life. I think an author's business requires as much training as a
musician's, and that, as soon as he can write really well, there would
always, for a man of worth and sense, be found capital enough to enable
him to be able to print, say, a hundred pages of his careful work;
which, if the public were pleased with, they would soon enable him to
print more. I do not think young men should rush into print, nor old
ones modify their books to please publishers.
III. And it seems to me, considering that the existing excellent
books in the world would--if they were heaped together in great
towns--overtop their cathedrals, that at _any_ age a man should think
long before he invites his neighbors to listen to _his_ sayings on any
subject whatever.
What I do, therefore, is done only in the conviction, foolish,
egotistic, whatever you like to call it, but firm, that I am writing
what is needful and useful for my fellow-creatures; that if it is so,
they will in due time discover it, and that before due time I do not
want it discovered. And it seems to me that no sound scholar or true
well-wisher to the people about him would write in any other temper.
I mean to be paid for my work, if it is worth payment. Not otherwise.
And it seems to me my mode of publication is the proper method of
ascertaining that fact. I had much more to say, but have no more time,
and am, sir, very respectfully yours,
JOHN RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[150] This letter refers to an article on Mr. Ruskin's peculiar method
of publication which appeared in the _World_ of May 26, 1875. It was
entitled "Ruskin to the Rescue," and with the criticism to which
Mr. Ruskin alludes, strongly approved the idea of some reform being
attempted in the matter of the publication of books. Mr. Ruskin began
the still-continued method of publishing his works in 1871; and the
following advertisement, inserted in the earlier copies of the first
book thus published--"Sesame and Lilies"--will give the reader further
information on the matter.
"It has long been in my mind to make some small beginning of resistance
to the existing system of irregular discount in the bookselling
trade--not in hostility to booksellers, but, as I think they will find
eventually, with a just regard to their interest, as well as to that of
authors. Every volume of this series of my collected works will be sold
to the trade without any discount or allowance on quantity, at such a
fixed price as will allow both author and publisher a moderate profit
on each volume. It will be sold to the trade only; who can then fix
such further profit on it as they deem fitting, for retail.
"Every volume will be clearly printed, and thoroughly well bound:
on such conditions the price to the public, allowing full profit to
the retailer, may sometimes reach, but ought never to exceed, half a
guinea, nor do I wish it to be less. I will fully state my reasons for
this procedure in the June number of _Fors Clavigera_.
"The price of this first volume to the trade is seven shillings."
In subsequent similar notices, some parts of this plan, especially as
regarded purchasers and price, were altered; the trade not accepting
the offer of sale to them only, and the "trouble and difficulty of
revising text and preparing plates" proving much greater than Mr.
Ruskin had expected.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 11, 1875.]
_A MISTAKEN REVIEW._[151]
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: The excellent letters and notes which have recently appeared in
your columns on the subject of reviewing lead me to think that you will
give me space for the statement of one or two things which I believe it
is right the public should know respecting the review which appeared in
the _Examiner_ of the 2d of this month (but which I did not see till
yesterday), by Mr. W. B. Scott, of Mr. St. J. Tyrrwhitt's "Letters on
Landscape Art."
1. Mr. Scott is one of the rather numerous class of artists of whose
works I have never taken any public notice, and who attribute my
silence to my inherent stupidity of disposition.
2. Mr. Scott is also one of the more limited and peculiarly unfortunate
class of artists who suppose themselves to have great native genius,
dislike being told to learn perspective, and prefer the first volume of
"Modern Painters," which praises many third-rate painters, and teaches
none, to the following volumes, which praise none but good painters,
and sometimes admit the weakness of advising bad ones.
3. My first acquaintance with Mr. Scott was at the house of a gentleman
whose interior walls he was decorating with historic frescos, and
whose patronage I (rightly or wrongly) imagined at that time to be of
importance to him. I was then more good-natured and less conscientious
than I am now, and my host and hostess attached weight to my opinions.
I said all the good I truly could of the frescos, and no harm; painted
a corn-cockle on the walls myself, in reverent subordination to them;
got out of the house as soon afterwards as I could, and never since
sought Mr. Scott's acquaintance further (though, to my regret, he was
once photographed in the same plate with Mr. Rosetti and me). Mr. Scott
is an honest man, and naturally thinks me a hypocrite and turncoat as
well as a fool.
4. The honestest man in writing a review is apt sometimes to give
obscure statements of facts which ought to have been clearly stated to
make the review entirely fair. Permit me to state in very few words
those which I think the review in question does not clearly represent.
My "Elements of Drawing" were out of print, and sometimes asked for; I
wished to rewrite them, but had no time, and knew that my friend and
pupil, Mr. Tyrrwhitt, was better acquainted than I myself with some
processes of water-color sketching, and was perfectly acquainted with
and heartily acceptant of the principles which I have taught to be
essential in all art. I knew he could write, and I therefore asked him
to write, a book of his own to take the place of the "Elements," and
authorized him to make arrangements with my former publisher for my
wood-blocks, mostly drawn on the wood by myself.
The book is his own, not mine, else it would have been published as
mine, not his. I have not read it all, and do not answer for it all.
But when I wrote the "Elements" I believed conscientiously that book
of mine to be the best then attainable by the public on the subject of
elementary drawing. I think Mr. Tyrrwhitt's a better book, know it to
be a more interesting one, and believe it to be, in like manner, the
best now attainable by the British public on elementary practice of art.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, _Jan._ 10.
FOOTNOTES:
[151] Of this review nothing need be said beyond what is stated in this
letter. The full title of the book which it so harshly treated is "Our
Sketching Club. Letters and Studies on Landscape Art." By the Rev. R.
St. John Tyrrwhitt, M.A. With an authorized reproduction of the lessons
and woodcuts in Professor Ruskin's "Elements of Drawing." Macmillan,
1874. The "letters and notes" refer especially to one signed "K" in the
_Gazette_ of January 1, and another signed "A Young Author" in that
of January 4. The principal complaint of both these letters was that
reviewers seldom master, and sometimes do not even read the books they
criticise.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 19, 1875.]
_THE POSITION OF CRITICS._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I see you are writing of criticism;[152] some of your readers
may, perhaps, be interested in hearing the notions of a man who has
dabbled in it a good many years. I believe, in a word, that criticism
is as impertinent in the world as it is in a drawing-room. In a kindly
and well-bred company, if anybody tries to please them, they try to be
pleased; if anybody tries to astonish them, they have the courtesy to
be astonished; if people become tiresome, they ask somebody else to
play, or sing, or what not, but they don't criticise. For the rest,
a bad critic is probably the most mischievous person in the world
(Swift's Goddess of Criticism in the "Tale of a Tub" seems what need
be represented on that subject[153]), and a good one the most helpless
and unhappy: the more he knows, the less he is trusted, and it is
too likely he may become morose in his unacknowledged power. A good
executant, in any art, gives pleasure to multitudes, and breathes an
atmosphere of praise, but a strong critic is every man's adversary--men
feel that he knows their foibles, and cannot conceive that he knows
more. His praise, to be acceptable, must be always unqualified; his
equity is an offence instead of a virtue; and the art of correction,
which he has learned so laboriously, only fills his hearers with
disgust.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
BRANTWOOD, _Jan._ 18.
FOOTNOTES:
[152] Since the correspondence already mentioned, the _Gazette_ of
January 14 and 18 had contained two long letters on the subject from "A
Reviewer."
[153] The Goddess of Criticism, with Ignorance and Pride for her
parents, Opinion for her sister, and for her children Noise and
Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners,
is described in the "Battle of the Books"--the paper which follows, and
is a companion to the "Tale of a Tub."
[From "The Critic," October 27, 1860.]
_COVENTRY PATMORE'S "FAITHFUL FOR EVER."_
_To the Editor of "The Critic."_
SIR: I do not doubt, from what I have observed of the general tone of
the criticisms in your columns, that, in candor and courtesy, you will
allow me to enter protest, bearing such worth as private opinion may,
against the estimate expressed in your last number of the merits of
Mr. C. Patmore's new poem.[154] It seems to me that you have read it
hastily; and that you have taken such view of it as on a first reading
almost every reader of good but impatient judgment would be but too
apt to concur with you in adopting--one, nevertheless, which, if you
examine the poem with care, you will, I think, both for your readers'
sake and Mr. Patmore's, regret having expressed so decidedly.
The poem is, to the best of my perception and belief, a singularly
perfect piece of art; containing, as all good art does, many very
curious shortcomings (to appearance), and places of rest, or of dead
color, or of intended harshness, which, if they are seen or quoted
without the parts of the piece to which they relate, are of course
absurd enough, precisely as the discords in a fine piece of music
would be if you played them without their resolutions. You have quoted
separately Mr. Patmore's discords; you might by the same system of
examination have made Mozart or Mendelssohn appear to be no musicians,
as you have probably convinced your quick readers that Mr. Patmore is
no poet.
I will not beg of you so much space as would be necessary to analyze
the poem, but I hope you will let me--once for all--protest against
the method of criticism which assumes that entire familiarity and
simplicity in certain portions of a great work destroy its dignity.
Simple things ought to be simply said, and truly poetical diction is
nothing more nor less than right diction; the incident being itself
poetical or not, according to its relations and the feelings which
it is intended to manifest--not according to its own nature merely.
To take a single instance out of Homer bearing on that same simple
household work which you are so shocked at Mr. Patmore's taking notice
of, Homer describes the business of a family washing, when it comes
into his poem, in the most accurate terms he can find. "They took the
clothes in their hands; and poured on the clean water; and trod them
in trenches thoroughly, trying who could do it best; and when they
had washed them and got off all the dirt, they spread them out on the
sea-beach, where the sea had blanched the shingle cleanest."[155]
These are the terms in which the _great_ poet explains the matter.
The less poet--or, rather, man of modern wit and breeding, _without_
superior poetical power--thus puts the affair into dignified language:
Then emulous the royal robes they lave,
And plunge the vestures in the cleansing wave,
(The vestures cleansed o'erspread the shelly sand,
Their snowy lustre whitens all the strand.)
Now, to my mind, Homer's language is by far the most poetical of the
two--is, in fact, the only poetical language possible in the matter.
Whether it was desirable to give any account of this, or anything else,
depends wholly on the relation of the passage to the rest of the poem,
and you could only show Mr. Patmore's glance into the servant's room to
be ridiculous by proving the mother's mind, which it illustrates, to be
ridiculous. Similarly, if you were to take one of Mr. George Richmond's
perfectest modern portraits, and give a little separate engraving of a
bit of the neck-tie or coat-lappet, you might easily demonstrate a very
prosaic character either in the riband-end or the button-hole. But the
only real question respecting them is their relation to the face, and
the degree in which they help to express the character of the wearer.
What the real relations of the parts are in the poem in question only
a thoughtful and sensitive reader will discover. The poem is not meant
for a song, or calculated for an hour's amusement; it is, as I said,
to the best of my belief, a finished and tender work of very noble
art. Whatever on this head may be the final judgment of the public, I
am bound, for my own part, to express my obligation to Mr. Patmore,
as one of my severest models and tutors in use of English, and my
respect for him as one of the truest and tenderest thinkers who have
ever illustrated the most important, because commonest, states of noble
human life.[156]
I remain, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL.
FOOTNOTES:
[154] The tone of the criticism is sufficiently explained in this
letter.
[155] See Homer, Odyssey, vi. 90.
Εἵματα χερσὶν ἕλοντο καὶ ἐσφόρεον μέλαν ὕδωρ,
Στεῖβον δ' ἐν βόθροισι θοῶς ἔριδα προφέρουσαι.
Αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πλῦνάν τε κάθηράν τε ῥύπα πάντα,
Ἑξείης πέτασαν παρὰ θῖν' ἁλὸς, ἧχι μάλιστα
Λάϊγγας ποτὶ χέρσον ἀποπλύνεσκε θάλασσα.
The verse translation of this passage given in the letter is from
Pope's Odyssey.
The lines in "Faithful for Ever," particularly alluded to as having
been condemned by the "Critic," were those here italicized in the
following passage:
"For your sake I am glad to hear,
You sail so soon. _I send you, Dear,_
_A trifling present, and will supply_
_Your Salisbury costs. You have to buy_
_Almost an outfit for this cruise!_
_But many are good enough to use_
Again, among the things you send
To give away. My maid shall mend
And let you have them back. Adieu!
Tell me of all you see and do.
I know, thank God, whate'er it be,
'Twill need no veil 'twixt you and me."
("Faithful for Ever," p. 17, II. "Mrs. Graham to Frederick," her sailor
son.)
[156] See "Sesame and Lilies" (Ruskin's Works, vol. i.), p. 89, note.
"Coventry Patmore. You cannot read him too often or too carefully; as
far as I know he is the only living poet who always strengthens and
purifies; the others sometimes darken, and nearly always depress and
discourage, the imagination they deeply seize."
[From "The Asiatic," May 23, 1871.]
"_THE QUEEN OF THE AIR._"
_To the Editor of "The Asiatic."_
SIR: I am obliged and flattered by the tone of your article on my
"Queen of the Air" in your last number, but not at all by the substance
of it; and it so much misinterprets my attempt in that book that I
will ask your leave to correct it in main points.[157] The "Queen of
the Air" was written to show, not what could be fancied, but what was
felt and meant, in the myth of Athena. Every British sailor knows,
that Neptune is the god of the sea. He does _not_ know that Athena is
the goddess of the air; I doubt if many of our school-boys know it--I
doubt even if many of our school-masters know it; and I believe the
evidence of it given in the "Queen of the Air" to be the first clear
and connected approximate proof of it which has yet been rendered by
scientific mythology, properly so called.
You say, "I have not attempted to explain all mythology."
I wonder what you would have said of me if I _had_? I only know a
little piece of it here and there, just as I know a crag of alp or
a bend of river; and even what I know could not be put into a small
octavo volume. Nevertheless, I should have had another such out by this
time on the Apolline Myths, and, perhaps, one on the Earth-Gods, but
for my Oxford work; and shall at all events have a little more to say
on the matter than I have yet said--and much need there is--when all
that has yet been done by "scientific" mythology ends in the assertion
made by your reviewer, that "mythology is useful mainly as a storehouse
for poets, and for literary men in want of some simile or metaphor to
produce a striking effect."
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
_May_ 18, 1871.
FOOTNOTES:
[157] The article was entitled "Aryan Mythology: Second Notice," the
first notice having been a review of Mr. Gladstone's "Juventus Mundi,"
and of some other mythological works. (See the _Asiatic_, April 25 and
May 16, 1871.) The nature of the praise and criticism of the article
may be gathered from this letter.
[From "The Morning Chronicle," January 20, 1855. (Reprinted in "The
Evening Journal," January 22.)]
_THE ANIMALS OF SCRIPTURE: A REVIEW._[158]
Among the various illustrated works which usually grace the beginning
of the year, has appeared one which, though of graver and less
attractive character than its companions, is likely to occupy a more
permanent place on the library shelves. We allude to "Illustrations of
Scripture, by an Animal Painter," a work which, whatever its faults
or weaknesses, shows at least a singular power of giving reality and
interest to scenes which are apt to be but feebly, if at all, brought
before the mental vision, in consequence of our familiarity with the
words which describe them. The idea of the work is itself sufficiently
original. The animals are throughout principal, and the pathos or
moral of the passage to be illustrated is developed from its apparently
subordinate part in it. Thus the luxury and idolatry of the reign of
Solomon are hinted behind a group of "apes and peacocks;" the Deluge is
subordinate to the dove; and the healing of the lunatic at Gennesareth
to the destruction of the herd of swine.
In general, to approach an object from a new point of view is to
place it in a clearer light, and perhaps the very strangeness of the
treatment in some cases renders the subject more impressive than it
could have been made by any more regular method of conception. But, at
all events, supposing the studies of the artist to have been chiefly
directed to animals, and her power to lie principally in seizing
their character, she is to be thanked for filling her sketches of the
inferior creatures with so much depth of meaning, and rendering the
delineation even of an ape, or a swallow, suggestive of the most solemn
trains of thought.
As so suggestive, without pretence or formalism, these drawings deserve
a place of peculiar honor in the libraries of the young, while there
are also some qualities in them which fit them for companionship with
more elaborate works of art. The subject of "Lazarus" is treated with
a courage and tenderness which say much for the painter's imagination,
and more for her heart; and the waste of waters above which the raven
hovers is expressed, though rudely, yet in a way which tells of many
an hour spent in watching the play of the evening light upon the
movement of the wearied sea. It is true that most of the compositions
are weakened by a very visible contempt, if not ignorance, of the
laws which regulate the harmonies of shade, as well as by a painful
deficiency in the drawing. Still there is a life and sincerity in them
which are among the rarest qualities in art; and one characteristic,
very remarkable in the works of a person described in the text (we
doubt not, much against her will) as an "accomplished lady"--we mean
the peculiar tendency to conceptions of fearfulness, or horror, rather
than of beauty. The camel, for instance, might, we should have thought,
as easily, and to many persons much more pleasingly, have illustrated
the meeting of Rebekah with the servant of Abraham, as the desolation
of Rabbah; and the dog might as gracefully have been brought forward
to remind us of the words of the Syro-Phœnician woman, as to increase
the horror of the death of Jezebel. There are curious evidences of a
similar disposition in some of the other plates; and while it appears
to us indicative of the strength of a mind of no common order, we would
caution the fair artist against permitting it to appear too frequently.
It renders the series of drawings in some degree repulsive to many
persons, and even by those who can sympathize with it might sometimes
be suspected of having its root in a sublime kind of affectation.
We have spoken of these studies as drawings. They are, in fact, as
good, being photographic facsimiles of the original sketches. The text
is copious, and useful as an elucidation of the natural history of
Scripture.
FOOTNOTES:
[158] The full title of the book here reviewed by Mr. Ruskin, and long
since out of print, was "Twenty Photographs; being illustrations of
Scripture. By an Animal Painter; with Notes by a Naturalist." Imperial
4to. Edinburgh: Constable, 1854. The work was, however, reprinted, with
engravings of the photographs, in _Good Words_ for 1861.
[From "The Builder," December 9, 1854.]
_"LIMNER" AND ILLUMINATION._[159]
(_To the Editor of "The Builder._")
I do not usually answer objections to my written statements, otherwise
I should waste my life in idle controversy; but as what I say to the
workmen at the Architectural Museum is necessarily brief, and in its
words, though not in its substance, unconsidered, I will answer, if you
will permit me, any questions or cavils which you may think worthy of
admission into your columns on the subject of these lectures.
I do not know if the Cambridge correspondent, whose letter you inserted
last week, is more zealous for the honor of Cary, or anxious to
detect me in a mistake. If the former, he will find, if he take the
trouble to look at the note in the 264th page of the second volume
of the "Stones of Venice," that Cary's reputation is not likely to
suffer at my hands.[160] But the translation in the instance quoted is
inadmissible. It does not matter in the least whence the word "limner"
is derived. I did not know when I found fault with it that it was a
corruption of "illuminator," but I knew perfectly that it did not in
the existing state of the English language _mean_ "illuminator." No one
talks of "limning a missal," or of a "limned missal." The word is now
universally understood as signifying a painter or draughtsman in the
ordinary sense, and cannot be accepted as a _translation_ of the phrase
of which it is a _corruption_.
Touching the last clause of the letter, I should have thought that a
master of arts of Cambridge might have had wit enough to comprehend
that characters may be illegible by being far off, as well as by being
ill-shaped; and that it is not less difficult to read what is too small
to be seen than what is too strange to be understood. The inscription
on the Houses of Parliament are illegible, not because they are in
black letters, but because, like all the rest of the work on that, I
suppose, the most effeminate and effectless heap of stones ever raised
by man, they are utterly unfit for their position.
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES: