But we teach on totally different methods.
_You_ believe what you wish to believe; teach that it is wicked to doubt
it, and remain at rest and in much self-satisfaction.
_I_ believe what I find to be true, whether I like or dislike it. And I
teach other people that the chief of all wickednesses is to tell lies in
God's service, and to disgrace our Master and destroy His sheep as
_involuntary_ Wolves.
_I_, therefore, am in perpetual effort to learn and discern--in
perpetual Unrest and Dissatisfaction with myself.
But it would simply require you to do twenty years of such hard work as
I have done before you could in any true sense speak a word to me on
such matters. You could not use a word in my sense. It would always mean
to you something different.
For instance--one of my quite bye works in learning my business of a
teacher--was to read the New Testament through in the earliest Greek MS.
(eleventh century) which I could get hold of. I examined every syllable
of it and have more notes of various readings and on the real meanings
of perverted passages than you would get through in a year's work. But I
should require you to do the same work before I would discuss a text
with you. From that and such work in all kinds I have formed opinions
which you could no more move than you could Coniston Old Man. They may
be wrong, God knows; I _trust_ in them infinitely less than you do in
those which you have formed simply by refusing to examine--or to
think--or to know what is doing in the world about you; but you cannot
stir them.
I very very rarely make presents of my books. If people are inclined to
learn from them, I say to them as a physician would--Pay me my fee--you
will not obey me if I give you advice for nothing.
But I should like a kind neighbour like you to know something about me,
and I have therefore desired my publisher to send you one[21] of my many
books which, after doing the work that I have done, you would have to
read before you could really use words in my meaning.
[21] Crown of Wild Olive.--ED.
If you will read the introduction carefully, and especially dwell
on the 10th to 15th lines of the 15th page, you will at least know
me a little better than to think I believe in my own
resurrection--but not in Christ's: and if you look to the final
essay on War, you may find some things in it which will be of
interest to you in your own[22] work.
[22] Translating some of Erckmann-Chatrian's.--ED.
4.
VENICE, _8th September, 1879_.
* * * * There is nothing whatever said as far as I remember in the July
'Fors,' about "people's surrendering their judgment." A colonel does not
surrender his judgment in obeying his general, nor a soldier in obeying
his colonel. But there can be no army where they _act_ on their own
judgments.
The Society of Jesuits is a splendid proof of the power of obedience,
but its curse is falsehood. When the Master of St. George's Company bids
you lie, it will be time to compare our discipline to the Jesuits. We
are their precise opposites--fiercely and at all costs frank, while they
are calmly and for all interests lying.
5.
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
_July 30th, 1879_.
DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I fear I have kept the proofs too long, but I wanted
to look atain. I am confirmed in my impression that the book will do
much good.[23] But I think it would have done more if you had written
the lives of two or three of your parishioners. Such an answer would I
give to a painter who sent to me a picture of the Last Supper. "You had
better, it seems to me, have painted a Harvest Home." I am gravely
doubtful of the possibility, in these days, of writing or painting on
such subjects, advisedly and securely.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
[23] Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Ward & Lock.--ED.
6.
_July 31st, 1879._
I have received this week the two most astonishing letters I ever yet
received in my life. And one of them is yours, read this
morning--telling me--that you don't think you could write the life of an
old woman! Yet you think you _can_ write the life of Christ!
If you can at all explain this state of your mind to me I will tell you
more distinctly what I think of the piece I saw. But I don't think you
will communicate the thought to your publisher; and I never meant you to
use my former one in that manner.
Mind a publisher thinks only of money, and I know nothing of
saleableness. The pause in my other letters is one of pure astonishment
at you; which at present occupies all the time I have to spare on the
subject, and has culminated to-day.
I am so puzzled. I can scarcely think of anything else till you tell me
what you mean in the bit about being "called late."
Have you done no work in the vineyard 'yet' then?
7.
_August 2nd, 1879._
I am still simply speechless with astonishment at you. It is no question
of your right to the best I can say; it is all at your command. But for
the present my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. I can only tell you
with all the strength I have to read and understand and believe 2 Esdras
iv. 2, 20, 21.[24]
[24] Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou
to comprehend the way of the most High? Then answered he me, and
said, Thou hast given a right judgment, but why judgest thou not
thyself also. For like as the ground is given unto the wood, and
the sea to his floods: even so they that dwell upon the earth may
understand nothing, but that which is upon the earth: and he only
that dwelleth above the heavens, may understand the things that are
above the height of the heavens.
8.
_August 4th, 1879._
It is just because you undertook the task so _happily_, that I should
have thought you unfit to write the life of a Man of Sorrows, even had
he been a Man only. But your last letter, remember, claims inspiration
for your guide, and recognizes a personal call at sixty, as if the Call
to the ministry had been none, and the receiving the Holy Ghost by
imposition of hands an empty ceremony.
In writing the life of a parishioner and in remitting or retaining their
sins you would in my conception have been fulfilling your appointed
work. But I cannot conceive the claim to be a fit Evangelist without
more proof of miraculous appointment than you are conscious of. I know
you to be conscientious, yes--but I think the judicial doom of this
country is to have conscience alike of its Priests and Prophets
_hardened_. Why should any letter of mine make you anxious if you had
indeed conscience of inspiration?
Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
9.
_August 7th._
I hope to be able soon now to resume the series of letters; but it seems
to me there is no need whatever of more than three or four more
respecting the last clauses of the Lord's Prayer. Those in your hands
contain questions enough, if seriously entertained, to occupy twenty
meetings; and I could only hope that some one of them might be carefully
taken up by your friends. I think, however, in case of the clerical
feeling being too strong, that I must ask you, if you print letters at
all, to print them without omission. And if you do not print them, to
return them to me for my own expansion and arrangement.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
10.
_August 9th._
I have got to work on the letters again; it would make me nervous to
think of all these plans of yours. Suppose you leave all that till you
see what the first debate comes to?[25] And in the meantime I'll finish
as best I can.
[25] My clerical friends and brethren must not be displeased with
me if I here mention the fact that at the meeting of twenty-three
clergy where I _proposed_ to read Mr. Ruskin's letters to them, I
was only authorized to do so by a majority of two. I can scarcely
describe the dismay and consternation with which the letters
themselves were received,--though of course not universally, in
another meeting of the same number.
11.
_September 2nd._
That there are only a hundred copies in that form,[26] is just a reason
why the book should be in your library, where it will be enjoyed and
useful; and not in mine, where it would not be opened once in a
twelvemonth. It is one of the advantages of a small house (and it has
many) that one is compelled to consider of all one's books whether they
are in use or not.
[26] Grosart, "Poems of Christopher Harvey."
I yesterday ordered a 'Fors' to be sent you containing in its close the
most important piece of a religious character in the book--this I hope
you will also allow to stay on your shelves. The two that I sent with
this note contain so much that is saucy that I only send them in case
you want to look at the challenge referred to in the Letters to the
Bishop of Manchester, see October, 1877, pp. 322, 323, and January 1875,
p. 11. You can keep as long as you like, but please take care of them,
as my index is not yet done. The next letter will come before the week
end, but it's a difficult one.
12.
THE VICARAGE,
BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS,
_September 4th, 1879_.
MY DEAR MR. RUSKIN,--These parish engagements having been discharged
which have taken up my time very closely since I came back from
Brighton, I am returning to your letters, and I think you would like to
know what I am doing. I am copying them down, first, as I can read them
aloud better in my own handwriting, and secondly, because I shall not
place the originals in the printer's hands.
Then many thoughts arise in my mind as I re-peruse them, and I must
needs (and I think I am allowed) give expression to my thoughts. Hence
each letter is followed by my own comments or reflections upon it. But
this need not make you feel nervous. On the whole there is much
agreement between your modes of thought on religious subjects and my
own.
If this is thought a piece of cool assurance, I may reply in the words
or sense of Euclid, That similar triangles may have the most various
areas. I am not equal to you, but I claim to be similar. These comments
I sometimes think I ought to show to you before publication; but perhaps
you will agree with me that if I am fit to be trusted at all, I had
better be left unconstrained. I shall certainly come to you first, if I
find myself seriously at variance with you, which has not happened yet
as far as the first clause of the Lord's Prayer. Then it is likely that
I shall read the letters before two or three Clerical Societies,[27]
including my own, the Furness.
[27] At Liverpool and Brighton.
The opinions delivered by those clergy it will be my duty, and I hope it
will be my pleasure, to collect and to record. I propose also to invite
the clergy who have not time or opportunity to speak in the meeting to
write to me, and I will use my best judgment in selecting from their
correspondence all that seems worth preserving.
I am very sensible that this is a most delicate and responsible task
that is laid upon me, and I wonder to find myself so engaged. It will
need tact, discretion, and kindness of heart, and I trust I may be
endued with the necessary qualifications to a much larger extent than I
think I naturally possess.
I find no small comfort at the foot of the first page of the Preface to
"Sesame and Lilies." There I feel I am at one with you.
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. MALLESON.
13.
BRANTWOOD, _September 5th, 1879_.
I shall be delighted to have the comments, though it will be well first
to have the series of letters done--the last but one is coming
to-morrow. I have only written them in the sense of your sympathy in
most points, and am sure you will make the best possible use of them.
14.
_September 7th, 1879._
It is rather comic that your first reply to my challenge concerning
usury should be a prospectus of a Company[28] wishing to make 5 per
cent. out of Broughton poor men's ignorance. You couldn't have sent me a
project I should have regarded with more abomination.
[28] A projected Public Hall.
15.
_September 9th, 1879._
There is absolutely no debate possible as to what usury is any more
than what adultery is. The Church has only been polluted by the
indulgence of it since the 16th century. Usury is _any kind whatever_ of
interest on loan, and it is the essential modern form of Satan.
I send you an old book full of sound and eternal teaching on this
matter--please take care of it as a friend's gift, and one I would not
lose for its weight in gold. Please read first the Sermon by Bishop
Jewel, page 14, and then the rest at your pleasure or your leisure.
_No halls are wanted_, they are all rich men's excuses for destroying
the home life of England.
The public library should be at the village school (and I could put ten
thousand pounds' worth of books into a single cupboard), and all that is
done for education should be pure Gift. Do you think that this rich
England, which spends fifty millions a year in drink and gunpowder,
can't educate her poor without being paid interest for her Charity?
* * * * *
At the time of writing this the following letters passed between Mr.
Ruskin and myself:--
16.
THE VICARAGE,
BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS,
_September 12th, 1879_.
MY DEAR MR. RUSKIN,--I feel in a great strait. I have before me a task
of the utmost delicacy, and one before which I feel that I _ought_ to
shrink,--that of editing your letters, with the accompaniment of
comments of my own. You trust me, evidently, or you would have laid down
limitations to guard yourself against misrepresentation. My anxiety is
lest I should abuse that large and generous confidence you have so
kindly placed in me. Let me explain my position, as I see it myself.
The series will consist of eleven letters, when you have sent me your
last. I have now copied nine, and written concisely the views I have
presumed to form upon each. With every letter I mostly agree and
sympathize, looking on them as "counsels of perfection," and viewing the
great subjects you deal with from a far higher standpoint than (in my
experience) either laymen or clergymen generally view them. All that
there is in me of _enthusiasm_ rings in answering chords to the notes
you strike. Yet I do not _always_ agree. But when I do disagree, I
acknowledge it is because your standard is excessively high--too high
for practical purposes.
Now, I ask, shall you consider it strictly fair and honourable in me to
receive your letters, read them or send them to assemblies of clergy,
gather their views, both adverse and favourable, and add diffident
animad-versions of my own? If you will allow this to be right, and if
you will trust to my sense of what is proper, to deal with your letters
in the spirit of a Christian and a gentleman, then, hoping to fulfil
your expectations, I shall proceed in my work with a mind more at ease;
for I could not endure the thought that, after all was done, I had
written a single sentence or word that had inflicted pain upon you.
Then comes another question. Do you wish to hear or read my comments
before they are printed? I say frankly, if you trust me, I would prefer
not; for it would not, perhaps, be pleasant for me either to read your
praises, or my poor criticisms, to your face. But still, if you wish it,
I shall be ready at your bidding; for I recognize your right to require
it. Only I would rather read them to you myself some quiet autumn
evening or two.
17.
_September 13th._
DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I am so very grateful for your proposal to edit the
letters without further reference to me. I think that will be exactly
the right way; and I believe I can put you at real ease in the doing of
it by explaining as I can in very few words the kind of carte-blanche I
should rejoicingly give you.
Interrupted to-day! more to-morrow, with, I hope, the last letter.