In "Fors Clavigera," Letter LIX, the author says: "I never wrote a letter
in my life which all the world is not welcome to read." From this one
might imagine that Mr. Ruskin never loved--no pressed flowers in books;
no passages of poetry double-marked and scored; no bundles of letters
faded and yellow, sacred for his own eye, tied with white or dainty blue
ribbon; no little nothings hidden away in the bottom of a trunk. And yet
Mr. Ruskin has his ideas on the woman question, and very positive ideas
they are too--often sweetly sympathetic and wisely helpful.
I see that one of the encyclopedias mentions Ruskin as a bachelor, which
is giving rather an extended meaning to the word, for although Mr. Ruskin
married, he was not mated. According to Collingwood's account, this
marriage was a quiet arrangement between parents. Anyway, the genius is
like the profligate in this: when he marries he generally makes a woman
miserable. And misery is reactionary as well as infectious. Ruskin is a
genius.
Genius is unique. No satisfactory analysis of it has yet been given. We
know a few of its indications--that's all. First among these is ability
to concentrate.
No seed can sow genius; no soil can grow it: its quality is inborn and
defies both cultivation and extermination. To be surpassed is never
pleasant; to feel your inferiority is to feel a pang. Seldom is there a
person great enough to find satisfaction in the success of a friend. The
pleasure that excellence gives is oft tainted by resentment; and so the
woman who marries a genius is usually unhappy.
Genius is excess: it is obstructive to little plans. It is difficult to
warm yourself at a conflagration; the tempest may blow you away; the sun
dazzles; lightning seldom strikes gently; the Nile overflows. Genius has
its times of straying off into the infinite--and then what is the good
wife to do for companionship? Does she protest, and find fault? It could
not be otherwise, for genius is dictatorial without knowing it,
obstructive without wishing to be, intolerant unawares, and unsocial
because it can not help it.
The wife of a genius sometimes takes his fits of abstraction for
stupidity, and having the man's interests at heart she endeavors to
arouse him from his lethargy by chiding him. Occasionally he arouses
enough to chide back; and so it has become an axiom that genius is not
domestic.
A short period of mismated life told the wife of Ruskin their mistake,
and she told him. But Mrs. Grundy was at the keyhole, ready to tell the
world, and so Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin sought to deceive society by pretending
to live together. They kept up this appearance for six sorrowful years,
and then the lady simplified the situation by packing her trunks and
deliberately leaving her genius to his chimeras; her soul doubtless
softened by the knowledge that she was bestowing a benefit on him by
going away. The lady afterwards became the happy wife and helpmeet of a
great artist.
Ruskin's father was a prosperous importer of wines. He left his son a
fortune equal to a little more than one million dollars. But that vast
fortune has gone---principal and interest--gone in bequests, gifts and
experiments; and today Mr. Ruskin has no income save that derived from
the sale of his books. Talk about "Distribution of Wealth"! Here we have
it.
The bread-and-butter question has never troubled John Ruskin except in
his ever-ardent desire that others should be fed. His days have been
given to study and writing from his very boyhood; he has made money, but
he has had no time to save it.
He has expressed himself on every theme that interests mankind, except
perhaps "housemaid's knee." He has written more letters to the newspapers
than "Old Subscriber," "Fiat Justitia," "Indignant Reader" and "Veritas"
combined. His opinions have carried much weight and directed attention
into necessary lines; but perhaps his success as an inspirer of thought
lies in the fact that his sense of humor exists only as a trace, as the
chemist might say. Men who perceive the ridiculous would never have
voiced many of the things which he has said.
Surely those Sioux Indians who stretched a hay lariat across the Union
Pacific Railroad in order to stop the running of trains had small sense
of the ridiculous. But it looks as if they were apostles of Ruskin, every
one.
Some one has said that no man can appreciate the beautiful who has not a
keen sense of humor. For the beautiful is the harmonious, and the
laughable is the absence of fit adjustment.
Mr. Ruskin disproves the maxim.
But let no hasty soul imagine that John Ruskin's opinions on practical
themes are not useful. He brings to bear an energy on every subject he
touches (and what subject has he not touched?) that is sure to make the
sparks of thought fly. His independent and fearless attitude awakens from
slumber a deal of dozing intellect, and out of this strife of opinion
comes truth.
On account of Mr. Ruskin's refusing at times to see visitors, reports
have gone abroad that his mind was giving way. Not so, for although he is
seventy-four he is as serenely stubborn as he ever was. His opposition to
new inventions in machinery has not relaxed a single pulley's turn. You
grant his premises and in his conclusions you will find that his belt
never slips, and that his logic never jumps a cog. His life is as
regular and exact as the trains on the Great Western, and his days are
more peaceful than ever before. He has regular hours for writing, study,
walking, reading, eating, and working out of doors, superintending the
cultivation of his hundred acres. He told me that he had not varied a
half-hour in two years from a certain time of going to bed or getting up
in the morning. Although his form is bowed, this regularity of life has
borne fruit in the rich russet of his complexion, the mild, clear eye,
and the pleasure in living in spite of occasional pain, which you know
the man feels. His hair is thick and nearly white; the beard is now worn
quite long and gives a patriarchal appearance to the fine face.
When we arose to take our leave, Mr. Ruskin took a white felt hat from
the elk-antlers in the hallway and a stout stick from the corner, and
offered to show us a nearer way back to the village. We walked down a
footpath through the tall grass to the lake, where he called our
attention to various varieties of ferns that he had transplanted there.
We shook hands with the old gentleman and thanked him for the pleasure he
had given us. He was still examining the ferns when we lifted our hats
and bade him good-day.
He evidently did not hear us, for I heard him mutter: "I verily believe
those miserable Cook's tourists that were down here yesterday picked some
of my ferns."