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