I. The following communication was sent to me on a post-card, without
the writer’s name; but it is worth notice:—
“‘Ut et corda nostra mandatis tuis dedita.’ If some manuscript Breviary
has omitted ‘dedita,’ it must be by a slip of the pen. The sense surely
is this: that while there is either war or only an evil and deceitful
peace within, self-surrender to the Divine commandments above and
freedom from terror of foes around are alike impossible.
“In the English Prayer-book ‘set’ has the same meaning as in Psalm
lxxviii. ver. 9 (sic: the writer means ver. 8); and the context shows
the ‘rest and quietness’ desired, to be rest and quietness of spirit.”
The ‘context’ cannot show anything of the sort, for the sentence is an
entirely independent one: and the MS. I use is not a Breviary, but the
most perfect Psalter and full service, including all the hymns quoted
by Dante, that I have seen in English thirteenth-century writing. The
omission of the word ‘dedita’ makes not the smallest difference to the
point at issue—which is not the mistranslation of a word, but the
breaking of a clause. The mistranslation nevertheless exists also;
precisely because, in the English Prayer-book, ‘set’ has the same
meaning as in Psalm lxxviii.; where the Latin word is ‘direxit,’ not
‘dedit’; and where discipline is meant, not surrender.
I must reserve my comments on the two most important letters next
following, for large type and more leisure.
II. “I hope that you will live to see Fors and everything printed
without steam: it’s the very curse and unmaking of us. I can see it
dreadfully in every workman that I come across. Since I have been so
happily mixed up with you these eighteen years, great changes have
taken place in workmen. It was beginning fearfully when I last worked
as a journeyman. One instance among many:—The head foreman came to me
at Messrs. Bakers’, and threatened discharge if he caught me using a
hand bow-saw to cut a little circular disc, which I could have done in
ten minutes. I then had to go and wait my turn at the endless steam
saw—or, as commonly called, a band saw. I had to wait an hour and a
half to take my turn: the steam saw did it in perhaps three minutes;
but the head foreman said, ‘We’ve gone to great expense for steam
machinery, and what is the use if we don’t employ it?’ This little
occurrence was by no means uncommon. What workpeople have been brought
to is beyond conception, in tone of feeling and character. Here, as I
have told you, we do all we can ourselves, indoors and out; have no
servant, but make the children do: and because we are living in a
tidy-sized house, and a good piece of ground, the labouring people make
a dead set against us because we are not dependent upon them, and have
even combined to defeat us in getting a charwoman now and then. We
ought, I suppose, to employ two servants, whether we can pay for them
or not, or even obtain them (which we couldn’t). They have been picking
hops here next our hedge: this is done by people in the neighbourhood,
not imported pickers; and their children called over the hedge to ours,
and said, ‘Your mother is not a lady; she don’t keep a servant, but
does the work herself.’ I name this little incident because it seems so
deep.”
III. “My dear Mr. Ruskin,—I write to ask leave to come and enter my
name on the Roll of Companions of the Company of St. George. [77] I
have seen enough and read enough of the pace at which we are going,
more especially in business matters, to make me long to see some effort
made to win back some of the honesty and simplicity of our fathers. And
although I am afraid I can be but of very little use to the Company, I
would gladly do anything that lay within my power; and it would be a
great help to feel oneself associated with others, however feebly, in a
practical work.
“I am trying to carry out what you have taught me in business, where I
can do it. Our trade is dressing and buying and selling leather, etc.,
and making leather belting, hose, and boots. I am trying to the utmost
to make everything as good as it can be made, then to ask a fair price
for it, and resist all attempts to cheapen or depreciate it in any way.
First, because the best thing is, as far as I know, invariably the
‘best value’; secondly, because shoe manufacturing, as now carried on,
is, through the division of labour, a largely mechanical work, (though
far less so than many trades),—and I believe the surest way of
diminishing, as it is surely our duty to do, the amount of all such
work, is to spend no labour, nor allow of its being spent, on any but
the best thing for wear that can be made; and thirdly, because workmen
employed even somewhat mechanically are, I think, far less degraded by
their employment when their work and materials are good enough to
become the subjects of honest pride. You will understand that, being
only in the position of manager of the business, I can only carry out
these ideas to a certain point. Still I have been able to reduce the
amount of what is called ‘fancy stitching’ on parts of boots, on the
stated ground of the injury the work ultimately causes to the
operator’s eyesight. And in the dressing of some descriptions of
leather, where we used to print by machinery an artificial grain on the
skin or hide, we have dispensed with the process, and work up the
natural grain by hand-power.
“And this brings me to the point I want to put to you about the
permitted use of the sewing machine (see Fors XXXIV., p. 30). [78] It
may seem unreasonable, when our firm employs so many. But it seems to
me that the admission of machinery at all is unwise in principle.
Machinery, especially the sewing machine, has demoralized the shoe
trade,—the same I think you would find in all other trades,—notably in
piece-goods for ladies’ dresses—which, owing to the cheapness with
which they can be made up, are far more in number than they could have
been if no sewing machine had been used. And a manufacturer told me,
only the other day, that common piece-goods, both woollen and others,
take as much and generally more labour in making than the best. If all
work required to supply clothing to the race were to be done by hand,
it would be worth no one’s while to make rubbish of any kind,—the work
would be done by fewer people, and all raw material would be cheapened.
“In your advice to a young lady, printed at page 29, Letter XXXIV., in
the third volume of Fors Clavigera, you give her permission to use a
sewing machine. I hope that, on fuller consideration of the subject,
you will advise all who set the weal of their country above their own
convenience, to discontinue its use wherever it can possibly be
dispensed with.
“For the effect of the sewing machine upon the great industries
connected with clothing has been most disastrous.
“Given a certain quantity of cloth, or calico, or leather; and, before
it can be made available as clothing, it must be joined or stitched
together in certain shapes.
“Now so long as this stitching was, of necessity, all done by hand, it
was never worth while, supposing the labour to be paid for at a just
rate, to use any but good materials. A print dress at three-halfpence
per yard, which might wear a week, would cost as much to make as a
dress that would wear a year; and, except for the rich and luxurious,
all extravagance of trimming, and all sewing useless for wear, were
unattainable.
“But with the introduction of the sewing machine a great change took
place. It would be impossible within the limits of a letter to follow
it out in every trade which has felt its influence. But briefly,—when
it was found that the stitching process could be got through, though
less solidly, at a very much reduced cost, it became possible for all
classes to have dresses, clothes, and shoes in far greater number, and
to embody in all kinds of clothing a larger amount of useless and
elaborate work.
“And then arose among manufacturers generally a vigorous
competition,—each one striving, not to make the most enduring and sound
fabric (the best value), but that which, retaining some appearance of
goodness, should be saleable at the lowest price and at the largest
apparent profit.
“The Statutes of the old Trade Guilds of England constantly provide for
the purity of their several manufactures; as did Richard Cœur de Lion,
in his law for the cloth makers, (Fors, Letter III., p. 15,)—on this
thoroughly wise and just ground: namely, that the best cloth, leather,
etc., producible, being accurately the cheapest to the consumer,—the
man who used his knowledge of his trade to make other than the best,
was guilty of fraud. Compare this view of the duty of a manufacturer
with modern practice!
“It may be said that the customer is not cheated; since he knows, when
he buys what is called a cheap thing, that it is not the best. I reply
that the consumer never knows to the full what bad value, or unvalue,
the common article is. And whose fault is it that he buys any but the
best value?
“The answer involves a consideration of the duty and position of the
retailer or middleman, and must be given, if at all, hereafter.
“One might multiply instances to show how this kind of competition has
lowered the standard of our manufactures; but here most readers will be
able to fall back upon their own experience.
“Then these common fabrics require for their production always a larger
amount of labour in proportion to their value,—often actually as much
and sometimes more, than would suffice to make an equal quantity of
material of the best value. So that, roughly, when we demand two common
coats where one good one would serve, we simply require certain of our
fellow-creatures to spend double the necessary time working for us in a
mill. That is, supposing we get the full value out of our two common
coats when we have them: the evil is greater if we fail to do so, and,
to gratify our selfishness or caprice, require three instead of two.
And the question arises,—Is it kind or just to require from others
double the needful quantity of such labour as we would not choose to
undergo ourselves? That it is not Christian so to do, may be learned by
any one who will think out to their far-reaching consequences the words
of our Lord: ‘Therefore ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER ye would that men should
do to you, do ye even so to them.’
“Now the use of the sewing machine has been all in favour of the
‘three-coat’ system, indefinitely multiplied and variously recommended;
and the consequent absorption, year by year, of larger numbers of
persons in mechanical toil; toil of the hands only—numbing to the
brain, and blighting to the heart, or maddening to both.
“So far as the question of clothing is concerned, I would venture to
sum up our duty under present circumstances, broadly, as follows.” [It
can’t possibly be done better.—J. R.]
“Always demand the best materials, and use no more of them than is
necessary to dress yourselves neatly or handsomely, according to your
station in society. Then have these materials made up by hand, if
possible under your own supervision, paying a just price for the
labour. For such ornament as you need to add, remember that it must be
the expression, first of your delight in some work of God’s, and then,
of the human skill that wrought it. This will save you from ever
tampering with the lifeless machine-work; and though you have little
ornament, it will soon be lovely and right.
“Above all, never buy cheap ready-made clothing of any kind whatsoever;
it is most of it stained with blood, if you could see it aright. It is
true you may now buy a ‘lady’s costume,’ made up and trimmed by the
sewing machine (guided by a human one), for the sum of two shillings
and fourpence (wholesale), but you had a great deal better wear a sack
with a hole in it.” [Italics mine.—J. R.] “It may be worth while
hereafter to define with some precision what is the best value in
various kinds of goods; Meantime, should it be suggested that machine
sewing is good enough for common materials, or for clothes that you
intend to wear only a few times, and then throw aside, remember you
have no business to buy any but good materials, nor to waste when you
have bought them; and that it is worth while to put solid hand-work
into such.”
(“I use the word ‘value’ for the strength or ‘availing of a thing
towards life.’ See Munera Pulveris, p. 10.”)
IV. With respect to the next following letter—one which I am heartily
glad to receive—I must beg my readers henceforward, and conclusively,
to understand, that whether I print my correspondence in large type, or
small, and with praise of it, or dispraise, I give absolutely no
sanction or ratification whatever to any correspondent’s statements of
fact, unless by express indication. I am responsible for my own
assertions, and for none other; but I hold myself bound to hear, and no
less bound to publish, all complaints and accusations made by persons
supposing themselves injured, of those who injure them, which I have no
definite reason for supposing to be false or malicious, and which
relate to circumstances affecting St. George’s work. I have no other
means of determining their truth, than by permitting the parties
principally concerned to hear them, and contradict them, according to
their ability; and the wish with which my present correspondent’s
letter closes, to be delivered from evil speaking and slandering, (she
seems not quite clearly to understand that the prayer in the Litany is
to be delivered from the guilt of these,—not from their effects,) may,
so far as these affect her own family, be much more perfectly
accomplished by her own statement of their true history, than by any
investigation possible to me of the facts in question. But, as far as
respects the appeal made by her to myself, my answer is simply, that,
whether made by patents, ingenuities, or forges, all fortunes whatever,
rapidly acquired, are, necessarily, ill acquired; and exemplary of
universal ill to all men. No man is ever paid largely for ingenuity; he
can only be paid largely by a tax on the promulgation of that
ingenuity.
Of actual ingenuities, now active in Europe, none are so utterly
deadly, and destructive to all the beauty of nature and the art of man,
as that of the engineer.
And with respect to what my correspondent too truly urges—the shame of
our ancient races in leaving their houses abandoned—it does not make me
look with more comfort or complacency on their inhabitation by men of
other names, that there will soon be left few homes in England whose
splendour will not be a monument at once of the guilt of her nobles,
and the misery of her people.
“Dear Mr. Ruskin,—We have only just read the September number of Fors
Clavigera. My husband is the Ned G—— referred to in the letter you
quote from E. L. Said he, ‘It (i.e., the letter) is not worth notice.’
I replied, ‘In itself perhaps not; but I have known Mr. Ruskin in his
writings many years, and I shall write him to put before him the actual
facts, and request him to withdraw these misstatements.’ The whole
letter is written on the supposition that Mr. Green is an iron king, or
iron lord. No such thing: he is an engineer—quite a different affair;
the maker of a patent which is known all over the world as the ‘Fuel
Economiser.’ He consequently never had a forge, and is indebted to the
use of his intellect and the very clever mechanical genius of his
father for their rise in life, and not merely to toiling half-naked
Britons, as stated. The picture of the forge, with its foul smoke and
sweltering heat and din, is drawn from some other place, and is utterly
unlike the real workshops of E. Green and Son—costly, airy, convenient,
and erected to ensure the comfort of the workpeople, having a handsome
front and lofty interior.
“As to smoke, the whole concern makes no more than, if as much as, an
ordinary dwelling-house; while we suffer too much at Heath from the
town smoke to add to the dense volumes. We have no whistle—some other
place is meant; we were never possessed of a ‘devil,’ American or
English, of any sort. Mr. Green derives no pecuniary benefit from
Wakefield, and but for the attachment of his father and himself to
their birthplace, would long ago have conducted his operations in a
more central spot.
“Several other grave charges are brought against Mr. Green—one so
serious that I am surprised to see it printed: viz., that he rules his
people with an iron hand. That may go with the rest of the ‘iron tale.’
Your correspondent is either very ignorant or wilfully false. No such
assertion can be for a moment sustained, after inquiry is made among
our people; nor by any one in the town could an instance of such be
proved.
“As to the Scotch estate, Mr. Green does not possess one.
“The history of Robin the Pedlar is equally a work of E. L.’s
imagination, although no false shame as to a humble descent has ever
been shown or felt. What! you taunt a man because he and his father
have risen above the state in which they were born by use of the
intellect God gives them? Fie! What sort of encouragement do you give
to the working men to whom you address these letters, when you
insinuate that one sprung from the people has no right to dwell in a
hall or drive a carriage; and broadly hint he is no gentleman, no
scholar, and has nothing to boast of but his money? Come here, and see
if Ned G—— is the sort of man you picture; see the refinement visible
in his idea of art, and which he has tried to impress on others by his
example, and then ask yourself whether you have done well to lend the
sanction of your name to decry, as a mere vulgar parvenu, one who has
done his best to keep a high standard before him.
“As to living at Heath Hall, I ask, Is it a crime to spend your money
in preserving to posterity a beautiful specimen of the house, of the
smaller gentry in Queen Elizabeth’s time, which you only enjoy during a
few years’ lease? A little longer neglect, and this fine old house
would have become a ruin: when we took it, ivy grew inside, and owls
made their nests in what are now guest-chambers.
“No squire has lived here for a century and a quarter; and the last
descendant of the venerated Lady B——, (Dame Mary Bolles, that is,)
utterly refused to reside near so dull a town as Wakefield—preferring
Bath, then at the height of its glory and Beau Nash’s; even before his
time the hereditary squires despised and deserted the lovely place,
letting it to any who would take it. Now it is repaired and restored,
and well worth a visit even from Mr. Ruskin—who, if he is what I
believe him, will withdraw the false imputations which must cause pain
to us and surprise to those who know us. That last little stroke about
bribery betrays E. L.’s disgust, not at the successful man, but at the
Blue Tory. Well! from envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, from
evil-speaking and slandering: Good Lord deliver us!
“Yours very truly,
“Mary Green.”
(I make no comments on this letter till the relations of Dame Mary
Bolles have had time to read it, and E. L. to reply.)
V. The following account, with which I have pleasure in printing the
accompanying acknowledgment of the receipt, contains particulars of the
first actual expenditure of St. George’s monies made by me, to the
extent of twenty-nine pounds ten shillings, for ten engravings [79] now
the property of the Company. The other prints named in the account are
bought with my own money, to be given or not given as I think right.
The last five engravings—all by Durer—are bought at present for my
proposed school at Sheffield, with the Melancholia, which I have
already; but if finer impressions of them are some day given me, as is
not unlikely, I should of course withdraw these, and substitute the
better examples—retaining always the right of being myself the ultimate
donor of the two St. Georges, in their finest state, from my own
collection. But these must at present remain in Oxford.
London, October 5, 1875.
John Ruskin, Esq.
£ s. d.
St. G. 1. Apollo and the 1 0 0
Python, by Master of
the Die
,, ,, 2. Raglan Castle 3 10 0
,, ,, 3. Solway Moss 4 0 0
,, ,, 4. Hind Head Hill 1 10 0
,, ,, 5, a, b, Three impressions of 6 0 0
c. Falls of the Clyde
(£2 each)
,, ,, 6. Hindoo Worship 2 0 0
,, ,, 7. Dumblane Abbey 3 10 0
,, ,, 8. Pembury Mill
,, ,, 9. Etching of the 2 10 0
Severn and Wye
,, ,, 10. Tenth Plague (of 2 0 0
Egypt)
,, ,, 11. Æsacus and Hesperie 3 10 0
--------
29 10 0
(The above Prints sold at an unusually low
price, for Mr. Ruskin’s school.)
J. R. 1. Sir John Cust 0 10 0
,, ,, 2. Lady Derby 5 0 0
,, ,, 3, 4. Two Etchings of 8 0 0
Æsacus and Hesperie
(£4 each)
,, ,, 5, 6. Two Holy Islands (£2 4 12 0
6s. each)
,, ,, 7. Etching of Procris 4 4 0
,, ,, 8. Holy Island 2 6 0
,, ,, 9. The Crypt 4 4 0
,, ,, 10. The Arvernon 8 8 0
,, ,, 11. Raglan Castle 7 0 0
,, ,, 12. ,, ,, 6 0 0
,, ,, 13. ,, ,, 6 0 0
,, ,, 14. Woman at the Tank 7 17 6
,, ,, 15. Grande Chartreuse 8 8 0
---------
101 19 6
---------
Discount (15 per cent.) 10 1 0
St. G. 16. Knight and Death 18 0 0
,, ,, 17. St. George on 3 10 0
Horseback
,, ,, 18. ,, ,, ,, Foot 7 0 0
,, ,, 19. Pilate 2 0 0
,, ,, 20. Caiaphas 3 0 0
----------
£125 8 6
My dear Sir,—It is delightful to do business with you. How I wish that
all my customers were imbued with your principles. I enclose the
receipt, with best thanks, and am
Yours very sincerely and obliged.
John Ruskin, Esq.
Of course, original accounts, with all other vouchers, will be kept
with the Company’s registers at Oxford. I do not think it expedient
always to print names; which would look like advertisement.
Respecting the picture by Filippo Lippi, I find more difficulty than I
expected. On inquiring of various dealers, I am asked three shillings
each for these photographs. But as I on principle never use any
artifice in dealing, most tradesmen think me a simpleton, and think it
also their first duty, as men of business, to take all the advantage in
their power of this my supposed simplicity; these photographs are
therefore, I suppose, worth actually, unmounted, about a shilling each;
and I believe that eventually, my own assistant, Mr. Ward, will be able
to supply them, of good impression, carefully chosen, with due payment
for his time and trouble, at eighteenpence each; or mounted, examined
by me, and sealed with my seal, for two shillings and sixpence each. I
don’t promise this, because it depends upon whether the government at
Florence will entertain my request, made officially as Slade Professor
at Oxford, to have leave to photograph from the picture.
At present holding it of more importance not to violate confidence [80]
than to sell photographs cheap, I do not even publish what I have
ascertained, since this note was half written, to be the (actual) trade
price, and I must simply leave the thing in the beautiful complexity of
competition and secretiveness called British Trade; only, at Oxford, I
have so much personal influence with Mr. Davis, in Exeter Street, as
may, I think, secure his obtaining the photographs, for which, as a
dealer combined with other dealers, he must ask three shillings, of
good quality; to him, therefore, at Oxford, for general business, my
readers may address themselves; or in London, to Miss Bertolacci, 7,
Edith Grove, Kensington; and, for impressions certified by me, to Mr.
Ward, at Richmond, (address as above,) who will furnish them,
unmounted, for two shillings each, and mounted, for three. And for a
foundation of the domestic art-treasure of their establishment, I do
not hold this to be an enormous or unjustifiable expense.