Chapter VI: Literary Criticism (3)

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."_