VENICE, _February 8th_, 1877.
MY DEAR----: This is a nobly done piece of work of yours--a fireman's
duty in fire of hell; and I would fain help you in all I could, but
my way of going at the thing would be from the top down--putting the
fire out with the sun, not with vain sprinklings. People would say
I wasn't practical, as usual of course; but it seems to me the last
thing one should do in the business is to play Lord Angelo, and set
bar and door to deluge. Not but I should sift the windows of our
Oxford printsellers, if I had my full way in my Art Professorship;
but I can't say the tenth part of what I would. I'm in the very gist
and main effort of quite other work, and can't get my mind turned to
this rightly, for this, in the heart of it, involves--well, to say the
whole range of moral philosophy, is nothing; this, in the heart of it,
one can't touch unless one knew the moral philosophy of angels also,
and what that means, "but are as the angels in heaven." For indeed
there is no true conqueror of Lust but Love; and in this beautifully
scientific day of the British nation, in which you have no God to love
any more, but only an omnipotent coagulation of copulation: in which
you have no Law nor King to love any more, but only a competition
and a constitution, and the oil of anointing for king and priest
used to grease your iron wheels down hill: when you have no country
to love any more, but "patriotism is nationally what selfishness is
individually,"[140] such the eternally-damned modern view of the
matter--the moral syphilis of the entire national blood: and, finally,
when you have no true bride and groom to love each other any more, but
a girl looking out for a carriage and a man for a position, what have
you left on earth to take pleasure in, except theft and adultery?
The two great vices play into each other's hands. Ill-got money is
always finally spent on the harlot. Look at Hogarth's two 'prentices;
the sum of social wisdom is in that bit of rude art-work, if one reads
it solemnly.
FOOTNOTES:
[139] The following letters were addressed by Mr. Ruskin to the author
of a pamphlet on continence, entitled "The Science of Life." There were
two editions of the pamphlet, and of these only the second contained
the first and last of these letters, whilst only the first contained
the last letter but one. Some passages also in the other letters are
omitted in the first edition, and a few slight alterations are made in
the second in the letter of February 10.
[140] For further notice by Mr. Ruskin of this maxim, which occurs in
Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Study of Sociology," p. 205, see the article on
"Home and its Economies" in the _Contemporary Review_ of May, 1873, and
"Bibliotheca Pastorum," p. xxxiv.
VENICE, _February 10th_.
HENCE, if from any place in earth, I ought to be able to send you
some words of warning to English youths, for the ruin of this mighty
city was all in one word--fornication. Fools who think they can write
history will tell you it was "the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope,"
and the like! Alas it was indeed the covering of every hope she had, in
God and his Law.
For indeed, my dear friend, I doubt if you can fight this evil by
mere heroism and common-sense. Not many men are heroes; not many are
rich in common-sense. They will train for a boat-race; will they for
the race of life? For the applause of the pretty girls in blue on the
banks; yes. But to win the soul and body of a noble woman for their own
forever, will they? Not as things are going, I think, though how or
where they are to go or end is to me at present inconceivable.
* * * * *
You think, perhaps, I could help you therefore with a lecture on good
taste and Titian? No, not at all; I might with one on politics, but
that everybody would say was none of my business. Yet to understand the
real meaning of the word "Sire," with respect to the rider as well as
the horse, is indeed the basis of all knowledge, in policy, chivalry,
and social order.
All that you have advised and exposed is wisely said and bravely told;
but no advice, no exposure, will be of use, until the right relation
exists again between the father and the mother and their son. To
deserve his confidence, to keep it as the chief treasure committed in
trust to them by God: to be the father his strength, the mother his
sanctification, and both his chosen refuge, through all weakness, evil,
danger, and amazement of his young life. My friend, while you still
teach in Oxford the "philosophy," forsooth, of that poor cretinous
wretch, Stuart Mill, and are endeavoring to open other "careers" to
English women than that of the Wife and the Mother, you won't make
your men chaste by recommending them to leave off tea.[141]
FOOTNOTES:
[141] I have to state that this expression regarding Stuart Mill
was not intended for separate publication; and to explain that in a
subsequent but unpublished letter Mr. Ruskin explained it to refer to
Mill's utter deficiency in the powers of the imagination.--The last
words of this letter will be made clearer by noting that the pamphlet
dealt with physical, as well as mental, diet.
VENICE, _11th February_.
MY DEAR----: I would say much more, if I thought any one would
believe me, of the especial calamity of this time, with respect to
the discipline of youth--in having no food any more to offer to their
imagination. Military distinction is no more possible by prowess, and
the young soldier thinks of the hurdle-race as one of the lists and the
field--but the noble temper will not train for that trial with equal
joy. Clerical eminence--the bishopric or popular pastorship--may be
tempting to men of genial pride or sensitive conceit: but the fierce
blood that would have burned into a patriarch, or lashed itself into a
saint--what "career" has your modern philosophy to offer to _it_?
The entire cessation of all employment for the faculty, which, in the
best men of former ages, was continually exercised and satisfied in the
realization of the presence of Christ with the hosts of Heaven, leaves
the part of the brain which it employed absolutely vacant, and ready
to suck in, with the avidity of vacuum, whatever pleasantness may be
presented to the natural sight in the gas-lighted beauty of pantomimic
and casino Paradise.
All these disadvantages, you will say, are inevitable, and need not
be dwelt upon. In my own school of St. George I mean to avoid them by
simply making the study of Christianity a true piece of intellectual
work; my boys shall at least know what their fathers believed, before
they make up their own wise minds to disbelieve it. They shall be
infidels, if they choose, at thirty; but only students, and very modest
ones, at fifteen. But I shall at least ask of modern science so much
help as shall enable me to begin to teach them at that age the physical
laws relating to their own bodies, openly, thoroughly, and with awe;
and of modern civilization, I shall ask so much help as may enable me
to teach them what is indeed right, and what wrong, for the citizen
of a state of noble humanity to do, and permit to be done, by others,
unaccused.
And if you can found two such chairs in Oxford--one, of the Science of
Physical Health; the other, of the Law of Human Honor--you need not
trim your Horace, nor forbid us our chatty afternoon tea.
I could say ever so much more, of course, if there were only time, or
if it would be of any use--about the mis-appliance of the imagination.
But really, the essential thing is the founding of real schools of
instruction for both boys and girls--first, in domestic medicine
and all that it means; and secondly, in the plain moral law of all
humanity: "Thou shalt not commit adultery," with all that _it_ means.
Ever most truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
VENICE, _12th February_, '77.
MY DEAR----: Two words more, and an end. I have just re-read the paper
throughout. There are two omissions which seem to me to need serious
notice.
The first, that the entire code of counsel which you have drawn up,
as that which a father should give his son, must be founded on the
assumption that, at the proper time of life, the youth will be able,
no less than eager, to marry. You ought certainly to point out,
incidentally, what in my St. George's work I am teaching primarily,
that unless this first economical condition of human society be
secured, all props and plasters of its morality will be in vain.
And in the second place, you have spoken too exclusively of Lust, as
if _it_ were the normal condition of sexual feeling, and the only one
properly to be called sexual. But the great relation of the sexes is
Love, not Lust; that is the relation in which "male and female created
He them;" putting into them, indeed, to be distinctly restrained to the
office of fruitfulness, the brutal passion of Lust: but giving them the
spiritual power of Love, that each spirit might be greater and purer by
its bond to another associate spirit, in this world, and that which is
to come; help-mates, and sharers of each other's joy forever.
Ever most truly yours,
J. RUSKIN.
MALHAM, _July 3d_, 1878.
Dear----: I wish I were able to add a few more words, with energy and
clearness, to my former letters, respecting a subject of which my best
strength--though in great part lately given to it, has not yet enforced
the moment--the function, namely, of the arts of music and dancing as
leaders and governors of the bodily, and instinctive mental, passions.
No nation will ever bring up its youth to be at once refined and pure,
till its masters have learned the _use_ of all the arts, and primarily
of these; till they again recognize the gulf that separates the Doric
and Lydian modes, and perceive the great ordinance of Nature, that the
pleasures which, rightly ordered, exalt, discipline, and guide the
hearts of men, if abandoned to a reckless and popular Dis-order, as
surely degrade, scatter, and deceive alike the passions and intellect.
I observe in the journals of yesterday, announcement that the masters
of many of our chief schools are at last desirous of making the
elements of Greek art one of the branches of their code of instruction:
but that they imagine such elements may be learned from plaster casts
of elegant limbs and delicate noses.
They will find that Greek art can only be learned from Greek law, and
from the religion which gives law of life to all the nations of the
earth. Let our youth once more learn the meaning of the words "music,"
"chorus," and "hymn" practically; and with the understanding that all
such practice, from lowest to highest, is, if rightly done, always in
the presence and to the praise of God; and we shall have gone far
to shield them in a noble peace and glorious safety from the darkest
questions and the foulest sins that have perplexed and consumed the
youth of past generations for the last four hundred years.
Have you ever heard the charity children sing in St. Paul's? Suppose
we sometimes allowed God the honor of seeing our _noble_ children
collected in like manner to sing to Him, what think you might be the
effect of such a festival--even if only held once a year--on the
national manners and hearts?
Ever faithfully and affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
V.
WOMEN: THEIR WORK AND THEIR DRESS.
WOMAN'S WORK. 1873.
FEMALE FRANCHISE. 1870.
PROVERBS ON RIGHT DRESS. 1862.
SAD-COLORED COSTUMES. 1870.
OAK SILKWORMS. 1862.
V.
WOMEN: THEIR WORK AND THEIR DRESS.
[From "L'Espérance, Journel Mensuel, organe de l'Association des
Femmes." Genève, le 8 Mai, 1873.]
_WOMAN'S WORK._
_Lettre à la Présidente._[142]
MA CHÈRE MADAME: Je vous remercie de votre lettre si intéressante, car
je sympathise de tout mon cœur avec la plupart des sentiments et des
souhaits que vous y exprimez. Mais arriver à rendre des femmes plus
nobles et plus sages est une chose; les élever de façon à ce qu'elles
entretiennient leurs maris est une autre!
Je ne puis trouver des termes assez forts pour exprimer la haine et
le mépris que je ressens pour l'idée moderne qu'une femme doit cesser
d'être mère, fille, ou femme pour qu'elle puisse devenir commis ou
ingénieur.
Vous êtes toutes entièrement sottes dans cette matière. Le devoir d'un
homme est d'entretenir sa femme et ses enfants, celui d'une femme est
de le rendre heureux chez lui, et d'élever ses enfants sagement. Aucune
femme n'est capable de faire plus que cela. Aucune femme ne doit faire
moins, et un homme qui ne peut pas nourrir sa femme, et désire qu'elle
travaille pour lui, mérite d'être pendu au-dessus de sa porte.
Je suis, Madame, fidèlement à vous,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[142] I have been unable to get access to the paper from which this
letter is taken, and must therefore have without explanation the
fortunately unimportant references in its first paragraph.
[Date and place of publication unknown.]
_FEMALE FRANCHISE._
VENICE, _29th May_, 1870.
SIR: I am obliged by your note. I have no time for private
correspondence at present, but you are quite right in your supposition
as to my views respecting female franchise. So far from wishing to give
votes to women, I would fain take them away from most men.[143]
Very sincerely yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[143] So also in writing an excuse for absence from a lecture upon
"Woman's Work and Woman's Sphere," given on behalf of the French
female refugees by Miss Emily Faithfull in February, 1871, Mr. Ruskin
said: "I most heartily sympathize with you in your purpose of defining
woman's work and sphere. It is as refreshing as the dew's, and as
defined as the moon's, but it is not the rain's nor the sun's." (_Daily
Telegraph_, Feb. 21, 1871.)
[From "The Monthly Packet," November, 1863, p. 556.]
_PROVERBS ON RIGHT DRESS._[144]
GENEVA, _October 20th_, 1862.
MY DEAR SIR: I am much obliged by your letter: pardon me if for
brevity's sake I answer with appearance of dogmatism. You will see
the subject treated as fully as I am able in the course of the papers
on political economy, of which the two first have already appeared in
Fraser's Magazine.[145]
The man and woman are meant by God to be perfectly noble and beautiful
in each other's eyes. The dress is right which makes them so. The best
dress is that which is beautiful in the eyes of noble and wise persons.
Right dress is therefore that which is fit for the station in
life, and the work to be done in it; and which is otherwise
graceful--becoming--lasting--healthful--and easy; on occasion,
splendid; _always_ as beautiful as possible.
Right dress is therefore strong--simple--radiantly clean--carefully put
on--carefully kept.
Cheap dress, bought for cheapness sake, and costly dress bought for
costliness sake, are _both_ abominations. Right dress is bought _for_
its worth, and _at_ its worth; and bought only when wanted.
Beautiful dress is chiefly beautiful in color--in harmony of parts--and
in mode of putting on and wearing. Rightness of mind is in nothing more
shown than in the mode of wearing simple dress.
Ornamentation involving design, such as embroidery, etc., produced
_solely_ by industry of _hand_, is highly desirable in the state
dresses of all classes, down to the lowest peasantry.
National costume, wisely adopted and consistently worn, is not only
desirable but necessary in right national organization. Obeying fashion
is a great folly, and a greater crime; but gradual changes in dress
properly accompany a healthful national development.
The Scriptural authority for dress is centralized by Proverbs xxxi.
21, 22; and by 1 Samuel i. 24; the latter especially indicating the
duty of the king or governor of the state; as the former the duty of
the housewife. It is necessary for the complete understanding of those
passages, that the reader should know that "scarlet" means intense
central radiance of pure color; it is the type of purest color--between
pale and dark--between sad and gay. It was therefore used with hyssop
as a type of purification. There are many stronger passages, such as
Psalm xlv. 13, 14; but as some people read them under the impression of
their being figurative, I need not refer to them. The passages in the
Prophecies and Epistles against dress apply only to its abuses. Dress
worn for the sake of vanity, or coveted in jealousy, is as evil as
anything else similarly so abused. A woman should earnestly desire to
be beautiful, as she should desire to be intelligent; her dress should
be as studied as her words; but if the one is worn or the other spoken
in vanity or insolence, both are equally criminal.
I have not time, and there is no need, to refer you to the scattered
notices of dress in my books: the most important is rather near the
beginning of my Political Economy of Art;[146] but I have not the
book by me: if you make any use of this letter (you may make any you
please), I should like you to add that passage to it, as it refers to
the more immediate need of economy in dress, when the modes of its
manufacture are irregular, and cause distress to the operative.
Believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[144] The preceding numbers of the _Monthly Packet_ had contained
various letters upon dress, and the present one was then sent to the
Editor by the person to whom it was originally addressed.
[145] In June and September, 1863. See the first two chapters of
"Munera Pulveris."
[146] See pp. 67-75 of the original, and 50-55 of the new edition ("A
Joy for Ever").
[From "Macmillan's Magazine," November, 1870, p. 80.]
_SAD-COLORED COSTUMES._
DENMARK HILL, S.E., _14th Oct._, 1870.
_To the Editor of "Macmillan's Magazine."_
SIR: At p. 423 of your current number, Mr. Stopford A. Brooke states
that it is a proposal of mine for regenerating the country, that the
poor should be "dressed all in one sad-colored costume."[147]
It is, indeed, too probable that one sad-colored costume may soon be
"your only wear," instead of the present motley--for both poor and
rich. But the attainment of this monotony was never a proposition of
mine; and as I am well aware Mr. Brooke would not have been guilty of
misrepresentation, if he had had time to read the books he was speaking
of, I am sure he will concur in my request that you would print in full
the passages to which he imagined himself to be referring.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
1. "You ladies like to lead the fashion: by all means lead it. Lead
it thoroughly. Lead it far enough. Dress yourselves nicely, and dress
everybody else nicely. Lead the fashions for the poor first; make
_them_ look well, and you yourselves will look--in ways of which you
have at present no conception--all the better."--_Crown of Wild Olive_
(1866), p. 18.[148]
2. "In the simplest and clearest definition of it, economy, whether
public or private, means the wise management of labor; and it means
this mainly in three senses: namely, first, applying your labor
rationally; secondly, preserving its produce carefully; lastly,
distributing its produce seasonably.
"I say first, applying your labor rationally; that is, so as to obtain
the most precious things you can, and the most lasting things by
it: not growing oats in land where you can grow wheat, nor putting
fine embroidery on a stuff that will not wear. Secondly, preserving
its produce carefully; that is to say, laying up your wheat wisely
in storehouses for the time of famine, and keeping your embroidery
watchfully from the moth; and lastly, distributing its produce
seasonably; that is to say, being able to carry your corn at once to
the place where the people are hungry, and your embroideries to the
place where they are gay; so fulfilling in all ways the wise man's
description, whether of the queenly housewife or queenly nation: 'She
riseth while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a
portion to her maidens. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry, her
clothing is silk and purple. Strength and honor are in her clothing,
and she shall rejoice in time to come.'
"Now you will observe that in this description of the perfect
economist, or mistress of a household, there is a studied expression
of the balanced division of her care between the two great objects
of utility and splendor: in her right hand, food and flax, for life
and clothing; in her left hand, the purple and the needlework, for
honor and for beauty.... And in private and household economy you may
always judge of its perfectness by its fair balance between the use
and the pleasure of its possessions: you will see the wise cottager's
garden trimly divided between its well-set vegetables and its fragrant
flowers: you will see the good housewife taking pride in her pretty
tablecloth and her glittering shelves, no less than in her well-dressed
dish and full store-room: the care will alternate with gayety; and
though you will reverence her in her seriousness, you will know her
best by her smile."--"Political Economy of Art" (1857), pp. 10-13.[149]
FOOTNOTES:
[147] Mr. Stopford Brooke's article was a review of Mr. Ruskin's
"Lectures on Art" delivered at Oxford, and then recently published.
In a note to the present letter the Editor of the Magazine stated Mr.
Brooke's regret "at having been led by a slip of memory into making an
inaccurate statement."
[148] See the 1873 edition of the "Crown of Wild Olive," p. 30, § 27.
[149] See "A Joy for Ever" (1880), pp. 7-9.
[From "The Times," October 24, 1862.]
_OAK SILKWORMS._
_To the Editor of "The Times."_
SIR: In your excellent article of October 17, on possible substitutes
for cotton, you say "it is very doubtful whether we could introduce
the silkworm with profit." The silkworm of the mulberry tree, indeed,
requires a warmer climate than ours, but has attention yet been
directed to the silkworm of the oak? A day or two ago a physician
of European reputation, Dr. L. A. Gosse, was speaking to me of the
experiments recently made in France in its acclimatization. He stated
to me that the only real difficulty was temporary--namely, in the
importation of the eggs, which are prematurely hatched as they are
brought through warm latitudes. A few only have reached Europe, and
their multiplication is slow, but once let them be obtained in quantity
and the stripping of an oak coppice is both robe and revenue. The silk
is stronger than that of the mulberry tree, and the stuff woven of it
more healthy than cotton stuffs for the wearer; it also wears twice as
long. This is Dr. Gosse's report--likely to be a trust-worthy one--at
all events, it seems to me worth sending you.
I remain your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
GENEVA, _Oct. 20th._
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
VI.
LITERARY CRITICISM.
THE PUBLICATION OF BOOKS. 1875.
A MISTAKEN REVIEW. 1875.
THE POSITION OF CRITICS. 1875.
COVENTRY PATMORE'S "FAITHFUL FOR EVER." 1860.
"THE QUEEN OF THE AIR." 1871.
THE ANIMALS OF SCRIPTURE: A REVIEW. 1856.
"LIMNER" AND "ILLUMINATION." 1854.
NOTES ON A WORD IN SHAKESPEARE. 1878. (Two Letters.)
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1880.
RECITATIONS. 1880.
VI.
LITERARY CRITICISM.
[From "The World," June 9, 1875.]
_THE PUBLICATION OF BOOKS._[150]
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_June_ 6, 1875.
_To the Editor of "The World."_
SIR: I am very grateful for the attention and candor with which you
have noticed my effort to introduce a new method of publishing.
Will you allow me to explain one or two points in which I am generally
misunderstood? I meant to have asked your leave to do so at some
length, but have been entirely busy, and can only say, respecting two
of your questions, what in my own mind are the answers.
I. "How many authors are strong enough to do without advertisements?"
None: while advertisement is the practice. But let it become the
fashion to announce books once for all in a monthly circular
(publisher's, for instance), and the public will simply refer to that
for all they want to know. Such advertisement I use now, and always
would.
II. "Why has he determined to be his own publisher?"