 54
May 4 59
May 20 62
The Standard of Wages. 1867 65
How the Rich spend their Money. 1873.
Three letters: January 23 66
January 28 67
January 30 68
Commercial Morality. 1875 70
The Definition of Wealth. 1875 71
The Principles of Property. 1877 71
On Co-operation. 1879-80.
Two letters: August, 1879 73
April 12, 1880 73
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS:
I. THE MANAGEMENT OF RAILWAYS.
Is England Big Enough? 1868 79
The Ownership of Railways. 1868 81
Railway Economy. 1868 83
Our Railway System. 1865 88
Railway Safety. 1870 89
II. SERVANTS AND HOUSES.
Domestic Servants--Mastership. 1865 93
Domestic Servants--Experience. 1865 95
Domestic Servants--Sonship and Slavery. 1865 96
Modern Houses. 1865 104
III. ROMAN INUNDATIONS.
A King's First Duty. 1871 111
A Nation's Defences. 1871 113
The Waters of Comfort. 1871 115
The Streams of Italy. 1871 116
The Streets of London. 1871 119
IV. EDUCATION FOR RICH AND POOR.
True Education. 1868 123
The Value of Lectures. 1874 124
The Cradle of Art. 1876 125
St. George's Museum. 1875 126
The Morality of Field Sports. 1870 127
Drunkenness and Crime. 1871 129
Madness and Crime. 1872 130
Employment for the Destitute Poor and Criminal Classes. 1868 131
Notes on the General Principles of Employment for the
Destitute and Criminal Classes (a Pamphlet). 1868 132
Blindness and Sight. 1879 139
The Eagle's Nest. 1879 140
Politics in Youth. 1879 141
"Act, Act in the Living Present." 1873 141
"Laborare est Orare." 1874 142
A Pagan Message. 1878 143
The Foundations of Chivalry. 1877-8.
Five letters: February 8, 1877 143
February 10, 1877 145
February 11, 1877 146
February 12, 1877 147
July 3, 1878 148
V. WOMEN: THEIR WORK AND THEIR DRESS
Woman's Work. 1873 153
Female Franchise. 1870 154
Proverbs on Right Dress. 1862 154
Sad-colored Costumes. 1870 156
Oak Silkworms. 1862 158
VI. LITERARY CRITICISM.
The Publication of Books. 1875 163
A Mistaken Review. 1875 165
The Position of Critics. 1875 167
Coventry Patmore's "Faithful for Ever." 1860 168
"The Queen of the Air." 1871 171
The Animals of Scripture: a Review. 1856 172
"Limner" and Illumination. 1854 174
Notes on a Word in Shakespeare. 1878.
Two letters: September 176
September 29 177
"The Merchant of Venice." 1880 179
Recitations. 1880 186
APPENDIX.
Letter to W. C. Bennett, LL.D. 1852 183
Letter to Thomas Guthrie, D.D. 1853 184
The Sale of Mr. Windus' Pictures. 1859 185
At the Play. 1867 185
An Object of Charity. 1868 186
Excuses from Correspondence. 1868 186
Letter to the Author of a Review. 1872 187
An Oxford Protest. 1874 188
Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Lowe. 1877 189
The Bibliography of Ruskin. 1878.
Two letters: September 30 190
October 23 190
The Society of the Rose. 1879 191
* * * * *
Letter to W. H. Harrison. 1865 192
Dramatic Reform. 1880. (Two letters) 193
The Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University. 1880. (Five
letters) 195
EPILOGUE 201
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS CONTAINED IN BOTH VOLUMES 204
INDEX 213
NOTE TO THE SECOND VOLUME.
_The letters relating to Mr. Ruskin's candidature for the Lord
Rectorship of Glasgow University were published when this volume was
almost out of the printer's hands. They have however been included,
by Mr. Ruskin's wish, and will be found at the end of this volume,
where a letter to the late Mr. W. H. Harrison, which has just been
brought to my notice, and two very recent letters on Dramatic Reform,
have, at the cost of some delay, been also added._--[ED.]
_November_ 15, 1880.
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS CONTAINED IN THE SECOND VOLUME.
NOTE.--_In the second and third columns the bracketed words and
figures are more or less certainly conjectured; whilst those
unbracketed give the actual_ _dating of the letters._
TITLE OF LETTER. |WHERE |WHEN |WHERE AND WHEN |PAGE.|
|WRITTEN. |WRITTEN. |FIRST PUBLISHED. | |
| | | | |
LETTER TO W. C. |Herne Hill, |December |"Testimonials of | 183|
BENNETT, LL.D. |Dulwich |28th, 1852 |W. C. Bennett," | |
| | |1871 | |
| | | | |
LETTER TO DR. |[Edinburgh] |Saturday, |"Memoir of | 184|
GUTHRIE | |26th [Nov. |Thomas Guthrie, | |
| |?] 1853 |D.D.," (1875) | |
| | | | |
LETTER TO W. H. |[Herne Hill |1853] |_The Autographic | 192|
HARRISON | | |Mirror_, Dec. | |
| | |23, 1865 | |
| | | | |
"LIMNER" AND |[Denmark |December |_The Builder_, | 174|
ILLUMINATION |Hill |3, 1854] |Dec. 9, 1854 | |
| | | | |
THE ANIMALS OF |[Denmark |January, |_The Morning | 172|
SCRIPTURE: A REVIEW |Hill |1855] |Chronicle_, Jan. | |
| | |20, 1855 | |
| | | | |
THE SALE OF MR. |Denmark Hill|March 28 |_The Times_, | 185|
WINDUS' PICTURES | |[1859] |March 29, 1859 | |
| | | | |
THE ITALIAN QUESTION|Berlin |June 6, |_The Scotsman_, | 3|
| |1859 |July 20, 1859 | |
| | | | |
" " |Berlin |June 15 |" July 23, 1859 | 8|
| |[1859] | | |
| | | | |
" " |Schaffhausen|August 1, |" Aug. 6, 1859 | 13|
| |1859 | | |
| | | | |
COVENTRY PATMORE'S |Denmark Hill|[October |_The Critic_, | 168|
"FAITHFUL FOR EVER" | |21, 1860] |Oct. 27, 1860 | |
| | | | |
PROVERBS ON RIGHT |Geneva |October |_The Monthly | 154|
DRESS | |20th, 1862 |Packet_, Nov. | |
| | |1863 | |
| | | | |
OAK SILKWORMS |Geneva |October |_The Times_, | 158|
| |20th [1862]|Oct. 24, 1862 | |
| | | | |
THE DEPRECIATION OF |Chamounix |October 2 |_The Times_, | 37|
GOLD | |[1863] |Oct. 8, 1863 | |
| | | | |
THE FOREIGN POLICY |Zurich |October |_The Liverpool | 15|
OF ENGLAND | |25th, 1863 |Albion_, Nov. 2, | |
| | |1863 | |
| | | | |
THE POSITION OF |Denmark Hill|July 6 |_The Morning | 17|
DENMARK | |[1864] |Post_, July 7, | |
| | |1864 | |
| | | | |
THE LAW OF SUPPLY |Denmark Hill|October 26 |_The Daily | 39|
AND DEMAND | |[1864] |Telegraph_, Oct. | |
| | |28, 1864 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Denmark Hill|October 29 |" " Oct. 31, 1864| 40|
| |[1864] | | |
| | | | |
" " " |Denmark Hill|November 2 |" " Nov. 3, 1864 | 43|
| |[1864] | | |
| | | | |
STRIKES _V._ |[Denmark |Easter |_The Pall Mall | 48|
ARBITRATION |Hill] |Monday, |Gazette_, April | |
| |1865 |18, 1865 | |
| | | | |
WORK AND WAGES |Denmark Hill|Thursday, |" " April 21, | 50|
| |April 20 |1865 | |
| |[1865] | | |
| | | | |
" " |Denmark Hill|Saturday, |" " April 25, | 52|
| |April 22, |1865 | |
| |1865 | | |
| | | | |
" " |[Denmark |Saturday, |" " May 2, 1865 | 54|
|Hill] |29th | | |
| |April, 1865| | |
| | | | |
" " |Denmark Hill|May 4 |" " May 9, 1865 | 59|
| |[1865] | | |
| | | | |
" " |[Denmark |May 20, |" " May 22, 1865 | 62|
|Hill] |1865 | | |
| | | | |
DOMESTIC |Denmark Hill|September |_The Daily | 93|
SERVANTS--MASTERSHIP| |2 [1865] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |September 5, 1865| |
| | | | |
" " EXPERIENCE |Denmark Hill|September |" " September 7, | 95|
| |6 [1865] |1865 | |
| | | | |
" " SONSHIP AND |Denmark Hill|September |" " September | 96|
SLAVERY | |16, 1865] |18, 1865 | |
| | | | |
MODERN HOUSES |Denmark Hill|October 16 |" " October 17, | 104|
| |[1865] |1865 | |
| | | | |
OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM |Denmark Hill|December 7 |" " December 8, | 88|
| |[1865] |1865 | |
| | | | |
THE JAMAICA |Denmark Hill|December |" " December 20, | 20|
INSURRECTION | |19 [1865] |1865 | |
| | | | |
AT THE PLAY |Denmark Hill|February |_The Pall Mall | 185|
| |28, 1867 |Gazette_, March | |
| | |1, 1867 | |
| | | | |
THE STANDARD OF |Denmark Hill|April 30, |" " May 1, 1867 | 65|
WAGES | |1867 | | |
| | | | |
AN OBJECT OF CHARITY|Denmark |January |_The Daily | 186|
|Hill, S. |21, 1868 |Telegraph_, | |
| | |January 22, 1868 | |
| | | | |
TRUE EDUCATION |Denmark |January |_The Pall Mall | 123|
|Hill, S. |31, 1868 |Gazette_, | |
| | |January 31, 1868 | |
| | | | |
EXCUSE FROM |Denmark |2d |Circular printed | 186|
CORRESPONDENCE |Hill, S. |February, |by Mr. Ruskin, | |
| |1868 |1868 | |
| | | | |
IS ENGLAND BIG |Denmark Hill|July 30 |_The Daily | 79|
ENOUGH? | |[1868] |Telegraph_, July | |
| | |31, 1868 | |
| | | | |
THE OWNERSHIP OF |Denmark Hill|August 5 |" " August 6, | 81|
RAILWAYS | |[1868] |1868 | |
| | | | |
RAILWAY ECONOMY |Denmark Hill|August 9 |" " August 10, | 83|
| |[1868] |1868 | |
| | | | |
EMPLOYMENT FOR THE |Denmark |December |" " December 26, | 131|
DESTITUTE POOR, ETC.|Hill, S.E. |24 [1868] |1868 | |
| | | | |
NOTES ON THE |[Denmark |Autumn, |Pamphlet | 132|
DESTITUTE CLASSES, |Hill] |1868] |for private | |
ETC. | | |circulation, 1868| |
| | | | |
THE MORALITY OF |Denmark Hill|January 14 |_The Daily | 127|
FIELD SPORTS | |[1870] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |January 15, 1870 | |
| | | | |
FEMALE FRANCHISE |Venice |29th May, |Date and place | 154|
| |1870 |of publication | |
| | |unknown | |
| | | | |
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN |Denmark |October 6 |_The Daily | 22|
WAR |Hill, S.E. |[1870] |Telegraph_, Oct. | |
| | |7, 1870 | |
| | | | |
" " " |[Denmark |October 7 |" " Oct. 8, 1870 | 25|
|Hill, S.E.] |[1870] | | |
| | | | |
SAD-COLORED COSTUMES|Denmark |14th |_Macmillan's | 156|
|Hill, S.E. |October, |Magazine_, Nov. | |
| |1870 |1870 | |
| | | | |
RAILWAY SAFETY |Denmark Hill|November |_The Daily | 89|
| |29, 1870 |Telegraph_, Nov. | |
| | |30, 1870 | |
| | | | |
A KING'S FIRST DUTY |[Denmark |January 10 |" " January 12, | 111|
|Hill] |[1871] |1871 | |
| | | | |
A NATION'S DEFENCES |Denmark Hill|January |_The Pall Mall | 113|
| |19, 1871 |Gazette_, Jan. | |
| | |19, 1871 | |
| | | | |
THE WATERS OF |Oxford |February 3 |_The Daily | 115|
COMFORT | |[1871] |Telegraph_, Feb. | |
| | |4, 1871 | |
| | | | |
THE STREAMS OF ITALY|Oxford |February 3 |" " Feb. 7, 1871 | 116|
| |[1871] | | |
| | | | |
WOMAN'S SPHERE |[Oxford |February |" " Feb. 21, 1871| 154|
(EXTRACT) | |19, 1871] | | _n._|
| | | | |
THE "QUEEN OF THE |[Denmark |May 18, |_The Asiatic_, | 171|
AIR" |Hill] |1871 |May 23, 1871 | |
| | | | |
DRUNKENNESS AND |Denmark Hill|December 9 |_The Daily | 129|
CRIME | |[1871] |Telegraph_, Dec. | |
| | |11, 1871 | |
| | | | |
THE STREETS OF |[Denmark |December |_The Pall Mall | 119|
LONDON |Hill] |27, 1871 |Gazette_, Dec. | |
| | |28, 1871 | |
| | | | |
MADNESS AND CRIME |Oxford |November 2 |" " Nov. 4, 1872 | 130|
| |[1872] | | |
| | | | |
LETTER TO THE |Oxford |Wednesday, |_Liverpool | 187|
AUTHOR OF A REVIEW | |Oct. 30 |Weekly Albion_, | |
| |[1872] |Nov. 9, 1872 | |
| | | | |
"ACT, ACT IN THE |Oxford |Christmas |New Year's | 141|
LIVING PRESENT" | |Eve, '72 |Address, etc., | |
| | |1873 | |
| | | | |
HOW THE RICH SPEND |Brantwood, |January 23 |_The Pall Mall | 66|
THEIR MONEY |Coniston |[1873] |Gazette_, Jan. | |
| | |24, 1873 | |
| | | | |
" " " |[Brantwood, |January 28 |" " Jan. 29, 1873| 67|
|Coniston] |[1873] | | |
| | | | |
" " " |Brantwood, |King |" " Jan. 31, 1873| 68|
|Coniston |Charles | | |
| |the | | |
| |Martyr, | | |
| |1873 | | |
| | | | |
WOMAN'S WORK |[ ] |[May, 1873]|_L'Espérance | 153|
| | |Genève_, May 8, | |
| | |1873 | |
| | | | |
MR. RUSKIN AND |Oxford |November |_The Scotsman_, | 44|
PROFESSOR HODGSON | |8, 1873 |November 10, 1873| |
| | | | |
" " " |Oxford |November |" November 18, | 46|
| |15, 1873 |1873 | |
| | | | |
"LABORARE EST ORARE"|Oxford |December, |New Year's | 142|
| |1873 |Address, etc., | |
| | |1874 | |
| | | | |
THE VALUE OF |Rome |26th May, |_The Glasgow | 124|
LECTURES | |1874 |Herald_, June 5, | |
| | |1874 | |
| | | | |
AN OXFORD PROTEST |[Oxford |October |_The Globe_, | 188|
| |29, 1874 |Oct. 29, 1874 | |
| | | | |
A MISTAKEN REVIEW |Brantwood |January 10 |_The Pall Mall | 165|
| |[1875] |Gazette_, | |
| | |January 11, 1875 | |
| | | | |
THE POSITION OF |Brantwood |January 18 |" " January 19, | 167|
CRITICS | |[1875] |1875 | |
| | | | |
COMMERCIAL MORALITY |[Herne Hill |February, |Date and place | 70|
| |1875] |of publication | |
| | |unknown | |
| | | | |
THE PUBLICATION OF |Oxford |June 6, |_The World_, | 163|
BOOKS | |1875 |June 9, 1875 | |
| | | | |
ST. GEORGE'S MUSEUM |Brantwood, |[September,|_Sheffield Daily | 126|
|Coniston |1875] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |Sept. 6, 1875 | |
| | | | |
THE DEFINITION OF |Oxford |9th |_The Monetary | 71|
WEALTH | |November, |Gazette_, Nov. | |
| |1875 |13, 1875 | |
| | | | |
THE CRADLE OF ART! |[Oxford] |18th |Date and place | 125|
| |February, |of publication | |
| |1876 |unknown | |
| | | | |
MODERN WARFARE |[Brantwood] |June, 1876 |_Fraser's | 29|
| | |Magazine_, July, | |
| | |1876 | |
| | | | |
THE FOUNDATIONS OF |Venice |February |"The Science of | 143|
CHIVALRY | |8th, 1877 |Life" (second | |
| | |edit.), 1878 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Venice |February |" " (first | 145|
| |10th [1877]|edition), 1877 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Venice |11th |" " " " 1877 | 146|
| |February | | |
| |[1877] | | |
| | | | |
" " " |Venice |12th |" " " " 1877 | 147|
| |February, | | |
| |'77] | | |
| | | | |
MR. RUSKIN AND MR. |Brantwood, |August 24 |_The Standard_, | 189|
LOWE |Coniston |[1877] |August 28, 1877 | |
| | | | |
THE PRINCIPLES OF |[Brantwood] |10th |_The Socialist_, | 71|
PROPERTY | |October, |November, 1887 | |
| |1877 | | |
| | | | |
A PAGAN MESSAGE |Herne Hill, |19th |New Year's | 143|
|London, S. |December, |Address, etc., | |
|E. |1877 |1878 | |
| | | | |
DESPAIR (EXTRACT) |[Oxford |February, |_The Times_, | 124|
| |1878] |February 12, 1878| _n._|
| | | | |
THE FOUNDATIONS OF |Malham |July 3d, |"The Science of | 148|
CHIVALRY | |1878 |Life" (second | |
| | |edit.), 1878 | |
| | | | |
NOTES ON A WORD IN |Brantwood |[September,|New Shakspere | 176|
SHAKESPEARE | |1878] |Soc. Trans. | |
| | |1878-9 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Edinburgh |29th |" " " " | 177|
| |September, | | |
| |1878 | | |
| | | | |
THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF |Brantwood, |September |"Bibliography | 190|
RUSKIN |Coniston |30, 1878 |of Dickens" | |
| | |(advt.), 1880 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Brantwood, |October |" " " " | 190|
|Coniston |23, 1878 | | |
| | | | |
THE SOCIETY OF THE |[Brantwood |Early in |Report of | 191|
ROSE | |1879] |Ruskin Soc., | |
| | |Manchester, 1880 | |
| | | | |
BLINDNESS AND SIGHT |Brantwood, |18th July, |_The Y. M. A. | 139|
|Coniston |1879 |Magazine_, | |
| | |Sept., 1879 | |
| | | | |
"THE EAGLE'S NEST" |Brantwood, |August |" " October, 1879| 140|
|Coniston |17th, 1879 | | |
| | | | |
ON COÖPERATION. I. |Brantwood, |[August, |_The Christian | 73|
|Coniston |1879] |Life_, December | |
| | |20, 1879 | |
| | | | |
POLITICS IN YOUTH |Sheffield |October |_The Y. M. A. | 141|
| |19th, 1879 |Magazine_, Nov., | |
| | |1879 | |
| | | | |
THE MERCHANT OF |[Herne |6th |_The Theatre_, | 179|
VENICE (EXTRACT) |Hill, S. E.]|February, |March, 1880 | |
| |1880 | | |
| | | | |
RECITATIONS |Sheffield |16th |Circular printed | 180|
| |February, |by Mr. R. T. | |
| |1880 |Webling | |
| | | | |
EXCUSE FROM |[Brantwood] |March, 1880|List of Mr. | 186|
CORRESPONDENCE | | |Ruskin's | _n._|
| | |Writings, Mar., | |
| | |1880 | |
| | | | |
ON COÖPERATION. II. |Brantwood, |April |_The Daily | 73|
|Coniston |12th, 1880 |News_, June 19, | |
| | |1880 | |
| | | | |
THE GLASGOW LORD |Brantwood, |10th June, |_The Glasgow | 195|
RECTORSHIP |Coniston |1880 |Herald_, Oct. 7, | |
| | |1880 | |
| | | | |
" " " |[Brantwood] |10th June, |" " Oct. 7, 1880 | 195|
| |1880 | | |
| | | | |
" " " |[Brantwood] |24th June, |" " Oct. 7, 1880 | 196|
| |1880 | | |
| | | | |
" " " |Brantwood, |[July, |" " Oct. 12, 1880| 196|
|Coniston |1880] | | |
| | | | |
DRAMATIC REFORM. I. |Brantwood |July 30th, |_Journal of | 193|
| |1880 |Dramatic | |
| | |Reform_, Nov., | |
| | |1880 | |
| | | | |
THE GLASGOW LORD |Rouen |28th |_The Glasgow | 197|
RECTORSHIP | |September, |Herald_, Oct. 7, | |
| |1880 |1880 | |
| | | | |
DRAMATIC REFORM. II.|Amiens |October |_Journal of | 193|
| |12th, 1880 |Dramatic | |
| | |Reform_, Nov., | |
| | |1880 | |
LETTERS ON POLITICS AND WAR.
THE ITALIAN QUESTION. 1859.
(Three letters: June 6, June 15, and August 1.)
THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND. 1863.
THE POSITION OF DENMARK. 1864.
THE JAMAICA INSURRECTION. 1865.
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 1870.
(Two letters: October 6 and 7.)
MODERN WARFARE. 1876.
ARROWS OF THE CHACE.
LETTERS ON POLITICS AND WAR.
[From "The Scotsman," July 20, 1859.]
_THE ITALIAN QUESTION._[1]
BERLIN, _June_ 6, 1859.
I have been thinking of sending a few lines about what I have seen of
Austrians and Italians; but every time I took my pen and turned from my
own work about clouds and leafage to think for a few minutes concerning
political clouds and thickets, I sank into a state of amazement which
reduced me to helpless silence. I will try and send you an incoherent
line to-day; for the smallest endeavor at coherence will bring me into
that atmosphere of astonishment again, in which I find no expression.
You northern Protestant people are always overrating the value of
Protestantism as such. Your poetical clergymen make sentimental tours
in the Vaudois country, as if there were no worthy people in the Alps
but the Vaudois. Did the enlightened Edinburgh evangelicals never take
any interest in the freedom of the Swiss, nor hear of such people
as Winkelried or Tell? Not but that there is some chance of Tell
disappearing one of these days under acutest historical investigation.
Still, he, or somebody else, verily got Switzerland rid of much evil,
and made it capable of much good; and if you examine the influence of
the battles of Morgarten and Sempach on European history, you will find
they were good and true pieces of God's work.[2] Do people suppose
they were done by Protestants? Switzerland owes all that she is--all
that she is ever likely to be--to her stout and stern Roman Catholics,
faithful to their faith to this day--they, and the Tyrolese, about the
truest Roman Catholics in Christendom and certainly among its worthiest
people, though they laid your Zuingli and a good deal of ranting
Protestantism which Zuingli in vain tried to make either rational or
charitable, dead together on the green meadows of Cappel, and though
the Tyrolese marksmen at this moment are following up their rifle
practice to good purpose, and with good will, with your Vaudois hearts
for targets.
The amazement atmosphere keeps floating with its edges about me,
though I write on as fast as I can in hopes of keeping out of it. You
Scotch, and we English!! to keep up the miserable hypocrisy of calling
ourselves Protestants! And here have been two of the most powerful
protests (sealed with quite as much blood as is usually needed for such
documents) that ever were made against the Papacy--one in 1848,[3]
and one now--twenty thousand men or thereabouts lying, at this time
being, in the form of torn flesh and shattered bones, among the rice
marshes of the Novarrese, and not one jot of our precious Protestant
blood gone to the signature. Not so much as one noble flush of it,
that I can see, on our clay cheeks, besmirched, as they are, with
sweat and smoke; but all for gold, and out of chimneys. Of sweat for
bread that perishes not, or of the old Sinai smoke for honor of God's
law, and revelation thereof--no drop nor shadow. Not so much as a
coroner's inquest on those dead bodies in the rice fields--dead men
who must have been murdered by somebody. If a drunken man falls in a
ditch, you will have your Dogberry and Verges talk over him by way
of doing justice; but your twenty thousand--not drunken, but honest,
respectable, well-meaning, and serviceable men--are made rice manure
of, and you think it is all right. We Protestants indeed! The Italians
are Protestants, and in a measure the French--nay, even the Austrians
(at all events those conical-hatted mountaineers), according to their
understanding of the matter. What we are, Moloch or Mammon, or the
Protestant devil make up of both, perhaps knows.
Do not think I dislike the Austrians. I have great respect and
affection for them, and I have seen more of them in familiar
intercourse than most Englishmen. One of my best friends in Venice
in the winter of 1849-50 was the Artillery officer who had directed
the fire on the side of Mestre in 1848. I have never known a nobler
person. Brave, kind, and gay--as gentle as a lamb, as playful as a
kitten--knightly in courtesy and in all tones of thought--ready at any
instant to lay down his life for his country or his Emperor. He was
by no means a rare instance either of gentleness or of virtue among
the men whom the Liberal portion of our English press represent as
only tyrants and barbarians. Radetzky himself was one of the kindest
of men--his habitual expression was one of overflowing _bonhommie_,
or of fatherly regard for the welfare of all around him. All who knew
him loved him. In little things his kindness was almost ludicrous. I
saw him at Verona run out of his own supper-room and return with a
plate of soup in his hand, the waiters (his youngest aides-de-camp) not
serving his lady guests fast enough to please him; yet they were nimble
enough, as I knew in a race with two of them among the fire-flies
by the Mincio, only the evening before. For a long time I regarded
the Austrians as the only protection of Italy from utter dissolution
(such as that which, I see to-day, it is reported that the Tuscan army
has fallen into, left for five weeks to itself), and I should have
looked upon them as such still, if the Sardinian Government had not
shown itself fit to take their place. And the moment that any Italian
Government was able to take their place, the Austrians necessarily
became an obstacle to Italian progress, for all their virtues are
incomprehensible to the Italians, and useless to them. Unselfish
individually, the Austrians are nationally entirely selfish, and in
this consists, so far as it is truly alleged against them, their
barbarism. These men of whom I have been speaking would have given, any
of them, life and fortune unhesitatingly, at their Emperor's bidding,
but their magnanimity was precisely that of the Highlander or the
Indian, incognizant of any principle of action but that of devotion to
his chief or nation. All abstract grounds of conscience, all universal
and human hopes, were inconceivable by them. Such men are at present
capable of no feeling towards Italy but scorn; their power was like
a bituminous cerecloth wrapping her corpse--it saved her from the
rottenness of revolution; but it must be unwound, if the time has come
for her resurrection.
I do not know if that time has come, or can come. Italy's true
oppression is all her own. Spain is oppressed by the Spaniard, not by
the Austrian. Greece needs but to be saved from the Greeks. No French
Emperor, however mighty his arm or sound his faith, can give Italy
freedom.
"A gift of that which is not to be given
By all the associate powers of earth and heaven."
But the time is come at least to bid her be free, if she has the power
of freedom. It is not England, certainly, who should forbid her. I
believe that is what it will come to, however--not so much because we
are afraid of Napoleon, as because we are jealous of him. But of him
and us I have something more to say than there is time for to-night.
These good, stupid, affectionate, faithful Germans, too (grand fellows
under arms; I never imagined so magnificent a soldiery as 15,000 of
them which I made a shift to see, through sand clouds, march past the
Prince Frederick William[4] on Saturday morning last). But to hear them
fretting and foaming at the French getting into Milan!--they having
absolutely no other idea on all this complicated business than that
French are fighting Germans! Wrong or right, why or wherefore, matters
not a jot to them. French are fighting Germans--somehow, somewhere,
for some reason--and beer and Vaterland are in peril, and the English
in fault, as we are assuredly, but not on that side, for I believe
it to be quite true which a French friend, high in position, says in
a letter this morning--"If the English had not sympathized with the
Austrians there would have been no war." By way of keeping up the
character of incoherence to which I have vowed myself, I may tell you
that before that French letter came, I received another from a very
sagacious Scotch friend (belonging, as I suppose most Scotch people do,
to the class of persons who call themselves "religious"), containing
this marvellous enunciation of moral principle, to be acted upon in
difficult circumstances, "Mind your own business." It is a serviceable
principle enough for men of the world, but a surprising one in the
mouth of a person who professes to be a Bible obeyer. For, as far as
I remember the tone of that obsolete book, "our own" is precisely the
last business which it ever tells us to mind. It tells us often to mind
God's business, often to mind other people's business; our own, in any
eager or earnest way, not at all. "What thy hand findeth to do." Yes;
but in God's fields, not ours. One can imagine the wiser fishermen
of the Galilean lake objecting to Peter and Andrew that they were
not minding their business, much more the commercial friends of Levi
speaking with gentle pity of him about the receipt of Custom. "A bad
man of business always--see what has come of it--quite mad at last."
And my astonishing friend went on to say that this was to be our
principle of action "where the path was not quite clear"--as if any
path ever _was_ clear till you got to the end of it, or saw it a long
way off; as if all human possibility of path was not among clouds and
brambles--often cold, always thorny--misty with roses occasionally, or
dim with dew, often also with shadow of Death--misty, more particularly
in England just now, with shadow of that commercially and otherwise
valuable smoke before spoken of.
However, if the path is not to be seen, it may be felt, or at least
tumbled off, without any particular difficulty. This latter course of
proceeding is our probablest, of course.--But I can't write any more
to-night. I am, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
_Note_ to p. 6.--The lines quoted are from Wordsworth's "Poems
dedicated to National Independence and Liberty," Part II.,
Sonnet i. The second line should read, "By all the blended
powers of earth and heaven."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This and the two following letters deal, it will be seen, with "the
Italian question" in 1859, when the peace of Europe was disturbed by
the combined action of France and Sardinia against Austria in the cause
of Italian independence. Of these three letters the first was written
two days after the defeat of the Austrians at Magenta, followed by the
entrance into Milan of the French, and the second a few days before the
similar victory of the French and Sardinian armies at Solferino.
[2] Few readers need be reminded of the position of Tell in the list of
Swiss patriots (_pace_ the "acutest historical investigation," which
puts him in the list of mythical personages) in the early part of the
fourteenth century; of Arnold von Winkelried who met the heroic death,
by which he secured his country's freedom, at Sempach in 1386; or of
Ulrich Zuingli, the Swiss Protestant leader of his time, who fell at
Cappel, in the war of the Reformed against the Romish cantons, in 1531.
At the battle of Morgarten, in 1315, twenty thousand Austrians were
defeated by no more than thirteen hundred Swiss, with such valor that
the name of the victors' canton was thereupon extended to the whole
country, thenceforth called Switzerland.
It may be further noted that Arnold of Sempach is, with Leonidas,
Curtius, and Sir Richard Grenville, named amongst the types of "the
divinest of sacrifices, that of the patriot for his country," in Mr.
Ruskin's Preface, "Bibliotheca Pastorum," Vol. i. p. xxxiii.
[3] The year of the Lombard insurrection, when Radetzky, the Austrian
field-marshal, defeated the insurgents at Custozza near Verona.
Radetzky died in 1858.
[4] The Prince Frederick William, now Emperor of Germany (having
succeeded his brother Frederick William IV. in January, 1861), was at
the date of this letter Regent of Prussia, and Commander-in-chief of
the Prussian forces.
[From the "Scotsman," July 23, 1859.]
_THE ITALIAN QUESTION._
BERLIN, _June_ 15.
You would have had this second letter sooner, had I not lost myself,
after despatching the first, in farther consideration of the theory
of Non-Intervention, or minding one's own business. What, in logical
terms, _is_ the theory? If one sees a costermonger wringing his
donkey's tail, is it proper to "intervene"? and if one sees an Emperor
or a System wringing a nation's neck, is it improper to intervene? Or
is the Intervention allowable only in the case of hides, not of souls?
for even so, I think you might find among modern Italians many quite as
deserving of intervention as the donkey. Or is interference allowable
when one person does one wrong to another person, but not when two
persons do two wrongs to two, or three to three, or a multitude to
a multitude; and is there any algebraic work on these square and
cube roots of morality wherein I may find how many coadjutors or
commissions any given crooked requires to make it straight? Or is it a
geographical question; and may one advisably interfere at Berwick but
not at Haddington? Or is there any graduated scale of intervention,
practicable according to the longitude? I see my way less clearly,
because the illustrations of the theory of Non-intervention are
as obscure as its statement. The French are at present happy and
prosperous; content with their ruler and themselves; their trade
increasing, and their science and art advancing; their feelings towards
other nations becoming every day more just. Under which circumstances
we English non-interventionalists consider it our duty to use every
means in our power of making the ruler suspected by the nation, and the
nation unmanageable by the ruler. We call both all manner of names;
exhaust every term of impertinence and every method of disturbance; and
do our best, in indirect and underhand ways, to bring about revolution,
assassination, or any other close of the existing system likely to be
satisfactory to Royals[5] in general. This is your non-intervention
when a nation is prosperous.
On the other hand, the Italian nation is unhappy and unprosperous;
its trade annihilated, its arts and sciences retrograde, its nerve
and moral sense prostrated together; it is capable only of calling to
you for help, and you will not help it. The man you have been calling
names, with his unruly colonels, undertakes to help it, and Christian
England, with secret hope that, in order to satisfy her spite against
the unruly colonels, the French army may be beaten, and the Papacy
fully established over the whole of Italy--Christian England, I say,
with this spiteful jealousy for one of her motives, and a dim, stupid,
short-sighted, sluggish horror of interruption of business for the
other, takes, declaratively and ostensibly, this highly Christian
position. "Let who will prosper or perish, die or live--let what will
be declared or believed--let whatsoever iniquity be done, whatsoever
tyranny be triumphant, how many soever of faithful or fiery soldiery
be laid in new embankments of dead bodies along those old embankments
of Mincio and Brenta; yet will we English drive our looms, cast up our
accounts, and bet on the Derby, in peace and gladness; our business
is only therewith; for us there is no book of fate, only ledgers and
betting-books; for us there is no call to meddle in far-away business.
See ye to it. We wash our hands of it in that sea-foam of ours; surely
the English Channel is better than Abana and Pharpar, or than the
silver basin which Pilate made use of, and our soap is of the best
almond-cake."
I hear the Derby was great this year.[6] I wonder, sometimes, whether
anybody has ever calculated, in England, how much taxation the nation
pays annually for the maintenance of that great national institution.
Observe--what I say of the spirit in which the English bear themselves
at present, is founded on what I myself have seen and heard, not on
what I read in journals. I read them little at home--here I hardly see
them. I have no doubt that in the Liberal papers one might find much
mouthing about liberty, as in the Conservative much about order, it
being neither liberty nor order which is wanted, but Justice. You may
have Freedom of all Abomination, and Order of all Iniquity--if you
look for Forms instead of Facts. Look for the facts first--the doing
of justice howsoever and by whatsoever forms or informalities. And the
forms will come--shapely enough, and sightly enough, afterwards. Yet,
perhaps, not till long afterwards. Earnest as I am for the freedom
of Italy, no one can hope less from it, for many a year to come.
Even those Vaudois, whom you Presbyterians admire so much, have made
as yet no great show of fruit out of their religious freedom. I went
up from Turin to Torre di Lucerna to look at them last year. I have
seldom slept in a dirtier inn, seldom seen peasants' cottages so ill
built, and never yet in my life saw anywhere paths so full of nettles.
The faces of the people are interesting, and their voices sweet,
except in howlings on Sunday evening, which they performed to a very
disquieting extent in the street till about half-past ten, waking me
afterwards between twelve and one with another "catch," and a dance
through the village of the liveliest character. Protestantism is apt
sometimes to take a gayer character abroad than with us. Geneva has
an especially disreputable look on Sunday evenings, and at Hanover I
see the shops are as wide open on Sunday as Saturday; here, however,
in Berlin, they shut up as close as you do at Edinburgh. I think
the thing that annoyed me most at La Tour, however, was the intense
sectarianism of the Protestant dogs. I can make friends generally,
fast enough, with any canine or feline creature; but I could make
nothing of those evangelical brutes, and there was as much snarling and
yelping that afternoon before I got past the farmhouses to the open
hill-side, as in any of your Free Church discussions. It contrasted
very painfully with the behavior of such Roman Catholic dogs as I
happen to know--St. Bernard's and others--who make it their business
to entertain strangers. But the hill-side was worth reaching--for
though that Lucerna valley is one of the least interesting I ever saw
in the Alps, there is a craggy ridge on the north of it which commands
a notable view. In about an hour and a half's walking you may get up
to the top of a green, saddle-shaped hill, which separates the Lucerna
valley from that of Angrogna; if then, turning to the left (westward),
you take the steepest way you can find up the hill, another couple of
hours will bring you to a cone of stones which the shepherds have built
on the ridge, and there you may see all the historical sites of the
valley of Angrogna as in a map--and as much of Monte Viso and Piedmont
as clouds will let you. I wish I could draw you a map of Piedmont
as I saw it that afternoon. The air was half full of white cumulus
clouds, lying nearly level about fifteen hundred feet under the ridge;
and through every gap of them a piece of Piedmont with a city or two.
Turin, twenty-eight miles away as the bird flies, shows through one
cloud-opening like a handful of golden sand in a pool of blue sea.
I've no time to write any more to-day, for I've been to Charlottenburg,
out of love for Queen Louise.[7] I can't see a good painting of her
anywhere, and they show her tomb by blue light, like the nun scene in
_Robert le Diable_. A German woman's face, if beautiful at all, is
exquisitely beautiful; but it depends mainly on the thoughtfulness of
the eyes, and the bright hair. It rarely depends much upon the nose,
which has perhaps a tendency to be--if anything--a little too broadish
and flattish--perhaps one might even say in some cases, knobbish. (The
Hartz mountains, I see, looking at them from Brunswick, have similar
tendencies, less excusably and more decidedly.) So when the eyes are
closed--and for the soft hair one has only furrowed marble--and the
nose to its natural disadvantages adds that of being seen under blue
light, the general effect is disappointing.
Frederick the Great's celebrated statue is at the least ten yards too
high[8] from the ground to be of any use; one sees nothing but the
edges of the cloak he never wore, the soles of his boots, and, in a
redundant manner, his horse's tail. Under which vertically is his
Apotheosis. In which process he sits upon the back of an eagle, and
waves a palm, with appearance of satisfaction to himself, and it is to
be hoped no danger of any damage to three stars in the neighborhood.
Kiss's Amazon makes a good grotesque for the side of the Museum steps;
it was seen to disadvantage in London. The interior of the gallery is
very beautiful in many ways; and Holbein's portrait of George Gyzen is
worth coming all the way from England to see only ten minutes. I never
saw so noble a piece of work of its kind in my life.
Believe me, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] A misprint for "Rogues." See next letter, p. 13.
[6] "Magnificent weather and excellent sport made the great people's
meeting pass off with great _éclat_." ("Annual Register" for 1859, p.
73.) The race was won by Sir J. Hawley's Musjid.
[7] The mother of the present Emperor, whose treatment by Napoleon
I., and whose own admirable qualities, have won for her the tender
and affectionate memory of her people. She died in 1810. Her tomb at
Charlottenburg is the work of the German sculptor, Christian Rauch.
[8] The full height of this statue (also the work of Rauch) is,
inclusive of the pedestal, somewhat over forty-two feet from the
ground. One of the bas-relief tablets which flank the pedestal
represents the Apotheosis of the monarch. The visitor to Berlin may
recall August Kiss's bronze group, representing the combat of an
Amazon with a tiger, on the right side of the Old Museum steps; and
Holbein's portrait of George Gyzen, a merchant of London, is No. 586 in
the picture galleries of the Museum. It is described by Mr. Ruskin in
his article on "Sir Joshua and Holbein" in the _Cornhill Magazine_ of
March, 1860, and also in Wornum's "Life and Works of Holbein," p. 260
(London, 1867).
[From "The Scotsman," August 6, 1859.]
_THE ITALIAN QUESTION._
SCHAFFHAUSEN, _August_ 1, 1859.
_Letter to the Editor_ (_of "The Scotsman"_).
SIR: I have just received the number of the _Scotsman_ containing my
second letter from Berlin, in which there is rather an awkward misprint
of "royals" for "rogues," which must have puzzled some of your readers,
no less than the general tone of the letter, written as it was for
publication at another time, and as one of a series begun in another
journal. I am obliged by the admission of the letter into your columns;
and I should have been glad to continue in those columns the series I
intended, had not the refusal of this letter by the _Witness_[9] shown
me the liability to misapprehension under which I should be writing.
I had thought that, seeing for these twenty years I have been more or
less conversant with Italy and the Italians, a few familiar letters
written to a personal friend, at such times as I could win from my
own work, might not have been uninteresting to Scottish readers, even
though my opinions might occasionally differ sharply from theirs, or
be expressed in such rough way as strong opinions must be, when one
has no time to polish them into more pleasing presentability. The
refusal of the letter by the _Witness_ showed me that this was not
so; and as I have no leisure to take up the subject methodically, I
must leave what I have written in its present imperfect form. It is
indeed not mainly a question of time, which I would spend gladly,
though to handle the subject of the present state of Italy with any
completeness would involve a total abandonment of other work for some
weeks. But I feel too deeply in this matter to allow myself to think of
it continuously. To me, the state of the modern political mind, which
hangs the slaughter of twenty thousand men, and the destinies of twenty
myriads of human souls, on the trick that transforms a Ministry, or the
chances of an enlarged or diminished interest in trade, is something
so horrible that I find no utterance wherewith to characterize it--nor
any courage wherewith to face the continued thought of it, unless I
had clear expectation of doing good by the effort--expectation which
the mere existence of the fact forbids. I leave therefore the words I
have written to such work as they may; hoping, indeed, nothing from
any words; thankful, if a few people here and there understand and
sympathize in the feelings with which they were written; and thankful,
if none so sympathize, that I am able at least to claim some share in
the sadness, though not in the triumph, of the words of Farinata--
"Fu' io sol colà, dove sofferto
Fu per ciascun di torre via Fiorenza,
Colui che la difese a viso aperto."[10]
I am, etc., J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] After a careful and repeated search in the columns of the
_Witness_, I am still unable to certainly explain these allusions. It
seems, however, that the two preceding letters had been sent to the
_Witness_, which printed the first and refused to print the second.
The _Scotsman_ printed both under the titles of "Mr. Ruskin on the
Italian Question," and "Mr. Ruskin on Foreign Politics," whilst it
distinguished this third letter by the additional heading of "Letter
to the Editor." It may be conjectured, therefore, that the first two
letters were reprinted by the _Scotsman_ from another paper, and that,
in receiving the number of the _Scotsman_ containing the second, Mr.
Ruskin did not know that it had reprinted the first also. As to the
"series begun in another journal," it is, I think, clear that it had
not been long continued, as the letter dated "June 15," sent to and
refused by it, is spoken of as "the second letter," so that that dated
"June 6" must have been the first, as this was unquestionably the last
of the series.
[10]
"But singly there I stood, when, by consent
Of all, Florence had to the ground been razed,
The one who openly forbade the deed."
CARY'S DANTE--"L'Inferno," x. II. 90-93.
Farinata degli Uberti was a noble Florentine, and the leader of the
Ghibelline faction, when they obtained a signal victory over the
Guelfi at Montaperto, near the river Arbia. Machiavelli calls him "a
man of exalted soul, and great military talents" (Hist. of Florence,
Bk. ii). Subsequently, when it was proposed that, in order to maintain
the ascendency of the Ghibelline faction in Tuscany, Florence should
be destroyed, Farinata alone of all the Council opposed the measure,
declaring that he had endured every hardship with no other view than
that of being able to pass his days in his own country. (See Cary's
notes to Canto x.)
[From "The Liverpool Albion," November 2, 1863.]
_THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND._[11]
ZURICH, _Oct. 25th_, 1863.
SIR: I beg to acknowledge your favor of the 20th of October. My health
does not now admit of my taking part frequently in public business;
yet I should have held it a duty to accept the invitation of the
directors of the Liverpool Institute, but that, for the time being, my
temper is at fault, as well as my health; and I am wholly unable to
go on with any of my proper work, owing to the horror and shame with
which I regard the political position taken, or rather sunk into, by
England in her foreign relations--especially in the affairs of Italy
and Poland.[12] What these matters have to do with Art may not at
first be clear, but I can perhaps make it so by a short similitude.
Suppose I had been engaged by an English gentleman to give lectures on
Art to his son. Matters at first go smoothly, and I am diligent in my
definitions of line and color, until, one Sunday morning at breakfast
time, a ticket-of-leave man takes a fancy to murder a girl in the road
leading round the lawn, before the house-windows. My patron, hearing
the screams, puts down his paper, adjusts his spectacles, slowly
apprehends what is going on, and rings the bells for his smallest
footman. "John, take my card and compliments to that gentleman outside
the hedge, and tell him that his proceedings are abnormal, and, I may
add, to me personally--offensive. Had that road passed through my
property, I should have felt it my duty to interfere." John takes the
card, and returns with it; the ticket-of-leave man finishes his work at
his leisure; but, the screams ceasing as he fills the girl's mouth with
clay, the English gentleman returns to his muffins, and congratulates
himself on having "kept out of that mess." Presently afterwards he
sends for me to know if I shall be ready to lecture on Monday. I am
somewhat nervous, and answer--I fear rudely--"Sir, your son is a good
lad; I hope he will grow to be a man--but, for the present, I cannot
teach him anything. I should like, indeed, to teach _you_ something,
but have no words for the lesson." Which indeed I have not. If I say
any words on such matters, people ask me, "Would I have the country
go to war? do I know how dreadful a thing war is?" Yes, truly, I know
it. I like war as ill as most people--so ill, that I would not spend
twenty millions a year in making machines for it, neither my holidays
and pocket money in playing at it; yet I would have the country go to
war, with haste, in a good quarrel; and, which is perhaps eccentric in
me, rather in another's quarrel than in her own. We say of ourselves
complacently that we will not go to war for an idea; but the phrase
interpreted means only, that we will go to war for a bale of goods,
but not for justice nor for mercy; and I would ask you to favor me so
far as to read this letter to the students at your meeting, and say
to them that I heartily wish them well; but for the present I am too
sad to be of any service to them; that our wars in China and Japan[13]
are not likely to furnish good subjects for historical pictures; that
"ideas" happen, unfortunately, to be, in Art, the principal things; and
that a country which will not fight for its ideas is not likely to have
anything worth painting.
I have the honor to be, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
The Secretary of the Liverpool Institute.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] This letter was written in answer to a request that Mr. Ruskin
would come and preside at the distribution of prizes among the students
in the Science and Art Department of the Liverpool Institute, on
Saturday, Oct. 31, 1863. It was subsequently read on the occasion of
distribution, in accordance with the wish expressed towards the end of
the letter.
[12] See the preceding and the following letter. This one was, it will
be seen, written in the year of the last great struggle of Poland
against Russia.
[13] A The expedition of the English and French against China was begun
in the August of 1860; the war in Japan in the summer of 1863.
[From "The Morning Post," July 7, 1864.]
_THE POSITION OF DENMARK._
_To the Editor of_ "_The Morning Post_."
SIR: Will you allow me, in fewest words, to say how deeply I concur in
all that is said in that noble letter of Lord Townshend's published
in your columns this morning--except only in its last sentence, "It
is time to protest."[14] Alas! if protests were of any use, men with
hearts and lips would have protested enough by this time. But they
are of none, and can be of none. What true words are worth any man's
utterance, while it is possible for such debates as last Monday's to
be, and two English gentlemen can stand up before the English Commons
to quote Virgil at each other, and round sentences, and show their
fineness of wrist in their pretty little venomous carte and tierce of
personality, while, even as they speak, the everlasting silence is
wrapping the brave massacred Danes?[15] I do not know, never shall
know, how this is possible. If a cannon shot carried off their usher's
head, nay, carried off but his rod's head, at their room door, they
would not round their sentences, I fancy, in asking where the shot
came from; but because these infinite masses of advancing slaughter
are a few hundred miles distant from them, they can speak their stage
speeches out in content. Mr. Gladstone must go to places, it seems,
before he can feel! Let him go to Alsen, as he went to Naples,[16]
and quote Virgil to the Prussian army. The English mind, judging by
your leaders, seems divided between the German-cannon nuisance and the
Savoyard street-organ nuisance; but was there ever hurdy-gurdy like
this dissonance of eternal talk?[17] The Savoyard at least grinds his
handle one way, but these classical discords on the double pipe, like
Mr. Kinglake's two tunes--past and present[18]--on Savoy and Denmark,
need stricter police interference, it seems to me! The cession of
Savoy was the peaceful present of a few crags, goats, and goatherds by
one king to another; it was also fair pay for fair work, and, in the
profoundest sense, no business of ours. Whereupon Mr. Kinglake mewed
like a moonstruck cat going to be made a mummy of for Bubastis. But we
saw the noble Circassian nation murdered, and never uttered word for
them. We saw the noble Polish nation sent to pine in ice, and never
struck blow for them. Now the nation of our future Queen calls to us
for help in its last agony, and we round sentences and turn our backs.
Sir, I have no words for these things, because I have no hope. It is
not these squeaking puppets who play before us whom we have to accuse;
it is not by cutting the strings of them that we can redeem our deadly
error.
We English, as a nation, know not, and care not to know, a single broad
or basic principle of human justice. We have only our instincts to
guide us. We will hit anybody again who hits us. We will take care of
our own families and our own pockets; and we are characterized in our
present phase of enlightenment mainly by rage in speculation, lavish
expenditure on suspicion or panic, generosity whereon generosity is
useless, anxiety for the souls of savages, regardlessness of those
of civilized nations, enthusiasm for liberation of blacks, apathy
to enslavement of whites, proper horror of regicide, polite respect
for populicide, sympathy with those whom we can no longer serve, and
reverence for the dead, whom we have ourselves delivered to death.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _July_ 6.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Lord Townsend's letter was upon "The Circassian Exodus," and
pointed out that a committee appointed in 1862 with the object of
aiding the tribes of the Caucasus against Russia had failed in
obtaining subscriptions, whilst that of 1864, for relieving the
sufferers when resistance had become impossible, was more successful.
"The few bestowed their sympathy upon the struggle for life; the many
reserved theirs for the agonies of death.... To which side, I would
ask, do reason and justice incline?" After commenting on the "tardy
consolation for an evil which we have neglected to avert," and after
remarking that "in the national point of view the case of Poland is an
exact counterpart to that of Circassia," the letter thus concluded:
"Against such a state of things it is surely time for all who feel as I
do to protest."
[15] The debate (July 4, 1864) was upon the Danish question and
the policy of the Government, and took place just after the end
of a temporary armistice and the resumption of hostilities by the
bombardment of Alsen, in the Dano-Prussian war. Alsen was taken two
days after the publication of this letter. The "two English gentlemen"
were Mr. D'Israeli and Mr. Gladstone (at this time Chancellor of the
Exchequer), the latter of whom had quoted the lines from the sixth
Æneid (ll. 489-491):
"At Danaum proceres Agamemnoniæque phalanges
Ut vidêre virum fulgentiaque arma per umbras
Ingenti trepidare metu."
[16] In 1850, when, being at Naples, Mr. Gladstone interested himself
deeply in the cause and miserable condition of the political prisoners,
and subsequently addressed two letters on the subject to Lord Aberdeen
(see "Letters to Lord Aberdeen on the prisoners of the Neapolitan
Government:" Murray, 1851).
[17] The _Morning Post_ of July 6 contained amongst its leaders one on
Denmark and Germany, and another on London street-organs, the nuisance
of which had been recently brought before the House of Commons by Mr.
M. T. Bass (M.P. for Derby).
[18] Mr. Alexander William Kinglake, M.P. for Bridgewater. He spoke at
the above-mentioned debate, and had also taken strong interest and part
in the cession of Savoy to France by Sardinia in 1860.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," December 20, 1865.]
_THE JAMAICA INSURRECTION._[19]
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: Will you allow me, in this informal manner, to express what I
should have wished to express by signature of the memorial you publish
to-day from Huddersfield[20] respecting the Jamaica insurrection,
and to thank you for your excellent article of the 15th December on
the same subject. I am compelled to make this request, because I see
my friend Mr. Thomas Hughes has been abetting the Radical movement
against Governor Eyre; and as I employed what little influence I have
with the London workmen to aid the return of Mr. Hughes for Lambeth,
I may perhaps be thought to concur with him in every line of action
he may see fit subsequently to adopt. Permit me, then, once for all,
through your widely-read columns, to say that I did what I could
towards the return both of Mr. J. S. Mill and of Mr. Hughes,[21] not
because I held with them in all their opinions, or even in the main
principle of their opinions, but because I knew they had a principle
of opinions; that they were honest, thoughtful, and benevolent men;
and far worthier to be in Parliament (even though it might be in
opposition to many causes I had at heart) than any other candidates I
knew. They are my opponents in many things, though I thought better of
them both than that they would countenance this fatuous outcry against
Governor Eyre. But in most directions of thought and action they
are for Liberty, and I am for Lordship; they are Mob's men and I am
a King's man. Yes, sir, I am one of those almost forgotten creatures
who shrivel under your daily scorn; I am a "Conservative," and hope
forever to be a Conservative in the deepest sense--a Re-former, not a
De-former. Not that I like slavery, or object to the emancipation of
any kind or number of blacks in due place and time. But I understand
something more by "slavery" than either Mr. J. S. Mill or Mr. Hughes;
and believe that white emancipation not only ought to precede, but must
by law of all fate precede, black emancipation. I much dislike the
slavery, to man, of an African laborer, with a spade on his shoulder;
but I more dislike the slavery, to the devil, of a Calabrian robber
with a gun on his shoulder. I dislike the American serf-economy, which
separates, occasionally, man and wife; but I more dislike the English
serf-economy, which prevents men from being able to have wives at all.
I dislike the slavery which obliges women (if it does) to carry their
children over frozen rivers; but I more dislike the slavery which makes
them throw their children into wells. I would willingly hinder the
selling of girls on the Gold Coast; but primarily, if I might, would
hinder the selling of them in Mayfair. And, finally, while I regret
the need that may exist among savages in a distant island for their
governor to do his work sharply and suddenly on them, I far more regret
the need among men of race and capacity for the work of governors when
they have no governor to give it them. Of all dishonorable and impious
captivities of this age, the darkest was that of England to Russia, by
which she was compelled to refuse to give Greece a King when Greece
besought one from her, and to permit that there should be set on the
Acropolis throne no Governor Eyre, nor anything like him, but such
a shadow of King as the black fates cast upon a nation for a curse,
saying, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child!"[22]
Let the men who would now deserve well of England reserve their
impeachments, or turn them from those among us who have saved colonies
to those who have destroyed nations.
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.[23]
DENMARK HILL, _Dec._ 19.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] The outcry against Governor Eyre for the course he took in
suppressing the negro insurrection at Morant Bay, Jamaica, in 1865, is
still within the memory of the general public. Mr. Ruskin attended and
spoke at the meetings of the Eyre Defence Fund, to which Mr. Carlyle
(see note at the end of this letter) gave his warm support. Amongst
those who most strongly deprecated the course taken by Governor Eyre
were, as this letter implies, Mr. John Stuart Mill (Chairman of the
Jamaica Committee) and Mr. Thomas Hughes.
[20] Signed by 273 persons resident in and near Huddersfield. (_Daily
Telegraph_, December 19, 1865.)
[21] Mr. Mill had been recently returned for Westminster, and Mr.
Hughes for Lambeth.
[22] The present king of Greece was only eighteen years of age when,
after the protocol of England, Russia, and France on the preceding day,
he accepted, June 6, 1863, the crown of Greece.
[23] It is of interest to remark that Mr. Carlyle, in a letter to Mr.
Hamilton Hume, Hon. Sec. of the "Eyre Defence Fund" (published in
the _Daily Telegraph_ of September 12, 1866), expressed himself as
follows: "The clamor raised against Governor Eyre appears to me to
be disgraceful to the good sense of England; ... penalty and clamor
are not the things this Governor merits from any of us, but honor and
thanks, and wise imitation.... The whole weight of my conviction and
good wishes is with you." Mr. Carlyle was, with Sir Roderick Murchison,
one of the two vice-presidents of the Defence Committee. (See "The
History of the Jamaica Case," by G. W. Finlason: London, 1869, p. 369.)
[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 7, 1870.]
_THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: My friends ask me why I speak no word about this war,
supposing--like vain friends as they are--that I might have some poor
influence of intercession for filigree-work, French clocks, and other
tender articles of vertu, felt at this moment to be in grave danger.
But, in the first place, I know that the just Fates will reward no
intercession, either for human life or chinaware, until their will
has been accomplished upon all of us. In the second, I know also that
the German armies will spare what they can, and think they ought,
without taking advice of me. In the third, I have said long ago--no one
listening--the best I had to say on these matters.
But, after your notice to-day of the escape of M. Edouard Frère,[24]
whose gentle power I was, I believe, the first to recognize publicly in
England, it is possible that some of your readers may care to look back
at what I wrote of modern war four years ago, and to know the aspect it
takes to me, now that it has come to pass.
If you will reprint these few following sentences for me from the
"Crown of Wild Olive,"[25] I shall be able to-morrow to put what I
would add to them briefly enough to claim little space in your columns:
If you have to take away masses of men from all industrial
employment--to feed them by the labor of others--to move them, and
provide them with destructive machines, varied daily in national
rivalship of inventive cost; if you have to ravage the country which
you attack--to destroy, for a score of future years, its roads, its
woods, its cities, and its harbors; and if, finally, having brought
masses of men, counted by hundreds of thousands, face to face, you tear
those masses to pieces with jagged shot, and leave fragments of living
creatures, countlessly beyond all help of surgery, to starve and parch,
through days of torture, down into clots of clay--what book of accounts
shall record the cost of your work--what book of judgment sentence the
guilt of it?
That, I say, is _modern_ war--scientific war--chemical and mechanical
war--worse even than the savage's poisoned arrow. And yet you will tell
me, perhaps, that any other war than this is impossible now. It may be
so; the progress of science cannot, perhaps, be otherwise registered
than by new facilities of destruction; and the brotherly love of our
enlarging Christianity be only proved by multiplication of murder.
But the wonder has always been great to me that heroism has never been
supposed consistent with the practice of supplying people with food,
or clothes, but only with that of quartering one's self upon them for
food, and stripping them of their clothes. Spoiling of armor is an
heroic deed in all ages; but the selling of clothes, old or new, has
never taken any color of magnanimity. Yet one does not see why feeding
the hungry and clothing the naked should ever become base businesses
even when engaged in on a large scale. If one could contrive to attach
the notion of conquest to _them_ anyhow? so that, supposing there were
anywhere an obstinate race, who refused to be comforted, one might
take some pride in giving them compulsory comfort, and, as it were,
"occupying a country" with one's gifts, instead of one's armies? If
one could only consider it as much a victory to get a barren field
sown as to get an eared field stripped; and contend who should build
villages, instead of who should "carry" them? Are not all forms of
heroism conceivable in doing these serviceable deeds? You doubt who
is strongest? It might be ascertained by push of spade as well as
push of sword. Who is wisest? There are witty things to be thought of
in planning other business than campaigns. Who is bravest? There are
always the elements to fight with, stronger than men; and nearly as
merciless.
And, then, observe farther, this true power, the power of saving,
depends neither on multitude of men, nor on extent of territory. We
are continually assuming that nations become strong according to their
numbers. They indeed become so, if those numbers can be made of one
mind. But how are you sure you can stay them in one mind, and keep them
from having north and south minds? Grant them unanimous, how know you
they will be unanimous in right? If they are unanimous in wrong, the
more they are, essentially the weaker they are. Or, suppose that they
can neither be of one mind, nor of two minds, but can only be of _no_
mind? Suppose they are a mere helpless mob, tottering into precipitant
catastrophe, like a wagon-load of stones when the wheel comes off?
Dangerous enough for their neighbors certainly, but not "powerful."
Neither does strength depend on extent of territory, any more than
upon number of population. Take up your masses, put the cluster of
the British Isles beside the mass of South America, and then consider
whether any race of men need consider how much ground they stand upon.
The strength is in the men, and in their unity and virtue, not in
their standing-room. A little group of wise hearts is better than a
wilderness full of fools; and only that nation gains true territory
which gains itself.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, S.E., _Oct._ 6.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] M. Edouard Frère and Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur were allowed to leave
Paris and pass the lines of the Prussian army after the blockade of
the French capital had been begun. For Mr. Ruskin's early recognition
of M. Frère's power, see the "Academy Notes," No. II. (1856), p. 47,
where some "cottage studies" are spoken of as "quite unequalled in
sincerity and truth of conception, though somewhat dimly painted;"--No.
III. (1857), p. 58, where his pictures are said to "unite the depth of
Wordsworth, the grace of Reynolds, and the holiness of Angelico;"--and
No. IV. (1858), p. 33, where this last expression of praise is
emphasized and at some length explained.
[25] See for the first two paragraphs of extracts following pp. 170,
171 of the original, and §§ 102-3 of the 1873 edition of the "Crown of
Wild Olive;" for the third paragraph, pp. 116-118, and § 74; and for
the last two paragraphs, pp. 186, 187, and §§ 113, 114, respectively,
of those two editions.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 8, 1870.]
_THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: As I am always blamed if I approach my subject on any but its
picturesque side, it is well for me that in to-day's _Times_ I find
it announced that at Strasburg the Picture Gallery--with the pictures
in it?--the Library--with the books in it?--and the Theatre, with
certainly two hundred persons in it, have been burnt to the ground
under an auxiliary cannonade, the flames at night being "a tempting
target." It is true that in your columns I find the consolatory news
that the Parisians are repairing those losses by casting a bronze
Strasburg;[26] but if, as a poor art professor, I may venture an
opinion, I would fain suggest to them that if their own picture
gallery, with the pictures and bits of marble in it--Venus of Melos
and the like--and their own Library--Royal, Impériale, Nationale, or
whatever they now call it--should presently become tempting targets
also by the light of their own flames, the casting of a bronze Paris,
in even the most imposing of attitudes, will scarcely redeem their
loss, were it but to the admiring eyes of Paris herself.
There is yet another letter in the _Times_[27] of more importance than
the one from Strasburg. It is headed, "The Difficulties of Neutrality,"
dated Bonn, and anticipates part of what I was going to say; for the
rest, the lessons of the war, as I read them, are briefly these.
As to its cause, neither the French nation nor their Emperor brought on
war by any present will of their own. Neither of them were capable of a
will at all--far less of executing it. The nation has since declared,
by submission, with acclaim, to a change of Government which for the
time renders all political treaty with it practically impossible,
that during the last twenty years it has been deceived or subdued
into obedience to a man for whom it had no respect, and who had no
hereditary claim to the throne. What "will" or responsibility of action
can be expected from a nation which confesses this of itself? On the
other hand, the Emperor, be his motives never so selfish, could only
have hoped to save his dynasty by compliance with the passions of a
populace which he knew would overthrow it in the first hour of their
mortification. It is in these vain passions and the falsehoods on
which they have fed that we must look for the deep roots of all this
misery. Since the days of the First Empire, no cottage in France has
been without its Napoleonic picture and legend, fostering one and the
same faith in the heart of every peasant boy, that there is no glory
but in battle; and since the founding of the Second Empire no street
of any city has risen into its foolish magnificence without collateral
proclamation that there was no pleasure but in vice.
Then, secondly, for the actual question of the war: it is a simple
and testing struggle between pure Republicanism on the one side,
expressed in the most exquisite, finished, and exemplary anarchy, yet
achieved under--earth--and one of the truest Monarchies and schools of
honor and obedience yet organized under heaven. And the secret of its
strength, we have to note, is essentially pacific; for all the wars
of the Great Friedrich would have passed away resultless--as great
wars usually do--had it not been for this pregnant fact at the end
of them: "All his artillery horses are parted into plough-teams, and
given to those who otherwise can get none" (Carlyle, vol. vi., first
edition, p. 350)--that 21st book on the repair of Prussia being of
extant literature the most important piece for us to read and digest
in these days of "raising the poor without gifts"--never asking who
first let them fall--and of turning workmen out of dockyards, without
any consciousness that, of all the stores in the yard, the men were
exactly the most precious. You expressed, Sir, in your article on the
loss of the Captain,[28] a feeling common, I suppose, for once, to
all of us, that the principal loss was not the iron of the ship, but
the five hundred men in her. Perhaps, had she been of gold instead of
iron plate, public mourning might have inclined itself to the side
of the metal. But how if the whole British public should be itself
at this instant afloat in a captain-less Captain, built of somewhat
dirty yet substantial gold, and in extremest peril of turning bottom
upwards? Which will be the end, indeed, unless the said public quickly
perceive that their hope must be, not in docks nor ships, but in men.
They, and they only, are our guarantee for territory. Prussia herself
seems as simple as the rest of us in her talk of "guarantees." Alsace
and Lorraine, if dishonestly come by, may be honestly retaken; but if
for "guarantee," why these only? Why not Burgundy and Anjou--Auvergne
and the Limousin? Let France lose what she may, if she can but find a
Charles and Roland among her children, she will recover her empire,
though she had been beaten back to the Brêche; and if she find them
not, Germany has all the guarantee she needs in her own name, and in
her own right hand.
Let her look to it, now, that her fame be not sullied. She is pressing
her victory too far--dangerously far, as uselessly. The Nemesis
of battle may indeed be near her; greater glory she cannot win by
the taking of Paris, nor the overrunning of provinces--she only
prolongs suffering, redoubles death, extends loss, incalculable and
irremediable. But let her now give unconditional armistice, and offer
terms that France can accept with honor, and she will bear such rank
among the nations as never yet shone on Christian history.
For us, we ought to help France now, if we ever did anything, but
of course there remains for us only neutrality--selling of coke,
and silence (if we have grace enough left to keep it). I have only
broken mine to say that I am ashamed to speak as being one of a nation
regardless of its honor alike in trade and policy; poor, yet not
careful to keep even the treasure of probity--and rich, without being
able to afford itself the luxury of courage.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
_Oct._ 7.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] The _Daily Telegraph_ of Oct. 7 contained amongst its Paris news
that of the decision of the Government of National Defence to cast a
statue of the city of Strasburg in bronze, in memory of its "heroic
resistance to the enemy during a murderous siege of fifty days."
[27] This letter was signed "W. C. P.," who, after stating himself to
be an English resident in Germany, proceeded to lament the changed
position of England in the opinion of foreign nations, and especially
in that of the Germans, who no longer spoke of her, as formerly, "with
affectionate admiration or even envious respect." "And I must confess,"
concluded the letter, "that I find it difficult to answer them; for it
seems to me that we have already good reason to say, in reference to
the present struggle, 'All is lost save money.'"--_Times_, October 7,
1870.
[28] The turret ship "Captain" foundered off Cape Finisterre on
September 7, 1870. For the articles alluded to, see the _Daily
Telegraph_ of September 12 and following days.
[From "Fraser's Magazine," July, 1876, pp. 121-123.]
_MODERN WARFARE._
_To the Editor of "Fraser's Magazine."_
SIR: The article on modern warfare in your last June number[29]
contains statements of so great importance to public interest, that
I do not hesitate to ask you to spare me space for a question or two
respecting it, which by answering, your contributor may make the facts
he has brought forward more valuable for practical issues.
The statistics[30] given in the second column of page 695, on which
P. S. C. rests his "incontestable" conclusion that "battles are less
sanguinary than they were," are incomplete in this vital respect,
that they furnish us only with the proportion, and not with the total
number, of combatants slain. A barricade fight between a mob of rioters
a thousand strong, and a battery of artillery, in which fifty reformers
get shot, is not "less sanguinary" than a street quarrel between three
topers, of whom one gets knocked on the head with a pewter pot: though
no more than the twentieth part of the forces on one side fall in the
first case, and a third of the total forces engaged, in the second. Nor
could it be proved by the exhibition of these proportions of loss, that
the substitution of explosive shells, as offensive weapons, for pewter
pots, rendered wounds less painful, or war more humane.
Now, the practical difference between ancient and modern war, as
carried on by civilized nations, is, broadly, of this kind. Formerly,
the persons who had quarrelled settled their differences by the
strength of their own arms, at the head of their retainers, with
comparatively inexpensive weapons such as they could conveniently
wield; weapons which they had paid for out of their own pockets, and
with which they struck only the people they meant to strike: while,
nowadays, persons who quarrel fight at a distance, with mechanical
apparatus, for the manufacture of which they have taxed the public,
and which will kill anybody who happens to be in the way; gathering
at the same time, to put into the way of them, as large a quantity of
senseless and innocent mob as can be beguiled, or compelled, to the
slaughter. So that, in the words of your contributor, "Modern armies
are not now small fractions of the population whence they are drawn;
they represent--in fact are--whole nations in arms." I have only to
correct this somewhat vague and rhetorical statement by pointing out
that the persons in arms, led out for mutual destruction, are by no
means "the whole nation" on either side, but only the individuals of it
who are able-bodied, honest, and brave, selected to be shot, from among
its invalids, rogues, and cowards.
The deficiencies in your contributor's evidence as to the totality of
loss do not, however, invalidate his conclusion that, out of given
numbers engaged, the mitrailleuse kills fewer than the musket.[31]
It is, nevertheless, a very startling conclusion, and one not to be
accepted without closer examination of the statistics on which it is
based. I will, therefore, tabulate them in a simpler form, which the
eye can catch easily, omitting only one or two instances which add
nothing to the force of the evidence.
In the six under-named battles of bygone times, there fell, according
to your contributor's estimate, out of the total combatants--
At Austerlitz ⅐
Jena ⅙
Waterloo ⅕
Marengo ¼
Salamanca ⅓
Eylau 1/2½
while in the under-named five recent battles the proportion of loss was--
At Königgratz 1/15
Gravelotte 1/12
Solferino 1/11
Worth 1/11
Sedan 1/10
Now, there is a very important difference in the character of the
battles named in these two lists. Every one of the first six was
decisive, and both sides knew that it must be so when the engagement
began, and did their best to win. But Königgratz was only decisive
by sudden and appalling demonstration of the power of a new weapon.
Solferino was only half fought, and not followed up because the French
Emperor had exhausted his _corps d'élite_ at Magenta, and could not
(or, at least, so it is reported) depend on his troops of the line.
Worth was an experiment; Sedan a discouraged ruin; Gravelotte was, I
believe, well contested, but I do not know on what extent of the line,
and we have no real evidence as to the power of modern mechanics for
death, until the proportions are calculated, not from the numbers
engaged, but from those under fire for equal times. Now, in all the
upper list of battles, probably every man of both armies was under
fire, and some of the regiments under fire for half the day; while
in the lower list of battles, only fragments of the line were hotly
engaged, and the dispute on any point reaching its intensity would be
ended in half an hour.
That the close of contest is so rapid may indeed be one of the
conditions of improvement in our military system alleged by your
correspondent; and the statistics he has brought forward do indeed
clearly prove one of two things--either that modern weapons do not
kill, or that modern soldiers do not fight as effectually as in
old times. I do not know if this is thought a desirable change in
military circles; but I, as a poor civilian, beg to express my strong
objection to being taxed six times over what I used to be, either for
the equipment of soldiers who rarely fight, or the manufacture of
weapons which rarely kill. It may be perfectly true that our last
cruise on the Baltic was "less sanguinary" than that which concluded
in Copenhagen. But we shook hands with the Danes after fighting
them, and the differences between us were ended: while our expensive
contemplation of the defences of Cronstadt leaves us still in daily
dread of an inspection by the Russian of those of Calcutta.
It is true that the ingenuity of our inventors is far from being
exhausted, and that in a few years more we may be able to destroy a
regiment round a corner and bombard a fleet over the horizon; but I
believe the effective result of these crowning scientific successes
will only be to confirm the at present partial impression on the minds
of military and naval officers, that their duty is rather to take
care of their weapons than to use them. "England will expect" of her
generals and admirals to maintain a dignified moral position as far as
possible out of the enemy's sight: and in a perfectly scientific era
of seamanship we shall see two adverse fleets affected by a constant
law of mutual repulsion at distances of two or three hundred miles;
while in either squadron, an occasional collision between the leading
ships, or inexplicable foundering of the last improved ones, will make
these prudential manœuvres on the whole as destructive of the force,
and about ten times more costly to the pocket, of the nation, than the
ancient, and, perhaps, more honorable tactics of poorly-armed pugnacity.
There is, however, one point touched upon in P. S. C.'s letter, to
me the most interesting of all, with respect to which the data for
accurate comparison of our former and present systems are especially
desirable, though it never seems to have occurred to your correspondent
to collect them--the estimates, namely, of the relative destruction of
civil property.
Of wilful destruction, I most thankfully acknowledge the cessation
in Christian warfare; and in the great change between the day of
the sack of Magdeburg and that of the march into Paris, recognize
a true sign of the approach of the reign of national peace. But of
inevitable destruction--of loss inflicted on the peasant by the merely
imperative requirements and operations of contending armies--it
will materially hasten the advent of such peace, if we ascertain the
increasing pressure during our nominally mollified and merciful war.
The agricultural losses sustained by France in one year are estimated
by your correspondent at one hundred and seventy millions of pounds.
Let him add to this sum the agricultural loss necessitated in the
same year throughout Germany, through the withdrawal of capital from
productive industry, for the maintenance of her armies; and of labor
from it by their composition; and, for third item, add the total
cost of weapons, horses, and ammunition on both sides; and let him
then inform us whether the cost, thus summed, of a year's actual war
between two European States, is supposed by military authorities to
be fairly representative of that which the settlement of political
dispute between any two such Powers, with modern instruments of battle,
will on an average, in future, involve. If so, I will only venture
further to suggest that the nations minded thus to try their quarrel
should at least raise the stakes for their match before they make
the ring, instead of drawing bills for them upon futurity. For that
the money-lenders whose pockets are filled, while everybody else's
are emptied, by recent military finance, should occultly exercise
irresistible influence, not only on the development of our--according
to your contributor--daily more harmless armaments, but also on the
deliberation of Cabinets, and passions of the populace, is inevitable
under present circumstances; and the exercise of such influence,
however advantageous to contractors and projectors, can scarcely be
held consistent either with the honor of a Senate or the safety of a
State.
I am, Sir,
Your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
P.S.--I wish I could get a broad approximate estimate of the
expenditure in money, and loss of men by France and Prussia in the
respective years of Jena and Sedan, and by France and Austria in the
respective years of Arcola and Solferino.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] "Remarks on Modern Warfare." By a Military Officer. The article
was signed "P. S. C."
[30] See the tables given in this letter (pp. 30 and 31).
[31] "The proportion of killed and wounded," wrote P. S. C., "was far
greater with the old-fashioned weapons than it is at the present day."
LETTERS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.
THE DEPRECIATION OF GOLD. 1863.
THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 1864.
(Three letters: October 26 and 29, and November 2.)
MR. RUSKIN AND PROFESSOR HODGSON. 1873.
(Two letters: November 8 and 15.)
STRIKES _v._ ARBITRATION. 1865.
WORK AND WAGES. 1865.
(Five letters: April 20, 22, and 29, and May 4 and 20.)
THE STANDARD OF WAGES. 1867.
HOW THE RICH SPEND THEIR MONEY. 1873.
(Three letters: January 23, 28, and 30.)
COMMERCIAL MORALITY. 1875.
THE DEFINITION OF WEALTH. 1875.
THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY. 1877.
ON COÖPERATION. (Two letters.) 1879-80.
LETTERS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.
[From "The Times," October 8, 1863.]
_THE DEPRECIATION OF GOLD._
_To the Editor of "The Times."_
SIR: Being out of the way of my letters, I did not, till now, see your
excellent article of the 23d September on the depreciation of gold.[32]
Will you allow me, thus late, a very few words in confirmation of your
statement of the insufficiency of the evidence hitherto offered on that
subject?
The market value of "a pound" depends less on the supply of gold than
on the extravagance or economy of the persons holding documentary
currency (that is to say, claim to goods). Suppose, for instance, that
I hold stock to the value of £500 a year;--if I live on a hundred a
year, and lay by four hundred, I (for the time) keep down the prices of
all goods to the distributed amount of £400 a year, or, in other words,
neutralize the effect on the market of 400 pounds in gold imported
annually from Australia. If, instead of laying by this sum in paper, I
choose to throw it into bullion (whether gold-plate or coin does not
matter), I not only keep down the price of goods, but raise the price
of gold as a commodity, and neutralize 800 pounds' worth of imported
gold. But if I annually spend my entire 500 (unproductively) I annually
raise the price of goods by that amount, and neutralize a correspondent
diminution in the supply of gold. If I spend my 500 productively,
that is to say, so as to produce as much as, or more than I consume, I
either leave the market as I find it, or by the excess of production
increase the value of gold.
Similarly, whatever I lay by will, as it is ultimately spent by my
successors, productively or unproductively, in that degree (_cœteris
paribus_) increase or lower the value of gold. These agencies of daily
economy have so much more power over the market than the supply from
the mine that no statistics of which we are yet in possession are (at
least in their existing form) sufficient to prove the dependence of
any given phenomena of the market on the rate of metallic supply. The
destruction of property in the American war and our European amusements
in the manufacture of monster guns and steel "backings" lower the
value of money far more surely and fatally than an increased supply
of bullion, for the latter may very possibly excite parallel force of
productive industry.
But the lowered value of money is often (and this is a very curious
case of economical back current) indicated, not so much by a rise in
the price of goods, as by a fall in that of labor. The household lives
as comfortably as it did on a hundred a year, but the master has to
work half as hard again to get it. This increase of toil is to an
active nation often a kind of play; men go into it as into a violent
game; fathers of families die quicker, and the gates of orphan asylums
are choked with applicants; distress and crime spread and fester
through a thousand silent channels; but there is no commercial or
elementary convulsion; no chasm opens into the abyss through the London
clay; no gilded victim is asked of the Guards; the Stock-Exchange falls
into no hysterics; and the old lady of Threadneedle Street does not so
much as ask for "My fan, Peter."
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
CHAMOUNIX, _Oct._ 2.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] See one of the leading articles in _The Times_ of Sept. 23, 1863,
upon the then panic as to the depreciation of gold, excited by the
considerable fresh discoveries of the precious metal in California and
Australia.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 28, 1864.]
_THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: In your valuable article of to-day on the strike of the colliers,
while you lay down the true and just law[33] respecting all such
combinations, you take your stand, in the outset, on a maxim of
political economy, which, however trite, stands yet--if I am not
deceived--in need of much examination and qualification. "Labor," you
say, like every other vendible commodity, "depends for its value on
the relation of supply to demand." But, Sir, might it not be asked by
any simple and practical person, who had heard this assertion for the
first time--as I hope all practical persons will some day hear it for
the last time--"Yes; but what does demand depend upon, and what does
supply depend upon?" If, for instance, all death-beds came to resemble
that so forcibly depicted in your next following article, and, in
consequence, the demand for gin were unlimitedly increased towards the
close of human life,[34] would this demand necessitate, or indicate,
a relative increase in the "value" of gin as a necessary article of
national wealth, and liquid foundation of national prosperity? Or might
we not advisably make some steady and generally understood distinction
between the terms "value" and "price," and determine at once whether
there be, or be not, such a thing as intrinsic "value" or goodness in
some things, and as intrinsic un-value or badness in other things; and
as value extrinsic, or according to use, in all things? and whether a
demand for intrinsically good things, and a corresponding knowledge
of their use, be not conditions likely, on the whole, to tend towards
national wealth? and whether a demand for intrinsically bad things,
and relative experience in their use, be not conditions likely to lead
to quite the reverse of national wealth, in exact proportion to the
facility of the supply of the said bad things? I should be entirely
grateful to you, Sir, or to any of your correspondents, if you or they
would answer these short questions clearly for me.
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.[35]
DENMARK HILL, _Oct._ 26.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] The strike was amongst the South Staffordshire colliers: the law
laid down in the article that of free trade.
[34] Upon the then recent and miserable death of an Irish gentleman,
who had been an habitual hard-drinker.
[35] To this letter an answer (_Daily Telegraph_, October 29) was
attempted by "Economist," writing from "Lloyds, Oct. 28," stating that
"Value in political economy means exchangeable value, not intrinsic
value." The rest of his letter is given in Mr. Ruskin's reply to it.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 31, 1864.]
_THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: I am grateful to your correspondent "Economist" for trying his
hand on me, and will be a docile pupil; but I hope his hand is not
quite untried hitherto, for it would waste your space, and my time,
and your readers' patience, if he taught me what I had afterwards to
unlearn. But I think none of these will be wasted if he answers my
questions clearly; there are, I am sure, many innocent persons who,
like myself, will be glad of the information.
1. He tells me, then, in the outset, "The intrinsic value of
commodities is a question outside political economy."
Is that an axiom for all political economists? and may I put it down
for future reference? I particularly wish to be assured of this.
2. Assuming, for the present, that I may so set it down, and that
exchangeable value is the only subject of politico-economical inquiry,
I proceed to my informant's following statement:
"The" (question) "of intrinsic value belongs to the domain of
philosophy, morals, or statecraft. The intrinsic value of anything
depends on its qualities; the exchangeable value depends on how much
there is of it, and how much people want it."
(This "want" of it never, of course, in anywise depending on its
qualities.)
Μανθανω. Accordingly, in that ancient and rashly-speculative adage,
"Venture a sprat to catch a herring," it is only assumed that people
will always want herrings rather than sprats, and that there will
always be fewer of them. No reference is involved, according to
economists, to the relative sizes of a sprat and herring.
Farther: Were a fashionable doctor to write an essay on sprats,
and increase their display at West-end tables to that extent that
unseasonable sprats became worth a guinea a head, while herrings
remained at the old nursery rate of one and a half for three-halfpence,
would my "recognition" of the value of sprats in paying a guinea for
one enable me to dine off it better than I should off that mysterious
eleven-penny worth of herring? Or to take a more elevated instance.
There is now on my room wall a water-color drawing, which was once
bought for £30, and for which any dealer would to-morrow give me £300.
The drawing is intrinsically worth about one-tenth of what it was when
bought for £30, the sky having faded out of it, and many colors having
changed elsewhere. But men's minds have changed like the colors, and
Lord A. or Sir John B. are now ready to give me £300 instead of £30 for
it.
Now, I want to know what it matters to "Economist," or to the
Economical Society he (as I understand) represents, or to the British
nation generally, whether Lord A. has the bit of colored paper and I
the £300, or Lord A. the £300 and I the bit of paper. The pounds are
there, and the paper is there: what does it nationally matter which of
us have which?
Farther: What does it nationally matter whether Lord A. gives me £30
or £300 on the exchange? (Mind, I do not say it does not matter--I
only want "Economist" to tell me if it does, and how it does.) In one
case my lord has £270 more to spend; in the other I have. What does it
signify which of us has?
Farther: To us, the exchangers, of what use is "Economist's"
information that the rate of exchange depends on the "demand and
supply" of colored paper and pounds? No ghost need come from the grave
to tell us that. But if any economical ghost would tell my lord how to
get more pounds, or me how to get more drawings, it might be to the
purpose.
But yet farther, passing from specialties to generals:
Let the entire property of the nation be enumerated in the several
articles of which it consists--_a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, etc.; we will say
only three, for convenience sake. Then all the national property
consists of _a_ + _b_ + _c_.
I ask, first, what _a_ is worth.
"Economist" answers (suppose) 2 _b_.
I ask, next, what _b_ is worth.
"Economist" answers (suppose) 3 _c_.
I ask, next, what _c_ is worth.
"Economist" answers--_a/b_.
Many thanks. That is certainly Cocker's view of it.
I ask, finally, What is it _all_ worth?
"Economist" answers, 1⅔ _a_, or 3⅓ _b_, or 10 _c_.
Thanks again. But now, intrinsic value not being in "Economist's"
domain, but--if I chance to be a philosopher--in mine, I may any day
discover any given intrinsic value to belong to any one of these
articles.
Suppose I find, for instance, the value of _c_ to be intrinsically
zero, then the entire national property = 10_c_ = intrinsically 0.
Shall I be justified in this conclusion?
3. In relation to the question of strikes, the difficulty, you told
me yourself, Mr. Editor[36] (and doubtless "Economist" will tell me
also), depends simply on supply and demand: that is to say, on an
under-supply of wages and an over-supply of laborers. Profoundest
thanks again; but I, poor blundering, thick-headed collier, feel
disposed further to ask, "On what do this underness and overness of
supply depend?" Have they any remote connection with marriage, or with
improvidence, or with avarice, or with accumulativeness, or any other
human weaknesses out of the ken of political economy? And, whatever
they arise from, how are they to be dealt with? It appears to me, poor
simple collier, that the shortest way of dealing with this "darned"
supply of laborers will be by knocking some of them down, or otherwise
disabling them for the present. Why is this mode of regulating the
supply interdicted to me? and what have Economists to do with the
morality of any proceeding whatever? and, in the name of economy
generally, what else can I do?[37]
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Oct._ 29. [Monday.]
FOOTNOTES:
[36] See _ante_, p. 39.
[37] "Economist" does not seem to have continued his argument. A
reply to this letter was however attempted by "John Plummer," writing
from Kettering, and dealing with the over-supply of laborers and
under-supply of wages, and Mr. Ruskin's possible views on the matter.
The next letter ended the correspondence.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," November 8, 1864.]
_THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: Having, unfortunately, occupation enough in my own business for
all hours of the day, I cannot undertake to reply to the general
correspondence which might, in large supply to my limited demand,
propose itself in your columns. If my first respondent, "Economist," or
any other person learned in his science, will give me direct answers
to the direct questions asked in my Monday's letter, I may, with your
permission, follow the points at issue farther; if not, I will trouble
you no more. Your correspondent of to-day, Mr. Plummer, may ascertain
whether I confuse the terms "value" and "price" by reference to the
bottom of the second column in page 787 of "Fraser's Magazine" for
June, 1862. Of my opinions respecting the treatment of the working
classes he knows nothing, and can guess nothing.[38]
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Nov._ 2.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] In the "Essays on Political Economy," since reprinted as "Munera
Pulveris." See p. 10, § 12 of that book, where the passage is printed
in italics: "The reader must, by anticipation, be warned against
confusing value with cost, or with price. Value is the life-giving
power of anything; cost, the quantity of labor required to produce it;
price, the quantity of labor which its possessor will take in exchange
for it."
[From "The Scotsman," November 10, 1873.]
_MR. RUSKIN AND PROFESSOR HODGSON._
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_Nov. 8th_, 1873.
_To the Editor of "The Scotsman."_
SIR: In your impression of the 6th inst. I find a report of a lecture
delivered by Professor Hodgson in the University of Edinburgh on the
subject of "Supply and Demand," in which the Professor speaks of my
"denunciations" of the principles he had expounded. Permit me, in
a matter respecting which accuracy is of more importance to others
than to myself, to correct the Professor's expression. I have never
"denounced" the principles expounded by the Professor. I have simply
stated that no such principles exist; that no "law of supply and
demand," as expounded by Professor Hodgson and modern economists, ever
did or can exist.
Professor Hodgson, as reported in your columns, states that "demand
regulates supply." He does not appear to entertain the incomparably
more important economical question, "What regulates demand?" But
without pressing upon him that first question of all, I am content
absolutely to contradict and to challenge him before the University of
Edinburgh to maintain his statement that "demand regulates supply," and
together with it (if he has ventured to advance it) the correlative
proposition, "supply regulates demand."
A. Demand does not regulate supply.
For instance--there is at this moment a larger demand for champagne
wine in England and Scotland than there was ten years ago; and a much
more limited supply of champagne wine.
B. Supply does not regulate demand.
For instance--I can name many districts in Scotland where the supply of
pure water is larger than in other namable localities, but where the
inhabitants drink less water and more whiskey than in other namable
localities.
I do not therefore denounce the so-called law of supply and demand,
but I absolutely deny the existence of such law; and I do in the very
strongest terms denounce the assertion of the existence of such a law
before the University of Edinburgh as disgraceful both to its assertor
and to the University, unless immediate steps be taken to define, in
scientific terms, the limitations under which such statement is to be
understood.
I am, etc.,
JOHN RUSKIN.[39]
FOOTNOTES:
[39] To this letter Professor Hodgson replied by one printed in the
_Scotsman_ of November 14.
[From "The Scotsman," November 18, 1873]
_MR. RUSKIN AND PROFESSOR HODGSON._
OXFORD, _November_ 15, 1873.
_To the Editor of "The Scotsman."_
SIR: For Professor Hodgson's "undue encroachments on your space and his
own time," I leave you to answer to your readers, and the Professor to
console his class. To his criticisms on my language and temper I bow,
their defence being irrelevant to the matter in hand. Of his harmless
confusion of the word "correlative" with the word "consequent" I take
no notice; and his promise of a sifting examination of my economic
teaching I anticipate with grateful awe.[40]
But there is one sentence in his letter of real significance, and to
that alone I reply. The Professor ventured (he says) to suggest that
possibly I with others "believe that economists confused existing
demand with wise and beneficial demand, and existing supply with wise
and beneficial supply."
I do believe this. I have written all my books on political economy in
such belief. And the entire gist of them is the assertion that a real
law of relation holds between the non-existent wise demand and the
non-existent beneficial supply, but that no real law of relation holds
between the existent foolish demand and the existent mischievous supply.
That is to say (to follow Professor Hodgson with greater accuracy into
his lunar illustrations), if you ask for the moon, it does not follow
that you will get it; nor is your satisfaction more secure if you ask
for sixpence from a Poor-Law guardian; but if you limit your demand to
an honest penny, and endeavor to turn it by honest work, the divine law
of supply will, in the plurality of cases, answer that rational and
therefore divine demand.
Now, Professor Hodgson's statement, as reported in your columns, was
that "demand regulates supply." If his assertion, in his lecture, was
the qualified one, or that "wise demand regulates beneficial supply,"
your reporter is much to be blamed, the Professor's class profoundly
to be congratulated, and this correspondence is at an end; while I
look forward with deepest interest to the necessary elucidations by
the Professor of the nature of wisdom and benefit; neither of these
ideas having been yet familiar ones in common economical treatises.
But I wrote under the impression that the Professor dealt hitherto,
as it has been the boast of economists to deal, with things existent,
and not theoretical (and assuredly the practical men of this country
expect their children to be instructed by him in the laws which
govern existing things); and it is therefore only in the name of
your practical readers that I challenged him, and to-day repeat my
challenge, in terms from which I trust he will not again attempt
to escape by circumambient criticism of my works,[41] to define,
in scientific terms, the limits under which his general statement
that "supply regulates demand" is to be understood. That is to say,
whether he, as Professor of Political Economy, is about to explain
the relations (A) of rational and satiable demand with beneficial and
benevolently-directly supply; or (B) of irrational and insatiable
demand with mischievous and malevolently-directed supply; or (C) of a
demand of which he cannot explain the character with a supply of which
he cannot predict the consequence?
I am, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[40] "I hereby promise Mr. Ruskin that ere very many months are over he
shall have in print a sifting examination of his economic teaching." I
do not find, however, that Professor Hodgson fulfilled his promise.
[41] Professor Hodgson's letter had quoted, with criticism, several
passages from "Fors Clavigera," "Munera Pulveris," and "Time and Tide."
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," April 18, 1865.]
_STRIKES v. ARBITRATION._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I read your _Gazette_ so attentively that I am always falling into
arrears, and have only to-day arrived at your last week's articles on
strikes, arbitration, etc., which afford me the greatest satisfaction,
but nevertheless embarrass me somewhat. Will you permit me to ask for a
word or two of further elucidation?
I am an entirely selfish person, and having the means of indulging
myself (in moderation), should, I believe, have led a comfortable life,
had it not been for occasional fits and twinges of conscience, to which
I inherit some family predisposition, and from which I suffer great
uneasiness in cloudy weather. Articles like yours of Wednesday,[42] on
the proper attention to one's own interests, are very comforting and
helpful to me; but, as I said, there are yet some points in them I do
not understand.
Of course it is right to arrange all one's business with reference
to one's own interest; but what will the practical difference
be ultimately between such arrangement and the old and simple
conscientious one? In those bygone days, I remember, one endeavored,
with such rough estimate as could be quickly made, to give one's Roland
for one's Oliver; if a man did you a service, you tried in return
to do as much for him; if he broke your head, you broke his, shook
hands, and were both the better for it. Contrariwise, on this modern
principle of self-interest, I understand very well that if a man does
me a service, I am always to do the least I can in return for it; but
I don't see how I am always to get more out of him than he gets out of
me. I dislike any references to abstract justice as much as you do, but
I cannot see my way to keeping this injustice always in my own favor;
and if I cannot, it seems to me the matter may as well be settled at
first, as it must come to be settled at last, in that disagreeably just
way.
Thus, for instance, in producing a piece of iron for the market, one
man digs it, another smelts it, another puddles it, and I sell it. We
get so much between us four; and I suppose your conscientious people
would say that the division of the pay should have some reference to
the hardness of the work, and the time spent in it. It is true that by
encouraging the diggers and puddlers to spend all they get in drink,
and by turning them off as soon as I hear they are laying by money,
it may yet be possible to get them for some time to take less than I
suppose they should have; but I cannot hide from myself that the men
are beginning to understand the game a little themselves; and if they
should, with the help of those confounded--(I beg pardon! I forgot that
one does not print such expressions in Pall Mall)--education-mongers,
learn to be men, and to look after their own business as I do mine,
what am I to do? Even at present I don't feel easy in telling them that
I ought to have more money than they because I know better how to spend
it, for even this involves a distant reference to notions of propriety
and principle which I would gladly avoid. Will you kindly tell me what
is best to be done (or said)?
I am, Sir, your obliged servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
_Easter Monday_, 1865.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] The articles alluded to were, one upon "Strikes and Arbitration
Courts," in the _Gazette_ of Wednesday, the 12th, and the one on "The
_Times_ on Trade Arbitration," in the _Gazette_ of Thursday, the 13th.
The former dealt with the proposal to decide questions raised by
strikes by reference to courts of arbitration. Amongst the sentences
contained in it, and alluded to by Mr. Ruskin, were the following:
"Phrases about the 'principles of right and justice' are always
suspicious and generally fallacious." "The rate of wages is determined
exclusively by self-interest." "There is no such thing as a 'fair' rate
of wages or a 'just' rate of wages."
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," April 21, 1865.]
_WORK AND WAGES._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I am not usually unready for controversy, but I dislike it in
spring, as I do the east wind (_pace_ Mr. Kingsley), and I both regret
having given occasion to the only dull leader which has yet[43]
appeared in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, and the necessity I am involved in
of dissecting the same, instead of a violet, on which I was about this
morning to begin operations.
But I see, Sir, that you mean fairly, and that you have careful
thinkers and writers on your staff. And I will accept your battle, if
you will fight with short swords, which is clearly your interest, for
such another article would sink the _Gazette_; and mine, for I have no
time to answer speculations on what you writers suppose my opinions may
be, "if we understand" them.
You shall understand them utterly, as I already understand yours. I
will not call yours "fallacies" _à priori_; you shall not call mine so.
I will not tell you of your "unconscious" meanings; you shall not tell
me of mine.[44] But I will ask you the plainest questions, and make
to you the plainest answers my English will admit of, on one point at
a time only, expecting you also to ask or answer as briefly, without
divergence or deprecation. And twenty lines will always contain all I
would say, at any intervals of time you choose.
For example: I said I must "dissect" your leader, meaning that I
should have to take a piece of it, as I would of my flower, and deal
with that first; then with its sequences.
I take this sentence then: "He (Mr. R.) seems to think that apart from
the question of the powers of the parties, there is some such thing
as a just rate of wages. He seems to be under the impression that the
wages ought to be proportioned, not to the supply and demand of labor
and capital, but 'to the hardship of the work and the time spent in
it.'"
Yes, Sir, I am decisively under that impression--as decisively as ever
Greek coin was under _its_ impression. You will beat me out of all
shape, if you can beat me out of this. Will you join issue on it, and
are these following statements clear enough for you, either to accept
or deny, in as positive terms?--
I. A man should in justice be paid for two hours' work twice as much as
for one hour's work, and for _n_ hour's work _n_ times as much, if the
effort be similar and continuous.
II. A man should in justice be paid for difficult or dangerous work
proportionately more than for easy and safe work, supposing the other
conditions of the work similar.
III. (And now look out, for this proposition involves the ultimate
principle of all just wages.) If a man does a given quantity of work
for me, I am bound in justice to do, or procure to be done, a precisely
equal quantity of work for him; and just trade in labor is the exchange
of equivalent quantities of labor of different kinds.
If you pause at this word "equivalent," you shall have definition
of it in my next letter. I am sure you will in fairness insert this
challenge, whether you accept it or decline.
I am, Sir, your obliged servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.[45]
DENMARK HILL, _Thursday, April_ 20.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] The _Gazette_ was at this time of little more than eight weeks'
standing. The dull leader was that in the _Gazette_ of April 19,
entitled "Masters and Men," and dealt entirely with Mr. Ruskin's letter
on strikes. The "_pace_ Mr. Kingsley" alludes, of course, to his "Ode
to the North-East Wind."
[44] The leader had begun by speaking of Mr. Ruskin's previous letter
as "embodying fallacies, pernicious in the highest degree," and
concluded by remarking how "easily and unconsciously he glided into the
true result of his principles."
[45] In reply, the _Gazette_ denied "each of the three propositions to
be true," on grounds shown in the quotations given in the following
letter.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," April 26, 1865.]
_WORK AND WAGES._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I accept your terms, and reply in the fewest words I can.
I. You "see no injustice in hiring a fly for 2_s._ 6_d._ for the first
hour and 1_s._ 6_d._ for each succeeding one." Nor I either; so far
from it, that I never give a cabman less than a shilling; which I doubt
not is your practice also, and a very proper one. The cabmen make
no objection, and you could not have given a neater instance of the
proportion of payment to labor which you deny. You pay in the first
hour for the various trouble involved in taking the man off his stand,
and for a proportion of the time during which he has waited for the
chance of your custom. That paid, you hire him by the formula which I
state, and you deny.
II. "Danger and difficulty have attractions for some men." They have,
and if, under the influence of those attractions, they choose to make
you a present of their labor, for love (in your own terms,[46] "as you
give a penny to a beggar"), you may accept the gift as the beggar does,
without question of justice. But if they do not choose to give it you,
they have a right to higher payment. My guide may perhaps, for love,
play at climbing Mont Blanc with me; if he will not, he has a right to
be paid more than for climbing the Breven.
III. "Mr. Ruskin can define justice, or any other word, as he chooses."
It is a gracious permission; but suppose justice be something more
than a word! When you derived it _jussum_[47] (falsely, for it is not
derived from _jussum_, but from the root of _jungo_), you forgot, or
ignored, that the Saxons had also a word for it, by which the English
workman still pleads for it; that the Greeks had a word for it, by
which Plato and St. Paul reasoned of it; and that the Powers of Heaven
have, presumably, an idea of it with which it may be well for "our
interests" that your definition, as well as mine, should ultimately
correspond, since their "definitions" are commonly not by a word but a
blow.
But accepting for the nonce your own conception of it as "the
fulfilment of a compulsory agreement" ("the wages" you say "which you
_force_ the men to take, and they can _force_ you to pay"), allow me
to ask your definition of force, or compulsion. As thus: (_Case_ 1.) I
agree with my friend that we will pay a visit to Mr. A. at two in the
morning. My friend agrees with me that he will hold a pistol to Mr.
A.'s head. Under those circumstances, I agree with Mr. A. that I shall
remove his plate without expression of objection on his part. Is this
agreement, in your sense, "_jussum_"? (_Case_ 2.) Mr. B. goes half
through the ice into the canal on a frosty morning. I, on the shore,
agree with Mr. B. that I shall have a hundred pounds for throwing him a
rope. Is this agreement validly "_jussum_"?
The first of these cases expresses in small compass the general nature
of arrangements under compulsory circumstances over which one of the
parties has entire control. The second, that of arrangements made under
circumstances accidentally compulsory, when the capital is in one
party's hands exclusively. For you will observe Mr. B. has no right
whatever to the use of my rope: and that capital (though it would
probably have been only the final result of my operations with respect
to Mr. A.) makes me completely master of the situation with reference
to Mr. B.
I am, Sir, your obliged servant,
JOHN RUSKIN[48]
DENMARK HILL, _Saturday_, _April_ 22, 1865.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] These "terms" were simply that the _Gazette_ should have the right
of determining how much of the proposed controversy was worth its space.
[47] In the article of April 12.
[48] For the _Gazette's_ reply to this, see the notes to the following
letter.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," May 2, 1865.]
_WORK AND WAGES._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I have not hastened my reply to your last letter, thinking that
your space at present would be otherwise occupied; having also my own
thoughts busied in various directions, such as you may fancy; yet
busied chiefly in a sad wonder, which perhaps you would not fancy. I
mourn for Mr. Lincoln,[49] as man should mourn the fate of man, when it
is sudden and supreme. I hate regicide as I do populicide--deeply, if
frenzied; more deeply, if deliberate. But my wonder is in remembering
the tone of the English people and press respecting this man during
his life; and in comparing it with their sayings of him in his death.
They caricatured and reviled him when his cause was poised in deadly
balance--when their praise would have been grateful to him, and their
help priceless. They now declare his cause to have been just, when
it needs no aid; and his purposes to have been noble, when all human
thoughts of them have become vanity, and will never so much as mix
their murmurs in his ears with the sentence of the Tribunal which has
summoned him to receive a juster praise and tenderer blame than ours.
I have twice (I see) used the word "just" inadvertently, forgetting
that it has no meaning, or may mean (you tell me) quite what we choose;
and that so far as it has a meaning, "the important question is not
whether the action is just." Indeed when I read this curious sentence
in your reply on Tuesday last, "Justice, as we use it, implies merely
the conformity of an action to any rules whatever, good or bad," I
had nearly closed the discussion by telling you that there remained no
ground on which we could meet, for the English workmen, in whose name I
wrote to you, asked, not for conformity with bad rules, but enactment
of good ones. But I will not pounce upon these careless sentences,
which you are forced to write in all haste, and at all disadvantage,
while I have the definitions and results determined through years of
quiet labor, lying ready at my hand. You never meant what you wrote
(when I said I would not tell you of unconscious meanings, I did not
promise not to tell you of unconscious wants of meanings); but it is
for you to tell _me_ what you mean by a bad rule, and what by a good
one. Of the law of the Eternal Lawgiver, it is dictated that "the
commandment is holy, and just, and good." Not merely that it is a law;
but that it is such and such a law. Are these terms senseless to you?
or do you understand by them only that the observance of that law
is generally conducive to our interests? And if so, what _are_ our
interests? Have we ever an interest in _being_ something, as well as in
getting something; may not even all getting be at last summed in being?
is it not the uttermost of interests to be just rather than unjust? Let
us leave catching at phrases, and try to look in each other's faces and
hearts; so define our thoughts; then reason from them. [See below.][50]
Yet, lest you say I evade you in generalities, here is present answer
point by point.
I. "The fare has nothing to do with the labor in preparing the fly for
being hired."--Nor, of course, the price of any article with the labor
expended in preparing it for being sold? This will be a useful note
to the next edition of "Ricardo." [The price depends on the relative
forces of the buyer and the seller. The price asked by the seller no
doubt depends on the labor expended. The price given by the buyer
depends on the degree in which he desires to possess the thing sold,
which has nothing to do with the labor laid out on it.]
The answer to your instances[51] is that all just price involves an
allowance for average necessary, not for unnecessary, labor. The just
price of coals at Newcastle does not involve an allowance for their
carriage to Newcastle. But the just price of a cab at a stand involves
an allowance to the cabman for having stood there. [Why? who is to
determine what is necessary?]
II. "This admits the principle of Bargaining." No, Sir; it only admits
the principle of Begging. If you like to ask your guide to give you
his legs for nothing, or your workman his arms for nothing, or your
shopkeeper his goods for nothing, and they consent, for love, or for
play--you are doubtless both dignified and fortunate; but there is no
question of trade in the matters; only of Alms. [We mean by Alms money
or goods given merely from motives of benevolence, and without return.
In the case supposed the guide goes one mile to please himself, and ten
more for hire, which satisfies him. How does he give Alms? He goes for
less money than he otherwise would require, because _he_ likes the job,
not because his employer likes it. The Alms are thus given by himself
to himself.]
III. It is true that "every one can affix to words any sense he
chooses." But if I pay for a yard of broadcloth, and the shopman cuts
me three-quarters, I shall not put up with my loss more patiently on
being informed that Bishop Butler meant by justice something quite
different from what Bentham meant by it, or that to give for every yard
three-quarters, is the rule of that establishment. [If the word "yard"
were as ambiguous as the word "justice," Mr. Ruskin ought to be much
obliged to the shopman for defining his sense of it, especially if he
gave you full notice before he cut the cloth.]
Further, it is easy to ascertain the uses of words by the best
scholars--[Nothing is more difficult. To ascertain what Locke meant by
an "idea," or Sir W. Hamilton by the word "inconceivable," is no easy
task.]--and well to adopt them, because they are sure to be founded
on the feelings of gentlemen.--[Different gentlemen feel and think in
very different ways. Though we differ from Mr. Ruskin, we hope he will
not deny this.] Thus, when Horace couples his _tenacem propositi_ with
_justum_, he means to assert that the tenacity is only noble which is
justified by uprightness, and shows itself by insuffer-ance of the
_jussa_ "_prava jubentium_" And although Portia does indeed accept your
definition of justice from the lips of Shylock, changing the divine,
"who sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not" into the somewhat less
divine "who sweareth to his neighbor's hurt and changeth not;" and
though she carries out his and your conception of such justice to the
uttermost, the result is not, even in Shylock's view of it, "for the
interest of both parties."
IV. To your two final questions "exhausting" (by no means, my dear
Sir, I assure you) "the points at issue,"[52] I reply in both cases,
"No." And to your plaintive "why should they do so?" while, observe, I
do not admit it to be a monstrous requirement of men that they should
sometimes sacrifice their own interests, I would for the present merely
answer that I have never found my own interests seriously compromised
by my practice, which is, when I cannot get the fair price of a thing,
not to sell it, and when I cannot give the fair price of a thing, not
to buy it. The other day, a dealer in want of money offered me a series
of Hartz minerals for two-thirds of their value. I knew their value,
but did not care to spend the entire sum which would have covered it. I
therefore chose forty specimens out of the seventy, and gave the dealer
what he asked for the whole.
In the example you give, it is _not_ the interest of the guide to take
his fifty francs rather than nothing; because all future travellers,
though they could afford the hundred, would then say, "You went for
fifty; we will give you no more." [Does a man say to a broker, "You
sold stock yesterday at 90; I will pay no more to-day"?] And for me,
if I am not able to pay my hundred francs, I either forego Mont Blanc,
or climb alone; and keep my fifty francs to pay at another time, for a
less service, some man who also would have got nothing otherwise, and
who will be honestly paid by what I give him, for what I ask of him.
I am, Sir, your obliged servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
SATURDAY, _29th April_, 1865.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] President Lincoln was shot while in his private box at Ford's
Theatre, Washington, on the night of April 14, 1865, and died early the
next morning. His assassin, J. Wilkes Booth, was pursued to Caroline
County, Virginia, where he was fired on by the soldiery and killed. A
letter was found upon him ascribing his conduct to his devotion to the
Southern States.
[50] The bracketed [_sic_] interpolations are the remarks of the
_Gazette_.
[51] One of the instances given by the _Gazette_ on this point was that
a sovereign made of Californian gold will not buy more wool at Sydney
than a sovereign made of Australian gold, although far more labor will
have been expended in bringing it to Sydney.
[52] The _Gazette's_ criticism on the previous letter had concluded
thus:
The following questions exhaust the points at issue between Mr. Ruskin
and ourselves:
Is every man bound to purchase any service or any goods offered him at
a "just" price, he having the money?
If yes, there is an end of private property.
If no, the purchaser must be at liberty to refuse to buy if it suits
his interest to do so. Suppose he does refuse, and thereupon the seller
offers to lower his price, it being his interest to do so, is the
purchaser at liberty to accept that offer?
If yes, the whole principle of bargaining is admitted, and the
"justice" of the price becomes immaterial.
If no, each party of the supposition is compelled by justice to
sacrifice their interest. Why should they do so?
The following is an example: The "just" price of a guide up Mont Blanc
is (suppose) 100 francs. I have only 50 francs to spare. May I without
injustice offer the 50 francs to a guide, who would otherwise get
nothing, and may he without injustice accept my offer? If not, I lose
my excursion, and he loses his opportunity of earning 50 francs. Why
should this be?
In addition to the above interpolations, the _Gazette_ appended a
note to this letter, in which it declared its definition of justice
to be a quotation from memory of Austin's definition adopted by him
from Hobbes, and after referring Mr. Ruskin to Austin for the _moral_
bearings of the question, concluded by summing up its views, which it
doubted if Mr. Ruskin understood, and insisting on the definition of
"justice" as "conformity with any rule whatever, good or bad," and on
that of _good_ rules as "those which promote the general happiness of
those whom they affect." (See the next letter.)
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," May 9, 1865.]
_WORK AND WAGES._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I am under the impression that we are both getting prosy, or,
at all events, that no one will read either my last letter, or your
comments upon it, in the places in which you have so gracefully
introduced them. For which I am sorry, and you, I imagine, are not.
It is true that differences of feeling may exist among gentlemen;
yet I think that gentlemen of all countries agree that it is rude to
interrupt your opponent while he is speaking; for a futile answer gains
no real force by becoming an interjection; and a strong one can abide
its time. I will therefore pray you, in future, if you publish my
letters at all, to practice towards them so much of old English manners
as may yet be found lingering round some old English dinner-tables;
where, though we may be compelled by fashion to turn the room into a
greenhouse, and serve everything cold, the _pièces de résistance_ are
still presented whole, and carved afterwards.
Of course it is open to you to reply that I dislike close argument.
Which little flourish being executed, and if you are well breathed--_en
garde_, if you please.
I. Your original position was that wages (or price) bear _no_ relation
to hardship of work. On that I asked you to join issue. You now admit,
though with apparent reluctance, that "the price asked by the seller,
no doubt, depends on the labor expended."
The price asked by the seller has, I believe, in respectable commercial
houses, and respectable shops, very approximate relation to the price
paid by the buyer. I do not know if you are in the habit of asking,
from your wine-merchant or tailor, reduction of price on the ground
that the sum remitted will be "alms to themselves;" but, having been
myself in somewhat intimate connection with a house of business in the
City,[53] not dishonorably accounted of during the last forty years,
I know enough of their correspondents in every important town in the
United Kingdom to be sure that they will bear me witness that the
difference between the prices asked and the prices taken was always a
very "imaginary" quantity.
But urging this no farther for the present, and marking, for gained
ground, only your admission that "the price asked depends on the
labor expended," will you farther tell me, whether that dependence is
constant, or variable? If constant, under what law; if variable, within
what limits?
II. "The alms are thus given by himself to himself." I never said
they were not. I said it was a question of alms, not of trade. And if
your original leader had only been an exhortation to English workmen
to consider every diminution of their pay, in the picturesque though
perhaps somewhat dim, religious light of alms paid by themselves to
themselves, I never should have troubled you with a letter on the
subject. For, singular enough, Sir, this is not one of the passages of
your letters, however apparently indefensible, which I care to attack.
So far from it, in my own serious writings I have always maintained
that the best work is done, and can only be done, for love.[54] But the
point at issue between us is not whether there _should_ be charity,
but whether there _can_ be trade; not whether men may give away their
labor, but whether, if they do not choose to do so, there is such a
thing as a price for it. And my statement, as opposed to yours, is
briefly this--that for all labor, there is, under given circumstances,
a just price approximately determinable; that every conscious
deflection from this price towards zero is either gift on the part
of the laborer, or theft on the part of the employer; and that all
payment in conscious excess of this price is either theft on the part
of the laborer, or gift on that of the employer.
III. If you wish to substitute the word "moral" for "just" in the above
statement, I am prepared to allow the substitution; only, as you, not
I, introduced this new word, I must pray for your definition of it
first, whether remembered from Mr. Hobbes, or original.
IV. I am sorry you doubt my understanding your views; but, in that
case, it may be well to ask for a word or two of farther elucidation.
"Justice," you say, is "conformity with any rule whatever, good or
bad." And "good rules are rules which promote the general happiness
of those whom they affect." And bad rules are (therefore) rules
which promote the general misery of those whom they affect? Justice,
therefore, may as often as not promote the general misery of those who
practice it? Do you intend this?[55]
Again: "Good rules are rules which promote the general happiness of
those whom they affect." But "the greatest happiness of the greatest
number is best secured by laying down no rule at all" (as to the price
of "labor").
Do you propose this as a sequitur? For if not, it is merely a _petitio
principii_, and a somewhat wide one. Before, therefore, we branch into
poetical questions concerning happiness, we will, with your permission,
and according to my original stipulation, that we should dispute only
of one point at a time, determine the matters already at issue. To
which end, also, I leave without reply some parts of your last letter;
not without a little strain on the ερκος ὀδοντων, for which I think,
Sir, you may give me openly, credit, if not tacitly, thanks.
I am, Sir, your obliged servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _May_ 4.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] That of Messrs. Ruskin, Telford Domecq, in which Mr. Ruskin's
father, "who began life as a wine-merchant" ("Fors Clavigera," Letter
10, p. 5, 1871), had been a partner.
[54] See § 41 of "The Crown of Wild Olive," p. 50 of the 1873 edition.
"None of the best head-work in art, literature, or science, is ever
paid for.... It is indeed very clear that God means all thoroughly good
work and talk to be done for nothing."
[55] "Yes. But, generally speaking, rules are beneficial; hence,
generally speaking, justice is a good thing in fact. A state of
society might be imagined in which it would be a hideously bad
thing."--(Foot-note answer of the _Gazette_.)
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," May 22, 1865.]
_WORK AND WAGES._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I have long delayed my reply to your notes on my last letter;
partly being otherwise busy--partly in a pause of surprise and doubt
how low in the elements of ethics we were to descend.
Let me, however, first assure you that I heartily concur in your
opening remarks, and shall be glad to spare useless and avoid
discourteous words. When you said, in your first reply to me, that
my letter embodied fallacies which appeared to you pernicious in the
highest degree, _I_ also "could not consider this sort of language
well judged." When you called one of your own questions an answer, and
declared it to be "simple and perfectly conclusive," I thought the
flourish might have been spared; and for having accused you of writing
carelessly, I must hope your pardon; for the discourtesy, in my mind,
would have been in imagining you to be writing with care.
For instance, I should hold it discourteous to suppose you unaware of
the ordinary distinction between law and equity: yet no consciousness
of such a distinction appears in your articles. I should hold it
discourteous to doubt your acquaintance with the elementary principles
laid down by the great jurists of all nations respecting Divine
and Human law; yet such a doubt forces itself on me if I consider
your replies as deliberate. And I should decline to continue the
discussion with an opponent who could conceive of justice as (under any
circumstances) "an hideously bad thing," if I did not suppose him to
have mistaken the hideousness of justice, in certain phases, to certain
persons, for its ultimate nature and power.
There may be question respecting these inaccuracies of thought; there
can be none respecting the carelessness of expression which causes the
phrases "are" and "ought to be" to alternate in your articles as if
they were alike in meaning.
I have permitted this, that I might see the course of your argument
in your own terms, but it is now needful that the confusion should
cease. That wages _are_ determined by supply and demand is no proof
that under any circumstances they must be--still less that under all
circumstances they ought to be. Permit me, therefore, to know the
sense in which you use the word "ought" in your paragraph lettered
_b_, page 832[56] (second column), and to ask whether the words "due,"
"duty," "devoir," and other such, connected in idea with the first and
third of the "præcepta juris" of Justinian, quoted by Blackstone as a
summary of the whole doctrine of law (_honeste vivere,--alterum non
lædere,--suumque cuique tribuere_), are without meaning to you except
as conditions of agreement?[57] Whether, in fact, there be, in your
view, any _honos_, absolutely; or whether we are to launch out into an
historical investigation of the several kinds of happiness enjoyed in
lives of rapine, of selfish trade, and of unselfish citizenship, and to
decide only upon evidence whether we will live as pirates, as pedlers,
or as gentlemen? If so, while I shall be glad to see you undertake,
independently, so interesting an inquiry, I must reserve my comments on
it until its close.
But if you admit an absolute idea of a "devoir" of one man to another,
and of every honorable man to himself, tell me why you dissent from my
statement of the terms of that debt in the opening of this discussion.
Observe, I asked for no evangelical virtue of returning good for evil:
I asked only for the Sinaitic equity of return in good for good, as
for Sinaitic equity of return in evil for evil. "Eye for eye," "tooth
for tooth"--be it so; but will you thus pray according to the _lex
talionis_ and not according to the _lex gratiæ_? Your debt is on both
sides. Does a man take of your life, you take also of his. Shall he
give you of his life, and will you not give him also of yours? If this
be not your law of duty to him, tell me what other there is, or if you
verily believe there is none.
But you ask of such repayment, "Who shall determine how much?"[58]
I took no notice of the question, irrelevant when you asked it; but
in its broad bearing it is the one imperative question of national
economy. Of old, as at bridge-foot of Florence, men regulated their
revenge by the law of demand and supply, and asked in measureless
anger, "Who shall determine how much?" with economy of blood, such as
we know. That "much" is now, with some approximate equity, determined
at the judgment-seat, but for the other debt, the debt of love, we have
no law but that of the wolf, and the locust, and the "fishes of the
sea, which have no ruler over them." The workmen of England--of the
world, ask for the return--as of wrath, so of reward by law; and for
blood resolutely spent, as for that recklessly shed; for life devoted
through its duration, as for that untimely cast away; they require from
you to determine, in judgment, the equities of "Human Retribution."
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.[59]
_May_ 20, 1865.
FOOTNOTES:
[56] Viz., "Wages ought to be proportioned to the supply and demand of
labor and capital, and not to the hardship of the work and the time
spent on it."
[57] "Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas suum cuique
tribuendi ... Jurisprudentia est divinarum atque humanarum rerum
notitia, justi atque injusti scientia." The third precept is given
above. Justinian, "Inst." i. 1-3; and see Blackstone, vol. i. section
2, "Of the Nature of Laws in General."
[58] See _ante_, second interpolation of the _Gazette_, on p. 54.
[59] The discussion was not continued beyond this letter, the _Gazette_
judging any continuance useless, the difference between Mr. Ruskin and
themselves being "one of first principles."
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," May 1, 1867. Reprinted also, with slight
alterations, in "Time and Tide," App. vii.]
_THE STANDARD OF WAGES._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: In the course of your yesterday's article on strikes[60] you
have very neatly and tersely expressed the primal fallacy of modern
political economy--to wit, that the value of any piece of labor cannot
be defined; and that "all that can be ascertained is simply whether any
man can be got to do it for a certain sum."
Now, Sir, the "value" of any piece of labor (_I_ should have written
"price," not "value," but it is no matter)--that is to say, the
quantity of food and air which will enable a man to perform it
without eventually losing any of his flesh or nervous energy, is as
absolutely fixed a quantity as the weight of powder necessary to
carry a given ball a given distance. And within limits varying by
exceedingly minor and unimportant circumstances, it is an ascertainable
quantity. I told the public this five years ago, and--under pardon of
your politico-economical contributor, it is not a sentimental, but a
chemical, fact. Let any half-dozen London physicians of recognized
standing state in precise terms the quantity and kind of food, and
space of lodging, they consider approximately necessary for the healthy
life of a laborer in any given manufacture, and the number of hours
he may, without shortening his life, work at such business daily, if
in such manner he be sustained. Let all masters be bound to give their
men a choice between an order for that quantity of food and space
of lodging, or the market wages for that specified number of hours
of work. Proper laws for the maintenance of families would require
further concession; but in the outset, let but this law of wages be
established, and if then we have more strikes, you may denounce them
without one word of remonstrance either from sense or sensibility.
I am, Sir, with sentiments of great respect,
Your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _April_ 30, 1867.
FOOTNOTES:
[60] As regards "strikes," it is of interest to note the following
amendment proposed by Mr. Ruskin at a special meeting of the National
Association for the Promotion of Social Science on the subject, held
in 1868: "That, in the opinion of this meeting, the interests of
workmen and their employers are at present opposed, and can only become
identical when all are equally employed in defined labor and recognized
duty, and all, from the highest to the lowest, are paid fixed salaries,
proportioned to the value of their services and sufficient for their
honorable maintenance in the situations of life properly occupied by
them."--_Daily Telegraph_, July 16, 1868.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 24, 1873.]
_HOW THE RICH SPEND THEIR MONEY._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: Here among the hills, I read little, and withstand, sometimes for
a fortnight together, even the attractions of my _Pall Mall Gazette_.
A friend, however, sent me, two days ago, your article signed W. R.
G. on spending of money (January 13),[61] which, as I happened to
have over-eaten myself the day before, and taken perhaps a glass too
much besides of quite priceless port (Quarles Harris, twenty years in
bottle), would have been a great comfort to my mind, showing me that
if I had done some harm to myself, I had at least conferred benefit
upon the poor by these excesses, had I not been left in some painful
doubt, even at the end of W. R. G.'s most intelligent illustrations,
whether I ought not to have exerted myself further in the cause of
humanity, and by the use of some cathartic process, such as appears
to have been without inconvenience practised by the ancients, enabled
myself to eat two dinners instead of one. But I write to you to-day,
because if I were a poor man, instead of a (moderately) rich one, I am
nearly certain that W. R. G.'s paper would suggest to me a question,
which I am sure he will kindly answer in your columns, namely, "These
means of living, which this generous and useful gentleman is so
fortunately disposed to bestow on me--where does he get them himself?"
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, _Jan._ 23.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] The article, or rather letter, dealt with a paper on "The Labor
Movement" by Mr. Goldwin Smith in the _Contemporary Review_ of
December, 1872, and especially with the following sentences in it:
"When did wealth rear such enchanted palaces of luxury as it is rearing
in England at the present day? Well do I remember one of those palaces,
the most conspicuous object for miles round. Its lord was, I dare say,
consuming the income of some hundreds of the poor laboring families
around him. The thought that you are spending on yourself annually the
income of six hundred laboring families seems to me as much as a man
with a heart and a brain can bear." W. R. G.'s letter argued that this
"heartless expenditure all goes into the pockets" of the poor families,
who are thus benefited by the selfish luxuries of the lord in his
palace.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 29, 1873.]
_HOW THE RICH SPEND THEIR MONEY._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I am disappointed of my _Gazette_ to-day, and shall be grievously
busy to morrow. I think it better, therefore, to follow up my own
letter, if you will permit me, with a simple and brief statement of the
facts, than to wait till I see your correspondent W. R. G.'s reply, if
he has vouchsafed me one.
These are the facts. The laborious poor produce "the means of life"
by their labor. Rich persons possess themselves by various expedients
of a right to dispense these "means of life," and keeping as much
means as they want of it for themselves, and rather more, dispense the
rest, usually only in return for more labor from the poor, expended
in producing various delights for the rich dispenser. The idea is
now gradually entering poor men's minds, that they may as well keep
in their own hands the right of distributing "the means of life" they
produce; and employ themselves, so far as they need extra occupation,
for their own entertainment or benefit, rather than that of other
people. There is something to be said, nevertheless, in favor of the
present arrangement, but it cannot be defended in disguise; and it is
impossible to do more harm to the cause of order, or the rights of
property, than by endeavors, such as that of your correspondent, to
revive the absurd and, among all vigorous thinkers, long since exploded
notion of the dependence of the poor upon the rich.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
_January_ 28.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 31, 1873.]
_HOW THE RICH SPEND THEIR MONEY._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I have my _Pall Mall Gazette_ of the 28th to-day, and must at
once, with your permission, solemnly deny the insidiosity of my
question, "Where does the rich man get his means of living?" I don't
myself see how a more straightforward question could be put! So
straightforward indeed that I particularly dislike making a martyr of
myself in answering it, as I must this blessed day--a martyr, at least,
in the way of witness; for if we rich people don't begin to speak
honestly with our tongues, we shall, some day soon, lose them and our
heads together, having for some time back, most of us, made false use
of the one and none of the other. Well, for the point in question then,
as to means of living: the most exemplary manner of answer is simply
to state how I got my own, or rather how my father got them for me. He
and his partners entered into what your correspondent mellifluously
styles "a mutually beneficent partnership,"[62] with certain laborers
in Spain. These laborers produced from the earth annually a certain
number of bottles of wine. These productions were sold by my father
and his partners, who kept nine-tenths, or thereabouts, of the price
themselves, and gave one-tenth, or thereabouts, to the laborers. In
which state of mutual beneficence my father and his partners naturally
became rich, and the laborers as naturally remained poor. Then my good
father gave all his money to me (who never did a stroke of work in my
life worth my salt, not to mention my dinner), and so far from finding
his money "grow" in my hands, I never try to buy anything with it;
but people tell me "money isn't what it was in your father's time,
everything is so much dearer." I should be heartily glad to learn from
your correspondent as much pecuniary botany as will enable me to set
my money a-growing; and in the mean time, as I have thus given a quite
indubitable instance of my notions of the way money is made, will he be
so kind as to give us, not an heraldic example in the dark ages (though
I suspect I know more of the pedigree of money, if he comes to that,
than he does),[63] but a living example of a rich gentleman who _has_
made his money by saving an _equal_ portion of profit in some mutually
beneficent partnership with his laborers?
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
King Charles the Martyr, 1873.
P.S.--I see by Christie & Manson's advertisement that some of the
best bits of work of a good laborer I once knew, J. M. W. Turner (the
original plates namely of the "Liber Studiorum"), are just going to
be destroyed by some of his affectionate relations. May I beg your
correspondent to explain, for your readers' benefit, this charming case
of hereditary accumulation?
FOOTNOTES:
[62] W. R. G. had declared that the rich man (or his ancestors) got the
money "by co-operation with the poor ... by, in fact, entering into a
mutually beneficent partnership with them, and advancing them their
share of the joint profits ... paying them beforehand, in a word."
[63] W. R. G. had written: "In nine cases out of ten, in the case of
acquired wealth, we should probably find, were the pedigree traced
fairly and far back enough, that the original difference between the
now rich man and the now poor man was, that the latter habitually spent
all his earnings, and the former habitually saved a portion of his in
order that it might accumulate and fructify."
[Date and place of publication unknown.]
_COMMERCIAL MORALITY._[64]
MY DEAR SIR: Mr. Johnson's speech in the Manchester Chamber of
Commerce, which you favor me by sending, appears to me the most
important event that has occurred in relation to the true interests of
the country during my lifetime. It begins an era of true civilization.
I shall allude to it in the "Fors" of March, and make it the chief
subject of the one following (the matter of this being already
prepared).[65] It goes far beyond what I had even hoped to hear
admitted--how much less enforced so gravely and weightily in the
commercial world.
Believe me, faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[64] This letter was received from Mr. Ruskin by a gentleman in
Manchester, who had forwarded to him a copy of the speech made by Mr.
Richard Johnson (President) at the fifty-fourth annual meeting of the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Feb. 1, 1875. Mr. Johnson's address
dealt with the immorality of cheapness, the duties of merchants and
manufacturers as public servants, and the nobility of trade as a
profession which, when rightly and unselfishly conducted, would yield
to no other "in the dignity of its nature and in the employment that it
offers to the highest faculties of man."
[65] In "Fors Clavigera," March, 1875, Mr. Johnson's speech is named
(p. 54) as "the first living words respecting commerce which I have
ever known to be spoken in England, in my time," but the discussion of
it is postponed.
[From "The Monetary and Mining Gazette," November 13, 1875.]
_THE DEFINITION OF WEALTH._
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_9th November_, 1875.
_To the Editor of "The Monetary Gazette."_
SIR: I congratulate you with all my mind on the sense, and with all my
heart on the courage, of your last Saturday's leading article, which I
have just seen.[66] You have asserted in it the two vital principles of
economy, that society cannot exist by reciprocal pilfering, but must
produce wealth if it would have it; and that money must not be lent,
but administered by its masters.
You have not yet, however, defined wealth itself, or told the ingenuity
of the public what it is to produce.
I have never been able to obtain this definition from economists;[67]
perhaps, under the pressure of facts, they may at last discover some
meaning in mine at the tenth and eleventh pages of "Munera Pulveris."
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] The article was entitled, "What shall we do with it?"
[67] At the meeting of the Social Science Association already alluded
to (p. 4, note), Mr. Ruskin said that in 1858 he had in vain challenged
Mr. Mill to define wealth. The passages referred to in "Munera
Pulveris" consist of the statement and explanation of the definition of
Value. See _ante_, p. 63, note.
[From "The Socialist," an Advocate of Love, Truth, Justice, etc. etc.
Printed and Published by the Proprietor, W. Freeland, 52 Scotland
Street, Sheffield, November, 1877.]
_THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY._
_10th Oct._, 1877.
_To the Editor of "The Socialist."_
SIR: Some Sheffield friend has sent me your fourth number, in the
general teaching of which I am thankful to be able to concur without
qualification: but let me earnestly beg of you not to confuse the
discussion of the principles of Property in Earth, Air, or Water, with
the discussion of principles of Property in general.[68] The things
which, being our neighbor's, the Mosaic Law commands us not to covet,
are by the most solemn Natural Laws indeed our neighbor's "property,"
and any attempts to communize these have always ended, and will always
end, in ruin and shame.
Do not attempt to learn from America. An Englishman has brains enough
to discover for himself what is good for England; and should learn,
when he is to be taught anything, from his Fathers, not from his
children.
I observe in the first column of your 15th page the assertion by your
correspondent of his definition of money as if different from mine. He
only weakens my definition with a "certificate of credit "instead of
a "promise to pay." What is the use of giving a man "credit"--if you
don't engage to pay him?
But I observe that nearly all my readers stop at this more or less
metaphysical definition, which I give in "Unto this Last," instead of
going on to the practical statement of immediate need made in "Munera
Pulveris."[69]
The promise to find Labor is one which meets general demand; but the
promise to find Bread is the answer needed to immediate demand; and
the only sound bases of National Currency are shown both in "Munera
Pulveris," and "Fors Clavigera," to be bread, fuel, and clothing
material, of certified quality.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] The references in the letter are to an article on Property
entitled "What should be done?"
[69] See "Unto this Last," p. 53, note. "The final and best definition
of money is that it is a documentary promise ratified and guaranteed by
the nation, to give or find a certain quantity of labor on demand." See
also "Munera Pulveris," §§ 21-25.
[From "The Christian Life," December 20, 1879.]
_ON CO-OPERATION._[70]
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE.
DEAR MR. HOLYOAKE: I am not able to write you a pretty letter to-day,
being sadly tired, but am very heartily glad to be remembered by you.
But it utterly silences me that you should waste your time and energy
in writing "Histories of Co-operation" anywhere as yet. My dear Sir,
you might as well write the history of the yellow spot in an egg--in
two volumes. Co-operation is as yet--in any true sense--as impossible
as the crystallization of Thames mud.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[70] This letter, which was reprinted in the _Coventry Co-operative
Record_ of January, 1880, was written, some time in August, 1879, to
Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, who had sent Mr. Ruskin his "History of
Co-operation: its Literature and its Advocates," 2 vols. London and
Manchester, 1875-7.
[From "The Daily News," June 19, 1880.]
_ON CO-OPERATION._
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE,
_April_ 12, 1880.
DEAR MR. HOLYOAKE: I am very glad that you are safe back in England,
and am not a little grateful for your kind reference to me while
in America, and for your letter about Sheffield Museum.[71] But
let me pray for another interpretation of my former letter than
mere Utopianism. The one calamity which I perceive or dread for an
Englishman is his becoming a rascal, and co-operation among rascals--if
it were possible--would bring a curse. Every year sees our workmen
more eager to do bad work and rob their customers on the sly. All
political movement among such animals I call essentially fermentation
and putrefaction--not co-operation.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[71] The "kind reference to Mr. Ruskin while in America" alludes to a
public speech made by Mr. Holyoake during his stay in that country. The
"letter about Sheffield Museum," was one in high praise of it, written
by Mr. Holyoake to the editor of the _Sheffield Independent_, in which
paper it was printed (March 8, 1880).
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
I. THE MANAGEMENT OF RAILWAYS.
II. SERVANTS AND HOUSES.
III. ROMAN INUNDATIONS.
IV. EDUCATION, FOR RICH AND POOR.
V. WOMEN: THEIR WORK AND THEIR DRESS.
VI. LITERARY CRITICISM.
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
I.
THE MANAGEMENT OF RAILWAYS.
IS ENGLAND BIG ENOUGH? 1868.
THE OWNERSHIP OF RAILWAYS. 1868.
RAILWAY ECONOMY. 1868.
OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 1865.
RAILWAY SAFETY. 1870.
I.
THE MANAGEMENT OF RAILWAYS.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," July 31, 1868.]
_IS ENGLAND BIG ENOUGH?_
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: You terminate to-day a discussion which seems to have been greatly
interesting to your readers, by telling them the "broad fact, that
England is no longer big enough for her inhabitants."[72]
Might you not, in the leisure of the recess, open with advantage
a discussion likely to be no less interesting, and much more
useful--namely, how big England may be made for economical inhabitants,
and how little she may be made for wasteful ones? Might you not invite
letters on this quite radical and essential question--how money is
truly made, and how it is truly lost, not by one person or another, but
by the whole nation?
For, practically, people's eyes are so intensely fixed on the immediate
operation of money as it changes hands, that they hardly ever reflect
on its first origin or final disappearance. They are always considering
how to get it from somebody else, but never how to get it where that
somebody else got it.
Also, they very naturally mourn over their loss of it to other people,
without reflecting that, if not lost altogether, it may still be of
some reflective advantage to them. Whereas, the real national question
is not who is losing or gaining money, but who is making and who
destroying it. I do not of course mean making money, in the sense of
printing notes or finding gold. True money cannot be so made. When an
island is too small for its inhabitants, it would not help them to one
ounce of bread more to have the entire island turned into one nugget,
or to find bank notes growing by its rivulets instead of fern leaves.
Neither, by destroying money, do I mean burning notes, or throwing
gold away. If I burn a five-pound note, or throw five sovereigns
into the sea, I hurt no one but myself; nay, I benefit others, for
everybody with a pound in his pocket is richer by the withdrawal of my
competition in the market. But what I want you to make your readers
discover is how the _true_ money is made that will get them houses
and dinners; and on the other hand how money is truly lost, or so
diminished in value that all they can get in a year will not buy them
comfortable houses, nor satisfactory dinners.
Surely this is a question which people would like to have clearly
answered for them, and it might lead to some important results if the
answer were acted upon. The riband-makers at Coventry, starving, invite
the ladies of England to wear ribands. The compassionate ladies of
England invest themselves in rainbows, and admiring economists declare
the nation to be benefited. No one asks where the ladies got the money
to spend in rainbows (which is the first question in the business), nor
whether the money once so spent will ever return again, or has really
faded with the faded ribands and disappeared forever. Again, honest
people every day lose quantities of money to dishonest people. But that
is merely a change of hands much to be regretted; but the money is
not therefore itself lost; the dishonest people must spend it at last
somehow. A youth at college loses his year's income to a Jew. But the
Jew must spend it instead of him. Miser or not, the day must come when
his hands relax. A railroad shareholder loses his money to a director;
but the director must some day spend it instead of him. That is not--at
least in the first fact of it--_national_ loss. But what the public
need to know is, how a final and perfect _loss_ of money takes place,
so that the whole nation, instead of being rich, shall be getting
gradually poor. And then, indeed, if one man in spending his money
destroys it, and another in spending it makes more of it, it becomes a
grave question in whose hands it is, and whether honest or dishonest
people are likely to spend it to the best purpose. Will you permit
me, Sir, to lay this not unprofitable subject of inquiry before your
readers, while, to the very best purpose, they are investing a little
money in sea air?
Very sincerely yours,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _July_ 30.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] The discussion had been carried on in a series of letters from
a great number of correspondents under the heading of "Marriage or
Celibacy," its subject being the pecuniary difficulties in the way
of early marriage. The _Daily Telegraph_ of July 30 concluded the
discussion with a leading article, in which it characterized the
general nature of the correspondence, and of which the final words were
those quoted by Mr. Ruskin.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," August 6, 1868.]
_THE OWNERSHIP OF RAILWAYS._[73]
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: The ingenious British public seems to be discovering, to its
cost, that the beautiful law of supply and demand does not apply in
a pleasant manner to railroad transit. But if they are prepared to
submit patiently to the "natural" laws of political economy, what
right have they to complain? The railroad belongs to the shareholders;
and has not everybody a right to ask the highest price he can get for
his wares? The public have a perfect right to walk, or to make other
opposition railroads for themselves, if they please, but not to abuse
the shareholders for asking as much as they think they can get.
Will you allow me to put the _real_ rights of the matter before them in
a few words?
Neither the roads nor the railroads of any nation should belong to any
private persons. All means of public transit should be provided at
public expense, by public determination where such means are needed,
and the public should be its own "shareholder."
Neither road, nor railroad, nor canal should ever pay dividends to
anybody. They should pay their working expenses, and no more. All
dividends are simply a tax on the traveller and the goods, levied by
the person to whom the road or canal belongs, for the right of passing
over his property. And this right should at once be purchased by the
nation, and the original cost of the roadway--be it of gravel, iron, or
adamant--at once defrayed by the nation, and then the whole work of the
carriage of persons or goods done for ascertained prices, by salaried
officers, as the carriage of letters is done now.
I believe, if the votes of the proprietors of all the railroads in the
kingdom were taken _en masse_, it would be found that the majority
would gladly receive back their original capital, and cede their right
of "revising" prices of railway tickets. And if railway property _is_
a good and wise investment of capital, the public need not shrink from
taking the whole off their hands. Let the public take it. (I, for one,
who never held a rag of railroad scrip in my life, nor ever willingly
travelled behind an engine where a horse could pull me, will most
gladly subscribe my proper share for such purchase according to my
income.) Then let them examine what lines pay their working expenses
and what lines do not, and boldly leave the un-paying embankments to
be white over with sheep, like Roman camps, take up the working lines
on sound principles, pay their drivers and pointsmen well, keep their
carriages clean and in good repair, and make it as wonderful a thing
for a train, as for an old mail-coach, to be behind its time; and the
sagacious British public will very soon find its pocket heavier, its
heart lighter, and its "passages" pleasanter, than any of the three
have been, for many a day.
I am, Sir, always faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Aug._ 5.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] In the _Daily Telegraph_ of August 3 appeared eight letters, all
of which, under the heading of "Increased Railway Fares," complained of
the price of tickets on various lines having been suddenly raised. In
the issue of August 4 eighteen letters appeared on the subject, whilst
in that of the 5th there were again eight letters. Mr. Ruskin's letter
was one of four in the issue of the 6th. It has, it will be seen, no
direct connection with that one entitled, "Is England Big Enough?"
which precedes it in these volumes owing to the allusions to it in one
of these railway letters (p. 86).
[From "The Daily Telegraph," August 10, 1868.]
_RAILWAY ECONOMY._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: I had not intended again to trespass on your space until I could
obtain a general idea of the views of your correspondents on the
questions you permitted me to lay before them in my letters of the
31st July and 5th inst.; but I must ask you to allow me to correct
an impression likely to be created by your reference to that second
letter in your interesting article on the Great Eastern Railway, and to
reply briefly to the question of your correspondent "S." on the same
subject.[74]
You say that I mistook the charge against the railway companies in
taunting my unfortunate neighbors at Sydenham[75] with their complaints
against the operation of the law of supply and demand, and that it was
because the companies neglected that law that they suffered.
But, Sir, the law of supply and demand, as believed in by the British
public under the guidance of their economists, is a natural law
regulating prices, which it is not at all in their option to "neglect."
And it is precisely because I have always declared that there is no
such natural law, but that prices can be, and ought to be, regulated by
laws of expediency and justice, that political economists have thought
I did not understand their science, and you now say I laugh at it. No,
Sir, I laughed only at what was clearly no science, but vain endeavor
to allege as irresistible natural law, what is indeed a too easily
resisted prudential law, rewarding and chastising us according to our
obedience. So far from despising true political economy, based on such
prudential law, I have for years been chiefly occupied in defending its
conclusions, having given this definition of it in 1862. "Political
Economy is neither an art nor a science; but a system of conduct and
legislature founded on the sciences, including the arts, and impossible
except under certain conditions of moral culture."[76]
And, Sir, nothing could better show the evil of competition as opposed
to the equitable regulation of prices than the instance to which you
refer your correspondent "Fair Play"--the agitation in Brighton for a
second railway. True prudential law would make one railway serve it
thoroughly, and fix the fares necessary to pay for thorough service.
Competition will make two railways (sinking twice the capital really
required); then, if the two companies combine, they can oppress the
public as effectively as one could; if they do not, they will keep the
said public in dirty carriages and in danger of its life, by lowering
the working expenses to a minimum in their antagonism.
Next, to the question of your correspondent "S.," "what I expect the
capitalist to do with his money," so far as it is asked in good faith
I gladly reply, that no one's "expectations" are in this matter of the
slightest consequence; but that the moral laws which properly regulate
the disposition of revenue, and the physical laws which determine
returns proportioned to the wisdom of its employment, are of the
greatest consequence; and these may be briefly stated as follows:
1. All capital is justly and rationally invested which supports
productive labor (that is to say, labor directly producing or
distributing good food, clothes, lodging, or fuel); so long as it
renders to the possessor of the capital, and to those whom he employs,
only such gain as shall justly remunerate the superintendence and
labor given to the business, and maintain both master and operative
happily in the positions of life involved by their several functions.
And it is highly advantageous for the nation that wise superintendence
and honest labor should both be highly rewarded. But all rates of
interest or modes of profit on capital, which render possible the rapid
accumulation of fortunes, are simply forms of taxation, by individuals,
on labor, purchase, or transport; and are highly detrimental to the
national interests, being, indeed, no means of national gain, but only
the abstraction of small gains from many to form the large gain of one.
For, though inequality of fortune is not in itself an evil, but in many
respects desirable, it is always an evil when unjustly or stealthily
obtained, since the men who desire to make fortunes by large interest
are precisely those who will make the worst use of their wealth.
2. Capital sunk in the production of objects which do not
immediately support life (as statues, pictures, architecture, books,
garden-flowers, and the like) is beneficially sunk if the things thus
produced are good of their kind, and honestly desired by the nation for
their own sake; but it is sunk ruinously if they are bad of their kind,
or desired only for pride or gain. Neither can good art be produced as
an "investment." You cannot build a good cathedral if you only build it
that you may charge sixpence for entrance.
3. "Private enterprise" should never be interfered with, but, on the
contrary, much encouraged, so long as it is indeed "enterprise" (the
exercise of individual ingenuity and audacity in new fields of true
labor), and so long as it is indeed "private," paying its way at
its own cost, and in no wise harmfully affecting public comforts or
interests. But "private enterprise" which poisons its neighborhood, or
speculates for individual gain at common risk, is very sharply to be
interfered with.
4. All enterprise, constantly and demonstrably profitable on
ascertained conditions, should be made public enterprise, under
Government administration and security; and the funds now innocently
contributed, and too often far from innocently absorbed, in vain
speculation, as noted in your correspondent "Fair Play's" excellent
letter,[77] ought to be received by Government, employed by it, not in
casting guns, but in growing corn and feeding cattle, and the largest
possible legitimate interest returned without risk to these small and
variously occupied capitalists who cannot look after their own money.
We should need another kind of Government to do this for us, it is
true; also it is true that we can get it, if we choose; but we must
recognize the duties of governors before we can elect the men fit to
perform them.
The benefit of these several modes of right investment of capital
would be quickly felt by the nation, not in the increase of isolated
or nominal wealth, but in steady lowering of the prices of all the
necessaries and innocent luxuries of life, and in the disciplined,
orderly, and in that degree educational employment of every able-bodied
person. For, Sir (again with your pardon), my question "Is England
big enough?" was not answered by the sad experience of the artisans
of Poplar. Had they been employed in earth-building instead of in
shipbuilding, and heaped the Isle of Dogs itself into half as much
space of good land, capable of growing corn instead of mosquitoes,
they would actually have made habitable England a little bigger by
this time;[78] and if the first principle of economy in employment
were understood among us--namely, always to use whatever vital power
of breath and muscle you have got in the country before you use the
artificial power of steam and iron for what living arms can do, and
never plough by steam while you forward your ploughmen to Quebec--those
old familiar faces need not yet have looked their last at each other
from the deck of the St. Lawrence. But on this subject I will ask your
permission to write you in a few days some further words.[79]
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Aug._ 9.
FOOTNOTES:
[74] The _Daily Telegraph_ of Saturday, August 8, contained an article
on the "Increased Railway Fares," in which, commenting on Mr. Ruskin's
statement that, given the law of political economy, the railways might
ask as much as they could get, it is said that Mr. Ruskin mistook "the
charge against the companies. While they neglected the 'law of supply
and demand,' they suffered: now that they obey that law, they prosper."
The latter part of the article dealt with a long letter signed "Fair
Play," which was printed in the _Daily Telegraph_ of the same day. "To
Mr. Ruskin, who laughs at Political Economy," concluded the article;
"and to 'Fair Play,' who thinks that Parliament is at the bottom of
all the mischief, we commend a significant fact. An agitation is now
on foot in Brighton to have a second railway direct to London. What is
the cause of this? Not the Legislature, but the conduct of the Brighton
company in raising its fares. That board, by acting in the spirit of a
monopoly, has provoked retaliation, and the public now seeks to protect
itself by the aid of a competing line."
The letter of the correspondent "S." (also in the _Daily Telegraph_ of
August 8) began by asking "what the capitalist is to do with his money,
if the Government works the railways on the principle of the Post
Office."
[75] Several of the letters had been written by residents in the
neighborhood of Sydenham.
[76] B "Essays on Political Economy" (_Fraser's Magazine_, June, 1862,
p. 784), now reprinted in "Munera Pulveris," p. 1, § 1.
[77] "Fair Play's" letter noted the result of investments made in
bubble railways, generally by "honest country folks" or "poor clergymen
and widows."
[78] A Alluding to an article in the _Daily Telegraph_ of August 8,
headed "East-End Emigrants," which, after remarking that "Mr. Ruskin's
question, Is England big enough?" had been just answered rather sadly
by a number of Poplar artisans, described the emigration to Quebec on
board the St. Lawrence of these inhabitants of the Isle of Dogs, and
how, as the ship left the dock, "there were many tears shed, as old,
familiar faces looked on each other for the last time."
[79] Never, it seems, written.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," December 8, 1865.]
_OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: Will you allow me a few words with reference to your excellent
article of to-day on railroads.[80] All you say is true. But of what
use is it to tell the public this? Of all the economical stupidities of
the public--and they are many--the out-and-out stupidest is underpaying
their pointsmen; but if the said public choose always to leave their
lines in the hands of companies--that is to say, practically, of
engineers and lawyers--the money they pay for fares will always go,
most of it, into the engineers' and lawyers' pockets. It will be spent
in decorating railroad stations with black and blue bricks, and in
fighting bills for branch lines. I hear there are more bills for new
lines to be brought forward this year than at any previous session.
But, Sir, it might do some little good if you were to put it into the
engineers' and lawyers' heads that they might for some time to come get
as much money for themselves (and a little more safety for the public)
by bringing in bills for doubling laterally the present lines as for
ramifying them; and if you were also to explain to the shareholders
that it would be wiser to spend their capital in preventing accidents
attended by costly damages, than in running trains at a loss on
opposition branches. It is little business of mine--for I am not a
railroad traveller usually more than twice in the year; but I don't
like to hear of people's being smashed, even when it is all their
fault; so I will ask you merely to reprint this passage from my article
on Political Economy in _Fraser's Magazine_ for April, 1863, and so
leave the matter to your handling:
"Had the money spent in local mistakes and vain private litigation
on the railroads of England been laid out, instead, under proper
Government restraint, on really useful railroad work, and had no absurd
expense been incurred in ornamenting stations, we might already have
had--what ultimately it will be found we must have--quadruple rails,
two for passengers and two for traffic, on every great line, and we
might have been carried in swift safety, and watched and warded by
well-paid pointsmen, for half the present fares."[81]
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Dec._ 7.
FOOTNOTES:
[80] An article which, dealing directly with some recent railway
accidents, commented especially on the overcrowding of the lines.
[81] "Essays on Political Economy" (_Fraser's Magazine_, April, 1863,
p. 449); "Munera Pulveris," p. 137, § 128.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," November 30, 1870.]
_RAILWAY SAFETY._[82]
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: I am very busy, and have not time to write new phrases. Would
you mind again reprinting (as you were good enough to do a few days
ago[83]) a sentence from one of the books of mine which everybody said
were frantic when I wrote them? You see the date--1863.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Nov._ 29, 1870.
I have underlined the words I want to be noticed, but, as you see, made
no change in a syllable.
Already the Government, not unapproved, carries letters and parcels
for us. Larger packages may in time follow--even general merchandise;
why not, at last, ourselves? Had the money spent in local mistakes and
vain private litigations on the railroads of England been laid out,
instead, under proper Government restraint, on really useful railroad
work, _and had no absurd expense been incurred in ornamenting
stations_, we might already have had--what ultimately it will be found
we MUST have--_quadruple rails, two for passengers, and two for
traffic, on every great line_; and we might have been carried in
swift safety, and watched and warded by well-paid pointsmen, for half
the present fares.
FOOTNOTES:
[82] This letter was elicited by a leading article in the _Daily
Telegraph_ of November 29, 1870, upon railway accidents, and the means
of their prevention, _à propos_ of two recent accidents which had
occurred, both on the same day (November 26, 1870) on the London and
North-Western Railway.
[83] In the first letter on the Franco-Prussian War, _ante_, p. 34.
(_Daily Telegraph_, Oct. 7, 1870.)
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
II.
SERVANTS AND HOUSES.
MASTERSHIP. 1865.
EXPERIENCE. 1865.
SONSHIP AND SLAVERY. 1865.
MODERN HOUSES. 1865.
II.
SERVANTS AND HOUSES.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," September 5, 1865.]
_DOMESTIC SERVANTS--MASTERSHIP._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: You so seldom write nonsense, that you will, I am sure, pardon
your friends for telling you when you do. Your article on servants
to-day is nonsense. It is just as easy and as difficult now to get good
servants as it ever was.[84] You may have them, as you may have pines
and peaches, for the growing, or you may even buy them good, if you can
persuade the good growers to spare you them off their walls; but you
cannot get them by political economy and the law of supply and demand.
There are broadly two ways of making good servants; the first, a sound,
wholesome, thoroughgoing slavery--which was the heathen way, and no
bad one neither, provided you understand that to make real "slaves"
you must make yourself a real "master" (which is not easy). The second
is the Christian's way: "whoso delicately bringeth up his servant from
a child, shall have him become his son at the last."[85] And as few
people want their servants to become their sons, this is not a way
to their liking. So that, neither having courage or self-discipline
enough on the one hand to make themselves nobly dominant after the
heathen fashion, nor tenderness or justice enough to make themselves
nobly protective after the Christian, the present public thinks to
manufacture servants bodily out of powder and hay-stuffing--mentally
by early instillation of Catechism and other mechanico-religious
appliances--and economically, as you helplessly suggest, by the law of
supply and demand,[86] with such results as we all see, and most of us
more or less feel, and shall feel daily more and more to our cost and
selfish sorrow.
Sir, there is only one way to have good servants; that is, to be worthy
of being well served. All nature and all humanity will serve a good
master, and rebel against an ignoble one. And there is no surer test
of the quality of a nation than the quality of its servants, for they
are their masters' shadows, and distort their faults in a flattened
mimicry. A wise nation will have philosophers in its servants' hall; a
knavish nation will have knaves there; and a kindly nation will have
friends there. Only let it be remembered that "kindness" means, as with
your child, so with your servant, not indulgence, but care.--I am, Sir,
seeing that you usually write good sense, and "serve" good causes, your
servant to command.
J. RUSKIN.[87]
DENMARK HILL, _Sept._ 2.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] The article, after commenting on "the good old times," remarked
that it is now "a social fact, that the hardest thing in the world to
find is a good servant."
[85] "He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child, shall
have him become his son at the length."--Proverbs xxix. 21.
[86] "We have really," ran the article, "no remedy to suggest: the evil
seems to be curable only by some general distress which will drive more
people into seeking service, and so give employers a greater choice.
At present the demand appears to exceed the supply, and servants are
careless about losing their places through bad behavior."
[87] To this letter the _Daily Telegraph_ of September 6 replied by a
leader, in which, whilst expressing itself alive to "the sympathy for
humanity and appreciation of the dignity which may be made to underlie
all human relations," displayed by Mr. Ruskin, it complained that he
had only shown "how to cook the cook when we catch her," and not how
to catch her. After some detailed remarks on the servants of the day,
which seemed "to be more _ad rem_ than Mr. Ruskin's eloquent axioms,"
it concluded by expressing a hope "that he would come down from the
clouds of theory, and give to a perplexed public a few plain, workable
instructions how to get hold of good cooks and maids, coachmen and
footmen."--Mr. Ruskin replies to it, and to a large amount of further
correspondence on the subject, in the next two letters in the _Daily
Telegraph_.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," September 7, 1865.]
_DOMESTIC SERVANTS--EXPERIENCE._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: I thank you much for your kind insertion of my letter, and your
courteous and graceful answer to it. Others will thank you also; for
your suggestions are indeed much more _ad rem_ than my mere assertions
of principle; but both are necessary. Statements of practical
difficulty, and the immediate means of conquering it, are precisely
what the editor of a powerful daily journal is able to give; but he
cannot give them justly if he ever allow himself to lose sight of the
eternal laws which in their imperative bearings manifest themselves
more clearly to the retired student of human life in the phases of
its history. My own personal experience--if worth anything--has
been simply that wherever I myself knew how a thing should be done,
and was resolved to have it done, I could always get subordinates,
if made of average good human material, to do it, and that, on the
whole, cheerfully, thoroughly, and even affectionately; and my wonder
is usually rather at the quantity of service they are willing to do
for me, than at their occasional indolences, or fallings below the
standard of seraphic wisdom and conscientiousness. That they _shall_
be of average human material, it is, as you wisely point out, every
householder's business to make sure. We cannot choose our relations,
but we can our servants; and what sagacity we have and knowledge
of human nature cannot be better employed. If your house is to be
comfortable, your servants' hearts must be sound, as the timber and
stones of its walls; and there must be discretion in the choice,
and time allowed for the "settling" of both. The luxury of having
pretty servants must be paid for, like all luxuries, in the penalty
of their occasional loss; but I fancy the best sort of female servant
is generally in aspect and general qualities like Sydney Smith's
"Bunch,"[88] and a very retainable creature. And for the rest, the
dearth of good service, if such there be, may perhaps wholesomely teach
us that, if we were all a little more in the habit of serving ourselves
in many matters, we should be none the worse or the less happy.
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Sept._ 6.
FOOTNOTES:
[88] "A man-servant was too expensive; so I caught up a little
garden-girl, made like a milestone, put a napkin in her hand,
christened her Bunch, and made her my butler. The girls taught her to
read, Mrs. Sydney to wait, and I undertook her morals; Bunch became the
best butler in the county."--Sydney Smith's Memoirs (vol. i. p. 207),
where several other anecdotes of Bunch are given.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," September 18, 1865.]
_DOMESTIC SERVANTS: SONSHIP AND SLAVERY._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: I have been watching the domestic correspondence in your columns
with much interest, and thought of offering you a short analysis of
it when you saw good to bring it to a close,[89] and perhaps a note
or two of my own experience, being somewhat conceited on the subject
just now, because I have a gardener who lets me keep old-fashioned
plants in the greenhouse, understands that my cherries are grown for
the blackbirds, and sees me gather a bunch of my own grapes without
making a wry face. But your admirable article of yesterday causes
me to abandon my purpose; the more willingly, because among all the
letters you have hitherto published there is not one from any head of
a household which contains a complaint worth notice. All the masters
or mistresses whose letters are thoughtful or well written say they
get on well enough with their servants; no part has yet been taken in
the discussion by the heads of old families. The servants' letters,
hitherto, furnish the best data; but the better class of servants are
also silent, and must remain so. Launce, Grumio, or Fairservice[90] may
have something to say for themselves; but you will hear nothing from
Old Adam nor from carefu' Mattie. One proverb from Sancho, if we could
get it, would settle the whole business for us; but his master and he
are indeed "no more." I would have walked down to Dulwich to hear what
Sam Weller had to say; but the high-level railway went through Mr.
Pickwick's parlor two months ago, and it is of no use writing to Sam,
for, as you are well aware, he is no penman. And, indeed, Sir, little
good will come of any writing on the matter. "The cat will mew, the dog
will have his day." You yourself, excellent as is the greater part of
what you have said, and to the point, speak but vainly when you talk of
"probing the evil to the bottom." This is no sore that can be probed,
no sword nor bullet wound. This is a plague spot. Small or great, it is
in the significance of it, not in the depth, that you have to measure
it. It is essentially bottomless, cancerous; a putrescence through
the constitution of the people is indicated by this galled place.
Because I know this thoroughly, I say so little, and that little, as
your correspondents think, who know nothing of me, and as you say,
who might have known more of me, unpractically. Pardon me, I am no
seller of plasters, nor of ounces of civet. The patient's sickness is
his own fault, and only years of discipline will work it out of him.
That is the only really "practical" saying that can be uttered to
him. The relation of master and servant involves every other--touches
every condition of moral health through the State. Put that right,
and you put all right; but you will find it can only come ultimately,
not primarily, right; you cannot begin with it. Some of the evidence
you have got together is valuable, many pieces of partial advice very
good. You need hardly, I think, unless you wanted a type of British
logic, have printed a letter in which the writer accused (or would have
accused, if he had possessed Latinity enough) all London servants of
being thieves because he had known one robbery to have been committed
by a nice-looking girl.[91] But on the whole there is much common-sense
in the letters; the singular point in them all, to my mind, being the
in-apprehension of the breadth and connection of the question, and the
general resistance to, and stubborn rejection of, the abstract ideas
of sonship and slavery, which include whatever is possible in wise
treatment of servants. It is very strange to see that, while everybody
shrinks at abstract suggestions of there being possible error in a
book of Scripture,[92] your sensible English housewife fearlessly
rejects Solomon's opinion when it runs slightly counter to her own,
and that not one of your many correspondents seems ever to have read
the Epistle to Philemon. It is no less strange that while most English
boys of ordinary position hammer through their Horace at one or other
time of their school life, no word of his wit or his teaching seems
to remain by them: for all the good they get out of them, the Satires
need never have been written. The Roman gentleman's account of his
childhood and of his domestic life possesses no charm for them: and
even men of education would sometimes start to be reminded that his
"_noctes cænæque Deum_!" meant supping with his merry slaves on beans
and bacon. Will you allow me, on this general question of liberty and
slavery, to refer your correspondents to a paper of mine touching
closely upon it, the leader in the _Art-Journal_ for July last? and to
ask them also to meditate a little over the two beautiful epitaphs on
Epictetus and Zosima, quoted in the last paper of the _Idler_?[93]
"I, Epictetus, was a slave; and sick in body, and wretched in
poverty; and beloved by the gods."
"Zosima, who while she lived was a slave only in her body, has
now found deliverance for that also."
How might we, over many an "independent" Englishman, reverse this last
legend, and write--
"This man, who while he lived was free only in his body, has
now found captivity for that also."
I will not pass without notice--for it bears also on wide
interests--your correspondent's question, how my principles differ from
the ordinary economist's view of supply and demand.[94] Simply in that
the economy I have taught, in opposition to the popular view, is the
science which not merely ascertains the relations of existing demand
and supply, but determines what _ought_ to be demanded and what _can_
be supplied. A child demands the moon, and, the supply not being in
this case equal to the demand, is wisely accommodated with a rattle; a
footpad demands your purse, and is supplied according to the less or
more rational economy of the State, with that or a halter; a foolish
nation, not able to get into its head that free trade does indeed
mean the removal of taxation from its imports, but not of supervision
from them, demands unlimited foreign beef, and is supplied with the
cattle murrain and the like. There may be all manner of demands, all
manner of supplies. The true political economist regulates these; the
false political economist leaves them to be regulated by (not Divine)
Providence. For, indeed, the largest final demand anywhere reported of,
is that of hell; and the supply of it (by the broad-gauge line) would
be very nearly equal to the demand at this day, unless there were here
and there a swineherd or two who could keep his pigs out of sight of
the lake.
Thus in this business of servants everything depends on what sort of
servant you at heart wish for or "demand." If for nurses you want
Charlotte Winsors, they are to be had for money; but by no means
for money, such as that German girl who, the other day, on her own
scarce-floating fragment of wreck, saved the abandoned child of another
woman, keeping it alive by the moisture from her lips.[95] What kind of
servant do you want? It is a momentous question for you yourself--for
the nation itself. Are we to be a nation of shopkeepers, wanting only
shop-boys; or of manufacturers, wanting only hands; or are there to be
knights among us, who will need squires--captains among us, needing
crews? Will you have clansmen for your candlesticks, or silver plate?
Myrmidons at your tents, ant-born, or only a mob on the Gillies Hill?
Are you resolved that you will never have any but your inferiors to
serve you, or shall Enid ever lay your trencher with tender little
thumb, and Cinderella sweep your hearth, and be cherished there? It
_might_ come to that in time, and plate and hearth be the brighter;
but if your servants are to be held your inferiors, at least be sure
they _are_ so, and that you are indeed wiser, and better-tempered,
and more useful than they. Determine what their education ought to
be, and organize proper servants' schools, and there give it them. So
they will be fit for their position, and will do honor to it, and stay
in it: let the masters be as sure they do honor to theirs, and are as
willing to stay in that. Remember that every people which gives itself
to the pursuit of riches, invariably, and of necessity, gets the scum
uppermost in time, and is set by the genii, like the ugly bridegroom in
the Arabian Nights, at its own door with its heels in the air, showing
its shoe-soles instead of a Face. And the reversal is a serious matter,
if reversal be even possible, and it comes right end uppermost again,
instead of to conclusive Wrong end.
I suppose I am getting unpractical again. Well, here is one practical
morsel, and I have done. One or two of your correspondents have spoken
of the facilities of servants for leaving their places. Drive that
nail home, Sir. A large stray branch of the difficulty lies there.
Many and many a time I have heard Mr. Carlyle speak of this, and too
often I have felt it myself as one of the evils closely accompanying
the fever of modern change in the habits and hopes of life. My own
architectural work drives me to think of it continually. Round every
railroad station, out of the once quiet fields, there bursts up first
a blotch of brick-fields, and then of ghastly houses, washed over with
slime into miserable fineries of cornice and portico. A gentleman would
hew for himself a log hut, and thresh for himself a straw bed, before
he would live in such; but the builders count safely on tenants--people
who know no quietness nor simplicity of pleasure, who care only for the
stucco, and lodge only in the portico, of human life--understanding not
so much as the name of House or House-_Hold_. They and their servants
are always "bettering themselves" divergently.
You will do good service at least in teaching any of these who will
listen to you, that if they can once make up their minds to a fixed
state of life, and a fixed income, and a fixed expenditure--if they can
by any means get their servants to stay long enough with them to fit
into their places and know the run of the furrows--then something like
service and mastership, and fulfilment of understood and reciprocal
duty, may become possible; no otherwise. I leave this matter to your
better handling, and will trespass on your patience no more. Only, as
I think you will get into some disgrace with your lady correspondents
for your ungallant conclusions respecting them[96]--which I confess
surprised me a little, though I might have been prepared for it if I
had remembered what order the husband even of so good a housewife as
Penelope was obliged to take with some of her female servants after
prolonged absence,--I have translated a short passage of Xenophon's
Economics[97] for you, which may make your peace if you will print it.
I wish the whole book were well translated; meantime, your lady readers
must be told that this is part of a Greek country gentleman's account
of the conversation he had with his young wife (a girl of fifteen
only), a little while after their marriage, when "she had got used to
him," and was not frightened at being spoken gravely to. First they
pray together; and then they have a long happy talk, of which this is
the close:
"But there is one of the duties belonging to you," I said, "which,
perhaps will be more painful to you than any other, namely, the care of
your servants when they are ill." "Nay," answered my wife, "that will
be the most pleasing of all my duties to me, if only my servants will
be grateful when I minister rightly to them, and will love me better."
And I, pleased with her answer, said, "Indeed, lady, it is in some such
way as this that the queen of the hive is so regarded by her bees,
that, if she leave the hive, none will quit her, but all will follow
her." Then she answered, "I should wonder if this office of leader
were not yours rather than mine, for truly my care and distribution of
things would be but a jest were it not for your inbringing." "Yes," I
said, "but what a jest would my inbringing be if there were no one to
take care of what I brought. Do not you know how those are pitied of
whom it is fabled that they have always to pour water into a pierced
vessel?" "Yes; and they _are_ unhappy, if in truth they do it," said
she. "Then also," I said, "remember your other personal cares. Will
all be sweet to you when, taking one of your maidens who knows not
how to spin, you teach her, and make her twice the girl she was; or
one who has no method nor habit of direction, and you teach her how
to manage a house, and make her faithful and mistress-like and every
way worthy, and when you have the power of benefiting those who are
orderly and useful in the house, and of punishing any one who is
manifestly disposed to evil? But what will be sweetest of all, if it
may come to pass, will be that you should show yourself better even
than _me_, and so make me your servant also: so that you need not
fear in advancing age to be less honored in my house; but may have
sure hope that in becoming old, by how much more you have become also
a noble fellow-worker with me, and joint guardian of our children's
possessions, by so much shall you be more honored in my household. For
what is lovely and good increases for all men--not through fairness
of the body, but through strength and virtue in things pertaining to
life." And this is what I remember chiefly of what we said in our first
talk together.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Sept._ 16.
FOOTNOTES:
[89] In the "admirable article" of September 15, in which the main
features of the voluminous correspondence received by the _Daily
Telegraph_ on the subject were shortly summed up.
[90] A: Fairservice is mentioned in Mr. Ruskin's discussion of parts
of the "Antiquary" in "Fiction, Fair and Foul" (_Nineteenth Century_,
June, 1880) as an "example of innate evil unaffected by external
influences."
[91] This refers to a letter in which the writer gave an account of a
robbery by a housemaid, and, drawing from her conduct the moral "put
not your trust in London servants," concluded by signing his letter,
"Ab _hoc_ disce omnes."
[92] The last volume of Bishop Colenso's work on "The Pentateuch and
Book of Joshua critically examined" was published in the April of the
year in which these letters were written, and his deposition by the
Bishop of Capetown had but recently been reversed by the Privy Council.
It is to the discussion aroused by his book that Mr. Ruskin indirectly
refers.
[93] The leader in the _Art-Journal_ is Chapter vi. of "The Cestus of
Aglaia," where "the infinite follies of modern thought, centred in the
notion that liberty is good for a man, irrespectively of the use he
is likely to make of it," are discussed at some length. The epitaphs
quoted are not in the _Idler_ itself, but in the "Essay on Epitaphs"
printed at the end of some editions of it.
[94] This refers to a letter signed "W. B." in the _Daily Telegraph_ of
September 12.
[95] Charlotte Winsor was at this time under sentence of death for the
murder of a child, which had been entrusted to her charge. I have been
unable to verify the anecdote of her heroic anti-type.
[96] The "admirable article" which had closed the discussion advised
mistresses to resemble those of the good old days, and to deserve good
servants, if they wished to secure them. It, somewhat inconsistently
with the previous articles, declared that the days of good service
would not be found altogether past, if it was remembered that by
derivation "domestic" meant "homelike," and "family" one's servants,
not one's children.
[97] See "The Economist of Xenophon," since (1875) translated and
published in the "Bibliotheca Pastorum," edited by Mr. Ruskin (vol. i.
p. 50, chap. vii. §§ 37-43). Mr. Ruskin in his preface to the volume
speaks of the book as containing "first, a faultless definition of
wealth" ... "secondly, the most perfect ideal of kingly character
and kingly government given in literature" ... and "thirdly, the
ideal of domestic life." It may be interesting to note an earlier
and quaint estimate of the work, given in "Xenophon's Treatise of
Housholde--imprinted at London, in Fleet Street, by T. Berthelet,
1534," where the dialogue is described as "ryght counnyngly translated
out of the Greke tongue into Englysshe by Gentian Hervet at the desyre
of Mayster Geffrey Pole, whiche boke for the welthe of this realme I
deme very profitable to be red."
[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 17, 1865.]
_MODERN HOUSES._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: I trust you will hold the very able and interesting letter from
"W. H. W.,"[98] which you publish to-day, excuse enough for my briefly
trespassing on your space once more. Indeed, it has been a discomfort
to me that I have not yet asked the pardon of your correspondent, "A
Tenant, not at will" (Sept. 21),[99] for the apparent discourtesy of
thought of which he accused me. He need not have done so: for although
I said "a gentleman would hew for himself a log hut" rather than live
in modern houses, I never said he would rather abandon his family
and his business than live in them; and your correspondent himself,
in his previously written letter, had used precisely the same words.
And he must not suspect that I intend to be ironical in saying that
the prolonged coincidence of thought and word in the two letters
well deserves the notice of your readers, in the proof it gives of
the strength and truth of the impression on both minds. "W. H. W.'s"
graphic description of his house is also sorrowfully faithful to the
facts of daily experience; and I doubt not that you will soon have
other communications of the same tenor, and all too true.
I made no attempt to answer "A Tenant, not at will," because the
subject is much too wide for any detailed treatment in a letter; and
you do not care for generalizations of mine. But I am sure your two
correspondents, and the large class of sufferers which they represent,
would be very sincerely grateful for some generalizations of yours
on this matter. For, Sir, surely of all questions for the political
economist, this of putting good houses over people's heads is the
closest and simplest. The first question in all economy, practically as
well as etymologically, must be this, of lodging. The "Eco" must come
before the "Nomy." You must have a house before you can put anything
into it; and preparatorily to laying up treasure, at the least dig a
hole for it. Well, Sir, here, as it seems to my poor thinking, is a
beautiful and simple problem for you to illustrate the law of demand
and supply upon. Here you have a considerable body of very deserving
persons "demanding" a good and cheap article in the way of a house.
Will you or any of your politico-economic correspondents explain to
them and to me the Divinely Providential law by which, in due course,
the supply of such cannot but be brought about for them?
There is another column in your impression of to-day to which, also, I
would ask leave to direct your readers' attention--the 4th of the 3d
page; and especially, at the bottom of it, Dr. Whitmore's account of
Crawford Place,[100] and his following statement that it is "a kind
of property constituting a most profitable investment;" and I do so
in the hope that you will expand your interpretation of the laws of
political economy so far as to teach us how, by their beneficent and
inevitable operation, good houses must finally be provided for the
classes who live in Crawford Place, and such other places; and, without
necessity of eviction, also for the colliers of Cramlington (_vide_ 2d
column of the same 3d page).[101] I have, indeed, my own notions on the
subject, but I do not trouble you with them, for they are unfortunately
based an that wild notion of there being a "just" price for all things,
which you say in your article of Oct. 10, on the Sheffield strikes,
"has no existence but in the minds of theorists."[102] The _Pall Mall
Gazette_, with which journal I have already held some discussion on the
subject, eagerly quoted your authority on its side, in its impression
of the same evening; nor do I care to pursue the debate until I can
inform you of the continuous result of some direct results which I am
making on my Utopian principles. I have bought a little bit of property
of the Crawford Place description, and mending it somewhat according to
my notions, I make my tenants pay me what I hold to be a "just" price
for the lodging provided. That lodging I partly look after, partly
teach the tenants to look after for themselves; and I look a little
after them, as well as after the rents. I do not mean to make a highly
profitable investment of their poor little rooms; but I do mean to sell
a good article, in the way of house room, at a fair price; and hitherto
my customers are satisfied, and so am I.[103]
In the mean time, being entirely busy in other directions, I must
leave the discussion, if it is to proceed at all, wholly between you
and your readers. I will write no word more till I see what they all
have got to say, and until you yourself have explained to me, in its
anticipated results, the working--as regards the keeping out of winter
and rough weather--of the principles of Non-iquity (I presume that
is the proper politico-economic form for the old and exploded word
Iniquity); and so I remain, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Oct._ 16.
FOOTNOTES:
[98] The letter of "W. H. W." commenced by stating that the writer had
"waited till the discussion ... about domestic servants was brought
to a close to make a few remarks on a subject touched on in Mr.
Ruskin's last letter--domestic architecture." It then gave a "graphic
description" of "W. H. W.'s" own modern villa and its miseries, and
concluded by asking Mr. Ruskin if nothing could be done!
[99] "A Tenant, not at will" had written to point out the coincidence
that he had, before the publication of Mr. Ruskin's third letter,
himself begun a letter to the _Daily Telegraph_ on the subject of
houses, in parts of which, strangely enough, he had used expressions
very similar to those of Mr. Ruskin (see _ante_, pp. 147-8). He
had described his modern suburban villa as "one of an ugly mass of
blossoms lately burst forth from the parent trunk--a brickfield;" and
declared that if it were not that people would think him mad, he "would
infinitely rather live in a log hut of his own building" than in a
builder's villa. He concluded by saying that all the houses were the
same, and that therefore, until Mr. Ruskin could point out honest-built
dwellings neglected while the "villas" were all let, it was not quite
fair of him to assume that "suburban villains" utterly wanted the true
instinct of gentlemen which would lead to the preference of log huts to
plaster palaces.
[100] The account consisted of a report presented by Dr. Whitmore,
as Metropolitan Officer of Health to the district, to the Marylebone
Representative Council. Describing the miseries of Crawford Place,
which was left in an untenantable condition, while the landlords still
got high rents for it, he added that "property of this description, let
out in separate rooms to weekly tenants, constitutes a most profitable
investment," according to the degree of flinty determination exercised
in collecting the rents.
[101] This alludes to an account of the position of the Cramlington
colliers after seventeen days of strike. The masters attempted to evict
the pitmen from their houses, an attempt which the pitmen met partly by
serious riot and resistance, and partly by destroying the houses they
were forced to leave.
[102] "Such a thing as a 'just price,' either for labor or for any
other commodity, has, with all submission to Mr. Ruskin, no existence
save in the minds of theorists." (_Daily Telegraph_, Oct. 10, quoted
by the _Pall Mall_ in its "Epitome of the Morning Papers" on the same
day.) The discussion with the _Gazette_ consisted of the "Work and
Wages" letters (see _ante_, pp. 72 _seqq._).
[103] See "Fors Clavigera," 1877, Letter 78, Notes and Correspondence,
p. 170.
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
III.
ROMAN INUNDATIONS.
A KING'S FIRST DUTY. 1871.
A NATION'S DEFENCES. 1871.
THE WATERS OF COMFORT. 1871.
THE STREAMS OF ITALY. 1871.
THE STREETS OF LONDON. 1871.
III.
ROMAN INUNDATIONS.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," January 12, 1871. Also reprinted in "Fors
Clavigera," 1873, Letter 33, p. 23.]
_A KING'S FIRST DUTY._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: May I ask you to add to your article on the inundation of the
Tiber some momentary invitation to your readers to think with Horace
rather than to smile with him?
In the briefest and proudest words he wrote of himself he thought of
his native land chiefly as divided into the two districts of violent
and scanty waters:
"Dicar, qua violens obstrepit Aufidus,
Et qua, pauper aquæ, Daunus agrestium
Regnavit populorum."[104]
Now the anger and power of that "tauriformis Aufidus" is precisely
because "regna Dauni præfluit"--because it flows past the poor kingdoms
which it should enrich. Stay it there, and it is treasure instead of
ruin. And so also with Tiber and Eridanus. They are so much gold,
at their sources--they are so much death, if they once break down
unbridled into the plains.
At the end of your report of the events of the inundation, it is said
that the King of Italy expressed "an earnest desire to do something,
as far as science and industry could effect it, to prevent or mitigate
inundations for the future."
Now science and industry can do, not "something," but everything, and
not merely to mitigate inundations--and, deadliest of inundations,
because perpetual, maremmas--but to change them into national banks
instead of debts.
The first thing the King of any country has to do is to manage the
streams of it.
If he can manage the streams, he can also the people; for the people
also form alternately torrent and maremma, in pestilential fury or
pestilential idleness. They also will change into living streams of
men, if their Kings literally "lead them forth beside the waters of
comfort." Half the money lost by this inundation of Tiber, spent
rightly on the hill-sides last summer, would have changed every wave
of it into so much fruit and foliage in spring where now there will be
only burning rock. And the men who have been killed within the last two
months, and whose work, and the money spent in doing it, have filled
Europe with misery which fifty years will not efface,[105] they had
been set at the same cost to do good instead of evil, and to save life
instead of destroying it, might, by this 10th of January, 1871, have
embanked every dangerous stream at the roots of the Rhine, the Rhone,
and the Po, and left to Germany, to France, and to Italy an inheritance
of blessing for centuries to come--they and their families living all
the while in brightest happiness and peace. And now! Let the Red Prince
look to it; red inundation bears also its fruit in time.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
_Jan._ 10.
FOOTNOTES:
[104] On December 27 there was a disastrous inundation of the Tiber,
and a great part of Rome was flooded. The _Daily Telegraph_ in its
leading article of Jan. 10, 1871, on the subject, began by quoting from
the "very neatest," "sparkling," "light-hearted" ode of Horace, "Jam
satis terris nivis" (Horace, Odes, i. 2). The quotations in the letter
are from Odes iv. 14, 25, and from the celebrated ode beginning "Exegi
monumentum œre perennius" (Odes, iii. 30).
[105] This letter, it will be noticed, was written during the
bombardment of Paris in the Franco-Prussian war.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 19, 1871.]
_A NATION'S DEFENCES._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: The letter to which you do me the honor to refer, in your
yesterday's article on the Tiber, entered into no detail,[106] because
I had already laid the plans spoken of before the Royal Institution
in my lecture there last February;[107] in which my principal object
was to state the causes of the incalculably destructive inundations
of the Rhone, Toccia, and Ticino, in 1868; and to point out that no
mountain river ever was or can be successfully embanked in the valleys;
but that the rainfall must be arrested on the high and softly rounded
hill surfaces, before it reaches any ravine in which its force can be
concentrated. Every mountain farm ought to have a dike about two feet
high--with a small ditch within it--carried at intervals in regular,
scarcely perceptible incline across its fields; with discharge into
a reservoir large enough to contain a week's maximum rainfall on the
area of that farm in the stormiest weather-the higher uncultivated
land being guarded over larger spaces with bolder embankments. No
drop of water that had once touched hill ground ought ever to reach
the plains till it was wanted there: and the maintenance of the bank
and reservoir, once built, on any farm, would not cost more than the
keeping up of its cattle-sheds against chance of whirlwind and snow.
The first construction of the work would be costly enough; and, say the
Economists, "would not pay." I never heard of any National Defences
that did! Presumably, we shall have to pay more income-tax next year,
without hope of any dividend on the disbursement. Nay--you must usually
wait a year or two before you get paid for any great work, even when
the gain is secure. The fortifications of Paris did not pay, till very
lately; they are doubtless returning cent. per cent. now, since the
kind of rain falls heavy within them which they were meant to catch.
Our experimental embankments against (perhaps too economically cheap)
shot at Shoeburyness are property which we can only safely "realize"
under similarly favorable conditions. But my low embankments would not
depend for their utility on the advent of a hypothetical foe, but would
have to contend with an instant and inevitable one; yet with one who
is only an adversary if unresisted; who, resisted, becomes a faithful
friend--a lavish benefactor.
Give me the old bayonets in the Tower, if I can't have anything so
good as spades; and a few regiments of "volunteers" with good Engineer
officers over them, and, in three years' time, an Inundation of Tiber,
at least, shall be Impossible.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Jan._ 19, 1871.
FOOTNOTES:
[106] The _Pall Mall Gazette_ had quoted part of the preceding letter,
and had spoken of "a remedy which Mr. Ruskin himself appears to
contemplate, though he describes it in rather a nebulous manner."
[107] "A Talk respecting Verona and its Rivers," February 4, 1870. (See
Proceedings of the Royal Institution, vol. vi. p. 55. The report of the
lecture was also printed by the Institution in a separate form; pp.
7.) The lecture concluded thus: "Further, without in the least urging
my plans impatiently on any one else, I know thoroughly that this [the
protection against inundations] which I have said _should_ be done,
_can_ be done, for the Italian rivers, and that no method of employment
of our idle able-bodied laborers would be in the end more remunerative,
or in the beginnings of it more healthful and every way beneficial
than, with the concurrence of the Italian and Swiss governments,
setting them to redeem the valleys of the Ticino and the Rhone. And
I pray you to think of this; for I tell you truly--you who care for
Italy--that both her passions and her mountain streams are noble; but
that her happiness depends not on the liberty, but the right government
of both."
[From "The Daily Telegraph," February 4, 1871.]
_THE WATERS OF COMFORT._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: I did not see your impression of yesterday until too late to reply
to the question of your correspondent in Rome;[108] and I am hurried
to-day; but will send you to-morrow a precise statement of what I
believe can be done in the Italian uplands. The simplest and surest
beginning would be the purchase, either by the Government or by a small
company formed in Rome, of a few plots of highland in the Apennines,
now barren for want of water, and valueless; and the showing what
could be made of them by terraced irrigation such as English officers
have already introduced in many parts of India. The Agricultural
College at Cirencester ought, I think, to be able to send out two or
three superintendents, who would direct rightly the first processes
of cultivation, choosing for purchase good soil in good exposures,
and which would need only irrigation to become fruitful; and by next
summer, if not by the end of this, there would be growing food for men
and cattle where now there is only hot dust; and I do not think there
would be much further question "where the money was to come from." The
real question is only, "Will you _pay_ your money in advance for what
is actually new land added to the kingdom of living Italy?" or "Will
you pay it under call from the Tiber every ten or twenty years as the
price of the work done by the river for your destruction?"
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
OXFORD, _Feb._ 3.
FOOTNOTES:
[108] The correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_ had written that Mr.
Ruskin's letter of January 10 had been translated into Italian and had
set people thinking, and he asked Mr. Ruskin to write and state the
case once more.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," February 7, 1871.]
_THE STREAMS OF ITALY._[109]
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: In this month, just thirty years ago, I was at Naples, and the
days were nearly as dark as these, but with clouds and rain, not fog.
The streets leading down from St. Elmo became beds of torrents. A
story went about--true or not I do not know, but credible enough--of
a child's having been carried off by the gutter and drowned at the
bottom of the hill. At last came indeed what, in those simple times,
people thought a serious loss of life. A heavy storm burst one night
above a village on the flank of the Monte St. Angelo, a mile or two
south of Pompeii. The limestones slope steeply there under about three
feet of block earth. The water peeled a piece of the rock of its earth,
as one would peel an orange, and brought down three or four acres of
the good soil in a heap on the village at midnight, driving in the
upper walls, and briefly burying some fourteen or fifteen people in
their sleep--and, as I say, in those times there was some talk even
about fourteen or fifteen. But the same kind of thing takes place, of
course, more or less, among the hills in almost every violent storm,
generally with the double result of ruining more ground below than is
removed from the rocks above; for the frantic streams mostly finish
their work with a heap of gravel and blocks of stone like that which
came down the ravine below the glacier of Greppond about ten years ago,
and destroyed, for at least fifty years to come, some of quite the best
land in Chamouni.
In slower, but ceaseless process of ruin, the Po, Arno, and Tiber
steadily remove the soil from the hills, and carry it down to their
deltas. The Venetians have contended now for a thousand years in vain
even with the Brenta and the minor streams that enter their lagoons,
and have only kept their canals clear by turning the river south to
Malamocco with embankments which have unhealthily checked the drainage
of all the flat country about Padua.
And this constant mischief takes place, be it observed, irrespective
of inundation. All that Florence, Pisa, and Rome have suffered and
suffer periodically from floods is so much mischief added to that of
increasing maremmas, spoiled harborages, and lost mountain-ground.
There is yet one further evil. The snow on the bared rock slips lower
and melts faster; snow, which in mossy or grass ground would have
lain long, and furnished steadily flowing streams far on into summer,
fall or melt from the bare rock in avalanche and flood, and spend in
desolation in a few days what would have been nourishment for half the
year. And against all this there are no remedies possible in any sudden
or external action. It is the law of the Heaven which sends flood
and food, that national prosperity can only be achieved by national
forethought and unity of purpose.
In the year 1858 I was staying the greater part of the summer at
Bellinzona, during a drought as harmful as the storms of ten years
later. The Ticino sank into a green rivulet; and not having seen the
right way to deal with the matter, I had many a talk with the parroco
of a little church whose tower I was drawing, as to the possibility of
setting his peasants to work to repair the embankment while the river
was low. But the good old priest said, sorrowfully, the peasants were
too jealous of each other, that no one would build anything or protect
his own ground for fear his work might also benefit his neighbors.
But the people of Bellinzona are Swiss, not Italians. I believe the
Roman and Sienese races, in different ways, possess qualities of
strength and gentleness far more precious than the sunshine and rain
upon their mountains, and, hitherto, as cruelly lost. It is in them
that all the real power of Italy still lives; it is only by them, and
by what care, and providence, and accordant good-will ever be found in
them, that the work is to be done, not by money; though, if money were
all that is needed, do we in England owe so little to Italy of delight
that we cannot so much as lend her spades and pick-axes at her need?
Would she trust us? Would her government let us send over some engineer
officers and a few sappers and miners, and bear, for a time, with an
English instead of a French "occupation" of her barrenest hills?
But she does not need us. Good engineers she has, and has had many
since Leonardo designed the canals of Lombardy. Agriculturists she has
had, I think, among her gentlemen a little before there were gentlemen
farmers in England; something she has told us of agriculture, also,
pleasantly by the reeds of Mincio and among the apple-blossoms wet with
Arno. Her streams have learned obedience before now: Fonte Branda and
the Fountain of Joy flow at Sienna still; the rivulets that make green
the slopes of Casentino may yet satisfy true men's thirst. "Where is
the money to come from?" Let Italy keep her souls pure, and she will
not need to alloy her florins. The only question for her is whether
still the mossy rock and the "rivus aquæ" are "in rotis" or rather the
racecourse and the boulevard--the curses of England and of France.
At all events, if any one of the Princes of Rome will lead, help enough
will follow to set the work on foot, and show the peasants, in some
narrow district, what can be done. Take any arid piece of Apennine
towards the sources of the Tiber; let the drainage be carried along the
hill-sides away from the existing water-courses; let cisterns, as of
old in Palestine, and larger reservoirs, such as we now can build, be
established at every point convenient for arrest of the streams; let
channels of regulated flow be established from these over the tracts
that are driest in summer; let ramparts be carried, not along the
river banks, but round the heads of the ravines, throwing the water
aside into lateral canals; then terrace and support the looser soil
on all the steeper slopes; and the entire mountain side may be made
one garden of orange and vine and olive beneath; and a wide blossoming
orchard above; and a green highest pasture for cattle, and flowers for
bees--up to the edge of the snows of spring.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
OXFORD, _Feb._ 3.
FOOTNOTES:
[109] See the date of the letter on a landslip near Giagnano (vol. i.
p. 302).
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," December 28, 1871.]
_THE STREETS OF LONDON._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I have been every day on the point of writing to you since your
notice, on the 18th,[110] of the dirty state of the London streets, to
ask whether any of your readers would care to know how such matters
are managed in my neighborhood. I was obliged, a few years ago, for
the benefit of my health, to take a small house in one of the country
towns of Utopia; and though I was at first disappointed in the climate,
which indeed is no better than our own (except that there is no foul
marsh air), I found my cheerfulness and ability for work greatly
increased by the mere power of getting exercise pleasantly close to my
door, even in the worst of the winter, when, though I have a little
garden at the back of my house, I dislike going into it, because the
things look all so dead; and find my walk on the whole pleasanter in
the streets, these being always perfectly clean, and the wood-carving
of the houses prettier than much of our indoor furniture. But it was
about the streets I wanted to tell you. The Utopians have the oddest
way of carrying out things, when once they begin, as far as they can
go; and it occurred to them one dirty December long since, when they,
like us, had only crossing-sweepers, that they might just as well sweep
the whole of the street as the crossings of it, so that they might
cross anywhere. Of course that meant more work for the sweepers; but
the Utopians have always hands enough for whatever work is to be done
in the open air;--they appointed a due number of brooms-men to every
quarter of the town; and since then, at any time of the year, it is in
our little town as in great Rotterdam when Doctor Brown saw it on his
journey from Norwich to Colen in 1668, "the women go about in white
slippers," which is pretty to see.[111] Now, Sir, it would, of course,
be more difficult to manage anything like this in London, because, for
one thing, in our town we have a rivulet running down every street that
slopes to the river; and besides, because you have coal-dust and smoke
and what not to deal with; and the habit of spitting, which is worst
of all--in Utopia, a man would as soon vomit as spit in the street (or
anywhere else, indeed, if he could help it). But still it is certain we
can at least anywhere do as much for the whole street, as we have done
for the crossing; and to show that we can, I mean, on 1st January next,
to take three street-sweepers into constant service; they will be the
first workpeople I employ with the interest of the St. George's fund,
of which I shall get my first dividend this January; and, whenever I
can get leave from the police and inhabitants, I will keep my three
sweepers steadily at work for eight hours a day; and I hope soon to
show you a bit of our London streets kept as clean as the deck of a
ship of the line.[112]
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
_December_ 27, 1871.
FOOTNOTES:
[110] Quite unimportant. It simply complained of the condition of the
streets.
[111] Dr. Edward Browne, the son of the author of the "Religio Medici,"
Sir Thomas Browne. Writing to his father from Rotterdam, in 1668, he
says: "The cleanenesse and neatnesse of this towne is so new unto mee,
that it affoordeth great satisfaction, most persons going about the
streets in white slippers."--"Life and Works of Sir Thomas Browne."
Pickering, 1836. Vol. i. p. 154.
[112] Mr. Ruskin was as good as his word, and his sweepers were at work
in the following January.
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
IV.
EDUCATION FOR RICH AND POOR.
TRUE EDUCATION. 1868.
THE VALUE OF LECTURES. 1874.
THE CRADLE OF ART! 1876.
ST. GEORGE'S MUSEUM. 1875.
THE MORALITY OF FIELD SPORTS. 1870.
DRUNKENNESS AND CRIME. 1871.
MADNESS AND CRIME. 1872.
EMPLOYMENT FOR THE DESTITUTE POOR AND CRIMINAL CLASSES. 1868.
NOTES ON THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EMPLOYMENT FOR THE DESTITUTE
AND CRIMINAL CLASSES (a pamphlet). 1868.
BLINDNESS AND SIGHT. 1879.
THE EAGLE'S NEST. 1879.
POLITICS IN YOUTH. 1879.
"ACT, ACT IN THE LIVING PRESENT." 1873.
"LABORARE EST ORARE." 1874.
A PAGAN MESSAGE. 1878.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHIVALRY.
(Five letters: February 8, 10, 11, and 12, 1877, and July 3, 1878.)
IV.
EDUCATION FOR RICH AND POOR.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 31, 1868.]
_TRUE EDUCATION._[113]
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: The letter you published yesterday from a parish schoolboy of
"Sixty Years Since" at Weary-faulds (confirmed as it would be doubtless
in all practical respects by testimony of English boys educated at
Waverley Honour) has my hearty sympathy; but I am wearier than any
tenant of Weary-faulds of seeing this subject of education always
treated as if "education" only meant teaching children to write or to
cipher or to repeat catechism. You know, Sir, as you have shown by
your comments on the Bishop of Oxford's last speech on this subject,
and you could not at present use your influence more beneficially than
by farther showing that the real education-the education which alone
should be compulsory--means nothing of the kind. It means teaching
children to be clean, active, honest, and useful. All these characters
can be taught, and cannot be acquired by sickly and ill-dispositioned
children without being taught; but they can be untaught to any extent,
by evil habit and example at home. Public schools, in which the aim
was to form character faithfully, would return to them in due time to
their parents, worth more than their "weight in gold." That is the
real answer to the objections founded on economical difficulties. Will
you not make some effort, Sir, to get your readers to feel this? I am
myself quite sick of saying it over and over again in vain.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Jan._ 31, 1868.
FOOTNOTES:
[113] The _Pall Mall Gazette_ of January 27 contained a leader on
"Compulsory Education," and that of January 29 one upon a speech
of the Bishop of Oxford on the same subject, made at a meeting in
connection with the National Society, held at Tunbridge Wells on
the preceding day. In the _Gazette_ of January 30 appeared a letter
referring to these articles, headed "Sixty Years Ago," and signed
"One who has walked four miles to the Parish School." It described
the writer's early home, situate in some lowland parish north of the
Tweed, and divided into five or six estates, such as "Whinny-hills"
and "Weary-faulds," the lairds of which were shortly called "Whinny"
or "Weary" after their properties. In this primitive village, where
supervision, much less compulsion, in education was never heard of,
"no child grew up without learning to read," and the morals of the
parish were on the whole good; the children quarrelled, but did not
steal.--The reader will remember that the second title of "Waverley" is
"'Tis Sixty Years Since."
[From "The Glasgow Herald," June 5, 1874. Also reprinted in "The Times"
of June 6, 1874.]
_THE VALUE OF LECTURES._[114]
ROME, _26th May_, 1874.
MY DEAR SIR: I have your obliging letter, but am compelled by increase
of work to cease lecturing except at Oxford--and practically there
also--for, indeed, I find the desire of audiences to be _audiences
only_ becoming an entirely pestilent character of the age. Everybody
wants to _hear_--nobody to read--nobody to think; to be excited for
an hour--and, if possible, amused; to get the knowledge it has cost a
man half his life to gather, first sweetened up to make it palatable,
and then kneaded into the smallest possible pills--and to swallow it
homœopathically and be wise--this is the passionate desire and hope of
the multitude of the day.
It is not to be done. A living comment quietly given to a class
on a book they are earnestly reading--this kind of lecture is
eternally necessary and wholesome; your modern fire-working,
smooth-downy-curry-and-strawberry-ice-and-milk-punch-altogether lecture
is an entirely pestilent and abominable vanity; and the miserable death
of poor Dickens, when he might have been writing blessed books till he
was eighty, but for the pestiferous demand of the mob, is a very solemn
warning to us all, if we would take it.[115]
God willing, I will go on writing, and as well as I can. There are
three volumes published of my Oxford lectures,[116] in which every
sentence is set down as carefully as may be. If people want to learn
from me, let them read them or my monthly letter _Fors Clavigera_. If
they don't care for these, I don't care to talk to them.
Truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[114] This letter was written to Mr. Chapman, of the Glasgow Athenæum
Lecture Committee, in reply to a request that Mr. Ruskin would
lecture at their meetings during the winter. Writing from Oxford four
years later, in answer to a similar request, Mr. Ruskin wrote as
follows: "Nothing can advance art in any district of this accursed
machine-and-devil driven England until she changes her mind in many
things, and my time for talking is past.--Ever faithfully yours, J.
Ruskin. I lecture here, but only on the art of the past." (Extract
given in the _Times_, Feb. 12, 1878.)
[115] The evil result on Dickens' health of his last series of readings
at St. James's Hall, in the early part of 1870, scarcely four months
before his death, is thus noted by Mr. Forster: "Little remains to be
told that has not in it almost unmixed sorrow and pain. Hardly a day
passed, while the readings went on or after they closed, unvisited
by some effect or other of the disastrous excitement consequent on
them."--"Life of Charles Dickens," vol. iii. p. 493.
[116] "Aratra Pentalici." "The Eagle's Nest"; and either "Val d'Arno"
(Orpington, 1874) or "Lectures on Art" (Clarendon Press, 1870).
[Date and place of publication unknown.]
_THE CRADLE OF ART!_[117]
_18th Feb._ 1876.
MY DEAR SIR: I lose a frightful quantity of time because people won't
read what I ask them to read, nor believe anything of what I tell
them, and yet ask me to talk whenever they think they can take a
shilling or two at the door by me. I have written fifty times, if once,
that you can't have art where you have smoke; you may have it in hell,
perhaps, for the Devil is too clever not to consume his own smoke, if
he wants to. But you will never have it in Sheffield. You may learn
something about nature, shrivelled, and stones, and iron; and what
little you can see of that sort, I'm going to try and show you. But
pictures, never.
Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
If for no other reason, no artist worth sixpence in a day would live in
Sheffield, nor would any one who cared for pictures--for a million a
year.
FOOTNOTES:
[117] This letter was in answer to a request of the Sheffield Society
of Artists similar to that replied to in the preceding letter.
[From "The Sheffield Daily Telegraph," September 7, 1875.]
_ST. GEORGE'S MUSEUM._[118]
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE.
MY DEAR SIR: I am obliged by your note, but the work of the St.
George's Company is necessarily distinct from all other. My "museum"
may be perhaps nothing but a two-windowed garret. But it will have
in it nothing but what deserves respect in art or admiration in
nature. A great museum in the present state of the public mind is
simply an exhibition of the possible modes of doing wrong in art, and
an accumulation of uselessly multiplied ugliness in misunderstood
nature. Our own museum at Oxford is full of distorted skulls, and
your Sheffield ironwork department will necessarily contain the most
barbarous abortions that human rudeness has ever produced with human
fingers. The capitals of the iron shafts in any railway station, for
instance, are things to make a man wish--for shame of his species--that
he had been born a dog or a bee.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
P.S.--I have no doubt the geological department will be well done,
and my poor little cabinets will enable your men to use it to better
advantage, but would be entirely lost if united with it.
FOOTNOTES:
[118] This letter was written in answer to one addressed to Mr. Ruskin
by Mr. W. Bragge, F.R.G.S., who, having read in "Fors Clavigera" of Mr.
Ruskin's intention to found the St. George's Museum at Sheffield, wrote
to inform him that another museum, in which his might be incorporated,
was already in course of building. It was read by Mr. Bragge at a
dinner which followed the opening of Western Park to the public on
September 6, 1875.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," January 15, 1870.]
_THE MORALITY OF FIELD SPORTS._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: As, thirty years ago,[119] I publicly expressed a strong opinion
on the subject of field sports, and as with more accurate knowledge I
hold the same opinion still, and more strongly--will you permit me to
place the controversy between your correspondents[120] in which I have
no time to take part, on somewhat clearer grounds.
Reprobation of fox-hunting on the ground of cruelty to the fox is
entirely futile. More pain is caused to the draught-horses of London
in an hour by avariciously overloading them, than to all the foxes in
England by the hunts of the year: and the rending of body and heart in
human death, caused by neglect, in our country cottages, in any one
winter, could not be equalled by the death-pangs of any quantity of
foxes.
The real evils of fox-hunting are that it wastes the time, misapplies
the energy, exhausts the wealth, narrows the capacity, debases the
taste, and abates the honor of the upper classes of this country;
and instead of keeping, as your correspondent "Forester" supposes,
"thousands from the workhouse," it sends thousands of the poor, both
there, and into the grave.
The athletic training given by fox-hunting is excellent; and such
training is vitally necessary to the upper classes. But it ought always
to be in real service to their country; in personal agricultural labor
at the head of their tenantry; and in extending English life and
dominion in waste regions, against the adverse powers of nature. Let
them become Captains of Emigration;--hunt down the foxes that spoil the
Vineyard of the World; and keep their eyes on the leading hound, in
Packs of Men.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.[121]
DENMARK HILL, _Jan._ 14.
FOOTNOTES:
[119] In various parts of "Modern Painters." See vol. v. p. 264. "I
wish, however, the reader distinctly to understand that the expressions
of reprobation of field-sports which he will find scattered through
these volumes ... refer only to the chase and the turf; that is to say,
to hunting, shooting, and horse-racing, but not to athletic exercises.
I have just as deep a respect for boxing, wrestling, cricketing,
and rowing, as contempt of all the various modes of wasting wealth,
time, land, and energy of soul, which have been invented by the pride
and selfishness of men, in order to enable them to be healthy in
uselessness, and get quit of the burdens of their own lives, without
condescending to make themselves serviceable to others."
[120] The correspondence originated as follows: In the _Fortnightly
Review_ of October, 1869, appeared an article against fox-hunting
by Mr. E. A. Freeman, entitled, "The Morality of Field Sports," to
which Mr. Anthony Trollope replied by one entitled "The Morality of
Hunting," in the _Fortnightly_ of the following December. Mr. Freeman
then rejoined by two letters of considerable length, addressed to
the editor of the _Daily Telegraph_ (December 18 and 29), in whose
columns some discussion of the matter had already been carried on,
whilst one of its leaders had strongly supported Mr. Freeman's views.
Other correspondence on the subject was still appearing in the _Daily
Telegraph_ from day to day at the time Mr. Ruskin wrote the present
letter.
[121] At the annual meeting of the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, Mr. Ruskin is reported (_Daily News_, July 11,
1877) to have said that "as he was somewhat concerned in the studies
of the scientific world, it might be thought that he sympathized in
the resistance offered, not without some ground of reason, to some of
the more enthusiastic and, he feared in some respects, exaggerated
and sentimental actions of the society. He pleaded in the name of
poor animals that none of them should act too much on the feeling of
pity, or without making a thoroughly judicial inquiry. In looking at
the report, he found part of the society's admirable evidence mixed
up with sentimental tales of fiction and other means of exciting mere
emotion, which had caused them to lose power with those who had the
greatest influence in the prevention of the abuses which the society
desired to check. The true justice of their cause lay in the relations
which men had had with animals from the time when both were made. They
had endeavored to prevent cruelty to animals; they had not enough
endeavored to promote affection for animals. He thought they had had
too much to do in the police courts, and not enough in the field
and the cottage garden. As one who was especially interested in the
education of the poor, he believed that he could not educate them on
animals, but that he could educate them by animals. He trusted to the
pets of children for their education just as much as to their tutors.
He rejoiced in the separate organization of the Ladies' Committee,
and looked to it to give full extent and power to action which
would supersede all their expensive and painful disputable duties.
Without perfect sympathy with the animals around them, no gentleman's
education, no Christian education, could be of any possible use. In
concluding, he pleaded for an expansion of the protection extended by
the society to wild birds."
[From "The Daily Telegraph," December 11, 1871.]
_DRUNKENNESS AND CRIME._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: I am greatly surprised by the slightness of your article to-day on
the statistics of drunkenness and the relative statistics of crime.[122]
The tables you have given, if given only in that form by Professor
Leone Levi, are anything but "instructive." Liquor is not, for such
purpose, to be measured only by the gallon, but by the gallon with
accompanying statement of strength.
Crime is not for such purpose to be measured by the number of
criminals, but by the number, with accompanying statement of the crime
committed. Drunkenness very slightly encourages theft, very largely
encourages murder, and universally encourages idleness, which is not a
crime apparent in a tabular form. But, whatever results might, even by
such more accurate statement, be attainable, are not material to the
question at issue. Drunkenness is not the _cause_ of crime in any case.
It _is_ itself crime in every case. A gentleman will not knock out his
wife's brains when he is drunk; but it is nevertheless his duty to
remain sober.
Much more is it his duty to teach his peasantry to remain sober, and to
furnish them with sojourn more pleasant than the pothouse, and means
of amusement less circumscribed than the pot. And the encouragement of
drunkenness, for the sake of the profit on sale of drink, is certainly
one of the most criminal methods of assassination for money hitherto
adopted by the bravos of an age or country.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Dec._ 9.
FOOTNOTES:
[122] A short leader to which special reference is unnecessary.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," November 4, 1872. (Also reprinted in
"Fors Clavigera," Letter 48, p. 286, vol. iv., 1874),]
_MADNESS AND CRIME._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: Towards the close of the excellent article on the Taylor trial
in your issue for October 31[123] you say that people never will be,
nor ought to be, persuaded, "to treat criminals simply as vermin which
they destroy, and not as men who are to be punished." Certainly not,
Sir! Who ever talked, or thought, of regarding criminals "simply" as
anything (or innocent people either, if there be any)? But regarding
criminals complexly and accurately, they are partly men, partly vermin;
what is human in them you must punish--what is vermicular, abolish.
Anything between--if you can find it--I wish you joy of, and hope
you may be able to preserve it to society. Insane persons, horses,
dogs, or cats become vermin when they become dangerous. I am sorry for
darling Fido, but there is no question about what is to be done with
him.
Yet, I assure you, Sir, insanity is a tender point with me. One of my
best friends has just gone mad; and all the rest say I am mad myself.
But if ever I murder anybody--and, indeed, there are numbers of people
I should like to murder--I won't say that I ought to be hanged; for I
think nobody but a bishop or a bank-director can ever be rogue enough
to deserve hanging; but I particularly, and with all that is left me of
what I imagine to be sound mind, request that I may be immediately shot.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_November_ 2.
FOOTNOTES:
[123] The trial of Taylor was for murder, and ended in his acquittal on
the ground of insanity.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," December 26, 1868.]
_EMPLOYMENT FOR THE DESTITUTE POOR AND CRIMINAL CLASSES_
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: Your admirable leader of to-day[124] will do great good; but it
will do more if you complete it by pointing out the chief reason for
the frequent failure of almsgiving in accomplishing any real benefit
to the poor. No almsgiving of money is so helpful as almsgiving of
care and thought; the giving of money without thought is indeed
continually mischievous; but the invective of the economist against
_in_discriminate charity is idle, if it be not coupled with pleading
for discriminate charity, and, above all, for that charity which
discerns the uses that people may be put to, and helps them by setting
them to work in those services. That is the help beyond all others,
find out how to make useless people useful, and let them earn their
money instead of begging it. Few are so feeble as to be incapable of
all occupation, none so faultful but that occupation, well chosen, and
kindly compelled, will be medicine for them in soul and body. I have
lately drawn up a few notes for private circulation on possible methods
of employment for the poor.[125] The reasons which weighed with me in
not publishing them have now ceased to exist; and in case you should
think the paper worth its room in your columns, and any portion of it
deserving your ratification, I send it you herewith, and remain your
faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, S.E., _Dec._ 24.
FOOTNOTES:
[124] A Christmas article on Charity.
[125] See the following pages.
_NOTES ON THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EMPLOYMENT FOR THE DESTITUTE AND
CRIMINAL CLASSES._
[For Private Circulation only. 1868. (Pp. 15, including the title-page.
Printed by Strangeways & Walden, Castle Street, Leicester Square.)[126]]
The first great fact on which all wise and enduring legislation
respecting labor must be founded, is, that the character of men depends
more on their occupations than on any teaching we can give them, or
principles with which we can imbue them.
The employment forms the habits of body and mind, and these are the
constitution of the man--the greater part of his moral or persistent
nature, whatever effort, under special excitement, he may make to
change or overcome them. Employment is the half, and the primal half,
of education--it is the warp of it; and the fineness or the endurance
of all subsequently woven pattern depends wholly on its straightness
and strength. And whatever difficulty there may be in tracing through
past history the remoter connections of event and cause, one chain
of sequence is always clear: the formation, namely, of the character
of nations by their employments, and the determination of their
final fate by their character. The moment and the first direction of
circumstances, of decisive revolutions, often depend on accident; but
their persistent course, and their consequences, depend wholly on
the nature of the people. The passing of the Reform Bill by the late
English Parliament[127] may have been more or less accidental: the
results of the measure now rest on the character of the English people,
as it has been developed by their recent interests, occupations, and
habits of life. Whether as a body, they employ their new powers for
good or evil will depend not on their facilities for knowledge, nor
even on the general intelligence they may possess, but on the number of
persons among them whom wholesome employments have rendered familiar
with the duties, and temperate in their estimate of the promises of
life.
But especially in passing laws respecting the treatment or employment
of improvident and more or less vicious persons it is to be remembered
that as men are not to be made heroes by an act of heroism, but must be
brave before they can perform it, so they are not made villains by the
commission of a crime, but were villains before they committed it; and
that the right of public interference with their conduct begins when
they begin to corrupt themselves, not merely at the moment when they
have proved themselves hopelessly corrupt.
All measures of reformation are effective in exact proportion to their
timeliness: partial decay may be cut away and cleansed; incipient
error corrected; but there is a point at which corruption can no more
be stayed, nor wandering recalled; it has been the manner of modern
philanthropy to remain passive until that precise period, and to leave
the rich to perish and the foolish to stray, while it exhausted itself
in frantic exertions to raise the dead and reform the dust.
The recent direction of a great weight of public opinion against
capital punishment is, I think, the sign of an awakening perception
that punishment is the last and worst instrument in the hands of the
legislature for the prevention of crime.
The true instruments of reformation are employment and reward--not
punishment. Aid the willing, honor the virtuous, and compel the idle
into occupation, and there will be no need for the compelling of any
into the great and last indolence of death. The beginning of all true
reformation among the criminal classes depends on the establishment
of institutions for their active employment, while their criminality
is still unripe, and their feelings of self-respect, capacities
of affection, and sense of justice not altogether quenched. That
those who are desirous of employment should be always able to find
it, will hardly, at the present day, be disputed; but that those
who are undesirous of employment should of all persons be the most
strictly compelled to it, the public are hardly yet convinced. If
the damage of the principal thoroughfares in their capital city, and
the multiplication of crimes more ghastly than ever yet disgraced a
nominal civilization, do not convince them, they will not have to wait
long before they receive sterner lessons. For our neglect of the lower
orders has reached a point, at which it begins to bear its necessary
fruit, and every day makes the harvest darker and more sure.[128]
The general principles by which employment should be regulated may be
briefly stated as follows:
1. There being three great classes of mechanical powers at our
disposal, namely, (_a_) vital muscular power; (_b_) natural mechanical
power of wind, water, and electricity; and (_c_) artificially produced
mechanical power; it is the first principle of economy to use all
available vital power first, then the inexpensive natural forces, and
only at last to have recourse to artificial power. And this, because
it is always better for a man to work with his own hands to feed and
clothe himself, than to stand idle while a machine works for him; and
if he cannot by all the labor healthily possible to him, feed and
clothe himself, then it is better to use an inexpensive machine--as
a wind-mill or water-mill--than a costly one like a steam-engine,
so long as we have natural force enough at our disposal. Whereas at
present we continually hear economists regret that the water-powers
of the cascades or streams of a country should be lost, but hardly
ever that the muscular power of its idle inhabitants should be lost;
and, again, we see vast districts, as the south of Provence, where a
strong wind[129] blows steady all day long for six days out of seven
throughout the year, without a wind-mill, while men are continually
employed a hundred miles to the north, in digging fuel to obtain
artificial power.
But the principal point of all to be kept in view is that in every
idle arm and shoulder throughout the country there is a certain
quantity of force, equivalent to the force of so much fuel; and that
it is mere insane waste to dig for coal for our force, while the vital
force is unused; and not only unused, but, in being so, corrupting and
polluting itself. We waste our coal and spoil our humanity at one and
the same instant. Therefore, whenever there is an idle arm, always
save coal with it, and the stores of England will last all the longer.
And precisely the same argument answers the common one about "taking
employment out of the hands of the industrious laborer." Why, what is
"employment" but the putting out of vital force instead of mechanical
force? We are continually in search of means of strength--to pull,
to hammer, to fetch, to carry; we waste our future resources to get
power, while we leave all the living fuel to burn itself out in mere
pestiferous breath and production of its variously noisome forms of
ashes! Clearly, if we want fire for force, we want men for force first.
The industrious hands _must_ have so much to do that they can do no
more, or else we need not use machines to help them: then use the idle
hands first. Instead of dragging petroleum with a steam-engine, put it
on a canal, and drag it with human arms and shoulders. Petroleum cannot
possibly be in a hurry to arrive anywhere. We can always order that
and many other things time enough before we want it. So the carriage
of everything which does not spoil by keeping may most wholesomely and
safely be done by water-traction and sailing vessels, and no healthier
work nor better discipline can men be put to than such active porterage.
2. In employing all the muscular power at our disposal, we are to make
the employments we choose as educational as possible. For a wholesome
human employment is the first and best method of education, mental as
well as bodily. A man taught to plough, row or steer well, and a woman
taught to cook properly and make dress neatly, are already educated
in many essential moral habits. Labor considered as a discipline has
hitherto been thought of only for criminals; but the real and noblest
function of labor is to prevent crime, and not to be _Re_formatory but
Formatory.
3. The third great principle of employment is, that whenever there
is pressure of poverty to be met, all enforced occupation should be
directed to the production of useful articles only, that is to say, of
food, of simple clothing, of lodging, or of the means of conveying,
distributing, and preserving these. It is yet little understood by
economists, and not at all by the public, that the employment of
persons in a useless business cannot relieve ultimate distress. The
money given to employ riband-makers at Coventry is merely so much money
withdrawn from what would have employed lace-makers at Honiton, or
makers of something else, as useless, elsewhere. We _must_ spend our
money in some way, at some time, and it cannot at any time be spent
without employing somebody. If we gamble it away, the person who wins
it must spend it; if we lose it in a railroad speculation, it has
gone into some one else's pockets, or merely gone to pay navvies for
making a useless embankment, instead of to pay riband or button makers
for making useless ribands or buttons; we cannot lose it (unless by
actually destroying it) without giving employment of some kind, and
therefore, whatever quantity of money exists, the relative quantity
of employment must some day came out of it; but the distress of the
nation signifies that the employments given have produced nothing that
will support its existence. Men cannot live on ribands, or buttons, or
velvet, or by going quickly from place to place; and every coin spent
in useless ornament, or useless motion, is so much withdrawn from
the national means of life. Whereas every coin spent in cultivating
ground, in repairing lodgings, in making necessary and good roads,
in preventing danger by sea or land, and in carriage of food or fuel
where they are required, is so much absolute and direct gain to the
whole nation. To cultivate land round Coventry makes living easier at
Honiton, and every house well built in Edinburgh makes lodgings cheaper
in Glasgow and London.
4th, and lastly. Since for every idle person some one else must be
working somewhere to provide him with clothes and food, and doing
therefore double the quantity of work that would be enough for his own
needs, it is only a matter of pure justice to compel the idle person
to work for his maintenance himself. The conscription has been used in
many countries to take away laborers who supported their families from
their useful work, and maintain them for purposes chiefly of military
display at public expense. Since this had been long endured by the
most civilized nations, let it not be thought that they would not much
more gladly endure a conscription which should seize only the vicious
and idle already living by criminal procedures at the public expense,
and which should discipline and educate them to labor, which would not
only maintain themselves, but be serviceable to the commonwealth.
The question is simply this: we must feed the drunkard, vagabond, and
thief. But shall we do so by letting them rob us of their food, and do
no work for it; or shall we give them their food in appointed quantity,
and enforce their doing work which shall be worth it, and which, in
process of time, will redeem their own characters, and make them happy
and serviceable members of society?[130]
The different classes of work for which bodies of men could be
consistently organized might ultimately become numerous; these
following divisions of occupation may at once be suggested.
1. Road-making.--Good roads to be made wherever needed, and kept in
constant repair; and the annual loss on unfrequented roads in spoiled
horses, strained wheels, and time, done away with.
2. Bringing in of Waste Land.--All wastelands not necessary for public
health, to be made accessible and gradually reclaimed.
3. Harbor-Making.--The deficiencies of safe or convenient harborage
in our smaller ports to be remedied; other harbors built at dangerous
points of coast, and a disciplined body of men always kept in
connection with the pilot and lifeboat services. There is room for
every order of intelligence in this work, and for a large body of
superior officers.
4. Porterage.--All heavy goods not requiring speed in transit, to be
carried (under preventive duty on transit by railroad) by canal boats,
employing men for draught, and the merchant shipping service extended
by sea; so that no ships may be wrecked for want of hands, while there
are idle ones in mischief on shore.
5. Repair of Buildings.--A body of men in various trades to be kept
at the disposal of the authorities in every large town for consistent
repair of buildings, especially the houses of the poorer orders, who,
if no such provision were made, could not employ workmen on their own
houses, but would simply live with rent walls and roofs.
6. Dress-making.--Substantial dress, of standard material and kind,
strong shoes, and stout bedding, to be manufactured for the poor, so as
to render it unnecessary for them, unless by extremity of improvidence,
to wear cast clothes, or be without sufficiency of clothing.
7. Works of Art.--Schools to be established on thoroughly sound
principles of manufacture and use of materials, and with simple and,
for given periods, unalterable modes of work; first in pottery, and
embracing gradually metal work, sculpture, and decorative painting;
the two points insisted upon, in distinction from ordinary commercial
establishments, being perfectness of material to the utmost attainable
degree; and the production of everything by hand-work, for the special
purpose of developing personal power and skill in the workman.
The two last departments, and some subordinate branches of the others,
would include the service of women and children.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] There were two editions of this pamphlet. The first was entitled
"First Notes on the General Principles of Employment for the Destitute
and Criminal Classes. By John Ruskin, A.M. For private circulation
only. 1868" (pp. 11, including the title-page. London: Strangeways &
Walden, printers, Castle Street, Leicester Square). Mr. Ruskin enclosed
the second edition to the _Daily Telegraph_, where almost the whole of
the pamphlet was reprinted. The differences between the two editions
consisted only in one or two additions in the second (see below, pages
197 and 202, notes).
[127] The reform bill of 1867. The late parliament had been dissolved
on November 11, and the new one had just sat (December 10, 1868).
[128] The _Daily Telegraph_ reprinted the pamphlet from this point to
the end.
[129] In order fully to utilize this natural power, we only require
machinery to turn the variable into a constant velocity--no
insurmountable difficulty.[131]
[130] Here the first edition of the pamphlet ends; the remaining
sentences being contained in the second edition only.
[131] This note was not contained in the first edition of the pamphlet,
and was not reprinted by the _Daily Telegraph_.
[From "The Y. M. A. Magazine," conducted by the Young Men's
Association, Clapham Congregational Church. September, 1879. Vol. iii.,
No. 12, p. 242.]
_BLINDNESS AND SIGHT._[132]
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE,
_18th July_, 1879.
MY DEAR SIR: The reason I never answered was--I now find--the
difficulty of explaining my fixed principle never to join in any
invalid charities. All the foolish world is ready to help in _them_;
and will spend large incomes in trying to make idiots think, and the
blind read, but will leave the noblest intellects to go to the Devil,
and the brightest eyes to remain spiritually blind forever! All _my_
work is to help those who _have_ eyes and see not.
Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN.
THOS. POCOCK, ESQ.
I must add that, to _my_ mind, the prefix of "Protestant" to your
society's name indicates far _stonier_ blindness than any it will
relieve.
FOOTNOTES:
[132] This letter was sent by Mr. Ruskin to the Secretary of the
Protestant Blind Pension Society in answer to an application for
subscriptions which Mr. Ruskin had mislaid, and thus left unanswered.
[From "The Y. M. A. Magazine," October, 1879, Vol. iv., No. 1, p. 12.]
THE EAGLE'S NEST.[133]
_To the Editor of "The Y. M. A. Magazine."_
MY DEAR SIR: There is a mass of letters on my table this morning, and
I am not quite sure if the "Y. M. A. Magazine," among them, is the
magazine which yours of the 15th speaks of as "enclosed;" but you are
entirely welcome to print my letter about Blind Asylums anywhere, and
if in the "Y. M. A." I should be glad to convey to its editor, at the
same time, my thanks for the article on "Growing Old," which has not a
little comforted me this morning--and my modest recommendation that, by
way of antidote to the No. III. paper on the Sun, he should reproduce
the 104th, 115th, and 116th paragraphs of my "Eagle's Nest," closing
them with this following sentence from the 12th Book of the Laws of
Plato, dictating the due time for the sittings of a Parliament seeking
righteous policy (and composed, they may note farther, for such search,
of Young Men and Old):
ἑκαστης μὲν ἡμερας συλλεγομενος ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἀπ' ὄρθρου μέχρι περ
ἂν ἥλιος ἀνίσχῃ.
Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE, _August_ 17th, 1879.
FOOTNOTES:
[133] The article on "Growing Old" (Y. M. A., August, 1879) was "a
study from the poets" on happiness in old age; that upon the sun,
contained in the same number of the magazine, dealt with the spots in
the sun, and the various scientific opinions about them; the paragraphs
reprinted from the "Eagle's Nest" are upon the sun as the Light, and
Health, and Guide of Life.
[From "The Y. M. A. Magazine," November, 1879, Vol. iv., No. 2, p. 36.]
_POLITICS IN YOUTH._
_To the Editor of "The Y. M. A. Magazine."_
MY DEAR SIR: I am heartily obliged by your publication of those pieces
of "Eagle's Nest," and generally interested in your Magazine, papers
on politics excepted. Young men have no business with politics at all;
and when the time is come for them to have opinions, they will find all
political parties resolve themselves at last into two--that which holds
with Solomon, that a rod is for the fool's back,[134] and that which
holds with the fool himself, that a crown is for his head, a vote for
his mouth, and all the universe for his belly.
Ever faithfully yours,
(Signed) J. RUSKIN.
The song on "Life's Mid-day" is very beautiful, except the third
stanza. The river of God will one day sweep down the great city, not
feed it.[135]
SHEFFIELD, _October 19th_, 1879.
FOOTNOTES:
[134] Proverbs xxvi. 3, and x. 13.
[135] The following are the lines specially alluded to:
Shall the strong full-flowing river, bearing on its mighty breast
Half the wealth of some proud nation, precious spoils of East and West,
Shall it mourn its mountain cradle and its infant heathery bed,
All its youthful songs and dances, as adown the hills it sped,
When by it in yon great city half a million mouths are fed?
[_Y. M. A. Magazine, October_, 1879.]
[From the "New Year's Address and Messages to Blackfriars Bible Class."
Aberdeen, 1873.]
"_ACT, ACT IN THE LIVING PRESENT._"[136]
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_Christmas Eve_, '72.
MY DEAR SIR: I am always much interested in any effort such as you are
making on the part of the laity.
If you care to give your class a word directly from me, say to
them that they will find it well, throughout life, never to trouble
themselves about what they ought _not_ to do, but about what they
_ought_ to do. The condemnation given from the judgment throne--most
solemnly described--is all for the _undones_ and not for the
_dones_.[137] People are perpetually afraid of doing wrong; but unless
they are doing its reverse energetically, they do it all day long, and
the degree does not matter. The Commandments are necessarily negative,
because a new set of positive ones would be needed for every person:
while the negatives are constant.
But Christ sums them all into two rigorous positions, and the first
position for young people is active and attentive kindness to animals,
supposing themselves set by God to feed His real sheep and ravens
before the time comes for doing either figuratively. There is scarcely
any conception left of the character which animals and birds might have
if kindly treated in a wild state.
Make your young hearers resolve to be honest in their work in this
life.--Heaven will take care of them for the other.
Truly yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[136] This and the two following letters were originally printed in
different annual numbers of the above-named publication, to whose
editor (Mr. John Leith, 75 Crown Street, Aberdeen) they were addressed.
Amongst the "messages" contained in them are some from Mr. Gladstone
and others.
[137] See the tenth of Mr. Ruskin's letters on the Lord's Prayer,
_Contemporary Review_, December, 1879, p. 550.
[From "New Year's Address and Messages to Blackfriars Bible Class."
Aberdeen, 1874.]
"_LABORARE EST ORARE._"
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_December_, 1873.
MY DEAR SIR: I should much like to send your class some message, but
have no time for anything I like.
My own constant _cry_ to all Bible readers is a very simple one--Don't
think that nature (human or other) is corrupt; don't think that you
yourself are elect out of it; and don't think to serve God by praying
instead of obeying.
Ever, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
[From "New Year's Address," etc. (as above), 1878.]
_A PAGAN MESSAGE._
HERNE HILL, LONDON, S.E.
_19 Dec._ 1877.
MY DEAR SIR: I am sure you know as well as I that the best message for
any of your young men who really are trying to read their Bibles is
whatever they first chance to read on whatever morning.
But here's a Pagan message for them, which will be a grandly harmonized
bass for whatever words they get on the New Year.
Inter spem curamque, timores et inter iras,
_Omnem_ crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum.[138]
("Amid hope and sorrow, amid fear and wrath, believe _every_ day that
has dawned on thee to be thy last.")
Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[138] Horace, Epistles, i. 4. 12.
[From "The Science of Life."]
_THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHIVALRY._[139]
VENICE, _February 8th_, 1877.
MY DEAR----: This is a nobly done piece of work of yours--a fireman's
duty in fire of hell; and I would fain help you in all I could, but
my way of going at the thing would be from the top down--putting the
fire out with the sun, not with vain sprinklings. People would say
I wasn't practical, as usual of course; but it seems to me the last
thing one should do in the business is to play Lord Angelo, and set
bar and door to deluge. Not but I should sift the windows of our
Oxford printsellers, if I had my full way in my Art Professorship;
but I can't say the tenth part of what I would. I'm in the very gist
and main effort of quite other work, and can't get my mind turned to
this rightly, for this, in the heart of it, involves--well, to say the
whole range of moral philosophy, is nothing; this, in the heart of it,
one can't touch unless one knew the moral philosophy of angels also,
and what that means, "but are as the angels in heaven." For indeed
there is no true conqueror of Lust but Love; and in this beautifully
scientific day of the British nation, in which you have no God to love
any more, but only an omnipotent coagulation of copulation: in which
you have no Law nor King to love any more, but only a competition
and a constitution, and the oil of anointing for king and priest
used to grease your iron wheels down hill: when you have no country
to love any more, but "patriotism is nationally what selfishness is
individually,"[140] such the eternally-damned modern view of the
matter--the moral syphilis of the entire national blood: and, finally,
when you have no true bride and groom to love each other any more, but
a girl looking out for a carriage and a man for a position, what have
you left on earth to take pleasure in, except theft and adultery?
The two great vices play into each other's hands. Ill-got money is
always finally spent on the harlot. Look at Hogarth's two 'prentices;
the sum of social wisdom is in that bit of rude art-work, if one reads
it solemnly.
FOOTNOTES:
[139] The following letters were addressed by Mr. Ruskin to the author
of a pamphlet on continence, entitled "The Science of Life." There were
two editions of the pamphlet, and of these only the second contained
the first and last of these letters, whilst only the first contained
the last letter but one. Some passages also in the other letters are
omitted in the first edition, and a few slight alterations are made in
the second in the letter of February 10.
[140] For further notice by Mr. Ruskin of this maxim, which occurs in
Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Study of Sociology," p. 205, see the article on
"Home and its Economies" in the _Contemporary Review_ of May, 1873, and
"Bibliotheca Pastorum," p. xxxiv.
VENICE, _February 10th_.
HENCE, if from any place in earth, I ought to be able to send you
some words of warning to English youths, for the ruin of this mighty
city was all in one word--fornication. Fools who think they can write
history will tell you it was "the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope,"
and the like! Alas it was indeed the covering of every hope she had, in
God and his Law.
For indeed, my dear friend, I doubt if you can fight this evil by
mere heroism and common-sense. Not many men are heroes; not many are
rich in common-sense. They will train for a boat-race; will they for
the race of life? For the applause of the pretty girls in blue on the
banks; yes. But to win the soul and body of a noble woman for their own
forever, will they? Not as things are going, I think, though how or
where they are to go or end is to me at present inconceivable.
* * * * *
You think, perhaps, I could help you therefore with a lecture on good
taste and Titian? No, not at all; I might with one on politics, but
that everybody would say was none of my business. Yet to understand the
real meaning of the word "Sire," with respect to the rider as well as
the horse, is indeed the basis of all knowledge, in policy, chivalry,
and social order.
All that you have advised and exposed is wisely said and bravely told;
but no advice, no exposure, will be of use, until the right relation
exists again between the father and the mother and their son. To
deserve his confidence, to keep it as the chief treasure committed in
trust to them by God: to be the father his strength, the mother his
sanctification, and both his chosen refuge, through all weakness, evil,
danger, and amazement of his young life. My friend, while you still
teach in Oxford the "philosophy," forsooth, of that poor cretinous
wretch, Stuart Mill, and are endeavoring to open other "careers" to
English women than that of the Wife and the Mother, you won't make
your men chaste by recommending them to leave off tea.[141]
FOOTNOTES:
[141] I have to state that this expression regarding Stuart Mill
was not intended for separate publication; and to explain that in a
subsequent but unpublished letter Mr. Ruskin explained it to refer to
Mill's utter deficiency in the powers of the imagination.--The last
words of this letter will be made clearer by noting that the pamphlet
dealt with physical, as well as mental, diet.
VENICE, _11th February_.
MY DEAR----: I would say much more, if I thought any one would
believe me, of the especial calamity of this time, with respect to
the discipline of youth--in having no food any more to offer to their
imagination. Military distinction is no more possible by prowess, and
the young soldier thinks of the hurdle-race as one of the lists and the
field--but the noble temper will not train for that trial with equal
joy. Clerical eminence--the bishopric or popular pastorship--may be
tempting to men of genial pride or sensitive conceit: but the fierce
blood that would have burned into a patriarch, or lashed itself into a
saint--what "career" has your modern philosophy to offer to _it_?
The entire cessation of all employment for the faculty, which, in the
best men of former ages, was continually exercised and satisfied in the
realization of the presence of Christ with the hosts of Heaven, leaves
the part of the brain which it employed absolutely vacant, and ready
to suck in, with the avidity of vacuum, whatever pleasantness may be
presented to the natural sight in the gas-lighted beauty of pantomimic
and casino Paradise.
All these disadvantages, you will say, are inevitable, and need not
be dwelt upon. In my own school of St. George I mean to avoid them by
simply making the study of Christianity a true piece of intellectual
work; my boys shall at least know what their fathers believed, before
they make up their own wise minds to disbelieve it. They shall be
infidels, if they choose, at thirty; but only students, and very modest
ones, at fifteen. But I shall at least ask of modern science so much
help as shall enable me to begin to teach them at that age the physical
laws relating to their own bodies, openly, thoroughly, and with awe;
and of modern civilization, I shall ask so much help as may enable me
to teach them what is indeed right, and what wrong, for the citizen
of a state of noble humanity to do, and permit to be done, by others,
unaccused.
And if you can found two such chairs in Oxford--one, of the Science of
Physical Health; the other, of the Law of Human Honor--you need not
trim your Horace, nor forbid us our chatty afternoon tea.
I could say ever so much more, of course, if there were only time, or
if it would be of any use--about the mis-appliance of the imagination.
But really, the essential thing is the founding of real schools of
instruction for both boys and girls--first, in domestic medicine
and all that it means; and secondly, in the plain moral law of all
humanity: "Thou shalt not commit adultery," with all that _it_ means.
Ever most truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
VENICE, _12th February_, '77.
MY DEAR----: Two words more, and an end. I have just re-read the paper
throughout. There are two omissions which seem to me to need serious
notice.
The first, that the entire code of counsel which you have drawn up,
as that which a father should give his son, must be founded on the
assumption that, at the proper time of life, the youth will be able,
no less than eager, to marry. You ought certainly to point out,
incidentally, what in my St. George's work I am teaching primarily,
that unless this first economical condition of human society be
secured, all props and plasters of its morality will be in vain.
And in the second place, you have spoken too exclusively of Lust, as
if _it_ were the normal condition of sexual feeling, and the only one
properly to be called sexual. But the great relation of the sexes is
Love, not Lust; that is the relation in which "male and female created
He them;" putting into them, indeed, to be distinctly restrained to the
office of fruitfulness, the brutal passion of Lust: but giving them the
spiritual power of Love, that each spirit might be greater and purer by
its bond to another associate spirit, in this world, and that which is
to come; help-mates, and sharers of each other's joy forever.
Ever most truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
MALHAM, _July 3d_, 1878.
Dear----: I wish I were able to add a few more words, with energy and
clearness, to my former letters, respecting a subject of which my best
strength--though in great part lately given to it, has not yet enforced
the moment--the function, namely, of the arts of music and dancing as
leaders and governors of the bodily, and instinctive mental, passions.
No nation will ever bring up its youth to be at once refined and pure,
till its masters have learned the _use_ of all the arts, and primarily
of these; till they again recognize the gulf that separates the Doric
and Lydian modes, and perceive the great ordinance of Nature, that the
pleasures which, rightly ordered, exalt, discipline, and guide the
hearts of men, if abandoned to a reckless and popular Dis-order, as
surely degrade, scatter, and deceive alike the passions and intellect.
I observe in the journals of yesterday, announcement that the masters
of many of our chief schools are at last desirous of making the
elements of Greek art one of the branches of their code of instruction:
but that they imagine such elements may be learned from plaster casts
of elegant limbs and delicate noses.
They will find that Greek art can only be learned from Greek law, and
from the religion which gives law of life to all the nations of the
earth. Let our youth once more learn the meaning of the words "music,"
"chorus," and "hymn" practically; and with the understanding that all
such practice, from lowest to highest, is, if rightly done, always in
the presence and to the praise of God; and we shall have gone far
to shield them in a noble peace and glorious safety from the darkest
questions and the foulest sins that have perplexed and consumed the
youth of past generations for the last four hundred years.
Have you ever heard the charity children sing in St. Paul's? Suppose
we sometimes allowed God the honor of seeing our _noble_ children
collected in like manner to sing to Him, what think you might be the
effect of such a festival--even if only held once a year--on the
national manners and hearts?
Ever faithfully and affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
V.
WOMEN: THEIR WORK AND THEIR DRESS.
WOMAN'S WORK. 1873.
FEMALE FRANCHISE. 1870.
PROVERBS ON RIGHT DRESS. 1862.
SAD-COLORED COSTUMES. 1870.
OAK SILKWORMS. 1862.
V.
WOMEN: THEIR WORK AND THEIR DRESS.
[From "L'Espérance, Journel Mensuel, organe de l'Association des
Femmes." Genève, le 8 Mai, 1873.]
_WOMAN'S WORK._
_Lettre à la Présidente._[142]
MA CHÈRE MADAME: Je vous remercie de votre lettre si intéressante, car
je sympathise de tout mon cœur avec la plupart des sentiments et des
souhaits que vous y exprimez. Mais arriver à rendre des femmes plus
nobles et plus sages est une chose; les élever de façon à ce qu'elles
entretiennient leurs maris est une autre!
Je ne puis trouver des termes assez forts pour exprimer la haine et
le mépris que je ressens pour l'idée moderne qu'une femme doit cesser
d'être mère, fille, ou femme pour qu'elle puisse devenir commis ou
ingénieur.
Vous êtes toutes entièrement sottes dans cette matière. Le devoir d'un
homme est d'entretenir sa femme et ses enfants, celui d'une femme est
de le rendre heureux chez lui, et d'élever ses enfants sagement. Aucune
femme n'est capable de faire plus que cela. Aucune femme ne doit faire
moins, et un homme qui ne peut pas nourrir sa femme, et désire qu'elle
travaille pour lui, mérite d'être pendu au-dessus de sa porte.
Je suis, Madame, fidèlement à vous,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[142] I have been unable to get access to the paper from which this
letter is taken, and must therefore have without explanation the
fortunately unimportant references in its first paragraph.
[Date and place of publication unknown.]
_FEMALE FRANCHISE._
VENICE, _29th May_, 1870.
SIR: I am obliged by your note. I have no time for private
correspondence at present, but you are quite right in your supposition
as to my views respecting female franchise. So far from wishing to give
votes to women, I would fain take them away from most men.[143]
Very sincerely yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[143] So also in writing an excuse for absence from a lecture upon
"Woman's Work and Woman's Sphere," given on behalf of the French
female refugees by Miss Emily Faithfull in February, 1871, Mr. Ruskin
said: "I most heartily sympathize with you in your purpose of defining
woman's work and sphere. It is as refreshing as the dew's, and as
defined as the moon's, but it is not the rain's nor the sun's." (_Daily
Telegraph_, Feb. 21, 1871.)
[From "The Monthly Packet," November, 1863, p. 556.]
_PROVERBS ON RIGHT DRESS._[144]
GENEVA, _October 20th_, 1862.
MY DEAR SIR: I am much obliged by your letter: pardon me if for
brevity's sake I answer with appearance of dogmatism. You will see
the subject treated as fully as I am able in the course of the papers
on political economy, of which the two first have already appeared in
Fraser's Magazine.[145]
The man and woman are meant by God to be perfectly noble and beautiful
in each other's eyes. The dress is right which makes them so. The best
dress is that which is beautiful in the eyes of noble and wise persons.
Right dress is therefore that which is fit for the station in
life, and the work to be done in it; and which is otherwise
graceful--becoming--lasting--healthful--and easy; on occasion,
splendid; _always_ as beautiful as possible.
Right dress is therefore strong--simple--radiantly clean--carefully put
on--carefully kept.
Cheap dress, bought for cheapness sake, and costly dress bought for
costliness sake, are _both_ abominations. Right dress is bought _for_
its worth, and _at_ its worth; and bought only when wanted.
Beautiful dress is chiefly beautiful in color--in harmony of parts--and
in mode of putting on and wearing. Rightness of mind is in nothing more
shown than in the mode of wearing simple dress.
Ornamentation involving design, such as embroidery, etc., produced
_solely_ by industry of _hand_, is highly desirable in the state
dresses of all classes, down to the lowest peasantry.
National costume, wisely adopted and consistently worn, is not only
desirable but necessary in right national organization. Obeying fashion
is a great folly, and a greater crime; but gradual changes in dress
properly accompany a healthful national development.
The Scriptural authority for dress is centralized by Proverbs xxxi.
21, 22; and by 1 Samuel i. 24; the latter especially indicating the
duty of the king or governor of the state; as the former the duty of
the housewife. It is necessary for the complete understanding of those
passages, that the reader should know that "scarlet" means intense
central radiance of pure color; it is the type of purest color--between
pale and dark--between sad and gay. It was therefore used with hyssop
as a type of purification. There are many stronger passages, such as
Psalm xlv. 13, 14; but as some people read them under the impression of
their being figurative, I need not refer to them. The passages in the
Prophecies and Epistles against dress apply only to its abuses. Dress
worn for the sake of vanity, or coveted in jealousy, is as evil as
anything else similarly so abused. A woman should earnestly desire to
be beautiful, as she should desire to be intelligent; her dress should
be as studied as her words; but if the one is worn or the other spoken
in vanity or insolence, both are equally criminal.
I have not time, and there is no need, to refer you to the scattered
notices of dress in my books: the most important is rather near the
beginning of my Political Economy of Art;[146] but I have not the
book by me: if you make any use of this letter (you may make any you
please), I should like you to add that passage to it, as it refers to
the more immediate need of economy in dress, when the modes of its
manufacture are irregular, and cause distress to the operative.
Believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[144] The preceding numbers of the _Monthly Packet_ had contained
various letters upon dress, and the present one was then sent to the
Editor by the person to whom it was originally addressed.
[145] In June and September, 1863. See the first two chapters of
"Munera Pulveris."
[146] See pp. 67-75 of the original, and 50-55 of the new edition ("A
Joy for Ever").
[From "Macmillan's Magazine," November, 1870, p. 80.]
_SAD-COLORED COSTUMES._
DENMARK HILL, S.E., _14th Oct._, 1870.
_To the Editor of "Macmillan's Magazine."_
SIR: At p. 423 of your current number, Mr. Stopford A. Brooke states
that it is a proposal of mine for regenerating the country, that the
poor should be "dressed all in one sad-colored costume."[147]
It is, indeed, too probable that one sad-colored costume may soon be
"your only wear," instead of the present motley--for both poor and
rich. But the attainment of this monotony was never a proposition of
mine; and as I am well aware Mr. Brooke would not have been guilty of
misrepresentation, if he had had time to read the books he was speaking
of, I am sure he will concur in my request that you would print in full
the passages to which he imagined himself to be referring.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
1. "You ladies like to lead the fashion: by all means lead it. Lead
it thoroughly. Lead it far enough. Dress yourselves nicely, and dress
everybody else nicely. Lead the fashions for the poor first; make
_them_ look well, and you yourselves will look--in ways of which you
have at present no conception--all the better."--_Crown of Wild Olive_
(1866), p. 18.[148]
2. "In the simplest and clearest definition of it, economy, whether
public or private, means the wise management of labor; and it means
this mainly in three senses: namely, first, applying your labor
rationally; secondly, preserving its produce carefully; lastly,
distributing its produce seasonably.
"I say first, applying your labor rationally; that is, so as to obtain
the most precious things you can, and the most lasting things by
it: not growing oats in land where you can grow wheat, nor putting
fine embroidery on a stuff that will not wear. Secondly, preserving
its produce carefully; that is to say, laying up your wheat wisely
in storehouses for the time of famine, and keeping your embroidery
watchfully from the moth; and lastly, distributing its produce
seasonably; that is to say, being able to carry your corn at once to
the place where the people are hungry, and your embroideries to the
place where they are gay; so fulfilling in all ways the wise man's
description, whether of the queenly housewife or queenly nation: 'She
riseth while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a
portion to her maidens. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry, her
clothing is silk and purple. Strength and honor are in her clothing,
and she shall rejoice in time to come.'
"Now you will observe that in this description of the perfect
economist, or mistress of a household, there is a studied expression
of the balanced division of her care between the two great objects
of utility and splendor: in her right hand, food and flax, for life
and clothing; in her left hand, the purple and the needlework, for
honor and for beauty.... And in private and household economy you may
always judge of its perfectness by its fair balance between the use
and the pleasure of its possessions: you will see the wise cottager's
garden trimly divided between its well-set vegetables and its fragrant
flowers: you will see the good housewife taking pride in her pretty
tablecloth and her glittering shelves, no less than in her well-dressed
dish and full store-room: the care will alternate with gayety; and
though you will reverence her in her seriousness, you will know her
best by her smile."--"Political Economy of Art" (1857), pp. 10-13.[149]
FOOTNOTES:
[147] Mr. Stopford Brooke's article was a review of Mr. Ruskin's
"Lectures on Art" delivered at Oxford, and then recently published.
In a note to the present letter the Editor of the Magazine stated Mr.
Brooke's regret "at having been led by a slip of memory into making an
inaccurate statement."
[148] See the 1873 edition of the "Crown of Wild Olive," p. 30, § 27.
[149] See "A Joy for Ever" (1880), pp. 7-9.
[From "The Times," October 24, 1862.]
_OAK SILKWORMS._
_To the Editor of "The Times."_
SIR: In your excellent article of October 17, on possible substitutes
for cotton, you say "it is very doubtful whether we could introduce
the silkworm with profit." The silkworm of the mulberry tree, indeed,
requires a warmer climate than ours, but has attention yet been
directed to the silkworm of the oak? A day or two ago a physician
of European reputation, Dr. L. A. Gosse, was speaking to me of the
experiments recently made in France in its acclimatization. He stated
to me that the only real difficulty was temporary--namely, in the
importation of the eggs, which are prematurely hatched as they are
brought through warm latitudes. A few only have reached Europe, and
their multiplication is slow, but once let them be obtained in quantity
and the stripping of an oak coppice is both robe and revenue. The silk
is stronger than that of the mulberry tree, and the stuff woven of it
more healthy than cotton stuffs for the wearer; it also wears twice as
long. This is Dr. Gosse's report--likely to be a trust-worthy one--at
all events, it seems to me worth sending you.
I remain your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
GENEVA, _Oct. 20th._
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
VI.
LITERARY CRITICISM.
THE PUBLICATION OF BOOKS. 1875.
A MISTAKEN REVIEW. 1875.
THE POSITION OF CRITICS. 1875.
COVENTRY PATMORE'S "FAITHFUL FOR EVER." 1860.
"THE QUEEN OF THE AIR." 1871.
THE ANIMALS OF SCRIPTURE: A REVIEW. 1856.
"LIMNER" AND "ILLUMINATION." 1854.
NOTES ON A WORD IN SHAKESPEARE. 1878. (Two Letters.)
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1880.
RECITATIONS. 1880.
VI.
LITERARY CRITICISM.
[From "The World," June 9, 1875.]
_THE PUBLICATION OF BOOKS._[150]
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_June_ 6, 1875.
_To the Editor of "The World."_
SIR: I am very grateful for the attention and candor with which you
have noticed my effort to introduce a new method of publishing.
Will you allow me to explain one or two points in which I am generally
misunderstood? I meant to have asked your leave to do so at some
length, but have been entirely busy, and can only say, respecting two
of your questions, what in my own mind are the answers.
I. "How many authors are strong enough to do without advertisements?"
None: while advertisement is the practice. But let it become the
fashion to announce books once for all in a monthly circular
(publisher's, for instance), and the public will simply refer to that
for all they want to know. Such advertisement I use now, and always
would.
II. "Why has he determined to be his own publisher?"
I wish entirely to resist the practice of writing for money early in
life. I think an author's business requires as much training as a
musician's, and that, as soon as he can write really well, there would
always, for a man of worth and sense, be found capital enough to enable
him to be able to print, say, a hundred pages of his careful work;
which, if the public were pleased with, they would soon enable him to
print more. I do not think young men should rush into print, nor old
ones modify their books to please publishers.
III. And it seems to me, considering that the existing excellent
books in the world would--if they were heaped together in great
towns--overtop their cathedrals, that at _any_ age a man should think
long before he invites his neighbors to listen to _his_ sayings on any
subject whatever.
What I do, therefore, is done only in the conviction, foolish,
egotistic, whatever you like to call it, but firm, that I am writing
what is needful and useful for my fellow-creatures; that if it is so,
they will in due time discover it, and that before due time I do not
want it discovered. And it seems to me that no sound scholar or true
well-wisher to the people about him would write in any other temper.
I mean to be paid for my work, if it is worth payment. Not otherwise.
And it seems to me my mode of publication is the proper method of
ascertaining that fact. I had much more to say, but have no more time,
and am, sir, very respectfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[150] This letter refers to an article on Mr. Ruskin's peculiar method
of publication which appeared in the _World_ of May 26, 1875. It was
entitled "Ruskin to the Rescue," and with the criticism to which
Mr. Ruskin alludes, strongly approved the idea of some reform being
attempted in the matter of the publication of books. Mr. Ruskin began
the still-continued method of publishing his works in 1871; and the
following advertisement, inserted in the earlier copies of the first
book thus published--"Sesame and Lilies"--will give the reader further
information on the matter.
"It has long been in my mind to make some small beginning of resistance
to the existing system of irregular discount in the bookselling
trade--not in hostility to booksellers, but, as I think they will find
eventually, with a just regard to their interest, as well as to that of
authors. Every volume of this series of my collected works will be sold
to the trade without any discount or allowance on quantity, at such a
fixed price as will allow both author and publisher a moderate profit
on each volume. It will be sold to the trade only; who can then fix
such further profit on it as they deem fitting, for retail.
"Every volume will be clearly printed, and thoroughly well bound:
on such conditions the price to the public, allowing full profit to
the retailer, may sometimes reach, but ought never to exceed, half a
guinea, nor do I wish it to be less. I will fully state my reasons for
this procedure in the June number of _Fors Clavigera_.
"The price of this first volume to the trade is seven shillings."
In subsequent similar notices, some parts of this plan, especially as
regarded purchasers and price, were altered; the trade not accepting
the offer of sale to them only, and the "trouble and difficulty of
revising text and preparing plates" proving much greater than Mr.
Ruskin had expected.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 11, 1875.]
_A MISTAKEN REVIEW._[151]
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: The excellent letters and notes which have recently appeared in
your columns on the subject of reviewing lead me to think that you will
give me space for the statement of one or two things which I believe it
is right the public should know respecting the review which appeared in
the _Examiner_ of the 2d of this month (but which I did not see till
yesterday), by Mr. W. B. Scott, of Mr. St. J. Tyrrwhitt's "Letters on
Landscape Art."
1. Mr. Scott is one of the rather numerous class of artists of whose
works I have never taken any public notice, and who attribute my
silence to my inherent stupidity of disposition.
2. Mr. Scott is also one of the more limited and peculiarly unfortunate
class of artists who suppose themselves to have great native genius,
dislike being told to learn perspective, and prefer the first volume of
"Modern Painters," which praises many third-rate painters, and teaches
none, to the following volumes, which praise none but good painters,
and sometimes admit the weakness of advising bad ones.
3. My first acquaintance with Mr. Scott was at the house of a gentleman
whose interior walls he was decorating with historic frescos, and
whose patronage I (rightly or wrongly) imagined at that time to be of
importance to him. I was then more good-natured and less conscientious
than I am now, and my host and hostess attached weight to my opinions.
I said all the good I truly could of the frescos, and no harm; painted
a corn-cockle on the walls myself, in reverent subordination to them;
got out of the house as soon afterwards as I could, and never since
sought Mr. Scott's acquaintance further (though, to my regret, he was
once photographed in the same plate with Mr. Rosetti and me). Mr. Scott
is an honest man, and naturally thinks me a hypocrite and turncoat as
well as a fool.
4. The honestest man in writing a review is apt sometimes to give
obscure statements of facts which ought to have been clearly stated to
make the review entirely fair. Permit me to state in very few words
those which I think the review in question does not clearly represent.
My "Elements of Drawing" were out of print, and sometimes asked for; I
wished to rewrite them, but had no time, and knew that my friend and
pupil, Mr. Tyrrwhitt, was better acquainted than I myself with some
processes of water-color sketching, and was perfectly acquainted with
and heartily acceptant of the principles which I have taught to be
essential in all art. I knew he could write, and I therefore asked him
to write, a book of his own to take the place of the "Elements," and
authorized him to make arrangements with my former publisher for my
wood-blocks, mostly drawn on the wood by myself.
The book is his own, not mine, else it would have been published as
mine, not his. I have not read it all, and do not answer for it all.
But when I wrote the "Elements" I believed conscientiously that book
of mine to be the best then attainable by the public on the subject of
elementary drawing. I think Mr. Tyrrwhitt's a better book, know it to
be a more interesting one, and believe it to be, in like manner, the
best now attainable by the British public on elementary practice of art.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, _Jan._ 10.
FOOTNOTES:
[151] Of this review nothing need be said beyond what is stated in this
letter. The full title of the book which it so harshly treated is "Our
Sketching Club. Letters and Studies on Landscape Art." By the Rev. R.
St. John Tyrrwhitt, M.A. With an authorized reproduction of the lessons
and woodcuts in Professor Ruskin's "Elements of Drawing." Macmillan,
1874. The "letters and notes" refer especially to one signed "K" in the
_Gazette_ of January 1, and another signed "A Young Author" in that
of January 4. The principal complaint of both these letters was that
reviewers seldom master, and sometimes do not even read the books they
criticise.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 19, 1875.]
_THE POSITION OF CRITICS._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I see you are writing of criticism;[152] some of your readers
may, perhaps, be interested in hearing the notions of a man who has
dabbled in it a good many years. I believe, in a word, that criticism
is as impertinent in the world as it is in a drawing-room. In a kindly
and well-bred company, if anybody tries to please them, they try to be
pleased; if anybody tries to astonish them, they have the courtesy to
be astonished; if people become tiresome, they ask somebody else to
play, or sing, or what not, but they don't criticise. For the rest,
a bad critic is probably the most mischievous person in the world
(Swift's Goddess of Criticism in the "Tale of a Tub" seems what need
be represented on that subject[153]), and a good one the most helpless
and unhappy: the more he knows, the less he is trusted, and it is
too likely he may become morose in his unacknowledged power. A good
executant, in any art, gives pleasure to multitudes, and breathes an
atmosphere of praise, but a strong critic is every man's adversary--men
feel that he knows their foibles, and cannot conceive that he knows
more. His praise, to be acceptable, must be always unqualified; his
equity is an offence instead of a virtue; and the art of correction,
which he has learned so laboriously, only fills his hearers with
disgust.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, _Jan._ 18.
FOOTNOTES:
[152] Since the correspondence already mentioned, the _Gazette_ of
January 14 and 18 had contained two long letters on the subject from "A
Reviewer."
[153] The Goddess of Criticism, with Ignorance and Pride for her
parents, Opinion for her sister, and for her children Noise and
Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners,
is described in the "Battle of the Books"--the paper which follows, and
is a companion to the "Tale of a Tub."
[From "The Critic," October 27, 1860.]
_COVENTRY PATMORE'S "FAITHFUL FOR EVER."_
_To the Editor of "The Critic."_
SIR: I do not doubt, from what I have observed of the general tone of
the criticisms in your columns, that, in candor and courtesy, you will
allow me to enter protest, bearing such worth as private opinion may,
against the estimate expressed in your last number of the merits of
Mr. C. Patmore's new poem.[154] It seems to me that you have read it
hastily; and that you have taken such view of it as on a first reading
almost every reader of good but impatient judgment would be but too
apt to concur with you in adopting--one, nevertheless, which, if you
examine the poem with care, you will, I think, both for your readers'
sake and Mr. Patmore's, regret having expressed so decidedly.
The poem is, to the best of my perception and belief, a singularly
perfect piece of art; containing, as all good art does, many very
curious shortcomings (to appearance), and places of rest, or of dead
color, or of intended harshness, which, if they are seen or quoted
without the parts of the piece to which they relate, are of course
absurd enough, precisely as the discords in a fine piece of music
would be if you played them without their resolutions. You have quoted
separately Mr. Patmore's discords; you might by the same system of
examination have made Mozart or Mendelssohn appear to be no musicians,
as you have probably convinced your quick readers that Mr. Patmore is
no poet.
I will not beg of you so much space as would be necessary to analyze
the poem, but I hope you will let me--once for all--protest against
the method of criticism which assumes that entire familiarity and
simplicity in certain portions of a great work destroy its dignity.
Simple things ought to be simply said, and truly poetical diction is
nothing more nor less than right diction; the incident being itself
poetical or not, according to its relations and the feelings which
it is intended to manifest--not according to its own nature merely.
To take a single instance out of Homer bearing on that same simple
household work which you are so shocked at Mr. Patmore's taking notice
of, Homer describes the business of a family washing, when it comes
into his poem, in the most accurate terms he can find. "They took the
clothes in their hands; and poured on the clean water; and trod them
in trenches thoroughly, trying who could do it best; and when they
had washed them and got off all the dirt, they spread them out on the
sea-beach, where the sea had blanched the shingle cleanest."[155]
These are the terms in which the _great_ poet explains the matter.
The less poet--or, rather, man of modern wit and breeding, _without_
superior poetical power--thus puts the affair into dignified language:
Then emulous the royal robes they lave,
And plunge the vestures in the cleansing wave,
(The vestures cleansed o'erspread the shelly sand,
Their snowy lustre whitens all the strand.)
Now, to my mind, Homer's language is by far the most poetical of the
two--is, in fact, the only poetical language possible in the matter.
Whether it was desirable to give any account of this, or anything else,
depends wholly on the relation of the passage to the rest of the poem,
and you could only show Mr. Patmore's glance into the servant's room to
be ridiculous by proving the mother's mind, which it illustrates, to be
ridiculous. Similarly, if you were to take one of Mr. George Richmond's
perfectest modern portraits, and give a little separate engraving of a
bit of the neck-tie or coat-lappet, you might easily demonstrate a very
prosaic character either in the riband-end or the button-hole. But the
only real question respecting them is their relation to the face, and
the degree in which they help to express the character of the wearer.
What the real relations of the parts are in the poem in question only
a thoughtful and sensitive reader will discover. The poem is not meant
for a song, or calculated for an hour's amusement; it is, as I said,
to the best of my belief, a finished and tender work of very noble
art. Whatever on this head may be the final judgment of the public, I
am bound, for my own part, to express my obligation to Mr. Patmore,
as one of my severest models and tutors in use of English, and my
respect for him as one of the truest and tenderest thinkers who have
ever illustrated the most important, because commonest, states of noble
human life.[156]
I remain, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL.
FOOTNOTES:
[154] The tone of the criticism is sufficiently explained in this
letter.
[155] See Homer, Odyssey, vi. 90.
Εἵματα χερσὶν ἕλοντο καὶ ἐσφόρεον μέλαν ὕδωρ,
Στεῖβον δ' ἐν βόθροισι θοῶς ἔριδα προφέρουσαι.
Αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πλῦνάν τε κάθηράν τε ῥύπα πάντα,
Ἑξείης πέτασαν παρὰ θῖν' ἁλὸς, ἧχι μάλιστα
Λάϊγγας ποτὶ χέρσον ἀποπλύνεσκε θάλασσα.
The verse translation of this passage given in the letter is from
Pope's Odyssey.
The lines in "Faithful for Ever," particularly alluded to as having
been condemned by the "Critic," were those here italicized in the
following passage:
"For your sake I am glad to hear,
You sail so soon. _I send you, Dear,_
_A trifling present, and will supply_
_Your Salisbury costs. You have to buy_
_Almost an outfit for this cruise!_
_But many are good enough to use_
Again, among the things you send
To give away. My maid shall mend
And let you have them back. Adieu!
Tell me of all you see and do.
I know, thank God, whate'er it be,
'Twill need no veil 'twixt you and me."
("Faithful for Ever," p. 17, II. "Mrs. Graham to Frederick," her sailor
son.)
[156] See "Sesame and Lilies" (Ruskin's Works, vol. i.), p. 89, note.
"Coventry Patmore. You cannot read him too often or too carefully; as
far as I know he is the only living poet who always strengthens and
purifies; the others sometimes darken, and nearly always depress and
discourage, the imagination they deeply seize."
[From "The Asiatic," May 23, 1871.]
"_THE QUEEN OF THE AIR._"
_To the Editor of "The Asiatic."_
SIR: I am obliged and flattered by the tone of your article on my
"Queen of the Air" in your last number, but not at all by the substance
of it; and it so much misinterprets my attempt in that book that I
will ask your leave to correct it in main points.[157] The "Queen of
the Air" was written to show, not what could be fancied, but what was
felt and meant, in the myth of Athena. Every British sailor knows,
that Neptune is the god of the sea. He does _not_ know that Athena is
the goddess of the air; I doubt if many of our school-boys know it--I
doubt even if many of our school-masters know it; and I believe the
evidence of it given in the "Queen of the Air" to be the first clear
and connected approximate proof of it which has yet been rendered by
scientific mythology, properly so called.
You say, "I have not attempted to explain all mythology."
I wonder what you would have said of me if I _had_? I only know a
little piece of it here and there, just as I know a crag of alp or
a bend of river; and even what I know could not be put into a small
octavo volume. Nevertheless, I should have had another such out by this
time on the Apolline Myths, and, perhaps, one on the Earth-Gods, but
for my Oxford work; and shall at all events have a little more to say
on the matter than I have yet said--and much need there is--when all
that has yet been done by "scientific" mythology ends in the assertion
made by your reviewer, that "mythology is useful mainly as a storehouse
for poets, and for literary men in want of some simile or metaphor to
produce a striking effect."
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
_May_ 18, 1871.
FOOTNOTES:
[157] The article was entitled "Aryan Mythology: Second Notice," the
first notice having been a review of Mr. Gladstone's "Juventus Mundi,"
and of some other mythological works. (See the _Asiatic_, April 25 and
May 16, 1871.) The nature of the praise and criticism of the article
may be gathered from this letter.
[From "The Morning Chronicle," January 20, 1855. (Reprinted in "The
Evening Journal," January 22.)]
_THE ANIMALS OF SCRIPTURE: A REVIEW._[158]
Among the various illustrated works which usually grace the beginning
of the year, has appeared one which, though of graver and less
attractive character than its companions, is likely to occupy a more
permanent place on the library shelves. We allude to "Illustrations of
Scripture, by an Animal Painter," a work which, whatever its faults
or weaknesses, shows at least a singular power of giving reality and
interest to scenes which are apt to be but feebly, if at all, brought
before the mental vision, in consequence of our familiarity with the
words which describe them. The idea of the work is itself sufficiently
original. The animals are throughout principal, and the pathos or
moral of the passage to be illustrated is developed from its apparently
subordinate part in it. Thus the luxury and idolatry of the reign of
Solomon are hinted behind a group of "apes and peacocks;" the Deluge is
subordinate to the dove; and the healing of the lunatic at Gennesareth
to the destruction of the herd of swine.
In general, to approach an object from a new point of view is to
place it in a clearer light, and perhaps the very strangeness of the
treatment in some cases renders the subject more impressive than it
could have been made by any more regular method of conception. But, at
all events, supposing the studies of the artist to have been chiefly
directed to animals, and her power to lie principally in seizing
their character, she is to be thanked for filling her sketches of the
inferior creatures with so much depth of meaning, and rendering the
delineation even of an ape, or a swallow, suggestive of the most solemn
trains of thought.
As so suggestive, without pretence or formalism, these drawings deserve
a place of peculiar honor in the libraries of the young, while there
are also some qualities in them which fit them for companionship with
more elaborate works of art. The subject of "Lazarus" is treated with
a courage and tenderness which say much for the painter's imagination,
and more for her heart; and the waste of waters above which the raven
hovers is expressed, though rudely, yet in a way which tells of many
an hour spent in watching the play of the evening light upon the
movement of the wearied sea. It is true that most of the compositions
are weakened by a very visible contempt, if not ignorance, of the
laws which regulate the harmonies of shade, as well as by a painful
deficiency in the drawing. Still there is a life and sincerity in them
which are among the rarest qualities in art; and one characteristic,
very remarkable in the works of a person described in the text (we
doubt not, much against her will) as an "accomplished lady"--we mean
the peculiar tendency to conceptions of fearfulness, or horror, rather
than of beauty. The camel, for instance, might, we should have thought,
as easily, and to many persons much more pleasingly, have illustrated
the meeting of Rebekah with the servant of Abraham, as the desolation
of Rabbah; and the dog might as gracefully have been brought forward
to remind us of the words of the Syro-Phœnician woman, as to increase
the horror of the death of Jezebel. There are curious evidences of a
similar disposition in some of the other plates; and while it appears
to us indicative of the strength of a mind of no common order, we would
caution the fair artist against permitting it to appear too frequently.
It renders the series of drawings in some degree repulsive to many
persons, and even by those who can sympathize with it might sometimes
be suspected of having its root in a sublime kind of affectation.
We have spoken of these studies as drawings. They are, in fact, as
good, being photographic facsimiles of the original sketches. The text
is copious, and useful as an elucidation of the natural history of
Scripture.
FOOTNOTES:
[158] The full title of the book here reviewed by Mr. Ruskin, and long
since out of print, was "Twenty Photographs; being illustrations of
Scripture. By an Animal Painter; with Notes by a Naturalist." Imperial
4to. Edinburgh: Constable, 1854. The work was, however, reprinted, with
engravings of the photographs, in _Good Words_ for 1861.
[From "The Builder," December 9, 1854.]
_"LIMNER" AND ILLUMINATION._[159]
(_To the Editor of "The Builder._")
I do not usually answer objections to my written statements, otherwise
I should waste my life in idle controversy; but as what I say to the
workmen at the Architectural Museum is necessarily brief, and in its
words, though not in its substance, unconsidered, I will answer, if you
will permit me, any questions or cavils which you may think worthy of
admission into your columns on the subject of these lectures.
I do not know if the Cambridge correspondent, whose letter you inserted
last week, is more zealous for the honor of Cary, or anxious to
detect me in a mistake. If the former, he will find, if he take the
trouble to look at the note in the 264th page of the second volume
of the "Stones of Venice," that Cary's reputation is not likely to
suffer at my hands.[160] But the translation in the instance quoted is
inadmissible. It does not matter in the least whence the word "limner"
is derived. I did not know when I found fault with it that it was a
corruption of "illuminator," but I knew perfectly that it did not in
the existing state of the English language _mean_ "illuminator." No one
talks of "limning a missal," or of a "limned missal." The word is now
universally understood as signifying a painter or draughtsman in the
ordinary sense, and cannot be accepted as a _translation_ of the phrase
of which it is a _corruption_.
Touching the last clause of the letter, I should have thought that a
master of arts of Cambridge might have had wit enough to comprehend
that characters may be illegible by being far off, as well as by being
ill-shaped; and that it is not less difficult to read what is too small
to be seen than what is too strange to be understood. The inscription
on the Houses of Parliament are illegible, not because they are in
black letters, but because, like all the rest of the work on that, I
suppose, the most effeminate and effectless heap of stones ever raised
by man, they are utterly unfit for their position.
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[159] In his lecture on "the distinction between illumination and
painting," being the first of a series on Decorative Color delivered
at the Architectural Museum, Cannon Street, Westminster, Mr. Ruskin is
reported (_Builder_, Nov. 25, 1854) to have said, "The line which is
given by Cary, 'which they of Paris call the limner's skill,' is not
properly translated. The word, which in the original is _'alluminare_,'
does not mean the limner's art, but the art of the illuminator--the
writer and illuminator of books." In criticism of this remark, "M. A.,"
writing to the _Builder_ from Cambridge, defended Cary's translation by
referring to Johnson's dictionary to show that "limner" was after all
corrupted from "enlumineur," _i.e._, "a decorator of books with initial
pictures." His letter concluded by remarking upon another of Mr.
Ruskin's statements in the same lecture, namely, that "Black letter is
not really illegible, it is only that we are not accustomed to it....
The fact is, _no_ kind of character is really illegible. If you wish to
see real illegibility, go to the Houses of Parliament and look at the
inscriptions there!"
The present letter was written in reply to "M. A.," from whom the
latter portion of it elicited a further letter, together with one from
"Vindex," in defence of Sir Charles Barry and the Houses of Parliament
(see the _Builder_, Dec. 16, 1854).
[160] "It is generally better to read ten lines of any poet in the
original language, however painfully, than ten cantos of a translation.
But an exception may be made in favor of Cary's 'Dante.' If no poet
ever was liable to lose more in translation, none was ever so carefully
translated; and I hardly know whether most to admire the rigid
fidelity, or the sweet and solemn harmony, of Cary's verse," etc. See
the note to the "Stones of Venice," at the above-named page.
[From the "Transactions of the New Shakspere Society" for 1878-9, pp.
409-12.]
_NOTES ON A WORD IN SHAKESPEARE._[161]
"And yon gray lines
That _fret_ the clouds are messengers of day."
JULIUS CÆSAR, II. i. 103-4.
I.
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE.
MY DEAR FURNIVALL: Of course, in any great writer's word, the question
is far less what the word came from, than where it has come to. _Fret_
means all manner of things in that place; primarily, the rippling
of clouds--as sea by wind; secondarily, the breaking it asunder for
light to come through. It implies a certain degree of vexation--some
dissolution--much _order_, and extreme beauty. I have myself used this
word substantively, to express the rippled edge of a wing-feather. In
architecture and jewellery it means simply roughening in a decorative
manner.[162]
Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[161] This and the next letter were written in answer to Mr. Furnivall,
who, upon being questioned what appearance in the clouds was intended
by the word "fret" in the above passage, referred the point to Mr.
Ruskin, whose answers were subsequently read at the forty-fifth meeting
of the Society, Oct. 11, 1878.
[162] In modern English "chasing" has got confused with it, but it
should be separated again.
_NOTES ON A WORD IN SHAKESPEARE._
II.
EDINBURGH, _29th Sept._, 1878.
DEAR FURNIVALL: Your kind letter comes to me here, and I must answer on
this paper, for, if that bit of note is really of any use to you, you
must please add this word or two more in printing, as it wouldn't do
to let it be such a mere fret on the vault of its subject. You say not
one man in 150 knows what the line means: my dear Furnivall, not one
man in 15,000, in the 19th century, knows, or ever can know, what _any_
line--or any _word_ means, used by a great writer. For most words stand
for things that are seen, or things that are thought of; and in the
19th century there is certainly not one man in 15,000 who ever looks
at anything, and not one in 15,000,000 capable of a thought. Take the
intelligence of this word in this line for example--the root of the
whole matter is, first, that the reader should have seen what he has
often heard of, but probably not seen twice in his life--"Daybreak."
Next, it is needful he should think what "break" means in that
word--what is broken, namely, and by what. That is to say, the cloud of
night is Broken up, as a city is broken up (Jerusalem, when Zedekiah
fled), as a school breaks up, as a constitution, or a ship, is broken
up; in every case with a not inconsiderable change of idea and addition
to the central word. This breaking up is done by the Day, which
breaks--_out_, as a man breaks, or bursts _out_, from his restraint in
a passion; breaks _down_ in tears; or breaks _in_, as from heaven to
earth--with a breach in the cloud-wall of it; or breaks _out_, with a
sense of _outward_--as the sun--out and out, farther and farther, after
rain. Well; next, the thing that the day breaks up is partly a garment,
_rent_, more than broken; a _mantle_, the day itself "in russet mantle
clad"--the blanket of the dark, _torn_ to be peeped through--whereon
instantly you get into a whole host of new ideas; _fretting_ as a moth
_frets_ a garment; unravelling at the edge, afterwards;--thence you
get into _fringe_, which is an entirely double word, meaning partly a
thing that guards, and partly a thing that is worn away on the ground;
the French _Frange_ has, I believe, a reminiscence of φρασσω in it--our
"fringe" runs partly toward _frico_ and friction--both are essentially
connected with _frango_, and the fringe of "breakers" at the shores of
all seas, and the breaking of the ripples and foam all over them--but
this is wholly different in a northern mind, which has only seen the sea
Break, break, break, on its _cold_ gray stones,--
and a southern, which has seen a hot sea on hot sand break
into lightning of phosphor flame--half a mile of fire in an
instant--following in time, like the flash of minute-guns. Then come
the great new ideas of order and time, and
I did but tell her she mistook her _frets_,
And bowed her hand, etc.,
and so the timely succession of either ball, flower, or dentil, in
architecture: but this, again, going off to a totally different and
still lovely idea, the main one in the word _aurifrigium_--which rooted
once in _aurifex_, went on in Etruscan work, followed in Florence into
a much closer connection with _frigidus_--their style being always in
_frosted_ gold (see the dew on a cabbage-leaf or, better, on a gray
lichen, in early sunshine)--going back, nobody knows how far, but to
the Temple of the Dew of Athens, and gold of Mycenæ, anyhow; and in
Etruria to the Deluge, I suppose. Well, then, the notion of the music
of morning comes in--with strings of lyre (or _frets_ of Katharine's
instrument, whatever it was) and stops of various _quills_; which gets
us into another group beginning with _plectrum_, going aside again into
_plico_ and _plight_, and Milton's
"Play in the plighted clouds"
(the quills on the fretful porcupine are all thought of, first, in
their piped complexity like rushes, _before_ the standing up in
ill-temper), and so on into the _plight_ of folded drapery, and round
again to our blanket. I think that's enough to sketch out the compass
of the word. Of course the real power of it in any place depends on the
writer's grasp of it, and use of the facet he wants to cut with.
[From "The Theatre," March, 1880, p. 169.]
"_THE MERCHANT OF VENICE._"[163]
_6th Feb._, 1880.
I have no doubt that whatever Mr. Irving has stated that I said,
I _did_ say. But in personal address to an artist, to whom one is
introduced for the first time, one does not usually say _all_ that
may be in one's mind. And if expressions, limited, if not even
somewhat exaggerated, by courtesy, be afterwards quoted as a total
and carefully-expressed criticism, the general reader will be--or may
be easily--much misled. I did and _do_ much admire Mr. Irving's own
acting of Shylock. But I entirely dissent (and indignantly as well as
entirely) from his general reading and treatment of the play. And I
think that a modern audience will _invariably_ be not only wrong, but
diametrically and with polar accuracy opposite to the real view of any
great author in the moulding of his work. So far as I could in kindness
venture, I expressed my feelings to that effect, in a letter which I
wrote to Mr. Irving on the day after I saw the play; and I should be
sincerely obliged to him, under the existing circumstances, if he would
publish THE WHOLE of that letter.
FOOTNOTES:
[163] The circumstances connected with the present letter, or rather
extract from one, are as follows: After witnessing the performance
of "The Merchant of Venice" at the Lyceum Theatre, Mr. Ruskin had
some conversation with Mr. Irving on the subject. In the _Theatre_ of
January 1880--p. 63--appeared a paragraph which stated that at the
interview named Mr. Ruskin had declared Mr. Irving's "Shylock" to be
"noble, tender, and true," and it is to that statement that the present
letter, which appeared in the March number of the _Theatre_, relates.
With reference to the letter privately addressed to Mr. Irving, the
_Theatre_ of April (p. 249) had a note to the effect that Mr. Irving
had, for excellent and commendable reasons, preferred it not being made
public. For a full statement of Mr. Ruskin's views of "The Merchant of
Venice," see "Munera Pulveris," p. 102.
_RECITATIONS._
SHEFFIELD, _16th February_, 1880.
MY DEAR SIR:[164] I am most happy to assure you, in reply to your
interesting letter of the 12th, that I heard your daughters'
recitations in London last autumn, with quite unmixed pleasure and
the sincerest admiration--nor merely that, but with grave change in
my opinions of the general value of recitations as a means of popular
instruction. Usually, I like better to hear beautiful poetry read
quietly than recited with action. But I felt, in hearing Shelley's
"Cloud" recited (I think it was by Miss Josephine) that I also was
"one of the people," and understood the poem better than ever before,
though I am by way of knowing something about clouds, too. I also know
the "Jackdaw of Rheims" pretty nearly by heart; but I would gladly come
to London straightway, had I the time, to hear Miss Peggy speak it
again. And--in fine--I have not seen any public entertainment--for many
a long year--at once so sweet, so innocent, and so helpful, as that
which your children can give to all the gentle and simple in mind and
heart.--Believe me, my dear Sir, faithfully, and with all felicitation,
yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[164] This letter was addressed to Mr. R. T. Webling, by whom it was
afterwards printed as a testimonial of the interest and success of his
daughters' recitations. It was reprinted in the _Daily News_ (Feb. 18,
1880).
APPENDIX.
LETTER TO W. C. BENNETT, LL.D. 1852.
LETTER TO THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 1853.
MR. WINDUS' SALE OF PICTURES. 1859.
AT THE PLAY. 1867.
AN OBJECT OF CHARITY. 1868.
EXCUSES FROM CORRESPONDENCE. 1868.
LETTER TO THE AUTHOR OF A REVIEW. 1872.
AN OXFORD PROTEST. 1875.
MR. RUSKIN AND MR. LOWE. 1877.
THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUSKIN. 1878.
(Two Letters: September 30, and October 23.)
THE SOCIETY OF THE ROSE. 1879.
APPENDIX.
[From the "Testimonials" of W. C. Bennett, LL.D. 1871; p. 22.]
_LETTER TO W. C. BENNETT, LL.D._[165]
HERNE HILL, DULWICH, _December 28th_, 1852.
DEAR MR. BENNETT: I hope this line will arrive in time to wish you
and yours a happy New Year, and to assure you of the great pleasure I
had in receiving your poems from you, and of the continual pleasure
I shall have in possessing them. I deferred writing to you in order
that I might tell you how I liked those which were new to me, but
Christmas, and certain little "pattering pairs of restless shoes"
which have somehow or another got into the house in his train, have
hitherto prevented me from settling myself for a quiet read. In fact,
I am terribly afraid of being quite turned upside down when I do,
so as to lose my own identity, for you have already _nearly_ made
me like babies, and I see an ode further on to another antipathy of
mine--the only one I have in the kingdom of flowers--the chrysanthemum.
However, I am sure you will be well pleased if you can cure me of all
_dislikes_. I should write to you now more cheerfully, but that I am
anxious for the person who, of all I know, has fewest dislikes and
warmest likings--for Miss Mitford.
I trust she is better, and that she may be spared for many years to
come. I don't know if England has such another warm heart.
I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing you here in case your
occasions should at any time bring you to London, and
I remain, with much respect, most truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[165] The present letter is from the "Testimonials of W. C. Bennett,
LL D., Candidate for the Clerkship of the London School Board." The
pamphlet consists of "letters from distinguished men of the time," and
includes some from Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Tennyson, Mr. Browning, Charles
Dickens, and others. Mr. Ruskin's letter was originally addressed to
Mr. Bennett in thanks for a copy of his "Poems" (Chapman and Hall.
1850). The poems specially alluded to are "Toddling May" (from which
Mr. Ruskin quotes), "Baby May," and another, "To the Chrysanthemum."
The book is dedicated to Miss Mitford.
[From the "Memoir of Thomas Guthrie, D.D." Vol. ii. pp. 321-2 (1875).]
_LETTER TO DR. GUTHRIE._[166]
_Saturday_, _26th_, 1853.
I found a little difficulty in writing the words on the first page,
wondering whether you would think the "affectionate" misused or
insincere. But I made up my mind at last to write what I felt;
believing that you must be accustomed to people's getting very
seriously and truly attached to you, almost at first sight, and
therefore would believe me.
You asked me, the other evening, some kind questions about my father.
He was an Edinburgh boy, and in answer to some account by me of the
pleasure I had had in hearing you, and the privilege of knowing you,
as also of your exertions in the cause of the Edinburgh poor, he
desires to send you the enclosed, to be applied by you in such manner
as you may think fittest for the good of his native city. I have
added slightly to my father's trust. I wish I could have done so more
largely, but my profession of fault-finding with the world in general
is not a lucrative one.
Always respectfully and affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[166] This letter accompanied the gift of a copy of "The Stones of
Venice," sent to Dr. Guthrie by Mr. Ruskin, who, while residing in
Edinburgh during the winter of 1853, "was to be found each Sunday
afternoon in St. John's Free Church."
[From "The Times," March 29, 1859.]
_THE SALE OF MR. WINDUS' PICTURES._
_To the Editor of "The Times."_
SIR: Will you oblige me by correcting an error in your account given
this morning of the sale of Mr. Windus' pictures on Saturday,[167] in
which the purchase of Mr. Millais's picture "Pot Pourri" is attributed
to me? I neither purchased Mr. Millais's picture, nor any other picture
at that sale.
I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _March_ 28.
FOOTNOTES:
[167] The collection of pictures belonging to Mr. B. G. Windus was sold
by Messrs. Christie and Manson on March 26, 1859.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," March 1, 1867.]
_AT THE PLAY._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I am writing a series of private letters on matters of political
economy to a working man in Newcastle, without objecting to his
printing them, but writing just as I should if they were for his eye
only. I necessarily take copies of them for reference, and the one I
sent him last Monday seems to me not unlikely to interest some of your
readers who care about modern drama. So I send you the copy of it to
use if you like.[168]
Truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Feb._ 28, 1867.
FOOTNOTES:
[168] The enclosed letter is "Letter V." of "Time and Tide."
[From "The Daily Telegraph," January 22, 1868.]
_AN OBJECT OF CHARITY._[169]
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: Except in "Gil Blas," I never read of anything Astræan on the
earth so perfect as the story in your fourth article to-day.
I send you a check for the Chancellor. If 40, in legal terms, means
400, you must explain the further requirements to your impulsive public.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, S., _Jan._ 21, 1868.
FOOTNOTES:
[169] The _Daily Telegraph_ of January 21, 1868, contained a leading
article upon the following facts. It appeared that a girl, named
Matilda Griggs, had been nearly murdered by her seducer, who, after
stabbing her in no less than thirteen different places, had then left
her for dead. She had, however, still strength enough to crawl into a
field close by, and there swooned. The assistance that she met with
in this plight was of a rare kind. Two calves came up to her, and
disposing themselves on either side of her bleeding body, thus kept her
warm and partly sheltered from cold and rain Temporarily preserved,
the girl eventually recovered, and entered into recognizances, under a
sum of forty pounds, to prosecute her murderous lover. But "she loved
much," and, failing to prosecute, forfeited her recognizances, and was
imprisoned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for her debt. "Pity this
poor debtor," wrote the _Daily Telegraph_, and in the next day's issue
appeared the above letter, probably not intended for the publication
accorded to it.
_EXCUSES FROM CORRESPONDENCE._
DENMARK HILL, S.,
_2d February_, 1868.
I am about to enter on some work which cannot be well done or even
approximately well, unless without interruption, and it would be
desirable for me, were it in my power, to leave home for some time,
and carry out my undertaking in seclusion. But as my materials are
partly in London, I cannot do this; so that my only alternative is to
ask you to think of me as if actually absent from England, and not to
be displeased though I must decline all correspondence. And I pray you
to trust my assurance that, whatever reasons I may have for so uncouth
behavior, none of them are inconsistent with the respect and regard in
which I remain,
Faithfully yours,[170]
FOOTNOTES:
[170] The above letter, printed as a circular, was at one time used
by Mr. Ruskin in reply to part of his large correspondence. Some few
copies had the date printed on them as above. The following is a
similar but more recent excuse, printed at the end of the last "list of
works" issued (March, 1880) by Mr. Ruskin's publisher:
Mr. Ruskin has always hitherto found his correspondents under the
impression that, when he is able for average literary work, he can also
answer any quantity of letters. He most respectfully and sorrowfully
must pray them to observe, that it is precisely when he is in most
active general occupation that he can answer fewest private letters;
and this year he proposes to answer--none, except those on St. George's
business. There will be enough news of him, for any who care to get
them, in the occasional numbers of "Fors."
[From "The Liverpool Weekly Albion," November 9, 1872.]
_LETTER TO THE AUTHOR OF A REVIEW._[171]
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_Wednesday_, _30th Oct._
[MY DEAR] SIR: I was on the point of writing to the Editor of _The
Albion_ to ask the name of the author of that article. Of course,
one likes praise [and I'm so glad of it that I can take a great many
kinds], but I never got any [that] I liked so much before, because, as
far as I [can] remember nobody ever noticed or allowed for the _range_
of work I've had to do, and which really has been dreadfully costly and
painful to me, compelling me to leave things just at the point when
one's work on them has become secure and delightsome, to attack them on
another rough side. It is a most painful manner of life, and I never
got any credit for it before. But the more I see, the more I feel the
necessity of seeing all round, however hastily.
I am entirely grateful for the review and the understanding of me; and
I needed some help just now--for I'm at once single-handed and dead--or
worse--hearted, and as nearly beaten as I've been in my life.
Always therefore I shall be, for the encouragement at a heavy time,
Very gratefully yours,
(Signed) J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[171] The review was the first of three articles entitled "The Disciple
of Art and the Votary of Science," published in the _Liverpool Weekly
Albion_ of November 9, 16, and 23, 1873. The first of them had also
appeared previously in the _Liverpool Daily Albion_, and was reprinted
with the present letter in the weekly issue of Nov. 9. The aim of the
articles was partly to show how the question "what is art?" involved a
second and deeper inquiry, "What is man?" The words bracketed here were
omitted in the _Albion_, but occur in the original letter, for access
to which I have to thank the writer of the articles.
[From "The Globe," October 29, 1874.]
_AN OXFORD PROTEST._[172]
The Slade Professor has tried for five years to please everybody in
Oxford by lecturing at any time that might be conveniently subordinate
to other dates of study in the University. He finds he has pleased
nobody, and must for the future at least make his hour known and
consistent. He cannot alter it this term because people sometimes come
from a distance and have settled their plans by the hours announced in
the _Gazette_, but for many he reasons he thinks it right to change the
place, and will hereafter lecture in the theatre of the museum.[173]
On Friday the 30th he will not begin till half-past twelve to allow
settling time. Afterwards, all his lectures will be at twelve in this
and future terms. He feels that if he cannot be granted so much as
twelve hours of serious audience in working time during the whole
Oxford year, he need not in future prepare public lectures at which his
pupils need not much regret their non-attendance.
FOOTNOTES:
[172] Mr. Ruskin had recently changed the hour of his lectures from two
till twelve, and the latter hour clashing with other lectures, some
complaints had been made. This "protest" was then issued on the morning
of October 29 and reprinted in the _Globe_ of the same day.
[173] Instead of in the drawing schools at the Taylor Gallery.
[From "The Standard," August 28, 1877. Reprinted in the "Notes and
Correspondence" to "Fors Clavigera," Letter 81, September, 1877, p.
268.]
_MR. RUSKIN AND MR. LOWE._
_To the Editor of "The Standard."_
SIR: My attention has been directed to an article in your columns of
the 22d inst., referring to a supposed correspondence between Mr. Lowe
and me.[174] Permit me to state that the letter in question is not Mr.
Lowe's. The general value of your article as a review of my work and
methods of writing will, I trust, rather be enhanced than diminished
by the correction, due to Mr. Lowe, of this original error; and the
more, that your critic in the course of his review expresses his not
unjustifiable conviction that no correspondence between Mr. Lowe and me
is possible on any intellectual subject whatever.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE,
_August_ 24.
FOOTNOTES:
[174] The article in question stated that a number of "Fors Clavigera"
had been sent to Mr. Lowe, and commented on by him in a letter to
Mr. Ruskin. The last words of the article, alluded to above, were as
follows: "The world will be made no wiser by any controversy between
Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Lowe, for it would be impossible to reduce their
figures or facts to a common denominator."
[From the List of "Mr. Shepherd's Publications" printed at the end of
his "The Bibliography of Dickens," 1880.]
_THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUSKIN._
I.
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
_Sept._ 30, 1878.
DEAR SIR: So far from being distasteful to me, your perfect reckoning
up of me not only flatters my vanity extremely, but will be in the
highest degree useful to myself. But you know so much more about me
than I now remember about anything, that I can't find a single thing to
correct or add--glancing through at least.
I will not say that you have wasted your time; but I may at least
regret the quantity of trouble the book must have given you, and am,
therefore, somewhat ashamedly, but very gratefully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
R. H. SHEPHERD, Esq.
II.
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
_Oct._ 23, 1878.
DEAR MR. SHEPHERD: I am very deeply grateful to you, as I am in all
duty bound, for this very curious record of myself. It will be of
extreme value to me in filling up what gaps I can in this patched
coverlid of my life before it is draped over my coffin--if it may be.
I am especially glad to have note of the letters to newspapers, but
_most_ chiefly to have the good news of so earnest and patient a friend.
Ever gratefully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
[From the "First Annual Report" of the "Ruskin Society" (of the Rose),
Manchester 1880.]
_THE SOCIETY OF THE ROSE._[175]
"No, indeed, I don't want to discourage the plan you have so kindly
and earnestly formed, but I could not easily or decorously promote
it myself, could I? But I fully proposed to write you a letter to be
read at the first meeting, guarding you especially against an 'ism,'
or a possibility of giving occasion for one; and I am exceedingly glad
to receive your present letter. Mine was not written because it gave
me trouble to think of it, and I can't take trouble now. But without
thinking, I can at once assure you that the taking of the name of
St. George _would_ give me endless trouble, and cause all manner of
mistakes, and perhaps even legal difficulties. We must not have that,
please.
"But I think you might with grace and truth take the name of the
Society of the Rose--meaning the English wild rose--and that the object
of the society would be to promote such English learning and life as
can abide where it grows. You see it is the heraldic sign on my books,
so that you might still keep pretty close to me.
"Supposing this were thought too far-fetched or sentimental by the
promoters of the society, I think the 'More' Society would be a good
name, following out the teaching of the Utopia as it is taken up in
'Fors.' I can't write more to-day, but I dare say something else may
come into my head, and I'll write again, or you can send me more names
for choice."
FOOTNOTES:
[175] This letter was written early in 1879 to the Secretary _pro tem_
of the Ruskin Society of Manchester, in reply to a request for Mr.
Ruskin's views upon the formation of such a Society.
[From "The Autographic Mirror," December 23 and 30, 1865.]
_LETTER TO MR. W. H. HARRISON._[176]
DEAR MR. HARRISON: The plate I send is unluckily merely outlined in its
principal griffin (it is just being finished), but it may render your
six nights' work a little more amusing. I don't want it back.
Never mind putting "see to quotations," as I always do. And, in the
second revise, don't look to all my alterations to tick them off,
but merely read straight through the new proof to see if any mistake
strikes you. This will be more useful to me than the other.
Most truly yours, with a thousand thanks,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[176] A facsimile of this letter, from a collection of autographs in
the possession of Mr. T. F. Dillon Croker, appeared in the above-named
issue of the _Autographic Mirror_. The subject of the letter will be
made clearer by the following passages from Mr. Ruskin's reminiscence
of Mr. William Henry Harrison, published in the _University Magazine_
of April, 1878, under the title of "My First Editor."--"_1st
February_, 1878. In seven days more I shall be fifty-nine; which
(practically) is all the same as sixty; but being asked by the wife
of my dear old friend, W. H. Harrison, to say a few words of our old
relations together, I find myself, in spite of all these years, a boy
again--partly in the mere thought of, and renewed sympathy with, the
cheerful heart of my old literary master, and partly in instinctive
terror lest, wherever he is in celestial circles, he should catch me
writing bad grammar, or putting wrong stops, and should set the table
turning, or the like.... Not a book of mine, for good thirty years, but
went, every word of it, under his careful eyes twice over--often also
the last revises left to his tender mercy altogether on condition he
wouldn't bother me any more."--The book to which the letter refers may
be the "Stones of Venice," and the plate sent the third ("Noble and
Ignoble Grotesque"), in the last volume of that work; and if this be
so, the letter was probably written from Herne Hill about 1852-3.
[From the "Journal of Dramatic Reform," November, 1880.]
DRAMATIC REFORM.[177]
I.
MY DEAR SIR: Yes, I began writing something--a year ago, is it?--on
your subject, but have lost it, and am now utterly too busy to touch
so difficult and so important a subject. I shall come on it, some day,
necessarily.
Meantime, the one thing I have to say mainly is that the idea of making
money by a theatre, and making it educational at the same time, is
_utterly_ to be got out of people's heads. You don't make money out of
a Ship of the Line, nor should you out of a Church, nor should you out
of a College, nor should you out of a Theatre.
Pay your Ship's officers, your Church officers, your College tutors,
and your Stage tutors, what will honorably maintain them. Let there
be no starring on the Stage boards, more than on the deck, but the
_Broadside_ well delivered.
And let the English Gentleman consider with himself what _he_ has got
to teach the people: perhaps then, he may tell the English Actor what
_he_ has to teach them.
Ever faithfully yours,
(Signed) J. RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, _July 30th_, 1880.
II.
MY DEAR SIR: I am heartily glad you think my letter may be of some use.
I wish it had contained the tenth part of what I wanted to say.
May I ask you at least to add this note to it, to tell how indignant
I was, a few days ago, to see the drop-_scene_(!) of the _Folies_ at
Paris composed of huge advertisements! The ghastly want of sense of
beauty, and endurance of loathsomeness gaining hourly on the people!
They were playing the _Fille du Tambour Major_ superbly, for the
most part; they gave the introductory convent scene without the
least caricature, the Abbess being played by a very beautiful and
gracefully-mannered actress, and the whole thing would have been
delightful had the mere decorations of the theatre been clean and
pretty. To think that all the strength of the world combining in Paris
to amuse itself can't have clean box-curtains! or a pretty landscape
sketch for a drop scene!--but sits in squalor and dismalness, with
bills stuck all over its _rideau_!
I saw _Le Chalet_ here last night, in many respects well played and
sung, and it is a quite charming little opera in its story, only it
requires an actress of extreme refinement for the main part, and
everybody last night sang too loud. There is no music of any high
quality in it, but the piece is one which, played with such delicacy as
almost any clever, _well-bred_ girl could put into the heroine's part
(if the audiences would look for acting more than voice), _ought_ to be
extremely delightful to simple persons.
On the other hand, I heard _William Tell_ entirely massacred at the
great opera-house at Paris. My belief is they scarcely sang a piece
of pure Rossini all night, but had fitted in modern skimble-skamble
tunes, and quite unspeakably clumsy and common _ballet_. I scarcely
came away in better humor from the mouthed tediousness of _Gerin_ at
the _Français_, but they took pains with it, and I suppose it pleased
a certain class of audience. The _William Tell_ could please nobody at
heart.
The libretto of _Jean de Nivelle_ is very beautiful, and ought to
have new music written for it. Anything so helplessly tuneless as its
present music I never heard, except mosquitoes and cicadas.
Ever faithfully yours,
(Signed) J. RUSKIN.
AMIENS, _October 12th_, 1880.
FOOTNOTES:
[177] This and the following letter were both addressed to Mr. John
Stuart Bogg, the Secretary of the Dramatic Reform Association of
Manchester. The first was a reply to a request that Mr. Ruskin would,
in accordance with an old promise, write something on the subject of
the Drama for the Society's journal; and the second was added by its
author on hearing that it was the wish of the Society to publish the
first.
[From the "Glasgow Herald," October 7, 1880.]
_THE LORD RECTORSHIP OF GLASGOW UNIVERSITY._[178]
I.
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE, _10th June_, 1880.
MY DEAR SIR: I am greatly flattered by your letter, but there are two
reasons why I can't stand--the first, that though I believe myself the
stanchest Conservative in the British Islands, I hold some opinions,
and must soon clearly utter them, concerning both lands and rents,
which I fear the Conservative Club would be very far from sanctioning,
and think Mr. Bright himself had been their safer choice. The second,
that I am not in the least disposed myself to stand in any contest
where it is possible that Mr. Bright might beat me.
Are there really no Scottish gentlemen of birth and learning from whom
you could choose a Rector worthier than Mr. Bright? and better able
than any Southron to rectify what might be oblique, or hold straight
what wasn't yet so, in a Scottish University?
Might I ask the favor of the transmission of a copy of this letter to
the Independent Club? It will save me the difficulty of repetition in
other terms.--And believe me, my dear sir, always the club's and your
faithful servant,
(Signed) J. RUSKIN.
MATT. P. FRASER, ESQ.
II.
_13th June_, 1880.
MY DEAR SIR: I am too tired at this moment (I mean this day or two
back) to be able to think. My health may break down any day, and I
cannot bear a sense of having to do anything. If you would take me
on condition of my residence for a little while with you, and giving
a little address to the students after I had seen something of them,
I think I could come, but I won't stand ceremonies nor make long
speeches, and you really should try to get somebody else.
Ever respectfully yours,
(Signed) J. RUSKIN.
MATT. P. FRASER. ESQ.
III.
_24th June_, 1880.
MY DEAR SIR: I am grieved at my own vacillation, and fear it is more
vanity than sense of duty in which I leave this matter of nomination
to your own pleasure. But I had rather err in vanity than in
heartlessness, and so will do my best for you if you want me.
Ever respectfully yours,
(Signed) J. RUSKIN.
IV.
ROUEN, _28th September_, 1880.
Sir: I am obliged by your letter, but can absolutely pay no regard to
anything said or done by Mr. Bright's Committee beyond requesting my
own committees to print for their inspection--or their use--in any way
they like, every word of every letter I have written to my supporters,
or non-supporters, or any other person in Glasgow, so far as such
letters may be recoverable.
Faithfully yours,
(Signed) J. RUSKIN.
MATT. P. FRASER, ESQ.
V.[179]
[From "The Glasgow Herald," October 12, 1880.]
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE.
MY DEAR SIR: What in the devil's name have _you_ to do with either Mr.
D'Israeli or Mr. Gladstone? You are students at the University, and
have no more business with politics than you have with rat-catching.
Had you ever read ten words of mine [with understanding] you would have
known that I care no more [either] for Mr. D'Israeli or Mr. Gladstone
than for two old bagpipes with the drones going by steam, but that I
hate all Liberalism as I do Beelzebub, and that, with Carlyle, I stand,
we two alone now in England, for God and the Queen.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
ALEX. MITCHELL, ESQ., Avoch, by Inverness.
P.S.--You had better, however, ask the Conservatives for a copy of my
_entire_ letters to them.
FOOTNOTES:
[178] Of these letters it should be noted that the first was written to
the President of the Conservative Club upon his requesting Mr. Ruskin
to stand for the Lord Rectorship; the second in answer to a hope that
Mr. Ruskin would reconsider the decision he had expressed in his reply;
and the third upon the receipt of a letter explaining what the duties
of the office were. The fourth letter refers to one which dealt with
some reflections made by the Liberal Club upon the former conduct of
their opponents.
[179] Upon the terms of this letter, which was written in answer to a
question whether Mr. Ruskin sympathized with Lord Beaconsfield or with
Mr. Gladstone, the reader is referred to the Epilogue. The bracketed
words were omitted in the _Glasgow Herald_.
EPILOGUE.
EPILOGUE.
I find my immitigable Editor insists on epilogue as well as prologue
from his submissive Author; which would have fretted me a little,
since the last letter of the series appears to me a very pretty and
comprehensive sum of the matters in the book, had not the day on which,
as Fors would have it, I am to write its last line, brought to my mind
something of importance which I forgot to say in the preface; nor will
it perhaps be right to leave wholly without explanation the short
closing letter to which I have just referred.
It should be observed that it was written to the President of the
_Liberal_ party of the Glasgow students, in answer to the question
which I felt to be wholly irrelevant to the business in hand, and which
could not have been answered in anything like official terms with
anything short of a forenoon's work. I gave the answer, therefore,
in my own terms, not in the least petulant, but chosen to convey as
much information as I could in the smallest compass; and carrying it
accurately faceted and polished on the angles.
For instance, I never, under any conditions of provocation or haste,
would have said that I hated Liberalism as I did _Mammon_, or Belial,
or Moloch. I chose the milder fiend of Ekron, as the true exponent
and patron of Liberty, the God of Flies; and if my Editor, in final
kindness, can refer the reader to the comparison of the House-fly and
House-dog, in (he, and not I, must say where)[180] the letter will have
received all the illustration which I am minded to give it. I was only
surprised that after its publication, of course never intended, though
never forbidden by me, it passed with so little challenge, and was, on
the whole, understood as it was meant.
The more important matter I have to note in closing, is the security
given to the conclusions arrived at in many subjects treated of in
these letters, in consequence of the breadth of the basis on which
the reasoning is founded. The multiplicity of subject, and opposite
directions of investigation, which have so often been alleged against
me, as if sources of weakness, are in reality, as the multiplied
buttresses of the apse of Amiens, as secure in allied result as they
are opposed in direction. Whatever (for instance) I have urged in
economy has ten times the force when it is remembered to have been
pleaded for by a man loving the splendor, and advising the luxury of
ages which overlaid their towers with gold, and their walls with ivory.
No man, oftener than I, has had cast in his teeth the favorite adage
of the insolent and the feeble--"ne sutor." But it has always been
forgotten by the speakers that, although the proverb might on some
occasions be wisely spoken by an artist to a cobbler, it could never be
wisely spoken by a cobbler to an artist.
J. RUSKIN.
AMIENS, _St. Crispin's Day_, 1880.
FOOTNOTES:
[180] See "The Queen of the Air," §§ 148-152 (1874 Ed.).
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS CONTAINED IN BOTH VOLUMES.
NOTE.--_In the second and third columns the bracketed words and
figures are more or less certainly conjectured; whilst those
unbracketed give the actual dating of the letter._
TITLE OF LETTER. |WHERE |WHEN |WHERE AND | VOL. AND|
|WRITTEN. |WRITTEN. |WHEN FIRST | PAGE.|
| | |PUBLISHED. | |
| | | | |
A LANDSLIP NEAR |Naples |February |Proceedings | i.202|
GIAGNANO | |7, 1841 |of the | |
| | |Ashmolean | |
| | |Society | |
| | | | |
MODERN PAINTERS: A |[Denmark |About |_The Weekly | i.3|
REPLY |Hill |Sept. 17, |Chronicle_, | |
| |1843] |Sept. 23, | |
| | |1843 | |
| | | | |
ART CRITICISM |[Denmark |December, |_The | i.10|
|Hill |1843] |Artist and | |
| | |Amateur's | |
| | |Magazine_, | |
| | |1844 | |
| | | | |
ON REFLECTIONS IN |[Denmark |January, |_The | i.191|
WATER |Hill |1844] |Artist and | |
| | |Amateur's | |
| | |Magazine_, | |
| | |1844 | |
| | | | |
DANGER TO THE |[Denmark |January 6 |_The Times_, | i.37|
NATIONAL GALLERY |Hill] |[1847] |January 7, | |
| | |1847 | |
| | | | |
THE PRE-RAPHAELITE |Denmark Hill|May 9 |_The Times_, | i.59|
BRETHREN, I. | |[1851] |May 13, 1851 | |
| | | | |
THE PRE-RAPHAELITE |Denmark Hill|May 26 |_The Times_, | i.63|
BRETHREN, II. | |[1851] |May 30, 1851 | |
| | | | |
LETTER TO W. C. |Herne Hill, |December |"Testimonials| ii.183|
BENNETT, LL.D. |Dulwich |28th, 1852 |of W. C. | |
| | |Bennett," | |
| | |1871 | |
| | | | |
THE NATIONAL GALLERY|Herne Hill, |December |_The Times_, | i.45|
|Dulwich |27 [1852] |December 29, | |
| | |1852 | |
| | | | |
LETTER TO DR. |[Edinburgh] |Saturday, |"Memoir | ii.184|
GUTHRIE | |26th |of Thomas | |
| |[Nov.?] |Guthrie, | |
| |1853 |D.D.," (1875)| |
| | | | |
LETTER TO W. H. |[Herne Hill |1853] |_The | ii.192|
HARRISON | | |Autographic | |
| | |Mirror_, | |
| | |Dec. 23, | |
| | |1865. | |
| | | | |
"THE LIGHT OF THE |Denmark Hill|May 4 |_The Times_, | i.67|
WORLD" | |[1854] |May 15, 1854 | |
| | | | |
"THE AWAKENING |[Denmark |May 24 |_The Times_, | i.71|
CONSCIENCE" |Hill |[1854] |May 25, 1854 | |
| | | | |
"LIMNER" AND |[Denmark |December |_The | ii.174|
ILLUMINATION |Hill |3, 1854] |Builder_, | |
| | |Dec. 9, 1854 | |
| | | | |
THE ANIMALS OF |[Denmark |January, |_The Morning | ii.172|
SCRIPTURE: A REVIEW |Hill |1855] |Chronicle_, | |
| | |Jan. 20, 1855| |
| | | | |
THE TURNER BEQUEST |Denmark Hill|October 27 |_The Times_, | i.81|
| |[1856 |October 28, | |
| | |1856 | |
| | | | |
ON THE GENTIAN |Denmark Hill|February |_The | i.204|
| |10 [1857] |Athenæum_, | |
| | |February 14, | |
| | |1857 | |
| | | | |
THE TURNER BEQUEST |[Denmark |July 8, |_The Times_, | i.86|
& NATIONAL GALLERY |Hill |1857] |July 9, 1857 | |
| | | | |
THE CASTLE ROCK |Dunbar |14th |_The | i.145|
(EDINBURGH) | |September, |Witness_ | |
| |1857 |(Edinburgh), | |
| | |Sept. 16, | |
| | |1857 | |
| | | | |
THE ARTS AS A |Penrith |September |"New Oxford | i.24|
BRANCH OF EDUCATION | |25, 1857 |Examinations,| |
| | |etc.," 1858 | |
| | | | |
EDINBURGH CASTLE |Penrith |27th |_The | i.147|
| |September |Witness_ | |
| |[1857] |(Edinburgh), | |
| | |Sept. 30, | |
| | |1857 | |
| | | | |
THE CHARACTER OF |[ |1857] |Thornbury's | i.107|
TURNER | | |Life of | |
| | |Turner. | |
| | |Preface, 1861| |
| | | | |
PRE-RAPHAELITISM IN |[ |January, |_The | i.73|
LIVERPOOL | |1858] |Liverpool | |
| | |Albion_, | |
| | |January 11, | |
| | |1858 | |
| | | | |
GENERALIZATION |[ |March, |_The | i.74|
& SCOTCH | |1858] |Witness_ | |
PRE-RAPHAELITES | | |(Edinburgh), | |
| | |March 27, | |
| | |1858 | |
| | | | |
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE |[ |June, 1858]|"The Oxford | i.125|
& OXFORD MUSEUM, I. | | |Museum," 1859| |
| | | | |
THE TURNER SKETCHES |[ |November, |_The | i.88|
AND DRAWINGS | |1858] |Literary | |
| | |Gazette_, | |
| | |Nov. 13, 1858| |
| | | | |
TURNER'S SKETCH |[ |] 1858 |List of | i.86 _n._|
BOOK (EXTRACT) | | |Turner's | |
| | |Drawings, | |
| | |Boston, 1874 | |
| | | | |
THE LIBER STUDIORUM |[ |] 1858 |List of | i.97 _n._|
(EXTRACT) | | |Turner's | |
| | |Drawings, | |
| | |Boston, 1874 | |
| | | | |
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE |[ |January |"The Oxford | i.181|
& OXFORD MUSEUM, II.| |20, 1859 |Museum," 1859| |
| | | | |
THE SALE OF MR. |Denmark Hill|March 28, |_The Times_, | ii.185|
WINDUS' PICTURES | |[1859 |March 29, | |
| | |1859 | |
| | | | |
THE ITALIAN QUESTION|Berlin |June 6, |_The | ii.3|
| |1859 |Scotsman_, | |
| | |July 20, 1859| |
| | | | |
" " |Berlin |June 15 |" July 23, | ii.8|
| |[1859] |1859 | |
| | | | |
" " |Schaffhausen|August 1, |" Aug. 6, | ii.13|
| |1859 |1859 | |
| | | | |
THE TURNER GALLERY |Denmark Hill|October 20 |_The Times_, | i.98|
AT KENSINGTON | |[1859] |October 21, | |
| | |1859 | |
| | | | |
COVENTRY PATMORE'S |Denmark Hill|[October |_The | ii.168|
"FAITHFUL FOR EVER" | |21, 1860] |Critic_, | |
| | |Oct. 27, 1860| |
| | | | |
MR. THORNBURY'S |Lucerne |December |Thornbury's | i.108|
"LIFE OF TURNER" | |2, 1861 |Life of | |
(EXTRACT) | | |Turner. Ed. | |
| | |2, Pref. | |
| | | | |
ART TEACHING BY |Denmark Hill|November, |_Nature | i.32|
CORRESPONDENCE | |1860 |and Art_, | |
| | |December 1, | |
| | |1866 | |
| | | | |
ON THE REFLECTION |[ ] |7th May, |_The London | i.201|
OF RAINBOWS | |1861 |Review_, May | |
| | |16, 1861 | |
| | | | |
PROVERBS ON RIGHT |Geneva |October |_The Monthly | ii.154|
DRESS | |20th, 1862 |Packet_, | |
| | |Nov. 1863 | |
| | | | |
OAK SILKWORMS |Geneva |October |_The Times_, | ii.158|
| |20th [1862]|Oct. 24, 1862| |
| | | | |
THE DEPRECIATION OF |Chamounix |October 2 |_The Times_, | ii.37|
GOLD | |[1863] |Oct. 8, 1863 | |
| | | | |
THE FOREIGN POLICY |Zurich |October |_The | ii.15|
OF ENGLAND | |25th, 1863 |Liverpool | |
| | |Albion_, | |
| | |Nov. 2, 1863 | |
| | | | |
THE POSITION OF |Denmark Hill|July 6 |_The Morning | ii.17|
DENMARK | |[1864] |Post_, July | |
| | |7, 1864 | |
| | | | |
THE LAW OF SUPPLY |Denmark Hill|October 26 |_The Daily | ii.39|
AND DEMAND | |[1864] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |Oct. 28, 1864| |
| | | | |
" " " |Denmark Hill|October 29 |" " Oct. 31, | ii.40|
| |[1864] |186 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Denmark Hill|November 2 |" " Nov. 3, | ii.43|
| |[1864 |1864 | |
| | | | |
THE CONFORMATION OF |Denmark Hill|10th |_The | i.173|
THE ALPS | |November, |Reader_, | |
| |1864 |November 12, | |
| | |1864 | |
| | | | |
CONCERNING GLACIERS |Denmark Hill|November |_The | i.175|
| |21 [1864] |Reader_, | |
| | |November 26, | |
| | |1864 | |
| | | | |
ENGLISH _versus_ |Denmark Hill|29th |_The | i.181|
ALPINE GEOLOGY | |November |Reader_, | |
| |[1864] |December 3, | |
| | |1864 | |
| | | | |
CONCERNING |Norwich |5th |_The | i.185|
HYDROSTATICS | |December |Reader_, | |
| |[1864] |December 10, | |
| | |1864 | |
| | | | |
STRIKES _v._ |[Denmark |Easter |_The Pall | ii.48|
ARBITRATION |Hill] |Monday, |Mall | |
| |1865 |Gazette_, | |
| | |April 18, | |
| | |1865 | |
| | | | |
WORK AND WAGES |Denmark Hill|Thursday, |" " April | ii.50|
| |April 20 |21, 1865 | |
| |[1865] | | |
| | | | |
WORK AND WAGES |Denmark Hill|Saturday, |_The Pall | ii.52|
| |April 22, |Mall | |
| |1865 |Gazette_, | |
| | |April 25, | |
| | |1865 | |
| | | | |
" " |[Denmark |Saturday, |" " May 2, | ii.54|
|Hill] |29th |1865 | |
| |April, 1865| | |
| | | | |
" " |Denmark Hill|May 4 |" " May 9, | ii.59|
| |[1865] |1865 | |
| | | | |
" " |[Denmark |May 20, |" " May 22, | ii.62|
|Hill] |1865 |1865 | |
| | | | |
DOMESTIC |Denmark Hill|September |_The Daily | ii.93|
SERVANTS--MASTERSHIP| |2 [1865] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |September 5, | |
| | |1865 | |
| | | | |
" " EXPERIENCE |Denmark Hill|September |" " | ii.95|
| |6 [1865] |September 7, | |
| | |1865 | |
| | | | |
" " SONSHIP AND |Denmark Hill|September |" " | ii.96|
SLAVERY | |16, 1865] |September | |
| | |18, 1865 | |
| | | | |
MODERN HOUSES |Denmark Hill|October 16 |" " October | ii.104|
| |[1865] |17, 1865 | |
| | | | |
OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM |Denmark Hill|December 7 |" " December | ii.88|
| |[1865] |8, 1865 | |
| | | | |
THE JAMAICA |Denmark Hill|December |" " December | ii.20|
INSURRECTION | |19 [1865] |20, 1865 | |
| | | | |
THE BRITISH MUSEUM |Denmark Hill|Jan. 26 |_The Times_, | i.52|
| |[1866] |January 27, | |
| | |1866 | |
| | | | |
COPIES OF TURNER'S |[ |] 1867 |List of | i.105_n._|
DRAWINGS (EXTRACT) | | |Turner's | |
| | |Drawings, | |
| | |Boston, 1874.| |
| | | | |
AT THE PLAY |Denmark Hill|February |_The Pall | ii.185|
| |28, 1867 |Mall | |
| | |Gazette_, | |
| | |March 1, 1867| |
| | | | |
THE STANDARD OF |Denmark Hill|April 30, |" " May 1, | ii.65|
WAGES | |1867 |1867 | |
| | | | |
AN OBJECT OF CHARITY|Denmark |January |_The Daily | ii.186|
|Hill, S. |21, 1868 |Telegraph_, | |
| | |January 22, | |
| | |1868 | |
| | | | |
TRUE EDUCATION |Denmark |January |_The Pall | ii.123|
|Hill, S. |31, 1868 |Mall | |
| | |Gazette_, | |
| | |January 31, | |
| | |1868. | |
| | | | |
EXCUSE FROM |Denmark |2d |Circular | ii.186|
CORRESPONDENCE |Hill, S. |February, |printed by | |
| |1868 |Mr. Ruskin, | |
| | |1868 | |
| | | | |
IS ENGLAND BIG |Denmark Hill|July 30 |_The Daily | ii.79|
ENOUGH? | |[1868] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |July 31, 1868| |
| | | | |
THE OWNERSHIP OF |Denmark Hill|August 5 |" " August | ii.81|
RAILWAYS | |[1868] |6, 1868 | |
| | | | |
RAILWAY ECONOMY |Denmark Hill|August 9 |" " August | ii.83|
| |[1868] |10, 1868 | |
| | | | |
EMPLOYMENT FOR THE |Denmark |December |" " December | ii.131|
DESTITUTE POOR, ETC.|Hill, S.E. |24 [1868] |26, 1868 | |
| | | | |
NOTES ON THE |[Denmark |Autumn, |Pamphlet | ii.132|
DESTITUTE CLASSES, |Hill |1868] |for private | |
ETC. | | |circulation, | |
| | |1868 | |
| | | | |
THE MORALITY OF |Denmark Hill|January 14 |_The Daily | ii.127|
FIELD SPORTS | |[1870] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |January 15, | |
| | |1870 | |
| | | | |
FEMALE FRANCHISE |Venice |29th May, |Date and | ii.154|
| |1870 |place of | |
| | |publication | |
| | |unknown | |
| | | | |
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN |Denmark |October 6 |_The Daily | ii.22|
WAR |Hill, S.E. |[1870] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |Oct. 7, 1870 | |
| | | | |
" " |[Denmark |October 7 |" " Oct. 8, | ii.25|
|Hill, S.E.] |[1870] |1870 | |
| | | | |
SAD-COLORED COSTUMES|Denmark |14th |_Macmillan's | ii.156|
|Hill, S.E. |October, |Magazine_, | |
| |1870 |Nov. 1870 | |
| | | | |
RAILWAY SAFETY |Denmark Hill|November |_The Daily | ii.89|
| |29, 1870 |Telegraph_, | |
| | |Nov. 30, 1870| |
| | | | |
A KING'S FIRST DUTY |[Denmark |January 10 |" " January | ii.111|
|Hill] |[1871] |12, 1871 | |
| | | | |
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS |[Denmark |January |" " January | i.153|
|Hill |18, 1871] |19, 1871 | |
| | | | |
A NATION'S DEFENCES |Denmark Hill|January |_The Pall | ii.113|
| |19, 1871 |Mall | |
| | |Gazette_, | |
| | |Jan. 19, 1871| |
| | | | |
"TURNERS" FALSE AND |Denmark Hill|January 23 |_The Times_, | i.106|
TRUE | |[1871] |January 24, | |
| | |1871 | |
| | | | |
THE WATERS OF |Oxford |February 3 |_The Daily | ii.115|
COMFORT | |[1871] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |Feb. 4, 1871 | |
| | | | |
THE STREAMS OF ITALY|Oxford |February 3 |" " Feb. 7, | ii.116|
| |[1871] |1871 | |
| | | | |
WOMAN'S SPHERE |[Oxford |February |" " Feb. 21, |ii.154_n._|
(EXTRACT) | |19, 1871] |1871 | |
| | | | |
THE "QUEEN OF THE |[Denmark |May 18, |_The | ii.171|
AIR" |Hill |1871 |Asiatic_, | |
| | |May 23, 1871 | |
| | | | |
DRUNKENNESS AND |Denmark Hill|December 9 |_The Daily | ii.129|
CRIME | |[1871] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |Dec. 11, 1871| |
| | | | |
CASTLES AND KENNELS |Denmark Hill|December |" " December | i.151|
| |20 [1871 |22, 1871 | |
| | | | |
VERONA _v._ WARWICK |Denmark |24th (for |" " December | i.152|
|Hill, S.E. |25th) Dec. |25, 1871 | |
| |[1871] | | |
| | | | |
MR. RUSKIN'S |Denmark Hill|March 15 |_The Pall | i.154|
INFLUENCE: A DEFENCE| |[1872] |Mall | |
| | |Gazette_, | |
| | |March 16, | |
| | |1872 | |
| | | | |
MR. RUSKIN'S |Denmark Hill|March 21 |" " March | i.156|
INFLUENCE: A | |[1872] |21, 1872 | |
REJOINDER | | | | |
| | | | |
JOHN LEECH'S |[ |1872] |The | i.111|
OUTLINES | | |Catalogue | |
| | |to the | |
| | |Exhibition, | |
| | |1872 | |
| | | | |
THE STREETS OF |[Denmark |December |_The Pall | ii.119|
LONDON |Hill] |27, 1871 |Mall | |
| | |Gazette_, | |
| | |Dec. 28, 1871| |
| | | | |
MADNESS AND CRIME |Oxford |November 2 |" " Nov. 4, | ii.130|
| |[1872] |1872 | |
| | | | |
LETTER TO THE |Oxford |Wednesday, |_Liverpool | ii.187|
AUTHOR OF A REVIEW | |Oct. 30 |Weekly | |
| |[1872] |Albion_, | |
| | |Nov. 9, 1872 | |
| | | | |
"ACT, ACT IN THE |Oxford |Christmas |New Year's | ii.141|
LIVING PRESENT" | |Eve, '72 |Address, | |
| | |etc., 1873 | |
| | | | |
HOW THE RICH SPEND |Brantwood, |January 23 |_The Pall | ii.66|
THEIR MONEY |Coniston |[1873] |Mall | |
| | |Gazette_, | |
| | |Jan. 24, 1873| |
| | | | |
" " " |[Brantwood, |January 28 |" " Jan. 29, | ii.67|
|Coniston] |[1873] |1873 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Brantwood, |King |" " Jan. 31, | ii.68|
|Coniston |Charles |1873 | |
| |the | | |
| |Martyr, | | |
| |1873 | | |
| | | | |
WOMAN'S WORK |[ ] |[May, 1873]|_L'Espérance | ii.153|
| | |Genève_, May | |
| | |8, 1873 | |
| | | | |
MR. RUSKIN AND |Oxford |November |_The | ii.44|
PROFESSOR HODGSON | |8, 1873 |Scotsman_, | |
| | |November 10, | |
| | |1873 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Oxford |November |" November | ii.46|
| |15, 1873 |18, 1873 | |
| | | | |
"LABORARE EST ORARE"|Oxford |December, |New Year's | ii.142|
| |1873 |Address, | |
| | |etc., 1874 | |
| | | | |
ERNEST GEORGE'S |[Denmark |December, |_The | i.113|
ETCHINGS |Hill |1873] |Architect_, | |
| | |December 27, | |
| | |1873 | |
| | | | |
JAMES DAVID FORBES: |[ |1874] |"Rendu's | i.187|
HIS REAL GREATNESS | | |Glaciers of | |
| | |Savoy," 1874 | |
| | | | |
THE VALUE OF |Rome |26th May, |_The Glasgow | ii.124|
LECTURES | |1874 |Herald_, | |
| | |June 5, 1874 | |
| | | | |
AN OXFORD PROTEST |[Oxford |October |_The Globe_, | ii.188|
| |29, 1874 |Oct. 29, 1874| |
| | | | |
A MISTAKEN REVIEW |Brantwood |January 10 |_The Pall | ii.165|
| |[1875] |Mall | |
| | |Gazette_, | |
| | |January 11, | |
| | |1875 | |
| | | | |
THE POSITION OF |Brantwood |January 18 |" " January | ii.167|
CRITICS | |[1875] |19, 1875 | |
| | | | |
COMMERCIAL MORALITY |[Herne Hill |February, |Date and | ii.70|
| |1875] |place of | |
| | |publication | |
| | |unknown | |
| | | | |
THE PUBLICATION OF |Oxford |June 6, |_The World_, | ii.163|
BOOKS | |1875 |June 9, 1875 | |
| | | | |
ST. GEORGE'S MUSEUM |Brantwood, |[September,|_Sheffield | ii.126|
|Coniston |1875] |Daily | |
| | |Telegraph_, | |
| | |Sept. 6, 1875| |
| | | | |
THE DEFINITION OF |Oxford |9th |_The | ii.71|
WEALTH | |November, |Monetary | |
| |1875 |Gazette_, | |
| | |Nov. 13, 1875| |
| | | | |
THE FREDERICK |[ |January, |_The Times_, | i.116|
WALKER EXHIBITION | |1876] |January 20, | |
| | |1876 | |
| | | | |
THE CRADLE OF ART! |[Oxford] |18th |Date and | ii.125|
| |February, |place of | |
| |1876 |publication | |
| | |unknown | |
| | | | |
MODERN WARFARE |[Brantwood] |June, 1876 |_Fraser's | ii.29|
| | |Magazine_, | |
| | |July, 1876 | |
| | | | |
COPIES OF TURNER'S |Peterborough|April 23 |_The Times_, | i.105|
DRAWINGS | |[1876] |April 25, | |
| | |1876 | |
| | | | |
TURNER'S DRAWINGS, |Brantwood |July 3 |_The Daily | i.100|
I. | |[1876] |Telegraph_, | |
| | |July 5, 1876 | |
| | | | |
TURNER'S DRAWINGS, |Brantwood, |July 16 |" " July 19, | i.104|
II. |Coniston, |[1876] |1876 | |
|Lancashire | | | |
| | | | |
THE FOUNDATIONS OF |Venice |February |"The Science | ii.143|
CHIVALRY | |8th, 1877 |of Life" | |
| | |(second | |
| | |edit.), 1878 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Venice |February |" " (first | ii.145|
| |10th [1877]|edition), | |
| | |1877 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Venice |11th |" " " " 1877 | ii.146|
| |February | | |
| |[1877] | | |
| | | | |
" " " |Venice |12th |" " " " 1877 | ii.147|
| |February, | | |
| |'77] | | |
| | | | |
MODERN RESTORATION |Venice |15th |_The | i.157|
| |April, 1877|Liverpool | |
| | |Daily Post_, | |
| | |June 9, 1877 | |
| | | | |
RIBBESFORD CHURCH |Brantwood, |July 24, |_The | i.158|
|Coniston, |1877 |Kidderminster| |
|Lancashire | |Times_, July | |
| | |28, 1877 | |
| | | | |
MR. RUSKIN AND MR. |Brantwood, |August 24 |_The | ii.189|
LOWE |Coniston, |[1877] |Standard_, | |
| | |August 28, | |
| | |1877 | |
| | | | |
THE PRINCIPLES OF |[Brantwood] |10th |_The | ii.71|
PROPERTY | |October, |Socialist_, | |
| |1877. |November, | |
| | |1887 | |
| | | | |
A PAGAN MESSAGE |Herne Hill, |19th |New Year's | ii.143|
|London, S.E.|December, |Address, | |
| |1877 |etc., 1878 | |
| | | | |
DESPAIR (EXTRACT) |[Oxford |February, |_The Times_, |ii.124_n._|
| |1878] |February 12, | |
| | |1878 | |
| | | | |
THE FOUNDATIONS OF |Malham |July 3d, |"The Science | ii.148|
CHIVALRY | |1878 |of Life" | |
| | |(second | |
| | |edit.), 1878 | |
| | | | |
NOTES ON A WORD IN |Brantwood |[September,|New | ii.176|
SHAKESPEARE | |1878 |Shakspere | |
| | |Soc. Trans. | |
| | |1878-9 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Edinburgh |29th |" " " " | ii.177|
| |September, | | |
| |1878 | | |
| | | | |
THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF |Brantwood, |September |"Bibliography| ii.190|
RUSKIN |Coniston |30, 1878 |of Dickens" | |
| | |(advt.), 1880| |
| | | | |
" " " |Brantwood, |October |" " " " | ii.190|
|Coniston |23, 1878 | | |
| | | | |
THE SOCIETY OF THE |[Brantwood |Early in |Report of | ii.191|
ROSE | |1879] |Ruskin Soc., | |
| | |Manchester, | |
| | |1880 | |
| | | | |
BLINDNESS AND SIGHT |Brantwood, |18th July, |_The Y. | ii.139|
|Coniston |1879 |M. A. | |
| | |Magazine_, | |
| | |Sept., 1879 | |
| | | | |
"THE EAGLE'S NEST" |Brantwood, |August |" " October, | ii.140|
|Coniston |17th, 1879 |1879 | |
| | | | |
ON COÖPERATION, I. |Brantwood, |[August, |_The | ii.73|
|Coniston |1879] |Christian | |
| | |Life_, | |
| | |December 20, | |
| | |1879 | |
| | | | |
POLITICS IN YOUTH |Sheffield |October |_The Y. | ii.141|
| |19th. 1879.|M. A. | |
| | |Magazine_, | |
| | |Nov., 1879 | |
| | | | |
ST. MARK'S, |[Brantwood |Winter |See the | i.159|
VENICE--CIRCULAR | |1879] |Circular | |
RELATING TO | | | | |
| | | | |
ST. MARK'S, |[Brantwood |Winter |_Birmingham | i.169|
VENICE--LETTERS | |1879] |Daily Mail_, | |
| | |Nov. 27, 1879| |
| | | | |
ON THE PURCHASE OF |[Brantwood |January, |_Leicester | i.55|
PICTURES | |1880 |Chronicle_, | |
| | |January 31, | |
| | |1880 | |
| | | | |
THE MERCHANT OF |[Herne |6th |_The | ii.179|
VENICE (EXTRACT) |Hill, S.E.] |February, |Theatre_, | |
| |1880 |March, 1880 | |
| | | | |
RECITATIONS |Sheffield |16th |Circular | ii.180|
| |February, |printed by | |
| |1880 |Mr. R. T. | |
| | |Webling | |
| | | | |
EXCUSE FROM |[Brantwood] |March, |List of Mr. |ii.186_n._|
CORRESPONDENCE | |1880] |Ruskin's | |
| | |Writings, | |
| | |Mar., 1880 | |
| | | | |
COPY OF TURNER'S |London |20th |Lithograph | i.105_n._|
"FLUELEN" | |March, 1880|copy issued | |
| | |by Mr. Ward, | |
| | |1880 | |
| | | | |
THE STUDY OF |[ ] |Undated |Letter to | i.204|
NATURAL HISTORY | | |Adam White | |
| | |[unknown] | |
| | | | |
ON COÖPERATION, II. |Brantwood, |April |_The Daily | ii.73|
|Coniston |12th, 1880 |News_, June | |
| | |19, 1880 | |
| | | | |
THE GLASGOW LORD |Brantwood, |10th June, |_The Glasgow | ii.195|
RECTORSHIP |Coniston |1880 |Herald_, | |
| | |Oct. 7, 1880 | |
| | | | |
" " " |[Brantwood] |13th June, |" " Oct. 7, | ii.195|
| |1880 |1880 | |
| | | | |
" " " |[Brantwood] |24th June, |" " Oct. 7, | ii.196|
| |1880 |1880 | |
| | | | |
" " " |Brantwood, |[July, |" " Oct. 12, | ii.196|
|Coniston |1880] |1880 | |
| | | | |
DRAMATIC REFORM, I. |Brantwood |July 30th, |_Journal of | ii.193|
| |1880 |Dramatic_, | |
| | |Reform Nov., | |
| | |1880 | |
| | | | |
THE GLASGOW LORD |Rouen |28th |_The Glasgow | ii.197|
RECTORSHIP | |September, |Herald_, | |
| |1880 |Oct. 7, 1880 | |
| | | | |
DRAMATIC REFORM, II.|Amiens |October |_Journal of | ii.193|
| |12th, 1880.|Dramatic | |
| | |Reform_, | |
| | |Nov., 1880 | |
INDEX.
Abana and Pharpar, ii. 10.
Academy-studies, i. 119;
usual tendencies of academies, i. 73;
the Liverpool, _ib._;
Royal Academy, pictures seen to disadvantage in the, i. 20;
Exhibitions of the, i. 59, 67, 176 (note), 119 (note);
the Scotch Academy, i. 74 (note); 176 (note).
Acland, Sir Thomas, i. 25.
---- (Dr.), Henry, i. 25; i. 125 (note); i. 130; i. 170. (See also
Oxford Museum.)
Advertisement of books, ii. 164.
Æschylus, his work, i. 22 (note).
Agassiz and Forbes, i. 176; i. 187.
Age, the present, one of "steam and iron, luxury and selfishness," i.
18;
one in which poetry is disregarded, i. 18;
fever of change in, ii. 101;
shallow learning, the curse of, ii. 124.
Agreements, compulsory, ii. 53.
Ailsa Rock, i. 146.
Alisma Plantago, i. 61.
Allen, Mr. George, i. 163; i. 169 (note).
Alms and Wages, ii. 56; ii. 60.
Almsgiving, ii. 101. (See Charity.)
Alps, conformation of the, i. 173, _seqq._;
origin of form of, i. 174;
charts of sections of chain wanted, i. 175;
extent of chain, i. 182;
Mr. Ruskin's lecture on the Savoy Alps, i. 174, and note.
Alsace and Lorraine, ii. 28.
Alsen, ii. 18, and note.
Amazon, Kiss', ii. 13 (note), 12.
Ambition, tone of modern, ii. 144, 146.
America, England no need to learn from, ii. 73;
has no castles, i. 151 (note);
reference to Mr. Ruskin by Mr. Holyoake in, ii. 73;
serf economy in, ii. 21.
American War, loss of property in, ii. 38. (See also Lincoln, Pres.)
Amiens, Cathedral of, i. 154, ii. 202;
the theatres at, ii. 193.
Andrew, St., ii. 8.
Angelico, i. 43, i. 118;
and Giotto, their theology of death, i. 118;
holiness of, ii. 23 (note);
his "highest inspiration" destroyed at Florence, i. 38, and note;
his "Last Judgment," i. 44, and note;
formerly no picture by in National Gallery, i. 43, and note.
Angrogna, the valley of, ii. 11.
Animals, kindness and cruelty to, ii. 128 _seqq._; 128 (note); ii.
142;
portraiture of in architecture, i. 141;
of Scripture, ii. 172.
Anjou, ii. 28.
Annual Register (1859) quoted, ii. 10 (note).
Antwerp, "Rubens" at, i. 39.
"A Pagan Message," ii. 143.
Apolline Myths, the, ii. 172.
Apollo Belvedere, the, i. 7.
Appendix, List of letters in the, ii. 181.
Arabian Nights, the, quoted, "the seals of Solomon," (Story of the
Fisherman, Chapter ii.), i. 136;
Story of the Ugly Bridegroom, ii. 101.
Arbia, the, ii. 15 (note).
Arbitration and Strikes (letter), ii. 48.
Archer knight, the, i. 158.
_Architect_, The, (Dec. 27, 1873,) Letter on E. George's Etchings, i.
113.
Architecture, List of Letters on, i. 123;
its beauty dependent on its use, i. 148;
Byzantine builders, i. 167;
cultivation of feeling for drawing in, i. 114;
English copying of old, i. 141;
expressional character of, i. 157;
Frankenstein monsters, i. 156;
Gothic and Classic, i. 99 (note);
Gothic, and the Oxford Museum (letters), i. 125 _seqq._, 131
_seqq._;
Greek work freehand, i. 168; jobbery in modern, i. 158;
pseudo-Venetian, i. 157;
sculpture, use of, in, i. 139 _seqq._;
St. Mark's, Venice, place of, in, i. 161;
Ruskin's influence on modern, i. 154-157;
unity in, i. 140.
(See also Gothic Architecture.)
Arcola, ii. 33.
Argument, the best kind of, i. 37.
Aristotle, his work, i. 22 (note).
Arno, the, ii. 116-118.
Art, the alphabet of (Dr. Acland on), i. 130;
color and design, i. 29;
connection of with other studies, i. 28, 31;
conventionalism in, i. 142;
dancing, ii. 148;
dicta in, dangerous, i. 24, 28;
drawing--practical value of, i. 28;
an essential part of education, i. 26;
its uses, _ib._;
a more universal faculty than music, _ib._;
--education in art, i. 30;
enjoyment of different kinds of art by different people, i. 14, i.
27;
generalization in art, i. 75;
Greek art, study of, ii. 148;
growth of art in England and Italy, i. 9;
happiness and knowledge of art, i. 25;
highest art the most truthful, i. 140;
history of, i. 27;
how far to be studied, i. 29;
"ideas" in, ii. 17;
inclusive of what, i. 30;
should be public, permanent, and expressive, i. 127, 54;
manufacture and, i. 29, ii. 138;
music, ii. 148;
ornamental art, i. 142;
special gift for, how to detect, i. 29;
studies, how to direct, i. 27;
teaching by correspondence, i. 32;
unity of purpose in, i. 140;
use of before printing, i. 125 (note).
Art Criticism, List of Letters on, i. 2;
letter, "Art Criticism," i. 10 _seqq._;
art criticism, impossible to very young men, and why, i. 27;
necessarily partial, and why, i. 27;
the common dicta of, their dangerous
use, i. 24, 26;
how to develop the power of, _ib._;
the foundation of, i. 27;
the kinds of, right and wrong, _ib._
Art-critics, i. 12;
two kinds of, i. 10;
qualifications of, i. 10 (note).
Art Education, List of Letters on, i. 2;
danger of two good models, i. 28.
(See Art.)
Art Examinations, range and object of, i. 25;
examples of questions to be set in, i. 25.
Artist (see Art), two courses open to the, i. 18;
extent of his work, i. 26;
ignorance of landscape in portrait painters, i. 15, and note;
letters on artists and pictures, i. 111 _seqq._
_Artist and Amateur's Magazine_, Letter on Art Criticism in (January
1844), i. 10 _seqq._;
allusion to article in, i. 18, and note;
Letter to Editor on "Reflections in Water" (February 1844), i. 191
_seqq._;
review of "Modern Painters," in, i. 200 (note).
_Art Journal_, "Cestus of Aglaia" referred to, ii. 99, and note;
Letters on "A Museum or Picture Gallery" mentioned, i. xvii. and
note.
Arts, Society of. (See Societies.)
_Art Union_, on "Modern Painters," i. 191;
writers for the, i. 15.
Arve, foul water of the, i. 195.
Arveron, the, i. 179.
Ashmolean Society, Proceedings of (1841), Letter on "A Landslip near
Giagnano" in, i. 202.
_Asiatic_, The, (May 23, 1871,) Letter, "The Queen of the Air," ii.
171.
Astræan anecdote, an, ii. 180.
Athena, i. 162, 165 (note); the Queen of the Air, ii. 171.
_Athenæum_, The, (February 14, 1857,) Letter on the Gentian, i. 204;
the Glasgow Athenæum, ii. 124 (note).
Athens, ii. 178.
Atmospheric pressure, i. 185 _seqq._
Atreus' treasury and St. Mark's, i. 162.
Audiences, modern, ii. 124; ii. 179.
Aurifrigium, ii. 178.
Authorship, early in life, deprecated, ii. 164; needs training, _ib._
Austerlitz, battle of, ii. 30.
Austin's definition of Justice, ii. 57 (note).
Australia, gold in, ii. 56 (note).
Austria, characteristics of the nation, ii. 5 _seqq._;
"barbarism," and magnanimity of, ii. 6;
and France, loss in war between, ii. 33;
work of, in Italy, ii. 6 _seqq._
_Autographic Mirror_, The (Dec. 23, 1865), letter to W. H. Harrison
in, ii. 192.
Auvergne, ii. 28.
Aytoun's "Ballads of Scotland " referred to, i. 76 (note).
Babies, ii. 183;
"Baby May," _ib._ (note).
Backhuysen, i. 12.
Bacon, his mission and work, i. 22 (note).
Ballads, Scotch, i. 76 (note);
"Burd Helen," _ib._
Bandinelli, i. 43.
Bank directors, ii. 131.
Bargaining and begging, ii. 56.
Barometer, use of the, i. 185.
Barry, Sir C., ii. 175 (note);
James, R. A., anecdote of, i. 15, 16, and note.
Bartholomew Fair, i. 55.
Bartolomeo, Fra, no picture by in the National Gallery, i. 44, and
note.
Bass, Mr. M. T., ii. 18 (note).
Bass-rock, The, i. 145.
Beaconsfield, Lord, and Mr. Gladstone, ii. 197.
Beaumont, Sir G., i. 7 (note).
Bee, the Queen, ii. 103.
Beelzebub, ii. 197.
Begging and Bargaining, ii. 56.
Bellini, i. 43, 47, 165 (note);
his "Doge Leonardo Loredano," 45, 46, and note;
character of as an artist, _ib._
Bellinzona, the people of, ii. 117;
Mr. Ruskin at, _ib._
Bennett, W. C., Letter to, ii. 183;
his Poems, _ib._, and note.
Bentham's definition of justice, ii. 56.
Ben Wyvis, i. 146.
Berlin, Mr. Ruskin's letters from, ii. 3, 8;
the sights of, ii. 12 and 12 (note);
Sundays at, ii. 11.
Bible, animals of the, ii. 172 _seqq._;
possible errors in the, ii. 98, and note;
what to read in the, ii. 142;
quoted or referred to,--
"What are these wounds in thy hands" (Zechariah xiii. 6), i. 60
(note).
"I meditate on all thy works" (Psalm cxliii. 5), i. 61 (note).
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock" (Revelation iii. 20), i.
68.
The wild grass "whereof the mower filleth not his hand" (Psalm
cxxix. 7), i. 68.
(See both Bible and Prayer-book versions.)
"The feet of those who publish peace" (Isaiah iii. 7), i. 133.
"We also are his offspring" (Acts xvii. 28), i. 162.
"Abana and Pharpar" (2 Kings v. 12), ii. 10.
"Woe unto thee, O land, when thy king is a child " (Ecclesiastes
x. 16), ii. 21.
"Raising the poor" (1 Sam. ii. 8; Psalm cxiii. 7), ii. 27.
"The commandment is holy, just, and good" (Romans vii. 12), ii.
55.
"Who sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not" (Psalm xv. 4),
ii. 57.
"Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth" (Exodus xxi. 24, and reff.),
ii. 63.
"He that delicately bringeth up his servant," etc. (Proverbs
xxix. 21), ii. 93.
"Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved"
(Philemon 16), ii. 98.
"The waters of comfort" (Psalm xxiii. 2, Prayer-book version),
ii. 115.
"Eyes have they, and see not" (Jeremiah v. 21), ii. 140.
"A rod for the fool's back" (Proverbs xxvi. 3), ii. 141.
"A rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding"
(Proverbs x. 13), _ib._
"Thou shalt not commit adultery" (Exodus xx. 14), ii. 147.
"Male and female created he them" (Genesis i. 27), ii. 148.
"I will make a helpmeet for him" (Genesis ii. 18), _ib._
"All her household are clothed with scarlet" (Proverbs xxxi. 21,
22), ii. 155.
"Who clothed you in scarlet" (2 Samuel i. 24), _ib._
"The king's daughter is all glorious within" (Psalm xiv. 13, 14),
ii. 155.
"She riseth while it is yet night.... Strength and honor are her
clothing" (Proverbs xxxi. 15, xxii. 5), ii. 157.
"And the city was broken up" (2 Kings xxv. 4), ii. 177.
Bigg, Mr. W. M., sale of pictures, i. 102 (note).
Bills, for fresh railways, ii. 88;
the reform bill (1867), ii. 133.
Birds, preservation of wild, ii. 128 (note);
treatment of, ii. 142.
_Birmingham Daily Mail_, Nov. 27, 1879 (Mr. Ruskin on St. Mark's,
Venice), i. 170.
Bishops, ii. 131.
Black, W., "The Daughter of Heth," i. 120 (note).
Black-letter, not illegible, ii. (note), 174, 175.
Blackfriars Bible Class. See "New Year's Address."
Blackstone's summary of law, ii. 63, and note.
_Blackwood's Magazine_, the art critic of, i. 13.
"Blind Fiddler," the, i. 7.
Bluecoat School, i. 55.
Boat-race, training for, ii. 145.
Boileau quoted, i. 14.
"Bold" work in drawing and music, i. 95.
Bonheur, Mdlle. Rosa, escape of, from Paris, ii. 23 (note).
Books, publication of, ii. 163;
number of in the world, ii. 164.
Booth, J. Wilkes (assassin of President Lincoln), ii. 54 (note).
Botany, an examination paper in, i. 32.
(See also Flowers.)
Bouguer, Pierre, i. 196 (note).
Bourges Cathedral, i. 154.
Bragge, Mr. W. and the Sheffield Museum, ii. 126 (note).
"Break," meaning of, ii. 177.
Brêche, the, ii. 28.
Brenta, the, ii. 10, 117.
Brewster, Sir D., i. 196.
Bridgewater House, "Turner" at, i. 11, and note.
Bright, Mr. John, M.P., ii. 195 _seqq._
Brighton, railway competition at, ii. 83 (note).
British Museum, Letter on, i. 52 _seqq._;
i. 102, 103;
catalogues of the, i. 53;
Henry VI.'s psalter at, i. 54, and note;
preservation of drawings at, i. 84;
what it is and is not, i. 53, 54.
Brodie, Prof., at Oxford, i. 134, and note.
Bromley, villas at, i. 156.
Brooke, Stopford A., ii. 156, and note.
Browne, Edward, Dr., ii. 120, and note;
Thomas, Sir, _ib._
Browning, Robert, ii. 183 (note).
Bubastis, cats sacred to (Herodotus, ii. 67), ii. 19.
Buchan's Scotch Ballads referred to, i. 76 (note).
Buckland, Dr. William, i. 182 (note).
Builder, The (Dec. 9, 1854), Letter, "Limner" and Illumination, ii.
174.
Buildings, modern, ii. 147, i. 156;
repair of, ii. 203.
Bunch, Sydney Smith's, ii. 96, and note.
Bunney, Mr., painting of St. Mark's, i. 169 (note).
Buonaroti, i. 43.
"Burd Helen," i. 76, and note;
meaning of "Burd," _ib._
Burgundy, ii. 28.
Burial and immortality, i. 141.
Burlington House, i. 118.
Burne Jones, Mr., and St. Mark's, Venice, i. 170.
Burns, quoted, i. 19, and note.
Butler, Bishop, ii. 56.
Byron, quoted, i. 19, and note, i. 20;
Turner's illustrations of, i. 102 (note).
Cabmen's fares, ii. 52.
Calcutta, ii. 32.
California, gold in, ii. 37 (note).
Callcott, Sir A., i. 14, 21, 23.
Campanile, St. Mark's, Venice, i. 167;
at Verona, i. 169.
Campbell, quoted, i. 20 (note), 21.
Canterbury Cathedral, i. 161.
Cape of Good Hope and Venetian History, ii. 145.
Capital, employment of, ii. 85 _seqq._;
sunk in works of art, ii. 86.
Capital Punishment, ii. 134.
Cappel, ii. 4 (note), 5.
Capri, grotto of, i. 200 (note).
"Captain," loss of the, ii. 27, and note.
Caracci and Titian, i. 51.
Careers, modern, ii. 144, 145, 146.
Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, his "Frederick the Great," ii. 27;
on the Jamaica Insurrection and the Eyre Defence Fund, ii. 20
(note), 22 (note);
on servants, ii. 101;
letter to W. C. Bennett, ii. 183 (note).
Carpenter, W. H., i. 84, and note, 92.
Carriage of heavy goods, ii. 136, 138.
Cary's Dante quoted, ii. 15 (note);
criticised, 174, and note.
Casentino, ii. 118.
Castel-a-mare, landslip near, i. 203.
Castles--building of, i. 148, 149;
definition of, i. 148;
not to be imitated, i. 149;
proper, no longer needed or possible, i. 148;
none in America, i. 151 (note);
Warwick Castle, i. 151 _seqq._
Casts of St. Mark's, i. 163, 169.
Catechism, won't make good servants, ii. 94;
or educate children, ii. 123.
Cathartics, use of by ancients, ii. 67.
Catholics, Roman, and Protestants, ii. 4 _seqq._
Cellini, i, 43.
"Cestus of Aglaia." (See Ruskin.)
Chamouni, i. 174;
the rocks of, i. 179;
land destroyed at, ii. 116.
Champagne, demand for, ii. 45.
Chantrey, Sir F., i. 21, 23.
Chapman, Mr. (of Glasgow Athenæum), ii. 124.
Character formed by employment, ii. 132.
Charity, ii. 131;
invalid charities, ii. 139;
"an object of" (letter), ii. 186
Charity-children singing at St. Paul's, ii. 149.
Charles the Bold, ii. 28.
Charlottenburg, tomb of Queen Louise at, i. 12, and note.
Chartres Cathedral, i. 154.
"Chasing," meaning of the word, ii. 176 (note).
Chiaroscuro, i. 4;
of Leech, i. 111.
"Child Waters," ballad of, i. 77 (note).
China, war in, ii. 17.
Chivalry, the foundation of, ii. 143 _seqq._
"Chorus," ii. 148.
Christ, offices of, to the soul, i. 68, 69.
Christ Church, Dean of, and St. Mark's, Venice, i. 170.
_Christian Life_, The (Dec. 20, 1879), Letter on Co-operation in, ii.
73.
Christie and Manson, sales by, i. 77 (note), ii. 69, ii. 183 (note).
Chrysanthema, ii. 183.
Cimabue, anecdote relating to, i. 9, and note;
his picture of the Virgin, _ib._;
teaches Giotto, i. 25 (note).
Cinderella, ii. 100.
Cirencester, Agricultural College at, ii. 115.
Citadel, definition of a, i. 148.
Civet, ii. 97.
Claude, i. 24;
challenged by Turner, i. 46, and note;
his "Seaport" and "Mill," _ib._;
pictures of, restored, i. 46 (note).
(See National Gallery.)
Cleopatra dissolving the pearl, i. 50.
Coal, how to economize English, ii. 135.
Cocker, Edward, arithmetician (b. 1631, d. 1677), ii. 42.
Coincidence, a strange, ii. 104 (note), 104.
Colen, ii. 120.
Colenso, Bishop, ii. 98 (note);
his book on the Pentateuch, _ib._
Collins, C. A., i. 60 _seqq._; _ib._ (note);
his "Convent Thoughts," _ib._;
portrait of Wm. Bennett, _ib._;
his writings, _ib._
Cologne, the "Rubens" at, i. 39.
Colonization, ii. 87, ii. 128.
Color, and design, i. 29;
eye for, rare, i. 15;
the laws of, how far defined, i. 137;
"scarlet" the purest, ii. 196;
of water, i. 197.
Combe, Mr., purchase of the "Light of the World" by, i. 67 (note).
Commandments, the Ten, ii. 142.
Commercial morality (letter), ii. 70;
putrefaction, ii. 74.
Commons, House of, tone of debate on Denmark, ii. 18.
Conscience, the light of, i. 68.
Conscription, forms of true, ii. 137.
Consistency, the nature of true, i. 25 (note).
_Contemporary Review_, Mr. Goldwin Smith's article in (Dec., 1872),
ii. 66 (note);
Mr. Ruskin's "Home and its Economies" in (May, 1873), ii. 144
(note);
"Letters on the Lord's Prayer" in (Dec., 1879), ii. 142.
Conventionalism in Art, i. 142.
Conway Castle, i. 151.
Co-operation, letters to Mr. G. J. Holyoake on, ii. 73, 74.
Copenhagen, ii. 32.
Copies, of pictures in England and Italy, i. 106;
of Turner, i. 105.
_Cornhill Magazine_, Mr. Ruskin's article on Sir Joshua and Holbein
(March, 1860), ii. 12 (note).
Cornwall, clear water on coast of, i. 196.
Correggio, i. 47, 75, 96;
copies of, i. 106;
in the Louvre, i. 50.
Correspondence, Mr. Ruskin's excuses from, ii. 186.
Cotopaxi, i. 183.
Cotton, substitutes for, ii. 158.
Coventry, riband-makers of, ii. 80, 136;
_Co-operative Record_, letter in, on co-operation, ii. 73 (note).
Cramlington, strike at, ii. 106, and note.
Crawford Place, ii. 105, and note.
Creation, man its greatest marvel, i. 96.
Cricklade, i. 53 (note).
Criticism (See Art-criticism), List of Letters on literary, ii. 161;
literary, ii. 165, 167;
position of critics, ii. 167;
the Goddess of Criticism, _ib._ (note);
rarity of good, i. 3.
Crime, how to prevent, ii. 134;
and drunkenness, ii. 130;
and madness, ii. 130 (note).
Criminal classes, letter and pamphlet on the, ii. 131, 132 _seqq._;
how to treat criminals, ii. 130.
Cronstadt, ii. 32.
Crossing-sweepers in Utopia and London, ii. 119.
Crown, the, jewels, i. 53.
Cruelty to animals, ii. 127 (note).
"Cruise upon Wheels," A, i. 61 (note).
Curtius, ii. 4 (note).
Custozza, ii. 4 (note).
Cuyp, pictures of in National Gallery, i. 39, and note.
_Daily News_, The, Letter of Mr. Ruskin "on Co-operation" in
(June 19, 1880), ii. 73;
Speech of Mr. Ruskin at the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals (July 11, 1877), ii. 128 (note).
_Daily Telegraph_, The, Letters and Articles in (in order of date):--
(Oct. 28. 1864) "The Law of Supply and Demand," ii. 39.
(Oct. 31, 1864) " " " ii. 40.
(Nov. 3, 1864) " " " ii. 43.
(Dec. 20, 1865) "The Jamaica Insurrection," ii. 20.
Carlyle's Letter to the Eyre Defence Fund, ii. 22 (note)
(Sept. 5, 1865) "Domestic Servants"--Mastership, ii. 93.
(Sept. 7, 1865) " " Experience, ii. 95.
(Sept. 18, 1865) " " Sonship and Slavery, ii. 96.
Articles, etc., on servants, ii. 94 (note), 99 (note), 102 (note).
(Oct. 17, 1865) "Modern Houses," ii. 104.
Other correspondence on houses, _ib._ (note).
(Dec. 8, 1865) "Our Railway System," ii. 88.
Article on railways, _ib._ (note).
(Jan. 22, 1868) "An object of charity," ii. 186.
Article on Matilda Griggs, _ib._ (note).
(July 16, 1868) Strikes, Mr. Ruskin's Proposition as to, ii. 65
(note).
(July 31, 1868) "Is England big enough?" ii. 79.
Article, "Marriage or Celibacy," _ib._ (note).
(Aug. 6, 1868) "The Ownership of Railways," ii. 81.
Articles on railways, _ib._ (note) 83.
(Aug. 10, 1868) "Railway Economy," ii. 83.
"Fair Play's" letter on railways, ii. 83, 84, 84 (note).
"East End Emigrants," article, ii. 87 (note).
(Dec. 26, 1868) "Employment for the Destitute Poor and Criminal
Classes," ii. 131.
"Employment, etc.," (pamphlet), ii. 132 (note), 134 (note).
(Jan. 15, 1870) "The Morality of Field Sports," ii. 127.
Articles on sport, _ib._ (note).
(Oct. 7, 1870) "The Franco-Prussian War," ii. 22.
(Oct. 8, 1870) " " " ii. 25.
(Nov. 30, 1870) "Railway Safety," ii. 89.
Article on railway accidents, _ib._ (note).
(Jan. 12, 1871) "A King's first duty," ii. 111.
Article on the Roman Inundations, _ib._ (note); ii. 165.
(Jan. 19, 1871) "Notre Dame de Paris," i. 154.
(Feb. 4, 1871) "The Waters of Comfort," ii. 115.
(Feb. 7, 1871) "The Streams of Italy," ii. 116.
(Feb. 21, 1871) "Woman's sphere," extract from a letter of Mr.
Ruskin to Miss Faithfull, ii. 154 (note).
(Dec. 8, 1871) Article on Taverns, i. 151 (note).
(Dec. 11, 1871) "Drunkenness and Crime," ii. 129.
(Dec. 22, 1871) "Castles and Kennels," i. 151.
(Dec. 25, 1871) "Verona _v._ Warwick," i. 152.
Articles on Warwick Castle, i. 151, 152 (note).
(July 5, 1876) "Turner's Drawings," i. 100 _seqq._
(July 19, 1876) " " i. 104.
Dancing, art of, ii. 148.
Danger and difficulty, how far factors in regulating wages, ii. 52.
Dante quoted, ii. 15, and note.
(See also Cary.)
Darkness, effect of, on drawings, i. 89.
David, restoration of Raphaels by, i. 38.
Daybreak, ii. 177.
Deane, Sir Thomas, i. 125 (note).
Dearle, Mr. T., his "Evening on the Marchno," i. 70, and note.
Decoration, delicate and rough, i. 137, 138.
Demand, law of supply and, letters on, 39-44;
foolish, ii. 100;
the largest, that of hell, _ib._
Denmark, the position of, in 1863, ii. 17 _seqq._
Denudation, i. 181, 182;
its place in physical mythology, i. 183, 184.
Derby, the, 1859, ii. 10 (note).
"Derby Day," Frith's, i. 55.
(See also i., xvii. note.)
De Saussure, i. 188, 189 (note).
Deucalion, the myth of, i. 183.
"Deucalion" referred to. (See Ruskin, books quoted.)
Diagrams, illustrating rainbow reflections, i. 201, 202.
Dickens, letter of, to Mr. Bennett, ii. 183 (note);
bibliography of, letters in the, ii. 190;
death of, ii. 125 (note).
"Pickwick" referred to, ii. 97.
Dinner tables, modern, ii. 59.
"Disciple of Art and Votary of Science," article in _Liverpool
Albion_, ii. 187 (note).
Discovery, the merits of, i. 187 _seqq._
Distances, focal, i. 5.
Dividends, railway--a tax on the traveller, ii. 82.
Dogs, Protestant and Catholic, ii. 11;
"dog or bee" letter, ii. 127.
Domestic servants. (See Servants.) Meaning of word "domestic,"
ii. 102 (note.)
"Dones" and "undones," ii. 142.
Doric modes, ii. 148.
Drama, reform of the, ii. 193, 194.
Drawing. (See Art.)
Drawing-master, the first work of a, i. 28.
Drawings, chance beauty of good, i. 111;
subtlety possible in, i. 93, 94 _seqq._;
effect of light, etc., on, i. 83, 84, 102, 103, 105;
how to mount, i. 83;
how to frame, i. 83.
Dreams, Homeric myth as to, i. 75, and note.
Dress, right, ii. 154 _seqq._;
national, ii. 155;
dress-making, ii. 139;
letter on "sad colored costumes," ii. 156.
Drunkenness, and Crime, ii. 129;
a crime in itself, _ib._;
instance of death by, ii. 39 (note).
Dudley, Lord, "Angelico" in the collection of pictures of, i. 44, and
note.
Dulwich, railway at, ii. 97.
Duncan's, Mr., "Shiplake, on the Thames," i. 201 (note).
Dürer, Albert, i. 28, 63;
and Holbein, their theology of death, i. 118.
Durham Cathedral, i. 161.
Duty, meaning of the word, ii. 63, 142.
"E. A. F." letter signed, on the designs for the "Foreign Office," i.
99.
"Eagle's Nest" (see Ruskin: books quoted), ii. 146.
Earth-Gods, ii. 172.
Eastlake, Sir C., attack on, i. 37 (note), 39, 91;
his knowledge of oil pictures, i. 46, 47 (note);
his paintings, and Byron's poems, i. 20.
---- Mr. C. L., his book on the Gothic Revival, i. 155 (note).
"Economist," letter in _Daily Telegraph_ from, ii. 41, 44 (note).
Economy defined, its three senses, ii. 157;
meaning of the word, ii. 105.
(See Political Economy.)
Edinburgh, ii. 137;
improvements at, i. 145, 150;
Sundays at, ii. 11;
Trinity Chapel, i. 147;
University of, and Prof. Hodgson, ii. 44 _seqq._
---- Castle, alterations at, i. 147, 149, 150;
its grandeur, _ib._;
no longer a military position, i. 150.
---- Castle Rock, its place among Scotch "craigs," i. 146, 147;
proposal to blast, _ib._
Education, list of letters on, ii. 121;
an "average first-class man," i. 31;
compulsory, ii. 124;
division of studies, i. 30;
employment the primal half of, ii. 132;
involution of studies, i. 31;
education mongers, ii. 49;
place of science in, i. 133;
"true," letter on, ii. 123.
Edward the Confessor, i. 161.
Egg, yellow spot on, ii. 73.
Ehrenberg, C. G., i. 132, 133 (note).
Electricity, use of, ii. 134.
Elgin marbles, the, i. 28.
Ellis, Mr. Wynn, i. 106 (note).
Embankment of Italian rivers, plan for, ii. 112 _seqq._
Embroidery, use of, ii. 157.
Emigration, ii. 87, 128.
Employment, ii. 134;
to be educational, ii. 136;
forms character, ii. 132;
modes of for poor, ii. 138;
always obtainable, ii. 46, 196;
principles of, ii. 134 _seqq._
England, big enough? (letter) ii. 79;
buildings of destroyed, i. 151;
and Denmark, ii. 17, 18;
France and, 1859, ii. 9;
1870, ii. 28;
independent, ii. 99;
and Italy, 1859, ii. 6;
and Italian inundations, ii. 113 (note), 117;
and Italy, their treatment of art, i. 9;
literature of, i. 118;
"machine-and devil driven," ii. 124 (note);
and Poland, ii. 19;
protection of pictures in, i. 37;
and the Reform Bill, 1867, ii. 133;
shopkeepers, a nation of? ii. 100;
trade and policy of, ii. 28;
and war, ii. 16, 17, 19.
Enid, ii. 100.
Enterprise, public and private, ii. 86.
"Epitaphs," the Essay on, ii. 99.
Epictetus, _ib._
Eridanus, ii. 111.
Etching, George's, Ernest, i. 113 _seqq._;
principles of, _ib._;
(_a_) chiaroscuro, 116;
(_b_) few lines, 116;
(_c_) a single biting enough, 115;
(_d_) use pencil, 116;
thirteenth century work and its imitators, _ib._
Etruscan work, ii. 178.
Equity and Law, ii. 62.
_Evening Journal_, The (Jan. 22, 1855), review of "Animals of
Scripture" in, ii. 172.
Examination. (See Art.)
_Examiner_, The, review of "Our Sketching Club" in, ii. 165, and note.
Expenditure, objects of public, i. 102;
national, on pictures, parks, and peaches respectively, i. 92.
"Eye-witness, The," i. 61 (note).
Eylau, battle of, ii. 30.
Eyre, Governor, and the Jamaica Insurrection, ii. 20, and note.
Failure, the lesson of, i. 23, 125, 126.
"Fair Play," letter of in _Daily Telegraph_, ii. 83 (note), 84-86
(note).
Fairservice (_see_ Scott, Sir Walter), ii. 97 (note).
Faithfull, Miss E., lecture by, ii. 154 (note);
letter to, _ib._
Fallacies, _à priori_, ii. 50.
Family, meaning of the word, ii. 102.
Farinata, ii. 15, and note.
Fashion, change of, ii. 155;
how to lead, ii. 157.
Fate and trial, the laws of, i. 125 (note).
Father's, a, counsel to his son, ii. 147.
Fauna, Oxford prize for essay on the, i. 132 (note).
Fesch, Cardinal "Angelico" in the collection of, i. 44, and note.
Fielding, Copley, and Mr. Ruskin, i. 192.
Field sports, morality of, ii. 127.
Fiésole, i. 9.
Finden, engraving in Rogers' Poems, i. 93.
Fine Art Society, i. 105 (note), 159, 166.
Finlason, G. W., "History of the Jamaica Case" referred to, ii. 22
(note).
Florence, "Angelico" destroyed at, i. 38;
and floods, ii. 117;
gallery of, i. 50;
Ghibelline proposal to destroy, ii. 15 (note);
revenge in old, ii. 64.
Flowers, use of in architecture, i. 141 _seqq._;
"Alisma Plantago," i. 61;
Chrysanthema, ii. 183;
Gentian, i. 204.
Fonte Branda, ii. 118.
Food, amount of, determines wages and price, ii. 65.
Forbes, George, Prof., i. 187 (note).
Forbes, James David, i. 176;
letter on "his real greatness," i. 177 _seqq._;
and Agassiz, i. 176, 190;
his "Danger of Superficial Knowledge" quoted, i. 189 (note);
letter to Mr. Ruskin, i. 190;
letter of a pupil of, to Mr. Ruskin, i. 190.
Force, use of human, ii. 134 _seqq._
Foreground and background, painting of, i. 6.
"Forester," lecture of in _Daily Telegraph_ on Field Sports, ii. 128
(note).
Forster's Life of Dickens, ii. 125 (note).
_Fortnightly Review_, Mr. Freeman and Mr. Trollope on field sports,
ii. 127 (note).
Fortress, definition of a, i. 148.
Fortunes, rapidly accumulated, ii. 85;
inequality of desirable, _ib._
Fountain of joy at Siena, ii. 118.
Fox-hunting, ii. 128.
Fra Bartolomeo, none in National Gallery, i. 44, and note.
Framing, methods of, for delicate drawings, i. 83.
France and Austria, loss of in war, ii. 33;
cathedrals of, i. 154;
empire, war the key-note of the first, vice of the second, ii. 26;
position of in 1859, ii. 9.
Franco-Prussian war, letters on, ii. _seqq._;
cause of, ii. 26;
character of the contest, ii. 27;
Germany to stop within limits, ii. 28;
loss of property in, ii. 32, 33;
misery of, ii. 112, and note;
England's position as regards, ii. 28;
refugees during, ii. 154 (note);
the Sainte Chapelle in danger during, i. 154.
Franchise, female, ii. 154 (note).
"Frange," ii. 178.
"Frango," ii. 178.
_Fraser's Magazine_ (July, 1875), letter on "Modern Warfare," ii. 29.
Frederick the Great, his statue at Berlin, ii. 12 (note);
his wars, virtue of, ii. 27.
Freedom, "not to be given," ii. 7, 8 (note).
Freeman, Mr. E., on field sports, ii. 127 (note).
Frère, M. Edouard, escape from Paris, ii. 23, and note.
Fresco-painting, laws of, determined by Perugino, i. 117.
"Fret," etymology of, ii. 178 _seqq._
"Frico," ii. 178.
Frith's, Mr., "Derby Day," i. 55. (See also i. xvii., note.)
Furnivall, Mr., letters to, ii. 177.
Fuseli quoted, i. 59, 75.
Gainsborough, his landscapes, i. 13;
his speed, i. 112.
Gardens, ii. 158.
Garisenda, tower of, i. 169.
Gas, effect of, on pictures, i. 98, 105.
Generalization in art, i. 76.
Geneva, lake of, i. 180;
its color, i. 196;
letter to journal at, 153;
Sundays at, ii. 11.
Genius, the tone of true, i. 188, 189.
Gentian, letter on the, i. 204;
species of the, _ib._
Gentlemen, duties of, to their peasantry, ii. 128.
Geological letters, i. 173, _seqq._
Geology, English _v._ Alpine, i. 181 _seqq._;
museum of, at Sheffield, ii. 126;
Mr. Ruskin's study of, i. 173, 178;
work needed in the science, i. 175.
(See also Glaciers.)
George, Mr. Ernest, his etchings, i. 113 (note), and _seqq._
"Gerin," play of, mentioned, ii. 194.
Germany, characteristics of the nation, ii. 7;
Emperor of, ii. 7 (note);
Franco-Prussian war and, ii. 22, 28;
heroism of a German girl, ii. 100;
German soldiery, ii. 7;
German women, type of features, ii. 12.
Ghibelline faction at Florence, ii. 15 (note).
Ghirlandajo, i. 43;
no picture by in National Gallery, i. 44 (note).
Giagnano, landslip near, i. 202.
Gideon's fleece, i. 133.
"Gil Blas," ii. 186.
Giorgione, i. 75.
Giotta, his "public," i. 15;
pupil of Cimabue, i. 25, and note, i. 43;
his theology of death, i. 118.
Glaciers, action of, compared with that of water, i. 175-178;
excavation of lake basins by, i. 173 _seqq._;
the G. des Bois, i. 178-180;
experiments with honey illustrating, i. 178;
hardness of, i. 177;
motion of, i. 176, 177.
Gladstone, Mr., ii. 142 (note);
his "Juventus Mundi," ii. 171 (note);
at Naples, i. 18, and note;
and Lord Beaconsfield, ii. 197.
Glasgow, ii. 137;
the G. Athenæum, ii. 124 (note);
the Lord Rectorship of G. University, ii. 195 _seqq._
_Glasgow Herald_, The, letters in:--
(June 5, 1874) "The Value of Lectures," ii. 124.
(Oct. 7, 1880) The Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University (four
letters), ii. 195 _seqq._
(Oct. 12, 1880) The Lord Rectorship, etc., ii. 197.
_Globe_, The (Oct. 29, 1875), "An Oxford Protest" in, ii. 188.
"G. M.," letter of, in the _Reader_, i. 185.
Gneiss, the rocks of Chamouni made of, i. 179.
Gold, depreciation of, ii. 37;
discoveries of, _ib._ (note).
Goldwin Smith, Mr., on Luxury, ii. 66 (note).
_Good Words_, "Animals of Scripture" reprinted in (1861), ii. 172
(note).
Gosse, Dr. L. A., ii. 158.
Gothic architecture, adaptability of, i. 125 _seqq._, 131, 132;
and classic, i. 99 (note);
decoration of, i. 127, 138, 141;
effect of strength in, i. 168;
employment of various degrees of skill in, i. 129;
English, Italian, and Venetian, i. 157;
and the Oxford Museum, i. 125 _seqq._;
the G. Revival, i. 128, 129, 155 (note);
types of French, i. 154.
Government, the kind of, needed, ii. 86.
Gravelotte, battle of, ii. 31.
Great Eastern Railway (article in _Daily Telegraph_ on), the, ii. 83.
Greece, the king of, ii. 21 (note);
oppressed by Greeks only, ii. 6;
and Venice, relation of architecture, i. 163.
Greek art, study of, ii. 148.
Grenville, Sir Richard, ii. 4 (note).
Greppond, glacier of, ii. 116.
Greswell, Rev. R., and the Oxford Museum, i. 139.
Grief, effect of trifles on minds distressed by, i. 72.
Griggs, Matilda, ii. 186, and note.
"Growing old," article on, in _Y. M. A. Magazine_, ii. 140.
Grumio. (See Shakespeare).
Guelfi, faction at Florence, ii. 15 (note).
Guido, pictures by, in the National Gallery, i. 43.
Guthrie, letter to Dr., ii. 184.
Guy's bowl at Warwick Castle, i. 153.
Hamilton's, Sir W., logic, ii. 56.
Hanging, who deserve, ii. 131.
Hanover, Sundays at, ii. 11.
Harbor-making, ii. 138.
Harding, i. 23.
Harold the Saxon, i. 161.
Harrison, letter to W. H., ii. 192.
Hartz minerals, purchase of by Mr. Ruskin, ii. 58.
Hartz mountains, ii. 12.
Hasselt's "Histoire de Rubens" referred to, i. 14 (note).
Hawley's, Sir J., "Musjid" (Derby winner), ii. 10 (note).
Health, chair of Physical, at Oxford, ii. 147.
Hemling, i. 65.
Henry VI.'s Psalter, i. 54, and note.
Herodotus referred to, i. 184.
(See also Bubastis.)
Heroism, true forms of, ii. 24;
instance of, ii. 100;
and vice, ii. 133.
Hervet, Gentian, his "Economist of Xenophon," ii. 149 (note).
Hervey, Lord Francis, i. 100 (note).
Highlanders, a characteristic of, ii. 6.
Highlands, the rocks of the, i. 146.
Historical monuments, loss of, in England, i. 158;
and small interest taken in, i. 29.
History, true, what it is, i. 28;
how written hitherto, _ib._
Hobbes, definition of Justice, ii. 57 (note), 61.
Hodgson, Professor, and Mr. Ruskin on supply and demand, ii. 44
_seqq._
Hogarth, his "public," i. 14;
his "Two 'prentices," ii. 144.
Holbein, the libel on, 37 (note), 45, and note;
portrait of George Gyzen at Berlin, ii. 13, 12 (note);
his quiet work, i. 112;
Mr. Ruskin's article on, ii. 12 (note);
his theology of death, i. 118;
Wornum's life of, ii. 12 (note).
Holy Sepulchre, and St. Mark's, Venice, i. 162.
Holyoake, Mr. G. J., letters on Co-operation to, ii. 78;
his "History of Co-operation," ii. 73 (note);
reference to Mr. Ruskin in America, ii. 73, and note;
and the Sheffield Museum, _ib._
Homer, Odyssey quoted or referred to:
(vi. 90), ii. 169, 170 (note);
(xix. 562), i. 75;
(xxii. end), ii. 102.
Honiton lace-makers, ii. 136, 137.
"Honos," existence of any absolute, ii. 63.
Horace, expurgated editions of, ii. 147;
his theology of death, i. 118;
quoted or referred to, ii. 57 (Odes, iii. 3, 1), 98, 111 (Odes,
iii. 16, 29), and note, 143;
study of, in England, ii. 143.
Horeb, i. 133.
House-_hold_, ii. 101.
Houses, letter on modern, ii. 104.
Huddersfield and the Jamaica Insurrection, ii. 20.
Hughes, Mr. T., M. P. for Lambeth, ii. 20 (notes).
Hullah, Mr., on music, i. 25 (note), 26.
Hume, Mr. Hamilton, and the Eyre Defence Fund, ii. 22 (note).
Hunt, Mr. Alfred, and the Liverpool Academy, i. 73 (note).
---- Mr. Holman, i. 71;
"Awakening Conscience, The," i. 71;
his early work criticised in the _Times_, i. 59 (note);
exaggerates reflected light, i. 64;
"Light of the World," i. 67 _seqq._;
technical details of, i. 68;
"Valentine rescuing Sylvia," i. 60 (note), 63, 64 _seqq._
---- William, i. 121.
(Mr. Ruskin's "Notes on Prout and Hunt," referred to. See Ruskin.)
Hunting, ii. 128.
Husbands, duty of, ii. 153.
"Hymn," meaning of, ii. 148.
Hyssop, ii. 155.
Ideal, definition of the, i. 7, and note.
Idle, treatment of the, ii. 147.
"Illustrations of Scripture," ii. 172.
Imagination, no food for, in modern life, ii. 147.
Increased Railway Fares (articles in _Daily Telegraph_), ii. 81
(note).
Indians, ideas of duty in, ii. 6;
irrigation in India, ii. 115.
Infidelity, modern, i. 147.
Ingoldsby Legends ("Jackdaw of Rheims") referred to, ii. 180.
Initials, no need of, in scientific discussion, i. 186.
Iniquity, an exploded word, ii. 107.
Interest, one's own, ii. 7, ii. 48.
Interference, public, with the individual, ii. 133.
Intervention, principles of, ii. 7, 9, 10.
Inundations, ii. 111-119.
Iron manufacture, ii. 49;
modern ironwork, ii. 127.
Irrigation for Italy, ii. 114, 115.
Irving's, Mr., "Shylock," ii. 180.
Isle of Dogs, emigration from the, ii. 87.
Italian and English treatment of art, i. 9;
masters, pencilling of, i. 112;
mannerisms of Italian masters, i. 4.
Italy, state of, in 1859, letters on, ii. 3, 9, 13;
extent of question, ii. 14;
position of, ii. 9;
passions of people noble, ii. 113 (note);
power of, ii. 117;
self-government, ii. 6;
streams of, 116 _seqq._
"Italy," a reputed Turner, i. 106, and note.
"Jackdaw of Rheims" (Ingoldsby Legends), ii. 180.
Jamaica Insurrection and Governor Eyre, ii. 20 _seqq._
Jameson's "Early Italian Painters" referred to, i. 9 (note);
"History of Our Lord," i. 38 (note), 44 (note).
Jameson's "Scotch Ballads," i. 76, 77 (note).
Janssens, Abraham, and Rubens, i. 14.
Japan, war in, ii. 17.
"Jean de Nivelle" mentioned, ii. 194.
Jena, battle of, ii. 30, 33.
Jerusalem, ii. 177.
Jezebel, ii. 174.
Johnson, Mr. Richard, on commerce, ii. 70; and note.
_Journal de Genève, L'Espérance_, 1873, Letter on Women's Work, ii.
153.
Judgment-throne, condemnation from the, ii. 142.
Jukes, Mr. T. B., F.R.S., letters on geology, etc., i. 181 (note),
184.
Jussum, ii. 52, 53.
Just price, a, ii. 106 (note).
Justice, abstract, ii. 54;
conceivable as a hideously bad thing, ii. 61 (note), 63;
definition and derivation of, ii. 52;
defined as "conformity with any rule, good or bad," ii. 54, 58
(note), 61;
need of, ii. 10;
principles of, ii. 48;
different words for, ii. 52.
Justinian, summary of law by, ii. 63, and note.
Katharine's instrument (see Shakespeare), ii. 178.
Kail leaf, the, used in Melrose Abbey, i. 141 (note).
(See Scott, "The Abbot," chap, xvi.; "The Monastery," Introduction.)
Keble College, Oxford, "The Light of the World" at, i. 67 (note).
Kennedy, Mr. T. S., copy of Turner's "Fluelen" possessed by, i. 105
(note).
Kensington Museum, Art School at, 100 (note);
Turners at, i. 98 (note).
_Kidderminster Times_, The (July 28, 1877), letter on "Ribbesford
Church," i. 158.
King Charles the Martyr, ii. 68-9.
King, the first duty of a, ii. 111;
must govern the rivers of his country, _ib._
Kinglake, Mr. A. W., on Savoy and Denmark, ii. 19.
Kingsley's, Charles, "Ode to the North-East Wind," ii. 50 (note).
Kingsley, Mr., of Sidney Sussex College, on optics, i. 94-6.
Kiss' Amazon, ii. 13, 12 (note).
Königgratz, battle of, ii. 31.
Labor, as a discipline, ii. 136;
the forces of, order of their employment, ii. 87, 135;
giving of the best charity, ii. 131;
its influence on character, ii. 133;
price of, ii. 40, 65;
promise to find, ii. 72.
"La Fille du Tambour Major," Offenbach's, mentioned, ii. 194.
Lake basins, excavated by glaciers, i. 174 (see Glaciers).
Lambeth, Mr. T. Hughes, M. P. for, ii. 20, 21.
Lammermuirs, the, i. 146.
_Lancet_, The, founded by Mr. Wakley, i. 19 (note).
Landseer, i. 23, 63 (note);
illustrated by Burns, i. 19.
Landslip near Giagnano, letters on, i. 202.
"Langharne Castle," Turner's, i. 102, and note.
"Le Chalet" mentioned, ii. 194.
Launce (see Shakespeare), ii. 97.
Law Courts, the new, i. 156, and note.
Laws, criminal, ii. 133;
equity and law, ii. 62;
eternal, and practical difficulties, ii. 95;
of nature, ii. 72;
summary of law, by Blackstone and Justinian, ii. 63, and note;
lex talionis, lex gratiæ, ii. 64.
Lazarus, ii. 173.
Leconfield, "Turner" in possession of Lord, i. 106 (note).
Lectures, the value of, ii. 124, and note.
Lee, Fred. Richard, R.A., i. 13, and note.
Leech, John, letter on his outlines, i. 111;
characteristics of his work, _ib._;
chiaroscuro, "felicity and prosperous haste," i. 112;
death of, i. 111 (note);
especial value of first sketches, i. 112;
fastidious work, i. 113;
proposal to distribute his drawings among national schools, i. 113,
i. 54 (note).
_Leicester Chronicle and Mercury_ (Jan. 31, 1880), letter on
"Purchase of Pictures," i. 55.
Leicester, proposal for picture-gallery at, i. 55.
Leith, Mr. J., and the Blackfriars Bible class, Aberdeen, ii. 142
(note).
Lennox, Lord H., i. 52 (note); i. 100 (note).
Lenses and specula, grinding of, i. 95.
Leonardo da Vinci, i. 75;
designed canals of Lombardy, ii. 118.
Leone Levi, M., and statistics of drink, ii. 129.
Leonidas, ii. 4 (note).
_L'Espérance_, Geneva, letter "Women's Work" in, ii. 153.
Letter, "to the author of a review," ii. 187;
black letter, ii. 175 (note), 256;
letters, carriage of, ii. 82, 90.
(See for the letters in the book the Tables of Contents and the
Index under the special headings, Appendix; Architecture; Art
Criticism and Art Education; Education; Literary Criticism;
Pictures and Artists; Political Economy; Politics;
Pre-Raphaelitism; Public Institutions and the National Gallery;
Railways; Roman Inundations; Science; Servants and Houses;
Turner; War; Women, their work and their dress.)
Lewis, John, i. 74;
"Encampment under Sinai," i. 117 (note);
"The Hhareem," i. 65, and note.
"Liber Studiorum," value of, i. 97;
sale of original plates, ii. 70.
Liberalism, modern, ii. 197, 201.
Liberty and order, ii. 10;
and slavery, ii. 98, 99.
Liebreich, Dr., lecture on Turner and Mulready, i. 155, and note.
"Life's Mid-day," song in "Y. M. A. Magazine," ii. 141.
Light, effect of on drawings, i. 89, 90, 98, 102, 105;
upon water, phenomenon of, i. 191;
"Light of the World," i, 67 _seqq._
"Limner and Illumination," letter on, ii. 174.
Limousin, the, ii. 28.
Lincoln, President, death of, ii. 54, and note;
English opinion of, _ib._
Lindisfarne, i. 161.
Literature, what it includes, i. 30.
Literary criticism, list of letters on, ii. 161.
_Literary Gazette_ (Nov. 13, 1858);
"Turner Sketches and Drawings" (letter), i. 88, and note;
mention of Edinburgh Castle in, i. 147, and note.
_Liverpool Albion_--
(January 11, 1858), Letters on "Pre-Raphaelitism in Liverpool," i.
73.
(November 2, 1863), "The Foreign Policy of England," ii. 15.
(November 9, 1872), "To the author of a Review," ii. 187.
Articles on "Disciple of Art and Votary of Science," in, _ib._
(note).
Liverpool Academy, i. 73 (note);
Institute, Mr. Ruskin's refusal to lecture at, ii. 15 (note);
pre-Raphaelitism in, i. 73 (note).
Locke, ii. 56.
Logic, instance of English, ii. 98.
Lombardy, the canals of, ii. 118;
insurrection, ii. 4, and note.
London, ii. 201;
London and Northwestern Railway accidents, ii. 89 (note);
the streets of (letter), ii. 119 _seqq._;
_London Review_ (May 16, 1861), letter on "The Reflection of
Rainbows," i. 201.
Lorraine and Alsace, ii. 28.
Louise, Queen of Prussia, her tomb, ii. 12, and note.
Louvre, the arrangement of, i. 50;
preservation of drawings at, i. 87;
richly furnished, i. 92;
salon carré, i. 50;
pictures in:
"Immaculate Conception," i. 87 (note), 88;
"Marriage in Cana," i. 87;
"Susannah and the Elders," i. 50 (note).
Love, the conqueror of lust, ii. 144, 147.
Lowe, Mr., and Mr. Ruskin, ii. 189.
Lucerna Valley, the, ii. 11, 12.
Lucina (the goddess "who brings things to light," and especially,
therefore, of birth), i. 179.
Lust (see Love).
Luxury, of the present age, i. 18;
and political economy, ii. 66, 67, 80.
Lydian modes, ii. 148.
"M. A.," Letter on "limner" from, ii. 174.
"M. A. C.," Letter on atmospheric pressure from, i. 185.
Macaulay, Lord, saying of quoted and criticised, i. 189, and note;
tone of his mind, i. 189.
Machiavelli quoted, ii. 15 (note).
Machinery, use of, ii. 135.
_Macmillan's Magazine_ (Nov., 1870), "Sad-colored costumes," ii. 156.
Madonna, the, and Venus, i. 162.
Magdeburg, sack of, ii. 32.
Magenta, ii. 3 (note), 31.
Malamocco, ii. 117.
Malines, "Rubens" at, i. 39.
Manchester, Art Treasures Exhibition, 1858, i. 102 (note);
Chamber of Commerce, ii. 70 (note);
Dramatic Reform Association of, ii. 193 (note);
Ruskin Society of, ii. 191.
Manufacture and Art, i. 29;
of dress, ii. 155.
Marengo, battle of, ii. 30.
Market, the laws of honest, i. 165 (note).
Marks, Mr. H. S., R. A., Letter on F. Walker to, i. 116 _seqq._
Marriage, ii. 147;
"Marriage or Celibacy" (_Daily Telegraph_ article on), ii. 79
(note).
Mars, i. 162.
Martin, illustrated by Milton, i. 20.
Marylebone Council, ii. 105 (note).
Maskelyne, Mr. Nevil S., M.P., i. 53, and note;
his work on minerals at the British Museum, i. 54.
"Matilda Y.," letter of, i. 10, and note;
Matilda Griggs, letter on, ii. 186.
Mattie, carefu' (see Scott's "Rob Roy"), ii. 97.
Maw, J. H., Letter from, 191 (note), 200 (note).
Matthew, St., ii. 8.
Means of life, the, ii. 68, 69.
Mechanical power, natural to be used before artificial, ii. 134.
Medicine, to be learnt by children, ii. 147.
Meduna, M., and St. Mark's, i. 168.
Meissonier, his pictures, i. 127.
Melrose, i. 141;
the monks of (see Scott's "Abbot," chap, xvi.), i. 141 (note).
Mendelssohn, ii. 169.
Mercury, experiment with, i. 197.
Mestre, ii. 5.
Marlborough House. (See Turner Drawings.)
Michael Angelo, i. 146.
Milan, the French in, ii. 3 (note), 7.
Mill, J. S., ii. 146 (note);
direction of his thought, ii. 21;
and the Jamaica Insurrection, ii. 20-21;
political economy of, ii. 71 (note).
Millais, Mr., i. 66 (note), 74;
criticised in the _Times_ (1851); i. 59 (note);
early work, i. 59;
flesh-painting by, i. 65;
painted glass of, i. 66;
pictures of, mentioned:
"Autumn Leaves," i. 76 (note);
"Blind Girl," i. 73 (note), 77 (note);
early sacred picture (1850), i. 60;
"Ferdinand lured by Ariel," i. 60 (note);
"Mariana," i. 60 (note,) 62, 63, 66;
"Portrait of a Gentleman and his Grandchild," i. 60 (note);
"Pot Pourri," ii. 185;
"Return of the Dove to the Ark," i. 60 (note), 63, 65;
"Wives of the Sons of Noah," i. 63;
"Woodman's Daughter," i. 60 (note).
Miller, John, collection of pictures of, i. 77 (note).
Milton quoted ("Comus," l. 301), ii. 178;
"Paradise Lost," i. 19.
Mincio, the, 6, 10, 118.
Miniatures, painting of, i. 117; use of, i. 121, 127.
Miscellaneous Letters, list of subjects, ii. 75.
Missal paintings, condition of, good, and why, i. 90, 91.
Mistress, an ideal house-, ii. 102.
Mitford, Mary Russell, ii. 183 (note), 183.
Mitrailleuse and musket, relative effect of, ii. 30.
Mock-castles, etc., i. 151.
Modern houses, letter on, ii. 104;
world, destruction of buildings by the, i. 158;
theology of, i. 118.
(See also Age, the Present.)
"Modern Painters." (See under Ruskin, Mr.)
_Monetary and Mining Gazette_ (Nov. 13, 1875), letter on "The
Definition of Wealth," ii. 71.
Money, true, ii. 115;
definition of, ii. 71, and note;
distribution of, ii. 49;
ill got, ill spent, ii. 144;
loss of, ii. 137;
how made and lost, ii. 79, 80;
pedigree of, ii. 69;
how the rich get and spend, ii. 66-70;
value of, ii. 37;
lowered value of, its effect, ii. 38.
Montanvert, the, i. 179.
Montaperto, battle of, ii. 15 (note).
Mont Blanc, guides up, ii. 52, 56, 58 (note);
Cenis (and James Barry), i. 15, 16 (note);
St. Angelo, ii. 116;
Viso, ii. 11.
_Monthly Packet_, The (Nov. 1863), "Proverbs on right dress," ii. 155.
Moore, Mr. Morris, and the National Gallery, i. 37 (note), 47.
Moore, Thomas, National Airs, "Oft in the stilly night," referred to,
i. 71;
his "Public," i. 14.
Morality of Field Sports, ii. 127 _seqq._
Moore, Sir T., "Utopia" of, ii. 191.
Morgarten, battle of, ii. 4, and note.
_Morning Chronicle_ (Jan. 20, 1855), "The Animals of Scripture, a
Review," ii. 172.
_Morning Post_ (July 7, 1864), letter, "The Position of Denmark," ii.
17.
Morris, Mr. William, and St. Mark's, Venice, i. 170.
Mosaic Law, the, ii. 72.
Mother, place of a, ii. 146.
Mounting of drawings. (See Drawings.)
Mozart, ii. 169.
Mulready, i. 65, 66 (note);
Dr. Liebreich on, i. 154, and note.
Munro, Mr., and the Oxford Museum, i. 139.
Murchison, Sir Roderick, and the Excavation of Glaciers, i. 173
(note);
and the Eyre Defence Fund, ii. 22 (note).
Murillo's "Immaculate Conception," i. 87 (note), 88.
Muscle, use of, in labor, ii. 136.
Museum, a modern, ii. 126;
a national, its objects and uses, i. 53;
St. George's, ii. 186.
Music, ii. 158;
the art of, ii. 148;
a less common faculty than drawing, i. 26, 95;
ear for, commoner than eye for color, i. 15.
Musjid, Derby-winner, ii. 10 (note).
Mycenæ, ii. 178.
Mythology, ii. 171;
Christian and Greek, i. 163;
and religion, i. 118.
Naples, Mr. Gladstone and the political prisoners at, ii. 18 (note);
storm at, ii. 116.
Napoleon Bonaparte, i. 44 (note), 49; ii. 26;
the Third, ii. 6, 26, 27;
purchase of the Louvre "Murillo" by, i. 87.
Nations, "A nation's defences," ii. 113;
defences of, "do not pay!" ii. 114;
gain and loss of, 79, 80;
their quality shown in that of their servants, ii. 94;
their strength in union, not in number, ii. 25.
National Gallery, the (see also Pictures);
debate on vote for, i. 86 (note);
an European jest, i. 38;
an ideal arrangement of, i. 48 _seqq._, 50-52;
keepers of;
Eastlake, Sir C., i. 37 (note);
Uwins, R. A., i. 46 (note);
Wornum, i. 86;
Letters to _Times_ on, i. 37, 45, 86;
a new gallery proposed, i. 49, 51, and note;
no Ghirlandajo Fra Bartolomeo, or Verrochio in, i. 44 (note), 45;
Parliamentary Blue Books referred to, i. 37 (note), 42 (note), 46
(note), 48 (note);
popular idea of its object, i. 48;
restoration of pictures in, i. 37 (note) and _seqq._, 45;
purchase of pictures for, i. 43, 44, 45;
strictures on, i. 42 (note);
the Vernon gift, i. 50, and note.
National Gallery, Pictures referred to in the--
Albertinelli's "Virgin and Child," i. 44 (note).
Angelico's "Adoration of the Magi," _ib._
" "Christ amid the Blessed," _ib._
Bellini, "Doge Leonardo Loredano," i. 45.
Claude's "Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca," i. 46 (note).
" "Mill," i. 46 (note).
" "Queen of Sheba," i. 46 (note).
" "Seaport," i. 46 (note).
Cuyp, "Large Dort," i. 39 (note).
" "Landscape, Evening," _ib._
Guido, "Lot and his Daughters," i. 43.
" "Magdalen," ib. (note).
" "St. Jerome," _ib._
" "Susannah and the Elders," _ib._
Holbein, libel on, i. 37 (note), 45, and note.
Lorenzo di Credi, "Virgin and Child," i. 44 (note).
Perugino, "Virgin and Child, with St. Jerome and St. Francis," _ib._
" "Virgin and Infant Christ, with St. John," _ib._
" "Virgin and Infant Christ, with Archangels Michael,
Raphael, and Tobias," _ib._ 120.
Poussin, "Sacrifice of Isaac," i. 3, and note.
Rubens, "Judgment of Paris," i. 44, and note.
" "Peace and War," i. 39.
Titian, "Bacchus and Ariadne," i. 40-54.
Turner, "Dido building Carthage," i. 46, and note.
" "The sun rising in a mist," _ib._
" Drawings and Sketches, i. 50, and note; 81 (note).
Van Eyck, "Jean Arnolfini and his wife," i. 46 (note).
Velasquez, "Philip IV. hunting the Wild Boar," i. 40.
Veronese, "Consecration of St. Nicholas," i. 46, and note.
" "Rape of Europa," _ib._
Wilkie, "The Blind Fiddler," i. 7.
Natural History, study of, i. 135;
letter on, i. 204.
_Nature and Art_, letter on "Art Teaching by Correspondence" in, i.
32.
Nature, general ignorance of, i. 16;
human, not corrupt, ii. 143;
its lessons true, i. 24;
neglect of, i. 17;
understanding of, _ib._
Neptune, ii. 171.
Neutrality, the "difficulties of," letter, ii. 26;
of England, ii. 15.
New Shakespeare Society, letters in Transactions of, ii. 176 _seqq._
Newspaper, duty and power of an editor, ii. 95.
Newtonian law, i. 199 (note), 200.
Newton's "Principia," i. 14.
_New Year's Address and Messages to Blackfriars Bible Class,
Aberdeen_:
"Act, act in the living present" (1873), ii. 141.
"Laborare est orare" (1874), ii. 142.
"A Pagan Message" (1878), ii. 143.
_Nineteenth Century_: Mr. Ruskin's "Fiction, Fair and Foul," quoted,
ii. 97 (note).
Nino Pisano, i. 43.
Nobert, line-ruling by, i. 94.
Non-iquity, ii. 107.
Norton, Prof. C. E. (U.S.A.), letters of Mr. Ruskin to, i. 86 (note),
97 (note), 105 (note);
lecture on Turner, _ib._
"Notes on Employment of the Criminal Classes" (_Daily Telegraph_,
letter and pamphlet), ii. 129-132 _seqq._
"Notes on Prout and Hunt" (see Ruskin, Mr.), i. 166 (note).
"Notre Dame de Paris," its place among French cathedrals, i. 153.
Norwich, Dr. Browne at, ii. 120, and note.
"Oak Silkworms," letter in _Times_ (Oct. 24, 1862) on, ii. 158.
Obedience, the real "Divine service," ii. 143.
Offenbach's "Fille du Tambour Major" referred to, ii. 194.
Oil painting, determined by Titian, i. 117.
Old Adam (see Shakespeare), ii. 97.
Old Masters, exhibition, i. 106.
Oliver, Roland for an, ii. 48.
Opie, i. 75.
Optical work, delicacy of, i. 94, 95.
Optics, writers on, i. 195 (note).
Organ, street nuisance of, ii. 18, 19 (note).
Ornament, natural forms in, i. 129;
in dress, ii. 155.
O'Shea, and the Oxford Museum, i. 139, 142 (note).
"Ought" and "are," ii. 63.
"Our Sketching Club," ii. 165, and note.
Oxford, Balliol oriel-window, i. 135;
bishop of, on education, ii. 123 (note), 178;
Bodleian library, traceries of, i. 135;
Christ Church, fan-vaulting at, _ib._;
drawing schools, i. 102, 113;
examinations, letter on, i. 24;
meeting in on St. Mark's, Venice, i. 170;
printsellers, ii. 144;
"An Oxford Protest," ii. 188;
rich buildings, i. 135.
Oxford Museum, the, letters on, i. 125-145;
Acland, Dr., his lecture on, quoted, i. 125 (note), 130 (note), 132
(note);
building of, i. 125 (note);
capital in, i. 141, and note;
decoration of, i. 127, 136, 137, 138, 143;
porch proposed, i. 130;
sculpture of, i. 137;
spandril in, i. 144;
success of its Gothic architecture, i. 130;
its teaching, i. 138;
the west front, i. 139.
Padua, ii. 117.
Painters, how roused to exercise their strength, i. 139;
vision of, how it affects their pictures, i. 155.
Painting and poetry, closely allied, i. 19;
portrait-painting, ii. 170.
_Pall Mall Gazette_, The--
(April 18, 1865) "Strikes _v._ Arbitration," ii. 48.
Articles on strikes, _ib._
" masters and men, ii. 50, and note.
(April 21, 1865) "Work and Wages," ii. 50.
( " 25, " ) " " ii. 52.
(May 2, " ) " " ii. 54.
( " 9, " ) " " ii. 59.
( " 22, " ) " " ii. 62.
Interpolation of, in Mr. Ruskin's letters, ii. 57-69.
(March 1, 1867) "At the Play," ii. 185.
(May 1, 1867) "Standard of Wages," ii. 65.
(January 31, 1868) "True Education," ii. 123.
( " 19, 1871) "A Nation's Defences," ii. 113.
(December 28, 1871) "The Streets of London," ii. 119.
(March 16, 1872) "Mr. Ruskin's Influence--a defence," i. 154.
( " 21, " ) "Mr. Ruskin's Influence--a rejoinder," i. 156.
(November 4, 1872) "Madness and Crime," ii. 130.
(January 24, 1873) "How the Rich spend their Money," ii. 66.
( " 29, " ) " " " ii. 67.
( " 31, " ) " " " ii 68.
( " 11, 1875) " A Mistaken Review," ii. 165.
( " 19, " ) "The Position of Critics," ii. 167.
Pan-droseion, i. 161.
Parents and children, relation of, ii. 145.
Paris, fortifications of, ii. 114;
in Franco-Prussian war, ii. 25;
theatres of, ii. 194.
Parliament, ii. 140;
of 1868, ii. 133;
debate on Denmark, ii. 27;
on Turner bequest, i. 86;
Houses of, ii. 175 (note), 176.
Partnership of masters and men, ii. 69, and note.
Patmore, Coventry, i. 60 (note), ii. 168, 171 (note).
Paton, Waller, R.S.A., i. 74, and note.
Patriotism, ii. 4 (note), ii. 144.
Peebles _v._ Plainstanes. (See Scott.)
Penelope and her servants (see Homer, Od. xxii.), ii. 102.
Penrith, letter from, i. 147.
"Percy's Reliques" quoted, i. 77 (note).
Permanence, the blessing of a fixed life, ii. 101.
Perseus, i. 162.
Perugino, i. 44 (note), 117, 120, note, and 121.
Peter, St., ii. 8.
Petroleum, ii. 136.
Pharpar and Abana, ii. 10.
Phidias and Titian, i. 142, 162.
Φρασσω, ii. 178.
"Pickwick" referred to, ii. 97.
Pictures,--and artists, letters on, i. 111;
arrangement of in a gallery, i. 42, 43, 50;
cleaning of, i. 41;
galleries, fatigue of visiting, i. 42, 51;
glazing of, i. 41, 47, 48;
are great books, i. 48, 49 (note), 69, 103;
London atmosphere, effect of on, i. 38;
modern appreciation of, i. 55;
novelty of a purpose in, i. 69;
popular idea of, i. 73;
preservation of, i. 39, 49;
restoration of, i. 47;
purchase of, i. 55;
common tendency of, i. 72;
tone left by time on, i. 39;
touches on, value of last, i. 47;
must be understood as well as seen, i. 70;
value of studies for, i. 52;
vanity in possessing, i. 127;
worth buying, worth seeing, i. 42, 48, 92.
(See also National Gallery.)
Pictures referred to, see National Gallery, Louvre, and under the
names of artists.
Piedmont, a view of, ii. 11.
"Pilgrim's Progress" referred to, i. 66.
Pisa, ii. 117.
Plato, quoted, i. 16, 183; ii. 206;
and justice, ii. 53.
"Plight," ii. 178.
Plummer, John, letter on "Supply and Demand," ii. 43, 44 (note).
Po, delta of, ii. 116;
embankments for, ii. 112.
Pocock, Mr. T., ii. 140.
Poetry, disregarded in this age, i. 18;
and painting allied, i. 19;
principles of criticism of, ii. 169;
better read than recited, ii. 180;
requisites for enjoyment of, i. 18;
of Turner's pictures, _ib._
Poets, modern, ii. 171 (note).
Pointsmen, under-payment of, ii. 88.
Poland and Russia, ii. 16.
Pole, Geffrey, his "Xenophon," ii. 102 (note).
Political Economy, list of letters on, ii. 35;
and morality, how connected, ii. 42, 43;
primal fallacy of modern, ii. 65;
Ruskin, Mr., and his definition of, ii. 83 (84-87);
scope of his economy, ii. 99;
shelter the first question in, ii. 105, 106;
true and false, ii. 99.
Politics, list of letters on, ii. 1;
bewilderment of Mr. Ruskin at, ii. 3;
the path in, ii. 7, 8;
tone of modern, ii. 14;
in youth, ii. 141.
Pompeii, ii. 116.
Pope's "Odyssey" quoted, ii. 169, and note.
Poplar, artisans of, emigration, ii. 86, 87 (note).
Porterage, ii. 136, 138.
Portrait-painters, their ignorance of landscape, i. 16.
Pottery, ii. 139.
Poussin, Gaspar, i. 3, 7;
his "Sacrifice of Isaac," i. 3.
" Nicholas, i. 4.
Powers, for labor, order of their employ, ii. 134;
of a nation--dependent on what, ii. 25.
Poynter, Mr., R.A., at Kensington, i. 100, and note.
Prayer, obedience the best, ii. 143.
Pre-Raphaelitism, etc., list of letters on, i. 58;
choice of features by, i. 63, 64;
conceits of, i. 77, and note;
drapery of, i. 63;
flesh-painting of, i. 65;
growth of, i. 74;
labor of Pre-Raphaelite pictures, i. 68;
Liverpool and, i. 73;
meaning of the word, i. 61,
and note; perspective of the Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, i. 62;
probable success of, i. 66;
religious tendencies of Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, i. 60, 66;
respective value of Pre-Raphaelite and other work, i. 74, 76;
want of shade in Pre-Raphaelite work, i. 66;
Pre-Raphaelite work, true and false, i. 70.
Price, dependent on labor, ii. 55, 60;
a just, ii. 106 (note);
determinable, ii. 61;
allows for necessary labor, ii. 56;
and value, ii. 39, 64.
Principle, the sense of, how blunted, i. 8.
Property, distribution of, ii. 67, 68;
principles of, ii. 71;
loss of in war, ii. 32, 38.
Proteus, character of Shakespeare's, i. 64.
Prout, i. 63 (note).
(See Ruskin, Mr., "Notes on Prout and Hunt.")
Provence, winds of, ii. 135.
"Protestant," ii. 140.
Protestantism, remarks on, ii. 3, 4;
aspect of, at home and abroad, ii. 11;
hypocrisy of, ii. 4;
of Italians, French, and Austrians, ii. 5.
Protests, uselessness of, ii. 17.
Protractor, the use of the, i. 181 (note), 184.
Prussia, Frederick William IV. of, ii. 7 (note).
(See also Franco-Prussian war.)
Public, the, defined, i. 15;
their judgment in art, i. 15;
and in other matters, i. 17;
their ignorance of nature, i. 17;
Frederick Walker, how affected by, i. 122.
Public Institutions and the National Gallery, list of letters on, i.
36.
(See National Gallery, British Museum.)
Pullen, Mr. F. W., Letter to on St. Mark's, Venice, i. 170 (note).
Punishment, ii. 134
Quarles Harris' port, ii. 66.
Quebec, emigration to, ii. 87.
Rabbah, ii. 174.
Radetzky, ii. --;
his character, ii. 5.
Railways, list of letters on, ii. 77;
accidents, ii. 88, 89;
doubling of lines, ii. 88, 89;
at Dulwich, ii. 97;
economy, ii. 83;
investment in, ii. 81;
management of, ii. 82;
ownership of, ii. 81-83;
payment of pointsmen, ii. 83, 88;
stations, decoration of, ii. 88, 89.
Rainbows, reflection of in water, i. 201.
Raphael, i. 43, 75;
distinction in art before and after, i. 62;
pictures of in the Louvre, i. 49;
in the National Gallery, i. 47;
restored by David and Vernet, _ib._
Rationalism, modern, and the Liber Studiorum, i. 97 (note).
Rauch, Christian, ii. 17, 18 (note).
_Reader_, The, Letters in--
(November 12, 1864) "The Conformation of the Alps," i. 173.
(November 26, 1864) "Concerning Glaciers," i. 175.
(December 3, 1864) "English _v._ Alpine Geology," i. 181.
(December 10, 1864) "Concerning Hydrostatics," i. 185.
Letters and articles, etc., referred to:
by "M. A. C." and "G. M.," i. 185 (note);
Jukes, Mr., i. 181 (note), 182 (note), 184 (note), 185 (note);
Murchison, Sir R., i. 173 (note);
"Tain Caimbeul," i. 175 (note).
Real, the, and the ideal, not opposed, i. 7, and note.
Rebekah, ii. 174.
Recitations, Letter on, ii. 180.
Red Prince, the, ii. 112.
Reflections in water, letter on, i. 191;
two kinds of, i. 195 (note);
lines of moonlight on the sea, i. 193;
of rainbows, i. 201.
Reformation, ii. 133;
instruments of, _ib._ 134.
Reform Bill, 1867, ii. 133.
Religion and mythology, i. 118;
and science, i. 133.
Rembrandt, i. 13, 28, 115 (note).
Rendu's Glaciers of Savoy--letter on Forbes in, i. 187.
Repair of buildings, ii. 138.
Republicanism _v._ Monarchy in the Franco-Prussian war, ii. 40.
Restoration, modern, letter on, i. 157;
impossible, i. 153;
in Italy, i. 170.
Reverence, a mark of high intellect, i. 189.
Review-writing, ii. 166.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, effect of gas on his pictures, i. 99;
grace of, ii. 34 (note);
speed of, i. 112;
vehicles used by, i. 98;
Mr. Ruskin's article on, ii. 18 (note).
Rheims Cathedral, i. 154.
Rhine, embankments for the, ii. 112;
foul water of the, i. 195 (note).
Rhone, the, ii. 112.
Ribbesford Church, i. 158.
Ricardo's "Political Economy," ii. 80.
Rich and Poor, money how spent and made by, ii. 98-104.
Richmond, George, R.A., ii. 170;
Professor W. B., i. 170.
Rivers, Italian, ii. 111 _seqq._
(See Roman Inundation letters.)
Road-making, ii. 138.
Roads, who should own, ii. 119, 120.
Robert le Diable, opera of, ii. 17.
Rogers' "Italy," i. 83;
Poems, i. 82, 93;
his old servant, i. 104
Roland, a, needed by France, ii. 42;
for one's Oliver, ii, 70.
Roman inundations, list of letters on, ii. 157.
Roman race, the qualities of the, ii. 117.
Rome, and the floods, ii. 116.
Rose, Society of the, ii. 191;
the heraldic sign on Mr. Ruskin's books, _ib._
Ross, Sir William, A.R.A., i. 62.
Rosse, microscopes of Lord, i. 94.
Rossetti, i. 74, ii. 166.
Rossini, ii. 194.
Rotterdam, cleanness of, ii. 120.
Rouen Cathedral, i. 154.
Royal Institution, Dr. Liebreich's lecture at, i. 154, and note.
" " Mr. Ruskin's lecture on "The Alps" at, i. 174
(note).
" " Mr. Ruskin's lecture on "Verona" at, _ib._
Rubens, advantageous condition in which to see his pictures, i. 39;
characteristics as an artist, i. 39;
his landscapes, i. 13;
his reply to A. Janssens, i. 14 (note);
pictures, at Antwerp, Malines, Cologne, i. 39;
"Judgment of Paris," i. 44, and note;
"Peace and War," i. 39.
Rules, good and bad, ii. 89, 90.
Ruskin, Mr., antipathies of, ii. 183;
an antiquary, i. 153;
art-teaching by correspondence approved by, i. 32;
art-work, how first begun, i. 180;
Austrian friend of, at Venice, ii. 6;
at Bellinzona, ii. 117;
bewildered by modern politics, ii. 3;
and the "Bibliography of R.," ii. 190;
his books, ii. 164 (_see_ below, books of, quoted);
his books read for the sound of the words, i. 161;
botany, notes on, i. 69, 204, ii. 183;
castles, his love of, i. 147, 149, 151 (note);
changes residence, and why, i. 156;
charity of, i. 152, ii. 139, 186;
conscience hereditary to, ii. 69;
a conservative, i. 152, 153, ii. 31;
and Copley Fielding, i. 192;
criticism,--principles of his, i. 190;
rarely replies to, i. 3, 88, ii. 174;
--crossing-sweepers of, ii. 120 (note);
diagram of Alpine aiguilles, i. 186;
dispirited, ii. 188;
drawing of St. Mark's, Venice, i. 161;
excuses from correspondence, ii. 186;
his father,--business of, ii. 87, and note, 102, 103;
an Edinburgh boy, ii. 184;
--Forbes' gratitude to, i. 187 (note);
fortune of, ii. 102, 103;
gardener of, ii. 140;
geology, knowledge and early love of, i. 180, ii. 172;
geological work amongst the Alps, i. 173;
Griggs, Matilda, and, ii. 186;
Guthrie, Dr., and, ii. 184;
Harrison, Mr. W. H., and, ii. 192;
Hartz minerals purchased by, ii. 58;
Holyoake, Mr., and, ii. 73, 74;
illness in 1878, i. 160, and note;
"inconsistency" of, i. 25 (note), ii.;
influence of, on architecture, i. 154 _seqq._, 157;
insanity, a tender point with, ii. 131;
investment in house property, ii. 106;
investment in railways--"never held a rag of railroad scrip," ii.
82;
Irving, Mr., and, ii. 179 (note);
Italy, knowledge of, ii. 14,
and the Italian question, ii. 3 _seqq._;
lectures, refusal to give, ii. 15, and note, 124;
lectures at Westminster Architectural Museum, ii. 174 (note);
Lowe, Mr., and (letter), ii. 189;
at Naples, ii. 116;
natural history, love of, i. 204;
newspapers little read by, ii. 10;
at Oxford, ii. 172, 188;
resigns professorship, i. 163;
political economy of, i. 180, ii. 84, 99, 100 (see _s. v._);
publication of books, ii. 163 _seqq._;
as a railway traveller, ii. 82;
range of work, ii. 188;
religious tone of his writings, i. 60, and note;
restoration, horror of modern, i. 153, 157, 159, 160;
rich, moderately, ii. 67;
science, love of, i. 132, 180;
servants of, ii. 93;
strikes, proposal as to, ii. 65 (note);
a Tory, i. 152, 153;
Turner, R.'s insight for his work, i. 106;
called mad for praising Turner, i. 106;
arranges the Turner bequest, i. 81, 83, 84, and note, 86, 88, 98,
100;
executor of Turner's will, i. 81;
love of Turner's pictures, i. 10;
Thornbury's "Life of Turner" criticised by, i. 107;
St. Mark's, Venice, and, i. 162, 169;
Ruskin Society, i. 170 (note), ii. 191;
Utopian home, ii. 119;
residence in Venice, i. 87;
wish to buy "Verona" (_see_ Verona), i. 152.
Ruskin, Mr., books of, quoted or referred to:--
"Academy Notes," i. 67 (note), 76 (note), 117; ii. 23 (note).
"A Joy for Ever," i. 25 (note), 102 (note), 189 (note); ii. 156
(note), 158.
"Aratra Pentalici," ii. 125 (note).
"Ariadne Florentina," i. 105 (note), 114 (note).
"Bibliotheca Pastorum," vol. i., ii. 4 (note), 102 (note), 144
(note).
"Cestus of Aglaia," ii. 99 (note).
"Crown of Wild Olive," ii. 23, 60 (note), 157.
"Deucalion," i. 180 (note).
"Eagle's Nest," ii. 125 (note), 140.
"Education in Art," i. 25 (note).
"Elements of Drawing," i. 95; ii. 165 (note).
"Essays on Political Economy," see below, "Munera Pulveris."
Evidence before National Gallery Commission, 1857, i. 48 (note), 84
(note).
"Examples of Venetian Architecture," i. 157 (note).
"Fiction Fair and Foul," ii. 97 (note).
"Fors Clavigera," i. 151, and note, 160 (note), 168, 169, 170; ii.
60 (note), 70 (note), 72, 106 (note), 126 (note), 130, 164
(note), 187, 189.
"Giotto and his Works in Padua," i. 25 (note).
Holbein, article on, ii. 12 (note).
"Home and its Economies," ii. 144 (note).
Lectures on Architecture and Painting, i. 22 (note), 107 (note).
Lectures on Art, ii. 125, 156. (note).
Lecture, on Forms of Stratified Alps, i. 174 (note).
---- on Verona and its ruins, ii. 113 (note).
Letters on the Lord's Prayer, ii. 142.
"Modern Painters," i. 3, 4 (note), 4 (note), 5 (note), 7, 8 (note),
40, 60 (note), 62 (note), 67 (note), 101 (note), 107 (note),
108 (note), 155, 174, 186, 191 (note), 193 (note); ii. 127, 165.
"Munera Pulveris," ii. 44 (note), 71, 72, 84, and note, 89,
226, 262 (note).
"My First Editor," ii. 192 (note).
Notes on Criminal Classes, ii. 131 _seqq._
Notes on Prout and Hunt, ii. (note).
Oxford Lectures, ii. 125.
"Political Economy of Art;" see above, "A Joy for Ever."
Pre-Raphaelitism, i. 12, 65 (note).
"Queen of the Air," ii. 171, 201.
"Sesame and Lilies," i. 60 (note); ii. 168 (note), 171 (note).
"Seven Lamps of Architecture," i. 60 (note).
"Stones of Venice," i. 157 (note), 161; ii. 175 (note), 184 (note),
192 (note).
"Time and Tide," ii. 65, 185.
Turner pamphlets, Catalogues of Sketches and Drawings, i. 84, and
note, 88 (note), 101 (note).
" " Notes, 1857, 86 (note), 92, and note, 102 (note),
204.
" " Report, i. 52 (note), 54, and note, 88 (note).
"Two Paths," i. 88, 95.
"Unto this Last," ii. 72 (note).
"Val d'Arno," i, 114 (note); ii. 125.
Russia, England, and India, ii. 31.
"S," letter on capital from, ii. 83 (and note), 84.
Saint Bernard, dogs of, ii. 11.
St. Elmo, ii. 116.
St. George, i. 162;
Company or guild of, i. 169 (note), 190;
fund, ii. 120;
letters on, 187 (note);
museum of, i. 163, ii. 73, 126;
schools of, ii. 146;
Society of the Rose not to take name of, ii. 191.
St. James of the Rialto, i. 165, and note.
St. Jean d'Acre pillars, i. 166.
"St. Lawrence," emigration in the, ii. 87.
St. Michael, i. 162.
St. Mark's, Venice, circular relating to, i. 159;
letters on, i. 169 (note), 170;
antiquity of, i. 161, 162;
architecture of, i. 162;
bill-posters on, i. 168;
bit off it, at Brantwood, i. 167;
photographs of, i. 164;
restoration of south façade, i. 168, and note;
stability of, i. 166, 169;
subscriptions for, i. 163, 169 (note).
St. Paul and Justice, ii. 53.
St. Paul's, Charity children singing at, ii. 149.
Sainte Chapelle, the, i. 136, 153, 154.
Salamanca, battle of, ii. 30.
Salvation, the Light of the hope of, i. 69.
Salvator Rosa, i. 15;
his "Mercury and the Woodman," i. 4.
Sancho, ii. 97.
Sardinia, position of in 1859, ii. 3, 6.
Savoy, cession of, ii. 19, and note.
Scarlet, the purest color, ii. 155.
Schaffhausen, letter from, ii. 13.
Scholarship, result of English, ii. 98.
Schools (see Education, St. George).
Science, list of letters on, i, 171;
connection of the different sciences, i. 132 (note);
what it includes, i. 30;
growth of, i. 32, 132, 134;
and religion, i. 133;
use of, i. 133.
Science of Life," "The, letters in, ii. 143, 149.
Scotch, ballads, i. 76 (note);
"craigs," i. 146;
people, religious tone of, ii. 3, 4, 7.
_Scotsman_, The, letters in--
(July 20, 1859) "The Italian Question," ii. 3.
( " 23, " ) " " " ii. 8.
(Aug. 6, " ) " " " ii. 13.
(Nov. 10, 1873) "Mr. Ruskin and Prof. Hodgson," ii. 44.
( " 18, " ) " " " ii. 46.
_Scotsman_, The, referred to, i. 74 (note).
Scott, Sir Gilbert, design for Foreign Office, i. 99.
----, Sir Walter, books of, referred to--
"The Abbot," chap. xvi. ("The monks of Melrose made good kail,"
also quoted in the introduction to "The Monastery"), i. 141.
"The Antiquary" (Fairservice), ii. 97.
"Lady of the Lake," canto v. st. x. quoted, i. 181.
"Lay of the Last Minstrel," canto ii. st. viii. quoted, i. 141.
"Redgauntlet," Letter xiii. (Peebles v. Plainstanes), i. 184.
"Rob Roy" (carefu' Mattie), ii. 97.
"Waverley" referred to, ii. 123 (note).
----, Mr. W. B., ii. 165;
reviews Mr. Tyrwhitt's "Sketching Club," _ib._
Sculpture, in architecture, i. 126, 137 _seqq._;
of hair, i. 143, ii. 12;
portrait statues, i. 140.
Sea, the, ii. 173;
color of, i. 196;
light and shadow on, i. 194 _seqq._;
southern and northern seas, ii. 178.
Sedan, battle of, ii. 31, 33.
Seine-series, Turner's, i. 82, 101.
Self-interest, ii. 7, 48, 55.
Sempach, ii. 4, and note;
battle of, i. 182, and note.
Serf-economy in America, ii. 21.
Servants and Houses, list of letters on, ii. 90;
education of, ii. 100;
facilities for leaving places, ii. 101;
good, how to secure, ii. 93;
kindness to means care, ii. 94;
rarity of good, ii. 93, and note;
and masters, ii. 97;
must be permanent to be good, ii. 95, 101;
Mr. Ruskin's experience of, ii. 95.
Service, value of self service, ii. 96.
Sexes, relation of the, ii. 147.
Shadow in distant effect, i. 194 _seqq._;
on water, i. 198;
impossible "on clear water, near the eye," i. 192 _seqq._
Shakespeare, his mission and work, i. 22 (note);
notes on a word in, ii. 176, 177;
Society, _ib._;
quoted or referred to--
"As You Like It," Act 2, sc. 3 (Old Adam), ii. 97.
" " Act 2, sc. 7 ("motley's the only wear"), ii.
157.
"Coriolanus," Act 3, sc. 1 ("mutable, rank-scented many"), i. 38.
"Hamlet," Act 5, sc. 1 ("The cat will mew," etc.), ii. 97.
"Julius Cæsar," Act 2, sc. 1 ("And yon grey lines," etc.), ii.
176.
"Measure for Measure" (Lord Angelo), ii. 144.
"Merchant of Venice," ii. 57, i. 165, ii. 179.
"Merry Wives of Windsor," i. 118.
"Midsummer Night's Dream," ii. 5, Act 1, sc. 1, i. 60, 61 (note).
"Romeo and Juliet," Act 2, sc. 4 ("My fan, Peter"), ii. 38.
"Taming of the Shrew" (Grumio), ii. 97, 178.
" " " Act 2, sc. 1 ("Katharine's frets").
"Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act 2, sc. 4 ("As rich in having,"
etc.), i. 64.
" " (Launce), ii. 97.
Shallow, Justice, his theology of death, i. 118.
Sheepshanks collection at Kensington, i. 98 (note).
Sheffield, art impossible in, ii. 126;
ironwork at, ii. 127;
Museum, ii. 73 (note), i. 163;
Western Park at, opened, ii. 126 (note);
strikes at, ii. 106.
_Sheffield Daily Telegraph_ (Sept. 7, 1875), St. George's Museum, ii.
126.
_Sheffield Independent_ (March 8, 1880), Mr. Holyoake on St. George's
Museum, ii. 73.
Shelley, quoted to illustrate Turner, i. 20;
his "Cloud," ii. 180.
Shenstone quoted, i. 72, and note.
Shepherd, Mr. R. H., two letters on the Bibliography of Ruskin, to,
ii. 190.
Shoeburyness, ii. 114.
Siena, Fount of Joy at, ii. 118.
Sienese, qualities of the race, ii. 117.
Simmons, W. H., engraver of "Light of the World," i. 67 (note).
Sinai, the desert of, ii. 5.
Singing for children, ii. 149.
Sire, meaning of, i. 145.
"Sixty years ago" (letter in _Pall Mall Gazette_, Jan. 30, 1868), ii.
123.
Slave markets in Mayfair, ii. 21.
Slavery and emancipation, ii. 21, 22;
and liberty, ii. 98, 99;
and sonship, ii. 93, 94, 96.
Smith, Mr. Collingwood, on water colors, i. 104 (note).
Smith, Sydney, memoirs quoted ("Bunch"), ii. 96 (note).
Smoke, no art in midst of, ii. 126.
_Socialist_, The (Nov., 1877), letter on the "Principles of Property"
in, ii. 71.
Society, of Arts, i. 52;
of Artists, Sheffield, ii. 181;
Ashmolean, i. 202;
New Shakespeare, ii. 176, 177;
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Mr. Ruskin at, ii. 128
(note);
Ruskin Society (of the Rose), ii. 191;
Science Association, Mr. Ruskin at, ii. 65 (note).
Solferino, ii. 3 (note), 31, 33.
Solomon, ii. 141, 173;
"seals of Solomon" (Suleyman), _see_ Arabian Nights.
Solomon, Mr. A., his "Waiting for the Verdict," i. 73 (note).
Son, relation of, to father, ii. 145.
Sonship and slavery, ii. 96-98.
Sorrento, i. 203.
Soult, Marshal, collection of, i. 87 (note).
Southey's Colloquies quoted, i. 21 (note).
Spain, oppressed by Spaniards, ii. 6.
Sparkes, i. 100 (note).
Spencer, Mr. Herbert, quoted, i. 194 (note), ii. 144 (note).
Sport, field, ii. 127.
Sprat, venture a, to catch a herring, ii. 41.
_Standard_, The, letter "Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Lowe" (Aug. 28,
1877), ii. 189;
article on St. Mark's, Venice, i. 168.
Stanfield, i. 23, 192;
illustrated by Campbell, i. 20;
water-painting by, i. 198.
Statues, commemorative, modern use of, i. 140.
Steam, to be employed after muscular power, ii. 87, 135.
Stones, pressure of, in water, i. 177, 186.
Stothard, engraving of design by, in "Rogers's Poems," i. 93.
Strasburg, ruin of, in Franco-Prussian war, ii. 25.
Street, Mr., influenced by Mr. Ruskin, i. 156;
his New Law Courts, i. 156;
and St. Mark's, i. 170.
Streets, state of London, ii. 119.
Strikes, ii. 42, 43;
letter "Strikes _v._ Arbitration," ii. 48;
at Cramlington, ii. 106, and note;
Mr. Ruskin's proposal as to, ii. 65 (note);
at Sheffield, ii. 106;
in Staffordshire, ii. 39.
Stucco, ii. 101.
Sunrise, rarely seen, ii. 177.
Supply and Demand, letters on, ii. 39 _seqq._, 43 _seqq._;
beneficial supply, ii. 43;
law of, ii. 81, 84, 93, 94, 105;
Mr. Ruskin and, ii. 99, 100.
Swift, quoted, ii. 167.
Swiss, the people of Bellinzona, ii. 117;
the liberties of Europe and, i. 182;
Protestantism, ii. 3-5.
Sydenham, and railway complaints, ii. 84, and note.
Syro-Phœnicia, the woman of, ii. 174.
"Tain Caimbeul," letter in _Reader_, i. 175 (note).
Taylor, the trial, ii. 130, and note.
Telford, "Ruskin, T., and Domecq," ii. 60 (note).
Tell, William, ii. 3, and note;
opera of, ii. 194.
Tempera-painting, determined by Angelico, i. 118.
Temple, Rev. F. (Bishop of Exeter), i. 25 (note), 31.
Tennyson, quoted: "Mariana," i. 60 (note);
"In Memoriam," i. 179;
"Enid," ii. 100;
"Break, break," etc., ii. 178;
mentioned, ii. 183 (note).
Territory, extent of, ii. 24.
Thackeray, Miss, "The Chaplain's Daughter" referred to, i. 120, 121
(note);
"Jack the Giant Killer," _ib._
Thames, the, i. 183;
its commerce, i. 165 (note);
its mud, ii. 73.
Theatre, the, letter, "At the Play," ii. 185,
(See Drama.)
_Theatre_, The, letter in, "The Merchant of Venice," ii. 179.
Thorburn, i. 62.
Thornbury, Walter, "Life of Turner," i. 108.
Tiber, inundations, ii. 111, 116, 118.
Ticino, inundations, ii. 113, 117.
_Times_, The letters in:--
(January 7, 1847) Danger to the National Gallery, i. 37.
(May 13, 1851) The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, i. 57.
(May 30, 1851) The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, i. 63.
(December 29, 1852) The National Gallery, i. 45.
(May 5, 1854) "The Light of the World," i. 67.
(May 25, 1854) "The Awakening Conscience," i. 71.
(October 28, 1856) The Turner Bequest, i. 81.
(July 9, 1857) The Turner Bequest and the National Gallery, i. 86.
(March 29, 1859) The sale of Mr. Windus' pictures, ii. 185.
(October 21, 1859) The Turner Gallery at Kensington, i. 98.
(October 24, 1862) Oak Silkworms, ii. 158.
(October 8, 1863) The Depreciation of Gold, ii. 37.
(January 27, 1866) The British Museum, i. 52.
(January 24, 1871) Turners False and True, i. 106.
(June 6, 1874) The Value of Lectures, ii. 124.
(January 20, 1876) The Frederick Walter Exhibition, i. 116.
(April 25, 1878) Copies of Turner's Drawings, i. 105.
(February 12, 1876) Despair (extract), ii. 124 (note).
(February 2, 1880) The Purchase of Pictures, i. 55.
Articles, etc., referred to:--
Critique on early Pre-Raphaelite works, i. 59 (note).
"Difficulties of Neutrality," Letter, ii. 26 (note).
And see notes to above-named letters.
Tintoret, i. 49, 75, 96, 112;
"Susannah and the Elders," i. 50, and note.
Titian, i. 24, 28, 42, 43, 49, 51, 75, 96, 106, 112, 117, 142; ii.
214;
his "Bacchus and Ariadne," i. 40, 54, and note.
Toccia, inundation of the, ii. 113.
Tombs, pompous, i. 140.
Tour, La, ii. 11, 12.
Townshend, Lord, letter by, on the Circassian exodus, ii. 17, and
note.
Traceries, not to be copied, i. 159.
Trade, the true dignity of, ii. 70, and note.
Training, moral and athletic, ii. 145.
Translation, the, of words, ii. 175.
Trevelyan, Sir W. C., i. 133, and note.
Trial and fate, the laws of, i. 125-6.
Trollope, Anthony, on field sports, ii. 128 (note).
Tunbridge Wells, education meeting at, 123.
Turin, ii. 11, 12.
Turner, J. W. M., list of letters on, i. 80 _seqq._;
his pictures ill seen in the Academy, i. 20, 21;
bequest to the nation, i. 50, and note, 81, 100;
his best work in gray, i. 96;
his best work his modern work (1843), i. 23 (note);
change in price and value of his pictures, ii. 41;
character of, i. 107;
Claude challenged by, i. 46, and note;
the Turner collection, i. 54, and note;
copies of, 105, and note;
difficulty of copying, i. 95;
lesson in art of copying, i. 23;
his delicacy of hand, i. 95;
engravings of, their value, i. 90;
exhibitions of Marlboro' House, i. 81, and note, 88-9, 92, 98, 101;
eyesight of (Dr. Liebreich on the), i. 154 and 155 (note);
"Turners" False and True, i. 106;
a Turner gallery, proposals for, i. 91;
Life of, i. 107-8;
light and gas, etc., effect of, on his pictures, i. 83, 90, 98, and
note, 100, 103, 105;
the Turner mania, i. 16;
mass of drawings left by, i. 101;
Norton's, Prof., lecture on, i. 86 (note), 97 (note), 105 (note);
pencil outlines of, i. 93;
poetry and philosophy of his pictures, i. 11, 15, 18, 21;
pre-Raphaelitism of, i. 65 (note), 74;
his "Public," i. 15;
scorned in life, i. 8, 11;
sea subjects, i. 199, 11, 12
(note);
the "Shakespeare" of painting, i. 22, and note;
Shelley compared with, i. 20;
sketch-book of, i. 86 (note);
subtlety of, i. 96;
requisites for enjoyment of his work, i. 21;
unusual vehicles of, i. 82;
Waagen's estimate of, i. 11, 12, and note;
water-painting by, i. 199;
will quoted, i. 46 (note).
Turner, J. W. M., Drawings and Sketches, condition of at death,
i. 90, 101 (note);
copies of, 105-6, and note;
distribution of among provincial schools proposed, i. 54, and note,
101;
exhibitions of, at Marlboro' House, see above, at Kensington,
i. 98, and note, 101;
a perfect example of a Turner sketch, 95, 96, and note;
Ruskin's, Mr., arrangement of, i. 84, 88, 89;
report on, i. 52 (note), 54, and note, 88;
"Turner Notes," etc. (see Ruskin, Mr.).
---- Pictures and drawings of, referred to: Alnwick Castle, i. 199;
"Dido building Carthage," i. 48;
Edinburgh, i. 101;
Egglestone Abbey, i. 102, and note;
"Fishermen endeavoring to put their fish on board" (Bridgewater
House), i. 11, and note;
Fluelen i. 105 (note);
Fort Bard, i. 101;
Harbors of England, i. 82, 101;
Hornby Castle, i. 117;
Ivy Bridge, i. 82, 101;
"Landscape with Cattle," i. 106, and note;
Langharne Castle, i. 102, and note;
Liber Studiorum, i. 82, 86;
sale of, ii. 70;
Plains of Troy, i. 102, and note;
Richmond series, i. 102, and note;
Rivers of England, i. 101;
Rivers of France, i. 82;
River Scenery, _ib._;
Rogers' Italy and Poems, i. 82, 101;
Seine series, i. 101;
study of a Cutter, i. 96, and note;
"Sun rising in a mist," i. 46;
Val d'Aosta, i. 82;
Pictures of Venice, i. 199;
Yorkshire series, i. 90.
Tuscan army (1859), ii. 6.
"Twenty Photographs," review of, ii. 172, and note.
Tyre, the citadel of, and St. Mark's, i. 162.
Tyrwhitt's "Sketching Club," ii. 165.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" referred to, ii. 21.
_University Magazine_, The (April, 1878), Mr. Ruskin's articles in,
ii. 192 (note).
Utopia, the people of, and their streets, ii. 119;
Ruskin's home in, _ib._;
Sir T. More's, ii. 191.
Utopianism, Mr. Ruskin's, ii. 74, 106.
Uwins, Thomas, R.A., knowledge of oil pictures, i. 46, and note;
keeper of the National Gallery, _ib._
Vallombrosa, i. 184.
Value, intrinsic, a question outside political economy, ii. 39;
and price, ii. 37, 65.
"Vandalism at the National Gallery" (a pamphlet), i. 37, 38 (note).
Van de Velde, i. 12;
water painting, i. 199.
Van Eyck, i. 43, 45, 46, and note, 65.
Vasari quoted, i. 9 (note).
Vaudois, the character and religion of the, ii. 3, 11, 12.
Velasquez's "Philip IV. hunting the wild boar," i. 40.
Venice, the Cross of the merchants of, i. 165;
market of, _ib._ (note);
ruin of, ii, 145;
Ruskin, Mr., in, i. 87, 157, ii. 154;
St. James of the Rialto, i. 164;
_see_ St. Mark's.
Venus of Melos, ii. 25.
"Verax," letters on National Gallery, i. 37 (note).
Vernet, Raphael restored by, i. 38.
Vernon, Mr. Robert, gift of, to the National Gallery, i. 50, and note.
Verona, Campanile of, i. 169;
Mr. Ruskin's wish to buy (see "Political Economy of Art," Lect. ii.
pp. 70-74, reprinted in "A Joy for Ever," pp. 77, 82), i. 152,
and note.
Veronese, i. 75, 96;
in National Gallery, i. 46, and note;
"Marriage in Cana," i. 87;
"Family of Darius," _ib._ and note;
"Rape of Europa," i. 46 (note);
St. Nicholas, _ib._;
at Venice, pictures destroyed, i. 38.
Verrochio, no picture by, in National Gallery, i. 44 (note).
Vice and heroism, ii. 134, 135.
Villas, modern, ii. 104, 105, and notes; i. 156.
"Vindex," letter on Barry from, ii. 175 (note).
Virgil quoted, i. 176 (note); ii. 18, and note.
Votes for Parliament, ii. 141, 154.
Waagen, Dr., i. 11, and note, 12.
Wages and labor, ii. 56, 60;
how determined, ii. 63, and note;
and hardship of work, ii. 59;
a just rate of, ii. 48, 50, 51;
"Standard of" (letter), ii. 65, 66, and _see_ ii. 42.
Wakley, Thomas, M.P., i. 19, and note.
Wales, Princess of, "our future Queen," ii. 19.
Walker, Frederick, letter on, i. 116;
effect of public on, _ib._;
elaborateness of, i. 121;
moral of his life, i. 118, 119;
morbid tendency of, i. 117;
method of painting, i. 117;
study of art, i. 118;
special pictures by, i. 119 _seqq._, and note.
Walpole's "Anecdotes of Painting" referred to, i. 14 (note).
War, American, loss of property, ii. 33;
English feeling as to, ii. 15-17, 19;
"modern warfare," letter on, ii. 29, and _see_ ii. 23.
Ward, Mr. William, copies of Turner, i. 105, and note;
photographs obtainable of, i. 164.
Warwick Castle, burning of, letters on, i. 151 _seqq._, 152 _seqq._;
the kingmaker, i. 153.
Waste land, bringing in of, ii. 138.
Water, use of in labor, ii. 135, 136;
pressure of stones in, i. 177, 186;
reflections in, i. 191 (note), and _seqq._;
of rainbows in, i. 201;
surface polished, i. 195, 197 _seqq._
Water-colors, effect of light, etc., on, i. 90, 91, 103, and note,
104;
series of British, at Kensington, i. 98 (note);
Society of Painters in, i. 118, 166, 201 (note).
Waterloo, battle of, ii. 30.
"W. B.," letter in _Daily Telegraph_, ii. 99 (note).
"W. C. P.," letter in _Times_ on "Neutrality," ii. 26 (note).
Wealth, definition of, letter on the, ii. 71;
Mill challenged to define, _ib._
Weapons, ancient and modern, ii. 32.
"Weary-Faulds," ii. 123, and note.
Weblings, recitation of the, ii. 180.
_Weekly Chronicle_, letter "Modern Painters" in the (September 23,
1843), i. 3.
Weller, Sam, ii. 97;
_see_ Dickens.
West, Benjamin, i. 75.
Western Park, Sheffield, ii. 126 (note).
Westminster, the first Norman Abbey, i. 161;
Mill, J. S., M.P. for, ii. 20 (note).
"Whinny-hills," ii. 123 (note).
Whitaker's "History of Richmondshire," i. 117 (note).
White, Adam, letter on "the Study of Natural History" to, i. 204.
Whitmore, Dr., report of Crawford Place, ii. 105.
"W. H. W.," letter to _Daily Telegraph_ on houses, ii. 104, and note,
105.
Wicklow Hills, i. 181.
Wife, place of a, ii. 153.
Wilkie, Sir David, "The Blind Fiddler," i. 7 (note);
Burns and, compared, i. 20.
Wilkinson, Sir Gardner, ii. 200, and note.
Williams, Mr. (of Southampton), Lecture on "Art-teaching by
Correspondence," to, i. 32.
Wind-power, use of, ii. 135.
Windus, Mr. B. J., sale of his pictures, ii. 185;
W. L., "Burd Helen," i. 76, 77, and notes.
Winkelried, Arnold von, ii. 4, and note.
Winsor, Charlotte, ii. 100 (note).
_Witness_, The, letters in:
(September 16, 1857) "The Castle Rock," i. 145.
(September 30, 1857) "Edinburgh Castle," i. 147.
(March 27, 1858) Generalization and the Scotch Pre-Raphaelites, i.
74.
(August, 1859) Refusal by, of Letters on the Italian Question, ii.
13 (note).
Women, list of letters on their work and dress, ii. 152;
duty and employment of, ii. 153;
modern ideas as to, ii. 153;
place of, ii. 145;
work of, ii. 154 (note), 153 (note).
Woodward, Mr., and the Oxford Museum, i. 125 (note).
Woolner, Mr., and the Oxford Museum, i. 139.
Words, definition of, ii. 56.
Wordsworth, depth of, i. 24 (note);
his "public," i. 14;
quoted, i. 17, 18, 24, and note, 148, 149; ii. 6, 8 (note).
Work, the best unpaid, ii. 60, and note;
honest always obtainable, ii. 46, 135.
Work and Wages, letters on, in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, ii. 48-64.
Workmen, turned off, ii. 27;
training of for Gothic architecture, i. 136.
Works of art, manufacture of by poor, ii. 139.
_World, The_ (June 9, 1875), letter on the "Publication of
Books," ii. 163;
article, "Ruskin to the Rescue," _ib._ (note).
Wornum's, R.N., "Life of Holbein," ii. 12 (note);
at the National Gallery, i. 92, 86 (note);
Turner drawings arranged, _ib._ 88.
Worth, battle of, ii. 31.
"W. R. G.," letters of, to _Pall Mall Gazette_, ii. 66-70, and notes.
Xenophon's Economist, quoted, ii. 102, and note.
"Y. L. Y.," letter in, on the gentian, i. 204 (note).
_Y. M. A. Magazine_, letters in:
(September, 1879). "Blindness and Sight," ii. 139.
(October, 1879). "The Eagle's Nest," ii. 140.
(November, 1879). "Politics in York," ii. 141.
Young Men and Politics, ii. 141.
Zedekiah, ii. 177.
Zeus, i. 162.
Zorzi, Count, and St. Mark's, Venice, i. 160 (note).
Zosima, epitaph on, ii. 99.
Zuingli, ii. 4, and note.
Transcriber's Notes:
Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were
silently corrected.
Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed.
Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_.
Corrected "Irving's, Mr., "Shylock," ii. 262." to "Irving's,
Mr., "Shylock," ii. 180." in Index.
Corrected "letter to W. C. Bennett, ii. 267 (note)." to "letter
to W. C. Bennett, ii. 183 (note)." in Index.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Arrows of the Chace, v. 2 - being a collection of scattered letters published chiefly - in the daily newspapers 1840-1880" ***
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