Chapter IV: Letter LXIV

I will begin my letter to-day with our Bible lesson, out of which other necessary lessons will spring. We must take the remaining three sons of Ham together, in relation to each other and to Israel.

Mizraim, the Egyptian; Phut, the Ethiopian; Sidon, the Sidonian: or, in breadth of meaning the three African powers,—A, of the watered plain, B, of the desert, and C, of the sea; the latter throning itself on the opposite rocks of Tyre, and returning to culminate in Carthage.

A. Egypt is essentially the Hamite slavish strength of body and intellect.

B. Ethiopia, the Hamite slavish affliction of body and intellect; condemnation of the darkened race that can no more change its skin than the leopard its spots; yet capable, in its desolation of nobleness. Read the “What doth hinder me to be baptized?—If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest” of the Acts; and after that the description in the ‘Daily Telegraph’ (first Monday of March), of the Nubian king, with his sword and his Bible at his right hand, and the tame lioness with her cubs, for his playmates, at his left.

C. Tyre is the Hamite slavish pleasure of sensual and idolatrous art, clothing her nakedness with sea purple. She is lady of all beautiful carnal pride, and of the commerce that feeds it,—her power over the Israelite being to beguile, or help for pay, as Hiram.

But Ethiopia and Tyre are always connected with each other: Tyre, the queen of commerce; Ethiopia, her gold-bringing slave; the redemption of these being Christ’s utmost victory. “They of Tyre, with the Morians—there, even there, was He born.” “Then shall princes come out of Egypt, and Ethiopia stretch forth her hands unto God.” “He shall let go my captives, not for price; and the labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia, shall come over unto thee, and shall be thine.” [25]

Learn now after the fifteenth, also the sixteenth verse of Genesis x., and read the fifteenth chapter with extreme care. If you have a good memory, learn it by heart from beginning to end; it is one of the most sublime and pregnant passages in the entire compass of ancient literature.

Then understand generally that the spiritual meaning of Egyptian slavery is labour without hope, but having all the reward, and all the safety, of labour absolute. Its beginning is to discipline and adorn the body,—its end is to embalm the body; its religion is first to restrain, then to judge, “whatsoever things are done in the body, whether they be good or evil.” Therefore, whatever may be well done by measure and weight,—what force may be in geometry, mechanism, and agriculture, bodily exercise, and dress; reverent esteem of earthly birds, and beasts, and vegetables; reverent preparation of pottage, good with flesh;—these shall Egypt teach and practise, to her much comfort and power. “And when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he called his sons.”

And now remember the scene at the threshing floor of Atad (Gen. 50th, 10 and 11).

“A grievous mourning.” They embalmed Jacob. They put him in a coffin. They dutifully bore him home, for his son’s sake. Whatsoever may well be done of earthly deed, they do by him and his race. And the end of it all, for them, is a grievous mourning.

Then, for corollary, remember,—all fear of death, and embalming of death, and contemplating of death, and mourning for death, is the pure bondage of Egypt.

And whatsoever is formal, literal, miserable, material, in the deeds of human life, is the preparatory bondage of Egypt; of which, nevertheless, some formalism, some literalism, some misery, and some flesh-pot comfort, will always be needful for the education of such beasts as we are. So that, though, when Israel was a child, God loved him, and called his son out of Egypt, He preparatorily sent him into Egypt. And the first deliverer of Israel had to know the wisdom of Egypt before the wisdom of Arabia; and for the last deliverer of Israel, the dawn of infant thought, and the first vision of the earth He came to save, was under the palms of Nile.

Now, therefore, also for all of us, Christians in our nascent state of muddy childhood, when Professor Huxley is asking ironically, ‘Has a frog a soul?’ and scientifically directing young ladies to cut out frogs’ stomachs to see if they can find it,—whatsoever, I say, in our necessary education among that scientific slime of Nile, is formal, literal, miserable, and material, is necessarily Egyptian.

As, for instance, brickmaking, scripture, flogging, and cooking,—upon which four heads of necessary art I take leave to descant a little.

And first of brickmaking. Every following day the beautiful arrangements of modern political economists, obeying the law of covetousness instead of the law of God, send me more letters from gentlemen and ladies asking me ‘how they are to live’?

Well, my refined friends, you will find it needful to live, if it be with success, according to God’s Law; and to love that law, and make it your meditation all the day. And the first uttered article in it is, “In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread.”

“But you don’t really expect us to work with our hands, and make ourselves hot?”

Why, who, in the name of Him who made you, are you then, that you shouldn’t? Have you got past the flaming sword, back into Eden; and is your celestial opinion there that we miserable Egyptians are to work outside, here, for your dinners, and hand them through the wall to you at a tourniquet? or, as being yet true servants of the devil, while you are blessed, dish it up to you, spiritually hot, through a trap-door?

Fine anti-slavery people you are, forsooth! who think it is right not only to make slaves, but accursed slaves, of other people, that you may slip your dainty necks out of the collar!

“Ah, but we thought Christ’s yoke had no collar!”

It is time to know better. There may come a day, indeed, when there shall be no more curse;—in the meantime, you must be humble and honest enough to take your share of it.

So what can you do, that’s useful? Not to ask too much at first; and, since we are now coming to particulars, addressing myself first to gentlemen,—Do you think you can make a brick, or a tile?

You rather think not? Well, if you are healthy, and fit for work, and can do nothing better,—go and learn.

You would rather not? Very possibly: but you can’t have your dinner unless you do. And why would you so much rather not?

“So ungentlemanly!”

No; to beg your dinner, or steal it, is ungentlemanly. But there is nothing ungentlemanly, that I know of, in beating clay, and putting it in a mould.

“But my wife wouldn’t like it!”

Well, that’s a strong reason: you shouldn’t vex your wife, if you can help it; but why will she be vexed? If she is a nice English girl, she has pretty surely been repeating to herself, with great unction, for some years back, that highly popular verse,—

“The trivial round, the common task,
Will give us all we ought to ask,—
Room to deny ourselves; a road
To bring us daily nearer God.”

And this, which I recommend, is not a trivial round, but an important square, of human business; and will certainly supply any quantity of room to deny yourselves in; and will bring you quite as near God as, for instance, writing lawyers’ letters to make appointments, and charging five shillings each for them. The only difference will be that, instead of getting five shillings for writing a letter, you will only get it for a day and a half’s sweat of the brow.

“Oh, but my wife didn’t mean that sort of ‘common task’ at all!”

No; but your wife didn’t know what she meant; neither did Mr. Keble. Women and clergymen have so long been in the habit of using pretty words without ever troubling themselves to understand them, that they now revolt from the effort, as if it were an impiety. So far as your wife had any meaning at all, it was that until she was made an angel of, and had nothing to do but be happy, and sing her flattering opinions of God for evermore,—dressing herself and her children becomingly, and leaving cards on her acquaintances, were sufficiently acceptable services to Him, for which trivial though they were, He would reward her with immediate dinner, and everlasting glory. That was your wife’s real notion of the matter, and modern Christian women’s generally, so far as they have got any notions at all under their bonnets, and the skins of the dead robins they have stuck in them,—the disgusting little savages. But that is by no means the way in which either your hands are to be delivered from making the pots, or her head from carrying them.

Oh, but you will do it by deputy, and by help of capital, will you? Here is the Grand Junction Canal Brick, Tile, and Sanitary Pipe Company, Limited; Capital, £50,000, in 10,000 shares of £5 each; “formed for the purpose of purchasing and working an estate comprising fifty-eight acres of land known as the ‘Millpost Field,’ and ‘The Duddles,’ situate at Southall, in the county of Middlesex.” You will sit at home, serene proprietor, not able, still less willing, to lift so much as a spadeful of Duddles yourself; but you will feed a certain number of brickmaking Ethiopian slaves thereon, as cheap as you can; and teach them to make bricks, as basely as they can; and you will put the meat out of their mouths into your own, and provide for their eternal salvation by gracious ministries from Uxbridge. A clerical friend of mine in that neighbourhood has, I hear, been greatly afflicted concerning the degenerate natures of brickmakers. Let him go and make, and burn, a pile or two with his own hands; he will thereby receive apocalyptic visions of a nature novel to his soul. And if he ever succeeds in making one good brick, (the clay must lie fallow in wind and sun two years before you touch it, my master Carlyle tells me,) he will have done a good deed for his generation which will be acknowledged in its day by the Stone of Israel, when the words of many a sermon will be counted against their utterers, every syllable as mere insolent breaking of the third commandment.

In the meantime, it seems that no gracious ministries from Uxbridge, or elsewhere, can redeem this untoward generation of brickmakers. Like the navvies of Furness, (Letter XI., p. 5,) they are a fallen race, fit for nothing but to have dividends got out of them, and then be damned. My fine-lady friends resign themselves pacifically to that necessity, though greatly excited, I perceive, at present, concerning vivisection. In which warmth of feeling they are perfectly right, if they would only also remember that England is spending some thirty millions of pounds a year in making machines for the vivisection, not of dogs, but men; nor is this expenditure at all for anatomical purposes; but, in the real root of it, merely to maintain the gentlemanly profession of the Army, and the ingenious profession of Engineers.

Oh, but we don’t want to live by soldiering, any more than by brickmaking; behold, we are intellectual persons, and wish to live by literature.

Well, it is a slavish trade,—true Hamite; nevertheless, if we will learn our elements in true Egyptian bondage, some good may come of it.

For observe, my literary friends, the essential function of the slavish Egyptian, in the arts of the world, is to lose the picture in the letter; as the essential function of the Eleutherian Goth is to illuminate the letter into the picture.

The Egyptian is therefore the scribe of scribes,—the supremely literary person of earth. The banks of Nile give him his rock volume: the reeds of Nile his paper roll. With cleaving chisel, and cloven reed, he writes thereon, exemplarily: the ark which his princess found among the paper reeds, is the true beginning of libraries,—Alexandrian, and all other. What you call Scripture, in special, coming out of it; the first portion written in Egyptian manner, (it is said,) with the finger of God. Scribe and lawyer alike have too long forgotten the lesson,—come now and learn it again, of Theuth, with the ibis beak. [26]

When next you are in London on a sunny morning, take leisure to walk into the old Egyptian gallery of the British Museum, after traversing which for a third of its length, you will find yourself in the midst of a group of four massy sarcophagi,—two on your left, two on your right. Assume that they are represented by the letters below, and that you are walking in the direction of the arrow, so that you have the sarcophagi A and B on your left, and the sarcophagi C and D on your right.

In my new Elements of Drawing, I always letter the corners of a square all round thus, so that A C is always the diagonal, A B the upright side on the left, and A D the base.

B ^ C
|
|
|
A | D

The sarcophagus A is a king’s; B, a scribe’s; C, a queen’s; and D, a priest’s.

A is of a grand basaltic rock with veins full of agates, and white onyx,—the most wonderful piece of crag I know; B and C are of grey porphyry; D of red granite.

The official information concerning sarcophagus A, (Nectabenes,) is to the effect that it dates from the 30th dynasty, or about 380 B.C.

B, (Hapimen,) of the 26th dynasty, or about 525.

C, (the Queen’s,) of the same dynasty and period.

D, (Naskatu,) of the 27th dynasty, or about 500 B.C.

The three sarcophagi, then, B, C, and D, were, (we are told,) cut exactly at the time when, beyond the North Sea, Greek art, just before Marathon, was at its grandest.

And if you look under the opened lid of the queen’s, you will see at the bottom of it the outline portrait, or rather symbol, of her, engraved, with the hawk for her crest, signifying what hope of immortality or power after death remained to her.

But the manner of the engraving you must observe. This is all that the Egyptian Holbein could do on stone, after a thousand years at least of practised art; while the Greeks, who had little more than begun only two hundred years before, were already near to the strength of carving their Theseus, perfect for all time.

This is the Hamite bondage in Art: of which the causes will teach themselves to us as we work, ourselves. Slavery is good for us in the beginning, and for writing-masters we can find no better than these Mizraimites: see what rich lines of Scripture they are, along the black edges of those tombs. To understand at all how well they are done, we must at once begin to do the like, in some sort ourselves.

By the exercise given in Fors of January, if you have practised it, you have learned something of what is meant by merit and demerit in a pure line, however produced. We must now consider of our tools a little.

You can make a mark upon things in three ways—namely, by scratching them, painting on them with a brush, or letting liquid run on them out of a pen. Pencil or chalk marks are merely a kind of coarse painting with dry material.

The primitive and simplest mark is the scratch or cut, which shall be our first mode of experiment. Take a somewhat blunt penknife, and a composition candle; and scratch or cut a fine line on it with the point of the knife, drawing the sharp edge of the knife towards you.

Examine the trace produced through a magnifying glass, and you will find it is an angular ditch with a little ridge raised at its side, or sides, pressed out of it.

Next, scratch the candle with the point of the knife, turning the side of the blade forwards: you will now cut a broader furrow, but the wax or composition will rise out of it before the knife in a beautiful spiral shaving, formed like the most lovely little crimped or gathered frill; which I’ve been trying to draw, but can’t; and if you can, you will be far on the way to drawing spiral staircases, and many other pretty things.

Nobody, so far as I have myself read, has yet clearly explained why a wood shaving, or continuously driven portion of detached substance, should thus take a spiral course; nor why a substance like wax or water, capable of yielding to pressure, should rise or fall under a steady force in successive undulations. Leaving these questions for another time, observe that the first furrow, with the ridge at its side, represents the entire group of incised lines ploughed in soft grounds, the head of them all being the plough furrow itself. And the line produced by the flat side of the knife is the type of those produced by complete excision, the true engraver’s.

Next, instead of wax, take a surface of wood, and, drawing first as deep and steady a furrow in it as you can with the edge of the knife, proceed to deepen it by successive cuts.

You will, of course, find that you must cut from the two sides, sloping to the middle, forming always a deeper angular ditch; but you will have difficulty in clearing all out neatly at the two ends.

And if you think of it, you will perceive that the simplest conceivable excision of a clear and neat kind must be that produced by three cuts given triangularly. [27] For though you can’t clear out the hollow with two touches, you need not involve yourself in the complexity of four.

And unless you take great pains in keeping the three sides of this triangle equal, two will be longer than the third. So the type of the primitive incised mark is what grand persons call ‘cuneiform’—wedge-shaped.

If you cut five such cuneiform incisions in a star group, thus, with a little circle connecting them in the middle, you will have the element of the decorative upper border both on the scribe’s coffin and the queen’s. You will also have an elementary picture of a starfish—or the portrait of the pentagonal and absorbent Adam and Eve who were your ancestors, according to Mr. Darwin.

You will see, however, on the sarcophagi that the rays are not equidistant, but arranged so as to express vertical position,—of that afterwards; to-day observe only the manner of their cutting; and then on a flat surface of porphyry,—do the like yourself.

You don’t know what porphyry is—nor where to get it? Write to Mr. Tennant, 149, Strand, and he will send you a little bit as cheap as he can. Then you must get a little vice to fix it, and a sharp-pointed little chisel, and a well-poised little hammer; and, when you have cut your asterisk, you will know more about Egypt than nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand,—Oxford scholars and all. Awaiting the result of your experiment, I proceed to the other instrument of writing, the reed, or pen.

Of which the essential power is that it can make a narrow stroke sideways, and a broad one when you press it open.

Now our own current writing, I told you, is to be equal in thickness of line. You will find that method the quickest and servicablest. But in quite beautiful writing, the power of the pen is to be exhibited with decision; and of its purest and delicatest exertion, you will see the result on the opposite page; facsimile by Mr. Burgess, coloured afterwards by hand, from a piece of Lombardic writing, of about the eleventh century,—(I shall not say where the original is, because I don’t want it to be fingered)—which the scribe has entirely delighted in doing, and of which every line and touch is perfect in its kind. Copy it, with what precision you can, (and mind how you put in the little blue dash to thicken the s of Fides,) for in its perfect uprightness, exquisite use of the diamond-shaped touches obtained by mere pressure on the point, and reserved administration of colour, it is a model not to be surpassed; standing precisely half-way between old Latin letters and mediæval Gothic. The legend of it is—

“Fides catholica edita ab Athanasio
Alexandrie sedis episcopo.”

Towards the better understanding of which Catholic faith, another step may be made, if you will, by sending to Mr. Ward for the Etruscan Leucothea, [28] with Dionysus on her knees, which also stands just half-way in imagination, though only a quarter of the way in time, between the Egyptian Madonna, (Isis with Horus,) of fifteen hundred years before Christ, and the Florentine Madonna by Lippi, fifteen hundred years after Christ. Lippi, being true-bred Etruscan, simply raises the old sculpture into pure and sacred life, retaining all its forms, even to the spiral of the throne ornament, and the transgression of the figures on the bordering frame, acknowledging, in this subjection to the thoughts and laws of his ancestors, a nobler Catholic Faith than Athanasius wrote: faith, namely, in that one Lord by whose breath, from the beginning of creation, the children of men are born; and into whose hands, dying, they give up their spirit.

This photograph of Etruscan art is therefore to be the second of our possessions, and means of study; affording us at once elements of art-practice in many directions, according to our strength; and as we began with drawing the beads of cap, and spiral of chair, in the Lippi, rather than the Madonna, so here it will be well to be sure we can draw the throne, before we try the Leucothea. Outline it first by the eye, then trace the original, to correct your drawing; and by the time next Fors comes out, I hope your power of drawing a fine curve, like that of the back of this throne, will be materially increased; by that time also I shall have got spirals to compare with these Etruscan ones, drawn from shells only an hour or two old, sent me by my good friend Mr. Sillar, (who taught me the wrongness of the infinite spiral of money interest,) by which I am at present utterly puzzled, finding our conclusions in last Fors on this point of zoology quite wrong; and that the little snails have no less twisted houses than the large. But neither for drawing nor architecture is there to-day more time, but only to correct and clarify my accounts, which I have counted a little too far on my power of keeping perspicuous without trouble; and have thereby caused my subscribers and myself a good deal more than was needful.

Henceforward I must ask their permission, unless I receive definite instruction to the contrary, to give names in full, as the subscriptions come in, and give up our occult notation.

I am not quite so well pleased with my good friend Mr. Girdlestone’s pamphlet on luxury as I was with that on classification of society, though I am heartily glad to be enabled by him to distribute it to my readers, for its gentle statements may be more convincing than my impatient ones. But I must protest somewhat against their mildness. It is not now merely dangerous, but criminal, to teach the lie that the poor live by the luxury of the rich. Able men—even Pope himself—have been betrayed into thinking so in old times, (blaming the luxury, however, no less,) but the assertion is now made by no intelligent person, unless with the deliberate purpose of disguising abuses on which all the selfish interests of society depend.

I have to acknowledge a quite magnificent gift of Japanese inlaid work to our Sheffield Museum, from my kind friend Mr. Henry Willett, of Arnold House, Brighton. A series of some fifty pieces was offered by him for our selection: but I have only accepted a tithe of them, thinking that the fewer examples of each school we possess, the better we shall learn from them. Three out of the five pieces I have accepted are of quite unsurpassable beauty, and the two others of extreme interest. They are sent to the Curator at Sheffield.

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

I. Affairs of the Company.

I give on next two pages our banker’s account to 14th March of this year. Calling this ‘Account B,’ and that given to the end of last year, in last Fors, ‘Account A,’ the following abstract of both is, I hope, accurate.

By Account A: £ s. d.
Cash paid into bank 653 1 0
Interest accumulated 780 5 6
By Account B:
Cash paid into bank 324 11 1
Interest 119 0 0
----------
Giving total to our credit 1876 17 7

Per contra, we have—
Petty expenses 0 10 9
Purchase of £1000 Consols 918 15 0
Cheques to myself 800 0 0
Balance 157 11 10
----------
1876 17 7

Of the cheques for £800 I will give account presently; but first, we must compare the cash paid in with the subscription list.

The total cash paid in is— Account A 653 1 0
Account B 324 11 1
----------
977 12 1

Now see subscription list, after banker’s account, page 129.

THE UNION BANK OF LONDON (Chancery Lane Branch) IN ACCOUNT WITH ST. GEORGE’S FUND. Dr. Cr. ----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------- 1876. £ s. d. | 1876. £ s. d. Jan. 1. To Balance 14 1 10 | Feb. 22. By Charges on two local notes 0 0 10 Jan. 6. ,, Dividend on £8000 Consols 119 0 0 | Feb. 25. ,, Postage of Pass Book 0 0 3 Jan. 13. ,, Geo. Allen 24 11 1 | March 3. ,, John Ruskin, Esq. 300 0 0 Feb. 15. ,, John Ruskin, Esq. 25 0 0 | Feb. 15. ,, Draft at Sheffield 8 0 0 | Feb. 15. ,, ,, ,, Ambleside 6 0 0 | Feb. 15. ,, ,, ,, Bridgwater 100 0 0 | Feb. 15. ,, ,, ,, Birmingham 5 0 0 | Feb. 22. ,, Cash 35 0 0 | March 4. ,, Draft at Windsor 20 0 0 | March 7. ,, Cash 25 0 0 | March 7. ,, Draft at Oxford 50 0 0 | March 14. ,, Cash 6 0 0 | March 14. ,, Draft at Sheffield 20 0 0 | March 15. By Balance 157 11 10 ---------- | ---------- £457 12 11 | £457 12 11 ----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------- 1876. £ s. d. | March 15. To Balance 157 11 10 |

Subscription List
To March 14th of this Year.

£ s. d.
Total in Fors of February 741 14 10
(Corrections received note of.)
No. 8. Additional 40 0 0
,, 26. ,, 1 5 0
,, 38. Subscriptions 1875, 1876 2 2 0
---------
785 1 10

Now continuing the list.

No. 55. J. W. 50 0 0
,, 56. The mother of the first donor of 100 0 0
land to St. George
,, 57. The Curator of our Museum 8 0 0
,, 58. B. A., Subscription, 1876 3 0 0
,, 59. J. T. S. 50 0 0
,, 60. E. L. 20 0 0
,, 61. S. I. 2 0 0
,, 62. R. R. 5 0 0
,, 63. L. L. 0 10 0
----------
1023 11 10
Cash paid in 977 12 1
----------
Balance in my hands 45 19 9

The sum in my hands, thus amounting to £ 845 19s. 9d., has been distributed as follows:—

£ s. d.
Purchase of land and house at 600 0 0
Sheffield
Henry Swan—Two quarters’ salary to 20 0 0
31st March, 1876
Expenses of repair, Sheffield 41 0 0
Prints (Colnaghi). See November Fors 29 10 0
Messrs. Tarrant and Mackrell, 29th
December, 1876 £20 17 5
26 15 11 ------ 47 13 4
Balance in my hands 106 16 5
----------
£845 19 9

Messrs. Tarrant and Mackrell’s accounts follow. I had an offer from Sheffield to do this legal work for nothing; but I wanted to be sure that everything was in due form, and I can trust this London firm. My very good friend Mr. Tarrant must, however, pardon my pointing out to him how much more pleasantly, for all parties, he might be employed, as suggested in Fors XVI., pages 10 and 11, than in taxing this transfer of property to the amount of nearly fifty pounds—(seven pounds odd worth of letters merely). For, were the members of the legal profession employed generally in illuminating initials, and so got out of our way, and the lands of the country properly surveyed and fenced, all that would be really needful for the sale of any portion of them by anybody to anybody else, would be the entry in a roll recording the tenure of so many square miles round each principal town. “The piece of land hitherto belonging to A B, is this day sold to and henceforward belongs to C D, whereof we (city magistrate and a head of any county family) are witnesses.”

THE ST. GEORGE’S COMPANY,
To TARRANT & MACKRELL,

Costs of Purchase of Freehold Land and Messuage in Bell Hagg Road, Sheffield.

1875.
Sept. 20. £ s. d.
On receipt of letters from Messrs. Webster, and
from Mr. Ruskin, as to purchase of land and a house
at Sheffield, writing Messrs. Webster, the vendor’s
solicitors, to send us contract 0 5 0
Writing Mr. Ruskin as to amount of purchase money,
he having stated it to be £600, and Messrs. Webster
£630 0 3 6
Oct. 4.
On receipt of draft contract for approval from
Messrs. Webster, with abstract of title for
inspection, looking through abstract, when we found
it would be necessary to have a copy of plan on
deed of 1st May, 1857, and an abstract of the
Rivelin View Society’s Deed of Covenants, before
investigating the title, or approving contract 0 13 4
Writing Messrs. Webster accordingly 0 5 0
Copy contract to keep, fo. 15 0 5 0
Oct. 11.
Perusing abstract of title, nine sheets 1 0 0
Perusing the Rivelin View Company’s Deed of
Covenants, four sheets 0 10 0
Perusing and approving draft contract 0 6 8
Writing vendor’s solicitors with contract approved
and thereon, and for plan which they had omitted to
send 0 5 0
Oct. 13.
Writing Messrs. Webster, acknowledging letter
approving of our alterations in contract, and
asking for plan which they had omitted to send,
although in their letter they stated it was
enclosed 0 5 0
Engrossing one part of the contract for signature
of Mr. Ruskin, and paid stamp thereon 0 10 6
Drawing plan thereon 0 7 6
Writing Mr. Ruskin, with contract for his
signature, and fully thereon, and as to the
contents of the Rivelin View Society’s Deed of
Covenants, and as to Trustees of the Company to
whom the property might be conveyed, and for cheque
for £60 for deposit 0 5 0
Oct. 18.
On receipt of letter from Mr. Ruskin with contract
signed and cheque for deposit, writing him
acknowledging receipt 0 3 6
Writing with appointment to exchange contracts and
pay deposit 0 3 6
Attending exchanging contracts, and paying deposit 0 6 8
Oct. 19.
Writing our agents at Sheffield (Messrs. Broomhead
and Co.) with abstract of title to examine, with
deeds, and instructing them 0 5 0
Oct. 20.
Writing vendor’s solicitors that contract exchanged
and deposit paid to their London agent, and as to
examination of title deeds 0 5 0
Oct. 21.
On receipt of abstract from Messrs. Broomhead and
Co., with remarks on title, writing them to examine
probate of H. Norton’s will in hands of Messrs.
Tattershall, and on subject of duties, etc., under
that will, and returning abstract to them 0 3 6
Oct. 23.
Attending perusing conditions of sale under which
Mr. Bagshawe bought the property before drawing
requisitions on title 0 6 8
Oct. 29.
Drawing requisitions and copy 0 10 0
Writing vendor’s solicitors therewith 0 3 6
Nov. 5.
Instructions for deed of conveyance 0 6 8
Drawing same, fo. 16 0 16 0
Fair copy for perusal 0 5 4
Writing Messrs. Webster therewith and fully thereon 0 5 0
Nov. 10.
Engrossing conveyance 0 13 4
Paid parchment 0 5 0
Writing Mr. Ruskin on subject of completion, and
for cheque for £540 balance of purchase money, and
with consent to be signed by him to conveyance
being taken to the Right Hon. W. C. Temple and Sir
T. D. Acland as Trustees for the Company, Mr.
Ruskin having entered into the contract 0 5 0
Writing vendor’s solicitors, with engrossment for
examination, and fully thereon 0 5 0
Writing Messrs. Broomhead, our agents, instructing
them to make proper searches in the Land Registry
at Wakefield, and as to completion of purchase 0 3 6
Nov. 12.
Writing our agents at Sheffield, with cheque for
£540 purchase money, and very fully as to
registering deed of conveyance, searches, and
settling 0 5 0
Writing Mr. Ruskin acknowledging receipt of his two
letters, with two cheques for, together, £540 0 3 6
Nov. 15.
Attending examining certificates of searches, with
abstract, when we found same satisfactory 0 6 8
Nov. 16.
On receipt of conveyance executed by the vendor and
his mortgagee, attending stamping, and afterwards,
for same 0 6 8
Paid stamp 3 0 0
Writing our agents, with stamped deed conveyance
for registration, and fully thereon 0 3 6
Nov. 22.
Making schedule of documents received from agents
(Messrs. Broomhead), and writing them acknowledging
receipt of deeds, and for account of their charges 0 3 6
Nov. 29.
On receipt of account of agents’ charges, amounting
to £10 14s. 11d., writing them with cheque 0 3 6
Writing Mr. Ruskin on subject of insurance 0 5 0
Incidentals 0 10 0
---------
16 1 0
Paid Messrs. Broomhead’s charges 10 14 11
---------
£26 15 11

THE ST. GEORGE’S COMPANY,
To Wm. B. TARRANT.

General Bill of Costs to 10th December, 1875.

1875.
Feb. 13.
On receipt of letter from Mr. Ruskin, attending him at
Herne Hill, and conferring on course to be taken on
subject of letter from Messrs. Griffith and Son, of
Dolgelly, as to conveyance of cottage property at
Barmouth, and on the necessity of trust deed for the
purpose of such conveyance, so as to carry out the
wishes of Mr. Ruskin and others for improving the
condition of agriculturists, and paid rail 1 2 0
Feb. 15.
Writing Messrs. Griffith and Son, as arranged 0 5 0
Feb. 18.
Attending Sir Sydney Waterlow, Mr. W. J. Thompson, and
others, as to the Industrial Dwellings Company, of
which they had been promoters, with a view to
obtaining information to guide me in the formation of
the St. George’s Company 0 6 8
Feb. 22.
Instructions to counsel to advise in conference on
course to be adopted to carry out the scheme 0 6 8
Making copy of Mr. Ruskin’s letter to accompany
instructions 0 5 0
Attending counsel therewith, when it was arranged that
conference should be postponed until Mr. Ruskin could
attend 0 6 8
Writing Mr. Ruskin to let me know on what day he could
attend conference 0 5 0
Feb. 23.
On receipt of letter from Messrs. Griffith and Son,
writing them fully in reply 0 5 0
March 10.
Attending counsel, Mr. Barber appointing conference
for 3.30 on Monday 0 6 8
Writing Mr. Ruskin, with appointment 0 3 6
March 15.
Attending conference with Mr. Ruskin at Mr. Barber’s,
when it was decided that he should draw a deed for the
purpose of carrying out Mr. Ruskin’s wishes, and paid
cab 1 3 0
Paid counsel’s fee and clerk 1 6 0
Drawing proposal circular 0 12 0
March 21.
Attending counsel therewith to settle 0 6 8
Paid his fee and clerk 1 3 6
March 26.
Attending counsel, appointing conference on draft 0 6 8
April 26.
Attending conference 0 13 4
Paid counsel’s fee and clerk 1 6 0
April 29.
Fair copy of proposed circular as settled 0 4 0
Letter to Mr. Ruskin therewith and thereon 0 5 0

To TARRANT & MACKRELL.

£ s. d.
June 9.
On receipt of letter from Mr. Ruskin on draft 0 10 0
circular, making copy of Mr. Ruskin’s suggestions to
place before counsel three brief sheets
Perusing and considering same 0 10 0
Drawing memoranda of constitution of the Company, to 1 10 0
take place of the circular
June 10.
Instructions to counsel to settle same, and with Mr. 0 6 8
Ruskin’s suggestions, etc.
Attending counsel therewith 0 6 8
Paid his fee and clerk 2 4 6
June 11.
Long letter to Mr. Ruskin in reply to his of the 0 5 0
27th and 28th ult., and 8th inst.
June 15.
Fair copy memoranda of constitution of the Company, 0 10 0
as settled by counsel, fo. 30
Writing Mr. Ruskin therewith and thereon 0 5 0
June 23.
Attending Mr. Ruskin on his calling and handing us 0 6 8
print of the proposed memoranda in a number of his
‘Fors Clavigera,’ and with Mr. Ruskin’s suggestions
for some alterations; and we were to submit same to
counsel, and obtain a conference with him in about a
month’s time, which Mr. Ruskin would attend
Oct. 7.
On receipt of the July and October ‘Fors’ from Mr. 1 1 0
Ruskin, attending, perusing, and considering remarks
and suggestions contained therein, and bearing on
the formation of the St. George’s Company, and also
your letter to us of the 2nd inst., returning us the
draft memoranda sent you on the 15th June, with your
remarks thereon, and letter you had received from a
correspondent on the subject, attending, perusing,
and considering the several letters and documents to
enable us to revise the memoranda as desired
Oct. 15.
Writing Mr. Ruskin very fully on subject of revision 0 5 0
of memoranda and statutes, and for further
information as to marshals, etc.
Oct. 24.
On receipt of letter from Mr. Ruskin withdrawing all 0 10 0
reference to marshals from the proposed memoranda,
making fresh copy of the memoranda as drawn, and
adding in the margin thereof all suggestions and
comments thereon contained in the ‘Fors,’ and the
several letters we had received in connection with
the matter
Oct. 30.
Instructions to counsel to revise memoranda 0 6 8
Attending him therewith and thereon 0 6 8
Paid his fee and clerk 1 3 6
Dec. 10.
Writing Mr. Ruskin, with draft memoranda and 0 5 0
counsel’s amendments, and with counsel’s opinion at
foot thereof, and also as to insurance of the
Sheffield premises
Petty disbursements and incidentals 0 10 0
---------
£22 0 8

II. Affairs of the Master.

£ s. d.
Balance, Feb. 20th 225 5 9
Cash (Portsdown mortgage, paid March 2nd) 1522 12 4
----------
1747 18 1
Feb. 28. Klein [29] 40 0 0
March 1. Raffaelle Carloforti [30] 15 0 0
2. Thomas Wade, Esq. [31] 31 10 0
6. Self [32] 35 0 0
6. Arthur Burgess 30 0 0
9. F. Crawley [33] 40 0 0
10. Charles F. Murray, Esq. [34] 10 0 0
11. Antonio Valmarana [35] 50 0 0
16. Antonio Coletti [36] 25 0 0
-------- 276 10 0
-----------
Balance £1471 8 1

III.

“6, Moira Place, Southampton, 15th Feb., 1876.

“Dear Sir,—On referring to Helix ericetorum (the species I take your outline to be enlarged from) in Dr. Turton’s British Land and Fresh-water Shells, with additions by Dr. Gray, I find it stated, on the authority of M. Bouchard, that the eggs of H. ericetorum are laid from July to November, and are from forty to sixty in number, the time of hatching being twenty days after laying, and the length of the snail’s life is eighteen months. It is not, however, stated whether these particulars refer to H. ericetorum in England or France.

“The only extra information I can get from my other book is that heavy rains kill great numbers of them.

“Your drawing refers to the shell of a full-grown snail, shown by its having six whorls, and by the slight reflex curve at the outer end of the spiral. [37]

“With regard to the formation of the shell, I can state that it was formed by successive additions during the life of the snail, the small dark transparent portion in the centre of the spiral being the nucleus, and the lines and ridges crossing the spiral indicate the different rings or layers of shell added to suit the convenience of the snail.

“I enclose specimens of H. ericetorum from Deal, [38] to enable you to compare them with those from Arundel, to make sure that they are the same species.

“I am, dear Sir, your obedient servant,

“H. L.”

IV. “A Swedish newspaper contains a lengthy account of the gallant rescue of a Swedish steamer by the people of the village of Cresswell, Northumberland. Thirteen out of the fifteen male inhabitants manned the boat, to launch which the women waded to their waists. A fisher-girl named Bella Brown ran ten miles to the next lifeboat station for assistance, and had to wade through several bays on an icy January night. The brave girl was seized with cramp on returning, and nearly lost her life.”

V. Part of a letter from one of my best friends, Fellow and Tutor of Corpus, communicating some recent notes on English scenery:—

“I next went to the Isle of Wight, which is very pretty, but all over-builded. It threatens soon to become a mere suburb of London. Portsmouth detained me a day,—all too brief a time for its beauties and horrors, its relics of past naval glories and picturesque bits on land and sea, its nightmare sea-going caldrons, misnamed men-of-war, at the present. I went on board the Thunderer, twin ship of the Devastation. I had expected something ugly and horrible, both inside and out; but my expectations were surpassed tenfold, especially with regard to the inside of the ship. The crew are confined altogether in utterly dark dungeons at each end of the ship, wholly under water, and hardly high enough for a man to walk in upright. An iron-shielded and very high deck in the middle of the ship is the only place where a man can see the light of day, and live when this witch’s kettle is at sea, as the ends of the vessel cut under the waves. The bull of Phalaris would have been an eligible prison to me in comparison of this; victims, at any rate, were not sent to sea in it.”

VI.

“Laxey, Isle of Man, March 4th, 1876.

“Dear Sir,—In this month’s ‘Fors,’ page 107—‘Affairs of the Master,’—if you add up the amounts paid out, I think you will find, instead of £360 2s. 0d., the amount should be £370 2s. 3d., and leaves a proper balance of £225 5s. 6d.

“I hope you will not be offended at me for troubling you with these trifling errors, of no moment; but I have got a singular habit—that I can never pass over a column of added figures, no matter what length, without testing their correctness.

“Yours truly,

“E. Rydings.”

(If only my good correspondent—now a Companion—will indulge himself constantly in this good habit as respects the Fors accounts, I shall be much more at ease about them. But his postscript is more important.)

“P.S. You say that the girls of St. George’s Company shall learn to spin and weave, etc. There is a good deal of hand-spinning done on this little island, but I am sorry to say that there are no young girls learning now to spin; and in a few years more, the common spinning wheel here will be as great a curiosity as it is in Lancashire, where one is never seen—only at the theatre. I have gone to some little trouble to ascertain why the young girls are not learning now to spin; and the principal reason I can gather is that home-spun ‘Manks-made dresses,’ as they are called, last too long, and therefore do not give the young women a chance of having four or five new dresses in the year. I could give you some interesting information about hand-spinning and weaving here, but must reserve it for another time, and will send you patterns of cloth, etc. All our blankets, sheets, flannels, skirts, jacket cloth, stockings, and yarns, have been spun by my wife and her mother before her. We have now linen sheets in wear, not a hole or a tear in them, that were spun by my wife’s mother,—and she, poor body, has been dead twenty-eight or twenty-nine years,—the flax grown on their own farm. Fine and white they are, and would compare favourably in fineness with machine-made Irish linen. The daughters of Lord Auckland, when he was bishop here, used to go every Saturday afternoon to my wife’s mother’s, (who lived just behind Bishop Court,) to learn to spin.

“But I must write you a special letter on the subject when I have got my patterns ready.”

FORS CLAVIGERA.