“Hastings, May 15.
“My dear Ruskin,—I enclose two extracts, cut from the same day’s paper,
which contain so grimly humorous a parallel between the ways in which
the ‘Protestant Church’ and ‘the world’ are engaged in ‘obliterating
all traces of the Virgin Mary,’ that I thought you might possibly use
them in ‘Fors’ or elsewhere.
“Yours affectionately,
“C. Patmore.”
(The following are the two extracts. Before giving them, I must reply
to my greatly honoured and loved friend, that both the Bristol
destroyers of images and New York destroyers of humanity, are
simply—Lost Sheep of the great Catholic Church; account of whom will be
required at her hand.)
“Iconoclasm at Bristol.—Our Bristol correspondent writes: The removal
of the ‘imagery’ from the north porch of Bristol Cathedral has created
considerable excitement in the city and in Clifton. As a member of the
capitular body who is known to strongly object to the figures was seen
near the Cathedral late on Wednesday night, the clerk of the works
employed ‘watchers,’ his intention being to refuse admission to other
than his own workmen. On Thursday morning he had occasion to leave the
works to go to the quarries at Corsham, and while he was absent a gang
of men, under the orders of the chapter clerk, entered the gates, and
before the clerk of the works, who was telegraphed for, could return,
hauled down the four statues and obliterated all traces of the Virgin
Mary, doing much damage to other carving in the process of removal. The
last has by no means been heard of this affair. The statues cost over
£100 each, but the money value of the ‘imagery’ is not considered by
the Restoration Committee. Their contention is that, until the work was
completed and handed over to the Cathedral body, it belonged to the
Restoration Committee; and it is believed that the right of the Chapter
to act as they have done will be tested in a court of law. Feeling is
so strong against the action of the Dean and Chapter that plenty of
money would be forthcoming to prosecute such an inquiry.”—Pall Mall
Gazette, April 7, 1876.
“One of the latest ‘sensations’ in New York has been a ‘female boxing
match,’ aptly described by the New York Times as a ‘novel and
nonsensical exhibition.’ The combatants—or ‘lady contestants,’ as they
are called in the report of the proceedings—were two ballet-girls, of
the kind known as ‘variety dancers.’ One, Miss Saunders, wore a white
bodice, purple knee-breeches, which she had borrowed from an Ethiopian
serenader, red stockings, and shoes. The other, Miss Harland, was
attired in blue trunks and white tights. Both appeared nervous, were
very pale, tried to blush, and ‘partially succeeded.’ When the fighting
began, Miss Harland ‘did not know what to do with her hands.’ Miss
Saunders, however, had her fists more at command, and, after some
preliminary sparring, succeeded in striking her opponent ‘square in the
face.’ Miss Harland, on her side, ‘by a vicious blow from the
shoulder,’ managed to disarrange Miss Saunders’s back hair. Both ladies
then smiled. In the end Miss Harland lost the match, ‘owing to her
confirmed habit of swinging her hands around in the air.’ Miss Saunders
was declared the winner, and carried off a prize of 200 dols. and a
piece of silver plate; Miss Harland received a ten-dollar bill from an
amateur who thought she deserved consolation; and the two ‘lady
contestants’ left the stage arm-in-arm.”—Pall Mall Gazette, April 7,
1876.
IV. In last Fors, though I thought I knew my ‘Old Mortality’ well
enough, I carelessly wrote ‘Elspeth,’ for ‘Elizabeth,’ (meaning Bessie
Maclure); and the misprint ‘Arannah’ for ‘Araunah’ escaped my eyes
three times over. The more grotesque one of ‘changes’ for ‘charges,’ in
p. 168, line 25, was I suppose appointed by Fors to chastise me for
incurable flirtation. I wish I knew who these two schoolgirls are, whom
I’ve got to finish my letter to if I can, this time.
My dears, will you please, for I can’t rewrite what I’ve said so often,
read, when you have opportunity, the letter to a young lady in Fors 34,
pp. 29, 30. [48] Respecting the third article in that letter, I have
now a few words to add; (read also, if you can, what is said of the
Word of God, in Letters 45 and 46). I told you in last Fors that you
would have great difficulty in getting leave from English society to
obey Christ. Fors has since sent me, in support of this statement, a
paper called ‘The Christian,’—the number for Thursday, May 11,—in the
fifteenth page of which is an article on young ladies headed “What can
they do?” from which I take the following passage:—
“There have been times of special prayer for young men and women. Could
there not be also for the very large class of young ladies who do not
go out into society? They have no home duties to detain them, as many
in a humbler condition; they have hours and hours of leisure, and know
not how to spend them—partly from need of being directed, but more so
from the prejudices and hindrances in their way. Their hearts are
burning to do something for Christ, but they are not allowed, partly
because it is considered ‘improper,’ and for a variety of reasons.
“There is a cry on every side for labourers. There are numbers longing
to respond; if not wholly to dedicate their lives, at least a portion
of their days, to active Christian service, and only a wave of united
prayer can throw these objections aside, and free the large band who
are so willing.
“A bright young Christian came to me this week. She is tired of
meetings to which she is constantly taken, but never allowed to work in
the inquiry-room at them,—hindered from taking up the least bit of
work, till at last she cannot even ask for it. Almost to ‘kill time,’
she has taken up a secular corresponding agency.”
Now that it is ‘considered improper’ by the world that you should do
anything for Christ, is entirely true, and always true; and therefore
it was that your Godfathers and Godmothers, in your name, renounced the
“vain pomp and glory of the world,” with all covetous desires of the
same—see baptismal service—(I wonder if you had pretty names—won’t you
tell me?) but I much doubt if you, either privately or from the pulpit
of your doubtless charming church, have ever been taught what the “vain
pomp and glory of the world” was.
Well, do you want to be better dressed than your schoolfellows? Some of
them are probably poor, and cannot afford to dress like you; or, on the
other hand, you may be poor yourselves, and may be mortified at their
being dressed better than you. Put an end to all that at once, by
resolving to go down into the deep of your girl’s heart, where you will
find, inlaid by Christ’s own hand, a better thing than vanity; pity.
And be sure of this, that, although in a truly Christian land, every
young girl would be dressed beautifully and delightfully,—in this
entirely heathen and Baal-worshipping land of ours, not one girl in ten
has either decent or healthy clothing, and that you have no business
now to wear anything fine yourself, but are bound to use your full
strength and resources to dress as many of your poor neighbours as you
can. What of fine dress your people insist upon your wearing, take—and
wear proudly and prettily, for their sakes; but, so far as in you lies,
be sure that every day you are labouring to clothe some poorer
creatures. And if you cannot clothe, at least help, with your hands.
You can make your own bed; wash your own plate; brighten your own
furniture,—if nothing else.
‘But that’s servant’s work’? Of course it is. What business have you to
hope to be better than a servant of servants? ‘God made you a lady’?
Yes, he has put you, that is to say, in a position in which you may
learn to speak your own language beautifully; to be accurately
acquainted with the elements of other languages; to behave with grace,
tact, and sympathy to all around you; to know the history of your
country, the commands of its religion, and the duties of its race. If
you obey His will in learning these things, you will obtain the power
of becoming a true ‘lady;’ and you will become one, if while you learn
these things you set yourself, with all the strength of your youth and
womanhood, to serve His servants, until the day come when He calls you
to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant: enter thou into the joy
of thy Lord.”
You may thus become a Christ’s lady, or you may, if you will, become a
Belial’s lady, taking Belial’s gift of miserable idleness, living on
the labour and shame of others, and deceiving them and yourself by lies
about Providence, until you perish in hell with the rest of such,
shrieking the bitter cry, “When saw we Thee?”