The Life and Work of John Ruskin

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THE LIFE AND WORK OF
JOHN RUSKIN
W . G. COLL INGWOOD , M . A .
EDITOR OF THE POEMS OF JOHN RUSKIN,” ETC.
WI TH P ORTRAI TS AND OTHER
ILLUS TRATI ONS
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME I I
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON
,
M IFFLIN AND COMPANY
GEbe Bibmihc 19mm, Gimminge
1893
Copyrigh t, 1893 ,
BY HOUGHTON , M IFFLIN CO.
le R iverside Press, Cambridg e ,Ma n , U . S . A .
Elec trotyped and Prin ted b y H . O. Hoqgh ton Ca
CONTENTS .
BOOK I I I .
HERMIT AND HERETIC (1860
PAG E
THE TRANSITION FROM ART (1860-1861)
THE PROTEST IN ECONOMICS (1862)
DISSENT IN GEOLOGY (1863)
IDEALS OF CU LTURE (1864)
LESSONS IN E DUCAT ION (1865)
PUB L IC MORALITY (1865—1866)
LETTERS ON A COMMONWEALTH (1867)
AGATES AND CRYSTALS (1868)
GREEK FAITHS AND CHRISTIAN MYTH S (1869)
THE CALL TO OXFORD (1869-1870)
BOOK IV.
PROFESSOR AND PROPHET (1870
F IRST OXFORD LECTURES (1870-1871)
FORS CLAVI G ERA BEGUN (1871—1872)
OXF ORD TEACH ING (1872-1875)
ST. GEORGE AND ST. MARK (1875-1877)
DEUCAL ION AND PROSERP INA (1877—1879)
THE D IVERSIONS OF BRANTWOOD (1879—1880)
FORS CLAVI G ERA RESUMED (1880—1881)
THE RECALL TO OXFORD (1882-1883)
CONTENTS .
CHAPo PAG E
IX. THE STORM-CLOUD (1884—1888)
X . DATUR HORA QU IETI (1889—1892)
APPENDIX.
CHRONOLOGY (1860—1892)
B IBLIOGRAPHY (1860—189 1) xi i
CATALOGUE OF DRAWINGS BY MR . RUSK IN (1860-1889) xi
'
x
INDEX
L IST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAG E
JOHN RUSKIN, from a Photograph, 1882. (Plzotogravure)
Fran tispz
’
ece
BADEN
,
SWITZERLAND, by John Ruskin, 1862 or ’63
MR . JOHN JAMES RUSKIN, from a Photograph .
JOHN RUSKIN , early in his S lade Profe s sorship .
gravure)
BRANTWOOD, from Coniston Wate r, by A rthur S eve rn , R . I .
FACSIM ILE OF MR . RUSKIN’S HANDWR ITING, “ Fors Clavi
ge ra,” 1874
MURANO, by John Ruskin , 1876
FOREGROUND DETAIL AT BRANTWOOD, by John Ruskin,
187
BEAUVAIS CATHEDRAL, by John Ruskin, 1880
JOHN RUSKIN , from 3. Photograph, 1892. (P /zotog mvure)
NOTE.
THE following portraits of Mr. Ruskin are mentioned by Mr. M . H .
Spie lmann in th e Magaz in e of Art for January and Fe bruary, 1891
Pencil drawing, or drawings, by S ir J. E . M il lais (abou t medallion
by Mr. Charle s Ashmore (187 5) ske tch by Pilotelle (1876) miniature by
Mr
.
Andrews (exhib . R . A . 1877 ) wate r-color byMr. Arthur Se ve rn (about
same time ) ; l ife-siz e head in wate r-color by Mr. H erkomer (exh ib . Gros
ve n or Gal le ry, portraits by Mr. Emptmeyer and M iss Webling
(both exhib. R. A . 1888) bust by Mr. Conrad Dre ssle r (1884, exhib. N ew
Galle ry, 1889) wate r-color head by himse lf in the possess ion of Mrs. Ar
thur Se ve rn, exce llently reproduced as frontispie ce to Vol. I . (about 1864,
the black t ie pe rhaps indicatin g the re cent loss of his fathe r) . To the se
may b e adde d Bust by Mr. B. Cre swick (1877 , pre sented to Prince Le o
pold, bust by Mr. A tk inson two life-siz e heads in wate r
color by himse lf, unfinished, in posse ssion of Mrs. A . S e ve rn ; penci l study
(1873 or 1874) andwate r-color by himse lf, in posse ssion of Prof.
C . E . Norton . A lso many photographs, th e be st known by Me ssrs . Ell iott
Fry (1866, 1882) andBarraud (1882, Th e ske tch at VolI I ., p . 552,
is enlarged fromagroup photograph by Capt. Walke r From pho
tographs were c opied an exce llent l ithograph illustrating a Bibl iography
byMr. Wedde rburn , in the Exami n er, N ov . 1, 1879 ; e n graving byW . Roffe
in the Ruskin Birthday Book ; e tching by W . Burton in Biographical ou t
l in e (Me ssrs . Virtue ’s se rie s of Ce lebritie s, 1889) woodcut by T. A .
Butle r, Harper’sMagaz i n e , Fe b . 1889. Caricature s in Van ity Fair by F .
Waddy ; in SirI sumb ras crossmg the Ford,” by F . Sandys (Arts C lub,
London) , e tc ., e tc .
BOOK I I I .
HERM IT AND H ERETIC.
(1860
Hush ! you must n ot speak about it ye t, bu t I have made agreat dis
c overy . Th e fac t is that the stronge st man upon earth is h e who stands
IBSEN, E n emy qf Soc iety .
CHAPTER I.
THE TRANS ITION FROM ART.
(1860
H e was forty be fore he talked of an y miss ion fromH eaven.
H ero as P rophet .
I n this way h e has l ived til l past forty ; old age is n ow in view of h im,
andthe earne st portal of death ande te rnity.” Tn e H ero as Ki ng .
CARLYLE.
AT forty years of age Mr. Ruskin finished
Modern Painters ,
”
and concluded the whole
cycle Of work by which he is popularly known as
a writer on art. S ince then; art has sometimes
been his text, rarely his theme . He has used it
as the opportunity, the vehicle , so to say, for
teachings Of farwider range an d deeper import ;
teachings about l ife as a whole , conclus ions i n
eth ics an d economics an d religion , to which he
seeks to lead others , as he was led , by the way of
art . And in th is later period , when he does
speak of art i n especial, the greater range of his
inquiry natural ly modifies h is aim an dstandpoint ;
j ust as, i n a vas t wal l-painting, the detai l is viewed
an d treated otherwise than when it formed the
subject Of separate sti ll-l ife studies . Some Ob
servers prefer the sti l l-l ife ; and indeed it may
264 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
be good work . But the broad treatment is the
greater.
If we want to understand Mr. Ruskin
,
there
is on ly on e way of studying him ; an d that is
to trace from point to point the growth of his
mind . NOW allthose books Modern Painters
,
”
“ Stones Of Venice ,
” “ Seven Lamps
,
” the earlier
Lectures and Letters on A rt — are works Of a
young man , n ot yet forty ; that is to say, before
the age at which most great authors , painters , and
th inkers have done thei r best . They contain
much that is valuable andmuch that is character
istic ; but they are only the forecourt, not the
presence-chamber. They lead to his final conclu
sions , but they do not express them . What the
j uvenile poems are to these works , they are to
the later works , seedlings andsaplings , SO l ike
an d so unlike the full-grown plant . I t is no use
quarrel ing with the author for not composing a
consistent explanat ion Of his views ; though i t
would have been conven ient for students , who
might as well Wish that Plato had left them a
handbook of his philosophy, or that Shakespeare
hadappended notes to Hamlet.
During the time when he was preach ing his
later doctrines , Mr. Ruskin wished to Suppress
the interfering evidences of the earl ier ; n ot so
much because they containedmistaken estimates
and misleading statements , as because they b e
trayeda tone of thought wh ich di ffered from the
tone of his late r period as much as a stained win
THE TRANSITION FROM ART. 26 5
dow differs from aTin tore t. He let h is works on
art run out Of print , n ot for the benefit of second
hand booksellers , but i n the hope that he could
fix upon his audience the burden of his prophecy
for the time being. But the youthful works were
stil l read ; high prices were paid for them , or they
were smuggled in from America. And since the
epoch of Fors has passed , he has agreed to the
reprinting of allthat early material . He cal ls i t
Obsolete an d trivial ; others find it interest ingly
biographical, perhaps even classical .
But when we read articles professing to criticise
his l ife-work, and find that they estimate his art
theory from a few passages in Modern Painters,
Volumes I . an d I I . , Obviously immature ; when ,
on the other hand , magazine writers analyze , as
axioms Of his social sc ience, without tracing thei r
origin an d import, the winged words with which
he tried , i n his fai l ing powers an dforlorn hopes , to
arouse the dull conscience of a Philistine publ ic ;
when men Of a different generation , an al ien race ,
of traditions dissimilar an di rreconcilable tempera
ment, hasti ly sample his paragraphs as customs
Offic e rs gauge a cargo ; we turn at last to the
historical method , and ask whether these things
should be so . And as a geologist, puzzled at
some inversion Of strata, Nature
’s paradox
,
yet
,
on accurately plotting it out upon his mapor
model , sees the fitness an dnecessity of the pheno
menon ; so, w i th the biographical scheme under
stood , the discrepancies an ddiffi culties of Ruskin
266 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
fal l into their place and explain themselves . He
at last stands revealed , an dthen can be criticised ,
as we criticise an y other thinking , growing man ,
say Plato , Titian , Goethe ,
— who has left a long
life’s work behind him .
This year, then , 1860 , the year of the I tal ian
kingdom
, of Garibaldi , and Of the beginning of
the American war, marks his turning-point, from
the early work, summed up , not too adequately,
i n Mr. Harrison
’s 1 Selections ,
” to the later work
which no on e has yet thoroughly examined in
print.
Until he was forty, Mr. Ruskin was a writer on
art ; after that his art was secondary to ethics .
Until he was forty he was a believe r in English
Protestantism ; afterwards he could not reconcile
current beliefs with the facts of l ife as he saw
them , andhadto reconstruct his creed from the
foundations . Unti l he was forty he was a philan
thropist, working hearti ly with others i n a definite
cause
, andhoping for the amendment Of wrongs,
without a social upheaval . Even in the begin
ning of 1860 , in h is evidence before the House
Of Commons Select Committee on Public In stitu
tions , he was ready with plans for amusing and
instructing the laboring classes, and rioting in
them a “ thirsty desi re ” for improvement.2 But
1 I have always unde rstood fromM r. Ruskin that th e S e le ctions
we re made by Mr.W . H . Harrison ; the editors of the B ibl iography
attribute them to Mr. W i ll iams , of Smi th, E lde r Co .
9 I t i s inte re sting to remark , i n passing, that h e did not be l ieve
in le cture s wi thout inte rme diate study
, and anticipated the i llus
THE TRANSITION FROM ART. 26 7
while his readiness to make an y personal sacrifice ,
i n the way of social an dphilanthropic experiment,
an dh is interest i n the question , were increasing,
he became less andless sangu ine about the value
of such efforts as the Working Men
’s College ,
and less an d less ready to co
'
operate with others
in thei r schemes . He began to see that no tin
kering at social breakages was real ly worth while
that far more extens ive repairs were needed to
make the Old sh ip seaworthy.
So he set himself, by himself, to Sketch the
plans for the repai rs . Natural ly sociable , andac
customed to the friendly give-an d-take of a wide
acquaintance , he withdrew from the busy world
into a busie r sol itude . During the next few years
he lived much alone among the A lps
, orat home ,
thinking out the problem sometimes feel ing, far
more acutely than was good for clear thought , the
burden of the mission that was laid upon him . In
March , 186 3 , he wrote from his retreat at Mornex
to Mr. Norton : “ The loneliness is very great, and
the peace in which I am at present is only as if I
had buried myself in a tuft of grass on a battle
field wet with blood , — for the cry of the earth
about me is in my ears continual ly, if I do n ot
lay my head to the very ground . And , a few
months later : “ I am sti l l very unwell
, and tor
me n ted between the longing for rest and lovely
life , an d the sense Of this terrific cal l of human
trated course s to mixed andworki ng-class audie nce s which are
now th e chi e f feature of Un ive rsi ty Ext ension .
268 THE LIFE AND WORK OF J OHN RUSKIN .
crime for resistance andof human misery for help ,
though it seems to me as the voice of a river of
blood which can but sweep me down in the midst
Of i ts black clots , helpless .
Sentences l ike these , passages here andthere in
the last volume Of Modern Pai nters ,
”
and stil l
more , certain passages omitted from that volume ,
Show that about 1860 something of a cloud had
been settl ing over him , a morbid sense of the
evi l Of the world , a horror of great darkness . In
his earl ier years, his intense emotion and vivid
imagination had enabled him to read into pic
tures Of Tin tore t or Turner, into scenes -Of n a
ture and sayings Of great books , a meaning or a
moral which he so vividly communicated to the
reader as to make i t thenceforward part and
parcel of the subject, however it came there to
begin with . I t is useless to wonder whether
Turner, for instance , consciously meant what Rus
kin found in his w orks . A great pai nter does
not paint without thought, and such thought is
apt to Show itself whether he wil l or no . But i t
needs a powerful sympathy to detect anddescribe
the thought . And when that powerful sympathy
was given to suffering, to widespread misery, to
crying wrongs ; j oined also wi th an intense pas
sion for j ustice , which had al ready shown i tself
in the defense Of sl ighted genius and neglected
art, and to the high-strung Celtic temperament
Of some Highland seer an d trance-prophesying
hard; i t was no wonder that Mr . Ruskin became
THE TRANSITION FROM ART. 26 9
l ike on e of the hermits of Oldwho retreated from
the world to return upon i t with stormy messages
Of awakening and flashes Of truth more impres
sive , more il luminating than the logic Of school
men an dthe statecraft of the wise .
And then he began to take up an atti tude Of
antagonism to the world , he who had been the
kindly helper andminister of delightful art . He
began to cal l upon those who hadears to hear to
come out and be separate from the ease and
hypocrisy of Vanity Fair. I ts respectabi l i ties , i ts
orthodoxies , he could no longer abide . O rthodox
rel igion , orthodox morals and poli tics, orthodox
art an d science , al ike he rej ected ; an d was re
je c ted by each of them as a brawler, a babbler,
a fanatic , a heretic . And even when friendly Ox
ford gave him a quasi-academical position , that
did not bring him , as i t brings many a heretic,
back to the fold .
In this period of storm andstress he stood alone .
The old friends of h is youth were on e by on e
passing away, if n ot from intercourse , sti l l from
full sympathy with him in his new mood . Car
lyle was not yet the admiring intimate b e after
wards became . His parents were no longer the
guides an d companions they had been ; they did
n ot understand the business he was about. And
so he was left to new associates , for he could not
l ive without some on e to love , — that is the n a
ture of the man , however lonely in his work and
wanderings .
270 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
The new friends of th is period were , at first,
Americans ; as the chief new friends of his latest
pe riod (the A lexanders) were American , too. Mr.
Charles E l iot Norton , after being introduced to
h im in London , met him agai n by accident on
the Lake Of Geneva— the story is pretti ly told
in Prae terita. And Mr. Ruskin adds ,
“ Norton
saw allmy weaknesses
,
measured allmy narrow
nesses , and, from the first, took serenely, an das i t
seemed Of necessity, a kind of paternal authority
over me , and a right of guidance . I was
enti rely conscious of his rectorial power, and
affectionately submissive to i t, so that he might
have done anyth ing with me , but for the unhappy
difference in our i nnate an dunchangeable poli ti
calfai ths .” So , after all, he stood alone .
Another friend about th is time was Mrs . H .
Beecher S towe , to whom he wrote on J une 18,
1860 , from Geneva:
“ I t takes a great deal , when
I am at Geneva, to make me ~ w ish myself an y
where else, and, of allplaces else , in London ;
neverthe less
,
I very hearti ly wish at th is moment
that I were looking out on the Norwood Hills ,
an d were expecting you an d the chi ldren to
breakfast to-morrow .
“ I hadvery serious thoughts , when I received
your note
, of running home ; but I expected that
very day an American friend, Mr. S til lman , who ,
I thought, wou ld miss me more here than you in
London , SO I stayed .
What adreadful thing i t i s that people shou ld
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272 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHNRUSKIN .
arti cle on J ohn Ruskin ” in the “ Century Maga
z ine ” (January, He tells us that he wrote
to the author for counsel , an d quotes a long let
ter in which Mr. Ruskin advises “ on no account
to agitate nor grieve yourself, nor look for in spi
rations , — for assuredly many of our noblest Eng
l ish minds have been entirely overthrown by
doing SO, but go on doing what you are sure is
quite right
,
— that is , striving for constant pu rity
of thought , purpose , andword .
”
Nothing could have been more infel icitous ,
after such advice and the known tenor Of Rus
kin’s teach ing, than Mr. Stillman
’s picture Of ’ a
mortal struggle between a man and a buck ,
the buck pai nted , i n curious misunderstanding
of Pre-Raphaelite principles , from a dead buck .
Nothing could more naively il lustrate the gentle
art Of making enemies than Mr. Stil lman’s c om
bination Of anecdote and remark . Mr. Ruskin
cal led his buck , we are told , “ fi lthy.
“ His art
cri ticism is radical ly and i rretrievably wrong.
A t Denmark H ill , the American visitor proved a
Turner drawing to be false in tone ; Mr. Ruskin
(who thinks i t b admanners to argue with a guest ,
an dhadful ly explained the subj ect in his chapter
on the Use of Pictures) waived the discussion .
“ His assumption of Turner’s veraci ty is the c or
ner-stone of his system , and i ts rej ection would
be the demol ition of that system ” Mr. Stillman
was his “ guest ” for the summer of 1860 in Switz
e rland . He found his host “ generous to extrav
THE TRANSITION FROM ART. 273
agan c e ; but when he was asked to draw a group
of cottages , — as Mi l lais hadbeen asked to draw
the tiger’s head , and other artists sharing Mr.
Ruskin’s purse and patience have been invited
to Share his work , —Mr. Stil lman showed a ten
minutes’ sketch for h is day’s resul t, an dexplained
that the subj ect was not worth his while. A t
Chamouni , Mr. Ruskin stopped his drawin g Of the
Mer de Glace on finding, what an artist might
have seen beforehand , that the l ines were awk
ward . “ Mr. Ruskin never seemed to understand
style in drawing.
“ His influence on modern
landscape-painting has been pernicious from b e
ginning to end .”
In Mr . Stillman’s company at Chamouni , July,
1860 , Mr. Ruskin seems to have sketched very
l ittle . Two moonlights, a new subject for h im,
are attributed to that summer. He was far from
well ; feeling for the first time , to a serious de
gree , the morbid depress ion which some of his
letters of the period indicate ; an dturning over I n
his mind the thoughts he was embodying in a new
series of essays on pol itical economy. The year
before , from Thun and Bonnevi lle and Lausanne
(August andSeptember, 1859 ) he hadwritten let
ters to Mr . E . S . Dal las , suggested by the strikes
in the London building trade . In these he ap
pears to have sketched the outl ine Of a new con
c eption of social science, which he was now
e laborating, with more attempt at system and
brevity than he hadbeen accustomed to use .
274 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
These new papers , painful ly thought out and
carefully set down in his room at the HOtelde
l’Un ion , he used — as long before he read his
dai ly chapter to the breakfast party at Herne Hill
- to read to Mr. W . J . Stil lman ; and he sent
them to his friend Thackeray , who accepted them
for his magazine, the Cornh ill , started the year
before by Smith E lder. Mr. Ruskin hadal
ready contributed to i t a paper on “ S ir Joshua
and Holbein ,
”
a stray chapter from Volume V
“ Modern Painters .” His reputation as a writer
and philanthropist, together with the friendliness
Of editor an d publisher, secured the insertion Of
the firs t three , from August to October.
Thackeray then wrote to say that they were
so unanimously condemned an d disl iked that,
with allapologies, he could only admit on e more .
SO the series was brought hasti ly to a conclu
s ion in November, and the author, beaten back
as he had never been beaten before , dropped
the subject , an d “ su lked , SO he cal led i t, allthe
winter.
I t is pleasant to notice that neither editor nor
publisher quarreled with the author who had laid
them open to the censure of their publ ic , -nor
he with them . On December z I st, he wrote to
Thackeray, in answer, apparently, to a letter about
lecturing for a charitable purpose ; andcontinued
“ The mode in which you direct your chari ty
puts me in mind of a matter that has lain long on
my mind , though I never have had the time or
THE TRANSITION FROM ART. 275
face to talk to you of i t . In somebody’s drawing
room , ages ago, you were speaking accidental ly of
M . de Marvy. 1 I expressed my great Obligation
to him ; on which you said that I could prove my
gratitude , if I chose , to his widow , which choice
I then not accepting, have ever since remembered
the ci rcumstance as on e pecul iarly likely to add,
SO far as i t went, to the general impression on
your mind of the hollowness Of people’s sayings
andhardness of thei r hearts .
The fact is, I give what I give almost in an
opposite way to yours . I th ink there are many
people who will relieve hopeless distress for on e
who will help at a hopeful pinch ; an d when I
have the choice I nearly always give where I think
the money will be fruitful rather than merely help
ful . I would lecture for a school when I would
n ot for a distressed author ; and would have
helped De Marvy to perfect his i nvention , but
n ot — unless I had no other Obj ect — his widow
after he was gone . In a word , I l ike to prop the
fal l ing more than to feed the fal len .
The winter passed without an y great under
takings . Mr. G . F. Watts proposed to addMr.
Ruskin’s portrai t to his gal le ry of celebri ties but
he was i n no mood to si t . Rossetti d id , however,
Sketch him this year. In March he presented a
series of Turner drawings to Oxford , andanother
set of twenty-fi ve to Cambridge . The address Of
1Louis Marvy, an e ngrave r, and poli ti cal re fuge e afte r th e
Fre nch R evolution of 1848.
276 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN.
thanks with the great seal Of Oxford University
is dated March 23 , 186 1 ; the Catalogue of the
Cambridge col lection is dated May 28th . Late r
in the year Wal te r Thorn b ury
’
s L ife Of Turne r ”
appeared , the book that Mr. Ruskin ought to have
written . He wrote from Lucerne , December 2,
186 1 : “ I have j ust received and am reading
your book with deep interest. I am much grati
fi edby the view you have taken andgive Of Tur
ner. I t is quite what I hoped . What beautiful
th ings you have discovered about h im ! Thank
you for your courteous an dfartoo flattering refer
e n c e s to me .” I t was, Of course , gratifyin g to find
somebody who did not consider Turner, as Mr.
S til lman does , a miser and a satyr ; an d when
Mr. Ruskin compl iments , he compliments hand
somely.
He was prevailed upon , i n sp ite of h is un fi t
ness , to give a lecture before a most bril liant
audience
,
as the London Review ” reported , at
the Royal Institution (April 19 , Carlyle
wrote to his brother John ° “ Friday last I was
persuaded — in fact had i nwardly compelled my
self as it were — to a lecture of Ruskin
’
s at the
Institution , A lbemarle S treet. Lecture on Tree
Leaves as physiological , pictorial , moral , symb oli
calobjects . A crammed house , but tolerable even
to me in the gal lery . The lecture was thought to
‘ break down ,
’
and i ndeed it quite did ‘as alet
tn re ;
’ but only did from embarras a’es rz
'
tnesses,
THE TRANSITION FROM ART. 27 7
a rare case . Ruskin did blow asunder as by gun
powder explosions his leaf notions , which were
manifold , curious , genial ; an d i n fact, I do not
recollect to have heard in that place an y neatest
thing I l iked so wel l as th is chaotic on e .
CHAPTER. IL
THE PROTEST IN ECONOMICS .
Nork ind n orcoinage buys
Aught above its rate
Fear, Craft andAvarice
Cannot rear 3. State .”
EMERSON.
IT is n ot every traveler nowadays who knows
theSaleve . One goes through the A lps too
quickly to l inger among the footh i lls , an damere
three thousand feet Of crag above the plain does
not stop the way to aiguil les andglaciers . But
the tourist of the future , after seeing Voltaire
’s
Fern ex in the morn ing, will perhaps pick his way
among the fields beyond Carouge an d through
the gorge Of Monnetier
, ordrive on his pilgrimage
by Annemasse round the Peti t Saleve , to another
shrine at Mornex . There , two thousand feet
above sea-level , basking in the morn ing sun , and
looking always over the broad valley of the A rve
at Mont Blanc and i ts panorama, are country
retreats Of the modern Genevese , beneath the
old mother-castle of Savoy ; and there , with its
shady l i ttle garden and rustic summer-house , i s
the chalet, or cottag e orn ée , where Mr . Ruskin
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280 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
M i lan , and was going to be bette r among the
Alps . His Working Men’s Col lege pupil
,
George
A l len , who had been learn ing engraving from
Le Ke ux, met him there with his wife and chil
dren
, and, among other occupations , made him
self famous as a rifle -shot at Swiss Tirs, and
as a skillfu l carpenter helped to mend Savoyard
cottages .
In September the second article appeared in
Fraser. “ Only a genius like Mr. Ruskin could
have produced such hopeless rubbish , says a
newspaper of the period . Far worse than an y
newspaper criticism was the condemnation of
Denmark H il l . His father, whose eyes had
glistened over early poems an d prose eloquence ,
strongly disapproved of th is heretical economy.
I t was a bitter thing that h is son shou ld turn
prodigal Of a hardly earned reputation , and be
pointed at for a fool . And it was intensely pain
ful for a son “ who had never given his father a
pang that could be avoided ,
”
as Old Mr. Ruskin
had once written , to find his father, with on e foot
in the grave , turning against him . He went home
in November for a few weeks ; i n December the
thi rd paper appeared . History repeated itself,
as usual , with variations . This time not only the
public but the publisher inte rfered andwith the
fourth paper the heretic was gagged . A year
after, h is father died andthese “ Fraser articles
were laid aside unti l the end of 187 1, when they
THE PROTEST IN ECONOMICS . 281
were taken up again , and published on New
Year’s Day, 1872, as Munera Pulveris.
” 1
I t wil l surely be asked ,Why was there SO great
a noise about a few articles on a theoretical sub
j e c t l ike pol itical economy ?
We are so accustomed nowadays to free spe c u
lation an d outspoken theorizing — even to bold
experiments in social ism andkindred systems
that i t is rather difficult for us to see what the
“ harm ” was i n these essays , unti l we put our
selves at the point Of view of the time — th irty
years ago when they were written , in order to
see how it was they terrified people , disturbed
consciences , and seemed like an ecl ipse-portent .
I t was not j ust that they attacked a theory .
They aimed at the working creed , the comfortable
scheme of allsociety, the sanction of property as
then held andconstituted , an dthe j ustification of
l ife as then lived .
People hadbeen asking why there were poverty
an dmisery, vice and crime . When Ruskin was
stil l a verse-writing l ittle lad the poor-laws had
been blamed for great part of i t, and i n 1834 had
been overhauled , by the l ight of political economy,
an dhopeful ly reconstituted . Later, great schemes
of charity had been not only set going, but ener
ge tically worked . And still there were poverty
and vice . People cried to thei r gods , the all
powerfu l Laws of Competition , Supply and De
1 The title i s an al lusion to Horace , Ode s , I . xxvi i i . 3 ; as Un to
tlzis Last re fe rs to Matthew xx . 14.
282 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
mand , andthe rest, to step in an dsave them : with
absolute fai th that if the right sacrifice were Of
fered, the right formula preferred , the great rel i
gion of Adam Smith would make the world what
i ts priests declared it, i n desperate fai th , to b e ,
th e best of allpossible worlds . Imagine what
some virtuous Norseman fel t, when the first
Christian missionary stood up an d said : “ The
vice you deplore, the barbari ty you lament, i s not
to be cured by sacrifice to your idols , or recital of
Runes ; i t i s only to be done away by throwing
down Thor and unlearning the Sagas of B lood ;
an d by taking to heart the White Christ andHis
Gospel of forgiveness.” Ruskin said exactly that.
He said that the reason Of poverty andvice was
noth ing else discounting human frai l ty than
the mistaken creed in which the virtuous world
had been comforting itself, justifying itself, these
fifty years ormore .
Autres temps, autres moeurs , they say : we
may say , too, O ther times , other truths . Mon asti
c ism was a gran d
‘moveme n t , for the age Of S t.
Benedict ; but when the monasteries became a
scandal , they needed reform upon reform . The
pol itical economy of the orthodox school was, i n
i ts origin
, a fine advance upon the cruder notions
dating from Machiavell i . I t had suggested a
wider View Of life , the weal th no longer of tyrants
ornarrow ol igarch ies , but of broader-based society.
I t had in itiated the habit Of mind which regards
the welfare Of the state , — no longer l
’etat c ’est
THE PROTEST IN ECONOM ICS . 283
moi, but as the aggregate of population , strug
gling onwards , or back, to a Greek ideal of true
pol it ical philosophy. But the stock-in -trade Of
truth with which it started was becoming used
up . The history of philosophy shows that every
movement, however popular and practical , has
i ts orig1n an d i ts support in some me taphysi
caltheory. The detai ls Of public business are
worked by rule Of thumb , an d by Opportunism ;
but the great national ideal , the spiri t Of the
age , i s the outcome Of some th inker
’s theory
which has prevai led . Now the Old pol itical
economy was the outcome of eighteenth-century
philosophy Of the éclai rcissement
,
the school of
rough general izations ; the mood Of mind which
takes the l ine of leas t resistance
,
and hastens to
deductive conclusions from introspection
, or from
too scanty survey Of the infinite multipl ici ty Of
facts which it has not time nor patience to S ift .
I t assumed whatever is , i s right ; andwhatever
was, at the moment, the phase of prevail ing ac tiv
i ty, i t took for the eternal and immutable order
of th ings . In this case , the commercial an d
manufacturing industries , a new andmagnificent
development Of civi l ization , i t assumed to be
normal . I t general ized too rapidly upon the ten
de n c ie s which the growing trade an d material
progress Of England brought into play, as if these
were the only Objects
,
the only facts of l ife ; as if
output of cotton and coal , for example, were an
end of existence . And it deduced rules by which
284 THE LIFE AND WORK OF J OHN RUSKIN .
the output might be increased , and formulated
D ivis ion Of Labor, Competition , and so forth , as
the means to its end .
This was paral lel to the old orthodoxy in art,
with which Mr. Ruskin hadto deal in h is youth .
Then there hadbeen a similar system of thought,
based on an outworn metaphysic , the Platon ism
of the Renai ssance , appl ied to the making Of
pictures . Certain ideals, archetypes , had been
assumed as u ltimate truths ; an d rules for pain t
in g had been deduced from them . Mr . Ruskin
hadshown that the sc ientific method of the mod
ern age could be applied to th is province of
thought ; that particular fact was to be regarded
as the starting-point
,
andthat, after due induction
of principles , new values were to be given to the
words truth , beauty, and imagination . The Old
rules , fal lac iously supposed universal laws, he set
aside , not without opposi tion an dended in se c ur
ing the acceptance Of Turner andNatural i sm .
John S tuart MillhadShown the logical s ide Of
that movement in 1843 ; but j ust as Ruskin , by
sympathy with romanticism , had been attracted
over to the reactionary school for a time , SO Mil l ,
by his sympathy with l iberal ism , the descendant
of the éclai rc issement, had al lowed himself to be
less true to the modern scientific method i n his
political economy. He advanced beyond Ben
tham ; but stil l on the same lines .
‘ Carlyle had
exempl ified the opposite school of thought, a
school whose tradition hadbeen kept al ive in Ger
THE PROTEST IN ECONOMICS . 285
many. D r. A rnold of Rugby, the friend of N ie
buhr andBunsen , wrote to Mr . James Marshal l
from FOX HOW (January 23 , 1840) My dif
fe re n c e s with the L iberal Party would turn , I
think, chiefly on two points . Fi rst, I agree with
Carlyle , I n thinking that they greatly over-estimate
Bentham , andalso that they overrate the pol itical
economists general ly ; n ot that I doubt the abil i ty
of these writers , or the truth of thei r conclusions ,
as far as regards thei r ow n science , — but I thin k
that tne smnmmn oon nm of t/ze ir sc ie n ce , an a
’
o
of
n nman life , are n ot iden ticalan dtherefore , many
questions in which free trade is involved , andthe
advantages Of large capital , etc . , although perfectly
simple i n an economical point of view, become,
when considered politically, very complex ; and
t/ze econ omicalgaoa
’ is ve ry often , from the neglect
Of other points , made in practice a direct soc ial
evil.” 1
What A rnold said privately in 1840, Ruskin
said publ icly i n 1860. What he had done for
Turner, he did for Carlyle : he analyzed the prin
c iple s of those two great men , and laid the foun
dations of anew system , in the firs t case Of an art
theory, i n the second case of asocial theory, which
they had i llustrated in concrete examples .
AS long as he kept to the pol itical economy Of
art , spectators could look on with comfort, and
applaud h imwhen he fought for th e rights of the
workman . I t was only agains t arch itects and
1 S tanle y’s Life of Arn ola
'
,
le tte r 223 . The i tali cs are mine .
286 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
master-builders that h is first attack was directed ;
i t was only for art craftsmen that he fought , before
1860 . But then he suddenly changed his front ;
bore down upon allemployers , fought for all
laborers ; attacked not only the wrongs of on e
class , but the whole series of publ ic evi ls . He b e
gan by a destructive cri ticism of the whole econ
omy Of the commercial schoo l as the champion ,
not of modern pai nters , but Of modern th inkers ;
of a scientific method of economy, as opposed to
the academic ; of the broad view, based on the
complex facts Of l ife, as against the narrow view,
based only on such facts as appeared to the com
merc ialmind , nursed in eighteenth-century tra
dition s.
He showed , as others have since Shown more
calmly andcompletely, after he b roke the ground
for them , that the Old economy did not take in
the whole facts Of the case , as an y true science
does , and must do . I t was not true to the data,
he said: to assume a state of normal immoral i ty,
as Adam Smith seemed to do, i n declaring that
the only calculable motive forwork was the fear
of losing pay. I t was n ot true to human nature
to neglect the many phases Of honesty andl oyal ty
which real ly existed , and by which , i n actual l ife ,
society was upheld , and successful trade and
manufacture were made possible . Again ; to lay
down as “ laws ” mere general izations which the
wi l l of an y man could set aside , was a misunde r
standing of the meaning of law ” in modern sci
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288 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
t ians , hadconducted thei r enterprises . And when
the SO-cal led laws of this so-cal led sci ence were
taken as practical rules for l ife an d conduct, an d
clashed , as they Often did , with plain moral ity, or
were made the Shield of selfishness
,
the pretext of
pol it ical crime (as in the case of the employment
Of ch i ldren in mills
, the sell i ng Of dangerous or
b adwares to savages , andso on ), then he pressed
the conclusion that i t was a superannuated creed ,
no better than a heathenism in whose name all
manner of evils might be speciously justifi ed,
tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
”
Destructive cri ticism like th is was only the pref
ac e to his work . He had two things yet to do :
to rearrange definitions of the terms and state
ments of real laws ; an d to reconstruct ideals of
l ife an dconduct i n harmony with them .
Here , however, he stumbled his readers on the
threshold though that , they say, i s agood omen .
The morbid excitement under which he labored
often obscured the lucidity of h is exposition an d
the conclusiveness of his reasoning, leading him
to speak, l ike one of the prophets of Old , in a
trance ; n ot , l ike a wise diplomatis t, buttonholing
his hearer, but holding only the Skirts of the spi ri t
that carried him whither he hard ly knew, an d
assuredly would not willingly have gone . Bu t
however he was misunderstood at the time , the
question for us is, What i s the burden of the
prophecy
,
however strangely del ivered ? what is
the drift Of his teach ing ?
THE PROTEST IN ECONOM ICS . 289
The difficulti es fal l under two heads : first, the
strange use Of familiar terms , unavoidable in the
reconstruction Of a study ; for example, when he
means by “ value not commerc ialvalue, but in
trin sic , and by
“ money ” not merely the means
of exchange , but
“ the documentary expression Of
legal claim to labor,
” which may be destroyed ,
and yet the claim may exist ; andso on . In the
second place , his protest against the assumption
of immoral ity as the normal condition of human
intercourse led him to assume , as most people
wou ld feel
, a rather higher standard of principle
than poor humanity is accustomed to practice.
Instead of replacing the old theories by a new on e
instantly acceptable and applicable , he drew up ,
with axiom and theorem , a scheme of economy
which was “ a system of conduct founded on the
sciences , directing the arts , an d imposs ible except
under certain conditions Of moral cul ture .” Puz
zlin g as this was to the British business man , i t was
not absurd . I t was l ike practical geometry
,
which
deals with ideally perfect triangles andci rcles , not
with crooked sticks ; but may be usefu l i n build
ing andengineering, more than if i t assumed that
allwood is warped andalli ron flawed . Ruskin’s
economy points to an ideal ; i t cal ls on practical
legislation to accept the principle, I ought, there
fore I can ,
”
and to drag the world up to amoral
standard ; whereas the Old economy
’s influence
was the reverse. And in practical i ssues he was
fully cognizant Of human in firmitie s, and of the
290 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
necessity for gradual evolution to the moral cu l
ture he speaks of.
The various ideal s an dproposals which resul ted
,
in general culture , education , ethics , and social
sc ience , we must notice o n e by one as they come
into view in the various books Of the period. A
few points , especial ly economical , may be men
tion ed. These first two books did not suggest
anyth ing directly revolutionary. They upheld
free trade ; they did not decry interest ; they
declined to accept social ism . But they obj ected
to the fixing of price by competition — as they did
to competition i n an y shape ; an d thought that , if
trade and labor could be paid as “ professions ”
are paid , common consent wou ld soon fix a n or
malstandard of wages . The basis of the valua
tion Of labor would be , not the labor market and
the rights Of capital
,
but a consensus that equal
i ndustry is worth equal remuneration ; regard
being b ad, in the case of Skilled labor, to arrears of
work involved in the worker’s actual capacity. I t
is sometimes said that Mr. Ruskin thought that
“ landscape artists and laboringmen ought to be
paid al ike.” What he did hold was that i n an y
trade or class the wages Should be fixed by a com
mouly accepted tari ff, and n ot al tered except by
common consent .
For those who fai led to get work under such
conditions , he thought that the government should
provide , by an extension of existing systems Of in
dustrialschools andreformatories , andb y a recon
THE PROTEST IN ECONOM ICS . 29 1
struction of the prison and poor laws . This was
n ot part of his ideal commonwealth , but a means
of effecting a transition to i t. He wished to see
the ignorant taught , the idle employed , and the
penni less pensioned , by the public as indeed they
practical ly are ; but more kindly, more education
al ly. A s supplementary to private enterprise , he
would have the wreckage an dbreakage of society
taught in government schools an d employed in
government workshops, under compulsion , if
necessary ; as a kind of moral hospital for the cure
of idleness andvice and pauperism , — a desperate
remedy for a desperate evil , but on e which , after
all, i t seems we are adopting, in schemes for
home colonization and the rescue of the “ sub
merged tenth .”
Here is a true anecdote. When the General of
the Salvation Army was working at the scheme
which lately met with such an outcry Of accept
ance , he told the Rev. H . V . Mills , the first pro
moter of the home-colony plan , that he was e u
tirely ignorant of pol itical economy, andasked for
a book on the subj ect. Mills gave him “ Unto
this Last .”
CHAPTER I I I.
DISSENT IN GEOLOG Y.
I n dele c tu autem n arration um e t experime n torumme lius homin ib us
cavisse nos arb itramurquam qu i adhuc in historia natural i ve rsati sunt.”
BACON, I n stauratioMag na.
OUR hermit among the L imestone A lps of
Savoy differed in on e respect from his prede c e s
sors . They, for the most part, saw noth ing in
the rocks and stones around them except the
prison walls Of thei r seclusion ; he could not be
within constant sight of the mountains without
watching them an d thinking over them , and the
wonders of thei r scenery and structure . And i t
was well for him that i t could be so . The ter
rible depression of mind which h is social an d
philanthropic work had brought on , found a re
l ief i n the renewal of h is Old mountain-worsh ip .
After sending Off the last Of his Fraser ” papers ,
i n which , when the verdict hadtwice gone against
h im , he tried to Show cause why sentence should
not be passed , the strain was at i ts severest. He
felt, as few others not di rectly interested fel t , the
sufferings of the outcast in Engl ish slums and
Savoyard hovels ; and heard the cry of the op
DISSENT IN GEOLOGY . 29 3
pressed in Poland and i n I taly : andhe hadbeen
silenced . What could he do but, as he said in
the letters to Mr. Norton ,
“lay his head to the
very ground ,
”
and try to forget i t allamong the
stones and the snows ?
He wandered about, geologizing, and spent a
while at Talloires on the Lake of Annecy, where
the old abbey had been turned into an i nn , an d
on e slept in a monk
’s cel l and meditated in the
Cloister of the monaste ry, S t. Bernard of Men
thon’s memory haunting the place , and S t. Ger
main
’
s cave close by in the rocks above . About
the end of May Mr. Ruskin came back to Eng
land , an d was invi ted to lecture again at the
Royal Institution . The subj ect he chose was
The Stratified A lps Of Savoy .
A t that time many distinguished foreign ge olo
gists were working at the A lps ; but l ittle of c on
clusive importance hadbeen published , except in
papers imbedded in Transactions Of various socie
ties . Professor A lphonse Favre’s great work did
n ot appear unti l 186 7 , and the
“ Mechanismus
der Gebirgsbildung of Professor Heim n ot till
1878 ; SO that for an English publ ic the subj ect
was a fresh one . TO Mr. Ruskin i t was famil iar
he had been elected a Fellow of the Geological
Society in 1840 , at the age of twenty-o n e ; he
hadworked through Savoy with his Saussure in
hand nearly th i rty years before , and, many a time
since that, hadspent the intervals of l iterary busi
ness in rambling and cl imbing with the hammer
294 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN.
and notebook. Indeed , on allhis travels , an d
even on his usual afternoon walks
,
he was accus
tomed to keep his eyes open for the geology of
an y neighborhood he was i n ; and h is servant
regularly carried a b ag for specimens, which
rarely came home empty . The notebooks of the
Modern Painters ” period contain infinite mem
oranda an d diagrammatic sketches , of which a
very smal l fraction have been used . In the field
he had compared S tuder’s meagre sections , and
consulted the available authorities on physical
geology, though he had never entered upon the
more popular sister-science of palaeontology. He
left the determination Of strata to special ists : his
interest was fixed on the structure of mountains
the relation of geology to scenery ; a question
upon which he had some right to be heard , as
knowing more abou t scenery than most ge olo
gists
, and more about geology than most artists.
His dissent from orthodox opin ions was n ot the
mere blunder of an i l l-informed amateur ; i t was
a protest against the adoption of certain views
which had become fash ionable ch iefly owing to
the populari ty of the men who had propounded
them . Paral lel w ith the s tate religion in Eng
land there has been a state sc ience ; the prestige
of the science b ishops has been no doubt as wisely
used as that of the church bishops : i t has cer
tainly prevai led with thei r own inferior clergy
and lai ty in much the same way. Mr. Ruskin ,
who had been the admirer, and to some extent
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296 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
that every val ley or fissure had been burst open
by a convulsion . A later school had taken the
tiny val leys in our clay hills , and the chines in
chalk downs , as thei r type , andreferred the model
ing Of the whole earth ’s surface to the erosive
action Of water. In 1863 a third group of in
ve stigators was accustomed to explai n everything
by glacial action . They imagined our Lake ‘dis
tric t mountains , for example , to be carved by ice
out Of an enormous dome , two thousand feet
higher than S ca—fel l ; and the A lps themselves
to be the remnants of a simi lar Titanic mound ,
into which the glaciers had planed the val leys
and gouged the lake-basins . A few voices were
raised here andthere against the theory ; but as
i t was taught by the heads of the Geological
Survey, men whose work in other respects was Of
the highest value an dtheir attainments andchar
ac ters unimpeachable , the glacial origin of sc e n
ery ” was accepted by the public with i ts usual
docil ity.
In the A lps Of Savoy, Mr. Ruskin wished to
give an instance of a group of mountains whose
forms , unl ike those of Britain , could be shown to
depend farmore upon internal structure andorigi
n alelevation than upon unassisted erosion , though
erosion played its own part. He showed how
they cou ld neve r have been a form less mound ;
but had been e levated in a consistent series of
wave-l ike ridges ; cut across an d carved into by
erosion , but separated also longitudinal ly by the
DISSENT IN GEOLOGY. 29 7
actual trenches between the waves . SO that the
Old Saussurian theory, modified by Lyell
’s doc
trine Of denudation , might sti ll form the basis Of
an explanation more true to facts than the glacial
theory, which breaks down when it is applied to
the combes andvallons, or longitudinal val leys .
He went on to give reasons for his belief that
the erosive power of glaciers had been greatly
overrated . In defending the “ viscous theory ” Of
Professor James Forbes (Principal Forbes), his
Old acquaintance , he held that a great mass Of ice
was n ot a rigid body which sl id or was th rust
violently over the rock surface , rasping i t with im
be dded stones , anddigging into the val ley bottoms
to excavatebasins. J udging from the curves i t
takes , as seen in sections, — and i t must be re
membered that curvature had been h is specialty,
he considered i t as flowing, l ike a mass Of thick
honey ; andtherefore powerless forerosion , except
on a s lope , where i ts normal viscous flow was
accele rated by gravitation , or became an actual
S l id ing over rocks already incl ined an d compara
tively smooth .
~
These, andoccasional upstanding
knolls , i t could more or less pol ish , he al lowed ;
but the universal presence of glacier-scoring an d
rocke t mouton n ées he considered to be evidences
of the very l imited eros ive power of ice , not proofs
of its un iversaland overwhelming agency. The
Savoy A lps , therefore , owe thei r form , first to up
h eaval, next to aqueous erosion , and last, in a very
minor degree , to glacial action .
298 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
Though the extension Of glaciers is nowadays
more firmly bel ieved than ever, an dthei r presence
traced in many parts Of the world where they were
unsuspected before , sti l l i t is very general ly ad
mittedby the younger school that thei r erosive
power was overstated by the geologists Of th irty
years ago, and that the origin of lake-basins is a
problem which cannot be solved by the appli ca
tion Of an y S ingle formula. And amore detailed
research into the structure Of mountains shows
that the S imple denudation Of a chalk h il l is not a
sufficient analogy for their very complex pheno
mena. Mr. Ruskin pointed out the importance Of
metamorphism in the e levation andcurvature Of
these cretaceous strata, antic ipating recent stud ies
(on which see further in our eighth chapter) an d
he suggested that th i s action was continuous ,
certai nly not catastrophic , as another art wri ter
turned geologis t, the great Violle tle Duc, twelve
years later implied in the open ing words Of his
work on Mont Blanc .1
As examples of Savoy mountains this lecture
described in detai l the Saleve
,
on which Mr. Rus
kin hadbeen living for two winters , andthe Bre
zon , the top of which he hadtried to b uy from the
commune Of Bonneville — One Of his many plans
for settl in g among the A lps . The commune
thought he had found a gold-mine up there , and
1 La crofi te te rre stre , re froidi e an momen t du plisseme nt qui a
formé le massif du Mont B lanc, n ’avait pas e ncore atte int le degré
de dure té qu’e lle a acqui s depui s .”
DISSENT IN GEOLOGY. 299
raised the price out of allreason . O ther attempts
to make a home in the Chateaux or chalets of
Savoy were foiled , or abandoned , l ike h is earl ie r
idea to l ive in Venice . But h is scrambles on the
Saleve led him to hesitate in accepting the expla
nation given by A lphonse Favre of the curious
northwest face Of steeply inclined vertical Slabs ,
which b e suspected to be created by cleavage, on
the analogy Of other J urassic precipices. The
Brezon — orisan t, breaking-wave — h e took as a
type Of the bi llowy form of l imestone Alps in
general , an d h is analysis of i t was serv iceable
andsubstantial ly correct.
This lecture was fol lowed in 1864 by desu ltory
correspondence with Mr. J ukes andothers in the
“ Reader,
” i n which he merely restated his con.
clusion s, too S l ightly to convince . Had he de
voted himself to a thorough examination of the
subj ect bu t th is is in the region of what might
have been . He was more seriously engaged in
other pursui ts , Of more immediate importance .
Three days after h is lecture he was being exam
in edbefore the Royal Academy commission , and
after a short summer visi t to various friends in the
north Of England , he set out again for the A lps ,
partly to study the geology Of Chamouni and
North Switzerland , partly to continue his drawings
of Swiss towns at Baden andLauffe n b urg , with
his pupi l J ohn Bunney. But even there the bur
den of his real mission could not be Shaken Off,
an d though again seeking health and a qu ie t
300 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
mind , he could n ot quite keep si lence , but wrote
letters to E nglish newspapers on the depreciation
Of gold (repeating his theory Of currency), andon
the wrongs Of Poland and I taly ; andhe put to
gether more papers , never published , in continua
tion of his Munera Pulveris.
But this desu l tory habit, by which M r (Ruskin
’s
strength was broken up into many channels ,
whi le i t prevented his doing an y on e great work
with convincing thoroughness in h is later period ,
—was n ot by an y means an unbalanced misfor
tune . It is quite impossible for a man who has
no feeling for art and no interest in science to
regard l ife as a whole , - especially modern l ife :
an d th is Mr. Ruskin was better fitted than an y Of
his contemporaries to do .
In the last century, Samuel Johnson , great
thinker as he was, found his influence decis ively
l imited by his ignorance Of the arts , and his con
sequent inabil i ty to take in to his purview a whole
range Of emotions , activities , andin fluences which
are real ly important in the sphere Of ethics, as
motives Of action and indices Of character. SO in
th is century. Johnson
’s spiri tual successor, Car
lyle
,
from a similar lack Of sympathy with art and
an indolence in acqui ring even the rudiments Of
physical science , from a strange want Of earfor
poetry andeye for nature , was left Short-handed ,
Short-sighted
,
i n many an enterprise . In framing
an ideal of l ife he is narrow, ascetic , rude , as com
pared with the wider andmore refined cul ture Of
a Ruskin .
BADEN , SWITZERLAND
By 7 05 n Ruskin , 1863
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302 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
Magaz ine
,
— re v iewe d the re “ Phi ll ip s, i s the re suc h a
name ? I t has agu e scap e d me . I have a n o tion to come
out actual ly s ome day s oon an d take a se ri ous Le ctu re from
you on what you re al ly know, and c an g ive me some i n telli
gible ou tl i ne Of, ab t th e Ro cks, — b on es of our poor Old
M othe r whh have always be e n ve ne rab le an ds tran ge to me .
Ne xt to n othing of rat ional cou l d I e ve r learn Of th e subj e c t.
That of a c e ntral fire , an dmol te n se a, on whh allmountai ns,
c ontine n ts, and s trata are Spread float ing l ike SO many h ide s
of leathe r
,
kn oc ks in vai n for admi ttan ce i n to me the se forty
years : who Of mortals can real ly be l ie ve su ch a thing ! A nd
that
,
in de sc e nding in to mi ne s, the se ge olog i cal ge n tn find
themse lve s approaching sen sioly the i r c e ntral fire by th e se n
sib le and unde n iab le in crease of temperature as the y s te p
down , roun d afte r round, — has always appeare d to argue a
leng t/z of car on the part Of those ge nt“, whh i s the real mi rac le
Of the phe nome non . A las
,
alas : w e are dreadfu l ignoramu se s
allof us ! An sIr n o thing ; b ut don’t b e su rp rise d if I turn
up some day.
Yours e ve r
,
T . CARLYLE.
1 “ Juke s ,” M r. J . B . Juke s , F . R . S ., with whom M r. Ruski n
had be e n d iscussing in th e Reader. “ Ph i llips ,” — the Oxford
P rofe ssor of Ge ology, anda fri e nd Of Mr. Ruskin
’s .
CHAPTER IV.
I DEALS OF CULTURE.
Come , my friends,
’T is not too late to se ek a newe r world.
TENNYSON, Uly sses.
W IDER aims andweaker heal th hadnot put an
end to Mr. Ruskin’s connection with the Working
Men ’s College , though he d id n ot now teach a
drawing-class regularly . He had, as he said , “ the
satisfaction Of knowing that they hadvery good
masters in Messrs . Lowes D ickinson , Jeffrey, and
Cave Thomas ,
”
andhis work was elsewhere . He
was to have lectured there on December 19 ,
1863 ; but he did n ot reach home until about
Christmas ; better than he hadbeen , andready to
give the promised address on January 30 , 1864.
Beside which he used to visit the place occasion
al ly Of an evening to take note Of progress , and
some of his pupils were now more directly under
h is care .
This more than ten years’ connection with a
very practical work Of educationmust not be for
gotten when we try to estimate his ideals Of cul
ture andsocial arrangements, which hasty readers
304 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
are apt to suppose the tab le-talk Of an arm-chai r
philosopher. SO energetic aman , one who spent
no time in the ordinary recreations Of l ife , — more
the pity
,
ultimately, for his own usefulness and
happiness i n later periods , — SO busy a mind ,
found opportunity for many occupat ions . And
he does n ot deserve to be rated as a dilettante or
a v is ionary, S imply because other folk cannot im
agine how he managed to do more work than they.
It was from on e Of these visits to the college ,
I am told , on February 27th , that he returned ,
past midn igh t, and found his father wai t ing up
for h im , to read some letters he had written .
Next morning the Old man , close upon seventy
n ine years Of age , was struck with h is last il lness
anddied on the 3dof March . He was buried at
Addington Church , near Shirley in Surrey, n ot
far from Croydon ; and the legend on his tomb
records : He was an entirely honest merchant, and
his memory is to allwho keep it dear and help
ful . His son , whom he loved to the uttermost,
andtaught to speak truth , says th is of him .
”
Mr. John James Ruskin , l ike many other Of
our successful merchants, had been an open
handed patron Of art, and a cheerful giver, not
on ly to needy friends and relatives , but also to
various charities . For example , as a kind of per
sonal tribute to Osborne Gordon , his son
’s tutor,
he gave 1;5000 toward the augmen tation Of poor
Christ-Church l ivings. His son’s open-handed
way with dependants and servants was learned
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3 06 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
such recognition as an Oxford professorship im
plied
, andto find in her last years his later books
becoming more an d more what they always
ought to have been to her.
A t the same time , her fai l ing s ight andstrength
needed a constant household companion . Her
son
,
though he did not leave home as yet for
an y long journeys , cou ld not be always with her.
Only six weeks after the funeral he was cal led
away for a time . Before going he brought his
pretty young Scotch cousin , Miss Joanna Rus
kin Agnew, to Denmark Hill , for a week
’s vis i t .
She recommended herself at once to the Old lady
,
and to Carlyle , who happened to cal l , by her
frank good-nature andunquenchable spi ri ts ; and
her visi t lasted seven years , unti l she was married
to the son of the Ruskins’ old friend
,
Consul
Severn Of Rome . Even then She was not al lowed
far out Of thei r S igh t, but settled in the Old house
at Herne H ill : “ nor virtual ly,
” says Mr. Ruskin
i n the last chapter Of Prae terita,
” “ have she and
I ever parted since .”
A l l through that year he remained at home ,
except for short necessary vis its , and frequent
evenings with Carlyle. And when , i n December,
he gave those lectures in Manchester which after
wards , as Sesame an d L i l ies , became his most
popular work , we can trace h is better health Of
mind andbody i n the brighter tone of his thought.
We can hear the echo Of Carlyle’s talk in the
heroic , aristocratic , Stoic ideals , andthe insistence
IDEALS OF CULTURE . 30 7
on the value of books and free public l ibraries ,1
Carlyle being the founder of the London L ibrary.
And we may suspect that his thoughts on women
’
s
i nfluence and education had been n ot a l i ttle
di rected by those months in the company of “ the
dear Old lady andditto young ” to whom Carlyle
used to send his love .
These lectures were the following up Of his
economic writing in this sense , that he hadre
quired a certai n moralculture as the necessary
condition for real izing his plans . I t was as if one
should say, Here is an engine ; on these princi
ples it works ; but i t must be kept clean , oiled ,
andpolished .” He did not demand , andth is is
important to note , he d id not demand a state Of
society hopelessly unlike the present, such as the
altruistic guild-brethren Of Mr . Morris’s Epoch of
Rest, or the clockwork harmony Of Mr. Bellamy
’s
American U topia. He took human nature as i t
i s , but at i ts best ; n ot, as the Older economists
did , at i ts worst . He tried to Show how the best
could be brought out , an d what the standards
should be towards which education andlegislation
Should direct immediate public attention . Ses
ame an d L i l ies ” puts i n popular form his ex
planation Of the phrase “ certain conditions Of
moralculture , i n Munera Pulve ris.”
1 Th e first le cture , Of Kings’ Treasuri e s , was give n De cem
b er 6, 1864, at Rusholme Town Hall , Manche ste r, i n aid of a
library fund for the R usholme I nstitute . The se cond , Of Que e ns’
Garde ns ,” was give n
’
De cembe r 14th , at th e Town Hall , King
S tre e t, now th e Fre e Re fe re nce Library, Manche ste r, i n aid of
schools for An coats.
308 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN.
His father’s charity hadmade him l ife governor
Of various institutions andschools ; an dthe yearly
budget Of petitions from forlorn gentil i ty begging
for i ts ch i ldren to be educated , at other people
’s
cost
,
into ge tting on , hadstruck him as a S ign of
the times. His teaching at the Working Men
’s
College hadnot been given that the men might
g et on ,
— that on e should scramble on the Shou l
ders Of others an dmake them carry him , andenvy
him
,
and applaud him . Mr. Ruskin
’s views Of
l i terary education were not that it was a means Of
success in the world , andgetting into good society ;
but that i t was i n itself the best society into which
on e could get . The real use of books is that they
afford actual intercourse with great men , and
afford i t freely to those whose minds are sensitive
to accurate thinking, whose feel ings are capable
Of sympathy with fine natures .
Again , the use of book-learning is not informa
tion for the sake of satisfying curios ity, nor yet
because knowledge is power,
” even in the higher
sense that i t gives the means of material and
mechanical advantages . Mr. Ruskin does not
wish people to be educated either for the sake of
outwitting thei r neighbors , or for the sake Of in
venting labor-saving appliances . His view was
that of the Greek th inkers who aimed at making
thei r pupils philosophers ; or Of those moderns
who preached “ plain living andhigh thinking .
”
In the lecture on K i ngs’ Treasuries ” he i llus
tratedthe kind of study he desi red to see the in
IDEALS OF CULTURE . 309
tellige n t analysis of words andthoughts and feel
ings of great authors , as opposed to perfunctory
reading or superficial information-gathering. By
such habits the student becomes a scholar ; he ac
customs himself to think as well as to remember ;
he takes a higher tone Of mind , on e that is ele
vated above rash Opinion andpetty self-i nterest ;
a broad view Of l ife , i n which its tangled plan is
more or less unrolled , an d i ts l ights and Shades
fal l into thei r due keeping . On such a view is
based j ustice ; for moral j udgments are based on
intel lectual . The scholar who converses with the
great minds Of allages, though he may be poor
andunfashionable in the world’s eyes , looks at l ife
otherwise than as a nation of shopkeepers looks
at i t. And SO , while modern society has n o real
appreciation Of l iterature , sc ience , art , nature , an d
the problem Of human intercourse , he alone is
ful ly civil ized man : the rest are incomplete de
velopme n ts, comparatively barbarians .
The Object Of awise economy is to elevate the
whole race ; to cultivate the pian ta uman a ; to
breed the human animal . Production is its pur
pose , — n 0t only Of the means Of l ife , but of the
life to which food and clothing, necessaries and
l uxuries
,
art an d l i terature , and allthe rest, are
subservient. Ruskin would l ike to see , for ex
ample , an order of chival ry for both sexes , — to
bring definitely before the public , as he showedlater on , i n
“ Time and Tide ,
” the necessity Of
this nomiculture , if we may coin a word for the
3 10 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN.
antithesis Of the — virtual — homic ide by which
the ends Of l ife are defeated in the mistaken social
economics Of the vulgar struggle for i t.
Given mankind as i t is, real equal i ty is impos
sible . There must be some whoare less capable
Of h igher cu lture , as the race is constituted ; not
Only some who are less fitted to become Scholars ,
but many who are i n every respect i nferior devel
Opme n ts, lower organisms . There must, he th inks ,
be leaders , and natural
“ ki n gs
‘
an d queens ” of
the world they l ive in . They have no right to
pride in thei r higher gifts , but the superiority can
not be denied , and need not be decried . He
wou ld not have pol itical an dsocial power g iven to
them ; he is not i n that sense a Tory : but he says
that they nave the power, as i t i s an dhe cal ls on
them to use it, with ful l sense Of thei r responsi
b ility.
For example , i n h is second lecture , on Queens
’
Gardens ,
” he discusses the position Of women .
They do not need to assert the rights , or claim the
education Of men . They have thei r rights
, as i t is ,
if they use them . They do , as amatter of fact,
teach andguide , he declares , — counsel an d com
mand , the actors i n practical affai rs . And the
education they need should indeed be in the same
subjects as those studied by young men
,
but in a
different spi ri t ; sti l l less than men seeking for
mere information , and st i ll more exercising thei r
j udgment , especial ly in matters Of the deepest
seriousness , as i n rel igion an d moral i ty ; n ot
IDEALS OF CULTURE . 3 11
hoping to create in art, or discover in science , but
to set the standards Of taste andthe limits Of am
bitiou ; to determine the direction an d to award
the prize Of men ’s endeavors . An d, most Of all,
they should be brought to a fullsense Of thei r
du t ies to thei r n eighbors : so that they might not
l ive for themselves an d thei r n arrow immediate
ci rcle in a round of worldly amusements and rel i
gious Observances ; but be the helpers andhero
ines Of the state i n which they l ive .
“ Sesame an dL i l ies ” has become the author’s
most popular book . In various forms it has run
through fourteen English editions , and Of allhis
works i t is the most widely read in America and
abroad . I t would be idle to give testimonies Of
this and that reader to the stimu lus toward a
higher l ife which these lectures have afforded ;
but two things we may notice .
In the first place , they are a real andall-round
advance upon the panacea-systems Of U topian
theorists . They strike at the root Of the evil .
They give no recipe for millenn ial perfection ; no
ascetic rule Of conduct . But the y aim at a b al
an c edand heal thy progress , to which each in h is
Sphere can contribute by the simple recognition
Of h is duty, an d the reasonable serv ice of what
ever divine Or human authority he may honestly
andthoughtfu lly accept.
In the next place
,
they are with in reach . They
ask no centuries Of previous development , nor
return to a state of nature . For that reason they
3 I 2 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
do not appeal to the Romantic spiri t, Of which , by
inadequate cri ticism , Mr. Ruskin is supposed to
be the exponent . They are essential ly modern in
thei r readiness to take advantage Of modern 0p
portun itie s. They acknowledge evolution toward
a higher humanity in accordance with the severest
anthropology
T i tani c force s taking b i rth
I n dive rs seasons, dive rs clime s ;
Forwe are Ancie nts of th e Earth
And in th e morning of the time s .
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3 14 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
these ten years , andth is , definitely connected with
the question Of education . These papers ran i n
the “ A rt Journal ” from January to J uly, 186 5 ,
and fromJanuary to Apri l , 1866 , under the title
Of “ The Cestus of Aglaia,
” by which was meant
the Girdle , or restrain ing law , Of Beauty, as per
son ifi ed i n the wife of Hephaestus ,
“ the Lord of
Labor. Their intention was to suggest , and to
evoke by correspondence , “ some laws for present
practice Of art in our schools , which may be ad
mitted, if not with absolute , at leas t with a suffi
c ient consent, by leading artists
” A s a first step
the author asked for the elementary rules Of draw
ing. For his ow n contribution he showed the
value Of the “ pure l ine ,
” such as he hadused in
h is own early drawings , learned originally from
Cruikshank etch ings and Fron t l i thographs, and
practiced— with what success can be j udged from
such drawings as the Rouen reproduced in the
Poems .” Later on , he hadadopted a looser and
more picturesque style of handling the point ; and
in the E lements Of D rawing ” he hadtaught his
readers to take Rembrandt’s etchings as exem
plary . But n ow he fel t that th is
“ evasive ” man
ner
, as he cal led it, had i ts dangers . I t had, in
fact, originated the ordinary type Of popular free
draughtsmanship, degenerating sometimes into
that black blotting andscribbl ing with which Mr .
Ruskin ’s ideals Of del icacy, puri ty, dignity, to say
nothing Of the actual fineness Of organic form ,
have nothing in
t
c ommon . And so these papers
LESSONS IN EDUCATION. 3 I 5
attempted to supersede the amateurish Obj ect
lessons Of the earl ier work by stricter rules for a
severer style ; prematurely, as i t proved , for the
chapters came to an end before the promised code
was formulated ; though they contained interest
ing — if rather free criticism Of current art, and
many passages of l ively wit andpretty description .
The same work was taken up again i n “ The Laws
Of P esole ;
” but the use Of the pure l ine , which
Mr. Ruskin’s precepts fai led to enforce , was, i n
the end , taught to the publ ic by the charming
practice Of Mr. Wal te r Crane an d Miss Green
away.
A lecture at the Camberwel l Working Men’s
Insti tute on Work an dPlay was given on Jan
uary 24 , 186 5 ; which as i t was printed in
“ The
Crown Of W i ld O l ive
,
we will notice further on .
Various letters an dpapers on political and social
economy and other subj ects hardly cal l for sepa
rate notice : with the exception Of one very im
portan t address to the Royal Institution Of British
A rchi tects , given Apri l 15 th ,
“ On the S tudy Of
A rchitecture in our Schools .
In appearing before a body Of men whom , as
an undergraduate , he had audaciously critic ised ,
andwith whom he hadbeen more or less at war
ever since , Mr . Ruskin was, as i t were , i n the
enemy’s camp . But while apologizing for the
l iberties which he had taken with thei r works and
aims , he stood up for h is principles . He had
cal led for Natural ism as against the bl ind follow
3 16 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN.
ing Of Renai ssance-Classic tradition ; but he tried
to show that h is advocacy Of Natural ism did not
extend to “ the mere cast Of a flower, or the real i
z ation Of a vulgar face , carved without pleasure ,
by a workman who is only endeavoring to attract
attention by novelty, an d then fastened on , or
appearing to be fastened , as chance may dictate,
to an arch , or a pillar, or a wal l .
” In Short, the
artistic treatment of natural form was his require
ment . He admitted that much good work had
been done in England and France ; but he fel t
that modern city life was adverse to a great
school Of architecture modern culture , sated an d
jaded , did not know its own wants , an d had no
real hearty aims ,— in the
‘ Carlylean sense , no rel i
gion . What was wanted in the teaching of young
architects was far beyond an y technical system ;
i t was the rediscovery of s incerity, a higher tone
in the whole conduct Of life . And secondari ly,
they needed a much wider general cu lture , both
artistic and l iterary, but more select standards Of
style. He would exclude the mass Of mediaevalandmodern an doriental examples from the school
museum
, an dconcentrate the mind of the student
wholly upon the study Of natural form , andupon
its treatment by the Greeks between 500 and3 50
B. c . , with the best Florentine work and a few
careful ly chosen examples of thirteenth-centu ry
Gothic .1
1 I am told on good authori ty that casts from real leave s and
othe r natural forms we re unknown in drawing schools unti l Mr.
LESSONS IN EDUCATION . 3 17
Advice of th is sort does n ot commend itself to
the “ practical ” man , who looks on education as
the means to turning out craftsmen able to supply
a given public demand . That, however, was not
Mr. Ruskin
’s mean In g Of the word . He could not
give recipes for the reconstruction Of society ; but
he could point to the need Of i t ; and, after all, a
good d iagnosis is the first step to a cure . And
yet he was not idle i n attempting to find some
remedy. He had been making
,
experiments in
artistic education for many years at the Working
Men’s College ; and n ow , from time to time , he
was trying experiments in general education of
another sort, much more pleasant , though no less
practical .
About the end Of October, 1859 , I bel ieve, he
hadbeen introduced by the Bishop of Oxford to a
Miss Bell , who, with her partner M iss Bradford ,
kept a girls’ school at W innington Hall , near
Northwich in Cheshi re . I t was not an ordinary
school stil l less a pen sion n at a’e a’emoiselles of
the type described in
“ Le Crime de Sylvestre
Bonnard ,
” 1 in which the pettiness and tyranny of
Rusk in used them at th e Working M e n’s College as mode ls to
draw from. They we re introduced into th e Gove rnme nt S chool of
De sign afte r an inspe cti on Of the Great Ormond S tre e t classe s by
the Marlborough Hous e head-maste r.
1 Th e quotation at the head of that chapte r i s on e marked wi th
approval by M r. Ruskin
,
who was greatly inte re ste d i n the book on
i ts appearance , not only for its li te rary charmandte nde r characte r
iz ation , but “ as finding the re some image of himse lf ” in th e Old
M embre de l’I n stitut with h i s “ bon dos rond ” and his pass ion
for mi ssals , and Goth i c archite ctu re , and Be ne dictine monks, and
3 18 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
the worst kind of schoolmistress Of— let us hope
a bygone age are pilloried . The principles of
W innington were advanced ; the theology
Bi shop Cole n so’s daughte r was among the pupils .
Friends and patrons whose names were thought
to be an unden iable guarantee gave the place a
high character. And the managers were pleased
to invi te the celebrated art-cri tic to visi t whenever
he traveled that way, whether to lecture at pro
vin c ialtowns , or to see h is friends in the north , as
he Often used . And so between November, 1859 ,
an dMay, 1868, after which the school was re
moved , he was a frequent vis itor ; an dnot only
he , but other l ions whom the ladies entrapped ,
mention has been made in prin t (in The Queen
of the A i r ”) of Charles Halle
’
, whom Mr. Ruskin
me t there in 186 3 , an dgreatly admired.
Mr. Ruskin could not be idle on his visi ts ; an d
as he is never so happy as when he is teaching
somebody, he improved the opportun ity by experi
ments in a system of education “ tou t intime e t
parfai tement incompatible avec l’organ isation des
pensionnats les mieux tenus
,
”
an d yet permitted
there for h is sake . Among other th ings
, b e de
vised S inging dances for a select dozen of the
girls , with verses of his own writing, noblement
émues on e , a maze to the theme Of Twist y
’
e ,
twine ye , based upon the song in Guy Manner
natural sce nery ; and his defiance of th e Code Napoléon andth e
ways of the mode rn world ; with man y anothe r touch for wh ich on e
could have sworn he hadsat to the painte r.
LESSONS IN EDUCATION . 3 I 9
ing
,
but going far beyond the original motive in
its variations weighted with al legoric thought
Earne st G ladne ss, idle Fre tt ing,
Foolish M emory, wise Forge tting ;
An dtrustedreeds, that broke n lie ,
Wreathedagain formelody .
Van ishedTruth , b ut Vision stay i ng ;
Fai ry riche s , lost in we igh ing ;
And fi tfulgrasp Of flying Fate ,
Touchedtoo tightly , trac edtoolate .
Deep as the feel ing Of th is l ittle poem is , there
is a nobler chord struck in the Song Of Peace , the
battle-cry Of the good time coming ; i n the faith
who else has found it that looks forward to no
selfish victory Of narrow aims, but to the full rec
on c iliation Of hostil e interests and the bl ind in
te rn e c in e struggle of this perverse world , in the
clearer light of the millennial morning. “ Thine
arrows are sharp in the hearts of the K ing’s ene
mies , whereby the people fal l u nder thee .
” “ Yea,
in allthese th ings we are more than con querors,
through H im that loved us .”
Put Off, put off your mai l, ye kin gs , an dbeat your brands to dust ;
A sure r grasp your hands must know
,
your hearts a be tte r trust :
Nay, be nd aback th e lance ’s point, andbreak the he lme t b ar,
A noise i s on th e morning winds
,
but not the noise Of war !
Among the grassy mountai n-paths th e glitte ring troops increase
The y come ! the y come — how fai r the i r fe e t — the y come that
pub lish peace ;
Yea, Victory ! fair Victory our e n emies’ an d ours,
And allth e clouds are claspe d in light, and allth e earth wi th
flowe rs .
320 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
Ah ! still depre ss ed anddimwith dew, but ye t a l ittle while
And radiant wi th th e death le ss Rose th e wilde rne ss shall smi le ,
And e ve ry te nde r living th ing shall fe ed by s treams of re st,
Nor lamb shal l from th e fold b e lost, nor nursling from th e ne st.”
These dances were not mere play . They were
taught as lessons , an d practiced as recreat ion .
On n ’appre n dpas en s
’
amusan t ,
” says the villai n
of the story to M . Bonnard . “ On n
’
appre nd
qu’en S’amusan t, he replies , — vigorously under
lined an d side-l ined by Mr. Ruskin . “ Pour
digérerle savoir, ilfaut l
’
avoir avalé avec appéti t .”
The art Of teaching is to stimulate that appetite
in a natu ral andheal thy way.
“ On n’est pas sur
la terre pour s’amuser e t pour fai re ses quatre
cents volontés,
” says the objector, again to which
he answe rs : “ On est sur la terre pour se plai re
dans le beau e t dans le bien , et pour fai re se S
quatre cents volontés quand elles sont nobles ,
spirituel les e t gé n e
’
re use s. Une education qui
n
’
exerc e pas les volontés est une éducation qui
déprave les ames . Ilfaut ” — here the pencil
marks are very thick “ ilfaut que l’in stitute ur
enseigne avouloi r.”
“
Je crus voir,
” continues M . Bonnard , “ que
maitre Mouche m’e stimait un pauvre homme ;
”
and I Observe that Mr . Ruskin’s method Of teach
ing, as i l lustrated in E th ics Of the Dust,
”
has
been variously pooh-poohed by his critics . I t has
seemed to some absurd to mix up theology,
and crystal lography, and political economy, and
mythology, and moral phi losophy , with the chat
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322 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN .
Th e Eth ic s Of the Dust,” whh I de voure d witht pause , and
i nte nd to look at agn , is a mos t shi n ing Pe rformanc e ! Not
fora l o ng whi le have I read anyth ing te nth-part so radian t
w i th tale n t, i nge nu i ty, lambe nt fire (she e t an d other l ight
n i ngs) of allc omme ndab le k inds N e ve r was suc h a le cture
on Cry stallography be fore , hadthere be e n nothing e l se i n i t,
and the re are allman n erOf th ings . I n powe r Of expression
I p ronoun c e it to b e sup reme ne ve r d id anybody who had
such th ings to exp lain exp lain them b e tte r . And the b i t of
Egyp tn mythology
, the c unning Dreams ab t P thah , N e i th, &c ,
apart from the i r e luc idative qual i ty, whh is e xqu i s i te , have in
themapoetry that might fi l l an y Te nnyson with de spair. You
are ve ry dramatic too ; no thing wan t ing i n th e