The two great vices play into each other's hands. Ill-got money is always finally spent on the harlot. Look at Hogarth's two 'prentices;1 the sum of social wisdom is in that bit of rude art-work, if one reads it solemnly. (2) VENICE, February 10th [1877]. Hence, if from any place in earth, I ought to be able to send you some words of warning to English youths, for the ruin of this mighty city was all in one word-fornication. Fools who think they can write history will tell you it was "the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope," and the like! Alas! it was indeed the covering of every hope she had, in God and His Law. For indeed, my dear friend, I doubt if you can fight this evil by mere heroism and common sense. Not many men are heroes; not many are rich in common sense. They will train for a boat race; will they for the race of life? For the applause of the pretty girls in blue on the banks; yes. But to win the soul and body of a noble woman for their own for ever, will they? Not as things are going, I think, though how or where they are to go or end is to me at present inconceivable. You think, perhaps, I could help you therefore with a lecture on good taste and Titian? No, not at all; I might with one on politics, but that everybody would say was none of my business. Yet to understand the real meaning of the word "Sire," with respect to the rider as well as the horse, is indeed the basis of all knowledge, in policy, chivalry, and social order. All that you have advised and exposed is wisely said and bravely told; but no advice, no exposure, will be of use, until the right relation exists again between the father and the mother and their son. To deserve his confidence, to keep it as the chief treasure committed in trust to them by God to be the father his strength, the mother his sanctification, and both his chosen refuge, through all weakness, evil, danger, and amazement of his young life. My friend, while you still teach in Oxford the "philosophy,” forsooth, of that poor cretinous wretch, Stuart Mill, and are endeavouring to open other " careers" to English women than that of the Wife and the Mother, you won't make your men chaste by recommending them to leave off tea.4 1 [Of this series of designs, Hogarth said: "Industry and Idleness exemplified in the conduct of two fellow 'prentices; where the one, by taking good courses, and pursuing points for which he was put apprentice, becomes a valuable man and an ornament to his country; the other, by giving way to idleness, naturally falls into poverty, and ends fatally. As the prints were intended more for use than ornament, they were done in a way that might bring them within the purchase of whom they might most concern" (John Ireland's Hogarth Illustrated, 1791, vol. i. p. 250). For the plates themselves, see ibid., pp. 253 seq.] 2 [Compare St. Mark's Rest, Vol. XXIV. p. 235.] The dots here, and on the next page, were in the original pamphlet, indicating omissions.] "I have to state that this expression regarding Stuart Mill was not intended for separate publication; and to explain that in a subsequent but unpublished letter MY DEAR (3) VENICE, 11th February [1877]. I would say much more, if I thought any one would believe me, of the especial calamity of this time, with respect to the discipline of youth-in having no food any more to offer to their imagination. Military distinction is no more possible by prowess, and the young soldier thinks now of the hurdle-race as once of the lists and the fieldbut the nobler temper will not train for that trial with equal joy. Clerical eminence—the bishopric or popular pastorship-may be tempting to men of genial pride or sensitive conceit: but the fierce blood that would have burned into a patriarch, or lashed itself into a saint-what "career" has your modern philosophy to offer to it? The entire cessation of all employment for the faculty, which, in the best men of former ages, was continually exercised and satisfied in the realization of the presence of Christ with the hosts of Heaven, leaves the part of the brain which it employed absolutely vacant, and ready to suck in, with the avidity of vacuum, whatever pleasantness may be presented to the natural sight in the gas-lighted beauty of pantomimic and casino Paradise. All these disadvantages, you will say, are inevitable, and need not be dwelt upon. In my own school of St. George I mean to avoid them by simply making the study of Christianity a true piece of intellectual work; my boys shall at least know what their fathers believed, before they make up their own wise minds to disbelieve it. They shall be infidels, if they choose, at thirty; but only students, and very modest ones, at fifteen. But I shall at least ask of modern science so much help as shall enable me to begin to teach them at that age the physical laws relating to their own bodies, openly, thoroughly, and with awe; and of modern civilization, I shall ask so much help as may enable me to teach them what is indeed right, and what wrong, for the citizen of a state of noble humanity to do, and permit to be done, by others, unaccused. And if you can found two such chairs in Oxford-one, of the Science of Physical Health; the other, of the Law of Human Honour-you need not trim your Horace, nor forbid us our chatty afternoon tea. I could say ever so much more, of course, if there were only time, or if it would be of any use-about the misappliance of the imagination. But, really, the essential thing is the founding of real schools of instruction for both boys and girls-first, in domestic medicine and all that it means; and secondly, in the plain moral law of all humanity: "Thou shalt not commit adultery," with all that it means. Ever most truly yours, J. RUSKIN. Ruskin explained it to refer to Mill's utter deficiency in the powers of the imagination.'-The last words of this letter will be made clearer by noting that the pamphlet dealt with physical, as well as mental, diet." (Editor's note in Arrows of the Chace, vol. ii. p. 215.) For other references to "other careers for women," see above, p. 509.] MY DEAR Two words more, and an end. I have just re-read the paper throughout. There are two omissions which seem to me to need serious notice. The first, that the entire code of counsel which you have drawn up, as that which a father should give his son, must be founded on the assumption that, at the proper time of life, the youth will be able, no less than eager, to marry. You ought certainly to point out, incidentally, what in my St. George's work I am teaching primarily, that unless this first economical condition of human society be secured, all props and plasters of its morality will be in vain. And in the second place, you have spoken too exclusively of Lust, as if it were the normal condition of sexual feeling, and the only one properly to be called sexual. But the great relation of the sexes is Love, not Lust; that is the relation in which "male and female created He them";1 putting into them, indeed, to be distinctly restrained to the office of fruitfulness, the brutal passion of Lust: but giving them the spiritual power of Love, that each spirit might be greater and purer by its bond to another associate spirit, in this world, and that which is to come; help-mates, and sharers of each other's joy for ever. Ever most truly yours, J. RUSKIN. (5) MALHAM, July 3rd, 1878. DEAR - I wish I were able to add a few more words, with energy and clearness, to my former letters, respecting a subject of which my best strength-though in great part lately given to it, has not yet enforced. the moment; the function, namely, of the arts of Music and Dancing as leaders and governors of the bodily, and instinctive mental, passions.2 No nation will ever bring up its youth to be at once refined and pure, till its Masters have learned the use of all the Arts, and primarily of these; till they again recognize the gulf that separates the Doric and Lydian modes, and perceive the great ordinance of Nature, that the pleasures which, rightly ordered, exalt, discipline, and guide the hearts of men, if abandoned to a reckless and popular Dis-order, as surely degrade, scatter, and deceive alike the passions and intellect. I observe in the journals of yesterday, announcement that the Masters of many of our chief schools are at last desirous of making the elements of Greek art one of the branches of their code of instruction: but that they imagine such elements may be learned from plaster casts of elegant limbs and delicate noses. They will find that Greek art can only be learned from Greek law, and from the religion which gives Law of life to all the nations of the 1 [Genesis i. 27.] [For references to Ruskin's views on this subject, see Vol. XXVII. p. lxxiii.] earth. Let our youth once more learn the meaning of the words "Music," "Chorus," and "Hymn" practically; and with the understanding that all such practice, from lowest to highest, is, if rightly done, always in the presence and to the praise of God; and we shall have gone far to shield them in a noble peace and glorious safety from the darkest questions and the foulest sins that have perplexed and consumed the youth of past generations for the last four hundred years. Have you ever heard the charity children sing in St. Paul's? Suppose we sometimes allowed God the honour of seeing our Noble children collected in like manner to sing to Him, what, think you, might be the effect of such a festival—even if only held once a year-on the National manners and heart? Ever faithfully and affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN. MODERN RESTORATION [This letter was originally received by "a Liverpool gentleman," and sent enclosed in a long letter signed "An Antiquarian," to the Liverpool Daily Post, where it appeared June 9, 1877. Quoted from that paper in an article headed "Mr. Ruskin on Modern Restoration" in the British Architect and Northern Engineer, June 15, 1877, vol. vii. p. 366. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. i. p. 234. "Stone-layers" is here a correction for "stone-lawyers."] VENICE, 15th April, 1877. MY DEAR SIR,-It is impossible for any one to know the horror and contempt with which I regard modern restoration—but it is so great that it simply paralyses me in despair, and in the sense of such difference in all thought and feeling between me and the people I live in the midst of, almost makes it useless for me to talk to them. Of course all restoration is accursed architect's jobbery, and will go on as long as they can get their filthy bread by such business. But things are worse here than in England: you have little there left to lose-here, every hour is ruining buildings of inestimable beauty and historical value-simply to keep stone-layers at work. I am obliged to hide my face from it all, and work at other things, or I should die of mere indignation and disgust. Ever truly yours, J. RUSKIN. RIBBESFORD CHURCH [This letter was printed in the Kidderminster Times, July 28, 1877. Reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, vol. i. pp. 235-236. Ribbesford Church was finally closed after the morning service on Sunday, July 15, 1877. It was then restored, and was reopened and reconsecrated on June 15, 1879. The Kidderminster Times of July 21, 1877, contained an account of a meeting of the Ribbesford parishioners to consider the restoration of the church. Hence the allusions in this letter to "copying" the traceries.] XXXIV. 2 L To the Editor of the "Kidderminster Times” BRANTWOOD, July 24, 1877. SIR,-It chanced that, on the morning of the Sunday, when the appearances of danger in the walls of Ribbesford Church began seriously to manifest themselves (according to the report in your columns of the 21st inst.), I was standing outside of the church, listening to the singing of the last hymn as the sound came through the open door (with the Archer Knight sculptured above it), and showing to the friend who had brought me to the lovely place the extreme interest of the old perpendicular traceries in the freehand working of the apertures. Permit me to say, with reference to the proposed restoration of the church, that no modern architect, no mason either, can, or would if they could, "copy copy" those traceries. They will assuredly put up with geometrical models in their place, which will be no more like the old traceries than a Kensington paper pattern is like a living flower. Whatever else is added or removed, those traceries should be replaced as they are, and left in reverence until they moulder away.2 If they are already too much decayed to hold the glass safely (which I do not believe), any framework which may be necessary can be arranged to hold the casements within them, leaving their bars entirely disengaged, and merely kept from falling by iron supports. But if these are to be "copied," why in the world cannot the congregation pay for a new and original church, to display the genius and wealth of the nineteenth century somewhere else, and leave the dear old ruin to grow grey by Severn side in peace? I am, Sir, your faithful servant, J. RUSKIN. THE TEACHING OF SINGING [In the Birmingham Daily Post, September 28, 1887, is a letter from Mr. Charles Lunn, in which he says: "It may interest some of your readers to learn what views Mr. Ruskin holds as regards the art of song. Many years ago he wrote me . . Then follows the letter here given. Mr. Lunn added: "I may add that the passages on music in Fors were written for me." This presumably fixes the date as about 1877.] 1877. I mean the children to be taught pure and perfect, but simple, choral music, arranged to noble words, such as they can understand and desire to sing. They shall be disciplined so thoroughly that a false note shall be impossible to them; they shall never sing anything difficult or wonderful, but only what is beautiful, right, and well within their powers; and those who 1 [Mr. George Baker, with whom Ruskin was at this time staying. On July 15 they drove to Kidderminster and the Severn.] [On this subject, compare Vol. XIII. p. 553.] |