diff options
Diffstat (limited to '59456-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 59456-0.txt | 6579 |
1 files changed, 6579 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/59456-0.txt b/59456-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..575aec2 --- /dev/null +++ b/59456-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6579 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59456 *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + FORS CLAVIGERA. + + LETTERS + + TO THE WORKMEN AND LABOURERS + OF GREAT BRITAIN. + + + BY + JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D., + HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART. + + + Vol. I. + + + GEORGE ALLEN, + SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT. + 1871. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER I. + + + Denmark Hill, + 1st January, 1871. + +Friends, + + +We begin to-day another group of ten years, not in happy +circumstances. Although, for the time, exempted from the direct +calamities which have fallen on neighbouring states, believe me, +we have not escaped them because of our better deservings, nor by +our better wisdom; but only for one or two bad reasons, or for both: +either that we have not sense enough to determine in a great national +quarrel which side is right, or that we have not courage to defend +the right, when we have discerned it. + +I believe that both these bad reasons exist in full force; that our +own political divisions prevent us from understanding the laws of +international justice; and that, even if we did, we should not dare +to defend, perhaps not even to assert them, being on this first of +January, 1871, in much bodily fear; that is to say, afraid of the +Russians; afraid of the Prussians; afraid of the Americans; afraid of +the Hindoos; afraid of the Chinese; afraid of the Japanese; afraid of +the New Zealanders; and afraid of the Caffres: and very justly so, +being conscious that our only real desire respecting any of these +nations has been to get as much out of them as we could. + +They have no right to complain of us, notwithstanding, since we have +all, lately, lived ourselves in the daily endeavour to get as much +out of our neighbours and friends as we could; and having by this +means, indeed, got a good deal out of each other, and put nothing +into each other, the actually obtained result, this day, is a state +of emptiness in purse and stomach, for the solace of which our boasted +"insular position" is ineffectual. + +I have listened to many ingenious persons, who say we are better +off now than ever we were before. I do not know how well off we were +before; but I know positively that many very deserving persons of my +acquaintance have great difficulty in living under these improved +circumstances: also, that my desk is full of begging letters, +eloquently written either by distressed or dishonest people; and that +we cannot be called, as a nation, well off, while so many of us are +either living in honest or in villanous beggary. + +For my own part, I will put up with this state of things, passively, +not an hour longer. I am not an unselfish person, nor an Evangelical +one; I have no particular pleasure in doing good; neither do I +dislike doing it so much as to expect to be rewarded for it in another +world. But I simply cannot paint, nor read, nor look at minerals, nor +do anything else that I like, and the very light of the morning sky, +when there is any--which is seldom, now-a-days, near London--has become +hateful to me, because of the misery that I know of, and see signs of, +where I know it not, which no imagination can interpret too bitterly. + +Therefore, as I have said, I will endure it no longer quietly; +but henceforward, with any few or many who will help, do my poor +best to abate this misery. But that I may do my best, I must not be +miserable myself any longer; for no man who is wretched in his own +heart, and feeble in his own work, can rightly help others. + +Now my own special pleasure has lately been connected with a given +duty. I have been ordered to endeavour to make our English youth +care somewhat for the arts; and must put my uttermost strength into +that business. To which end I must clear myself from all sense of +responsibility for the material distress around me, by explaining to +you, once for all, in the shortest English I can, what I know of its +causes; by pointing out to you some of the methods by which it might +be relieved; and by setting aside regularly some small percentage of +my income, to assist, as one of yourselves, in what one and all we +shall have to do; each of us laying by something, according to our +means, for the common service; and having amongst us, at last, be +it ever so small, a national Store instead of a National Debt. Store +which, once securely founded, will fast increase, provided only you +take the pains to understand, and have perseverance to maintain, +the elementary principles of Human Economy, which have, of late, +not only been lost sight of, but wilfully and formally entombed under +pyramids of falsehood. + +And first I beg you most solemnly to convince yourselves of the partly +comfortable, partly formidable fact, that your prosperity is in your +own hands. That only in a remote degree does it depend on external +matters, and least of all on forms of government. In all times of +trouble the first thing to be done is to make the most of whatever +forms of government you have got, by setting honest men to work them; +(the trouble, in all probability, having arisen only from the want +of such;) and for the rest, you must in no wise concern yourselves +about them; more particularly it would be lost time to do so at this +moment, when whatever is popularly said about governments cannot but +be absurd, for want of definition of terms. Consider, for instance, +the ridiculousness of the division of parties into "Liberal" and +"Conservative." There is no opposition whatever between those two +kinds of men. There is opposition between Liberals and Illiberals; +that is to say, between people who desire liberty, and who dislike +it. I am a violent Illiberal; but it does not follow that I must be a +Conservative. A Conservative is a person who wishes to keep things as +they are; and he is opposed to a Destructive, who wishes to destroy +them, or to an Innovator, who wishes to alter them. Now, though I +am an Illiberal, there are many things I should like to destroy. I +should like to destroy most of the railroads in England, and all the +railroads in Wales. I should like to destroy and rebuild the Houses +of Parliament, the National Gallery, and the East end of London; +and to destroy, without rebuilding, the new town of Edinburgh, the +north suburb of Geneva, and the city of New York. Thus in many things +I am the reverse of Conservative; nay, there are some long-established +things which I hope to see changed before I die; but I want still to +keep the fields of England green, and her cheeks red; and that girls +should be taught to curtsey, and boys to take their hats off, when +a Professor or otherwise dignified person passes by; and that Kings +should keep their crowns on their heads, and Bishops their crosiers in +their hands; and should duly recognise the significance of the crown, +and the use of the crook. + +As you would find it thus impossible to class me justly in either +party, so you would find it impossible to class any person whatever, +who had clear and developed political opinions, and who could define +them accurately. Men only associate in parties by sacrificing their +opinions, or by having none worth sacrificing; and the effect of +party government is always to develope hostilities and hypocrisies, +and to extinguish ideas. + +Thus the so-called Monarchic and Republican parties have thrown Europe +into conflagration and shame, merely for want of clear conception of +the things they imagine themselves to fight for. The moment a Republic +was proclaimed in France, Garibaldi came to fight for it as a "Holy +Republic." But Garibaldi could not know,--no mortal creature could +know,--whether it was going to be a Holy or Profane Republic. You +cannot evoke any form of government by beat of drum. The proclamation +of a government implies the considerate acceptance of a code of laws, +and the appointment of means for their execution, neither of which +things can be done in an instant. You may overthrow a government, +and announce yourselves lawless, in the twinkling of an eye, as you +can blow up a ship, or upset and sink one. But you can no more create +a government with a word, than an ironclad. + +No; nor can you even define its character in few words; the measure of +sanctity in it depending on degrees of justice in the administration +of law, which are often independent of form altogether. Generally +speaking, the community of thieves in London or Paris have +adopted Republican Institutions, and live at this day without any +acknowledged Captain or Head; but under Robin Hood, brigandage in +England, and under Sir John Hawkwood, brigandage in Italy, became +strictly monarchical. Theft could not, merely by that dignified form +of government, be made a holy manner of life; but it was made both +dexterous and decorous. The pages of the English knights under Sir +John Hawkwood spent nearly all their spare time in burnishing the +knight's armour, and made it always so bright, that they were called +"the White Company." And the Notary of Tortona, Azario, tells us of +them, that these foragers (furatores) "were more expert than any +plunderers in Lombardy. They for the most part sleep by day, and +watch by night, and have such plans and artifices for taking towns, +that never were the like or equal of them witnessed" [1] + +The actual Prussian expedition into France merely differs from Sir +John's in Italy by being more generally savage, much less enjoyable, +and by its clumsier devices for taking towns; for Sir John had no +occasion to burn their libraries. In neither case does the monarchical +form of government bestow any Divine right of theft; but it puts +the available forces into a convenient form. Even with respect to +convenience only, it is not yet determinable by the evidence of +history, what is absolutely the best form of government to live +under. There are indeed said to be republican villages (towns?) in +America, where everybody is civil, honest, and substantially +comfortable; but these villages have several unfair advantages--there +are no lawyers in them, no town councils, and no parliaments. Such +republicanism, if possible on a large scale, would be worth fighting +for; though, in my own private mind, I confess I should like to +keep a few lawyers, for the sake of their wigs, and the faces under +them--generally very grand when they are really good lawyers--and for +their (unprofessional) talk. Also I should like to have a Parliament, +into which people might be elected on condition of their never saying +anything about politics, that one might still feel sometimes that one +was acquainted with an M.P. In the meantime Parliament is a luxury +to the British squire, and an honour to the British manufacturer, +which you may leave them to enjoy in their own way; provided only you +make them always clearly explain, when they tax you, what they want +with your money; and that you understand yourselves, what money is, +and how it is got, and what it is good for, and bad for. + +These matters I hope to explain to you in this and some following +letters; which, among various other reasons, it is necessary that +I should write in order that you may make no mistake as to the real +economical results of Art teaching, whether in the Universities or +elsewhere. I will begin by directing your attention particularly to +that point. + +The first object of all work--not the principal one, but the first +and necessary one--is to get food, clothes, lodging, and fuel. + +It is quite possible to have too much of all these things. I know a +great many gentlemen, who eat too large dinners; a great many ladies, +who have too many clothes. I know there is lodging to spare in London, +for I have several houses there myself, which I can't let. And I know +there is fuel to spare everywhere, since we get up steam to pound the +roads with, while our men stand idle; or drink till they can't stand, +idle, or any otherwise. + +Notwithstanding, there is agonizing distress even in this highly +favoured England, in some classes, for want of food, clothes, lodging, +and fuel. And it has become a popular idea among the benevolent +and ingenious, that you may in great part remedy these deficiencies +by teaching, to these starving and shivering persons, Science and +Art. In their way--as I do not doubt you will believe--I am very fond +of both; and I am sure it will be beneficial for the British nation +to be lectured upon the merits of Michael Angelo, and the nodes of +the moon. But I should strongly object myself to being lectured on +either, while I was hungry and cold; and I suppose the same view of +the matter would be taken by the greater number of British citizens in +those predicaments. So that, I am convinced, their present eagerness +for instruction in painting and astronomy proceeds from an impression +in their minds that, somehow, they may paint or star-gaze themselves +into clothes and victuals. Now it is perfectly true that you may +sometimes sell a picture for a thousand pounds; but the chances +are greatly against your doing so--much more than the chances of a +lottery. In the first place, you must paint a very clever picture; +and the chances are greatly against your doing that. In the second +place, you must meet with an amiable picture-dealer; and the chances +are somewhat against your doing that. In the third place, the amiable +picture-dealer must meet with a fool; and the chances are not always +in favour even of his doing that--though, as I gave exactly the sum +in question for a picture myself, only the other day, it is not for me +to say so. Assume, however, to put the case most favourably, that what +with the practical results of the energies of Mr. Cole, at Kensington, +and the æsthetic impressions produced by various lectures at Cambridge +and Oxford, the profits of art employment might be counted on as a +rateable income. Suppose even that the ladies of the richer classes +should come to delight no less in new pictures than in new dresses; +and that picture-making should thus become as constant and lucrative an +occupation as dress-making. Still, you know, they can't buy pictures +and dresses too. If they buy two pictures a day, they can't buy two +dresses a day; or if they do, they must save in something else. They +have but a certain income, be it never so large. They spend that, +now; and you can't get more out of them. Even if they lay by money, +the time comes when somebody must spend it. You will find that they do +verily spend now all they have, neither more nor less. If ever they +seem to spend more, it is only by running in debt, and not paying; +if they for a time spend less, some day the overplus must come into +circulation. All they have, they spend; more than that, they cannot +at any time; less than that, they can only for a short time. + +Whenever, therefore, any new industry, such as this of picture-making, +is invented, of which the profits depend on patronage, it merely means +that you have effected a diversion of the current of money in your +own favour, and to somebody else's loss. Nothing, really, has been +gained by the nation, though probably much time and wit, as well as +sundry people's senses, have been lost. Before such a diversion can +be effected, a great many kind things must have been done; a great +deal of excellent advice given; and an immense quantity of ingenious +trouble taken: the arithmetical course of the business throughout +being, that for every penny you are yourself better, somebody else +is a penny the worse; and the net result of the whole, precisely zero. + +Zero, of course, I mean, so far as money is concerned. It may be +more dignified for working women to paint than to embroider; and +it may be a very charming piece of self-denial, in a young lady, +to order a high art fresco instead of a ball-dress; but as far as +cakes and ale are concerned, it is all the same,--there is but so +much money to be got by you, or spent by her, and not one farthing +more, usually a great deal less, by high art than by low. Zero, +also, observe, I mean partly in a complimentary sense to the work +executed. If you have done no good by painting, at least you have +done no serious mischief. A bad picture is indeed a dull thing to +have in a house, and in a certain sense a mischievous thing; but it +won't blow the roof off. Whereas, of most things which the English, +French, and Germans are paid for making now-a-days,--cartridges, +cannon, and the like,--you know the best thing we can possibly hope +is that they may be useless, and the net result of them, zero. + +The thing, therefore, that you have to ascertain approximately, in +order to determine on some consistent organization, is the maximum +of wages-fund you have to depend on to start with, that is to say, +virtually, the sum of the income of the gentleman of England. Do +not trouble yourselves at first about France or Germany, or any +other foreign country. The principle of free trade is, that French +gentlemen should employ English workmen, for whatever the English +can do better than the French; and that English gentlemen should +employ French workmen, for whatever the French can do better than +the English. It is a very right principle, but merely extends the +question to a wider field. Suppose, for the present, that France, +and every other country but your own, were--what I suppose you would, +if you had your way, like them to be--sunk under water, and that +England were the only country in the world. Then, how would you live +in it most comfortably? Find out that, and you will then easily find +how two countries can exist together; or more, not only without need +for fighting, but to each other's advantage. + +For, indeed, the laws by which two next-door neighbours might live most +happily--the one not being the better for his neighbour's poverty, +but the worse, and the better for his neighbour's prosperity--are +those also by which it is convenient and wise for two parishes, two +provinces, or two kingdoms, to live side by side. And the nature of +every commercial and military operation which takes place in Europe, +or in the world, may always be best investigated by supposing it +limited to the districts of a single country. Kent and Northumberland +exchange hops and coals on precisely the same economical principles as +Italy and England exchange oil for iron; and the essential character +of the war between Germany and France may be best understood by +supposing it a dispute between Lancaster and Yorkshire for the line +of the Ribble. Suppose that Lancashire, having absorbed Cumberland +and Cheshire, and been much insulted and troubled by Yorkshire in +consequence, and at last attacked; and having victoriously repulsed +the attack, and retaining old grudges against Yorkshire, about the +colour of roses, from the fifteenth century, declares that it cannot +possibly be safe against the attacks of Yorkshire any longer, unless it +gets the townships of Giggleswick and Wigglesworth, and a fortress on +Pen-y-gent. Yorkshire replying that this is totally inadmissible, and +that it will eat its last horse, and perish to its last Yorkshireman, +rather than part with a stone of Giggleswick, a crag of Pen-y-gent, +or a ripple of Ribble,--Lancashire with its Cumbrian and Cheshire +contingents invades Yorkshire, and meeting with much Divine assistance, +ravages the West Riding, and besieges York on Christmas day. That is +the actual gist of the whole business; and in the same manner you +may see the downright common-sense--if any is to be seen--of other +human proceedings, by taking them first under narrow and homely +conditions. So, for the present, we will fancy ourselves, what you +tell me you all want to be, independent: we will take no account of +any other country but Britain; and on that condition I will begin to +show you in my next paper how we ought to live, after ascertaining +the utmost limits of the wages-fund, which means the income of our +gentleman; that is to say, essentially, the income of those who have +command of the land, and therefore of all food. + +What you call "wages," practically, is the quantity of food which the +possessor of the land gives you, to work for him. There is, finally, +no "capital" but that. If all the money of all the capitalists +in the whole world were destroyed, the notes and bills burnt, the +gold irrecoverably buried, and all the machines and apparatus of +manufactures crushed, by a mistake in signals, in one catastrophe; +and nothing remained but the land, with its animals and vegetables, +and buildings for shelter,--the poorer population would be very little +worse off than they are at this instant; and their labour, instead of +being "limited" by the destruction, would be greatly stimulated. They +would feed themselves from the animals and growing crops; heap here and +there a few tons of ironstone together, build rough walls round them +to get a blast, and in a fortnight, they would have iron tools again, +and be ploughing and fighting, just as usual. It is only we who had the +capital who would suffer; we should not be able to live idle, as we do +now, and many of us--I, for instance--should starve at once: but you, +though little the worse, would none of you be the better eventually, +for our loss--or starvation. The removal of superfluous mouths would +indeed benefit you somewhat, for a time; but you would soon replace +them with hungrier ones; and there are many of us who are quite worth +our meat to you in different ways, which I will explain in due place: +also I will show you that our money is really likely to be useful to +you in its accumulated form, (besides that, in the instances when it +has been won by work, it justly belongs to us,) so only that you are +careful never to let us persuade you into borrowing it, and paying us +interest for it. You will find a very amusing story, explaining your +position in that case, at the 117th page of the 'Manual of Political +Economy,' published this year at Cambridge, for your early instruction, +in an almost devotionally catechetical form, by Messrs. Macmillan. + +Perhaps I had better quote it to you entire: it is taken by the author +"from the French." + + + There was once in a village a poor carpenter, who worked hard + from morning to night. One day James thought to himself, "With + my hatchet, saw, and hammer, I can only make coarse furniture, + and can only get the pay for such. If I had a plane, I should + please my customers more, and they would pay me more. Yes, I am + resolved, I will make myself a plane." At the end of ten days, + James had in his possession an admirable plane which he valued + all the more for having made it himself. Whilst he was reckoning + all the profits which he expected to derive from the use of it, + he was interrupted by William, a carpenter in the neighbouring + village. William, having admired the plane, was struck with the + advantages which might be gained from it. He said to James-- + + "You must do me a service; lend me the plane for a year." As might + be expected, James cried out, "How can you think of such a thing, + William? Well, if I do you this service, what will you do for me + in return?" + + W. Nothing. Don't you know that a loan ought to be gratuitous? + + J. I know nothing of the sort; but I do know that if I were to + lend you my plane for a year, it would be giving it to you. To + tell you the truth, that was not what I made it for. + + W. Very well, then; I ask you to do me a service; what service + do you ask me in return? + + J. First, then, in a year the plane will be done for. You must + therefore give me another exactly like it. + + W. That is perfectly just. I submit to these conditions. I think + you must be satisfied with this, and can require nothing further. + + J. I think otherwise. I made the plane for myself, and not for + you. I expected to gain some advantage from it. I have made the + plane for the purpose of improving my work and my condition; + if you merely return it to me in a year, it is you who will + gain the profit of it during the whole of that time. I am + not bound to do you such a service without receiving anything + in return. Therefore, if you wish for my plane, besides the + restoration already bargained for, you must give me a new plank + as a compensation for the advantages of which I shall be deprived. + + These terms were agreed to, but the singular part of it is that at + the end of the year, when the plane came into James's possession, + he lent it again; recovered it, and lent it a third and fourth + time. It has passed into the hands of his son, who still lends + it. Let us examine this little story. The plane is the symbol of + all capital, and the plank is the symbol of all interest. + + +If this be an abridgment, what a graceful piece of highly wrought +literature the original story must be! I take the liberty of abridging +it a little more. + +James makes a plane, lends it to William on 1st January for a +year. William gives him a plank for the loan of it, wears it out, and +makes another for James, which he gives him on 31st December. On 1st +January he again borrows the new one; and the arrangement is repeated +continuously. The position of William therefore is, that he makes a +plane every 31st of December; lends it to James till the next day, +and pays James a plank annually for the privilege of lending it to +him on that evening. This, in future investigations of capital and +interest, we will call, if you please, "the Position of William." + +You may not at the first glance see where the fallacy lies (the writer +of the story evidently counts on your not seeing it at all). + +If James did not lend the plane to William, he could only get his +gain of a plank by working with it himself, and wearing it out +himself. When he had worn it out at the end of the year, he would, +therefore, have to make another for himself. William, working with +it instead, gets the advantage instead, which he must, therefore, +pay James his plank for; and return to James, what James would, if +he had not lent his plane, then have had--not a new plane--but the +worn-out one, James must make a new one for himself, as he would have +had to do if no William had existed; and if William likes to borrow +it again for another plank--all is fair. + +That is to say, clearing the story of its nonsense, that James makes a +plane annually, and sells it to William for its proper price, which, +in kind, is a new plank. But this arrangement has nothing whatever +to do with principal or with interest. There are, indeed, many very +subtle conditions involved in any sale; one among which is the value +of ideas; I will explain that value to you in the course of time; +(the article is not one which modern political economists have any +familiarity with dealings in;) and I will tell you somewhat also of the +real nature of interest; but if you will only get, for the present, a +quite clear idea of "the Position of William," it is all I want of you. + + +I remain, your faithful friend, + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER II. + + + Denmark Hill, + 1st February, 1871. + +Friends,-- + + +Before going farther, you may like to know, and ought to know, what +I mean by the title of these Letters; and why it is in Latin. I can +only tell you in part, for the Letters will be on many things, if I am +able to carry out my plan in them; and that title means many things, +and is in Latin, because I could not have given an English one that +meant so many. We, indeed, were not till lately a loquacious people, +nor a useless one; but the Romans did more, and said less, than any +other nation that ever lived; and their language is the most heroic +ever spoken by men. + +Therefore I wish you to know, at least, some words of it, and to +recognize what thoughts they stand for. + +Some day, I hope you may know--and that European workmen may know--many +words of it; but even a few will be useful. + +Do not smile at my saying so. Of Arithmetic, Geometry, and Chemistry, +you can know but little, at the utmost; but that little, well learnt, +serves you well. And a little Latin, well learnt, will serve you also, +and in a higher way than any of these. + +'Fors' is the best part of three good English words, Force, Fortitude, +and Fortune. I wish you to know the meaning of those three words +accurately. + +'Force' (in humanity), means power of doing good work. A fool, or a +corpse, can do any quantity of mischief; but only a wise and strong +man, or, with what true vital force there is in him, a weak one, +can do good. + +'Fortitude' means the power of bearing necessary pain, or trial of +patience, whether by time, or temptation. + +'Fortune' means the necessary fate of a man: the ordinance of his +life which cannot be changed. To 'make your Fortune' is to rule that +appointed fate to the best ends of which it is capable. + +Fors is a feminine word; and Clavigera, is, therefore, the feminine of +'Claviger.' + +Clava means a club. Clavis, a key. Clavus, a nail, or a rudder. + +Gero means 'I carry.' It is the root of our word 'gesture' (the way +you carry yourself); and, in a curious bye-way, of 'jest.' + +Clavigera may mean, therefore, either Club-bearer, Key-bearer, +or Nail-bearer. + +Each of these three possible meanings of Clavigera corresponds to +one of the three meanings of Fors. + +Fors, the Club-bearer, means the strength of Hercules, or of Deed. + +Fors, the Key-bearer, means the strength of Ulysses, or of Patience. + +Fors, the Nail-bearer, means the strength of Lycurgus, or of Law. + +I will tell you what you may usefully know of those three Greek +persons in a little time. At present, note only of the three powers: +1. That the strength of Hercules is for deed, not misdeed; and that +his club--the favourite weapon, also, of the Athenian hero Theseus, +whose form is the best inheritance left to us by the greatest of Greek +sculptors, (it is in the Elgin room of the British Museum, and I shall +have much to tell you of him--especially how he helped Hercules in +his utmost need, and how he invented mixed vegetable soup)--was for +subduing monsters and cruel persons, and was of olive-wood. 2. That +the Second Fors Clavigera is portress at a gate which she cannot +open till you have waited long; and that her robe is of the colour of +ashes, or dry earth. [2] 3. That the third Fors Clavigera, the power +of Lycurgus, is Royal as well as Legal; and that the notablest crown +yet existing in Europe of any that have been worn by Christian kings, +was--people say--made of a Nail. + +That is enough about my title, for this time; now to our work. I +told you, and you will find it true, that, practically, all wages +mean the food and lodging given you by the possessors of the land. + +It begins to be asked on many sides how the possessors of the land +became possessed of it, and why they should still possess it, more than +you or I; and Ricardo's 'Theory' of Rent, though, for an economist, +a very creditably ingenious work of fiction, will not much longer be +imagined to explain the 'Practice' of Rent. + +The true answer, in this matter, as in all others, is the best. Some +land has been bought; some, won by cultivation: but the greater part, +in Europe, seized originally by force of hand. + +You may think, in that case, you would be justified in trying to +seize some yourselves, in the same way. + +If you could, you, and your children, would only hold it by the same +title as its present holders. If it is a bad one, you had better not so +hold it; if a good one, you had better let the present holders alone. + +And in any case, it is expedient that you should do so, for the present +holders, whom we may generally call 'Squires' (a title having three +meanings, like Fors, and all good; namely, Rider, Shield-bearer, +and Carver), are quite the best men you can now look to for leading: +it is too true that they have much demoralized themselves lately by +horse-racing, bird-shooting, and vermin-hunting; and most of all by +living in London, instead of on their estates; but they are still +(without exception) brave; nearly without exception, good-natured; +honest, so far as they understand honesty; and much to be depended on, +if once you and they understand each other. + +Which you are far enough now from doing; and it is imminently +needful that you should: so we will have an accurate talk of them +soon. The needfullest thing of all first is that you should know +the functions of the persons whom you are being taught to think of +as your protectors against the Squires;--your 'Employers,' namely; +or Capitalist Supporters of Labour. + +'Employers.' It is a noble title. If, indeed, they have found you +idle, and given you employment, wisely,--let us no more call them mere +'Men' of Business, but rather 'Angels' of Business: quite the best +sort of Guardian Angel. + +Yet are you sure it is necessary, absolutely, to look to superior +natures for employment? Is it inconceivable that you should +employ--yourselves? I ask the question, because these Seraphic beings, +undertaking also to be Seraphic Teachers or Doctors, have theories +about employment which may perhaps be true in their own celestial +regions, but are inapplicable under worldly conditions. + +To one of these principles, announced by themselves as highly +important, I must call your attention closely, because it has of late +been the cause of much embarrassment among persons in a sub-seraphic +life. I take its statement verbatim, from the 25th page of the +Cambridge catechism before quoted: + + + "This brings us to a most important proposition respecting + capital, one which it is essential that the student should + thoroughly understand. + + "The proposition is this--A demand for commodities is not a demand + for labour. + + "The demand for labour depends upon the amount of capital: the + demand for commodities simply determines in what direction labour + shall be employed. + + "An example.--The truth of these assertions can best be shown by + examples. Let us suppose that a manufacturer of woollen cloth + is in the habit of spending £50 annually in lace. What does it + matter, say some, whether he spends this £50 in lace or whether + he uses it to employ more labourers in his own business? Does + not the £50 spent in lace maintain the labourers who make the + lace, just the same as it would maintain the labourers who make + cloth, if the manufacturer used the money in extending his own + business? If he ceased buying the lace, for the sake of employing + more cloth-makers, would there not be simply a transfer of the + £50 from the lace-makers to the cloth-makers? In order to find + the right answer to these questions, let us imagine what would + actually take place if the manufacturer ceased buying the lace, + and employed the £50 in paying the wages of an additional number + of cloth-makers. The lace manufacturer, in consequence of the + diminished demand for lace, would diminish the production, and + would withdraw from his business an amount of capital corresponding + to the diminished demand. As there is no reason to suppose that + the lace-maker would, on losing some of his custom, become more + extravagant, or would cease to desire to derive income from the + capital which the diminished demand has caused him to withdraw + from his own business, it may be assumed that he would invest this + capital in some other industry. This capital is not the same as + that which his former customer, the woollen cloth manufacturer, + is now paying his own labourers with; it is a second capital; + and in the place of £50 employed in maintaining labour, there is + now £100 so employed. There is no transfer from lace-makers to + cloth-makers. There is fresh employment for the cloth-makers, and a + transfer from the lace-makers to some other labourers."--Principles + of Political Economy, vol. i., p. 102. + + +This is very fine; and it is clear that we may carry forward the +improvement in our commercial arrangements by recommending all the +other customers of the lace-maker to treat him as the cloth-maker has +done. Whereupon he of course leaves the lace business entirely, and +uses all his capital in 'some other industry.' Having thus established +the lace-maker with a complete 'second capital' in the other industry, +we will next proceed to develope a capital out of the cloth-maker, +by recommending all his customers to leave him. Whereupon, he will +also invest his capital in 'some other industry,' and we have a Third +capital, employed in the National benefit. + +We will now proceed in the round of all possible businesses, developing +a correspondent number of new capitals, till we come back to our +friend the lace-maker again, and find him employed in whatever his +new industry was. By now taking away again all his new customers, +we begin the development of another order of Capitals in a higher +Seraphic circle--and so develope at last an Infinite Capital! + +It would be difficult to match this for simplicity; it is more comic +even than the fable of James and William, though you may find it less +easy to detect the fallacy here; but the obscurity is not because +the error is less gross, but because it is threefold. Fallacy 1st +is the assumption that a cloth-maker may employ any number of men, +whether he has customers or not; while a lace-maker must dismiss +his men if he has not customers. Fallacy 2nd: That when a lace-maker +can no longer find customers for lace, he can always find customers +for something else. Fallacy 3rd (the essential one): That the funds +provided by these new customers, produced seraphically from the +clouds, are a 'second capital.' Those customers, if they exist now, +existed before the lace-maker adopted his new business; and were the +employers of the people in that business. If the lace-maker gets them, +he merely diverts their fifty pounds from the tradesmen they were +before employing, to himself; and that is Mr. Mill's 'second capital.' + +Underlying these three fallacies, however, there is, in the mind of +'the greatest thinker in England,' some consciousness of a partial +truth, which he has never yet been able to define for himself--still +less to explain to others. The real root of them is his conviction that +it is beneficial and profitable to make broadcloth; and unbeneficial +and unprofitable to make lace; [3] so that the trade of cloth-making +should be infinitely extended, and that of lace-making infinitely +repressed. Which is, indeed, partially true. Making cloth, if it be +well made, is a good industry; and if you had sense enough to read +your Walter Scott thoroughly, I should invite you to join me in sincere +hope that Glasgow might in that industry long flourish; and the chief +hostelry at Aberfoil be at the sign of the "Nicol Jarvie." Also, +of lace-makers, it is often true that they had better be doing +something else. I admit it, with no goodwill, for I know a most kind +lady, a clergyman's wife, who devotes her life to the benefit of her +country by employing lace-makers; and all her friends make presents +of collars and cuffs to each other, for the sake of charity; and as, +if they did not, the poor girl lace-makers would probably indeed be +'diverted' into some other less diverting industry, in due assertion +of the rights of women, (cartridge-filling, or percussion-cap making, +most likely,) I even go the length, sometimes, of furnishing my friend +with a pattern, and never say a word to disturb her young customers +in their conviction that it is an act of Christian charity to be +married in more than ordinarily expensive veils. + +But there is one kind of lace for which I should be glad that the +demand ceased. Iron lace. If we must even doubt whether ornamental +thread-work may be, wisely, made on cushions in the sunshine, +by dexterous fingers for fair shoulders,--how are we to think of +Ornamental Iron-work, made with deadly sweat of men, and steady +waste, all summer through, of the coals that Earth gave us for winter +fuel? What shall we say of labour spent on lace such as that? + +Nay, says the Cambridge catechism, "the demand for commodities is +not a demand for labour." + +Doubtless, in the economist's new earth, cast iron will be had for +asking: the hapless and brave Parisians find it even rain occasionally +out of the new economical Heavens, without asking. Gold will also +one day, perhaps, be begotten of gold, until the supply of that, as +well as of iron, may be, at least, equal to the demand. But, in this +world, it is not so yet. Neither thread-lace, gold-lace, iron-lace, +nor stone-lace, whether they be commodities or incommodities, can be +had for nothing. How much, think you, did the gilded flourishes cost +round the gas-lamps on Westminster Bridge? or the stone-lace of the +pinnacles of the temple of Parliament at the end of it, (incommodious +enough, as I hear;) or the point-lace of the park-railings which you so +improperly pulled down, when you wanted to be Parliamentary yourselves; +(much good you would have got of that!) or the 'openwork' of iron +railings generally--the special glories of English design? Will you +count the cost, in labour and coals, of the blank bars ranged along +all the melancholy miles of our suburban streets, saying with their +rusty tongues, as plainly as iron tongues can speak, "Thieves outside, +and nothing to steal within." A beautiful wealth they are! and a +productive capital! "Well, but," you answer, "the making them was work +for us." Of course it was; is not that the very thing I am telling +you? Work it was; and too much. But will you be good enough to make +up your minds, once for all, whether it is really work that you want, +or rest? I thought you rather objected to your quantity of work;--that +you were all for having eight hours of it instead of ten? You may +have twelve instead of ten, easily,--sixteen, if you like! If it is +only occupation you want, why do you cast the iron? Forge it in the +fresh air, on a workman's anvil; make iron-lace like this of Verona,-- + +[Illustration] + +every link of it swinging loose like a knight's chain mail: then you +may have some joy of it afterwards, and pride; and say you knew the +cunning of a man's right hand. But I think it is pay that you want, +not work; and it is very true that pretty iron-work like that does not +pay; but it is pretty, and it might even be entertaining, if you made +those leaves at the top of it (which are, as far as I can see, only +artichoke, and not very well done) in the likeness of all the beautiful +leaves you could find, till you knew them all by heart. "Wasted time +and hammer-strokes," say you? "A wise people like the English will +have nothing but spikes; and, besides, the spikes are highly needful, +so many of the wise people being thieves." Yes, that is so; and, +therefore, in calculating the annual cost of keeping your thieves, you +must always reckon, not only the cost of the spikes that keep them in, +but of the spikes that keep them out. But how if, instead of flat rough +spikes, you put triangular polished ones, commonly called bayonets; +and instead of the perpendicular bars, put perpendicular men? What +is the cost to you then, of your railing, of which you must feed the +idle bars daily? Costly enough, if it stays quiet. But how, if it +begin to march and countermarch? and apply its spikes horizontally? + +And now note this that follows; it is of vital importance to you. + +There are, practically, two absolutely opposite kinds of labour going +on among men, for ever. [4] + +The first, labour supported by Capital, producing nothing. + +The second, labour unsupported by Capital, producing all things. + +Take two simple and precise instances on a small scale. + +A little while since, I was paying a visit in Ireland, and chanced +to hear an account of the pleasures of a picnic party, who had gone +to see a waterfall. There was of course ample lunch, feasting on the +grass, and basketsful of fragments taken up afterwards. + +Then the company, feeling themselves dull, gave the fragments that +remained to the attendant ragged boys, on condition that they should +'pull each other's hair.' + +Here, you see, is, in the most accurate sense, employment of food, +or capital, in the support of entirely unproductive labour. + +Next, for the second kind. I live at the top of a short but rather +steep hill; at the bottom of which, every day, all the year round, +but especially in frost, coal-waggons get stranded, being economically +provided with the smallest number of horses that can get them along +on level ground. + +The other day, when the road, frozen after thaw, was at the worst, +my assistant, the engraver of that bit of iron-work on the 11th page, +was coming up here, and found three coal-waggons at a lock, helpless; +the drivers, as usual, explaining Political Economy to the horses, +by beating them over the heads. + +There were half a dozen fellows besides, out of work, or not caring +to be in it--standing by, looking on. My engraver put his shoulder +to a wheel, (at least his hand to a spoke,) and called on the idlers +to do as much. They didn't seem to have thought of such a thing, +but were ready enough when called on. "And we went up screaming," +said Mr. Burgess. + +Do you suppose that was one whit less proper human work than going +up a hill against a battery, merely because, in that case, half of +the men would have gone down, screaming, instead of up; and those +who got up would have done no good at the top? + +But observe the two opposite kinds of labour. The first lavishly +supported by Capital, and producing Nothing. The second, unsupported by +any Capital whatsoever,--not having so much as a stick for a tool,--but +called, by mere goodwill, out of the vast void of the world's Idleness, +and producing the definitely profitable result of moving a weight of +fuel some distance towards the place where it was wanted, and sparing +the strength of overloaded creatures. + +Observe further. The labour producing no useful result was +demoralizing. All such labour is. + +The labour producing useful result was educational in its influence +on the temper. All such labour is. + +And the first condition of education, the thing you are all crying +out for, is being put to wholesome and useful work. And it is nearly +the last conditions of it, too; you need very little more; but, as +things go, there will yet be difficulty in getting that. As things +have hitherto gone, the difficulty has been to avoid getting the +reverse of that. + +For, during the last eight hundred years, the upper classes of Europe +have been one large Picnic Party. Most of them have been religious +also; and in sitting down, by companies, upon the green grass, in +parks, gardens, and the like, have considered themselves commanded into +that position by Divine authority, and fed with bread from Heaven: +of which they duly considered it proper to bestow the fragments in +support, and the tithes in tuition, of the poor. + +But, without even such small cost, they might have taught the +poor many beneficial things. In some places they have taught them +manners, which is already much. They might have cheaply taught them +merriment also:--dancing and singing, for instance. The young English +ladies who sit nightly to be instructed, themselves, at some cost, +in melodies illustrative of the consumption of La Traviata, and +the damnation of Don Juan, might have taught every girl peasant +in England to join in costless choirs of innocent song. Here and +there, perhaps, a gentleman might have been found able to teach his +peasantry some science and art. Science and fine art don't pay; but +they cost little. Tithes--not of the income of the country, but of the +income, say, of its brewers--nay, probably the sum devoted annually by +England to provide drugs for the adulteration of its own beer,--would +have founded lovely little museums, and perfect libraries, in every +village. And if here and there an English churchman had been found +(such as Dean Stanley) willing to explain to peasants the sculpture of +his and their own cathedral, and to read its black-letter inscriptions +for them; and, on warm Sundays, when they were too sleepy to attend +to anything more proper--to tell them a story about some of the +people who had built it, or lay buried in it--we perhaps might have +been quite as religious as we are, and yet need not now have been +offering prizes for competition in art schools, nor lecturing with +tender sentiment on the inimitableness of the works of Fra Angelico. + +These things the great Picnic Party might have taught without cost, +and with amusement to themselves. One thing, at least, they were +bound to teach, whether it amused them or not;--how, day by day, the +daily bread they expected their village children to pray to God for, +might be earned in accordance with the laws of God. This they might +have taught, not only without cost, but with great gain. One thing +only they have taught, and at considerable cost. + +They have spent four hundred millions [5] of pounds here in England +within the last twenty years!--how much in France and Germany, I will +take some pains to ascertain for you,--and with this initial outlay of +capital, have taught the peasants of Europe--to pull each other's hair. + +With this result, 17th January, 1871, at and around the chief palace +of their own pleasures, and the chief city of their delights: + + + "Each demolished house has its own legend of sorrow, of pain, + and horror; each vacant doorway speaks to the eye, and almost to + the ear, of hasty flight, as armies or fire came--of weeping women + and trembling children running away in awful fear, abandoning the + home that saw their birth, the old house they loved--of startled + men seizing quickly under each arm their most valued goods, and + rushing, heavily laden, after their wives and babes, leaving to + hostile hands the task of burning all the rest. When evening + falls, the wretched outcasts, worn with fatigue and tears, + reach Versailles, St. Germain, or some other place outside + the range of fire, and there they beg for bread and shelter, + homeless, foodless, broken with despair. And this, remember, + has been the fate of something like a hundred thousand people + during the last four months. Versailles alone has about fifteen + thousand such fugitives to keep alive, all ruined, all hopeless, + all vaguely asking the grim future what still worse fate it may + have in store for them."--Daily Telegraph, Jan. 17th, 1871. + + +That is the result round their pleasant city, and this within their +industrious and practical one: let us keep, for the reference of +future ages, a picture of domestic life, out of the streets of London +in her commercial prosperity, founded on the eternal laws of Supply +and Demand, as applied by the modern Capitalist: + + + "A father in the last stage of consumption--two daughters nearly + marriageable with hardly sufficient rotting clothing to 'cover + their shame.' The rags that hang around their attenuated frames + flutter in strips against their naked legs. They have no stool or + chair upon which they can sit. Their father occupies the only stool + in the room. They have no employment by which they can earn even a + pittance. They are at home starving on a half-chance meal a day, + and hiding their raggedness from the world. The walls are bare, + there is one bed in the room, and a bundle of dirty rags are upon + it. The dying father will shortly follow the dead mother; and + when the parish coffin encloses his wasted form, and a pauper's + grave closes above him, what shall be his daughters' lot? This is + but a type of many other homes in the district: dirt, misery, and + disease alone flourish in that wretched neighbourhood. 'Fever and + smallpox rage,' as the inhabitants say, 'next door, and next door, + and over the way, and next door to that, and further down.' The + living, dying, and dead are all huddled together. The houses have + no ventilation, the back yards are receptacles for all sorts of + filth and rubbish, the old barrels or vessels that contain the + supply of water are thickly coated on the sides with slime, and + there is an undisturbed deposit of mud at the bottom. There is no + mortuary house--the dead lie in the dogholes where they breathed + their last, and add to the contagion which spreads through the + neighbourhood."--Pall Mall Gazette, January 7th, 1871, quoting + the Builder. + + +As I was revising this sheet,--on the evening of the 20th of last +month,--two slips of paper were brought to me. One contained, in +consecutive paragraphs, an extract from the speech of one of the +best and kindest of our public men, to the 'Liberal Association' +at Portsmouth; and an account of the performances of the 35-ton +gun called the 'Woolwich infant' which is fed with 700-pound shot, +and 130 pounds of gunpowder at one mouthful; not at all like the +Wapping infants, starving on a half-chance meal a day. "The gun was +fired with the most satisfactory result," nobody being hurt, and +nothing damaged but the platform, while the shot passed through the +screens in front at the rate of 1,303 feet per second: and it seems, +also, that the Woolwich infant has not seen the light too soon. For +Mr. Cowper-Temple, in the preceding paragraph, informs the Liberals +of Portsmouth, that in consequence of our amiable neutrality "we must +contemplate the contingency of a combined fleet coming from the ports +of Prussia, Russia, and America, and making an attack on England." + +Contemplating myself these relations of Russia, Prussia, Woolwich, +and Wapping, it seems to my uncommercial mind merely like another +case of iron railings--thieves outside, and nothing to steal +within. But the second slip of paper announced approaching help in +a peaceful direction. It was the prospectus of the Boardmen's and +General Advertising Co-operative Society, which invites, from the +"generosity of the public, a necessary small preliminary sum," and, +"in addition to the above, a small sum of money by way of capital," +to set the members of the society up in the profitable business of +walking about London between two boards. Here is at last found for +us, then, it appears, a line of life! At the West End, lounging about +the streets, with a well-made back to one's coat, and front to one's +shirt, is usually thought of as not much in the way of business; but, +doubtless, to lounge at the East End about the streets, with one Lie +pinned to the front of you, and another to the back of you, will pay, +in time, only with proper preliminary expenditure of capital. My +friends, I repeat my question: Do you not think you could contrive +some little method of employing--yourselves? for truly I think the +Seraphic Doctors are nearly at their wits' end (if ever their wits had +a beginning). Tradesmen are beginning to find it difficult to live by +lies of their own; and workmen will not find it much easier to live, +by walking about, flattened between other people's. + +Think over it. On the first of March, I hope to ask you to read a +little history with me; perhaps also, because the world's time, seen +truly, is but one long and fitful April, in which every day is All +Fools' day,--we may continue our studies in that month; but on the +first of May, you shall consider with me what you can do, or let me, +if still living, tell you what I know you can do--those of you, at +least, who will promise--(with the help of the three strong Fates), +these three things: + +1. To do your own work well, whether it be for life or death. + +2. To help other people at theirs, when you can, and seek to avenge +no injury. + +3. To be sure you can obey good laws before you seek to alter bad ones. + + +Believe me, +Your faithful friend, + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER III. + + + Denmark Hill, + 1st March, 1871. + +My Friends, + + +We are to read--with your leave--some history to-day; the leave, +however, will perhaps not willingly be given, for you may think that +of late you have read enough history, or too much, in Gazettes of +morning and evening. No; you have read, and can read, no history +in these. Reports of daily events, yes;--and if any journal would +limit itself to statements of well-sifted fact, making itself not a +"news"paper, but an "olds"paper, and giving its statements tested and +true, like old wine, as soon as things could be known accurately; +choosing also, of the many things that might be known, those which +it was most vital to know, and summing them in few words of pure +English,--I cannot say whether it would ever pay well to sell it; +but I am sure it would pay well to read it, and to read no other. + +But even so, to know only what was happening day by day, would not +be to read history. What happens now is but the momentary scene +of a great play, of which you can understand nothing without some +knowledge of the former action. And of that, so great a play is it, +you can at best understand little; yet of history, as of science, +a little, well known, will serve you much, and a little, ill known, +will do you fatally the contrary of service. + +For instance, all your journals will be full of talk, for months to +come, about whose fault the war was; and you yourselves, as you begin +to feel its deadly recoil on your own interests, or as you comprehend +better the misery it has brought on others, will be looking about +more and more restlessly for some one to accuse of it. That is because +you don't know the law of Fate, nor the course of history. It is the +law of Fate that we shall live, in part, by our own efforts, but in +the greater part, by the help of others; and that we shall also die, +in part, for our own faults; but in the greater part for the faults +of others. Do you suppose (to take the thing on the small scale in +which you can test it) that those seven children torn into pieces +out of their sleep, in the last night of the siege of Paris, [6] +had sinned above all the children in Paris, or above yours? or that +their parents had sinned more than you? Do you think the thousands of +soldiers, German and French, who have died in agony, and of women who +have died of grief, had sinned above all other soldiers, or mothers, +or girls, there and here? + +It was not their fault, but their Fate. The thing appointed to them by +the Third Fors. But you think it was at least the Emperor Napoleon's +fault, if not theirs? Or Count Bismarck's? No; not at all. The +Emperor Napoleon had no more to do with it than a cork on the top of +a wave has with the toss of the sea. Count Bismarck had very little +to do with it. When the Count sent for my waiter, last July, in the +village of Lauterbrunnen, among the Alps,--that the waiter then and +there packed his knapsack and departed, to be shot, if need were, +leaving my dinner unserved (as has been the case with many other +people's dinners since)--depended on things much anterior to Count +Bismarck. The two men who had most to answer for in the mischief of +the matter were St. Louis and his brother, who lived in the middle +of the thirteenth century. One, among the very best of men; and the +other, of all that I ever read of, the worst. The good man, living +in mistaken effort, and dying miserably, to the ruin of his country; +the bad man living in triumphant good fortune, and dying peaceably, +to the ruin of many countries. Such were their Fates, and ours. I +am not going to tell you of them, nor anything about the French war +to-day; and you have been told, long ago, (only you would not listen, +nor believe,) the root of the modern German power--in that rough +father of Frederick, who "yearly made his country richer, and this +not in money alone (which is of very uncertain value, and sometimes +has no value at all, and even less), but in frugality, diligence, +punctuality, veracity,--the grand fountains from which money, and +all real values and valours, spring for men. As a Nation's Husband, +he seeks his fellow among Kings, ancient and modern. Happy the nation +which gets such a Husband, once in the half thousand years. The Nation, +as foolish wives and Nations do, repines and grudges a good deal, +its weak whims and will being thwarted very often; but it advances +steadily, with consciousness or not, in the way of well-doing; and, +after long times, the harvest of this diligent sowing becomes manifest +to the Nation, and to all Nations." [7] + +No such harvest is sowing for you,--Freemen and Independent Electors +of Parliamentary representatives, as you think yourselves. + +Freemen, indeed! You are slaves, not to masters of any strength or +honour; but to the idlest talkers at that floral end of Westminster +bridge. Nay, to countless meaner masters than they. For though, indeed, +as early as the year 1102, it was decreed in a council at St. Peter's, +Westminster, "that no man for the future should presume to carry on +the wicked trade of selling men in the markets, like brute beasts, +which hitherto hath been the common custom of England," the no less +wicked trade of under-selling men in markets has lasted to this day; +producing conditions of slavery differing from the ancient ones only +in being starved instead of full-fed: and besides this, a state +of slavery unheard of among the nations till now, has arisen with +us. In all former slaveries, Egyptian, Algerine, Saxon, and American, +the slave's complaint has been of compulsory work. But the modern +Politico-Economic slave is a new and far more injured species, +condemned to Compulsory Idleness, for fear he should spoil other +people's trade; the beautifully logical condition of the national +Theory of Economy in this matter being that, if you are a shoemaker, +it is a law of Heaven that you must sell your goods under their price, +in order to destroy the trade of other shoemakers; but if you are not +a shoemaker, and are going shoeless and lame, it is a law of Heaven +that you must not cut yourself a bit of cowhide, to put between your +foot and the stones, because that would interfere with the total +trade of shoemaking. + +Which theory, of all the wonderful--! + + + +We will wait till April to consider of it; meantime, here is a note I +have received from Mr. Alsager A. Hill, who having been unfortunately +active in organizing that new effort in the advertising business, +designed, as it seems, on this loveliest principle of doing nothing +that will be perilously productive--was hurt by my manner of mention +of it in the last number of Fors. I offered accordingly to print any +form of remonstrance he would furnish me with, if laconic enough; +and he writes to me, "The intention of the Boardmen's Society is not, +as the writer of Fors Clavigera suggests, to 'find a line of life' +for able-bodied labourers, but simply, by means of co-operation, to +give them the fullest benefit of their labour whilst they continue a +very humble but still remunerative calling. See Rule 12. The capital +asked for to start the organization is essential in all industrial +partnerships, and in so poor a class of labour as that of street +board-carrying could not be supplied by the men themselves. With +respect to the 'lies' alleged to be carried in front and behind, it is +rather hard measure to say that mere announcements of public meetings +or places of entertainments (of which street notices chiefly consist) +are necessarily falsehoods." + +To which, I have only to reply that I never said the newly-found line +of life was meant for able-bodied persons. The distinction between +able and unable-bodied men is entirely indefinite. There are all +degrees of ability for all things; and a man who can do anything, +however little, should be made to do that little usefully. If you +can carry about a board with a bill on it, you can carry, not about, +but where it is wanted, a board without a bill on it; which is a much +more useful exercise of your ability. Respecting the general probity, +and historical or descriptive accuracy, of advertisements, and their +function in modern economy, I will inquire in another place. You see +I use none for this book, and shall in future use none for any of +my books; having grave objection even to the very small minority +of advertisements which are approximately true. I am correcting +this sheet in the "Crown and Thistle" inn at Abingdon, and under +my window is a shrill-voiced person, slowly progressive, crying, +"Soles, three pair for a shillin'." In a market regulated by reason +and order, instead of demand and supply, the soles would neither have +been kept long enough to render such advertisement of them necessary, +nor permitted, after their inexpedient preservation, to be advertised. + +Of all attainable liberties, then, be sure first to strive for leave +to be useful. Independence you had better cease to talk of, for you +are dependent not only on every act of people whom you never heard of, +who are living round you, but on every past act of what has been dust +for a thousand years. So also, does the course of a thousand years +to come, depend upon the little perishing strength that is in you. + +Little enough, and perishing, often without reward, however well +spent. Understand that. Virtue does not consist in doing what will be +presently paid, or even paid at all, to you, the virtuous person. It +may so chance; or may not. It will be paid, some day; but the vital +condition of it, as virtue, is that it shall be content in its own +deed, and desirous rather that the pay of it, if any, should be for +others; just as it is also the vital condition of vice to be content +in its own deed, and desirous that the pay thereof, if any, should +be to others. + +You have probably heard of St. Louis before now: and perhaps also +that he built the Sainte Chapelle of Paris, of which you may have +seen that I wrote the other day to the Telegraph, as being the most +precious piece of Gothic in Northern Europe; but you are not likely +to have known that the spire of it was Tenterden steeple over again, +and the cause of fatal sands many, quick, and slow, and above all, +of the running of these in the last hour-glass of France; for that +spire, and others like it, subordinate, have acted ever since as +lightning-rods, in a reverse manner; carrying, not the fire of heaven +innocently to earth, but electric fire of earth innocently to heaven, +leaving us all, down here, cold. The best virtue and heart-fire of +France (not to say of England, who building her towers for the most +part with four pinnacles instead of one, in a somewhat quadrumanous +type, finds them less apt as conductors), have spent themselves for +these past six centuries in running up those steeples and off them, +nobody knows where, leaving a "holy Republic" as residue at the bottom; +helpless, clay-cold, and croaking, a habitation of frogs, which poor +Garibaldi fights for, vainly raging against the ghost of St. Louis. + +It is of English ghosts, however, that I would fain tell you somewhat +to-day; of them, and of the land they haunt, and know still for +theirs. For hear this to begin with:-- + +"While a map of France or Germany in the eleventh century is useless +for modern purposes, and looks like the picture of another region, +a map of England proper in the reign of Victoria hardly differs +at all from a map of England proper in the reign of William" (the +Conqueror). So says, very truly, Mr. Freeman in his History of the +Conquest. Are there any of you who care for this old England, of which +the map has remained unchanged for so long? I believe you would care +more for her, and less for yourselves, except as her faithful children, +if you knew a little more about her; and especially more of what she +has been. The difficulty, indeed, at any time, is in finding out what +she has been; for that which people usually call her history is not +hers at all; but that of her Kings, or the tax-gatherers employed +by them, which is as if people were to call Mr. Gladstone's history, +or Mr. Lowe's, yours and mine. + +But the history even of her Kings is worth reading. You remember, +I said, that sometimes in church it might keep you awake to be told +a little of it. For a simple instance, you have heard probably of +Absalom's rebellion against his father, and of David's agony at his +death, until from very weariness you have ceased to feel the power of +the story. You would not feel it less vividly if you knew that a far +more fearful sorrow, of the like kind, had happened to one of your +own Kings, perhaps the best we have had, take him for all in all. Not +one only, but three of his sons, rebelled against him, and were urged +into rebellion by their mother. The Prince, who should have been King +after him, was pardoned, not once, but many times--pardoned wholly, +with rejoicing over him as over the dead alive, and set at his father's +right hand in the kingdom; but all in vain. Hard and treacherous to +the heart's core, nothing wins him, nothing warns, nothing binds. He +flies to France, and wars at last alike against father and brother, +till, falling sick through mingled guilt, and shame, and rage, he +repents idly as the fever-fire withers him. His father sends him the +signet ring from his finger in token of one more forgiveness. The +Prince lies down upon a heap of ashes with a halter round his neck, +and so dies. When his father heard it he fainted away three times, and +then broke out into bitterest crying and tears. This, you would have +thought enough for the Third dark Fate to have appointed for a man's +sorrows. It was little to that which was to come. His second son, who +was now his Prince of England, conspired against him, and pursued his +father from city to city, in Norman France. At last, even his youngest +son, best beloved of all, abandoned him, and went over to his enemies. + +This was enough. Between him and his children Heaven commanded its +own peace. He sickened and died of grief on the 6th of July, 1189. + +The son who had killed him, "repented" now; but there could be no +signet ring sent to him. Perhaps the dead do not forgive. Men say, +as he stood by his father's corpse, that the blood burst from his +nostrils. One child only had been faithful to him, but he was the son +of a girl whom he had loved much, and as he should not; his Queen, +therefore, being a much older person, and strict upon proprieties, +poisoned her; nevertheless poor Rosamond's son never failed him; won a +battle for him in England, which, in all human probability, saved his +kingdom; and was made a bishop, and turned out a bishop of the best. + +You know already a little about the Prince who stood unforgiven (as +it seemed) by his father's body. He, also, had to forgive, in his +time; but only a stranger's arrow shot--not those reversed "arrows +in the hand of the giant," by which his father died. Men called him +"Lion-heart," not untruly; and the English as a people, have prided +themselves somewhat ever since on having, every man of them, the +heart of a lion; without inquiring particularly either what sort of +heart a lion has, or whether to have the heart of a lamb might not +sometimes be more to the purpose. But it so happens that the name +was very justly given to this prince; and I want you to study his +character somewhat, with me, because in all our history there is no +truer representative of one great species of the British squire, under +all the three significances of the name; for this Richard of ours was +beyond most of his fellows, a Rider and a Shieldbearer; and beyond +all men of his day, a Carver; and in disposition and unreasonable +exercise of intellectual power, typically a Squire altogether. + +Note of him first, then, that he verily desired the good of his people +(provided it could be contrived without any check of his own humour), +and that he saw his way to it a great deal clearer than any of your +squires do now. Here are some of his laws for you:-- + +"Having set forth the great inconveniences arising from the diversity +of weights and measures in different parts of the kingdom, he, by a +law, commanded all measures of corn, and other dry goods, as also of +liquors, to be exactly the same in all his dominions; and that the +rim of each of these measures should be a circle of iron. By another +law, he commanded all cloth to be woven two yards in breadth within +the lists, and of equal goodness in all parts; and that all cloth +which did not answer this description should be seized and burnt. He +enacted, further, that all the coin of the kingdom should be exactly +of the same weight and fineness;--that no Christian should take any +interest for money lent; and, to prevent the extortions of the Jews, +he commanded that all compacts between Christians and Jews should +be made in the presence of witnesses, and the conditions of them +put in writing." So, you see, in Coeur-de-Lion's day, it was not +esteemed of absolute necessity to put agreements between Christians +in writing! Which if it were not now, you know we might save a great +deal of money, and discharge some of our workmen round Temple Bar, +as well as from Woolwich Dockyards. Note also that bit about interest +of money also for future reference. In the next place observe that +this King had great objection to thieves--at least to any person whom +he clearly comprehended to be a thief. He was the inventor of a mode +of treatment which I believe the Americans--among whom it has not +fallen altogether into disuse--do not gratefully enough recognize as +a Monarchical institution. By the last of the laws for the government +of his fleet in his expedition to Palestine, it is decreed,--"That +whosoever is convicted of theft shall have his head shaved, melted +pitch poured upon it, and the feathers from a pillow shaken over +it, that he may be known; and shall be put on shore on the first +land which the ship touches." And not only so; he even objected to +any theft by misrepresentation or deception,--for being evidently +particularly interested, like Mr. Mill, in that cloth manufacture, +and having made the above law about the breadth of the web, which has +caused it to be spoken of ever since as "Broad Cloth," and besides, +for better preservation of its breadth, enacted that the Ell shall be +of the same length all over the kingdom, and that it shall be made of +iron--(so that Mr. Tennyson's provision for National defences--that +every shop-boy should strike with his cheating yard-wand home, would +be mended much by the substitution of King Richard's honest ell-wand, +and for once with advisable encouragement to the iron trade)--King +Richard finally declares--"That it shall be of the same goodness +in the middle as at the sides, and that no merchant in any part of +the kingdom of England shall stretch before his shop or booth a red +or black cloth, or any other thing by which the sight of buyers is +frequently deceived in the choice of good cloth." + +These being Richard's rough and unreasonable, chancing nevertheless, +being wholly honest, to be wholly right, notions of business, the +next point you are to note in him is his unreasonable good humour; +an eminent character of English Squires; a very loveable one; and +available to himself and others in many ways, but not altogether +so exemplary as many think it. If you are unscrupulously resolved, +whenever you can get your own way, to take it; if you are in a +position of life wherein you can get a good deal of it, and if you have +pugnacity enough to enjoy fighting with anybody who will not give it +to you, there is little reason why you should ever be out of humour, +unless indeed your way is a broad one, wherein you are like to be +opposed in force. Richard's way was a very narrow one. To be first +in battle, (generally obtaining that main piece of his will without +question; once only worsted, by a French knight, and then, not at +all good-humouredly,) to be first in recognized command--therefore +contending with his father, who was both in wisdom and acknowledged +place superior; but scarcely contending at all with his brother +John, who was as definitely and deeply beneath him; good-humoured +unreasonably, while he was killing his father, the best of kings, +and letting his brother rule unresisted, who was among the worst; +and only proposing for his object in life to enjoy himself everywhere +in a chivalrous, poetical, and pleasantly animal manner, as a strong +man always may. What should he have been out of humour for? That he +brightly and bravely lived through his captivity is much indeed to +his honour; but it was his point of honour to be bright and brave; +not at all to take care of his kingdom. A king who cared for that, +would have got thinner and sadder in prison. + +And it remains true of the English squire to this day, that, for the +most part, he thinks that his kingdom is given him that he may be +bright and brave; and not at all that the sunshine or valour in him +is meant to be of use to his kingdom. + +But the next point you have to note in Richard is indeed a very +noble quality, and true English; he always does as much of his work +as he can with his own hands. He was not in any wise a king who would +sit by a windmill to watch his son and his men at work, though brave +kings have done so. As much as might be, of whatever had to be done, +he would stedfastly do from his own shoulder; his main tool being an +old Greek one, and the working God Vulcan's--the clearing axe. When +that was no longer needful, and nothing would serve but spade and +trowel, still the king was foremost; and after the weary retreat to +Ascalon, when he found the place "so completely ruined and deserted, +that it afforded neither food, lodging, nor protection," nor any other +sort of capital,--forthwith, 20th January, 1192--his army and he set +to work to repair it; a three months' business, of incessant toil, +"from which the king himself was not exempted, but wrought with +greater ardour than any common labourer." + +The next point of his character is very English also, but less +honourably so. I said but now that he had a great objection to anybody +whom he clearly comprehended to be a thief. But he had great difficulty +in reaching anything like an abstract definition of thieving, such +as would include every method of it, and every culprit, which is an +incapacity very common to many of us to this day. For instance, he +carried off a great deal of treasure which belonged to his father, +from Chinon (the royal treasury-town in France), and fortified +his own castles in Poitou with it; and when he wanted money to go +crusading with, sold the royal castles, manors, woods, and forests, +and even the superiority of the Crown of England over the kingdom of +Scotland, which his father had wrought hard for, for about a hundred +thousand pounds. Nay, the highest honours and most important offices +become venal under him; and from a Princess's dowry to a Saracen +caravan, nothing comes much amiss; not but that he gives generously +also; whole ships at a time when he is in the humour; but his main +practice is getting and spending, never saving; which covetousness is +at last the death of him. For hearing that a considerable treasure +of ancient coins and medals has been found in the lands of Vidomar, +Viscount of Limoges, King Richard sends forthwith to claim this waif +for himself. The Viscount offers him part only, presumably having +an antiquarian turn of mind. Whereupon Richard loses his temper, +and marches forthwith with some Brabant men, mercenaries, to besiege +the Viscount in his castle of Chalus; proposing, first, to possess +himself of the antique and otherwise interesting coin in the castle, +and then, on his general principle of objection to thieves, to hang the +garrison. The garrison, on this, offer to give up the antiquities if +they may march off themselves; but Richard declares that nothing will +serve but they must all be hanged. Whereon the siege proceeding by +rule. and Richard looking, as usual, into matters with his own eyes, +and going too near the walls, an arrow well meant, though half spent, +pierces the strong, white shoulder; the shield-bearing one, carelessly +forward above instead of under shield; or perhaps, rather, when he +was afoot, shieldless, engineering. He finishes his work, however, +though the scratch teases him; plans his assault, carries his castle, +and duly hangs his garrison, all but the archer, whom in his royal, +unreasoning way he thinks better of, for the well-spent arrow. But he +pulls it out impatiently, and the head of it stays in the fair flesh; +a little surgery follows; not so skilful as the archery of those days, +and the lion heart is appeased-- + +Sixth April, 1199. + +We will pursue our historical studies, if you please, in that month +of the present year. But I wish, in the meantime, you would observe, +and meditate on, the quite Anglican character of Richard, to his death. + +It might have been remarked to him, on his projecting the expedition to +Chalus, that there were not a few Roman coins, and other antiquities, +to be found in his own kingdom of England, without fighting for them, +but by mere spade labour and other innocuous means;--that even the +brightest new money was obtainable from his loyal people in almost any +quantity for civil asking; and that the same loyal people, encouraged +and protected, and above all, kept clean-handed, in the arts, by their +king, might produce treasures more covetable than any antiquities. + +"No;" Richard would have answered,--"that is all hypothetical and +visionary; here is a pot of coin presently to be had--no doubt about +it--inside the walls here:--let me once get hold of that, and then,"-- + + +That is what we English call being "Practical." + + +Believe me, +Faithfully yours, + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER IV. + + + Denmark Hill, + 1st April, 1871. + +My Friends, + + +It cannot but be pleasing to us to reflect, this day, that if we +are often foolish enough to talk English without understanding it, +we are often wise enough to talk Latin without knowing it. For this +month retains its pretty Roman name, and means the month of Opening; +of the light in the days, and the life in the leaves, and of the +voices of birds, and of the hearts of men. + +And being the month of Manifestation, it is pre-eminently the month +of Fools;--for under the beatific influences of moral sunshine, +or Education, the Fools always come out first. + +But what is less pleasing to reflect upon, this spring morning, is, +that there are some kinds of education which may be described, not +as moral sunshine, but as moral moonshine; and that, under these, +Fools come out both First--and Last. + +We have, it seems, now set our opening hearts much on this one point, +that we will have education for all men and women now, and for all +boys and girls that are to be. Nothing, indeed, can be more desirable, +if only we determine also what kind of education we are to have. It is +taken for granted that any education must be good;--that the more of +it we get, the better; that bad education only means little education; +and that the worst thing we have to fear is getting none. Alas, that +is not at all so. Getting no education is by no means the worst thing +that can happen to us. One of the pleasantest friends I ever had in +my life was a Savoyard guide, who could only read with difficulty, +and write scarcely intelligibly, and by great effort. He knew no +language but his own--no science, except as much practical agriculture +as served him to till his fields. But he was, without exception, one of +the happiest persons, and, on the whole, one of the best, I have ever +known: and after lunch, when he had had his half bottle of Savoy wine, +he would generally, as we walked up some quiet valley in the afternoon +light, give me a little lecture on philosophy; and after I had fatigued +and provoked him with less cheerful views of the world than his own, +he would fall back to my servant behind me, and console himself with +a shrug of the shoulders, and a whispered "Le pauvre enfant, il ne +sait pas vivre!"--("The poor child, he doesn't know how to live.") + +No, my friends, believe me, it is not the going without education at +all that we have most to dread. The real thing to be feared is getting +a bad one. There are all sorts--good, and very good; bad, and very +bad. The children of rich people often get the worst education that +is to be had for money; the children of the poor often get the best +for nothing. And you have really these two things now to decide for +yourselves in England before you can take one quite safe practical +step in the matter, namely, first, what a good education is; and, +secondly, who is likely to give it you. + +What it is? "Everybody knows that," I suppose you would most of you +answer. "Of course--to be taught to read, and write, and cast accounts; +and to learn geography, and geology, and astronomy, and chemistry, +and German, and French, and Italian, and Latin, and Greek and the +aboriginal Aryan language." + +Well, when you had learned all that, what would you do next? "Next? Why +then we should be perfectly happy, and make as much money as ever +we liked, and we would turn out our toes before any company." I am +not sure myself, and I don't think you can be, of any one of these +three things. At least, as to making you very happy, I know something, +myself, of nearly all these matters--not much, but still quite as much +as most men, under the ordinary chances of life, with a fair education, +are likely to get together--and I assure you the knowledge does not +make me happy at all. When I was a boy I used to like seeing the sun +rise. I didn't know, then, there were any spots on the sun; now I do, +and am always frightened lest any more should come. When I was a boy, +I used to care about pretty stones. I got some Bristol diamonds at +Bristol, and some dog-tooth spar in Derbyshire; my whole collection +had cost, perhaps, three half-crowns, and was worth considerably +less; and I knew nothing whatever, rightly, about any single stone +in it;--could not even spell their names: but words cannot tell the +joy they used to give me. Now, I have a collection of minerals worth +perhaps from two to three thousand pounds; and I know more about some +of them than most other people. But I am not a whit happier, either for +my knowledge, or possessions, for other geologists dispute my theories, +to my grievous indignation and discontentment; and I am miserable about +all my best specimens, because there are better in the British Museum. + +No, I assure you, knowledge by itself will not make you happy; +still less will it make you rich. Perhaps you thought I was writing +carelessly when I told you, last month, "science did not pay." But +you don't know what science is. You fancy it means mechanical art; +and so you have put a statue of Science on the Holborn Viaduct, +with a steam-engine regulator in its hands. My ingenious friends, +science has no more to do with making steam-engines than with making +breeches; though she condescends to help you a little in such necessary +(or it may be, conceivably, in both cases, sometimes unnecessary) +businesses. Science lives only in quiet places, and with odd people, +mostly poor. Mr. John Kepler, for instance, who is found by Sir Henry +Wotton "in the picturesque green country by the shores of the Donau, +in a little black tent in a field, convertible, like a windmill, +to all quarters, a camera-obscura, in fact. Mr. John invents rude +toys, writes almanacks, practises medicine, for good reasons, his +encouragement from the Holy Roman Empire and mankind being a pension +of 18l. a year, and that hardly ever paid." [8] That is what one gets +by star-gazing, my friends. And you cannot be simple enough, even in +April, to think I got my three thousand pounds'-worth of minerals by +studying mineralogy? Not so; they were earned for me by hard labour; my +father's in England, and many a sun-burnt vineyard-dresser's in Spain. + +"What business had you, in your idleness, with their earnings +then?" you will perhaps ask. None, it may be; I will tell you in +a little while how you may find that out; it is not to the point +now. But it is to the point that you should observe I have not kept +their earnings, the portion of them, at least, with which I bought +minerals. That part of their earnings is all gone to feed the miners in +Cornwall, or on the Hartz mountains, and I have only got for myself a +few pieces of glittering (not always that, but often unseemly) stone, +which neither vine-dressers nor miners cared for; which you yourselves +would have to learn many hard words, much cramp mathematics, and +useless chemistry, in order to care for; which, if ever you did care +for, as I do, would most likely only make you envious of the British +Museum, and occasionally uncomfortable if any harm happened to your +dear stones. I have a piece of red oxide of copper, for instance, +which grieves me poignantly by losing its colour; and a crystal of +sulphide of lead, with a chip in it, which causes me a great deal of +concern--in April; because I see it then by the fresh sunshine. + +My oxide of copper and sulphide of lead you will not then wisely +envy me. Neither, probably, would you covet a handful of hard brown +gravel, with a rough pebble in it, whitish, and about the size of +a pea; nor a few grains of apparently brass filings, with which the +gravel is mixed. I was but a fool to give good money for such things, +you think? It may well be. I gave thirty pounds for that handful +of gravel, and the miners who found it were ill-paid then; and it +is not clear to me that this produce of their labour was the best +possible. Shall we consider of it, with the help of the Cambridge +Catechism? at the tenth page of which you will find that Mr. Mill's +definition of productive labour is--"That which produces utilities +fixed and embodied in material objects." + +This is very fine--indeed, superfine--English; but I can, perhaps, +make the meaning of the Greatest Thinker in England a little more +lucid for you by vulgarizing his terms. + +"Object," you must always remember, is fine English for "Thing." It is +a semi-Latin word, and properly means a thing "thrown in your way;" so +that if you put "ion" to the end of it, it becomes Objection. We will +rather say "Thing," if you have no objection--you and I. A "Material" +thing, then, of course, signifies something solid and tangible. It is +very necessary for Political Economists always to insert this word +"material," lest people should suppose that there was any use or +value in Thought or Knowledge, and other such immaterial objects. + +"Embodied" is a particularly elegant word; but superfluous, because you +know it would not be possible that a Utility should be disembodied, +as long as it was in a material object. But when you wish to express +yourself as thinking in a great manner, you may say--as, for instance, +when you are supping vegetable soup--that your power of doing so +conveniently and gracefully is "Embodied" in a spoon. + +"Fixed" is, I am afraid, rashly, as well as superfluously, introduced +into his definition by Mr. Mill. It is conceivable that some Utilities +may be also volatile, or planetary, even when embodied. But at last +we come to the great word in the great definition--"Utility." + +And this word, I am sorry to say, puzzles me most of all; for I never +myself saw a Utility, either out of the body, or in it, and should +be much embarrassed if ordered to produce one in either state. + +But it is fortunate for us that all this seraphic language, reduced to +the vulgar tongue, will become, though fallen in dignity and reduced +in dimension, perfectly intelligible. The Greatest Thinker in England +means by these beautiful words to tell you that Productive labour +is labour that produces a Useful Thing. Which, indeed, perhaps, +you knew--or, without the assistance of great thinkers, might have +known, before now. But if Mr. Mill had said so much, simply, you might +have been tempted to ask farther--"What things are useful, and what +are not?" And as Mr. Mill does not know, nor any other Political +Economist going,--and as they therefore particularly wish nobody +to ask them,--it is convenient to say instead of "useful things," +"utilities fixed and embodied in material objects," because that +sounds so very like complete and satisfactory information, that one +is ashamed, after getting it, to ask for any more. + +But it is not, therefore, less discouraging that for the present I have +got no help towards discovering whether my handful of gravel with the +white pebble in it was worth my thirty pounds or not. I am afraid it +is not a useful thing to me. It lies at the back of a drawer, locked +up all the year round. I never look at it now, for I know all about +it: the only satisfaction I have for my money is knowing that nobody +else can look at it; and if nobody else wanted to, I shouldn't even +have that. + +"What did you buy it for, then?" you will ask. Well, if you must +have the truth, because I was a Fool, and wanted it. Other people +have bought such things before me. The white stone is a diamond, +and the apparent brass filings are gold dust; but, I admit, nobody +ever yet wanted such things who was in his right senses. Only now, +as I have candidly answered all your questions, will you answer one +of mine? If I hadn't bought it, what would you have had me do with +my money? Keep that in the drawer instead?--or at my banker's, till +it grew out of thirty pounds into sixty and a hundred, in fulfilment +of the law respecting seed sown in good ground? + +Doubtless, that would have been more meritorious for the time. But +when I had got the sixty or the hundred pounds--what should I have +done with them? The question only becomes doubly and trebly serious; +and all the more, to me, because when I told you last January that +I had bought a picture for a thousand pounds, permitting myself in +that folly for your advantage, as I thought, hearing that many of you +wanted art Patronage, and wished to live by painting,--one of your own +popular organs, the Liverpool Daily Courier, of February 9th, said, "it +showed want of taste,--of tact," and was "something like a mockery," +to tell you so! I am not to buy pictures, therefore, it seems;--you +like to be kept in mines and tunnels, and occasionally blown hither and +thither, or crushed flat, rather than live by painting, in good light, +and with the chance of remaining all day in a whole and unextended +skin? But what shall I buy, then, with the next thirty pieces of gold +I can scrape together? Precious things have been bought, indeed, and +sold, before now for thirty pieces, even of silver, but with doubtful +issue. The over-charitable person who was bought to be killed at that +price, indeed, advised the giving of alms; but you won't have alms, I +suppose, you are so independent, nor go into almshouses--(and, truly, +I did not much wonder, as I walked by the old church of Abingdon, a +Sunday or two since, where the almshouses are set round the churchyard, +and under the level of it, and with a cheerful view of it, except +that the tombstones slightly block the light of the lattice-windows; +with beautiful texts from Scripture over the doors, to remind the +paupers still more emphatically that, highly blessed as they were, +they were yet mortal)--you won't go into almshouses; and all the +clergy in London have been shrieking against almsgiving to the lower +poor this whole winter long, till I am obliged, whenever I want to +give anybody a penny, to look up and down the street first, to see +if a clergyman's coming. Of course, I know I might buy as many iron +railings as I please, and be praised; but I've no room for them. I +can't well burn more coals than I do, because of the blacks, which +spoil my books; and the Americans won't let me buy any blacks alive, +or else I would have some black dwarfs with parrots, such as one sees +in the pictures of Paul Veronese. I should, of course, like myself, +above all things, to buy a pretty white girl, with a title--and I could +get great praise for doing that--only I haven't money enough. White +girls come dear, even when one buys them only like coals, for fuel. The +Duke of Bedford, indeed, bought Joan of Arc from the French, to burn, +for only ten thousand pounds, and a pension of three hundred a year to +the Bastard of Vendôme--and I could and would have given that for her, +and not burnt her; but one hasn't such a chance every day. Will you, +any of you, have the goodness--beggars, clergymen, workmen, seraphic +doctors, Mr. Mill, Mr. Fawcett, or the Politico-Economic Professor +of my own University--I challenge you, I beseech you, all and singly, +to tell me what I am to do with my money. + +I mean, indeed, to give you my own poor opinion on the subject in +May; though I feel the more embarrassed in the thought of doing so, +because, in this present April, I am so much a fool as not even to +know clearly whether I have got any money or not. I know, indeed, +that things go on at present as if I had; but it seems to me that +there must be a mistake somewhere, and that some day it will be found +out. For instance, I have seven thousand pounds in what we call the +Funds or Founded things; but I am not comfortable about the Founding +of them. All that I can see of them is a square bit of paper, with +some ugly printing on it, and all that I know of them is that this bit +of paper gives me a right to tax you every year, and make you pay me +two hundred pounds out of your wages; which is very pleasant for me: +but how long will you be pleased to do so? Suppose it should occur to +you, any summer's day, that you had better not? Where would my seven +thousand pounds be? In fact, where are they now? We call ourselves +a rich people; but you see this seven thousand pounds of mine has no +real existence;--it only means that you, the workers, are poorer by two +hundred pounds a year than you would be if I hadn't got it. And this +is surely a very odd kind of money for a country to boast of. Well, +then, besides this, I have a bit of low land at Greenwich, which, +as far as I see anything of it, is not money at all, but only mud; +and would be of as little use to me as my handful of gravel in the +drawer, if it were not that an ingenious person has found out that +he can make chimney-pots of it; and, every quarter, he brings me +fifteen pounds off the price of his chimney-pots, so that I am always +sympathetically glad when there's a high wind, because then I know my +ingenious friend's business is thriving. But suppose it should come +into his head, in any less windy month than this April, that he had +better bring me none of the price of his chimneys? And even though he +should go on, as I hope he will, patiently,--(and I always give him a +glass of wine when he brings me the fifteen pounds),--is this really +to be called money of mine? And is the country any richer because, +when anybody's chimney-pot is blown down in Greenwich, he must pay +something extra, to me, before he can put it on again? + +Then, also, I have some houses in Marylebone, which though indeed very +ugly and miserable, yet, so far as they are actual beams and brick-bats +put into shape, I might have imagined to be real property; only, +you know, Mr. Mill says that people who build houses don't produce +a commodity, but only do us a service. So I suppose my houses are +not "utilities embodied in material objects" (and indeed they don't +look much like it); but I know I have the right to keep anybody from +living in them unless they pay me; only suppose some day the Irish +faith, that people ought to be lodged for nothing, should become an +English one also--where would my money be? Where is it now, except +as a chronic abstraction from other people's earnings? + +So again, I have some land in Yorkshire--some Bank "Stock" (I don't +in the least know what that is)--and the like; but whenever I examine +into these possessions, I find they melt into one or another form of +future taxation, and that I am always sitting (if I were working I +shouldn't mind, but I am only sitting) at the receipt of Custom, and +a Publican as well as a sinner. And then, to embarrass the business +further yet, I am quite at variance with other people about the place +where this money, whatever it is, comes from. The Spectator, for +instance, in its article of 25th June of last year, on Mr. Goschen's +"lucid and forcible speech of Friday-week," says that "the country +is once more getting rich, and the money is filtering downwards to +the actual workers." But whence, then, did it filter down to us, +the actual idlers? This is really a question very appropriate +for April. For such golden rain raineth not every day, but in a +showery and capricious manner, out of heaven, upon us; mostly, as +far as I can judge, rather pouring down than filtering upon idle +persons, and running in thinner driblets, but I hope purer for the +filtering process, to the "actual workers." But where does it come +from? and in the times of drought between the showers, where does +it go to? "The country is getting rich again," says the Spectator; +but then, if the April clouds fail, may it get poor again? And when +it again becomes poor,--when, last 25th of June, it was poor,--what +becomes, or had become, of the money? Was it verily lost, or only +torpid in the winter of our discontent? or was it sown and buried in +corruption, to be raised in a multifold power? When we are in a panic +about our money, what do we think is going to happen to it? Can no +economist teach us to keep it safe after we have once got it? nor any +"beloved physician"--as I read the late Sir James Simpson is called +in Edinburgh--guard even our solid gold against death, or at least, +fits of an apoplectic character, alarming to the family? + +All these questions trouble me greatly; but still to me the strangest +point in the whole matter is, that though we idlers always speak as if +we were enriched by Heaven, and became ministers of its bounty to you; +if ever you think the ministry slack, and take to definite pillage +of us, no good ever comes of it to you; but the sources of wealth +seem to be stopped instantly, and you are reduced to the small gain +of making gloves of our skins; while, on the contrary, as long as we +continue pillaging you, there seems no end to the profitableness of the +business; but always, however bare we strip you, presently, more, to +be had. For instance--just read this little bit out of Froissart--about +the English army in France before the battle of Crecy:-- + + + "We will now return to the expedition of the King of England. Sir + Godfrey de Harcourt, as marshal, advanced before the King, with + the vanguard of five hundred armed men and two thousand archers, + and rode on for six or seven leagues' distance from the main + army, burning and destroying the country. They found it rich and + plentiful, abounding in all things; the barns full of every sort + of corn, and the houses with riches: the inhabitants at their + ease, having cars, carts, horses, swine, sheep, and everything in + abundance which the country afforded. They seized whatever they + chose of all these good things, and brought them to the King's + army; but the soldiers did not give any account to their officers, + or to those appointed by the King, of the gold and silver they + took, which they kept to themselves. When they were come back, + with all their booty safely packed in waggons, the Earl of + Warwick, the Earl of Suffolk, the Lord Thomas Holland, and the + Lord Reginald Cobham, took their march, with their battalion on + the right, burning and destroying the country in the same way + that Sir Godfrey de Harcourt was doing. The King marched, with + the main body, between these two battalions; and every night they + all encamped together. The King of England and Prince of Wales + had, in their battalion, about three thousand men-at-arms, six + thousand archers, ten thousand infantry, without counting those + that were under the marshals; and they marched on in the manner + I have before mentioned, burning and destroying the country, but + without breaking their line of battle. They did not turn towards + Coutances, but advanced to St. Lo, in Coutantin, which in those + days was a very rich and commercial town, and worth three such + towns as Coutances. In the town of St. Lo was much drapery, and + many wealthy inhabitants; among them you might count eight or nine + score that were engaged in commerce. When the King of England was + come near to the town, he encamped; he would not lodge in it for + fear of fire. He sent, therefore, his advanced guard forward, who + soon conquered it, at a trifling loss, and completely plundered + it. No one can imagine the quantity of riches they found in it, + nor the number of bales of cloth. If there had been any purchasers, + they might have bought enough at a very cheap rate. + + "The English then advanced towards Caen, which is a much larger + town, stronger, and fuller of draperies and all other sorts of + merchandize, rich citizens, noble dames and damsels, and fine + churches. + + + + "On this day (Froissart does not say what day) the English rose + very early, and made themselves ready to march to Caen: the King + heard mass before sunrise, and afterwards mounting his horse, + with the Prince of Wales, and Sir Godfrey de Harcourt (who was + marshal and director of the army), marched forward in order of + battle. The battalion of the marshals led the van, and came near + to the handsome town of Caen. + + "When the townsmen, who had taken the field, perceived the English + advancing, with banners and pennons flying in abundance, and saw + those archers whom they had not been accustomed to, they were + so frightened that they betook themselves to flight, and ran for + the town in great disorder. + + "The English, who were after the runaways, made great havoc; + for they spared none. + + "Those inhabitants who had taken refuge in the garrets, flung + down from them, in these narrow streets, stones, benches, and + whatever they could lay hands on; so that they killed and wounded + upwards of five hundred of the English, which so enraged the King + of England, when he received the reports in the evening, that he + ordered the remainder of the inhabitants to be put to the sword, + and the town burnt. But Sir Godfrey de Harcourt said to him: + 'Dear sir, assuage somewhat of your anger, and be satisfied with + what has already been done. You have a long journey yet to make + before you arrive at Calais, whither it is your intention to go: + and there are in this town a great number of inhabitants, who will + defend themselves obstinately in their houses, if you force them + to it: besides, it will cost you many lives before the town can + be destroyed, which may put a stop to your expedition to Calais, + and it will not redound to your honour: therefore be sparing of + your men, for in a month's time you will have call for them.' The + King replied: 'Sir Godfrey, you are our marshal; therefore order + as you please; for this time we wish not to interfere.' + + "Sir Godfrey then rode through the streets, his banner displayed + before him, and ordered, in the King's name, that no one should + dare, under pain of immediate death, to insult or hurt man or woman + of the town, or attempt to set fire to any part of it. Several of + the inhabitants, on hearing this proclamation, received the English + into their houses; and others opened their coffers to them, giving + up their all, since they were assured of their lives. However, + there were, in spite of these orders, many atrocious thefts and + murders committed. The English continued masters of the town for + three days; in this time, they amassed great wealth, which they + sent in barges down the river of Estreham, to St. Sauveur, two + leagues off, where their fleet was. The Earl of Huntingdon made + preparations therefore, with the two hundred men-at-arms and his + four hundred archers, to carry over to England their riches and + prisoners. The King purchased, from Sir Thomas Holland and his + companions, the constable of France and the Earl of Tancarville, + and paid down twenty thousand nobles for them. + + "When the King had finished his business in Caen, and sent + his fleet to England, loaded with cloths, jewels, gold and + silver plate, and a quantity of other riches, and upwards of + sixty knights, with three hundred able citizens, prisoners; + he then left his quarters and continued his march as before, + his two marshals on his right and left, burning and destroying + all the flat country. He took the road to Evreux, but found he + could not gain anything there, as it was well fortified. He went + on towards another town called Louviers, which was in Normandy, + and where there were many manufactories of cloth: it was rich and + commercial. The English won it easily, as it was not inclosed; and + having entered the town, it was plundered without opposition. They + collected much wealth there; and, after they had done what they + pleased, they marched on into the county of Evreux, where they + burnt everything except the fortified towns and castles, which + the King left unattacked, as he was desirous of sparing his men + and artillery. He therefore made for the banks of the Seine, + in his approach to Rouen, where there were plenty of men-at-arms + from Normandy, under the command of the Earl of Harcourt, brother + to Sir Godfrey, and the Earl of Dreux. + + "The English did not march direct towards Rouen, but went to + Gisors, which has a strong castle, and burnt the town. After + this, they destroyed Vernon, and all the country between Rouen + and Pont-de-l'Arche: they then came to Mantes and Meulan, which + they treated in the same manner, and ravaged all the country + round about. + + "They passed by the strong castle of Roulleboise, and everywhere + found the bridges on the Seine broken down. They pushed forward + until they came to Poissy, where the bridge was also destroyed; + but the beams and other parts of it were lying in the river. + + "The King of England remained at the nunnery of Poissy to the + middle in August, and celebrated there the feast of the Virgin + Mary." + + +It all reads at first, you see, just like a piece out of the newspapers +of last month; but there are material differences, notwithstanding. We +fight inelegantly as well as expensively, with machines instead of bow +and spear; we kill about a thousand now to the score then, in settling +any quarrel--(Agincourt was won with the loss of less than a hundred +men; only 25,000 English altogether were engaged at Crecy; and 12,000, +some say only 8,000, at Poictiers); we kill with far ghastlier wounds, +crashing bones and flesh together; we leave our wounded necessarily +for days and nights in heaps on the fields of battle; we pillage +districts twenty times as large, and with completer destruction of +more valuable property; and with a destruction as irreparable as it +is complete; for if the French or English burnt a church one day, +they could build a prettier one the next; but the modern Prussians +couldn't even build so much as an imitation of one; we rob on credit, +by requisition, with ingenious mercantile prolongations of claim; +and we improve contention of arms with contention of tongues, and +are able to multiply the rancour of cowardice, and mischief of lying, +in universal and permanent print; and so we lose our tempers as well +as our money, and become indecent in behaviour as in raggedness; for, +whereas, in old times, two nations separated by a little pebbly stream +like the Tweed, or even the two halves of one nation, separated by +thirty fathoms' depth of salt water (for most of the English knights +and all the English kings were French by race, and the best of them +by birth also)--would go on pillaging and killing each other century +after century, without the slightest ill-feeling towards, or disrespect +for, one another,--we can neither give anybody a beating courteously, +nor take one in good part, or without screaming and lying about it: +and finally, we add to these perfected Follies of Action more finely +perfected Follies of Inaction; and contrive hitherto unheard-of ways +of being wretched through the very abundance of peace; our workmen, +here, vowing themselves to idleness, lest they should lower Wages, +and there, being condemned by their parishes to idleness lest they +should lower Prices; while outside the workhouse all the parishioners +are buying anything nasty, so that it be cheap; and, in a word, under +the seraphic teaching of Mr. Mill, we have determined at last that +it is not Destruction, but Production, that is the cause of human +distress; and the "Mutual and Co-operative Colonization Company" +declares, ungrammatically, but distinctly, in its circular sent to +me on the 13th of last month, as a matter universally admitted, even +among Cabinet Ministers--"that it is in the greater increasing power +of production and distribution as compared with demand, enabling the +few to do the work of many, that the active cause of the wide-spread +poverty among the producing and lower-middle classes lay, which entails +such enormous burdens on the Nation, and exhibits our boasted progress +in the light of a monstrous Sham." + +Nevertheless, however much we have magnified and multiplied the +follies of the past, the primal and essential principles of pillage +have always been accepted; and from the days when England lay so waste +under that worthy and economical King who "called his tailor lown," +that "whole families, after sustaining life as long as they could +by eating roots, and the flesh of dogs and horses, at last died of +hunger, and you might see many pleasant villages without a single +inhabitant of either sex," while little Harry Switch-of-Broom sate +learning to spell in Bristol Castle, (taught, I think, properly by +his good uncle the preceptorial use of his name-plant, though they +say the first Harry was the finer clerk,) and his mother, dressed all +in white, escaped from Oxford over the snow in the moonlight, through +Bagley Wood here to Abingdon; and under the snows, by Woodstock, the +buds were growing for the bower of his Rose,--from that day to this, +when the villages round Paris, and food-supply, are, by the blessing +of God, as they then were round London--Kings have for the most part +desired to win that pretty name of "Switch-of-Broom" rather by habit +of growing in waste places; or even emulating the Vision of Dion in +"sweeping--diligently sweeping," than by attaining the other virtue of +the Planta Genista, set forth by Virgil and Pliny, that it is pliant, +and rich in honey; the Lion-hearts of them seldom proving profitable +to you, even so much as the stomach of Samson's Lion, or rendering it a +soluble enigma in our Israel, that "out of the eater came forth meat;" +nor has it been only your Kings who have thus made you pay for their +guidance through the world, but your ecclesiastics have also made you +pay for guidance out of it--particularly when it grew dark, and the +signpost was illegible where the upper and lower roads divided;--so +that, as far as I can read or calculate, dying has been even more +expensive to you than living; and then, to finish the business, as +your virtues have been made costly to you by the clergyman, so your +vices have been made costly to you by the lawyers; and you have one +entire learned profession living on your sins, and the other on your +repentance. So that it is no wonder that, things having gone on thus +for a long time, you begin to think that you would rather live as +sheep without any shepherd, and that having paid so dearly for your +instruction in religion and law, you should now set your hope on a +state of instruction in Irreligion and Liberty, which is, indeed, +a form of education to be had for nothing, alike by the children of +the Rich and Poor; the saplings of the tree that was to be desired to +make us wise, growing now in copsewood on the hills, or even by the +roadsides, in a Republican-Plantagenet manner, blossoming into cheapest +gold, either for coins, which of course you Republicans will call, +not Nobles, but Ignobles; or crowns, second and third hand--(head, +I should say)--supplied punctually on demand, with liberal reduction +on quantity; the roads themselves beautifully public--tramwayed, +perhaps--and with gates set open enough for all men to the free, +outer, better world, your chosen guide preceding you merrily, thus-- + +[Illustration] + +with music and dancing. + +You have always danced too willingly, poor friends, to that player +on the viol. We will try to hear, far away, a faint note or two from +a more chief musician on stringed instruments, in May, when the time +of the Singing of Birds is come. + + +Faithfully yours, + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER V. + + + "For lo, the winter is past, + The rain is over and gone, + The flowers appear on the earth, + The time of the singing of birds is come, + Arise, O my fair one, my dove, + And come." [9] + + + Denmark Hill, + 1st May, 1871. + +My Friends, + + +It has been asked of me, very justly, why I have hitherto written to +you of things you were little likely to care for, in words which it +was difficult for you to understand. + +I have no fear but that you will one day understand all my poor +words,--the saddest of them perhaps too well. But I have great fear +that you may never come to understand these written above, which are +part of a king's love-song, in one sweet May, of many long since gone. + +I fear that for you the wild winter's rain may never pass,--the flowers +never appear on the earth;--that for you no bird may ever sing;--for +you no perfect Love arise, and fulfil your life in peace. + +"And why not for us, as for others?" will you answer me so, and take +my fear for you as an insult? + +Nay, it is no insult;--nor am I happier than you. For me, the birds +do not sing, nor ever will. But they would, for you, if you cared +to have it so. When I told you that you would never understand that +love-song, I meant only that you would not desire to understand it. + +Are you again indignant with me? Do you think, though you should +labour, and grieve, and be trodden down in dishonour all your days, +at least you can keep that one joy of Love, and that one honour of +Home? Had you, indeed, kept that, you had kept all. But no men yet, +in the history of the race, have lost it so piteously. In many a +country, and many an age, women have been compelled to labour for their +husband's wealth, or bread; but never until now were they so homeless +as to say, like the poor Samaritan, "I have no husband." Women of +every country and people have sustained without complaint the labour +of fellowship: for the women of the latter days in England it has +been reserved to claim the privilege of isolation. + +This, then, is the end of your universal education and civilization, +and contempt of the ignorance of the Middle Ages, and of their +chivalry. Not only do you declare yourselves too indolent to labour +for daughters and wives, and too poor to support them; but you have +made the neglected and distracted creatures hold it for an honour to +be independent of you, and shriek for some hold of the mattock for +themselves. Believe it or not, as you may, there has not been so low +a level of thought reached by any race, since they grew to be male +and female out of star-fish, or chickweed, or whatever else they have +been made from, by natural selection,--according to modern science. + +That modern science also, Economic and of other kinds, has reached +its climax at last. For it seems to be the appointed function of +the nineteenth century to exhibit in all things the elect pattern +of perfect Folly, for a warning to the farthest future. Thus the +statement of principle which I quoted to you in my last letter, from +the circular of the Emigration Society, that it is over-production +which is the cause of distress, is accurately the most foolish thing, +not only hitherto ever said by men, but which it is possible for men +ever to say, respecting their own business. It is a kind of opposite +pole (or negative acme of mortal stupidity) to Newton's discovery of +gravitation as an acme of mortal wisdom:--as no wise being on earth +will ever be able to make such another wise discovery, so no foolish +being on earth will ever be capable of saying such another foolish +thing, through all the ages. + +And the same crisis has been exactly reached by our natural science +and by our art. It has several times chanced to me, since I began +these papers, to have the exact thing shown or brought to me that I +wanted for illustration, just in time [10]--and it happened that on +the very day on which I published my last letter, I had to go to the +Kensington Museum; and there I saw the most perfectly and roundly +ill-done thing which, as yet, in my whole life I ever saw produced +by art. It had a tablet In front of it, bearing this inscription,-- + + + "Statue in black and white marble, a Newfoundland Dog standing + on a Serpent, which rests on a marble cushion, the pedestal + ornamented with pietra dura fruits in relief.--English. Present + Century. No. I." + + +It was so very right for me, the Kensington people having been good +enough to number it "I.," the thing itself being almost incredible +in its one-ness; and, indeed, such a punctual accent over the iota of +Miscreation,--so absolutely and exquisitely miscreant, that I am not +myself capable of conceiving a Number two, or three, or any rivalship +or association with it whatsoever. The extremity of its unvirtue +consisted, observe, mainly in the quantity of instruction which was +abused in it. It showed that the persons who produced it had seen +everything, and practised everything; and misunderstood everything +they saw, and misapplied everything they did. They had seen Roman +work, and Florentine work, and Byzantine work, and Gothic work; +and misunderstanding of everything had passed through them as the +mud does through earthworms, and here at last was their worm-cast of +a Production. + +But the second chance that came to me that day, was more significant +still. From the Kensington Museum I went to an afternoon tea, at a +house where I was sure to meet some nice people. And among the first +I met was an old friend who had been hearing some lectures on botany +at the Kensington Museum, and been delighted by them. She is the kind +of person who gets good out of everything, and she was quite right +in being delighted; besides that, as I found by her account of them, +the lectures were really interesting, and pleasantly given. She had +expected botany to be dull, and had not found it so, and "had learned +so much." On hearing this, I proceeded naturally to inquire what; +for my idea of her was that before she went to the lectures at all, +she had known more botany than she was likely to learn by them. So she +told me that she had learned first of all that "there were seven sorts +of leaves." Now I have always a great suspicion of the number Seven; +because when I wrote the Seven Lamps of Architecture, it required all +the ingenuity I was master of to prevent them from becoming Eight, or +even Nine, on my hands. So I thought to myself that it would be very +charming if there were only seven sorts of leaves; but that, perhaps, +if one looked the woods and forests of the world carefully through, +it was just possible that one might discover as many as eight sorts; +and then where would my friend's new knowledge of Botany be? So I said, +"That was very pretty; but what more?" Then my friend told me that she +had no idea, before, that petals were leaves. On which, I thought to +myself that it would not have been any great harm to her if she had +remained under her old impression that petals were petals. But I said, +"That was very pretty, too; and what more?" So then my friend told me +that the lecturer said, "the object of his lectures would be entirely +accomplished if he could convince his hearers that there was no such +thing as a flower." Now, in that sentence you have the most perfect +and admirable summary given you of the general temper and purposes +of modern science. It gives lectures on Botany, of which the object +is to show that there is no such thing as a flower; on Humanity, +to show that there is no such thing as a Man; and on Theology, +to show there is no such thing as a God. No such thing as a Man, +but only a Mechanism; no such thing as a God, but only a series of +forces. The two faiths are essentially one: if you feel yourself to +be only a machine, constructed to be a Regulator of minor machinery, +you will put your statue of such science on your Holborn Viaduct, +and necessarily recognize only major machinery as regulating you. + +I must explain the real meaning to you, however, of that saying of +the Botanical lecturer, for it has a wide bearing. Some fifty years +ago the poet Goethe discovered that all the parts of plants had a +kind of common nature, and would change into each other. Now this +was a true discovery, and a notable one; and you will find that, +in fact, all plants are composed of essentially two parts--the leaf +and root--one loving the light, the other darkness; one liking to be +clean, the other to be dirty; one liking to grow for the most part +up, the other for the most part down; and each having faculties and +purposes of its own. But the pure one which loves the light has, above +all things, the purpose of being married to another leaf, and having +child-leaves, and children's children of leaves, to make the earth +fair for ever. And when the leaves marry, they put on wedding-robes, +and are more glorious than Solomon in all his glory, and they have +feasts of honey, and we call them "Flowers." + +In a certain sense, therefore, you see the Botanical lecturer was quite +right. There are no such things as Flowers--there are only Leaves. Nay, +farther than this, there may be a dignity in the less happy, but +unwithering leaf, which is, in some sort, better than the brief lily +of its bloom;--which the great poets always knew,--well;--Chaucer, +before Goethe; and the writer of the first Psalm, before Chaucer. The +Botanical lecturer was, in a deeper sense than he knew, right. + +But in the deepest sense of all, the Botanical lecturer was, to the +extremity of wrongness, wrong; for leaf, and root, and fruit, exist, +all of them, only--that there may be flowers. He disregarded the life +and passion of the creature, which were its essence. Had he looked for +these, he would have recognized that in the thought of Nature herself, +there is, in a plant, nothing else but its flowers. + +Now in exactly the sense that modern Science declares there is no such +thing as a Flower, it has declared there is no such thing as a Man, +but only a transitional form of Ascidians and apes. It may, or may +not be true--it is not of the smallest consequence whether it be or +not. The real fact is, that, seen with human eyes, there is nothing +else but man; that all animals and beings beside him are only made +that they may change into him; that the world truly exists only in the +presence of Man, acts only in the passion of Man. The essence of light +is in his eyes,--the centre of Force in his soul,--the pertinence of +action in his deeds. + +And all true science--which my Savoyard guide rightly scorned me when +he thought I had not,--all true science is "savoir vivre." But all +your modern science is the contrary of that. It is "savoir mourir." + +And of its very discoveries, such as they are, it cannot make use. + +That telegraphic signalling was a discovery; and conceivably, some day, +may be a useful one. And there was some excuse for your being a little +proud when, about last sixth of April (Coeur de Lion's death-day, +and Albert Durer's), you knotted a copper wire all the way to Bombay, +and flashed a message along it, and back. + +But what was the message, and what the answer? Is India the better +for what you said to her? Are you the better for what she replied? + +If not, you have only wasted an all-round-the-world's length of copper +wire,--which is, indeed, about the sum of your doing. If you had had, +perchance, two words of common sense to say, though you had taken +wearisome time and trouble to send them;--though you had written +them slowly in gold, and sealed them with a hundred seals, and sent a +squadron of ships of the line to carry the scroll, and the squadron had +fought its way round the Cape of Good Hope, through a year of storms, +with loss of all its ships but one,--the two words of common sense +would have been worth the carriage, and more. But you have not anything +like so much as that to say, either to India, or to any other place. + +You think it a great triumph to make the sun draw brown landscapes for +you. That was also a discovery, and some day may be useful. But the +sun had drawn landscapes before for you, not in brown, but in green, +and blue, and all imaginable colours, here in England. Not one of you +ever looked at them then; not one of you cares for the loss of them +now, when you have shut the sun out with smoke, so that he can draw +nothing more, except brown blots through a hole in a box. There was +a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell, once upon a time, divine +as the Vale of Tempe; you might have seen the Gods there morning and +evening--Apollo and all the sweet Muses of the light--walking in fair +procession on the lawns of it, and to and fro among the pinnacles +of its crags. You cared neither for Gods nor grass, but for cash +(which you did not know the way to get); you thought you could get +it by what the Times calls "Railroad Enterprise." You Enterprised +a Railroad through the valley--you blasted its rocks away, heaped +thousands of tons of shale into its lovely stream. The valley is +gone, and the Gods with it; and now, every fool in Buxton can be +at Bakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton; +which you think a lucrative process of exchange--you Fools Everywhere. + +To talk at a distance, when you have nothing to say, though you were +ever so near; to go fast from this place to that, with nothing to do +either at one or the other: these are powers certainly. Much more, +power of increased Production, if you, indeed, had got it, would be +something to boast of. But are you so entirely sure that you have +got it--that the mortal disease of plenty, and afflictive affluence +of good things, are all you have to dread? + +Observe. A man and a woman, with their children, properly trained, +are able easy to cultivate as much ground as will feed them; to build +as much wall and roof as will lodge them, and to build and weave as +much cloth as will clothe them. They can all be perfectly happy and +healthy in doing this. Supposing that they invent machinery which +will build, plough, thresh, cook, and weave, and that they have +none of these things any more to do, but may read, or play croquet, +or cricket, all day long, I believe myself that they will neither be +so good nor so happy as without the machines. But I waive my belief +in this matter for the time. I will assume that they become more +refined and moral persons, and that idleness is in future to be the +mother of all good. But observe, I repeat, the power of your machine +is only in enabling them to be idle. It will not enable them to live +better than they did before, nor to live in greater numbers. Get +your heads quite clear on this matter. Out of so much ground, only +so much living is to be got, with or without machinery. You may set +a million of steam-ploughs to work on an acre, if you like--out of +that acre only a given number of grains of corn will grow, scratch or +scorch it as you will. So that the question is not at all whether, by +having more machines, more of you can live. No machines will increase +the possibilities of life. They only increase the possibilities +of idleness. Suppose, for instance, you could get the oxen in your +plough driven by a goblin, who would ask for no pay, not even a cream +bowl,--(you have nearly managed to get it driven by an iron goblin, +as it is;)--Well, your furrow will take no more seeds than if you +had held the stilts yourself. But, instead of holding them, you sit, +I presume, on a bank beside the field, under an eglantine;--watch the +goblin at his work, and read poetry. Meantime, your wife in the house +has also got a goblin to weave and wash for her. And she is lying on +the sofa reading poetry. + +Now, as I said, I don't believe you would be happier so, but I +am willing to believe it; only, since you are already such brave +mechanists, show me at least one or two places where you are +happier. Let me see one small example of approach to this seraphic +condition. I can show you examples, millions of them, of happy people, +made happy by their own industry. Farm after farm I can show you, in +Bavaria, Switzerland, the Tyrol, and such other places, where men and +women are perfectly happy and good, without any iron servants. Show +me, therefore, some English family, with its fiery familiar, happier +than these. Or bring me,--for I am not inconvincible by any kind +of evidence,--bring me the testimony of an English family or two +to their increased felicity. Or if you cannot do so much as that, +can you convince even themselves of it? They are perhaps happy, if +only they knew how happy they were; Virgil thought so, long ago, +of simple rustics; but you hear at present your steam-propelled +rustics are crying out that they are anything else than happy, and +that they regard their boasted progress "in the light of a monstrous +Sham." I must tell you one little thing, however, which greatly +perplexes my imagination of the relieved ploughman sitting under his +rose bower, reading poetry. I have told it you before indeed, but I +forget where. There was really a great festivity, and expression of +satisfaction in the new order of things, down in Cumberland, a little +while ago; some first of May, I think it was, a country festival, +such as the old heathens, who had no iron servants, used to keep +with piping and dancing. So I thought, from the liberated country +people--their work all done for them by goblins--we should have some +extraordinary piping and dancing. But there was no dancing at all, +and they could not even provide their own piping. They had their goblin +to pipe for them. They walked in procession after their steam plough, +and their steam plough whistled to them occasionally in the most +melodious manner it could. Which seemed to me, indeed, a return to +more than Arcadian simplicity; for in old Arcadia, ploughboys truly +whistled as they went, for want of thought; whereas, here was verily +a large company walking without thought, but not having any more even +the capacity of doing their own whistling. + +But next, as to the inside of the house. Before you got your +power-looms, a woman could always make herself a chemise and +petticoat of bright and pretty appearance. I have seen a Bavarian +peasant-woman at church in Munich, looking a much grander creature, +and more beautifully dressed, than any of the crossed and embroidered +angels in Hesse's high-art frescoes; (which happened to be just above +her, so that I could look from one to the other). Well, here you are, +in England, served by household demons, with five hundred fingers, at +least, weaving, for one that used to weave in the days of Minerva. You +ought to be able to show me five hundred dresses for one that used to +be; tidiness ought to have become five hundred-fold tidier; tapestry +should be increased into cinque-cento-fold iridescence of tapestry. Not +only your peasant-girl ought to be lying on the sofa reading poetry, +but she ought to have in her wardrobe five hundred petticoats instead +of one. Is that, indeed, your issue? or are you only on a curiously +crooked way to it? + +It is just possible, indeed, that you may not have been allowed to +get the use of the goblin's work--that other people may have got the +use of it, and you none; because, perhaps, you have not been able to +evoke goblins wholly for your own personal service: but have been +borrowing goblins from the capitalist, and paying interest, in the +"position of William," on ghostly self-going planes; but suppose you +had laid by capital enough, yourselves, to hire all the demons in the +world,--nay,--all that are inside of it; are you quite sure you know +what you might best set them to work at? and what "useful things" +you should command them to make for you? I told you, last month, +that no economist going (whether by steam or ghost) knew what are +useful things and what are not. Very few of you know, yourselves, +except by bitter experience of the want of them. And no demons, +either of iron or spirit, can ever make them. + +There are three Material things, not only useful, but essential to +Life. No one "knows how to live" till he has got them. + +These are, Pure Air, Water, and Earth. + +There are three Immaterial things, not only useful, but essential to +Life. No one knows how to live till he has got them. + +These are, Admiration, Hope, and Love. [11] + +Admiration--the power of discerning and taking delight in what +is beautiful in visible Form, and lovely in human Character; and, +necessarily, striving to produce what is beautiful in form, and to +become what is lovely in character. + +Hope--the recognition, by true Foresight, of better things to +be reached hereafter, whether by ourselves or others; necessarily +issuing in the straightforward and undisappointable effort to advance, +according to our proper power, the gaining of them. + +Love, both of family and neighbour, faithful, and satisfied. + +These are the six chiefly useful things to be got by Political Economy, +when it has become a science. I will briefly tell you what modern +Political Economy--the great "savoir mourir"--is doing with them. + +The first three, I said, are Pure Air, Water, and Earth. + +Heaven gives you the main elements of these. You can destroy them +at your pleasure, or increase, almost without limit, the available +qualities of them. + +You can vitiate the air by your manner of life, and of death, to any +extent. You might easily vitiate it so as to bring such a pestilence +on the globe as would end all of you. You or your fellows, German and +French, are at present busy in vitiating it to the best of your power +in every direction; chiefly at this moment with corpses, and animal +and vegetable ruin in war: changing men, horses, and garden-stuff +into noxious gas. But everywhere, and all day long, you are vitiating +it with foul chemical exhalations; and the horrible nests, which you +call towns, are little more than laboratories for the distillation +into heaven of venomous smokes and smells, mixed with effluvia from +decaying animal matter, and infectious miasmata from purulent disease. + +On the other hand, your power of purifying the air, by dealing +properly and swiftly with all substances in corruption; by absolutely +forbidding noxious manufactures; and by planting in all soils the +trees which cleanse and invigorate earth and atmosphere,--is literally +infinite. You might make every breath of air you draw, food. + +Secondly, your power over the rain and river-waters of the earth is +infinite. You can bring rain where you will, by planting wisely and +tending carefully;--drought where you will, by ravage of woods and +neglect of the soil. You might have the rivers of England as pure as +the crystal of the rock; beautiful in falls, in lakes, in living pools; +so full of fish that you might take them out with your hands instead +of nets. Or you may do always as you have done now, turn every river +of England into a common sewer, so that you cannot so much as baptize +an English baby but with filth, unless you hold its face out in the +rain; and even that falls dirty. + +Then for the third, Earth,--meant to be nourishing for you, and +blossoming. You have learned, about it, that there is no such thing as +a flower; and as far as your scientific hands and scientific brains, +inventive of explosive and deathful, instead of blossoming and +life giving, Dust, can contrive, you have turned the Mother-Earth, +Demeter, [12] into the Avenger-Earth, Tisiphone--with the voice of +your brother's blood crying out of it, in one wild harmony round all +its murderous sphere. + +This is what you have done for the Three Material Useful Things. + +Then for the Three Immaterial Useful Things. For Admiration, you have +learnt contempt and conceit. There is no lovely thing ever yet done by +man that you care for, or can understand; but you are persuaded you +are able to do much finer things yourselves. You gather, and exhibit +together, as if equally instructive, what is infinitely bad, with what +is infinitely good. You do not know which is which; you instinctively +prefer the Bad, and do more of it. You instinctively hate the Good, +and destroy it. [13] + +Then, secondly, for Hope. You have not so much spirit of it in you +as to begin any plan which will not pay for ten years; nor so much +intelligence of it in you, (either politicians or workmen), as to +be able to form one clear idea of what you would like your country +to become. + +Then, thirdly, for Love. You were ordered by the Founder of your +religion to love your neighbour as yourselves. + +You have founded an entire Science of Political Economy, on what you +have stated to be the constant instinct of man--the desire to defraud +his neighbour. + +And you have driven your women mad, so that they ask no more for +Love, nor for fellowship with you; but stand against you, and ask for +"justice." + +Are there any of you who are tired of all this? Any of you, Landlords +or Tenants? Employers or Workmen? + +Are there any landlords,--any masters,--who would like better to be +served by men than by iron devils? + +Any tenants, any workmen, who can be true to their leaders and to +each other? who can vow to work and to live faithfully, for the sake +of the joy of their homes? + +Will any such give the tenth of what they have, and of what they +earn,--not to emigrate with, but to stay in England with; and do what +is in their hands and hearts to make her a happy England? + +I am not rich, (as people now estimate riches,) and great part of what +I have is already engaged in maintaining art-workmen, or for other +objects more or less of public utility. The tenth of whatever is left +to me, estimated as accurately as I can, (you shall see the accounts,) +I will make over to you in perpetuity, with the best security that +English law can give, on Christmas Day of this year, with engagement +to add the tithe of whatever I earn afterwards. Who else will help, +with little or much? the object of such fund being, to begin, and +gradually--no matter how slowly--to increase, the buying and securing +of land in England, which shall not be built upon, but cultivated by +Englishmen, with their own hands, and such help of force as they can +find in wind and wave. + +I do not care with how many, or how few, this thing is begun, +nor on what inconsiderable scale,--if it be but in two or three +poor men's gardens. So much, at least, I can buy, myself, and +give them. If no help come, I have done and said what I could, +and there will be an end. If any help come to me, it is to be on +the following conditions:--We will try to take some small piece of +English ground, beautiful, peaceful, and fruitful. We will have no +steam-engines upon it, and no railroads; we will have no untended +or unthought-of creatures on it; none wretched, but the sick; none +idle, but the dead. We will have no liberty upon it; but instant +obedience to known law, and appointed persons: no equality upon it; +but recognition of every betterness that we can find, and reprobation +of every worseness. When we want to go anywhere, we will go there +quietly and safely, not at forty miles an hour in the risk of our +lives; when we want to carry anything anywhere, we will carry it +either on the backs of beasts, or on our own, or in carts, or boats; +we will have plenty of flowers and vegetables in our gardens, plenty +of corn and grass in our fields,--and few bricks. We will have some +music and poetry; the children shall learn to dance to it and sing +it;--perhaps some of the old people, in time, may also. We will +have some art, moreover; we will at least try if, like the Greeks, +we can't make some pots. The Greeks used to paint pictures of gods +on their pots; we probably, cannot do as much, but we may put some +pictures of insects on them, and reptiles;--butterflies, and frogs, +if nothing better. There was an excellent old potter in France who +used to put frogs and vipers into his dishes, to the admiration of +mankind; we can surely put something nicer than that. Little by little, +some higher art and imagination may manifest themselves among us; +and feeble rays of science may dawn for us. Botany, though too dull +to dispute the existence of flowers; and history, though too simple +to question the nativity of men;--nay--even perhaps an uncalculating +and uncovetous wisdom, as of rude Magi, presenting, at such nativity, +gifts of gold and frankincense. + + +Faithfully yours, + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER VI. + + + Denmark Hill, + 1st June, 1871. [14] + +My Friends, + + +The main purpose of these letters having been stated in the last +of them, it is needful that I should tell you why I approach the +discussion of it in this so desultory way, writing (as it is too true +that I must continue to write,) "of things that you little care for, +in words that you cannot easily understand." + +I write of things you care little for, knowing that what you least +care for is, at this juncture, of the greatest moment to you. + +And I write in words you are little likely to understand, because +I have no wish (rather the contrary) to tell you anything that you +can understand without taking trouble. You usually read so fast that +you can catch nothing but the echo of your own opinions, which, of +course, you are pleased to see in print. I neither wish to please, +nor displease you; but to provoke you to think; to lead you to think +accurately; and help you to form, perhaps, some different opinions +from those you have now. + +Therefore, I choose that you shall pay me the price of two pots of +beer, twelve times in the year, for my advice, each of you who wants +it. If you like to think of me as a quack doctor, you are welcome; +and you may consider the large margins, and thick paper, and ugly +pictures of my book, as my caravan, drum, and skeleton. You would +probably, if invited in that manner, buy my pills; and I should +make a great deal of money out of you; but being an honest doctor, +I still mean you to pay me what you ought. You fancy, doubtless, +that I write--as most other political writers do--my 'opinions'; +and that one man's opinion is as good as another's. You are much +mistaken. When I only opine things, I hold my tongue; and work till +I more than opine--until I know them. If the things prove unknowable, +I, with final perseverance, hold my tongue about them, and recommend +a like practice to other people. If the things prove knowable, as +soon as I know them, I am ready to write about them, if need be; +not till then. That is what people call my 'arrogance.' They write +and talk themselves, habitually, of what they know nothing about; +they cannot in anywise conceive the state of mind of a person who will +not speak till he knows; and then tells them, serenely, "This is so; +you may find it out for yourselves, if you choose; but, however little +you may choose it, the thing is still so." + +Now it has cost me twenty years of thought, and of hard reading, to +learn what I have to tell you in these pamphlets; and you will find, +if you choose to find, it is true; and may prove, if you choose +to prove, that it is useful: and I am not in the least minded to +compete for your audience with the 'opinions' in your damp journals, +morning and evening, the black of them coming off on your fingers, +and--beyond all washing--into your brains. It is no affair of mine +whether you attend to me or not; but yours wholly; my hand is weary of +pen-holding--my heart is sick of thinking; for my own part, I would not +write you these pamphlets though you would give me a barrel of beer, +instead of two pints, for them:--I write them wholly for your sake; +I choose that you shall have them decently printed on cream-coloured +paper, and with a margin underneath, which you can write on, if you +like. That is also for your sake: it is a proper form of book for +any man to have who can keep his books clean; and if he cannot, he +has no business with books at all. It costs me ten pounds to print +a thousand copies, and five more to give you a picture; and a penny +off my sevenpence to send you the book;--a thousand sixpences are +twenty-five pounds; when you have bought a thousand Fors of me, I +shall therefore have five pounds for my trouble--and my single shopman, +Mr. Allen, five pounds for his; we won't work for less, either of us; +not that we would not, were it good for you; but it would be by no +means good. And I mean to sell all my large books, henceforward, in +the same way; well printed, well bound, and at a fixed price; and the +trade may charge a proper and acknowledged profit for their trouble +in retailing the book. Then the public will know what they are about, +and so will tradesmen; I, the first producer, answer, to the best of +my power, for the quality of the book;--paper, binding, eloquence, +and all: the retail dealer charges what he ought to charge, openly; and +if the public do not choose to give it, they can't get the book. That +is what I call legitimate business. Then as for this misunderstanding +of me--remember that it is really not easy to understand anything, +which you have not heard before, if it relates to a complex subject; +also, it is quite easy to misunderstand things that you are hearing +every day--which seem to you of the intelligiblest sort. But I can +only write of things in my own way and as they come into my head; +and of the things I care for, whether you care for them or not, +as yet. I will answer for it, you must care for some of them, in time. + +To take an instance close to my hand: you would of course think it +little conducive to your interests that I should give you any account +of the wild hyacinths which are opening in flakes of blue fire, +this day, within a couple of miles of me, in the glades of Bagley +wood through which the Empress Maud fled in the snow, (and which, +by the way, I slink through, myself, in some discomfort, lest the +gamekeeper of the college of the gracious Apostle St. John should +catch sight of me; not that he would ultimately decline to make a +distinction between a poacher and a professor, but that I dislike +the trouble of giving an account of myself). Or, if even you would +bear with a scientific sentence or two about them, explaining to +you that they were only green leaves turned blue, and that it was +of no consequence whether they were either; and that, as flowers, +they were scientifically to be considered as not in existence,--you +will, I fear, throw my letter, even though it has cost you sevenpence, +aside at once, when I remark to you that these wood hyacinths of Bagley +have something to do with the battle of Marathon, and if you knew it, +are of more vital interest to you than even the Match Tax. + +Nevertheless, as I shall feel it my duty, some day, to speak to you +of Theseus and his vegetable soup, so, to-day, I think it necessary +to tell you that the wood-hyacinth is the best English representative +of the tribe of flowers which the Greeks called "Asphodel," and which +they thought the heroes who had fallen in the battle of Marathon, or +in any other battle, fought in just quarrel, were to be rewarded, and +enough rewarded, by living in fields-full of; fields called, by them, +Elysian, or the Fields of Coming, as you and I talk of the good time +'Coming,' though with perhaps different views as to the nature of +the to be expected goodness. + +Now what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the other day to +the Civil Engineers (see Saturday Review, April 29th,) is entirely +true; namely, that in any of our colliery or cartridge-manufactory +explosions, we send as many men (or women) into Elysium as were likely +to get there after the battle of Marathon; [15] and that is, indeed, +like the rest of our economic arrangements, very fine, and pleasant +to think upon; neither may it be doubted, on modern principles of +religion and equality, that every collier and cartridge-filler is as +fit for Elysium as any heathen could be; and that in all these respects +the battle of Marathon is no more deserving of English notice. But +what I want you to reflect upon, as of moment to you, is whether +you really care for the hyacinthine Elysium you are going to? and +if you do, why you should not live a little while in Elysium here, +instead of waiting so patiently, and working so hardly, to be blown +or flattened into it? The hyacinths will grow well enough on the top +of the ground, if you will leave off digging away the bottom of it; +and another plant of the asphodel species, which the Greeks thought +of more importance even than hyacinths--onions; though, indeed, one +dead hero is represented by Lucian as finding something to complain of +even in Elysium, because he got nothing but onions there to eat. But +it is simply, I assure you, because the French did not understand that +hyacinths and onions were the principal things to fill their existing +Elysian Fields, or Champs Elysées, with, but chose to have carriages, +and roundabouts, instead, that a tax on matches in those fields would +be, nowadays, so much more productive than one on Asphodel; and I +see that only a day or two since even a poor Punch's show could not +play out its play in Elysian peace, but had its corner knocked off +by a shell from Mont Valérien, and the dog Toby "seriously alarmed." + +One more instance of the things you don't care for, that are vital +to you, may be better told now than hereafter. + +In my plan for our practical work, in last number, you remember I +said, we must try and make some pottery, and have some music, and +that we would have no steam engines. On this I received a singular +letter from a resident at Birmingham, advising me that the colours +for my pottery must be ground by steam, and my musical instruments +constructed by it. To this, as my correspondent was an educated person, +and knew Latin, I ventured to answer that porcelain had been painted +before the time of James Watt; that even music was not entirely a +recent invention; that my poor company, I feared, would deserve no +better colours than Apelles and Titian made shift with, or even the +Chinese; and that I could not find any notice of musical instruments +in the time of David, for instance, having been made by steam. + +To this my correspondent again replied that he supposed David's +"twangling upon the harp" would have been unsatisfactory to modern +taste; in which sentiment I concurred with him, (thinking of the +Cumberland procession, without dancing, after its sacred, cylindrical +Ark). We shall have to be content, however, for our part, with a +little "twangling" on such roughly-made harps, or even shells, as +the Jews and Greeks got their melody out of, though it must indeed +be little conceivable in a modern manufacturing town that a nation +could ever have existed which imaginarily dined on onions in Heaven, +and made harps of the near relations of turtles on Earth. But to keep +to our crockery, you know I told you that for some time we should not +be able to put any pictures of Gods on it; and you might think that +would be of small consequence: but it is of moment that we should at +least try--for indeed that old French potter, Palissy, was nearly the +last of potters in France, or England either, who could have done +so, if anybody had wanted Gods. But nobody in his time did;--they +only wanted Goddesses, of a demi-divine-monde pattern; Palissy, not +well able to produce such, took to moulding innocent frogs and vipers +instead, in his dishes; but at Sèvres and other places for shaping of +courtly clay, the charmingest things were done, as you probably saw at +the great peace-promoting Exhibition of 1851; and not only the first +rough potter's fields, tileries, as they called them, or Tuileries, +but the little den where Palissy long after worked under the Louvre, +were effaced and forgotten in the glory of the House of France; +until the House of France forgot also that to it, no less than +the House of Israel, the words were spoken, not by a painted God, +"As the clay is in the hands of the potter, so are ye in mine;" and +thus the stained and vitrified show of it lasted, as you have seen, +until the Tuileries again became the Potter's field, to bury, not +strangers in, but their own souls, no more ashamed of Traitorhood, +but invoking Traitorhood, as if it covered, instead of constituting, +uttermost shame;--until, of the kingdom and its glory there is not +a shard left, to take fire out of the hearth. + +Left--to men's eyes, I should have written. To their thoughts, is left +yet much; for true kingdoms and true glories cannot pass away. What +France has had of such, remain to her. What any of us can find of +such, will remain to us. Will you look back, for an instant, again +to the end of my last Letter, p. 23, and consider the state of life +described there:--"No liberty, but instant obedience to known law and +appointed persons; no equality, but recognition of every betterness +and reprobation of every worseness; and none idle but the dead." + +I beg you to observe that last condition especially. You will debate +for many a day to come the causes that have brought this misery +upon France, and there are many; but one is chief--chief cause, +now and always, of evil everywhere; and I see it at this moment, in +its deadliest form, out of the window of my quiet English inn. It +is the 21st of May, and a bright morning, and the sun shines, for +once, warmly on the wall opposite, a low one, of ornamental pattern, +imitative in brick of wood-work (as if it had been of wood-work, it +would, doubtless, have been painted to look like brick). Against this +low decorative edifice leans a ruddy-faced English boy of seventeen +or eighteen, in a white blouse and brown corduroy trousers, and a +domical felt hat; with the sun, as much as can get under the rim, on +his face, and his hands in his pockets; listlessly watching two dogs +at play. He is a good boy, evidently, and does not care to turn the +play into a fight; [16] still it is not interesting enough to him, +as play, to relieve the extreme distress of his idleness, and he +occasionally takes his hands out of his pockets, and claps them at +the dogs, to startle them. + +The ornamental wall he leans against surrounds the county +police-office, and the residence at the end of it, appropriately called +"Gaol Lodge." This county gaol, police-office, and a large gasometer, +have been built by the good people of Abingdon to adorn the principal +entrance to their town from the south. It was once quite one of the +loveliest, as well as historically interesting, scenes in England. A +few cottages and their gardens, sloping down to the river-side, +are still left, and an arch or two of the great monastery; but the +principal object from the road is now the gaol, and from the river +the gasometer. It is curious that since the English have believed +(as you will find the editor of the Liverpool Daily Post, quoting +to you from Macaulay, in his leader of the 9th of this month), "the +only cure for Liberty is more liberty," (which is true enough, for +when you have got all you can, you will be past physic,) they always +make their gaols conspicuous and ornamental. Now I have no objection, +myself, detesting, as I do, every approach to liberty, to a distinct +manifestation of gaol, in proper quarters; nay, in the highest, and in +the close neighbourhood of palaces; perhaps, even, with a convenient +passage, and Ponte de' Sospiri, from one to the other, or, at least, +a pleasant access by water-gate and down the river; but I do not see +why in these days of 'incurable' liberty, the prospect in approaching +a quiet English county town should be a gaol, and nothing else. + +That being so, however, the country boy, in his white blouse, +leans placidly against the prison wall this bright Sunday morning, +little thinking what a luminous sign-post he is making of himself, +and living gnomon of sun-dial, of which the shadow points sharply to +the subtlest cause of the fall of France, and of England, as is too +likely, after her. + +Your hands in your own pockets, in the morning. That is the beginning +of the last day; your hands in other people's pockets at noon; that +is the height of the last day; and the gaol, ornamented or otherwise +(assuredly the great gaol of the grave), for the night. That is +the history of nations under judgment. Don't think I say this to any +single class; least of all specially to you; the rich are continually, +nowadays, reproaching you with your wish to be idle. It is very wrong +of you; but, do they want to work all day, themselves? All mouths +are very properly open now against the Paris Communists because they +fight that they may get wages for marching about with flags. What do +the upper classes fight for, then? What have they fought for since +the world became upper and lower, but that they also might have wages +for walking about with flags, and that mischievously? It is very wrong +of the Communists to steal church-plate and candlesticks. Very wrong +indeed; and much good may they get of their pawnbrokers' tickets. Have +you any notion (I mean that you shall have some soon) how much the +fathers and fathers' fathers of these men, for a thousand years back, +have paid their priests, to keep them in plate and candlesticks? You +need not think I am a republican, or that I like to see priests +ill-treated, and their candlesticks carried off. I have many friends +among priests, and should have had more had I not long been trying to +make them see that they have long trusted too much in candlesticks, +not quite enough in candles; not at all enough in the sun, and least of +all enough in the sun's Maker. Scientific people indeed of late opine +the sun to have been produced by collision, and to be a splendidly +permanent railroad accident, or explosive Elysium: also I noticed, +only yesterday, that gravitation itself is announced to the members +of the Royal Institution as the result of vibratory motion. Some day, +perhaps, the members of the Royal Institution will proceed to inquire +after the cause of--vibratory motion. Be that as it may, the Beginning, +or Prince of Vibration, as modern science has it,--Prince of Peace, +as old science had it,--continues through all scientific analysis, +His own arrangements about the sun, as also about other lights, lately +hidden or burning low. And these are primarily, that He has appointed +a great power to rise and set in heaven, which gives life, and warmth, +and motion, to the bodies of men, and beasts, creeping things, and +flowers; and which also causes light and colour in the eyes of things +that have eyes. And He has set above the souls of men, on earth, a +great law or Sun of Justice or Righteousness, which brings also life +and health in the daily strength and spreading of it, being spoken of +in the priest's language, (which they never explained to anybody, and +now wonder that nobody understands,) as having "healing in its wings:" +and the obedience to this law, as it gives strength to the heart, so +it gives light to the eyes of souls that have got any eyes, so that +they begin to see each other as lovely, and to love each other. That +is the final law respecting the sun, and all manner of minor lights +and candles, down to rushlights; and I once got it fairly explained, +two years ago, to an intelligent and obliging wax-and-tallow chandler +at Abbeville, in whose shop I used to sit sketching in rainy days; +and watching the cartloads of ornamental candles which he used to +supply for the church at the far east end of the town, (I forget +what saint it belongs to, but it is opposite the late Emperor's large +new cavalry barracks,) where the young ladies of the better class in +Abbeville had just got up a beautiful evening service, with a pyramid +of candles which it took at least half an hour to light, and as long +to put out again, and which, when lighted up to the top of the church, +were only to be looked at themselves, and sung to, and not to light +anybody or anything. I got the tallow-chandler to calculate vaguely the +probable cost of the candles lighted in this manner, every day, in all +the churches of France; and then I asked him how many cottagers' wives +he knew round Abbeville itself who could afford, without pinching, +either dip or mould in the evening to make their children's clothes +by, and whether, if the pink and green beeswax of the district were +divided every afternoon among them, it might not be quite as honourable +to God, and as good for the candle trade? Which he admitted readily +enough; but what I should have tried to convince the young ladies +themselves of, at the evening service, would probably not have been +admitted so readily;--that they themselves were nothing more than +an extremely graceful kind of wax-tapers which had got into their +heads that they were only to be looked at, for the honour of God, +and not to light anybody. + +Which is indeed too much the notion of even the masculine aristocracy +of Europe at this day. One can imagine them, indeed, modest in +the matter of their own luminousness, and more timid of the tax +on agricultural horses and carts, than of that on lucifers; but it +would be well if they were content, here in England, however dimly +phosphorescent themselves, to bask in the sunshine of May at the end +of Westminster Bridge, (as my boy on Abingdon Bridge,) with their +backs against the large edifice they have built there,--an edifice, by +the way, to my own poor judgment, less contributing to the adornment +of London, than the new police-office to that of Abingdon. But the +English squire, after his fashion, sends himself to that highly +decorated gaol all spring-time; and cannot be content with his hands +in his own pockets, nor even in yours and mine; but claps and laughs, +semi-idiot that he is, at dog-fights on the floor of the House, which, +if he knew it, are indeed dog-fights of the Stars in their courses, +Sirius against Procyon; and of the havock and loosed dogs of war, +makes, as the Times correspondent says they make, at Versailles, +of the siege of Paris, "the Entertainment of the Hour." + +You think that, perhaps, an unjust saying of him, as he will, +assuredly, himself. He would fain put an end to this wild work, +if he could, he thinks. + +My friends, I tell you solemnly, the sin of it all, down to this last +night's doing, or undoing, (for it is Monday now, I waited before +finishing my letter, to see if the Sainte Chapelle would follow the +Vendôme Column;) the sin of it, I tell you, is not that poor rabble's, +spade and pickaxe in hand among the dead; nor yet the blasphemer's, +making noise like a dog by the defiled altars of our Lady of Victories; +and round the barricades, and the ruins, of the Street of Peace. + +This cruelty has been done by the kindest of us, and the most +honourable; by the delicate women, by the nobly-nurtured men, who +through their happy and, as they thought, holy lives, have sought, +and still seek, only "the entertainment of the hour." And this robbery +has been taught to the hands,--this blasphemy to the lips,--of the +lost poor, by the False Prophets who have taken the name of Christ +in vain, and leagued themselves with his chief enemy, "Covetousness, +which is idolatry." + +Covetousness, lady of Competition and of deadly Care; idol above the +altars of Ignoble Victory; builder of streets, in cities of Ignoble +Peace. I have given you the picture of her--your goddess and only +Hope--as Giotto saw her; dominant in prosperous Italy as in prosperous +England, and having her hands clawed then, as now, so that she can only +clutch, not work; also you shall read next month with me what one of +Giotto's friends says of her--a rude versifier, one of the twangling +harpers; as Giotto was a poor painter for low price, and with colours +ground by hand; but such cheap work must serve our turn for this time; +also, here, is portrayed for you [17] one of the ministering angels +of the goddess; for she herself, having ears set wide to the wind, +is careful to have wind-instruments provided by her servants for +other people's ears. + +[Illustration] + +This servant of hers was drawn by the court portrait-painter, Holbein; +and was a councillor at poor-law boards, in his day; counselling +then, as some of us have, since, "Bread of Affliction and Water of +Affliction" for the vagrant as such,--which is, indeed, good advice, +if you are quite sure the vagrant has, or may have, a home; not +otherwise. But we will talk further of this next month, taking into +council one of Holbein's prosaic friends, as well as that singing +friend of Giotto's--an English lawyer and country gentleman, living +on his farm, at Chelsea (somewhere near Cheyne Row, I believe)--and +not unfrequently visited there by the King of England, who would ask +himself unexpectedly to dinner at the little Thames-side farm, though +the floor of it was only strewn with green rushes. It was burnt at +last, rushes, ricks, and all; some said because bread of affliction +and water of affliction had been served to heretics there, its master +being a stout Catholic; and, singularly enough, also a Communist; so +that because of the fire, and other matters, the King at last ceased +to dine at Chelsea. We will have some talk, however, with the farmer, +ourselves, some day soon; meantime and always, believe me, + + +Faithfully yours, + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + + + + +POSTSCRIPT. + +25th May (early morning).--Reuter's final telegram, in the Echo of +last night, being "The Louvre and the Tuileries are in flames, the +Federals having set fire to them with petroleum," it is interesting +to observe how, in fulfilment of the Mechanical Glories of our age, +its ingenious Gomorrah manufactures, and supplies to demand, her own +brimstone; achieving also a quite scientific, instead of miraculous, +descent of it from Heaven; and ascent of it, where required, without +any need of cleaving or quaking of earth, except in a superficially +'vibratory' manner. + +Nor can it be less encouraging to you to see how, with a sufficiently +curative quantity of Liberty, you may defend yourselves against all +danger of over-production, especially in art; but, in case you should +ever wish to re-'produce' any of the combustibles (as oil, or canvas) +used in these Parisian Economies, you will do well to inquire of the +author of the "Essay on Liberty" whether he considers oil of linseed, +or petroleum, as best fulfilling his definition, "utilities fixed +and embodied in material objects." + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER VII. + + + Denmark Hill, + 1st July, 1871. + +My Friends, + + +It seldom chances, my work lying chiefly among stones, clouds, and +flowers, that I am brought into any freedom of intercourse with my +fellow-creatures; but since the fighting in Paris I have dined out +several times, and spoken to the persons who sat next me, and to others +when I went upstairs; and done the best I could to find out what people +thought about the fighting, or thought they ought to think about it, +or thought they ought to say. I had, of course, no hope of finding +any one thinking what they ought to do. But I have not yet, a little +to my surprise, met with any one who either appeared to be sadder, +or professed himself wiser, for anything that has happened. + +It is true that I am neither sadder nor wiser, because of it, +myself. But then I was so sad before, that nothing could make +me sadder; and getting wiser has always been to me a very slow +process,--(sometimes even quite stopping for whole days together),--so +that if two or three new ideas fall in my way at once, it only puzzles +me; and the fighting in Paris has given me more than two or three. + +The newest of all these new ones, and, in fact, quite a glistering +and freshly minted idea to me, is the Parisian notion of Communism, +as far as I understand it, (which I don't profess to do altogether, +yet, or I should be wiser than I was, with a vengeance). + +For, indeed, I am myself a Communist of the old school--reddest also +of the red; and was on the very point of saying so at the end of +my last letter; only the telegram about the Louvre's being on fire +stopped me, because I thought the Communists of the new school, as I +could not at all understand them, might not quite understand me. For +we Communists of the old school think that our property belongs to +everybody, and everybody's property to us; so of course I thought +the Louvre belonged to me as much as to the Parisians, and expected +they would have sent word over to me, being an Art Professor, to ask +whether I wanted it burnt down. But no message or intimation to that +effect ever reached me. + +Then the next bit of new coinage in the way of notion which I have +picked up in Paris streets, is the present meaning of the French word +'Ouvrier,' which in my time the dictionaries used to give as 'Workman,' +or 'Working-man.' For again, I have spent many days, not to say years, +with the working-men of our English school myself; and I know that, +with the more advanced of them, the gathering word is that which I +gave you at the end of my second number--"To do good work, whether we +live or die." Whereas I perceive the gathering, or rather scattering, +word of the French 'ouvrier' is, 'To undo good work, whether we live +or die.' + +And this is the third, and the last, I will tell you for the +present, of my new ideas, but a troublesome one: namely, that we +are henceforward to have a duplicate power of political economy; and +that the new Parisian expression for its first principle is not to be +'laissez faire,' but 'laissez refaire.' + +I cannot, however, make anything of these new French fashions of +thought till I have looked at them quietly a little; so to-day I will +content myself with telling you what we Communists of the old school +meant by Communism; and it will be worth your hearing, for--I tell you +simply in my 'arrogant' way--we know, and have known, what Communism +is--for our fathers knew it, and told us, three thousand years ago; +while you baby Communists do not so much as know what the name means, +in your own English or French--no, not so much as whether a House of +Commons implies, or does not imply, also a House of Uncommons; nor +whether the Holiness of the Commune, which Garibaldi came to fight +for, had any relation to the Holiness of the 'Communion' which he +came to fight against. + +Will you be at the pains, now, however, to learn rightly, and once +for all, what Communism is? First, it means that everybody must work +in common, and do common or simple work for his dinner; and that +if any man will not do it, he must not have his dinner. That much, +perhaps, you thought you knew?--but you did not think we Communists of +the old school knew it also? You shall have it, then, in the words +of the Chelsea farmer and stout Catholic, I was telling you of, +in last number. He was born in Milk Street, London, three hundred +and ninety-one years ago, (1480, a year I have just been telling my +Oxford pupils to remember for manifold reasons,) and he planned a +Commune flowing with milk and honey, and otherwise Elysian; and called +it the 'Place of Wellbeing' or Utopia; which is a word you perhaps +have occasionally used before now, like others, without understanding +it;--(in the article of the Liverpool Daily Post before referred to, it +occurs felicitously seven times). You shall use it in that stupid way +no more, if I can help it. Listen how matters really are managed there. + +"The chief, and almost the only business of the government, [18] +is to take care that no man may live idle, but that every one may +follow his trade diligently: yet they do not wear themselves out with +perpetual toil from morning till night, as if they were beasts of +burden, which, as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is everywhere the +common course of life amongst all mechanics except the Utopians; but +they, dividing the day and night into twenty-four hours, appoint six +of these for work, three of which are before dinner and three after; +they then sup, and, at eight o'clock, counting from noon, go to bed +and sleep eight hours: the rest of their time, besides that taken +up in work, eating, and sleeping, is left to every man's discretion; +yet they are not to abuse that interval to luxury and idleness, but +must employ it in some proper exercise, according to their various +inclinations, which is, for the most part, reading. + +"But the time appointed for labour is to be narrowly examined, +otherwise, you may imagine that, since there are only six hours +appointed for work, they may fall under a scarcity of necessary +provisions: but it is so far from being true that this time is not +sufficient for supplying them with plenty of all things, either +necessary or convenient, that it is rather too much; and this you +will easily apprehend, if you consider how great a part of all other +nations is quite idle. First, women generally do little, who are the +half of mankind; and, if some few women are diligent, their husbands +are idle: then,-- ..." + +What then? + +We will stop a minute, friends, if you please, for I want you before +you read what then, to be once more made fully aware that this farmer +who is speaking to you is one of the sternest Roman Catholics of +his stern time; and at the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, became Lord High +Chancellor of England in his stead. + +"--then, consider the great company of idle priests, and of those that +are called religious men; add to these, all rich men, chiefly those +that have estates in land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen, +together with their families, made up of idle persons, that are kept +more for show than use; add to these, all those strong and lusty +beggars that go about, pretending some disease in excuse for their +begging; and, upon the whole account, you will find that the number +of those by whose labours mankind is supplied is much less than you, +perhaps, imagined: then, consider how few of those that work are +employed in labours that are of real service! for we, who measure +all things by money, give rise to many trades that are both vain and +superfluous, and serve only to support riot and luxury: for if those +who work were employed only in such things as the conveniences of life +require, there would be such an abundance of them, that the prices of +them would so sink that tradesmen could not be maintained by their +gains;"--(italics mine--Fair and softly, Sir Thomas! we must have a +shop round the corner, and a pedlar or two on fair-days, yet;)--"if +all those who labour about useless things were set to more profitable +employments, and if all that languish out their lives in sloth and +idleness (every one of whom consumes as much as any two of the men +that are at work) were forced to labour, you may easily imagine that +a small proportion of time would serve for doing all that is either +necessary, profitable, or pleasant to mankind, especially while +pleasure is kept within its due bounds: this appears very plainly +in Utopia; for there, in a great city, and in all the territory that +lies round it, you can scarce find five hundred, either men or women, +by their age and strength capable of labour, that are not engaged +in it! even the heads of government, though excused by the law, +yet do not excuse themselves, but work, that, by their examples, +they may excite the industry of the rest of the people." + +You see, therefore, that there is never any fear, among us of the old +school, of being out of work; but there is great fear, among many +of us, lest we should not do the work set us well; for, indeed, +we thoroughgoing Communists make it a part of our daily duty to +consider how common we are; and how few of us have any brains or souls +worth speaking of, or fit to trust to;--that being the, alas, almost +unexceptionable lot of human creatures. Not that we think ourselves, +(still less, call ourselves without thinking so,) miserable sinners, +for we are not in anywise miserable, but quite comfortable for the +most part; and we are not sinners, that we know of; but are leading +godly, righteous, and sober lives, to the best of our power, since +last Sunday; (on which day some of us were, we regret to be informed, +drunk;) but we are of course common creatures enough, the most of us, +and thankful if we may be gathered up in St. Peter's sheet, so as not +to be uncivilly or unjustly called unclean too. And therefore our +chief concern is to find out any among us wiser and of better make +than the rest, and to get them, if they will for any persuasion take +the trouble, to rule over us, and teach us how to behave, and make +the most of what little good is in us. + +So much for the first law of old Communism, respecting work. Then +the second respects property, and it is that the public, or common, +wealth, shall be more and statelier in all its substance than private +or singular wealth; that is to say (to come to my own special business +for a moment) that there shall be only cheap and few pictures, if any, +in the insides of houses, where nobody but the owner can see them; but +costly pictures, and many, on the outsides of houses, where the people +can see them: also that the Hôtel-de-Ville, or Hotel of the whole Town, +for the transaction of its common business, shall be a magnificent +building, much rejoiced in by the people, and with its tower seen far +away through the clear air; but that the hotels for private business +or pleasure, cafés, taverns, and the like, shall be low, few, plain, +and in back streets; more especially such as furnish singular and +uncommon drinks and refreshments; but that the fountains which furnish +the people's common drink shall be very lovely and stately, and +adorned with precious marbles, and the like. Then farther, according +to old Communism, the private dwellings of uncommon persons--dukes +and lords--are to be very simple, and roughly put together,--such +persons being supposed to be above all care for things that please +the commonalty; but the buildings for public or common service, more +especially schools, almshouses, and workhouses, are to be externally +of a majestic character, as being for noble purposes and charities; +and in their interiors furnished with many luxuries for the poor and +sick. And, finally and chiefly, it is an absolute law of old Communism +that the fortunes of private persons should be small, and of little +account in the State; but the common treasure of the whole nation +should be of superb and precious things in redundant quantity, as +pictures, statues, precious books; gold and silver vessels, preserved +from ancient times; gold and silver bullion laid up for use, in case +of any chance need of buying anything suddenly from foreign nations; +noble horses, cattle, and sheep, on the public lands; and vast spaces +of land for culture, exercise, and garden, round the cities, full of +flowers, which, being everybody's property, nobody could gather; and +of birds which, being everybody's property, nobody could shoot. And, +in a word, that instead of a common poverty, or national debt, which +every poor person in the nation is taxed annually to fulfil his part +of, there should be a common wealth, or national reverse of debt, +consisting of pleasant things, which every poor person in the nation +should be summoned to receive his dole of, annually; and of pretty +things, which every person capable of admiration, foreigners as well as +natives, should unfeignedly admire, in an æsthetic, and not a covetous +manner (though for my own part I can't understand what it is that I am +taxed now to defend, or what foreign nations are supposed to covet, +here). But truly, a nation that has got anything to defend of real +public interest, can usually hold it; and a fat Latin communist gave +for sign of the strength of his commonalty, in its strongest time,-- + + + "Privatus illis census erat brevis, + Commune magnum;" [19] + + +which you may get any of your boys or girls to translate for you, +and remember; remembering, also, that the commonalty or publicity +depends for its goodness on the nature of the thing that is common, +and that is public. When the French cried, "Vive la République!" after +the battle of Sedan, they were thinking only of the Publique, in the +word, and not of the Re in it. But that is the essential part of it, +for that "Re" is not like the mischievous Re in Reform, and Refaire, +which the words had better be without; but it is short for res, +which means 'thing'; and when you cry, "Live the Republic," the +question is mainly, what thing it is you wish to be publicly alive, +and whether you are striving for a Common-Wealth, and Public-Thing; +or, as too plainly in Paris, for a Common-Illth, and Public-Nothing, +or even Public-Less-than-nothing and Common Deficit. + +Now all these laws respecting public and private property, are +accepted in the same terms by the entire body of us Communists of the +old school; but with respect to the management of both, we old Reds +fall into two classes, differing, not indeed in colour of redness, +but in depth of tint of it--one class being, as it were, only of a +delicately pink, peach-blossom, or dog-rose redness; but the other, +to which I myself do partly, and desire wholly, to belong, as I told +you, reddest of the red--that is to say, full crimson, or even dark +crimson, passing into that deep colour of the blood which made the +Spaniards call it blue, instead of red, and which the Greeks call +phoinikeos, being an intense phoenix or flamingo colour: and this +not merely, as in the flamingo feathers, a colour on the outside, +but going through and through, ruby-wise; so that Dante, who is one +of the few people who have ever beheld our queen full in the face, +says of her that, if she had been in a fire, he could not have seen +her at all, so fire-colour she was, all through. [20] + +And between these two sects or shades of us, there is this difference +in our way of holding our common faith, (that our neighbour's property +is ours, and ours his,) namely, that the rose-red division of us are +content in their diligence of care to preserve or guard from injury +or loss their neighbours' property, as their own; so that they may be +called, not merely dog-rose red, but even 'watch-dog-rose' red; being, +indeed, more careful and anxious for the safety of the possessions +of other people, (especially their masters,) than for any of their +own; and also more sorrowful for any wound or harm suffered by any +creature in their sight, than for hurt to themselves. So that they are +Communists, even less in their having part in all common well-being +of their neighbours, than part in all common pain: being yet, on the +whole, infinite gainers; for there is in this world infinitely more +joy than pain to be shared, if you will only take your share when it +is set for you. + +The vermilion, or Tyrian-red sect of us, however, are not content +merely with this carefulness and watchfulness over our neighbours' +good, but we cannot rest unless we are giving what we can spare of +our own; and the more precious it is, the more we want to divide it +with somebody. So that above all things, in what we value most of +possessions, pleasant sights, and true knowledge, we cannot relish +seeing any pretty things unless other people see them also; neither +can we be content to know anything for ourselves, but must contrive, +somehow, to make it known to others. + +And as thus especially we like to give knowledge away, so we like +to have it good to give, (for, as for selling knowledge, thinking it +comes by the spirit of Heaven, we hold the selling of it to be only +a way of selling God again, and utterly Iscariot's business;) also, +we know that the knowledge made up for sale is apt to be watered +and dusted, or even itself good for nothing; and we try, for our +part, to get it, and give it, pure: the mere fact that it is to be +given away at once to anybody who asks to have it, and immediately +wants to use it, is a continual check upon us. For instance, when +Colonel North, in the House of Commons, on the 20th of last month, +(as reported in the Times,) "would simply observe, in conclusion, +that it was impossible to tell how many thousands of the young men +who were to be embarked for India next September, would be marched, +not to the hills, but to their graves;" any of us Tyrian-reds "would +simply observe" that the young men themselves ought to be constantly, +and on principle, informed of their destination before embarking; +and that this pleasant communicativeness of what knowledge on the +subject was to be got, would soon render quite possible the attainment +of more. So also, in abstract science, the instant habit of making +true discoveries common property, cures us of a bad trick which +one may notice to have much hindered scientific persons lately, of +rather spending their time in hiding their neighbours' discoveries, +than improving their own: whereas, among us, scientific flamingoes +are not only openly graced for discoveries, but openly disgraced for +coveries; and that sharply and permanently; so that there is rarely +a hint or thought among them of each other's being wrong, but quick +confession of whatever is found out rightly. [21] + +But the point in which we dark-red Communists differ most from other +people is, that we dread, above all things, getting miserly of virtue; +and if there be any in us, or among us, we try forthwith to get it made +common, and would fain hear the mob crying for some of that treasure, +where it seems to have accumulated. I say, 'seems,' only: for though, +at first, all the finest virtue looks as if it were laid up with the +rich, (so that, generally, a millionaire would be much surprised +at hearing that his daughter had made a petroleuse of herself, or +that his son had murdered anybody for the sake of their watch and +cravat),--it is not at all clear to us dark-reds that this virtue, +proportionate to income, is of the right sort; and we believe that +even if it were, the people who keep it thus all to themselves, +and leave the so-called canaille without any, vitiate what they keep +by keeping it, so that it is like manna laid up through the night, +which breeds worms in the morning. + +You see, also, that we dark-red Communists, since we exist only +in giving, must, on the contrary, hate with a perfect hatred all +manner of thieving: even to Coeur-de-Lion's tar-and-feather extreme; +and of all thieving, we dislike thieving on trust most, (so that, +if we ever get to be strong enough to do what we want, and chance +to catch hold of any failed bankers, their necks will not be worth +half an hour's purchase). So also, as we think virtue diminishes in +the honour and force of it in proportion to income, we think vice +increases in the force and shame of it, and is worse in kings and +rich people than in poor; and worse on a large scale than on a narrow +one; and worse when deliberate than hasty. So that we can understand +one man's coveting a piece of vineyard-ground for a garden of herbs, +and stoning the master of it, (both of them being Jews;)--and yet the +dogs ate queen's flesh for that, and licked king's blood! but for two +nations--both Christians--to covet their neighbours' vineyards, all +down beside the River of their border, and slay until the River itself +runs red! The little pool of Samaria!--shall all the snows of the Alps, +or the salt pool of the Great Sea, wash their armour, for these? + +I promised in my last letter that I would tell you the main meaning +and bearing of the war, and its results to this day:--now that you +know what Communism is, I can tell you these briefly, and, what is +more to the purpose, how to bear yourself in the midst of them. + +The first reason for all wars, and for the necessity of national +defences, is that the majority of persons, high and low, in all +European nations, are Thieves, and, in their hearts, greedy of their +neighbours' goods, land, and fame. + +But besides being Thieves, they are also fools, and have never yet been +able to understand that if Cornish men want pippins cheap, they must +not ravage Devonshire--that the prosperity of their neighbours is, +in the end, their own also; and the poverty of their neighbours, by +the communism of God, becomes also in the end their own. 'Invidia,' +jealousy of your neighbour's good, has been, since dust was first +made flesh, the curse of man; and 'Charitas,' the desire to do +your neighbour grace, the one source of all human glory, power, +and material Blessing. + +But war between nations (fools and thieves though they be,) is not +necessarily in all respects evil. I gave you that long extract from +Froissart to show you, mainly, that Theft in its simplicity--however +sharp and rude, yet if frankly done, and bravely--does not corrupt +men's souls; and they can, in a foolish, but quite vital and faithful +way, keep the feast of the Virgin Mary in the midst of it. + +But Occult Theft,--Theft which hides itself even from itself, and +is legal, respectable, and cowardly,--corrupts the body and soul of +man, to the last fibre of them. And the guilty Thieves of Europe, +the real sources of all deadly war in it, are the Capitalists--that +is to say, people who live by percentages or the labour of others; +instead of by fair wages for their own. The Real war in Europe, of +which this fighting in Paris is the Inauguration, is between these +and the workmen, such as these have made him. They have kept him +poor, ignorant, and sinful, that they might, without his knowledge, +gather for themselves the produce of his toil. At last, a dim insight +into the fact of this dawns on him; and such as they have made him +he meets them, and will meet. + +Nay, the time is even come when he will study that Meteorological +question, suggested by the Spectator, formerly quoted, of the +Filtration of Money from above downwards. + +"It was one of the many delusions of the Commune," (says to-day's +Telegraph, 24th June,) "that it could do without rich consumers." Well, +such unconsumed existence would be very wonderful! Yet it is, +to me also, conceivable. Without the riches,--no; but without the +consumers?--possibly! It is occurring to the minds of the workmen that +these Golden Fleeces must get their dew from somewhere. "Shall there +be dew upon the fleece only?" they ask:--and will be answered. They +cannot do without these long purses, say you? No; but they want to +find where the long purses are filled. Nay, even their trying to burn +the Louvre, without reference to Art Professors, had a ray of meaning +in it--quite Spectatorial. + +"If we must choose between a Titian and a Lancashire cotton-mill," +(wrote the Spectator of August 6th, last year, instructing me in +political economy, just as the war was beginning,) "in the name of +manhood and morality, give us the cotton-mill." + +So thinks the French workman also, energetically; only his mill is +not to be in Lancashire. Both French and English agree to have no +more Titians,--it is well,--but which is to have the Cotton-Mill? + +Do you see in the Times of yesterday and the day before, 22nd and +23rd June, that the Minister of France dares not, even in this her +utmost need, put on an income tax; and do you see why he dares not? + +Observe, such a tax is the only honest and just one; because it tells +on the rich in true proportion to the poor, and because it meets +necessity in the shortest and bravest way, and without interfering +with any commercial operation. + +All rich people object to income tax, of course;--they like to pay +as much as a poor man pays on their tea, sugar, and tobacco,--nothing +on their incomes. + +Whereas, in true justice, the only honest and wholly right tax is +one not merely on income, but property; increasing in percentage as +the property is greater. And the main virtue of such a tax is that +it makes publicly known what every man has, and how he gets it. + +For every kind of Vagabonds, high and low, agree in their dislike +to give an account of the way they get their living; still less, +of how much they have got sewn up in their breeches. It does not, +however, matter much to a country that it should know how its poor +Vagabonds live; but it is of vital moment that it should know how +its rich Vagabonds live; and that much of knowledge, it seems to me, +in the present state of our education, is quite attainable. But that, +when you have attained it, you may act on it wisely, the first need +is that you should be sure you are living honestly yourselves. That +is why I told you, in my second letter, you must learn to obey good +laws before you seek to alter bad ones:--I will amplify now a little +the three promises I want you to make. Look back at them. + +I. You are to do good work, whether you live or die. It may be you +will have to die;--well, men have died for their country often, yet +doing her no good; be ready to die for her in doing her assured good: +her, and all other countries with her. Mind your own business with your +absolute heart and soul; but see that it is a good business first. That +it is corn and sweet pease you are producing,--not gunpowder and +arsenic. And be sure of this, literally:--you must simply rather +die than make any destroying mechanism or compound. You are to be +literally employed in cultivating the ground, or making useful things, +and carrying them where they are wanted. Stand in the streets, and +say to all who pass by: Have you any vineyard we can work in,--not +Naboth's? In your powder and petroleum manufactory, we work no more. + +I have said little to you yet of any of the pictures engraved--you +perhaps think, not to the ornament of my book. + +Be it so. You will find them better than ornaments in time. Notice, +however, in the one I give you with this letter--the "Charity" of +Giotto--the Red Queen of Dante, and ours also,--how different his +thought of her is from the common one. + +Usually she is nursing children, or giving money. Giotto thinks there +is little charity in nursing children;--bears and wolves do that for +their little ones; and less still in giving money. + +His Charity tramples upon bags of gold--has no use for them. She gives +only corn and flowers; and God's angel given her, not even these--but +a Heart. + +Giotto is quite literal in his meaning, as well as figurative. Your +love is to give food and flowers, and to labour for them only. + +But what are we to do against powder and petroleum, then? What men +may do; not what poisonous beasts may. If a wretch spit in your face, +will you answer by spitting in his?--if he throw vitriol at you, +will you go to the apothecary for a bigger bottle? + +There is no physical crime at this day, so far beyond pardon,--so +without parallel in its untempted guilt, as the making of +war-machinery, and invention of mischievous substance. Two nations +may go mad, and fight like harlots--God have mercy on them;--you, +who hand them carving-knives off the table, for leave to pick up +a dropped sixpence, what mercy is there for you? We are so humane, +forsooth, and so wise; and our ancestors had tar-barrels for witches; +we will have them for everybody else, and drive the witches' trade +ourselves, by daylight; we will have our cauldrons, please Hecate, +cooled (according to the Darwinian theory,) with baboon's blood, +and enough of it, and sell hell-fire in the open street. + +II. Seek to revenge no injury. You see now--do not you--a little more +clearly why I wrote that? what strain there is on the untaught masses +of you to revenge themselves, even with insane fire? + +Alas, the Taught masses are strained enough also;--have you +not just seen a great religious and reformed nation, with +its goodly Captains,--philosophical, sentimental, domestic, +evangelical-angelical-minded altogether, and with its Lord's Prayer +really quite vital to it,--come and take its neighbour nation by the +throat, saying, "Pay me that thou owest"? + +Seek to revenge no injury: I do not say, seek to punish no crime: +look what I hinted about failed bankers. Of that hereafter. + +III. Learn to obey good laws; and in a little while you will reach +the better learning--how to obey good Men, who are living, breathing, +unblinded law; and to subdue base and disloyal ones, recognizing in +these the light, and ruling over those in the power, of the Lord of +Light and Peace, whose Dominion is an everlasting Dominion, and His +Kingdom from generation to generation. + + +Ever faithfully yours, + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER VIII. + + +My Friends, + + +I begin this letter a month before it is wanted, [22] having several +matters in my mind that I would fain put into words at once. It is +the first of July, and I sit down to write by the dismallest light +that ever yet I wrote by; namely, the light of this midsummer morning, +in mid-England, (Matlock, Derbyshire), in the year 1871. + +For the sky is covered with grey cloud;--not rain-cloud, but a dry +black veil, which no ray of sunshine can pierce; partly diffused in +mist, feeble mist, enough to make distant objects unintelligible, +yet without any substance, or wreathing, or colour of its own. And +everywhere the leaves of the trees are shaking fitfully, as they +do before a thunderstorm; only not violently, but enough to show the +passing to and fro of a strange, bitter, blighting wind. Dismal enough, +had it been the first morning of its kind that summer had sent. But +during all this spring, in London, and at Oxford, through meagre +March, through changelessly sullen April, through despondent May, +and darkened June, morning after morning has come grey-shrouded thus. + +And it is a new thing to me, and a very dreadful one. I am fifty years +old, and more; and since I was five, have gleaned the best hours of +my life in the sun of spring and summer mornings; and I never saw +such as these, till now. + +And the scientific men are busy as ants, examining the sun, and the +moon, and the seven stars, and can tell me all about them, I believe, +by this time; and how they move, and what they are made of. + +And I do not care, for my part, two copper spangles how they move, +nor what they are made of. I can't move them any other way than they +go, nor make them of anything else, better than they are made. But I +would care much and give much, if I could be told where this bitter +wind comes from, and what it is made of. + +For, perhaps, with forethought, and fine laboratory science, one +might make it of something else. + +It looks partly as if it were made of poisonous smoke; very possibly +it may be: there are at least two hundred furnace chimneys in a square +of two miles on every side of me. But mere smoke would not blow to +and fro in that wild way. It looks more to me as if it were made of +dead men's souls--such of them as are not gone yet where they have +to go, and may be flitting hither and thither, doubting, themselves, +of the fittest place for them. + +You know, if there are such things as souls, and if ever any of them +haunt places where they have been hurt, there must be many about us, +just now, displeased enough! + +You may laugh, if you like. I don't believe any one of you would like +to live in a room with a murdered man in the cupboard, however well +preserved chemically;--even with a sunflower growing out at the top +of his head. + +And I don't, myself, like living in a world with such a multitude of +murdered men in the ground of it--though we are making heliotropes +of them, and scientific flowers, that study the sun. + +I wish the scientific men would let me and other people study it with +our own eyes, and neither through telescopes nor heliotropes. You +shall, at all events, study the rain a little, if not the sun, to-day, +and settle that question we have been upon so long as to where it +comes from. + +All France, it seems, is in a state of enthusiastic delight and +pride at the unexpected facility with which she has got into debt; +and Monsieur Thiers is congratulated by all our wisest papers on his +beautiful statesmanship of borrowing. I don't myself see the cleverness +of it, having suffered a good deal from that kind of statesmanship in +private persons: but I daresay it is as clever as anything else that +statesmen do, now-a-days; only it happens to be more mischievous than +most of their other doings, and I want you to understand the bearings +of it. + +Everybody in France who has got any money is eager to lend it to +M. Thiers at five per cent. No doubt; but who is to pay the five +per cent.? It is to be "raised" by duties on this and that. Then +certainly the persons who get the five per cent. will have to pay +some part of these duties themselves, on their own tea and sugar, +or whatever else is taxed; and this taxing will be on the whole of +their trade, and on whatever they buy with the rest of their fortunes; +[23] but the five per cent. only on what they lend M. Thiers. + +It is a low estimate to say the payment of duties will take off one +per cent. of their five. + +Practically, therefore, the arrangement is that they get four per +cent. for their money, and have all the trouble of customs duties, +to take from them another extra one per cent., and give it them +back again. Four per cent., however, is not to be despised. But who +pays that? + +The people who have got no money to lend, pay it; the daily worker and +producer pays it. Unfortunate "William," who has borrowed, in this +instance, not a plane he could make planks with, but mitrailleuses +and gunpowder, with which he has planed away his own farmsteads, +and forests, and fair fields of corn, and having left himself +desolate, now has to pay for the loan of this useful instrument, +five per cent. So says the gently commercial James to him: "Not only +the price of your plane, but five per cent. to me for lending it, +O sweetest of Williams." + +Sweet William, carrying generally more absinthe in his brains than wit, +has little to say for himself, having, indeed, wasted too much of his +sweetness lately, tainted disagreeably with petroleum, on the desert +air of Paris. And the people who are to get their five per cent. out +of him, and roll him and suck him,--the sugar-cane of a William that +he is,--how should they but think the arrangement a glorious one for +the nation? + +So there is great acclaim and triumphal procession of financiers! and +the arrangement is made; namely, that all the poor labouring persons +in France are to pay the rich idle ones five per cent. annually, +on the sum of eighty millions of sterling pounds, until further notice. + +But this is not all, observe. Sweet William is not altogether so soft +in his rind that you can crush him without some sufficient machinery: +you must have your army in good order, "to justify public confidence;" +and you must get the expense of that, beside your five per cent., +out of ambrosial William. He must pay the cost of his own roller. + +Now, therefore, see briefly what it all comes to. + +First, you spend eighty millions of money in fireworks, doing no end +of damage in letting them off. + +Then you borrow money, to pay the firework-maker's bill, from any +gain-loving persons who have got it. + +And then, dressing your bailiff's men in new red coats and cocked +hats, you send them drumming and trumpeting into the fields, to take +the peasants by the throat, and make them pay the interest on what +you have borrowed; and the expense of the cocked hats besides. + +That is "financiering," my friends, as the mob of the money-makers +understand it. And they understand it well. For that is what it +always comes to, finally; taking the peasant by the throat. He must +pay--for he only can. Food can only be got out of the ground, and all +these devices of soldiership, and law, and arithmetic, are but ways +of getting at last down to him, the furrow-driver, and snatching the +roots from him as he digs. + +And they have got him down, now, they think, well, for a while, poor +William, after his fit of fury and petroleum: and can make their +money out of him for years to come, in the old ways. + +Did you chance, my friends, any of you, to see, the other day, +the 83rd number of the Graphic, with the picture of the Queen's +concert in it? All the fine ladies sitting so trimly, and looking +so sweet, and doing the whole duty of woman--wearing their fine +clothes gracefully; and the pretty singer, white-throated, warbling +"Home, sweet home" to them, so morally, and melodiously! Here was +yet to be our ideal of virtuous life, thought the Graphic! Surely, +we are safe back with our virtues in satin slippers and lace +veils;--and our Kingdom of Heaven is come again, with observation, +and crown diamonds of the dazzlingest. Cherubim and Seraphim in +toilettes de Paris,--(blue-de-ciel--vert d'olivier-de-Noé--mauve de +colombe-fusillée,) dancing to Coote and Tinney's band; and vulgar +Hell reserved for the canaille, as heretofore! Vulgar Hell shall be +didactically pourtrayed, accordingly; (see page 17,)--Wickedness +going its way to its poor Home--bitter-sweet. Ouvrier and +petroleuse--prisoners at last--glaring wild on their way to die. + +Alas! of these divided races, of whom one was appointed to teach and +guide the other, which has indeed sinned deepest--the unteaching, +or the untaught?--which now are guiltiest--these, who perish, or +those--who forget? + +Ouvrier and petroleuse; they are gone their way--to their death. But +for these, the Virgin of France shall yet unfold the oriflamme above +their graves, and lay her blanches lilies on their smirched dust. Yes, +and for these, great Charles shall rouse his Roland, and bid him +put ghostly trump to lip, and breathe a point of war; and the helmed +Pucelle shall answer with a wood-note of Domrémy;--yes, and for these +the Louis they mocked, like his master, shall raise his holy hands, +and pray God's peace. + +"Not as the world giveth." Everlasting shame only, and unrest, are the +world's gifts. These Swine of the five per cent. shall share them duly. + + + La sconoscente vita, che i fe' sozzi + Ad ogni conoscenza or li fa bruni. [24] + + Che tutto l'oro, ch'e sotto la luna, + E che già fù, di queste anime stanche + Non poterebbe farne posar una. [25] + + +"Ad ogni conoscenza bruni:" Dark to all recognition! So they would have +it indeed, true of instinct. "Ce serait l'inquisition," screamed the +Senate of France, threatened with income-tax and inquiry into their +ways and means. Well,--what better thing could it be? Had they not +been blind long enough, under their mole-hillocks, that they should +shriek at the first spark of "Inquisition"? A few things might be +"inquired," one should think, and answered, among honest men, now, to +advantage, and openly? "Ah no--for God's sake," shrieks the Senate, +"no Inquisition. If ever anybody should come to know how we live, +we were disgraced for ever, honest gentlemen that we are." + +Now, my friends, the first condition of all bravery is to keep out +of this loathsomeness. If you do live by rapine, stand up like a man +for the old law of bow and spear; but don't fall whimpering down on +your belly, like Autolycus, "grovelling on the ground," when another +human creature asks you how you get your daily bread, with an "Oh, +that ever I was born,--here is inquisition come on me!" + +The Inquisition must come. Into men's consciences, no; not now: there +is little worth looking into there. But into their pockets--yes; +a most practicable and beneficial inquisition, to be made thoroughly +and purgatorially, once for all, and rendered unnecessary hereafter, +by furnishing the relieved marsupialia with--glass pockets, for +the future. + +You know, at least, that we, in our own society, are to have glass +pockets, as we are all to give the tenth of what we have, to buy +land with, so that we must every one know each other's property to a +farthing. And this month I begin making up my own accounts for you, +as I said I would: I could not, sooner, though I set matters in train +as soon as my first letter was out, and effected (as I supposed!), +in February, a sale of 14,000l. worth of houses, at the West End, +to Messrs. ---- and ----, of ---- Row. + +But from then till now, I've been trying to get that piece of business +settled, and until yesterday, 19th July, I have not been able. + +For, first there was a mistake made by my lawyer in the list of +the houses: No. 7 ought to have been No. 1. It was a sheer piece of +stupidity, and ought to have been corrected by a dash of the pen; +but all sorts of deeds had to be made out again, merely that they +might be paid for; and it took about three months to change 7 into 1. + +At last all was declared smooth again, and I thought I should get my +money; but Messrs. ---- never stirred. My people kept sending them +letters, saying I really did want the money, though they mightn't +think it. Whether they thought it or not, they took no notice of any +such informal communications. I thought they were going to back out +of their bargain; but my man of business at last got their guarantee +for its completion. + +"If they've guaranteed the payment, why don't they pay?" thought +I; but still I couldn't get any money. At last I found the lawyers +on both sides were quarrelling over the stamp-duties! Nobody knew, +of the whole pack of them, whether this stamp or that was the right +one! and my lawyers wouldn't give an eighty-pound stamp, and theirs +wouldn't be content with a twenty-pound one. + +Now, you know, all this stamp business itself is merely Mr. Gladstone's +[26] way of coming in for his share of the booty. I can't be allowed +to sell my houses in peace, but Mr. Gladstone must have his three +hundred pounds out of me, to feed his Woolwich infant with, and fire +it off "with the most satisfactory result," "nothing damaged but +the platform." + +I am content, if only he would come and say what he wants, and take it, +and get out of my sight. But not to know what he does want! and to +keep me from getting my money at all, while his lawyers are asking +which is the right stamp? I think he had better be clear on that +point next time. + +But here, at last, are six months come and gone, and the stamp question +is--not settled, indeed, but I've undertaken to keep my man of business +free of harm, if the stamps won't do; and so at last he says I'm to +have my money; and I really believe, by the time this letter is out, +Messrs. ---- will have paid me my 14,000l. + +Now you know I promised you the tenth of all I had, when free +from incumbrances already existing on it. This first instalment +of 14,000l. is not all clear, for I want part of it to found a +Mastership of Drawing under the Art Professorship at Oxford; which I +can't do rightly for less than 5,000l. But I'll count the sum left as +10,000l. instead of 9,000l., and that will be clear for our society, +and so, you shall have a thousand pounds down, as the tenth of that, +which will quit me, observe, of my pledge thus far. + +A thousand down, I say; but down where? Where can I put it to be +safe for us? You will find presently, as others come in to help us, +and we get something worth taking care of, that it becomes a very +curious question indeed, where we can put our money to be safe! + +In the meantime, I've told my man of business to buy 1,000l. consols +in the names of two men of honour; the names cannot yet be +certain. What remains of the round thousand shall be kept to add +to next instalment. And thus begins the fund, which I think we may +advisably call the "St. George's" fund. And although the interest on +consols is, as I told you before, only the taxation on the British +peasant continued since the Napoleon wars, still this little portion +of his labour, the interest on our St. George's fund, will at last +be saved for him, and brought back to him. + + + +And now, if you will read over once again the end of my fifth letter, +I will tell you a little more of what we are to do with this money, +as it increases. + +First, let whoever gives us any, be clear in their minds that it is +a Gift. It is not an Investment. It is a frank and simple gift to +the British people: nothing of it is to come back to the giver. + +But also, nothing of it is to be lost. The money is not to be spent in +feeding Woolwich infants with gunpowder. It is to be spent in dressing +the earth and keeping it,--in feeding human lips,--in clothing human +bodies,--in kindling human souls. + +First of all, I say, in dressing the earth. As soon as the fund +reaches any sufficient amount, the Trustees shall buy with it any +kind of land offered them at just price in Britain. Rock, moor, +marsh, or sea-shore--it matters not what, so it be British ground, +and secured to us. + +Then, we will ascertain the absolute best that can be made of every +acre. We will first examine what flowers and herbs it naturally +bears; every wholesome flower that it will grow shall be sown in +its wild places, and every kind of fruit-tree that can prosper; +and arable and pasture land extended by every expedient of tillage, +with humble and simple cottage dwellings under faultless sanitary +regulation. Whatever piece of land we begin to work upon, we shall +treat thoroughly at once, putting unlimited manual labour on it, until +we have every foot of it under as strict care as a flower-garden: +and the labourers shall be paid sufficient, unchanging wages; and +their children educated compulsorily in agricultural schools inland, +and naval schools by the sea, the indispensable first condition of +such education being that the boys learn either to ride or to sail; +the girls to spin, weave, and sew, and at a proper age to cook all +ordinary food exquisitely; the youth of both sexes to be disciplined +daily in the strictest practice of vocal music; and for morality, +to be taught gentleness to all brute creatures,--finished courtesy +to each other,--to speak truth with rigid care, and to obey orders +with the precision of slaves. Then, as they get older, they are to +learn the natural history of the place they live in,--to know Latin, +boys and girls both,--and the history of five cities: Athens, Rome, +Venice, Florence, and London. + +Now, as I told you in my fifth letter, to what extent I may be able to +carry this plan into execution, I know not; but to some visible extent, +with my own single hand, I can and will, if I live. Nor do I doubt +but that I shall find help enough, as soon as the full action of the +system is seen, and ever so little a space of rightly cultivated ground +in perfect beauty, with inhabitants in peace of heart, of whom none + + + Doluit miserans inopem, aut invidit habenti. + + +Such a life we have lately been taught by vile persons to think +impossible; so far from being impossible, it has been the actual life +of all glorious human states in their origin. + + + Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini; + Hanc Remus et frater; sic fortis Etruria crevit; + Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma. + + +But, had it never been endeavoured until now, we might yet learn to +hope for its unimagined good by considering what it has been possible +for us to reach of unimagined evil. Utopia and its benediction are +probable and simple things, compared to the Kakotopia and its curse, +which we had seen actually fulfilled. We have seen the city of Paris +(what miracle can be thought of beyond this?) with her own forts +raining ruin on her palaces, and her young children casting fire +into the streets in which they had been born, but we have not faith +enough in heaven to imagine the reverse of this, or the building +of any city whose streets shall be full of innocent boys and girls +playing in the midst thereof. + +My friends, you have trusted, in your time, too many idle words. Read +now these following, not idle ones; and remember them; and trust them, +for they are true:-- + +"Oh, thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, +I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations +with sapphires. + +"And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall +be the peace of thy children. + +"In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from +oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall +not come near thee.... + +"Whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy +sake.... + +"No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue +that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is +the heritage of the servants of the Lord; and their righteousness is +of me, saith the Lord." + +Remember only that in this now antiquated translation, "righteousness" +means, accurately and simply, "justice," and is the eternal law of +right, obeyed alike in the great times of each state, by Jew, Greek, +and Roman. In my next letter, we will examine into the nature of this +justice, and of its relation to Governments that deserve the name. + + +And so believe me +Faithfully yours, + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER IX. + + + Denmark Hill, + 1st September, 1871. + +My Friends, + + +As the design which I had in view when I began these letters (and +many a year before, in the germ and first outlines of it) is now +fairly afoot, and in slow, but determined, beginning of realization, +I will endeavour in this and the next following letter to set its +main features completely before you; though, remember, the design +would certainly be a shallow and vain one, if its bearings could be +either shortly explained, or quickly understood. I have much in my own +hope, which I know you are as yet incapable of hoping, but which your +enemies are dexterous in discouraging, and eager to discourage. Have +you noticed how curiously and earnestly the greater number of public +journals that have yet quoted these papers, allege, for their part, +nothing but the difficulties in our way; and that with as much contempt +as they can venture to express? No editor could say to your face that +the endeavour to give you fresh air, wholesome employment, and high +education, was reprehensible or dangerous. The worst he can venture +to say is, that it is ridiculous,--which you observe is, by most, +declared as wittily as they may. + +Some must, indeed, candidly think, as well as say so. Education of +any noble kind has of late been so constantly given only to the idle +classes, or, at least, to those who conceive it a privilege to be idle, +[27] that it is difficult for any person, trained in modern habits +of thought, to imagine a true and refined scholarship, of which the +essential foundation is to be skill in some useful labour. Time and +trial will show which of the two conceptions of education is indeed +the ridiculous one--and have shown, many and many a day before this, +if any one would look at the showing. Such trial, however, I mean anew +to make, with what life is left to me, and help given to me: and the +manner of it is to be this, that, few or many, as our company may be, +we will secure for the people of Britain as wide spaces of British +ground as we can; and on such spaces of freehold land we will cause +to be trained as many British children as we can, in healthy, brave, +and kindly life, to every one of whom there shall be done true justice, +and dealt fair opportunity of "advancement," or what else may, indeed, +be good for them. + +"True justice!" I might more shortly have written "justice," only you +are all now so much in the way of asking for what you think "rights," +which, if you could get them, would turn out to be the deadliest +wrongs;--and you suffer so much from an external mechanism of justice, +which for centuries back has abetted, or, at best, resulted in, every +conceivable manner of injustice--that I am compelled to say "True +justice," to distinguish it from that which is commonly imagined by the +populace, or attainable under the existing laws, of civilized nations. + +This true justice--(not to spend time, which I am apt to be too fond +of doing, in verbal definition), consists mainly in the granting to +every human being due aid in the development of such faculties as +it possesses for action and enjoyment; primarily, for useful action, +because all enjoyment worth having (nay, all enjoyment not harmful) +must in some way arise out of that, either in happy energy, or rightly +complacent and exulting rest. + +"Due" aid, you see, I have written. Not "equal" aid. One of the +first statements I made to you respecting this domain of ours was +"there shall be no equality in it." In education especially, true +justice is curiously unequal--if you choose to give it a hard name, +iniquitous. The right law of it is that you are to take most pains +with the best material. Many conscientious masters will plead for the +exactly contrary iniquity, and say you should take the most pains +with the dullest boys. But that is not so (only you must be very +careful that you know which are the dull boys; for the cleverest look +often very like them). Never waste pains on bad ground; let it remain +rough, though properly looked after and cared for; it will be of best +service so; but spare no labour on the good, or on what has in it +the capacity of good. The tendency of modern help and care is quite +morbidly and madly in reverse of this great principle. Benevolent +persons are always, by preference, busy on the essentially bad; and +exhaust themselves in efforts to get maximum intellect from cretins, +and maximum virtue from criminals. Meantime, they take no care to +ascertain (and for the most part when ascertained, obstinately refuse +to remove) the continuous sources of cretinism and crime, and suffer +the most splendid material in child-nature to wander neglected about +the streets, until it has become rotten to the degree in which they +feel prompted to take an interest in it. Now I have not the slightest +intention--understand this, I beg of you, very clearly--of setting +myself to mend or reform people; when they are once out of form they +may stay so, for me. [28] But of what unspoiled stuff I can find to my +hand I will cut the best shapes there is room for; shapes unalterable, +if it may be, for ever. + +"The best shapes there is room for," since, according to the conditions +around them, men's natures must expand or remain contracted; and, yet +more distinctly, let me say, "the best shapes that there is substance +for," seeing that we must accept contentedly infinite difference in +the original nature and capacity, even at their purest; which it +is the first condition of right education to make manifest to all +persons--most of all to the persons chiefly concerned. That other +men should know their measure, is, indeed, desirable; but that they +should know it themselves, is wholly necessary. + +"By competitive examination of course?" Sternly, no! but under +absolute prohibition of all violent and strained effort--most of +all envious or anxious effort--in every exercise of body and mind; +and by enforcing on every scholar's heart, from the first to the last +stage of his instruction, the irrevocable ordinance of the third Fors +Clavigera, that his mental rank among men is fixed from the hour +he was born,--that by no temporary or violent effort can he train, +though he may seriously injure the faculties he has; that by no manner +of effort can he increase them; and that his best happiness is to +consist in the admiration of powers by him for ever unattainable, +and of arts, and deeds, by him ever inimitable. + +Some ten or twelve years ago, when I was first actively engaged in +Art teaching, a young Scottish student came up to London to put +himself under me, having taken many prizes (justly, with respect +to the qualities looked for by the judges) in various schools of +Art. He worked under me very earnestly and patiently for some time; +and I was able to praise his doings in what I thought very high terms: +nevertheless, there remained always a look of mortification on his +face, after he had been praised, however unqualifiedly. At last, he +could hold no longer, but one day, when I had been more than usually +complimentary, turned to me with an anxious, yet not unconfident +expression, and asked: "Do you think, sir, that I shall ever draw as +well as Turner?" + +I paused for a second or two, being much taken aback; and then +answered, [29] "It is far more likely you should be made Emperor of +All the Russias. There is a new Emperor every fifteen or twenty years, +on the average; and by strange hap, and fortunate cabal, anybody might +be made Emperor. But there is only one Turner in five hundred years, +and God decides, without any admission of auxiliary cabal, what piece +of clay His soul is to be put in." + +It was the first time that I had been brought into direct +collision with the modern system of prize-giving and competition; +and the mischief of it was, in the sequel, clearly shown to me, +and tragically. This youth had the finest powers of mechanical +execution I have ever met with, but was quite incapable of invention, +or strong intellectual effort of any kind. Had he been taught early +and thoroughly to know his place, and be content with his faculty, he +would have been one of the happiest and most serviceable of men. But, +at the Art schools, he got prize after prize for his neat handling; +and having, in his restricted imagination, no power of discerning the +qualities of great work, all the vanity of his nature was brought out +unchecked; so that, being intensely industrious and conscientious, +as well as vain, (it is a Scottish combination of character not +unfrequent, [30]) he naturally expected to become one of the greatest +of men. My answer not only mortified, but angered him, and made him +suspicious of me; he thought I wanted to keep his talents from being +fairly displayed, and soon afterwards asked leave (he was then in my +employment as well as under my teaching) to put himself under another +master. I gave him leave at once, telling him, "if he found the other +master no better to his mind, he might come back to me whenever he +chose." The other master giving him no more hope of advancement than +I did, he came back to me; I sent him into Switzerland, to draw Swiss +architecture; but instead of doing what I bid him, quietly, and nothing +else, he set himself, with furious industry, to draw snowy mountains +and clouds, that he might show me he could draw like Albert Durer, +or Turner;--spent his strength in agony of vain effort;--caught cold, +fell into decline, and died. How many actual deaths are now annually +caused by the strain and anxiety of competitive examination, it would +startle us all if we could know: but the mischief done to the best +faculties of the brain in all cases, and the miserable confusion and +absurdity involved in the system itself, which offers every place, +not to the man who is indeed fitted for it, but to the one who, +on a given day, chances to have bodily strength enough to stand the +cruellest strain, are evils infinite in their consequences, and more +lamentable than many deaths. + +This, then, shall be the first condition of what education it may +become possible for us to give, that the strength of the youths shall +never be strained; and that their best powers shall be developed in +each, without competition, though they shall have to pass crucial, +but not severe, examinations, attesting clearly to themselves and to +other people, not the utmost they can do, but that at least they can +do some things accurately and well: their own certainty of this being +accompanied with the quite as clear and much happier certainty, that +there are many other things which they will never be able to do at all. + +"The happier certainty?" Yes. A man's happiness consists infinitely +more in admiration of the faculties of others than in confidence in +his own. That reverent admiration is the perfect human gift in him; +all lower animals are happy and noble in the degree they can share +it. A dog reverences you, a fly does not; the capacity of partly +understanding a creature above him, is the dog's nobility. Increase +such reverence in human beings, and you increase daily their happiness, +peace, and dignity; take it away, and you make them wretched as well +as vile. But for fifty years back modern education has devoted itself +simply to the teaching of impudence; and then we complain that we +can no more manage our mobs! "Look at Mr. Robert Stephenson," (we +tell a boy,) "and at Mr. James Watt, and Mr. William Shakspeare! You +know you are every bit as good as they; you have only to work in the +same way, and you will infallibly arrive at the same eminence." Most +boys believe the "you are every bit as good as they," without any +painful experiment: but the better-minded ones really take the +advised measures; and as, at the end of all things, there can be +but one Mr. James Watt or Mr. William Shakspeare, the rest of the +candidates for distinction, finding themselves, after all their work, +still indistinct, think it must be the fault of the police, and are +riotous accordingly. + +To some extent it is the fault of the police, truly enough, +considering as the police of Europe, or teachers of politeness +and civic manners, its higher classes,--higher either by race or +faculty. Police they are, or else are nothing: bound to keep order, +both by clear teaching of the duty and delight of Respect, and, much +more, by being themselves--Respectable; whether as priests, or kings, +or lords, or generals, or admirals;--if they will only take care to +be verily that, the Respect will be forthcoming, with little pains: +nay, even Obedience, inconceivable to modern free souls as it may +be, we shall get again, as soon as there is anybody worth obeying, +and who can keep us out of shoal water. + +Not but that those two admirals and their captains have been sorely, +though needfully, dealt with. It was, doubtless, not a scene of the +brightest in our naval history--that Agincourt, entomologically, +as it were, pinned to her wrong place, off Gibraltar; but in truth, +it was less the captain's fault, than the ironmonger's. You need not +think you can ever have seamen in iron ships; it is not in flesh and +blood to be vigilant when vigilance is so slightly necessary: the +best seaman born will lose his qualities, when he knows he can steam +against wind and tide, [31] and has to handle ships so large that the +care of them is necessarily divided among many persons. If you want +sea-captains indeed, like Sir Richard Grenville or Lord Dundonald, +you must give them small ships, and wooden ones,--nothing but oak, +pine, and hemp to trust to, above or below,--and those, trustworthy. + +You little know how much is implied in the two conditions of boys' +education that I gave you in my last letter,--that they shall all +learn either to ride or sail; nor by what constancy of law the power +of highest discipline and honour is vested by Nature in the two +chivalries--of the Horse and the Wave. Both are significative of the +right command of man over his own passions; but they teach, farther, +the strange mystery of relation that exists between his soul and the +wild natural elements on the one hand, and the wild lower animals +on the other. The sea-riding gave their chief strength of temper +to the Athenian, Norman, Pisan, and Venetian,--masters of the arts +of the world: but the gentleness of chivalry, properly so called, +depends on the recognition of the order and awe of lower and loftier +animal-life, first clearly taught in the myth of Chiron, and in his +bringing up of Jason, Æsculapius, and Achilles, but most perfectly by +Homer in the fable of the horses of Achilles, and the part assigned +to them, in relation to the death of his friend, and in prophecy of +his own. There is, perhaps, in all the 'Iliad' nothing more deep +in significance--there is nothing in all literature more perfect +in human tenderness, and honour for the mystery of inferior life, +[32] than the verses that describe the sorrow of the divine horses +at the death of Patroclus, and the comfort given them by the greatest +of the gods. You shall read Pope's translation; it does not give you +the manner of the original, but it entirely gives you the passion:-- + + + Meantime, at distance from the scene of blood, + The pensive steeds of great Achilles stood; + Their godlike master slain before their eyes + They wept, and shared in human miseries. + In vain Automedon now shakes the rein, + Now plies the lash, and soothes and threats in vain; + Nor to the fight nor Hellespont they go, + Restive they stood, and obstinate in woe; + Still as a tombstone, never to be moved, + On some good man or woman unreproved + Lays its eternal weight; or fix'd as stands + A marble courser by the sculptor's hands, + Placed on the hero's grave. Along their face, + The big round drops coursed down with silent pace, + Conglobing on the dust. Their manes, that late + Circled their arched necks, and waved in state, + Trail'd on the dust, beneath the yoke were spread, + And prone to earth was hung their languid head: + Nor Jove disdain'd to cast a pitying look, + While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke: + + "Unhappy coursers of immortal strain! + Exempt from age, and deathless now in vain! + Did we your race on mortal man bestow, + Only, alas! to share in mortal woe? + For ah! what is there, of inferior birth, + That breathes or creeps upon the dust of earth; + What wretched creature of what wretched kind, + Than man more weak, calamitous and blind? + A miserable race! But cease to mourn! + For not by you shall Priam's son be borne + High on the splendid car; one glorious prize + He rashly boasts; the rest our will denies. + Ourself will swiftness to your nerves impart, + Ourself with rising spirits swell your heart. + Automedon your rapid flight shall bear + Safe to the navy through the storm of war...." + + He said; and, breathing in th' immortal horse + Excessive spirit, urged them to the course; + From their high manes they shake the dust, and bear + The kindling chariot through the parted war. + + +Is not that a prettier notion of horses than you will get from your +betting English chivalry on the Derby day? [33] We will have, please +heaven, some riding, not as jockeys ride, and some sailing, not as +pots and kettles sail, once more on English land and sea; and out +of both, kindled yet again, the chivalry of heart of the Knight of +Athens, and Eques of Rome, and Ritter of Germany, and Chevalier of +France, and Cavalier of England--chivalry gentle always and lowly, +among those who deserved their name of knight; showing mercy to whom +mercy was due, and honour to whom honour. + +It exists yet, and out of La Mancha, too (or none of us could exist), +whatever you may think in these days of ungentleness and Dishonour. It +exists secretly, to the full, among you yourselves, and the recovery of +it again would be to you as the opening of a well in the desert. You +remember what I told you were the three spiritual treasures of your +life--Admiration, Hope, and Love. Admiration is the Faculty of giving +Honour. It is the best word we have for the various feelings of wonder, +reverence, awe, and humility, which are needful for all lovely work, +and which constitute the habitual temper of all noble and clear-sighted +persons, as opposed to the "impudence" of base and blind ones. The +Latins called this great virtue "pudor," of which our "impudence" +is the negative; the Greeks had a better word, "aidôs;" too wide +in the bearings of it for me to explain to you to-day, even if it +could be explained before you recovered the feeling;--which, after +being taught for fifty years that impudence is the chief duty of man, +and that living in coal-holes and ash-heaps is his proudest existence, +and that the methods of generation of vermin are his loftiest subject +of science,--it will not be easy for you to do; but your children may, +and you will see that it is good for them. In the history of the five +cities I named, they shall learn, so far as they can understand, what +has been beautifully and bravely done; and they shall know the lives of +the heroes and heroines in truth and naturalness; and shall be taught +to remember the greatest of them on the days of their birth and death; +so that the year shall have its full calendar of reverent Memory. And +on every day, part of their morning service shall be a song in honour +of the hero whose birthday it is: and part of their evening service, +a song of triumph for the fair death of one whose death-day it is: +and in their first learning of notes they shall be taught the great +purpose of music, which is to say a thing that you mean deeply, in the +strongest and clearest possible way; and they shall never be taught +to sing what they don't mean. They shall be able to sing merrily when +they are happy, and earnestly when they are sad; but they shall find +no mirth in mockery, nor in obscenity; neither shall they waste and +profane their hearts with artificial and lascivious sorrow. + +Regulations which will bring about some curious changes in +piano-playing, and several other things. + +"Which will bring." They are bold words, considering how many schemes +have failed disastrously, (as your able editors gladly point out,) +which seemed much more plausible than this. But, as far as I know +history, good designs have not failed except when they were too +narrow in their final aim, and too obstinately and eagerly pushed +in the beginning of them. Prosperous Fortune only grants an almost +invisible slowness of success, and demands invincible patience in +pursuing it. Many good men have failed in haste; more in egotism, and +desire to keep everything in their own hands; and some by mistaking +the signs of their times; but others, and those generally the boldest +in imagination, have not failed; and their successors, true knights +or monks, have bettered the fate and raised the thoughts of men for +centuries; nay, for decades of centuries. And there is assuredly +nothing in this purpose I lay before you, so far as it reaches +hitherto, which will require either knightly courage or monkish +enthusiasm to carry out. To divert a little of the large current +of English charity and justice from watching disease to guarding +health, and from the punishment of crime to the reward of virtue; +to establish, here and there, exercise grounds instead of hospitals, +and training schools instead of penitentiaries, is not, if you will +slowly take it to heart, a frantic imagination. What farther hope I +have of getting some honest men to serve, each in his safe and useful +trade, faithfully, as a good soldier serves in his dangerous, and too +often very wide of useful one, may seem, for the moment, vain enough; +for indeed, in the last sermon I heard out of an English pulpit, the +clergyman said it was now acknowledged to be impossible for any honest +man to live by trade in England. From which the conclusion he drew was, +not that the manner of trade in England should be amended, but that +his hearers should be thankful they were going to heaven. It never +seemed to occur to him that perhaps it might be only through amendment +of their ways in trade that some of them could ever get there. + +Such madness, therefore, as may be implied in this ultimate hope of +seeing some honest work and traffic done in faithful fellowship, I +confess to you: but what, for my own part, I am about to endeavour, +is certainly within my power, if my life and health last a few years +more, and the compass of it is soon definable. First,--as I told you +at the beginning of these Letters,--I must do my own proper work as +well as I can--nothing else must come in the way of that; and for some +time to come, it will be heavy, because, after carefully considering +the operation of the Kensington system of Art-teaching throughout the +country, and watching for two years its effect on various classes of +students at Oxford, I became finally convinced that it fell short of +its objects in more than one vital particular: and I have, therefore, +obtained permission to found a separate Mastership of Drawing in +connection with the Art Professorship at Oxford; and elementary +schools will be opened in the University galleries, next October, in +which the methods of teaching will be calculated to meet requirements +which have not been contemplated in the Kensington system. But how far +what these, not new, but very ancient, disciplines teach, may be by +modern students, either required or endured, remains to be seen. The +organization of the system of teaching, and preparation of examples, +in this school, is, however, at present my chief work,--no light +one,--and everything else must be subordinate to it. + +But in my first series of lectures at Oxford, I stated (and cannot +too often or too firmly state) that no great arts were practicable +by any people, unless they were living contented lives, in pure air, +out of the way of unsightly objects, and emancipated from unnecessary +mechanical occupation. It is simply one part of the practical work I +have to do in Art-teaching, to bring, somewhere, such conditions into +existence, and to show the working of them. I know also assuredly +that the conditions necessary for the Arts of men, are the best for +their souls and bodies; and knowing this, I do not doubt but that it +may be with due pains, to some material extent, convincingly shown; +and I am now ready to receive help, little or much, from any one who +cares to forward the showing of it. + +Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, and the Right Hon. William Cowper-Temple, +have consented to be the Trustees of the fund; it being distinctly +understood that in that office they accept no responsibility for the +conduct of the scheme, and refrain from expressing any opinion of +its principles. They simply undertake the charge of the money and +land given to the St. George's fund; certify to the public that it +is spent, or treated, for the purposes of that fund, in the manner +stated in my accounts of it; and, in the event of my death, hold it +for such fulfilment of its purposes as they may then find possible. + +But it is evidently necessary for the right working of the scheme that +the Trustees should not, except only in that office, be at present +concerned with or involved in it; and that no ambiguous responsibility +should fall on them. I know too much of the manner of law to hope +that I can get the arrangement put into proper form before the end +of the year; but, I hope, at latest, on the eve of Christmas Day +(the day I named first) to publish the December number of Fors with +the legal terms all clear: until then, whatever sums or land I may +receive will be simply paid to the Trustees, or secured in their name, +for the St. George's Fund; what I may attempt afterwards will be, in +any case, scarcely noticeable for some time; for I shall only work with +the interest of the fund; [34] and as I have strength and leisure:--I +have little enough of the one; and am like to have little of the +other, for years to come, if these drawing-schools become useful, +as I hope. But what I may do myself is of small consequence. Long +before it can come to any convincing result, I believe some of the +gentlemen of England will have taken up the matter, and seen that, +for their own sake, no less than the country's, they must now live +on their estates, not in shooting-time only, but all the year; and +be themselves farmers, or "shepherd lords," and make the field gain +on the street, not the street on the field; and bid the light break +into the smoke-clouds, and bear in their hands, up to those loathsome +city walls, the gifts of Giotto's Charity, corn and flowers. + +It is time, too, I think. Did you notice the lovely instances of +chivalry, modesty, and musical taste recorded in those letters in +the 'Times,' giving description of the "civilizing" influence of our +progressive age on the rural district of Margate? + +They are of some documentary value, and worth preserving, for several +reasons. Here they are:-- + + +I.--A TRIP TO MARGATE. + + + To the Editor of the Times. + + + Sir,--On Monday last I had the misfortune of taking a trip + per steamer to Margate. The sea was rough, the ship crowded, + and therefore most of the Cockney excursionists prostrate + with sea-sickness. On landing on Margate pier I must confess I + thought that, instead of landing in an English seaport, I had + been transported by magic to a land inhabited by savages and + lunatics. The scene that ensued when the unhappy passengers had + to pass between the double line of a Margate mob on the pier must + be seen to be believed possible in a civilized country. Shouts, + yells, howls of delight greeted every pale-looking passenger, as + he or she got on the pier, accompanied by a running comment of + the lowest, foulest language imaginable. But the most insulted + victims were a young lady, who having had a fit of hysterics on + board, had to be assisted up the steps, and a venerable-looking + old gentleman with a long grey beard, who, by-the-by, was not sick + at all, but being crippled and very old, feebly tottered up the + slippery steps leaning on two sticks. "Here's a guy!" "Hallo! you + old thief, you won't get drowned, because you know that you are + to be hung," etc., and worse than that, were the greetings of + that poor old man. All this while a very much silver-bestriped + policeman stood calmly by, without interfering by word or deed; + and myself, having several ladies to take care of, could do nothing + except telling the ruffianly mob some hard words, with, of course, + no other effect than to draw all the abuse on myself. This is not + an exceptional exhibition of Margate ruffianism, but, as I have + been told, is of daily occurrence, only varying in intensity with + the roughness of the sea. + + Public exposure is the only likely thing to put a stop to such + ruffianism; and now it is no longer a wonder to me why so many + people are ashamed of confessing that they have been to Margate. + + + I remain, Sir, yours obediently, + + C. L. S. + + London, August 16. + + +II.--MARGATE. + + + To the Editor of the Times. + + + Sir,--From personal experience obtained from an enforced + residence at Margate, I can confirm all that your correspondent + "C. L. S." states of the behaviour of the mob on the jetty; and + in addition I will venture to say that in no town in England, + or, so far as my experience goes, on the Continent, can such + utterly indecent exhibitions be daily witnessed as at Margate + during bathing hours. Nothing can be more revolting to persons + having the least feelings of modesty than the promiscuous mixing + of the bathers; nude men dancing, swimming, or floating with women + not quite nude, certainly, but with scant clothing. The machines + for males and females are not kept apart, and the latter do not + apparently care to keep within the awnings. The authorities post + notices as to "indecent bathing," but that appears to be all they + think they ought to do. + + + I am, Sir, yours obediently, + + B. + + + + To the Editor of the Times. + + + Sir,--The account of the scenes which occur at the landing of + passengers at the Margate jetty, given by your correspondent + to-day, is by no means overcharged. But that is nothing. The + rulers of the place seem bent on doing their utmost to keep + respectable people away, or, doubtless, long before this the + class of visitors would have greatly improved. The sea-fronts + of the town, which in the summer would be otherwise enjoyable, + are abandoned to the noisy rule of the lowest kinds of itinerant + mountebanks, organ-grinders, and niggers; and from early morn + till long after nightfall the place is one hopeless, hideous + din. There is yet another grievance. The whole of the drainage is + discharged upon the rocks to the east of the harbour, considerably + above low-water mark; and to the west, where much building is + contemplated, drains have already been laid into the sea, and, + when these new houses are built and inhabited, bathing at Margate, + now its greatest attraction, must cease for ever. + + + Yours obediently, + + Pharos. + + Margate, August 18. + + +I have printed these letters for several reasons. In the first place, +read after them this account of the town of Margate, given in the +'Encyclopædia Britannica,' in 1797: "Margate, a seaport town of Kent, +on the north side of the Isle of Thanet, near the North Foreland. It +is noted for shipping vast quantities of corn (most, if not all, +the product of that island) for London, and has a salt-water bath +at the Post-house, which has performed great cures in nervous and +paralytic cases." + +Now this Isle of Thanet, please to observe, which is an elevated (200 +to 400 feet) mass of chalk, separated from the rest of Kent by little +rivers and marshy lands, ought to be respected by you (as Englishmen), +because it was the first bit of ground ever possessed in this greater +island by your Saxon ancestors, when they came over, some six or +seven hundred of them only, in three ships, and contented themselves +for a while with no more territory than that white island. Also, +the North Foreland, you ought, I think, to know, is taken for the +terminal point of the two sides of Britain, east and south, in the +first geographical account of our dwelling-place, definitely given +by a learned person. But you ought, beyond all question, to know, +that the cures of the nervous and paralytic cases, attributed seventy +years ago to the "salt-water bath at the Post-house," were much more +probably to be laid to account of the freshest and changefullest +sea-air to be breathed in England, bending the rich corn over that +white dry ground, and giving to sight, above the northern and eastern +sweep of sea, the loveliest skies that can be seen, not in England +only, but perhaps in all the world; able, at least, to challenge the +fairest in Europe, to the far south of Italy. + +So it was said, I doubt not rightly, by the man who of all others knew +best; the once in five hundred years given painter, whose chief work, +as separate from others, was the painting of skies. He knew the colours +of the clouds over the sea, from the Bay of Naples to the Hebrides; +and being once asked where, in Europe, were to be seen the loveliest +skies, answered instantly, "In the Isle of Thanet." Where, therefore, +and in this very town of Margate, he lived, when he chose to be quit +of London, and yet not to travel. + +And I can myself give this much confirmatory evidence of his +saying;--that though I never stay in Thanet, the two loveliest skies I +have myself ever seen (and next to Turner, I suppose few men of fifty +have kept record of so many), were, one at Boulogne, and the other +at Abbeville; that is to say, in precisely the correspondent French +districts of corn-bearing chalk, on the other side of the Channel. + +"And what are pretty skies to us?" perhaps you will ask me: "or what +have they to do with the behaviour of that crowd on Margate Pier?" + +Well, my friends, the final result of the education I want you to +give your children will be, in a few words, this. They will know what +it is to see the sky. They will know what it is to breathe it. And +they will know, best of all, what it is to behave under it, as in +the presence of a Father who is in heaven. + + +Faithfully yours, + +J. RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER X. + + + Denmark Hill, + 7th September, 1871. + +My Friends, + + +For the last two or three days, the papers have been full of articles +on a speech of Lord Derby's, which, it seems, has set the public mind +on considering the land question. My own mind having long ago been both +set, and entirely made up, on that question, I have read neither the +speech nor the articles on it; but my eye being caught this morning, +fortunately, by the words "Doomsday Book" in my 'Daily Telegraph,' +and presently, looking up the column, by "stalwart arms and heroic +souls of free resolute Englishmen," I glanced down the space between, +and found this, to me, remarkable passage: + + +"The upshot is, that, looking at the question from a purely mechanical +point of view, we should seek the beau ideal in a landowner cultivating +huge farms for himself, with abundant machinery and a few well-paid +labourers to manage the mechanism, or delegating the task to the +smallest possible number of tenants with capital. But when we bear in +mind the origin of landlordism, of our national needs, and the real +interests of the great body of English tenantry, we see how advisable +it is to retain intelligent yeomen as part of our means of cultivating +the soil." + + +This is all, then, is it, that your Liberal paper ventures to say +for you? It is advisable to retain a few intelligent yeomen in the +island. I don't mean to find fault with the 'Daily Telegraph': I +think it always means well on the whole, and deals fairly; which is +more than can be said for its highly toned and delicately perfumed +opponent, the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' But I think a "Liberal" paper +might have said more for the "stalwart arms and heroic souls" than +this. I am going myself to say a great deal more for them, though I +am not a Liberal--quite the polar contrary of that. + +You, perhaps, have been provoked, in the course of these letters, by +not being able to make out what I was. It is time you should know, and +I will tell you plainly. I am, and my father was before me, a violent +Tory of the old school; (Walter Scott's school, that is to say, and +Homer's,) I name these two out of the numberless great Tory writers, +because they were my own two masters. I had Walter Scott's novels, +and the Iliad, (Pope's translation), for my only reading when I was a +child, on week-days: on Sundays their effect was tempered by 'Robinson +Crusoe' and the 'Pilgrim's Progress'; my mother having it deeply +in her heart to make an evangelical clergyman of me. Fortunately, +I had an aunt more evangelical than my mother; and my aunt gave +me cold mutton for Sunday's dinner, which--as I much preferred it +hot--greatly diminished the influence of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' +and the end of the matter was, that I got all the noble imaginative +teaching of Defoe and Bunyan, and yet--am not an evangelical clergyman. + +I had, however, still better teaching than theirs, and that +compulsorily, and every day of the week. (Have patience with me in this +egotism; it is necessary for many reasons that you should know what +influences have brought me into the temper in which I write to you.) + +Walter Scott and Pope's Homer were reading of my own election, but my +mother forced me, by steady daily toil, to learn long chapters of the +Bible by heart; as well as to read it every syllable through, aloud, +hard names and all, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, about once a year; +and to that discipline--patient, accurate, and resolute--I owe, not +only a knowledge of the book, which I find occasionally serviceable, +but much of my general power of taking pains, and the best part of +my taste in literature. From Walter Scott's novels I might easily, +as I grew older, have fallen to other people's novels; and Pope might, +perhaps, have led me to take Johnson's English, or Gibbon's, as types +of language; but, once knowing the 32nd of Deuteronomy, the 119th +Psalm, the 15th of 1st Corinthians, the Sermon on the Mount, and most +of the Apocalypse, every syllable by heart, and having always a way +of thinking with myself what words meant, it was not possible for me, +even in the foolishest times of youth, to write entirely superficial +or formal English, and the affectation of trying to write like Hooker +and George Herbert was the most innocent I could have fallen into. + +From my own masters, then, Scott and Homer, I learned the Toryism +which my best after-thought has only served to confirm. + +That is to say a most sincere love of kings, and dislike of everybody +who attempted to disobey them. Only, both by Homer and Scott, I was +taught strange ideas about kings, which I find, for the present, +much obsolete; for, I perceived that both the author of the Iliad +and the author of Waverley made their kings, or king-loving persons, +do harder work than anybody else. Tydides or Idomeneus always killed +twenty Trojans to other people's one, and Redgauntlet speared more +salmon than any of the Solway fishermen, and--which was particularly a +subject of admiration to me,--I observed that they not only did more, +but in proportion to their doings, got less, than other people--nay, +that the best of them were even ready to govern for nothing, and +let their followers divide any quantity of spoil or profit. Of late +it has seemed to me that the idea of a king has become exactly the +contrary of this, and that it has been supposed the duty of superior +persons generally to do less, and to get more than anybody else; +so that it was, perhaps, quite as well that in those early days my +contemplation of existent kingship was a very distant one, and my +childish eyes wholly unacquainted with the splendour of courts. + +The aunt who gave me cold mutton on Sundays was my father's sister: +she lived at Bridge-end, in the town of Perth, and had a garden full +of gooseberry-bushes, sloping down to the Tay, with a door opening +to the water, which ran past it clear-brown over the pebbles three +or four feet deep; an infinite thing for a child to look down into. + +My father began business as a wine-merchant, with no capital, and a +considerable amount of debts bequeathed him by my grandfather. He +accepted the bequest, and paid them all before he began to lay by +anything for himself, for which his best friends called him a fool, +and I, without expressing any opinion as to his wisdom, which I knew in +such matters to be at least equal to mine, have written on the granite +slab over his grave that he was "an entirely honest merchant." As +days went on he was able to take a house in Hunter Street, Brunswick +Square, No. 54 (the windows of it, fortunately for me, commanded a view +of a marvellous iron post, out of which the water-carts were filled +through beautiful little trap-doors, by pipes like boa-constrictors; +and I was never weary of contemplating that mystery, and the delicious +dripping consequent); and as years went on, and I came to be four or +five years old, he could command a postchaise and pair for two months +in the summer, by help of which, with my mother and me, he went the +round of his country customers (who liked to see the principal of the +house his own traveller); so that, at a jog-trot pace, and through +the panoramic opening of the four windows of a postchaise, made more +panoramic still to me because my seat was a little bracket in front, +(for we used to hire the chaise regularly for the two months out of +Long Acre, and so could have it bracketed and pocketed as we liked), +I saw all the highroads, and most of the cross ones, of England and +Wales, and great part of lowland Scotland, as far as Perth, where every +other year we spent the whole summer; and I used to read the 'Abbot' +at Kinross, and the 'Monastery' in Glen Farg, which I confused with +"Glendearg," and thought that the White Lady had as certainly lived +by the streamlet in that glen of the Ochils, as the Queen of Scots +in the island of Loch Leven. + +It happened also, which was the real cause of the bias of my after +life, that my father had a rare love of pictures. I use the word +"rare" advisedly, having never met with another instance of so +innate a faculty for the discernment of true art, up to the point +possible without actual practice. Accordingly, wherever there was +a gallery to be seen, we stopped at the nearest town for the night; +and in reverentest manner I thus saw nearly all the noblemen's houses +in England; not indeed myself at that age caring for the pictures, +but much for castles and ruins, feeling more and more, as I grew +older, the healthy delight of uncovetous admiration, and perceiving, +as soon as I could perceive any political truth at all, that it was +probably much happier to live in a small house, and have Warwick +Castle to be astonished at, than to live in Warwick Castle, and have +nothing to be astonished at; but that, at all events, it would not +make Brunswick Square in the least more pleasantly habitable, to pull +Warwick Castle down. And, at this day, though I have kind invitations +enough to visit America, I could not, even for a couple of months, +live in a country so miserable as to possess no castles. + +Nevertheless, having formed my notion of kinghood chiefly from the +FitzJames of the 'Lady of the Lake,' and of noblesse from the Douglas +there, and the Douglas in 'Marmion,' a painful wonder soon arose in +my child-mind, why the castles should now be always empty. Tantallon +was there; but no Archibald of Angus:--Stirling, but no Knight of +Snowdoun. The galleries and gardens of England were beautiful to +see--but his Lordship and her Ladyship were always in town, said the +housekeepers and gardeners. Deep yearning took hold of me for a kind of +"Restoration," which I began slowly to feel that Charles the Second +had not altogether effected, though I always wore a gilded oak-apple +very reverently in my button-hole on the 29th of May. It seemed to +me that Charles the Second's Restoration had been, as compared with +the Restoration I wanted, much as that gilded oak-apple to a real +apple. And as I grew older, the desire for red pippins instead of +brown ones, and Living Kings instead of dead ones, appeared to me +rational as well as romantic; and gradually it has become the main +purpose of my life to grow pippins, and its chief hope, to see Kings. + +Hope, this last, for others much more than for myself. I can always +behave as if I had a King, whether I have one or not; but it is +otherwise with some unfortunate persons. Nothing has ever impressed +me so much with the power of kingship, and the need of it, as the +declamation of the French Republicans against the Emperor before +his fall. + +He did not, indeed, meet my old Tory notion of a King; and in my own +business of architecture he was doing, I saw, nothing but mischief; +pulling down lovely buildings, and putting up frightful ones carved all +over with L. N.'s: but the intense need of France for a governor of +some kind was made chiefly evident to me by the way the Republicans +confessed themselves paralyzed by him. Nothing could be done in +France, it seemed, because of the Emperor: they could not drive an +honest trade; they could not keep their houses in order; they could +not study the sun and moon; they could not eat a comfortable déjeûner +à la fourchette; they could not sail in the Gulf of Lyons, nor climb +on the Mont d'Or; they could not, in fine, (so they said,) so much as +walk straight, nor speak plain, because of the Emperor. On this side of +the water, moreover, the Republicans were all in the same tale. Their +opinions, it appeared, were not printed to their minds in the Paris +journals, and the world must come to an end therefore. So that, +in fact, here was all the Republican force of France and England, +confessing itself paralyzed, not so much by a real King, as by the +shadow of one. All the harm the extant and visible King did was, +to encourage the dressmakers and stone-masons in Paris,--to pay some +idle people very large salaries,--and to make some, perhaps agreeably +talkative, people, hold their tongues. That, I repeat, was all the harm +he did, or could do; he corrupted nothing but what was voluntarily +corruptible,--crushed nothing but what was essentially not solid: +and it remained open to these Republican gentlemen to do anything +they chose that was useful to France, or honourable to themselves, +between earth and heaven, except only--print violent abuse of this +shortish man, with a long nose, who stood, as they would have it, +between them and heaven. But there they stood, spell-bound; the +one thing suggesting itself to their frantic impotence as feasible, +being to get this one shortish man assassinated. Their children would +not grow, their corn would not ripen, and the stars would not roll, +till they had got this one short man blown into shorter pieces. + +If the shadow of a King can thus hold (how many?) millions of men, +by their own confession, helpless for terror of it, what power must +there be in the substance of one? + +But this mass of republicans--vociferous, terrified, and mischievous, +is the least part, as it is the vilest, of the great European populace +who are lost for want of true kings. It is not these who stand idle, +gibbering at a shadow, whom we have to mourn over;--they would have +been good for little, even governed;--but those who work and do +not gibber,--the quiet peasants in the fields of Europe, sad-browed, +honest-hearted, full of natural tenderness and courtesy, who have none +to help them, and none to teach; who have no kings, except those who +rob them while they live, no tutors, except those who teach them--how +to die. + +I had an impatient remonstrance sent me the other day, by a country +clergyman's wife, against that saying in my former letter, "Dying +has been more expensive to you than living." Did I know, she asked, +what a country clergyman's life was, and that he was the poor man's +only friend? + +Alas, I know it, and too well. What can be said of more deadly and +ghastly blame against the clergy of England, or any other country, +than that they are the poor man's only friends? + +Have they, then, so betrayed their Master's charge and mind, in +their preaching to the rich;--so smoothed their words, and so sold +their authority,--that, after twelve hundred years entrusting of the +gospel to them, there is no man in England (this is their chief plea +for themselves forsooth) who will have mercy on the poor, but they; +and so they must leave the word of God, and serve tables? + +I would not myself have said so much against English clergymen, whether +of country or town. Three--and one dead makes four--of my dear friends +(and I have not many dear friends) are country clergymen; and I know +the ways of every sort of them; my architectural tastes necessarily +bringing me into near relations with the sort who like pointed arches +and painted glass; and my old religious breeding having given me +an unconquerable habit of taking up with any travelling tinker of +evangelical principles I may come across; and even of reading, not +without awe, the prophetic warnings of any persons belonging to that +peculiarly well-informed "persuasion," such, for instance, as those +of Mr. Zion Ward "concerning the fall of Lucifer, in a letter to a +friend, Mr. William Dick, of Glasgow, price twopence," in which I +read (as aforesaid, with unfeigned feelings of concern,) that "the +slain of the Lord shall be MAN-Y; that is, man, in whom death is, +with all the works of carnality, shall be burnt up!" + +But I was not thinking either of English clergy, or of any other group +of clergy, specially, when I wrote that sentence; but of the entire +Clerkly or Learned Company, from the first priest of Egypt to the +last ordained Belgravian curate, and of all the talk they have talked, +and all the quarrelling they have caused, and all the gold they have +had given them, to this day, when still "they are the poor man's +only friends"--and by no means all of them that, heartily! though I +see the Bishop of Manchester has, of late, been superintending--I +beg his pardon, Bishops don't superintend--looking on, or over, I +should have said--the recreations of his flock at the seaside; and +"the thought struck him" that railroads were an advantage to them +in taking them for their holiday out of Manchester. The thought may, +perhaps, strike him, next, that a working man ought to be able to find +"holy days" in his home, as well as out of it. [35] + +A year or two ago, a man who had at the time, and has still, important +official authority over much of the business of the country, was +speaking anxiously to me of the misery increasing in the suburbs +and back streets of London, and debating, with the good help of the +Oxford Regius Professor of Medicine--who was second in council--what +sanitary or moral remedy could be found. The debate languished, +however, because of the strong conviction in the minds of all three +of us that the misery was inevitable in the suburbs of so vast a +city. At last, either the minister or physician, I forget which, +expressed the conviction. "Well," I answered, "then you must not +have large cities." "That," answered the minister, "is an unpractical +saying--you know we must have them, under existing circumstances." + +I made no reply, feeling that it was vain to assure any man actively +concerned in modern parliamentary business, that no measures were +"practical" except those which touched the source of the evil +opposed. All systems of government--all efforts of benevolence, are +vain to repress the natural consequences of radical error. But any +man of influence who had the sense and courage to refuse himself and +his family one London season--to stay on his estate, and employ the +shopkeepers in his own village, instead of those in Bond Street--would +be "practically" dealing with, and conquering, this evil, so far as +in him lay; and contributing with his whole might to the thorough +and final conquest of it. + +Not but that I know how to meet it directly also, if any London +landlords choose so to attack it. You are beginning to hear something +of what Miss Hill has done in Marylebone, and of the change brought +about by her energy and good sense in the centre of one of the worst +districts of London. It is difficult enough, I admit, to find a woman +of average sense and tenderness enough to be able for such work; +but there are, indeed, other such in the world, only three-fourths +of them now get lost in pious lecturing, or altar-cloth sewing; and +the wisest remaining fourth stay at home as quiet house-wives, not +seeing their way to wider action; nevertheless, any London landlord +who will content himself with moderate and fixed rent, (I get five per +cent. from Miss Hill, which is surely enough!), assuring his tenants of +secure possession if that is paid, so that they need not fear having +their rent raised, if they improve their houses; and who will secure +also a quiet bit of ground for their children to play in, instead of +the street,--has established all the necessary conditions of success; +and I doubt not that Miss Hill herself could find co-workers able to +extend the system of management she has originated, and shown to be +so effective. + +But the best that can be done in this way will be useless ultimately, +unless the deep source of the misery be cut off. While Miss Hill, +with intense effort and noble power, has partially moralized a couple +of acres in Marylebone, at least fifty square miles of lovely country +have been Demoralized outside London, by the increasing itch of the +upper classes to live where they can get some gossip in their idleness, +and show each other their dresses. + +That life of theirs must come to an end soon, both here and in Paris, +but to what end, it is, I trust, in their own power still to decide. If +they resolve to maintain to the last the present system of spending the +rent taken from the rural districts in the dissipation of the capitals, +they will not always find they can secure a quiet time, as the other +day in Dublin, by withdrawing the police, nor that park-railings +are the only thing which (police being duly withdrawn) will go +down. Those favourite castle battlements of mine, their internal +"police" withdrawn, will go down also; and I should be sorry to see +it;--the lords and ladies, houseless at least in shooting season, +perhaps sorrier, though they did find the grey turrets dismal in +winter time. If they would yet have them for autumn, they must have +them for winter. Consider, fair lords and ladies, by the time you +marry, and choose your dwelling-places, there are for you but forty +or fifty winters more in whose dark days you may see the snow fall +and wreathe. There will be no snow in Heaven, I presume--still less +elsewhere, (if lords and ladies ever miss of Heaven). + +And that some may, is perhaps conceivable, for there are more than a +few things to be managed on an English estate, and to be "faithful" +in those few cannot be interpreted as merely abstracting the rent of +them. Nay, even the Telegraph's beau ideal of the landowner, from a +mechanical point of view, may come short, somewhat. "Cultivating huge +farms for himself with abundant machinery;--" Is that Lord Derby's +ideal also, may it be asked? The Scott-reading of my youth haunts me, +and I seem still listening to the (perhaps a little too long) speeches +of the Black Countess who appears terrifically through the sliding +panel in 'Peveril of the Peak,' about "her sainted Derby." Would +Saint Derby's ideal, or his Black Countess's, of due ordinance for +their castle and estate of Man, have been a minimum of Man therein, +and an abundance of machinery? In fact, only the Trinacrian Legs of +Man, transposed into many spokes of wheels--no use for "stalwart arms" +any more--and less than none for inconveniently "heroic" souls? + +"Cultivating huge farms for himself!" I don't even see, after the +sincerest efforts to put myself into a mechanical point of view, how +it is to be done. For himself? Is he to eat the cornricks then? Surely +such a beau ideal is more Utopian than any of mine? Indeed, whether +it be praise- or blame-worthy, it is not so easy to cultivate +anything wholly for oneself, nor to consume, oneself, the products of +cultivation. I have, indeed, before now, hinted to you that perhaps +the "consumer" was not so necessary a person economically, as has been +supposed; nevertheless, it is not in his own mere eating and drinking, +or even his picture-collecting, that a false lord injures the poor. It +is in his bidding and forbidding--or worse still, in ceasing to do +either. I have given you another of Giotto's pictures, this month, +his imagination of Injustice, which he has seen done in his time, +as we in ours; and I am sorry to observe that his Injustice lives +in a battlemented castle and in a mountain country, it appears; +the gates of it between rocks, and in the midst of a wood; but in +Giotto's time, woods were too many, and towns too few. Also, Injustice +has indeed very ugly talons to his fingers, like Envy; and an ugly +quadruple hook to his lance, and other ominous resemblances to the +"hooked bird," the falcon, which both knights and ladies too much +delighted in. Nevertheless Giotto's main idea about him is, clearly, +that he "sits in the gate" pacifically, with a cloak thrown over his +chain-armour (you can just see the links of it appear at his throat), +and a plain citizen's cap for a helmet, and his sword sheathed, +while all robbery and violence have way in the wild places round +him,--he heedless. + +Which is, indeed, the depth of Injustice: not the harm you do, but that +you permit to be done,--hooking perhaps here and there something to you +with your clawed weapon meanwhile. The baronial type exists still, I +fear, in such manner, here and there, in spite of improving centuries. + +My friends, we have been thinking, perhaps, to-day, more than we ought +of our masters' faults,--scarcely enough of our own. If you would +have the upper classes do their duty, see that you also do yours. See +that you can obey good laws, and good lords, or law-wards, if you once +get them--that you believe in goodness enough to know what a good law +is. A good law is one that holds, whether you recognize and pronounce +it or not; a bad law is one that cannot hold, however much you ordain +and pronounce it. That is the mighty truth which Carlyle has been +telling you for a quarter of a century--once for all he told it you, +and the landowners, and all whom it concerns, in the third book of +'Past and Present' (1845, buy Chapman and Hall's second edition if +you can, it is good print, and read it till you know it by heart), +and from that day to this, whatever there is in England of dullest +and insolentest may be always known by the natural instinct it has to +howl against Carlyle. Of late, matters coming more and more to crisis, +the liberty men seeing their way, as they think, more and more broad +and bright before them, and still this too legible and steady old +sign-post saying, That it is not the way, lovely as it looks, the +outcry against it becomes deafening. Now, I tell you once for all, +Carlyle is the only living writer who has spoken the absolute and +perpetual truth about yourselves and your business; and exactly in +proportion to the inherent weakness of brain in your lying guides, +will be their animosity against Carlyle. Your lying guides, observe, +I say--not meaning that they lie wilfully--but that their nature is to +do nothing else. For in the modern Liberal there is a new and wonderful +form of misguidance. Of old, it was bad enough that the blind should +lead the blind; still, with dog and stick, or even timid walking with +recognized need of dog and stick, if not to be had, such leadership +might come to good end enough; but now a worse disorder has come upon +you, that the squinting should lead the squinting. Now the nature of +bat, or mole, or owl, may be undesirable, at least in the day-time, +but worse may be imagined. The modern Liberal politico-economist of +the Stuart Mill school is essentially of the type of a flat-fish--one +eyeless side of him always in the mud, and one eye, on the side that +has eyes, down in the corner of his mouth,--not a desirable guide for +man or beast. There was an article--I believe it got in by mistake, +but the Editor, of course, won't say so--in the 'Contemporary Review,' +two months back, on Mr. Morley's Essays, by a Mr. Buchanan, with an +incidental page on Carlyle in it, unmatchable (to the length of my poor +knowledge) for obliquitous platitude in the mud-walks of literature. + +Read your Carlyle, then, with all your heart, and with the best of +brain you can give; and you will learn from him first, the eternity +of good law, and the need of obedience to it: then, concerning +your own immediate business, you will learn farther this, that the +beginning of all good law, and nearly the end of it, is in these +two ordinances,--That every man shall do good work for his bread: +and secondly, that every man shall have good bread for his work. But +the first of these is the only one you have to think of. If you +are resolved that the work shall be good, the bread will be sure; +if not,--believe me, there is neither steam plough nor steam mill, +go they never so glibly, that will win it from the earth long, either +for you, or the Ideal Landed Proprietor. + + +Faithfully yours, + +J. RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER XI. + + + Denmark Hill. + 15th October, 1871. + +My Friends, + + +A day seldom passes, now that people begin to notice these Letters +a little, without my receiving a remonstrance on the absurdity of +writing "so much above the level" of those whom I address. + +I have said, however, that eventually you shall understand, if you +care to understand, every word in these pages. Through all this year +I have only been putting questions; some of them such as have puzzled +the wisest, and which may, for a long time yet, prove too hard for +you and me: but, next year, I will go over all the ground again, +answering the questions, where I know of any answers; or making them +plain for your examination, when I know of none. + +But, in the meantime, be it admitted, for argument's sake, that this +way of writing, which is easy to me, and which most educated persons +can easily understand, is very much above your level. I want to know +why it is assumed so quietly that your brains must always be at a +low level? Is it essential to the doing of the work by which England +exists, that its workmen should not be able to understand scholar's +English, (remember, I only assume mine to be so for argument's sake), +but only newspaper's English? I chanced, indeed, to take up a number +of 'Belgravia' the other day, which contained a violent attack on an +old enemy of mine--'Blackwood's Magazine'; and I enjoyed the attack +mightily, until 'Belgravia' declared, by way of coup-de-grace to +'Blackwood,' that something which 'Blackwood' had spoken of as settled +in one way had been irrevocably settled the other way,--"settled," +said triumphant 'Belgravia,' "in seventy-two newspapers." + +Seventy-two newspapers, then, it seems--or, with a margin, +eighty-two,--perhaps, to be perfectly safe, we had better say +ninety-two--are enough to settle anything in this England of ours, +for the present. But, irrevocably, I doubt. If, perchance, you workmen +should reach the level of understanding scholar's English instead of +newspaper's English, things might a little unsettle themselves again; +and, in the end, might even get into positions uncontemplated by +the ninety-two newspapers,--contemplated only by the laws of Heaven, +and settled by them, some time since, as positions which, if things +ever got out of, they would need to get into again. + +And, for my own part, I cannot at all understand why well-educated +people should still so habitually speak of you as beneath their level, +and needing to be written down to, with condescending simplicity, +as flat-foreheaded creatures of another race, unredeemable by any +Darwinism. + +I was waiting last Saturday afternoon on the platform of the railway +station at Furness Abbey; (the station itself is tastefully placed so +that you can see it, and nothing else but it, through the east window +of the Abbot's Chapel, over the ruined altar;) and a party of the +workmen employed on another line, wanted for the swiftly progressive +neighbourhood of Dalton, were taking Sabbatical refreshment at the +tavern recently established at the south side of the said Abbot's +Chapel. Presently, the train whistling for them, they came out in +a highly refreshed state, and made for it as fast as they could by +the tunnel under the line, taking very long steps to keep their +balance in the direction of motion, and securing themselves, +laterally, by hustling the wall, or any chance passengers. They +were dressed universally in brown rags, which, perhaps, they felt to +be the comfortablest kind of dress; they had, most of them, pipes, +which I really believe to be more enjoyable than cigars; they got +themselves adjusted in their carriages by the aid of snatches of +vocal music, and looked at us,--(I had charge of a lady and her two +young daughters),--with supreme indifference, as indeed at creatures +of another race; pitiable, perhaps,--certainly disagreeable and +objectionable--but, on the whole, despicable, and not to be minded. We, +on our part, had the insolence to pity them for being dressed in rags, +and for being packed so close in the third-class carriages: the two +young girls bore being run against patiently; and when a thin boy +of fourteen or fifteen, the most drunk of the company, was sent back +staggering to the tavern for a forgotten pickaxe, we would, any of us, +I am sure, have gone and fetched it for him, if he had asked us. For +we were all in a very virtuous and charitable temper: we had had an +excellent dinner at the new inn, and had earned that portion of our +daily bread by admiring the Abbey all the morning. So we pitied the +poor workmen doubly--first, for being so wicked as to get drunk at +four in the afternoon; and, secondly, for being employed in work +so disgraceful as throwing up clods of earth into an embankment, +instead of spending the day, like us, in admiring the Abbey: and I, +who am always making myself a nuisance to people with my political +economy, inquired timidly of my friend whether she thought it all +quite right. And she said, certainly not; but what could be done? It +was of no use trying to make such men admire the Abbey, or to keep +them from getting drunk. They wouldn't do the one, and they would do +the other--they were quite an unmanageable sort of people, and had +been so for generations. + +Which, indeed, I knew to be partly the truth, but it only made the +thing seem to me more wrong than it did before, since here were not +only the actual two or three dozen of unmanageable persons, with +much taste for beer, and none for architecture; but these implied the +existence of many unmanageable persons before and after them,--nay, +a long ancestral and filial unmanageableness. They were a Fallen Race, +every way incapable, as I acutely felt, of appreciating the beauty of +'Modern Painters,' or fathoming the significance of 'Fors Clavigera.' + +But what they had done to deserve their fall, or what I had done to +deserve the privilege of being the author of those valuable books, +remained obscure to me; and indeed, whatever the deservings may have +been on either side, in this and other cases of the kind, it is always +a marvel to me that the arrangement and its consequences are accepted +so patiently. For observe what, in brief terms, the arrangement +is. Virtually, the entire business of the world turns on the clear +necessity of getting on table, hot or cold, if possible, meat--but, +at least, vegetables,--at some hour of the day, for all of us: for you +labourers, we will say at noon; for us æsthetical persons, we will say +at eight in the evening; for we like to have done our eight hours' +work of admiring abbeys before we dine. But, at some time of day, +the mutton and turnips, or, since mutton itself is only a transformed +state of turnips, we may say, as sufficiently typical of everything, +turnips only, must absolutely be got for us both. And nearly every +problem of State policy and economy, as at present understood, and +practised, consists in some device for persuading you labourers to +go and dig up dinner for us reflective and æsthetical persons, who +like to sit still, and think, or admire. So that when we get to the +bottom of the matter, we find the inhabitants of this earth broadly +divided into two great masses;--the peasant paymasters--spade in hand, +original and imperial producers of turnips; and, waiting on them all +round, a crowd of polite persons, modestly expectant of turnips, for +some--too often theoretical--service. There is, first, the clerical +person, whom the peasant pays in turnips for giving him moral advice; +then the legal person, whom the peasant pays in turnips for telling +him, in black letter, that his house is his own; there is, thirdly, +the courtly person, whom the peasant pays in turnips for presenting a +celestial appearance to him; there is, fourthly, the literary person, +whom the peasant pays in turnips for talking daintily to him; and there +is, lastly, the military person, whom the peasant pays in turnips +for standing, with a cocked hat on, in the middle of the field, and +exercising a moral influence upon the neighbours. Nor is the peasant +to be pitied if these arrangements are all faithfully carried out. If +he really gets moral advice from his moral adviser; if his house is, +indeed, maintained to be his own, by his legal adviser; if courtly +persons, indeed, present a celestial appearance to him; and literary +persons, indeed, talk beautiful words: if, finally, his scarecrow +do, indeed, stand quiet, as with a stick through the middle of it, +producing, if not always a wholesome terror, at least, a picturesque +effect, and colour-contrast of scarlet with green,--they are all of +them worth their daily turnips. But if, perchance, it happen that he +get immoral advice from his moralist, or if his lawyer advise him that +his house is not his own; and his bard, story-teller, or other literary +charmer, begin to charm him unwisely, not with beautiful words, but +with obscene and ugly words--and he be readier with his response in +vegetable produce for these than for any other sort; finally, if his +quiet scarecrow become disquiet, and seem likely to bring upon him +a whole flight of scarecrows out of his neighbours' fields,--the +combined fleets of Russia, Prussia, etc., as my friend and your +trustee, Mr. Cowper-Temple, has it, (see above, Letter II., p. 21,) +it is time to look into such arrangements under their several heads. + +Well looked after, however, all these arrangements have their +advantages, and a certain basis of reason and propriety. But there +are two other arrangements which have no basis on either, and which +are very widely adopted, nevertheless, among mankind, to their +great misery. + +I must expand a little the type of my primitive peasant before +defining these. You observe, I have not named among the polite persons +giving theoretical service in exchange for vegetable diet, the large, +and lately become exceedingly polite, class, of artists. For a true +artist is only a beautiful development of tailor or carpenter. As +the peasant provides the dinner, so the artist provides the clothes +and house: in the tailoring and tapestry producing function, +the best of artists ought to be the peasant's wife herself, when +properly emulative of Queens Penelope, Bertha, and Maude; and in the +house-producing-and-painting function, though concluding itself in +such painted chambers as those of the Vatican, the artist is still +typically and essentially a carpenter or mason; first carving wood +and stone, then painting the same for preservation;--if ornamentally, +all the better. And, accordingly, you see these letters of mine are +addressed to the "workmen and labourers" of England,--that is to say, +to the providers of houses and dinners, for themselves, and for all +men, in this country, as in all others. + +Considering these two sorts of Providers, then, as one great class, +surrounded by the suppliant persons for whom, together with themselves, +they have to make provision, it is evident that they both have need +originally of two things--land, and tools. Clay to be subdued; and +plough, or potter's wheel, wherewith to subdue it. + +Now, as aforesaid, so long as the polite surrounding personages are +content to offer their salutary advice, their legal information, etc., +to the peasant, for what these articles are verily worth in vegetable +produce, all is perfectly fair; but if any of the polite persons +contrive to get hold of the peasant's land, or of his tools, and put +him into the "position of William," and make him pay annual interest, +first for the wood that he planes, and then for the plane he planes it +with!--my friends, polite or otherwise, these two arrangements cannot +be considered as settled yet, even by the ninety-two newspapers, +with all Belgravia to back them. + +Not by the newspapers, nor by Belgravia, nor even by the Cambridge +Catechism, or the Cambridge Professor of Political Economy. + +Look to the beginning of the second chapter in the last edition of +Professor Fawcett's Manual of Political Economy, (Macmillan, 1869, +p. 105). The chapter purports to treat of the "Classes among whom +wealth is distributed." And thus it begins:-- + + + We have described the requisites of production to be three: land, + labour, and capital. Since, therefore, land, labour, and capital + are essential to the production of wealth, it is natural to suppose + that the wealth which is produced ought to be possessed by those + who own the land, labour, and capital which have respectively + contributed to its production. The share of wealth which is thus + allotted to the possessor of the land is termed rent; the portion + allotted to the labourer is termed wages, and the remuneration + of the capitalist is termed profit. + + +You observe that in this very meritoriously clear sentence both the +possessor of the land and the possessor of the capital are assumed +to be absolutely idle persons. If they contributed any labour to the +business, and so confused themselves with the labourer, the problem of +triple division would become complicated directly;--in point of fact, +they do occasionally employ themselves somewhat, and become deserving, +therefore, of a share, not of rent only, nor of profit only, but of +wages also. And every now and then, as I noted in my last letter, +there is an outburst of admiration in some one of the ninety-two +newspapers, at the amount of "work" done by persons of the superior +classes; respecting which, however, you remember that I also advised +you that a great deal of it was only a form of competitive play. In +the main, therefore, the statement of the Cambridge Professor may be +admitted to be correct as to the existing facts; the Holders of land +and capital being virtually in a state of Dignified Repose, as the +Labourer is in a state of--(at least, I hear it always so announced +in the ninety-two newspapers)--Dignified Labour. + +But Professor Fawcett's sentence, though, as I have just said, in +comparison with most writings on the subject, meritoriously clear, +yet is not as clear as it might be,--still less as scientific as it +might be. It is, indeed, gracefully ornamental, in the use, in its last +clause, of the three words, "share," "portion," and "remuneration," for +the same thing; but this is not the clearest imaginable language. The +sentence, strictly put, should run thus:--"The portion of wealth +which is thus allotted to the possessor of the land is termed rent; +the portion allotted to the labourer is termed wages; and the portion +allotted to the capitalist is termed profit." + +And you may at once see the advantage of reducing the sentence to these +more simple terms; for Professor Fawcett's ornamental language has this +danger in it, that "Remuneration," being so much grander a word than +"Portion," in the very roll of it seems to imply rather a thousand +pounds a day than three-and-sixpence. And until there be scientific +reason shown for anticipating the portions to be thus disproportioned, +we have no right to suggest their being so, by ornamental variety +of language. + +Again, Professor Fawcett's sentence is, I said, not entirely +scientific. He founds the entire principle of allotment on the +phrase "it is natural to suppose." But I never heard of any other +science founded on what it was natural to suppose. Do the Cambridge +mathematicians, then, in these advanced days, tell their pupils that +it is natural to suppose the three angles of a triangle are equal +to two right ones? Nay, in the present case, I regret to say it has +sometimes been thought wholly unnatural to suppose any such thing; and +so exceedingly unnatural, that to receive either a "remuneration," +or a "portion," or a "share," for the loan of anything, without +personally working, was held by Dante and other such simple persons +in the middle ages to be one of the worst of the sins that could be +committed against nature: and the receivers of such interest were +put in the same circle of Hell with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. + +And it is greatly to be apprehended that if ever our workmen, under +the influences of Mr. Scott and Mr. Street, come indeed to admire the +Abbot's Chapel at Furness more than the railroad station, they may +become possessed of a taste for Gothic opinions as well as Gothic +arches, and think it "natural to suppose" that a workman's tools +should be his own property. + +Which I, myself, having been always given to Gothic opinions, do +indeed suppose, very strongly; and intend to try with all my might +to bring about that arrangement wherever I have any influence;--the +arrangement itself being feasible enough, if we can only begin by +not leaving our pickaxes behind us after taking Sabbatical refreshment. + +But let me again, and yet again, warn you, that only by beginning +so,--that is to say, by doing what is in your own power to achieve of +plain right,--can you ever bring about any of your wishes; or, indeed, +can you, to any practical purpose, begin to wish. Only by quiet and +decent exaltation of your own habits can you qualify yourselves to +discern what is just, or to define even what is possible. I hear you +are, at last, beginning to draw up your wishes in a definite manner; (I +challenged you to do so, in 'Time and Tide,' four years ago, in vain), +and you mean to have them at last "represented in Parliament;" but +I hear of small question yet among you, whether they be just wishes, +and can be represented to the power of everlasting Justice, as things +not only natural to be supposed, but necessary to be done. For she +accepts no representation of things in beautiful language, but takes +her own view of them, with her own eyes. + +I did, indeed, cut out a slip from the 'Birmingham Morning News,' last +September, (12th,) containing a letter written by a gentleman signing +himself "Justice" in person, and professing himself an engineer, +who talked very grandly about the "individual and social laws of our +nature:" but he had arrived at the inconvenient conclusions that "no +individual has a natural right to hold property in land," and that +"all land sooner or later must become public property." I call this +an inconvenient conclusion, because I really think you would find +yourselves greatly inconvenienced if your wives couldn't go into +the garden to cut a cabbage, without getting leave from the Lord +Mayor and Corporation; and if the same principle is to be carried +out as regards tools, I beg to state to Mr. Justice-in-Person, +that if anybody and everybody is to use my own particular palette +and brushes, I resign my office of Professor of Fine Art. Perhaps, +when we become really acquainted with the true Justice in Person, not +professing herself an engineer, she may suggest to us, as a Natural +Supposition,--"That land should be given to those who can use it, +and tools to those who can use them;" and I have a notion you will +find this a very tenable supposition also. + +I have given you, this month, the last of the pictures I want you +to see from Padua;--Giotto's Image of Justice--which, you observe, +differs somewhat from the Image of Justice we used to set up in +England, above insurance offices, and the like. Bandaged close about +the eyes, our English Justice was wont to be, with a pair of grocers' +scales in her hand, wherewith, doubtless, she was accustomed to weigh +out accurately their shares to the landlords, and portions to the +labourers, and remunerations to the capitalists. But Giotto's Justice +has no bandage about her eyes, (Albert Durer's has them round open, +and flames flashing from them,) and weighs, not with scales, but with +her own hands; and weighs not merely the shares, or remunerations +of men, but the worth of them; and finding them worth this or that, +gives them what they deserve--death, or honour. Those are her forms of +"Remuneration." + +Are you sure that you are ready to accept the decrees of this true +goddess, and to be chastised or rewarded by her, as is your due, +being seen through and through to your hearts' core? Or will you +still abide by the level balance of the blind Justice of old time; +or rather, by the oblique balance of the squinting Justice of our +modern geological Mud-Period?--the mud, at present, becoming also more +slippery under the feet--I beg pardon, the belly--of squinting Justice, +than was once expected; becoming, indeed, (as it is announced, even +by Mr. W. P. Price, M.P., chairman at the last half-yearly meeting +of the Midland Railway Company,) quite "delicate ground." + +The said chairman, you will find, by referring to the 'Pall Mall +Gazette' of August 17th, 1871, having received a letter from Mr. Bass +on the subject of the length of time that the servants of the company +were engaged in labour, and their inadequate remuneration, made the +following remarks:--"He (Mr. Bass) is treading on very delicate +ground. The remuneration of labour, the value of which, like the +value of gold itself, depends altogether on the one great universal +law of supply and demand, is a question on which there is very little +room for sentiment. He, as a very successful tradesman, knows very +well how much the success of commercial operations depends on the +observance of that law; and we, sitting here as your representatives, +cannot altogether close our eyes to it." + +Now it is quite worth your while to hunt out that number of the +'Pall Mall Gazette' in any of your free libraries, because a quaint +chance in the placing of the type has produced a lateral comment on +these remarks of Mr. W. P. Price, M.P. + +Take your carpenter's rule, apply it level under the words, +"Great Universal Law of Supply and Demand," and read the line it +marks off in the other column of the same page. It marks off this, +"In Khorassan one-third of the whole population has perished from +starvation, and at Ispahan no less than 27,000 souls." + +Of course you will think it no business of yours if people are +starved in Persia. But the Great "Universal" Law of Supply and Demand +may some day operate in the same manner over here; and even in the +Mud-and-Flat-fish period, John Bull may not like to have his belly +flattened for him to that extent. + +You have heard it said occasionally that I am not a practical +person. It may be satisfactory to you to know, on the contrary, that +this whole plan of mine is founded on the very practical notion of +making you round persons instead of flat. Round and merry, instead +of flat and sulky. And my beau-ideal is not taken from "a mechanical +point of view," but is one already realized. I saw last summer, in +the flesh, as round and merry a person as I ever desire to see. He +was tidily dressed--not in brown rags, but in green velveteen; he +wore a jaunty hat, with a feather in it, a little on one side; he +was not drunk, but the effervescence of his shrewd good-humour filled +the room all about him; and he could sing like a robin. You may say +"like a nightingale," if you like, but I think robin's singing the +best, myself; only I hardly ever hear it now, for the young ladies of +England have had nearly all the robins shot, to wear in their hats, +and the bird-stuffers are exporting the few remaining to America. + +This merry round person was a Tyrolese peasant; and I hold it an +entirely practical proceeding, since I find my idea of felicity +actually produced in the Tyrol, to set about the production of it, +here, on Tyrolese principles; which, you will find, on inquiry, +have not hitherto implied the employment of steam, nor submission +to the great Universal Law of Supply and Demand, nor even Demand for +the local Supply of a "Liberal" government. But they do imply labour +of all hands on pure earth and in fresh air. They do imply obedience +to government which endeavours to be just, and faith in a religion +which endeavours to be moral. And they result in strength of limbs, +clearness of throats, roundness of waists, and pretty jackets, and +still prettier corsets to fit them. + + + +I must pass, disjointedly, to matters which, in a written letter, would +have been put in a postscript; but I do not care, in a printed one, +to leave a useless gap in the type. First, the reference in page 11 of +last number to the works of Mr. Zion Ward, is incorrect. The passage I +quoted is not in the "Letter to a Friend," price twopence, but in the +"Origin of Evil Discovered," price fourpence. (John Bolton, Steel House +Lane, Birmingham.) And, by the way, I wish that booksellers would save +themselves, and me, some (now steadily enlarging) trouble, by noting +that the price of these Letters to friends of mine, as supplied by +me, the original inditer, to all and sundry, through my only shopman, +Mr. Allen, is sevenpence per epistle, and not fivepence half-penny; +and that the trade profit on the sale of them is intended to be, and +must eventually be, as I intend, a quite honestly confessed profit, +charged to the customer, not compressed out of the author; which +object may be easily achieved by the retail bookseller, if he will +resolvedly charge the symmetrical sum of Tenpence per epistle over his +counter, as it is my purpose he should. But to return to Mr. Ward; +the correction of my reference was sent me by one of his disciples, +in a very earnest and courteous letter, written chiefly to complain +that my quotation totally misrepresented Mr. Ward's opinions. I +regret that it should have done so, but gave the quotation neither +to represent nor misrepresent Mr. Ward's opinions; but to show, which +the sentence, though brief, quite sufficiently shows, that he had no +right to have any. + +I have before noted to you, indeed, that, in a broad sense, nobody has +a right to have opinions; but only knowledges: and, in a practical +and large sense, nobody has a right even to make experiments, but +only to act in a way which they certainly know will be productive of +good. And this I ask you to observe again, because I begin now to +receive some earnest inquiries respecting the plan I have in hand, +the inquiries very naturally assuming it to be an "experiment," which +may possibly be successful, and much more possibly may fail. But it +is not an experiment at all. It will be merely the carrying out of +what has been done already in some places, to the best of my narrow +power, in other places: and so far as it can be carried, it must be +productive of some kind of good. + +For example; I have round me here at Denmark Hill seven acres of +leasehold ground. I pay £50 a year ground-rent, and £250 a year +in wages to my gardeners; besides expenses in fuel for hothouses, +and the like. And for this sum of three hundred odd pounds a year +I have some pease and strawberries in summer; some camellias and +azaleas in winter; and good cream, and a quiet place to walk in, +all the year round. Of the strawberries, cream, and pease, I eat +more than is good for me; sometimes, of course, obliging my friends +with a superfluous pottle or pint. The camellias and azaleas stand +in the anteroom of my library; and everybody says, when they come in, +"How pretty!" and my young lady friends have leave to gather what they +like to put in their hair, when they are going to balls. Meantime, +outside of my fenced seven acres--owing to the operation of the great +universal law of supply and demand--numbers of people are starving; +many more, dying of too much gin; and many of their children dying +of too little milk; and, as I told you in my first Letter, for my +own part, I won't stand this sort of thing any longer. + +Now it is evidently open to me to say to my gardeners, "I want no +more azaleas or camellias; and no more strawberries and pease than are +good for me. Make these seven acres everywhere as productive of good +corn, vegetables, or milk, as you can; I will have no steam used upon +them, for nobody on my ground shall be blown to pieces; nor any fuel +wasted in making plants blossom in winter, for I believe we shall, +without such unseasonable blossoms, enjoy the spring twice as much +as now; but, in any part of the ground that is not good for eatable +vegetables, you are to sow such wild flowers as it seems to like, +and you are to keep all trim and orderly. The produce of the land, +after I have had my limited and salutary portion of pease, shall be +your own; but if you sell any of it, part of the price you get for +it shall be deducted from your wages." + +Now observe, there would be no experiment whatever in any one feature +of this proceeding. My gardeners might be stimulated to some extra +exertion by it; but in any event I should retain exactly the same +command over them that I had before. I might save something out of my +£250 of wages, but I should pay no more than I do now, and in return +for the gift of the produce I should certainly be able to exact +compliance from my people with any such capricious fancies of mine +as that they should wear velveteen jackets, or send their children to +learn to sing; and, indeed, I could grind them, generally, under the +iron heel of Despotism, as the ninety-two newspapers would declare, +to an extent unheard of before in this free country. And, assuredly, +some children would get milk, strawberries, and wild flowers who do +not get them now; and my young lady friends would still, I am firm +in my belief, look pretty enough at their balls, even without the +camellias or azaleas. + +I am not going to do this with my seven acres here; first, because +they are only leasehold; secondly, because they are too near London +for wild flowers to grow brightly in. But I have bought, instead, +twice as many freehold acres, where wild flowers are growing now, and +shall continue to grow; and there I mean to live: and, with the tenth +part of my available fortune, I will buy other bits of freehold land, +and employ gardeners on them in this above-stated matter. I may as well +tell you at once that my tithe will be, roughly, about seven thousand +pounds altogether, (a little less rather than more). If I get no help, +I can show what I mean, even with this; but if any one cares to help +me with gifts of either money or land, they will find that what they +give is applied honestly, and does a perfectly definite service: +they might, for aught I know, do more good with it in other ways; +but some good in this way--and that is all I assert--they will do, +certainly, and not experimentally. And the longer they take to think +of the matter the better I shall like it, for my work at Oxford is +more than enough for me just now, and I shall not practically bestir +myself in this land-scheme for a year to come, at least; nor then, +except as a rest from my main business: but the money and land will +always be safe in the hands of your trustees for you, and you need not +doubt, though I show no petulant haste about the matter, that I remain + + +Faithfully yours, + +J. RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +FORS CLAVIGERA. + +LETTER XII. + + + Denmark Hill, + 23rd December, 1871. + +My Friends, + + +You will scarcely care to read anything I have to say to you this +evening--having much to think of, wholly pleasant, as I hope; and +prospect of delightful days to come, next week. At least, however, you +will be glad to know that I have really made you the Christmas gift I +promised--£7,000 Consols, in all, clear; a fair tithe of what I had: +and to as much perpetuity as the law will allow me. It will not allow +the dead to have their own way, long, whatever licence it grants the +living in their humours: and this seems to me unkind to those helpless +ones;--very certainly it is inexpedient for the survivors. For the +wisest men are wise to the full in death; and if you would give them, +instead of stately tombs, only so much honour as to do their will, +when they themselves can no more contend for it, you would find it +good memorial of them, such as the best of them would desire, and +full of blessing to all men for all time. + +English law needs mending in many respects; in none more than in +this. As it stands, I can only vest my gift in trustees, desiring them, +in the case of my death, immediately to appoint their own successors, +and in such continued succession, to apply the proceeds of the +St. George's Fund to the purchase of land in England and Scotland, +which shall be cultivated to the utmost attainable fruitfulness and +beauty by the labour of man and beast thereon, such men and beasts +receiving at the same time the best education attainable by the +trustees for labouring creatures, according to the terms stated in +this book, Fors Clavigera. + +These terms, and the arrangement of the whole matter, will become +clearer to you as you read on with me, and cannot be clear at all, +till you do;--here is the money, at any rate, to help you, one day, +to make merry with, only, if you care to give me any thanks, will you +pause now for a moment from your merrymaking, to tell me,--to whom, +as Fortune has ordered it, no merrymaking is possible at this time, +(nor, indeed, much at any time;)--to me, therefore, standing as it were +astonished in the midst of this gaiety of yours, will you tell--what +it is all about? + +Your little children would answer, doubtless, fearlessly, "Because +the Child Christ was born to-day:" but you, wiser than your children, +it may be,--at least, it should be,--are you also sure that He was? + +And if He was, what is that to you? + +I repeat, are you indeed sure He was? I mean, with real happening +of the strange things you have been told, that the Heavens opened +near Him, showing their hosts, and that one of their stars stood +still over His head? You are sure of that, you say? I am glad; and +wish it were so with me; but I have been so puzzled lately by many +matters that once seemed clear to me, that I seldom now feel sure +of anything. Still seldomer, however, do I feel sure of the contrary +of anything. That people say they saw it, may not prove that it was +visible; but that I never saw it cannot prove that it was invisible: +and this is a story which I more envy the people who believe on the +weakest grounds, than who deny on the strongest. The people whom I +envy not at all are those who imagine they believe it, and do not. + +For one of two things this story of the Nativity is certainly, and +without any manner of doubt. It relates either a fact full of power, or +a dream full of meaning. It is, at the least, not a cunningly devised +fable, but the record of an impression made, by some strange spiritual +cause, on the minds of the human race, at the most critical period +of their existence;--an impression which has produced, in past ages, +the greatest effect on mankind ever yet achieved by an intellectual +conception; and which is yet to guide, by the determination of its +truth or falsehood, the absolute destiny of ages to come. + +Will you give some little time therefore, to think of it with +me to-day, being, as you tell me, sure of its truth? What, then, +let me ask you, is its truth to you? The Child for whose birth you +are rejoicing was born, you are told, to save His people from their +sins; but I have never noticed that you were particularly conscious +of any sins to be saved from. If I were to tax you with any one in +particular--lying, or thieving, or the like--my belief is you would +say directly I had no business to do anything of the kind. + +Nay, but, you may perhaps answer me--"That is because we have been +saved from our sins; and we are making merry, because we are so +perfectly good." + +Well; there would be some reason in such an answer. There is much +goodness in you to be thankful for: far more than you know, or have +learned to trust. Still, I don't believe you will tell me seriously +that you eat your pudding and go to your pantomimes only to express +your satisfaction that you are so very good. + +What is, or may be, this Nativity, to you, then, I repeat? Shall +we consider, a little, what, at all events, it was to the people of +its time; and so make ourselves more clear as to what it might be to +us? We will read slowly. + +"And there were, in that country, shepherds, staying out in the field, +keeping watch over their flocks by night." + +Watching night and day, that means; not going home. The staying out +in the field is the translation of a word from which a Greek nymph +has her name Agraulos, "the stayer out in fields," of whom I shall +have something to tell you, soon. + +"And behold, the Messenger of the Lord stood above them, and the +glory of the Lord lightened round them, and they feared a great fear." + +"Messenger." You must remember that, when this was written, the +word "angel" had only the effect of our word--"messenger"--on men's +minds. Our translators say "angel" when they like, and "messenger" +when they like; but the Bible, messenger only, or angel only, as you +please. For instance, "Was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, +when she had received the angels, and sent them forth another way?" + +Would not you fain know what this angel looked like? I have always +grievously wanted, from childhood upwards, to know that; and +gleaned diligently every word written by people who said they had +seen angels: but none of them ever tell me what their eyes are like, +or hair, or even what dress they have on. We dress them, in pictures, +conjecturally, in long robes, falling gracefully; but we only continue +to think that kind of dress angelic, because religious young girls, +in their modesty, and wish to look only human, give their dresses +flounces. When I was a child, I used to be satisfied by hearing +that angels had always two wings, and sometimes six; but now nothing +dissatisfies me so much as hearing that; for my business compels me +continually into close drawing of wings; and now they never give me +the notion of anything but a swift or a gannet. And, worse still, when +I see a picture of an angel, I know positively where he got his wings +from--not at all from any heavenly vision, but from the worshipped +hawk and ibis, down through Assyrian flying bulls, and Greek flying +horses, and Byzantine flying evangelists, till we get a brass eagle, +(of all creatures in the world, to choose!) to have the gospel of +peace read from the back of it. + +Therefore, do the best I can, no idea of an angel is possible to +me. And when I ask my religious friends, they tell me not to wish +to be wise above that which is written. My religious friends, let +me write a few words of this letter, not to my poor puzzled workmen, +but to you, who will all be going serenely to church to-morrow. This +messenger, formed as we know not, stood above the shepherds, and the +glory of the Lord lightened round them. + +You would have liked to have seen it, you think! Brighter than the +sun; perhaps twenty-one coloured, instead of seven-coloured, and as +bright as the lime-light: doubtless you would have liked to see it, +at midnight, in Judæa. + +You tell me not to be wise above that which is written; why, therefore, +should you be desirous, above that which is given? You cannot see the +glory of God as bright as the lime-light at midnight; but you may see +it as bright as the sun, at eight in the morning, if you choose. You +might, at least, forty Christmases since: but not now. + +You know I must antedate my letters for special days. I am actually +writing this sentence on the second December, at ten in the morning, +with the feeblest possible gleam of sun on my paper; and for the +last three weeks the days have been one long drift of ragged gloom, +with only sometimes five minutes' gleam of the glory of God, between +the gusts, which no one regarded. + +I am taking the name of God in vain, you think? No, my religious +friends, not I. For completed forty years, I have been striving to +consider the blue heavens, the work of His fingers, and the moon +and the stars which He hath ordained: but you have left me nothing +now to consider here at Denmark Hill, but these black heavens, the +work of your fingers, and the blotting of moon and stars which you +have ordained; you,--taking the name of God in vain every Sunday, +and His work and His mercy in vain all the week through. + +"You have nothing to do with it--you are very sorry for it--and Baron +Liebig says that the power of England is coal?" + +You have everything to do with it. Were you not told to come out and +be separate from all evil? You take whatever advantage you can of the +evil work and gain of this world, and yet expect the people you share +with, to be damned, out of your way, in the next. If you would begin +by putting them out of your way here, you would perhaps carry some of +them with you there. But return to your night vision, and explain to +me, if not what the angel was like, at least what you understand him +to have said,--he, and those with him. With his own lips he told the +shepherds there was born a Saviour for them; but more was to be told: +"And suddenly there was with him a multitude of the heavenly host." + +People generally think that this verse means only that after one angel +had spoken, there came more to sing, in the manner of a chorus; but +it means far another thing than that. If you look back to Genesis you +find creation summed thus:--"So the heavens and earth were finished, +and all the host of them." Whatever living powers of any order, great +or small, were to inhabit either, are included in the word. The host +of earth includes the ants and the worms of it; the host of heaven +includes,--we know not what;--how should we?--the creatures that are +in the stars which we cannot count,--in the space which we cannot +imagine; some of them so little and so low that they can become flying +poursuivants to this grain of sand we live on; others having missions, +doubtless, to larger grains of sand, and wiser creatures on them. + +But the vision of their multitude means at least this; that all the +powers of the outer world which have any concern with ours became +in some way visible now: having interest--they, in the praise,--as +all the hosts of earth in the life, of this Child, born in David's +town. And their hymn was of peace to the lowest of the two hosts--peace +on earth;--and praise in the highest of the two hosts; and, better +than peace, and sweeter than praise, Love, among men. + +The men in question, ambitious of praising God after the manner +of the hosts of heaven, have written something which they suppose +this Song of Peace to have been like; and sing it themselves, +in state, after successful battles. But you hear it, those of +you who go to church in orthodox quarters, every Sunday; and will +understand the terms of it better by recollecting that the Lordship, +which you begin the Te Deum by ascribing to God, is this, over all +creatures, or over the two Hosts. In the Apocalypse it is "Lord, +All governing"--Pantocrator--which we weakly translate "Almighty"; +but the Americans still understand the original sense, and apply it so +to their god, the dollar, praying that the will may be done of their +Father which is in Earth. Farther on in the hymn, the word "Sabaoth" +again means all "hosts" or creatures; and it is an important word +for workmen to recollect, because the saying of St. James is coming +true, and that fast, that the cries of the reapers whose wages have +been kept back by fraud, have entered into the ears of the Lord of +Sabaoth; that is to say, Lord of all creatures, as much of the men +at St. Catherine's Docks as of Saint Catherine herself, though they +live only under Tower-Hill, and she lived close under Sinai. + +You see, farther, I have written above, not "good will towards men," +but "love among men." It is nearer right so; but the word is not easy +to translate at all. What it means precisely, you may conjecture best +from its use at Christ's baptism--"This is my beloved Son, in whom I +am well-pleased." For, in precisely the same words, the angels say, +there is to be "well-pleasing in men." + +Now, my religious friends, I continually hear you talk of acting for +God's glory, and giving God praise. Might you not, for the present, +think less of praising, and more of pleasing Him? He can, perhaps, +dispense with your praise; your opinions of His character, even +when they come to be held by a large body of the religious press, +are not of material importance to Him. He has the hosts of heaven to +praise Him, who see more of His ways, it is likely, than you; but you +hear that you may be pleasing to Him, if you try:--that He expected, +then, to have some satisfaction in you; and might have even great +satisfaction--well-pleasing, as in His own Son, if you tried. The +sparrows and the robins, if you give them leave to nest as they choose +about your garden, will have their own opinions about your garden; +some of them will think it well laid out,--others ill. You are not +solicitous about their opinions; but you like them to love each +other; to build their nests without stealing each other's sticks, +and to trust you to take care of them. + +Perhaps, in like manner, if in this garden of the world you would leave +off telling its Master your opinions of Him, and, much more, your +quarrelling about your opinions of Him; but would simply trust Him, +and mind your own business modestly, He might have more satisfaction +in you than He has had yet these eighteen hundred and seventy-one +years, or than He seems likely to have in the eighteen hundred and +seventy-second. For first, instead of behaving like sparrows and +robins, you want to behave like those birds you read the Gospel from +the backs of,--eagles. Now the Lord of the garden made the claws of +eagles for them, and your fingers for you; and if you would do the +work of fingers, with the fingers He made, would, without doubt, +have satisfaction in you. But, instead of fingers, you want to have +claws--not mere short claws, at the finger-ends, as Giotto's Injustice +has them; but long claws that will reach leagues away; so you set to +work to make yourselves manifold claws,--far-scratching;--and this +smoke, which hides the sun and chokes the sky--this Egyptian darkness +that may be felt--manufactured by you, singular modern children of +Israel, that you may have no light in your dwellings, is none the +fairer, because cast forth by the furnaces, in which you forge your +weapons of war. + +A very singular children of Israel! Your Father, Abraham, indeed, +once saw the smoke of a country go up as the smoke of a furnace; +but not with envy of the country. + +Your English power is coal? Well; also the power of the Vale of Siddim +was in slime,--petroleum of the best; yet the Kings of the five cities +fell there; and the end was no well-pleasing of God among men. + +Emmanuel! God with us!--how often, you tenderly-minded Christians, have +you desired to see this great sight,--this Babe lying in a manger? Yet, +you have so contrived it, once more, this year, for many a farm in +France, that if He were born again, in that neighbourhood, there would +be found no manger for Him to lie in; only ashes of mangers. Our clergy +and lawyers dispute, indeed, whether He may not be yet among us; if not +in mangers, in the straw of them, or the corn. An English lawyer spoke +twenty-six hours but the other day--the other four days, I mean--before +the Lords of her Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council, to prove +that an English clergyman had used a proper quantity of equivocation +in his statement that Christ was in Bread. Yet there is no harm in +anybody thinking that He is in Bread,--or even in Flour! The harm is, +in their expectation of His Presence in gunpowder. + +Present, however, you believe He was, that night, in flesh, to any +one who might be warned to go and see Him. The inn was quite full; +but we do not hear that any traveller chanced to look into the +cow-house; and most likely, even if they had, none of them would have +been much interested in the workman's young wife, lying there. They +probably would have thought of the Madonna, with Mr. John Stuart Mill, +('Principles of Political Economy,' 8vo, Parker, 1848, vol. ii., page +321,) that there was scarcely "any means open to her of gaining a +livelihood, except as a wife and mother;" and that "women who prefer +that occupation might justifiably adopt it--but, that there should +be no option, no other carrière possible, for the great majority of +women, except in the humbler departments of life, is one of those +social injustices which call loudest for remedy." + +The poor girl of Nazareth had less option than most; and with her +weak "be it unto me as Thou wilt," fell so far below the modern +type of independent womanhood, that one cannot wonder at any degree +of contempt felt for her by British Protestants. Some few people, +nevertheless, were meant, at the time, to think otherwise of her. And +now, my working friends, I would ask you to read with me, carefully, +for however often you may have read this before, I know there are +points in the story which you have not thought of. + +The shepherds were told that their Saviour was that day born to them +"in David's village." We are apt to think that this was told, as of +special interest to them, because David was a King. + +Not so. It was told them because David was in youth not a King; +but a Shepherd like themselves. "To you, shepherds, is born this +day a Saviour in the shepherd's town;" that would be the deep sound +of the message in their ears. For the great interest to them in the +story of David himself must have been always, not that he had saved +the monarchy, or subdued Syria, or written Psalms, but that he had +kept sheep in those very fields they were watching in; and that his +grandmother [36] Ruth had gone gleaning, hard by. + +And they said hastily, "Let us go and see." + +Will you note carefully that they only think of seeing, not of +worshipping? Even when they do see the Child, it is not said that +they worshipped. They were simple people, and had not much faculty of +worship; even though the heavens had opened for them, and the hosts of +heaven had sung. They had been at first only frightened; then curious, +and communicative to the bystanders: they do not think even of making +any offering, which would have been a natural thought enough, as it +was to the first of shepherds: but they brought no firstlings of their +flock--(it is only in pictures, and those chiefly painted for the +sake of the picturesque, that the shepherds are seen bringing lambs, +and baskets of eggs). It is not said here that they brought anything, +but they looked, and talked, and went away praising God, as simple +people,--yet taking nothing to heart; only the mother did that. + +They went away:--"returned," it is said,--to their business, and never +seem to have left it again. Which is strange, if you think of it. It +is a good business truly, and one much to be commended, not only in +itself, but as having great chances of "advancement"--as in the case +of Jethro the Midianite's Jew shepherd and the herdsman of Tekoa; +besides that keeper of the few sheep in the wilderness, when his +brethren were under arms afield. But why are they not seeking for some +advancement now, after opening of the heavens to them? or, at least, +why not called to it afterwards, being, one would have thought, as +fit for ministry under a shepherd king, as fishermen, or custom-takers? + +Can it be that the work is itself the best that can be done by simple +men; that the shepherd Lord Clifford, or Michael of the Green-head +ghyll, are ministering better in the wilderness than any lords or +commoners are likely to do in Parliament, or other apostleship; so +that even the professed Fishers of Men are wise in calling themselves +Pastors rather than Piscators? Yet it seems not less strange that +one never hears of any of these shepherds any more. The boy who made +the pictures in this book for you could only fancy the Nativity, +yet left his sheep, that he might preach of it, in his way, all his +life. But they, who saw it, went back to their sheep. + +Some days later, another kind of persons came. On that first day, +the simplest people of his own land;--twelve days after, the wisest +people of other lands, far away: persons who had received, what you +are all so exceedingly desirous to receive, a good education; the +result of which, to you,--according to Mr. John Stuart Mill, in the +page of the chapter on the probable future of the labouring classes, +opposite to that from which I have just quoted his opinions about the +Madonna's line of life--will be as follows:--"From this increase of +intelligence, several effects may be confidently anticipated. First: +that they will become even less willing than at present to be led, +and governed, and directed into the way they should go, by the mere +authority and prestige of superiors. If they have not now, still less +will they have hereafter, any deferential awe, or religious principle +of obedience, holding them in mental subjection to a class above them." + +It is curious that, in this old story of the Nativity, the greater +wisdom of these educated persons appears to have produced upon them +an effect exactly contrary to that which you hear Mr. Stuart Mill +would have "confidently anticipated." The uneducated people came +only to see, but these highly trained ones to worship; and they have +allowed themselves to be led, and governed, and directed into the way +which they should go, (and that a long one,) by the mere authority +and prestige of a superior person, whom they clearly recognize as a +born king, though not of their people. "Tell us, where is he that is +born King of the Jews, for we have come to worship him." + +You may perhaps, however, think that these Magi had received a +different kind of education from that which Mr. Mill would recommend, +or even the book which I observe is the favourite of the Chancellor +of the Exchequer--'Cassell's Educator.' It is possible; for they were +looked on in their own country as themselves the best sort of Educators +which the Cassell of their day could provide, even for Kings. And +as you are so much interested in education, you will, perhaps, have +patience with me while I translate for you a wise Greek's account of +the education of the princes of Persia; account given three hundred +years, and more, before these Magi came to Bethlehem. + +"When the boy is seven years old he has to go and learn all about +horses, and is taught by the masters of horsemanship, and begins to +go against wild beasts; and when he is fourteen years old, they give +him the masters whom they call the Kingly Child-Guiders: and these are +four, chosen the best out of all the Persians who are then in the prime +of life--to wit, the most wise man they can find, and the most just, +and the most temperate, and the most brave; of whom the first, the +wisest, teaches the prince the magic of Zoroaster; and that magic is +the service of the Gods: also, he teaches him the duties that belong +to a king. Then the second, the justest, teaches him to speak truth +all his life through. Then the third, the most temperate, teaches him +not to be conquered by even so much as a single one of the pleasures, +that he may be exercised in freedom, and verily a king, master of all +things within himself, not slave to them. And the fourth, the bravest, +teaches him to be dreadless of all things, as knowing that whenever +he fears, he is a slave." + +Three hundred and some odd years before that carpenter, with his +tired wife, asked for room in the inn, and found none, these words +had been written, my enlightened friends; and much longer than that, +these things had been done. And the three hundred and odd years +(more than from Elizabeth's time till now) passed by, and much fine +philosophy was talked in the interval, and many fine things found out: +but it seems that when God wanted tutors for His little Prince,--at +least, persons who would have been tutors to any other little prince, +but could only worship this one,--He could find nothing better than +those quaint-minded masters of the old Persian school. And since then, +six times over, three hundred years have gone by, and we have had a +good deal of theology talked in them;--not a little popular preaching +administered; sundry Academies of studious persons assembled,--Paduan, +Parisian, Oxonian, and the like; persons of erroneous views carefully +collected and burnt; Eton, and other grammars, diligently digested; and +the most exquisite and indubitable physical science obtained,--able, +there is now no doubt, to extinguish gases of every sort, and explain +the reasons of their smell. And here we are, at last, finding it still +necessary to treat ourselves by Cassell's Educator,--patent filter of +human faculty. Pass yourselves through that, my intelligent working +friends, and see how clear you will come out on the other side. + +Have a moment's patience yet with me, first, while I note for you one +or two of the ways of that older tutorship. Four masters, you see, +there were for the Persian Prince. One had no other business than to +teach him to speak truth; so difficult a matter the Persians thought +it. We know better,--we. You heard how perfectly the French gazettes +did it last year, without any tutor, by their Holy Republican +instincts. Then the second tutor had to teach the Prince to be +free. That tutor both the French and you have had for some time back; +but the Persian and Parisian dialects are not similar in their use of +the word "freedom"; of that hereafter. Then another master has to teach +the Prince to fear nothing; him, I admit, you want little teaching +from, for your modern Republicans fear even the devil little, and +God, less; but may I observe that you are occasionally still afraid +of thieves, though as I said some time since, I never can make out +what you have got to be stolen. + +For instance, much as we suppose ourselves desirous of beholding this +Bethlehem Nativity, or getting any idea of it, I know an English +gentleman who was offered the other day a picture of it, by a good +master,--Raphael,--for five-and-twenty pounds; and said it was too +dear: yet had paid, only a day or two before, five hundred pounds +for a pocket-pistol that shot people out of both ends, so afraid of +thieves was he. [37] + +None of these three masters, however, the masters of justice, +temperance, or fortitude, were sent to the little Prince at +Bethlehem. Young as He was, He had already been in some practice +of these; but there was yet the fourth cardinal virtue, of which, +so far as we can understand, He had to learn a new manner for His +new reign: and the masters of that were sent to Him--the masters of +Obedience. For He had to become obedient unto Death. + +And the most wise--says the Greek--the most wise master of all, +teaches the boy magic; and this magic is the service of the gods. + +My skilled working friends, I have heard much of your magic +lately. Sleight of hand, and better than that, (you say,) sleight of +machine. Léger-de-main, improved into léger-de-mécanique. From the +West, as from the East, now, your American and Arabian magicians attend +you; vociferously crying their new lamps for the old stable lantern +of scapegoat's horn. And for the oil of the trees of Gethsemane, +your American friends have struck oil more finely inflammable. Let +Aaron look to it, how he lets any run down his beard; and the wise +virgins trim their wicks cautiously, and Madelaine la Pétroleuse, with +her improved spikenard, take good heed how she breaks her alabaster, +and completes the worship of her Christ. + +Christmas, the mass of the Lord's anointed;--you will hear of devices +enough to make it merry to you this year, I doubt not. The increase +in the quantity of disposable malt liquor and tobacco is one great +fact, better than all devices. Mr. Lowe has, indeed, says the Times +of June 5th, "done the country good service, by placing before it, +in a compendious form, the statistics of its own prosperity.... The +twenty-two millions of people of 1825 drank barely nine millions +of barrels of beer in the twelve months: our thirty-two millions now +living drink all but twenty-six millions of barrels. The consumption of +spirits has increased also, though in nothing like the same proportion; +but whereas sixteen million pounds of tobacco sufficed for us in +1825, as many as forty-one million pounds are wanted now. By every +kind of measure, therefore, and on every principle of calculation, +the growth of our prosperity is established." [38] + +Beer, spirits, and tobacco, are thus more than ever at your command; +and magic besides, of lantern, and harlequin's wand; nay, necromancy if +you will, the Witch of Endor at number so and so round the corner, and +raising of the dead, if you roll away the tables from off them. But of +this one sort of magic, this magic of Zoroaster, which is the service +of God, you are not likely to hear. In one sense, indeed, you have +heard enough of becoming God's servants; to wit, servants dressed +in His court livery, to stand behind His chariot, with gold-headed +sticks. Plenty of people will advise you to apply to Him for that sort +of position: and many will urge you to assist Him in carrying out His +intentions, and be what the Americans call helps, instead of servants. + +Well! that may be, some day, truly enough; but before you can be +allowed to help Him, you must be quite sure that you can see Him. It is +a question now, whether you can even see any creature of His--or the +least thing that He has made,--see it,--so as to ascribe due worth, +or worship to it,--how much less to its Maker? + +You have felt, doubtless, at least those of you who have been brought +up in any habit of reverence, that every time when in this letter +I have used an American expression, or aught like one, there came +upon you a sense of sudden wrong--the darting through you of acute +cold. I meant you to feel that: for it is the essential function of +America to make us all feel that. It is the new skill they have found +there;--this skill of degradation; others they have, which other +nations had before them, from whom they have learned all they know, +and among whom they must travel, still, to see any human work worth +seeing. But this is their speciality, this their one gift to their +race,--to show men how not to worship,--how never to be ashamed in the +presence of anything. But the magic of Zoroaster is the exact reverse +of this, to find out the worth of all things and do them reverence. + +Therefore, the Magi bring treasures, as being discerners of treasures, +knowing what is intrinsically worthy, and worthless; what is best +in brightness, best in sweetness, best in bitterness--gold, and +frankincense, and myrrh. Finders of treasure hid in fields, and +goodliness in strange pearls, such as produce no effect whatever on +the public mind, bent passionately on its own fashion of pearl-diving +at Gennesaret. + +And you will find that the essence of the mis-teaching, of your +day, concerning wealth of any kind, is in this denial of intrinsic +value. What anything is worth, or not worth, it cannot tell you: all +that it can tell is the exchange value. What Judas, in the present +state of Demand and Supply, can get for the article he has to sell, in +a given market, that is the value of his article:--Yet you do not find +that Judas had joy of his bargain. No Christmas, still less Easter, +holidays, coming to him with merrymaking. Whereas, the Zoroastrians, +who "take stars for money," rejoice with exceeding great joy at +seeing something, which--they cannot put in their pockets. For, "the +vital principle of their religion is the recognition of one supreme +power; the God of Light--in every sense of the word--the Spirit who +creates the world, and rules it, and defends it against the power of +evil." [39] + +I repeat to you, now, the question I put at the beginning of my +letter. What is this Christmas to you? What Light is there, for your +eyes, also, pausing yet over the place where the Child lay? + +I will tell you, briefly, what Light there should be;--what lessons +and promise are in this story, at the least. There may be infinitely +more than I know; but there is certainly, this. + +The Child is born to bring you the promise of new life. Eternal or not, +is no matter; pure and redeemed, at least. + +He is born twice on your earth; first, from the womb, to the life of +toil; then, from the grave, to that of rest. + +To His first life He is born in a cattle-shed, the supposed son of +a carpenter; and afterwards brought up to a carpenter's craft. + +But the circumstances of His second life are, in great part, hidden +from us: only note this much of it. The three principal appearances +to His disciples are accompanied by giving or receiving of food. He +is known at Emmaus in breaking of bread; at Jerusalem He Himself eats +fish and honey to show that He is not a spirit; and His charge to +Peter is "when they had dined," the food having been obtained under +His direction. + +But in His first showing Himself to the person who loved Him best, and +to whom He had forgiven most, there is a circumstance more singular +and significant still. Observe--assuming the accepted belief to be +true,--this was the first time when the Maker of men showed Himself to +human eyes, risen from the dead, to assure them of immortality. You +might have thought He would have shown Himself in some brightly +glorified form,--in some sacred and before unimaginable beauty. + +He shows Himself in so simple aspect, and dress, that she, who, of all +people on the earth, should have known Him best, glancing quickly back +through her tears, does not know Him. Takes Him for "the gardener." + +Now, unless absolute orders had been given to us, such as would have +rendered error impossible, (which would have altered the entire temper +of Christian probation); could we possibly have had more distinct +indication of the purpose of the Master--born first by witness of +shepherds, in a cattle-shed, then by witness of the person for whom He +had done most, and who loved Him best, in the garden, and in gardener's +guise, and not known even by His familiar friends till He gave them +bread--could it be told us, I repeat, more definitely by any sign or +indication whatsoever, that the noblest human life was appointed to +be by the cattle-fold and in the garden; and to be known as noble in +breaking of bread? + +Now, but a few words more. You will constantly hear foolish and +ignoble persons conceitedly proclaiming the text, that "not many wise +and not many noble are called." + +Nevertheless, of those who are truly wise, and truly noble, all are +called that exist. And to sight of this Nativity, you find that, +together with the simple persons, near at hand, there were called +precisely the wisest men that could be found on earth at that moment. + +And these men, for their own part, came--I beg you very earnestly +again to note this--not to see, nor talk--but to do reverence. They +are neither curious nor talkative, but submissive. + +And, so far as they came to teach, they came as teachers of one +virtue only: Obedience. For of this Child, at once Prince and Servant, +Shepherd and Lamb, it was written: "See, mine elect, in whom my soul +delighteth. He shall not strive, nor cry, till he shall bring forth +Judgment unto Victory." + +My friends, of the black country, you may have wondered at my telling +you so often,--I tell you nevertheless, once more, in bidding you +farewell this year,--that one main purpose of the education I want +you to seek is, that you may see the sky, with the stars of it again; +and be enabled, in their material light--"riveder le stelle." + +But, much more, out of this blackness of the smoke of the Pit, the +blindness of heart, in which the children of Disobedience blaspheme God +and each other, heaven grant to you the vision of that sacred light, +at pause over the place where the young Child was laid; and ordain +that more and more in each coming Christmas it may be said of you, +"When they saw the Star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy." + + +Believe me your faithful servant, + +JOHN RUSKIN. + + + + + + + + + +NOTES + + +[1] Communicated to me by my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, of Venice, from +his yet unpublished work, 'The English in Italy in the 14th Century.' + +[2] See Carey's translation of the ninth book of Dante's 'Purgatory,' +line 105. + +[3] I assume the Cambridge quotation to be correct: in my old edition +(1848), the distinction is between 'weavers and lace-makers' and +'journeymen bricklayers;' and making velvet is considered to be +the production of a 'commodity,' but building a house only doing a +'service.' + +[4] I do not mean that there are no other kinds, nor that well-paid +labour must necessarily be unproductive. I hope to see much done, +some day, for just pay, and wholly productive. But these, named in the +text, are the two opposite extremes; and, in actual life, hitherto, +the largest means have been usually spent in mischief, and the most +useful work done for the worst pay. + +[5] £992,740,328, in seventeen years, say the working men of Burnley, +in their address just issued--an excellent address in its way, and +full of very fair arithmetic--if its facts are all right; only I don't +see, myself, how, "from fifteen to twenty-five millions per annum," +make nine hundred and ninety-two millions in seventeen years. + +[6] Daily Telegraph, 30th January, 1871. + +[7] Carlyle's Frederick, Book IV., chap. iii. + +[8] Carlyle, Frederick, vol. i. p. 321 (first edition). + +[9] Song of Solomon 2 : 11-13 + +[10] Here is another curious instance: I have but a minute ago finished +correcting these sheets, and take up the Times of this morning, April +21st, and find in it the suggestion by the Chancellor of the Exchequer +for the removal of exemption from taxation, of Agricultural horses +and carts, in the very nick of time to connect it, as a proposal for +economic practice, with the statement of economic principle respecting +Production, quoted on last page. + +[11] Wordsworth, "Excursion," Book 4th; in Moxon's edition, 1857 +(stupidly without numbers to lines), vol. vi., p. 135. + +[12] Read this, for instance, concerning the Gardens of Paris:--one +sentence in the letter is omitted; I will give it in full elsewhere, +with its necessary comments:-- + + + "To the Editor of the Times. + + 5th April, 1871. + + + "Sir,--As the paragraph you quoted on Monday from the Field gives + no idea of the destruction of the gardens round Paris, if you + can spare me a very little space I will endeavour to supplement it. + + "The public gardens in the interior of Paris, including the + planting on the greater number of the Boulevards, are in a + condition perfectly surprising when one considers the sufferings + even well-to-do persons had to endure for want of fuel during + the siege. Some of them, like the little oases in the centre + of the Louvre, even look as pretty as ever. After a similar + ordeal it is probable we should not have a stick left in London, + and the presence of the very handsome planes on the Boulevards, + and large trees in the various squares and gardens, after the + winter of 1870-71, is most creditable to the population. But + when one goes beyond the Champs Elysées and towards the Bois, + down the once beautiful Avenue de l'Impératrice, a sad scene of + desolation presents itself. A year ago it was the finest avenue + garden in existence; now a considerable part of the surface where + troops were camped is about as filthy and as cheerless as Leicester + Square or a sparsely furnished rubbish yard. + + "The view into the once richly-wooded Bois from the huge and + ugly banks of earth which now cross the noble roads leading + into it is desolate indeed, the stump of the trees cut down + over a large extent of its surface reminding one of the dreary + scenes observable in many parts of Canada and the United States, + where the stumps of the burnt or cut-down pines are allowed to + rot away for years. The zone of the ruins round the vast belt + of fortifications I need not speak of, nor of the other zone of + destruction round each of the forts, as here houses and gardens + and all have disappeared. But the destruction in the wide zone + occupied by French and Prussian outposts is beyond description. I + got to Paris the morning after the shooting of Generals Clement + Thomas and Lecomte, and in consequence did not see so much of it + as I otherwise might have done; but round the villages of Sceaux, + Bourg-la-Reine, L'Hay, Vitry, and Villejuif, I saw an amount of + havoc which the subscriptions to the French Horticultural Relief + Fund will go but a very small way to repair. Notwithstanding all + his revolutions and wars, the Frenchman usually found time to + cultivate a few fruit trees, and the neighbourhood of the villages + above mentioned were only a few of many covered by nurseries of + young trees. When I last visited Vitry, in the autumn of 1868, the + fields and hill-sides around were everywhere covered with trees; + now the view across them is only interrupted by stumps about a + foot high. When at Vitry on the 28th of March, I found the once + fine nursery of M. Honoré Dufresne deserted, and many acres once + covered with large stock and specimens cleared to the ground. And + so it was in numerous other cases. It may give some notion of + the effect of the war on the gardens and nurseries around Paris, + when I state that, according to returns made up just before my + visit to Vitry and Villejuif, it was found that around these two + villages alone 2,400,400 fruit and other trees were destroyed. As + to the private gardens, I cannot give a better idea of them + than by describing the materials composing the protecting bank + of a battery near Sceaux. It was made up of mattresses, sofas, + and almost every other large article of furniture, with the earth + stowed between. There were, in addition, nearly forty orange and + oleander tubs gathered from the little gardens in the neighbourhood + visible in various parts of this ugly bank. One nurseryman at + Sceaux, M. Keteleer, lost 1,500 vols. of books, which were not + taken to Germany, but simply mutilated and thrown out of doors to + rot.... Multiply these few instances by the number of districts + occupied by the belligerents during the war, and some idea of + the effects of glory on gardening in France may be obtained. + + + "W. Robinson." + +[13] Last night (I am writing this on the 18th of April) I got a +letter from Venice, bringing me the, I believe, too well-grounded, +report that the Venetians have requested permission from the government +of Italy to pull down their Ducal Palace, and "rebuild" it. Put up a +horrible model of it, in its place, that is to say, for which their +architects may charge a commission. Meantime, all their canals are +choked with human dung, which they are too poor to cart away, but +throw out at their windows. + +And all the great thirteenth-century cathedrals in France have been +destroyed, within my own memory, only that architects might charge +commission for putting up false models of them in their place. + +[14] I think it best to publish this letter as it was prepared for +press on the morning of the 25th of last month, at Abingdon, before +the papers of that day had reached me. You may misinterpret its tone, +and think it is written without feeling; but I will endeavour to +give you, in my next letter, a brief statement of the meaning, to the +French and to all other nations, of this war, and its results: in the +meantime, trust me, there is probably no other man living to whom, +in the abstract, and irrespective of loss of family and property, +the ruin of Paris is so great a sorrow as it is to me. + +[15] Of course this was written, and in type, before the late +catastrophe in Paris; and the one at Dunkirk is, I suppose, long since +forgotten, much more our own good beginning at--Birmingham--was it? I +forget, myself, now. + +[16] This was at seven in the morning; he had them fighting at +half-past nine. + +[17] Engraved, as also the woodcut in the April number, carefully after +Holbein, by my coal-waggon-assisting assistant: but he has missed his +mark somewhat, here; the imp's abortive hands, hooked processes only, +like Envy's, and pterodactylous, are scarcely seen in their clutch +of the bellows, and there are other faults. We will do it better for +you, afterwards. + +[18] I spare you, for once, a word for 'government' used by this +old author, which would have been unintelligible to you, and is so, +except in its general sense, to me, too. + +[19] Horace, Odes, Book II, Ode XV. + +[20] "Tanto rossa, ch' appena fora dentro al fuoco nota."--Purg., +xxix. 122. + +[21] Confession always a little painful, however; scientific envy being +the most difficult of all to conquer. I find I did much injustice to +the botanical lecturer, as well as to my friend, in my last letter; +and, indeed, suspected as much at the time; but having some botanical +notions myself, which I am vain of, I wanted the lecturer's to be +wrong, and stopped cross-examining my friend as soon as I had got +what suited me. Nevertheless, the general statement that follows, +remember, rests on no tea-table chat; and the tea-table chat itself +is accurate, as far as it goes. + +[22] I have since been ill, and cannot thoroughly revise my sheets; but +my good friend Mr. Robert Chester, whose keen reading has saved me many +a blunder ere now, will, I doubt not, see me safely through the pinch. + +[23] "The charge on France for the interest of the newly-created +debt, for the amount advanced by the Bank, and for the annual +repayments--in short, for the whole additional burdens which the +war has rendered necessary--is substantially to be met by increased +Customs and Excise duties. The two principles which seem to have +governed the selection of these imposts are, to extort the largest +amount of money as it is leaving the hand of the purchaser, and to +enforce the same process as the cash is falling into the hand of the +native vendor; the results being to burden the consumer and restrict +the national industry. Leading commodities of necessary use--such +as sugar and coffee, all raw materials for manufacture, and all +textile substances--have to pay ad valorem duties, in some cases +ruinously heavy. Worse still, and bearing most seriously on English +interests, heavy export duties are to be imposed on French products, +among which wine, brandy, liqueurs, fruits, eggs, and oilcake stand +conspicuous--these articles paying a fixed duty; while all others, +grain and flour, we presume, included, will pay 1 per cent. ad +valorem. Navigation dues are also to be levied on shipping, French and +foreign; and the internal postage of letters is to be increased 25 per +cent. From the changes in the Customs duties alone an increased revenue +of £10,500,000 is anticipated. We will not venture to assert that +these changes may not yield the amount of money so urgently needed; +but if they do, the result will open up a new chapter in political +economy. Judging from the experience of every civilised State, it is +simply inconceivable that such a tariff can be productive, can possess +the faculty of healthy natural increase, or can act otherwise than as +a dead weight on the industrial energies of the country. Every native +of France will have to pay more for articles of prime necessity, +and will thus have less to spare on articles of luxury--that is, on +those which contribute most to the revenue, with the least of damage +to the resources of his industry. Again, the manufacturer will have +the raw material of his trade enhanced in value; and, though he may +have the benefit of a drawback on his exports, he will find his home +market starved by State policy. His foreign customer will purchase +less, because the cost is so much greater, and because his means are +lessened by the increase in the prices of food through the export duty +on French products. The French peasant finds his market contracted +by an export duty which prevents the English consumers of his eggs, +poultry, and wine from buying as largely as they once did; his profits +are therefore reduced, his piece of ground is less valuable, his +ability to pay taxes is lessened. The policy, in short, might almost +be thought expressly devised to impoverish the entire nation when it +most wants enriching--to strangle French industry by slow degrees, +to dry up at their source the main currents of revenue. Our only +hope is, that the proposals, by their very grossness, will defeat +themselves."--Telegraph, June 29th. + +[24] Dante, Inferno, Canto VII. v. 53-54 + +[25] Dante, Inferno, Canto VII. v. 63-65 + +[26] Of course the Prime Minister is always the real tax-gatherer; +the Chancellor of the Exchequer is only the cat's-paw. + +[27] Infinite nonsense is talked about the "work done" by the upper +classes. I have done a little myself, in my day, of the kind of work +they boast of; but mine, at least, has been all play. Even lawyer's, +which is, on the whole, the hardest, you may observe to be essentially +grim play, made more jovial for themselves by conditions which make +it somewhat dismal to other people. Here and there we have a real +worker among soldiers, or no soldiering would long be possible; +nevertheless young men don't go into the Guards with any primal or +essential idea of work. + +[28] I speak in the first person, not insolently, but necessarily, +being yet alone in this design: and for some time to come the +responsibility of carrying it on must rest with me, nor do I ask +or desire any present help, except from those who understand what I +have written in the course of the last ten years, and who can trust +me, therefore. But the continuance of the scheme must depend on the +finding men staunch and prudent for the heads of each department of +the practical work, consenting, indeed, with each other as to certain +great principles of that work, but left wholly to their own judgment as +to the manner and degree in which they are to be carried into effect. + +[29] I do not mean that I answered in these words, but to the effect +of them, at greater length. + +[30] We English are usually bad altogether in a harmonious way, and +only quite insolent when we are quite good-for-nothing; the least good +in us shows itself in a measure of modesty; but many Scotch natures, +of fine capacity otherwise, are rendered entirely abortive by conceit. + +[31] "Steam has, of course, utterly extirpated seamanship," says +Admiral Rous, in his letter to 'The Times' (which I had, of course, not +seen when I wrote this). Read the whole letter and the article on it in +'The Times' of the 17th, which is entirely temperate and conclusive. + +[32] The myth of Balaam; the cause assigned for the journey of the +first King of Israel from his father's house; and the manner of +the triumphal entry of the greatest King of Judah into His capital, +are symbolic of the same truths; but in a yet more strange humility. + +[33] Compare also. Black Auster at the Battle of the Lake, in +Macaulay's 'Lays of Rome.' + +[34] Since last Fors was published I have sold some more property, +which has brought me in another ten thousand to tithe; so that I have +bought a second thousand Consols in the names of the Trustees--and +have received a pretty little gift of seven acres of woodland, +in Worcestershire, for you, already--so you see there is at least +a beginning. + +[35] See § 159, (written seven years ago,) in 'Munera Pulveris.' + +[36] Great;--father's father's mother. + +[37] The papers had it that several gentlemen concurred in this piece +of business; but they put the Nativity at five-and-twenty thousand, +and the Agincourt, or whatever the explosive protector was called, +at five hundred thousand. + +[38] This last clause does not, you are however to observe, refer in +the great Temporal Mind, merely to the merciful Dispensation of beer +and tobacco, but to the general state of things, afterwards thus +summed with exultation: "We doubt if there is a household in the +kingdom which would now be contented with the conditions of living +cheerfully accepted in 1825." + +[39] Max Müller: 'Genesis and the Zend-Avesta.' + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Fors Clavigera (Volume 1 of 8), by John Ruskin + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59456 *** |