Page images
PDF
EPUB

closer personal relations with the friends in America, Scotand, Ireland, and Italy, to whom, if I am spared to write any record of my life, it will be seen that I owe the best hopes and highest thoughts which have supported and guided the force of my matured mind. These have shown me, with lovely initiation, in how many secret places the prayer was made which I had foolishly listened for at the corners of the streets; and on how many hills which I had thought left desolate, the hosts of heaven still moved in chariots of fire.2

3

6. But surely the time is come when all these faithful armies should lift up the standard of their Lord,—not by might, nor by power, but by His spirit, bringing forth judgment unto victory. That they should no more be hidden, nor overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. If the enemy cometh in like a flood, how much more may the rivers of Paradise? Are there not fountains of the great deep that open to bless, not destroy?

SO

And the beginning of blessing, if you will think of it, is in that promise, "Great shall be the peace of thy children." All the world is but as one orphanage, long as its children know not God their Father; and all wisdom and knowledge is only more bewildered darkness, so long as you have not taught them the fear of the Lord. Not to be taken out of the world in monastic sorrow, but to be kept from its evil in shepherded peace;-ought not this to be done for all the children held at the fonts beside which we vow, in their name, to renounce the world? Renounce! nay, ought we not, at last, to redeem?

The story of Rosy Vale is not ended;-surely out of its silence the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing, and round it the desert rejoice, and blossom as the rose !

1

[Compare Matthew vi. 5, 6.]

[2 Kings vi. 17.]

[Zechariah iv. 6. The other Bible references in § 6 are Matthew xii. 20; Romans xii. 21; Isaiah lix. 19; Genesis vii. 11; Isaiah liv. 13; Isaiah lv. 12; and Isaiah xxxv. 1.]

APPENDIX

ADDITIONAL PASSAGES FROM THE MANUSCRIPT

OF, AND LETTERS RELATING TO, "FORS
CLAVIGERA"

1. PROFIT AND LOSS IN THE IRON TRADE

2. THE DUTIES OF LANDLORDS. THE SHEPHERD, LORD CLIFFORD

3. COMMON SENSE. CASH DOWN

4. OBSERVATION AND DESCRIPTION

5. THE TRUE MEANING OF "MINE" AND "WORK”

6. THE WORTH OF A VOTE

7. RUSKIN AND SCOTT

8. NOTES ON THE LIFE OF SCOTT

9. STREAMS AND THEIR USE: TRANSLATION FROM PLATO

10. ON THE USE OF MACHINERY: LETTERS TO A MANCHESTER MANUFACTURER

11. THE DEFINITION OF MONEY: LETTERS TO THE REV. J. P. FAUNTHORPE

12. DISCRIMINATION IN ART TEACHING

13. LAWS FOR THE WINE TRADE

14. ECONOMY: GOD'S AND THE DEVIL'S

15. THE EIGHTEENTH PSALM

16. THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY : LETTERS TO MR.

FREDERIC HARRISON

17. INTEREST; AND RAILWAYS :

(a) AN ADDITIONAL PASSAGE

(b) A LETTER TO MR. W. WALKER

18. MORNING THOUGHTS AT GENEVA

19. "THESE THY CREATURES OF BREAD AND WINE"

20. WHISTLER v. RUSKIN:

(a) REPORT OF THE TRIAL

(b) "My own ARTICLE ON WHISTLER"

21. MYTHS AND NOVELS

22. CORRESPONDENCE WITH T. C. HORSFALL

23. PLATO'S "MUSIC" AND LUDWIG RICHTER

24. GOOD AND EVIL

25. NOTES ON THE LAND QUESTION

26. EPILOGUE

1

PROFIT AND LOSS IN THE

IRON TRADE

A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR OF A PAMPHLET ON

"WAGES"1

[See Letter 2, § 10 (Vol. XXVII. pp. 35–37)]

HERNE HILL, LONDON,
January 5th, 1874.

SIR, I have been much interested by your pamphlet on Wages, which I suppose your publisher sent me by your direction. As I observe you honour me by quoting a sentence of mine in it, you will perhaps pardon my intruding a question on you privately, which otherwise I should only have ventured to state in any notice I may have to take of this important address in public.

You limit your estimates and inquiries (as far as I can see) to the profit and loss, prosperity or depression, of the iron trade only. Have you arrived at any conclusions as to the effect of that trade on other businesses? For instance: in consequence of its flourishing condition, I pay twice as much for the fire by which I am writing as I did last year. You examine the effect of that rise of price on the coal owner; and you congratulate him and the country generally on his better remuneration. But you do not examine the effect of the change on me, nor congratulate me. Again. The sum I pay extra for firing is withdrawn from that which I am able to spend on art patronage. The coal owner becomes the art patron, instead of me. Have you examined the effect upon the art of the country which is likely to result from making the coal owner its patron, instead of the persons who are occupied in the study of it?

Again. You speak of iron as if it were always useful. Can you give me any estimate of the capital sunk unproductively in the merely ornamental iron railings of London; or perhaps it will be better to say, the iron railings 2 simply;-I suppose it would be difficult to separate the cost of ornamentation with any definiteness from that of general make. But I have long wished to obtain from some competent authority a rough estimate of the total sum thus withdrawn from productive labour.

[This letter was first printed in Poet-Lore, July 1891, vol. iii. pp. 361-362; and next in the privately issued Letters upon Subjects of General Interest from John Ruskin to Various Correspondents, 1892, pp. 54-57.]

2

[The "iron railings" problem is a favourite one of Ruskin's: see Vol. XXVII. pp. 35-37, 68; and the other places noted at ibid., p. 36 n.]

These three questions are strictly only branches of the main one; the effect of the iron and coal trade on other trades or occupations.

But I permit myself one more inquiry in another direction. You point with exultation to the various incapacities of Belgium and Russia for production of iron: do you think, then, that if a little more iron existed in those countries, or in the world generally, and if Belgians and Russians were less stupid than they are, the British Nation would find existence impossible-or even greatly inconvenienced by the increased sagacity and wealth of its neighbours? And might not the sentence in the close of your address concerning the dignity of those who are the least dependent upon the favours of others, be advisably coupled with an assertion of the dignity of those who are least dependent on the stupidity of others?

I am, Sir,

Your faithful Servant,

J. RUSKIN.

2

THE DUTIES OF LANDLORDS

[See Letter 12, § 17 (Vol. XXVII. p. 210)]

DENMARK HILL, S.E.,
9th August, 1871.

DEAR MR. WOODD,1-I am getting fast better, but am obliged to economise returning strength,2 and Joan writes for me, which is an excuse to get still a little of the "star-light."

Some day she will tell you what need of human comfort I have felt, and the story of my endeavours to get it-in vain. If I had not had the unfailing comfort of Joan herself, I should not even be dictating now. Meantime, I have been more and more drawn away from my own vexations into the plans in which I rejoice to have your sympathy, nor do I doubt ultimately that you will be able one way or another to help me in no small degree.

My chief hope is, indeed, to get the proprietors of land, on which there is still an uncorrupted English race of peasants, to look upon these as their greatest possession, and to bring back for good, instead of evil, the organization of the Feudal System. You must wait for the forthcoming numbers of the Fors before you can judge of my purpose-or, at all definitely, see your way to help me. I go slowly, being resolved that nothing shall interfere with the work in Oxford, which is my immediate duty, and knowing also that if I am right, the work will be taken up in due

[The late Charles H. Woodd, Esq., Oughtershaw Hall, Langstroth Dale, Skipton. These letters have not before been published. A letter from Mr. Woodd is given in Letter 38, § 18 (Vol. XXVIII. pp. 43-45).]

[After his illness at Matlock: see Vol. XXII. p. xviii. "Joan" is Mrs. Arthur Severn.]

« PreviousContinue »