On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2)

There is but one chance of life—in admitting so far the possibility of the Christian verity as to try it on its own terms. There is not the slightest possibility of finding out whether it be true, or not, first.

"Show me a sign first and I will come," you say. "No," answers God. "Come first, then you shall see a sign."

Hard, you think? You will find it is not so, on thinking more. For this, which you are commanded, is not a thing unreasonable in itself. So far from that, it is merely the wisest thing you could do for your own and for others' happiness, if there were no eternal truth to be discovered.

You are called simply to be the servant of Christ, and of other men for His sake; that is to say, to hold your life and all its faculties as a means of service to your fellows. All you have to do is to be sure it is the service you are doing them, and not the service you do yourself, which is uppermost in your minds.

293. Now you continually hear appeals to you made in a vague way, which you don't know how far you can follow. You shall not say that, to-day; I both can and will tell you what Christianity requires of you in simplest terms.

Read your Bible as you would any other book—with strictest criticism, frankly determining what you think beautiful, and what you think false or foolish. But be sure that you try accurately to understand it, and transfer its teaching to modern need by putting other names for those which have become superseded by time. For instance, in such a passage as that which follows and supports the "Lie not one to another" of Colossians iii.—"seeing that ye have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the spirit of Him that created him, where" (meaning in that great creation where) "there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free." In applying that verse to the conduct and speech of modern policy, it falls nearly dead, because we suffer ourselves to remain under a vague impression—vague, but practically paralyzing,—that though it was very necessary to speak the truth in the countries of Scythians and Jews, there is no objection to any quantity of lying in managing the affairs of Christendom. But now merely substitute modern for ancient names, and see what a difference it will make in the force and appeal of the passage, "Lie not one to another, brethren, seeing that ye have put off the old man, with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed to knowledge," εις επἱγνωσιν, according to the knowledge of Him that created him, in that great creation where there is neither Englishman nor German, baptism nor want of baptism, Turk nor Russian, slave nor free, but Christ is all, and in all.

294. Read your Bible, then, making it the first morning business of your life to understand some piece of it clearly, and your daily business to obey of it all that you understand, beginning first with the most human and most dear obedience—to your father and mother. Doing all things as they would have you do, for the present: if they want you to be lawyers—be lawyers; if soldiers—soldiers; if to get on in the world—even to get money—do as they wish, and that cheerfully, after distinctly explaining to them in what points you wish otherwise. Theirs is for the present the voice of God to you.

But, at the same time, be quite clear about your own purpose, and the carrying out of that so far as under the conditions of your life you can. And any of you who are happy enough to have wise parents will find them contented in seeing you do as I now tell you.

295. First cultivate all your personal powers, not competitively, but patiently and usefully. You have no business to read in the long vacation. Come here to make scholars of yourselves, and go to the mountains or the sea to make men of yourselves. Give at least a month in each year to rough sailor's work and sea fishing. Don't lounge and flirt on the beach, but make yourselves good seamen. Then, on the mountains, go and help the shepherd at his work, the wood-men at theirs, and learn to know the hills by night and day. If you are staying in level country, learn to plow, and whatever else you can that is useful. Then here in Oxford, read to the utmost of your power, and practice singing, fencing, wrestling, and riding. No rifle practice, and no racing—boat or other. Leave the river quiet for the naturalist, the angler, and the weary student like me.

You may think all these matters of no consequence to your studies of art and divinity; and that I am merely crotchety and absurd. Well, that is the way the devil deceives you. It is not the sins which we feel sinful, by which he catches us; but the apparently healthy ones,—those which nevertheless waste the time, harden the heart, concentrate the passions on mean objects, and prevent the course of gentle and fruitful thought.

296. Having thus cultivated, in the time of your studentship, your powers truly to the utmost, then, in your manhood, be resolved they shall be spent in the true service of men—not in being ministered unto, but in ministering. Begin with the simplest of all ministries—breaking of bread to the poor. Think first of that, not of your own pride, learning, comfort, prospects in life: nay, not now, once come to manhood, may even the obedience to parents check your own conscience of what is your Master's work. "Whoso loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy of me." Take the perfectly simple words of the Judgment, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me:" but you must do it, not preach it. And you must not be resolved that it shall be done only in a gentlemanly manner. Your pride must be laid down, as your avarice, and your fear. Whether as fishermen on the sea, plowmen on the earth, laborers at the forge, or merchants at the shop-counter, you must break and distribute bread to the poor, set down in companies—for that also is literally told you—upon the green grass, not crushed in heaps under the pavement of cities. Take Christ at His literal word, and, so sure as His word is true, He will be known of you in breaking of bread. Refuse that servant's duty because it is plain,—seek either to serve God, or know Him, in any other way: your service will become mockery of Him, and your knowledge darkness. Every day your virtues will be used by the evil spirits to conceal, or to make respectable, national crime; every day your felicities will become baits for the iniquity of others; your heroisms, wreckers' beacons, betraying them to destruction; and before your own deceived eyes and wandering hearts every false meteor of knowledge will flash, and every perishing pleasure glow, to lure you into the gulf of your grave.

297. But obey the word in its simplicity, in wholeness of purpose and with serenity of sacrifice, like this of the Venetian maids', and truly you shall receive sevenfold into your bosom in this present life, as in the world to come, life everlasting. All your knowledge will become to you clear and sure, all your footsteps safe; in the present brightness of domestic life you will foretaste the joy of Paradise, and to your children's children bequeath, not only noble fame, but endless virtue. "He shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways; and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

1

This evidence, given by Mr. Ruskin as stated above, is reprinted from the Report of the National Gallery Site Commission. London: Harrison and Sons. 1857. Pp. 92-7. Questions 2392-2504. The Commission consisted of Lord Broughton (chairman), Dean Milman, Professor Faraday, Mr. Cockerell, R.A., and Mr. George Richmond, all of whom were present on the occasion of Mr. Ruskin giving his evidence.—Ed.

2

Reprinted from "The Report of the Select Committee on Public Institutions. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 27 March 1860," pp. 113-123. The following members of the Committee were present on the occasion of the above evidence being given: -Sir John Trelawny (Chairman), Mr. Sclater Booth, Mr. Du Pre, Mr. Kinnaird, Mr. Hanbury, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Slaney, and Mr. John Tollemache.—Ed.

3

Reprinted from "The Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Present Position of the Royal Academy in Relation to the Fine Arts." London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1863 (pp. 546-55. Questions 5079-5142). The Commission consisted of Earl Stanhope (Chairman), Viscount Hardinge, Lord Elcho, Sir E. W. Head, Mr. William Stirling, Mr. H. D. Seymour, and Mr. Henry Reeve, all of whom, except Mr. Seymour, were present at the above sitting.—Ed.

4

These letters are reprinted from the Art Journal of June and August 1880, where they were prefaced with the following note by the editor in explanation of their origin:—"We are enabled, through Mr. Ruskin's kindness, to publish this month a series of letters to a friend upon the functions and formation of a model Museum or Picture Gallery. As stated in our last issue the question arose thus:—At the distribution of the prizes to the School of Art at Leicester by Mr. J. D. Linton and Mr. James Orrock, members of the Institute of Painters in Water Colors, the latter, after stating the vital importance of study from nothing but the finest models, and expressing his regret that the present price of works of Art of the first class rendered their attainment by schools almost prohibitory, offered drawings by William Hunt and David Cox as a nucleus for a collection. He urged others to follow this example, and with so much success that a few days saw a large sum and many works of Art promised in aid of a students' gallery. The attention of the Leicester Corporation was thereupon drawn to the movement, and they at once endeavored to annex the scheme to their Museum. Failing in this, they in friendly rivalry subscribed a large sum of money, and the question at once arose how best to dispose of it, each naturally thinking his own ideas the best. At this juncture Mr. Ruskin's aid was invoked by one section of the subscribers, and he replied in a letter which, owing to its having been circulated without its context, has been open to some misconstruction. As he was only asked, so he only advised, what should not be done. However, the letter bore its fruits, for both parties have had the attention of the country drawn to their proposals, and so are now more diffident how to set about carrying them into effect than they were before. Under these circumstances Mr. Ruskin has been induced to set out the mode in which he considers an Art Museum should be formed."

The letter which was "open to some misconstruction" may be found in Arrows of the Chace.

5

Reprinted in vol. i., §§ 253-273.—Ed.

6

In 1873. See the second lecture of Love's Meinie.—Ed..

7

Art Journal, August, 1880.

8

The "Derby Day." See Arrows of the Chase.

9

Published by the Arundel Society (1872), together with a chromo-lithograph after a drawing by Herr Gnauth.—Ed.

10

D.M.

Gerardo Bolderio

sui temporis

Physicorum Principi

Franciscus et

Matthaeus Nepotes

P.P.

11

I am indebted for this genealogy to the research and to the courtesy of Mr. J. Stefani. The help given me by other Venetian friends, especially Mr. Rawdon Brown, dates from many years back in matters of this kind.

12

Report (with extracts) of a paper entitled "A Talk respecting Verona and its Rivers," read by Mr. Ruskin at the Weekly Evening Meeting of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Feb. 4th, 1870. See Proceedings of the Royal Institution, vol. vi., p. 55.—Ed.

13

This catalogue (London: Queen Street Printing-Office, 1870) is printed below, p. 109, § 242 seqq.—Ed.

14

See Arrows of the Chace.

15

Preface to the above-named book, by the Rev. St. John Tyrwhitt. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1872.—Ed.

16

See Mr. Ruskin's pamphlet on "The Relation of Michael Angelo to Tintoret," being (although separately printed) the seventh lecture of the course (1872) published as Aratra Pentelici—Ed.

17

Preface to the above-named book by Miss A. C. Owen, edited by Mr. Ruskin. London: Mozley & Smith, 1876.—Ed.

18

The Monthly Packet.—Ed.

19

Preface to a pamphlet (1876) entitled "A Protest against the Extension of Railways in the Lake District," compiled by Robert Somervell (Windermere, J. Garnett; London, Simpkin, Marshall & Co.). The pamphlet also contained a printed announcement as follows:—"The author of 'Modern Painters' earnestly requests all persons who may have taken interest in his writings, or who have any personal regard for him, to assist him now in the circulation of the inclosed paper, drawn up by his friend Mr. Somervell, for the defense of the Lake District of England, and to press the appeal, so justly and temperately made in it, on the attention of their personal friends."—Ed.

20

See—the illustration being coincidently given as I correct this page for press—the description of the horrible service, and history of the fatal explosion of dynamite, on the once lovely estates of the Duke of Hamilton, in the Hamilton Advertiser of 10th and 17th June.

21

Introduction by Mr. Ruskin to a pamphlet entitled "The Study of Beauty and Art in Large Towns, two papers by T. C. Horsfall" (London, Macmillan & Co., 1883). The first of the two papers was originally read at the Congress at Nottingham of the Social Science Association, and the second at the Manchester Field Naturalists' Society.—Ed.

22

See "Art of England."

23

The passages referred to are as follows:—

1. "Our idea of what beauty is in human being's, in pictures, in houses, in chairs, in animals, in cities, in everything, in short, which we know to have a use, in the main depends on what we believe that human beings, pictures, and the rest ought to be and do.

2. "Every bank in every country lane, every bush, every tree, the sky by day and by night, every aspect of nature, is full of beautiful form or color, or of both, for those whose eyes and hearts and brains have been opened to perceive beauty. Richter has somewhere said that man's greatest defect is that he has such a lot of small ones. With equal truth it may be said that the greatest happiness man can have is to have a great many little happinesses, and therefore a strong love of beauty, which enables almost every square inch of unspoiled country to give us pleasant sensations, is one of the best possessions we can have.

3. "It must be evident to everyone who watches life carefully that hardly anyone reaches the objects which all should live for who does not strive to reach them, and that at present not one person in a hundred so much as knows what are the objects which should be sought in life. It is astounding, therefore, that in a country which possesses an Established Church, richly endowed universities, and even several professors of education, no book exists which can be put into the hands of every intelligent youth, and of every intelligent father and mother, showing what our wisest and best men believe are the best things which can be done in life, and what is the kind of training which makes the doing of these things most easy. It is often said that each of us can profit only by his own experience, but no one believes that. No one can see how many well-meaning persons mistake means for ends and drift into error and sin, simply because neither they nor their parents have known what course should be steered, and what equipment is needed, in the voyage of life,—no one can see this and doubt that a 'guidebook to life,' containing the results of the comparison of the experiences of even half-a-dozen able and sincere men, would save countless people from wasting their lives as most lives are now wasted.

4. "That which is true with regard to music is true with regard to beauty of form and color. Because a great many grown-up people, in spite of great efforts, find it impossible to sing correctly or even to perceive any pleasantness in music, it used to be commonly supposed that a great many people are born without the power of gaining love of, and skill in, music. Now it is known that it is a question of early training, that in every thousand children there are very few,—not, I believe, on an average, more than two or three,—who cannot gain the power of singing correctly and of enjoying music, if they are taught well in childhood while their nervous system can still easily form habits and has not yet formed the habit of being insensible to differences of sound.

"There is every reason to believe that susceptibility to beauty of form and color can also be gained through proper training in childhood by almost everyone.

5. "In such circumstances as ours there is no such thing as 'a wise passiveness.' If we are to attain to a high morality or to strong love of beauty, attainment must be the result of strenuous effort, of strong will.

6. "The principle I refer to is, that, as art is the giving of right or beautiful form, or of beautiful or right appearance, if we desire to make people take keen interest in art, if we desire to make them love good art, we must show it them when applied to things which themselves are very interesting to them, and about the rightness of appearance of which it is therefore possible for them to care a great deal.

7. "Success in bringing the influence of art to bear on the masses of the population in large towns, or on any set of people who have to earn their bread and have not time to acquire an unhealthy appetite for nonsense verses or nonsense pictures, will certainly only be attained by persons who know that art is important just in proportion to the importance of that which it clothes, and who themselves feel that rightness of appearance of the bodies, and the houses, and the actions, in short of the whole life, of the population of those large towns which are now, or threaten soon to be, 'England,' is of far greater importance than rightness of appearance in all that which is usually called 'art,' and who feel, to speak of only the fine arts, that rightness of appearance in pictures of noble action and passion, and of beautiful scenery, love of which is almost a necessary of mental health, is of far greater importance than art can be in things which cannot deeply affect human thought and feeling."—Ed.

24

From London's Magazine of Natural History (London, Longmans & Co., 1834), vol. vii., No. 41, pp. 438-9, being its author's earliest contribution to literature.—Ed.

25

This lake, however, if the poet have spoken truly, is not very feculent:—

"Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face,The mirror where the stars and mountains viewThe stillness of their aspect in each traceIts clear depth yields of their far height and hue."Byron.

26

In the number of the magazine in which this note appeared was an article by "E. L." on the perforation of a leaden pipe by rats, upon which, in a subsequent number (Vol. vii., p. 592), J. R. notes as follows: "E. S. has been, surely, too inattentive to proportions: there is an inconsistency in the dimensions of a leaden pipe about 1¼ in. in external diameter, with a bore of about ¾ in. in diameter; thus leaving a solid circumference of metal varying from ½ in. to ¾ in. in thickness.—J. R., Sept. 1834."—Ed.

27

London's Magazine of Natural History, Vol. vii., pp. 644-5. The note was illustrated by engravings from two sketches by the author of the Aiguille de Servoz and of the Aiguille Dru, and by a diagram explanatory of its last sentence but one.—Ed.

28

"A small neat copy of a sketch carefully taken on the spot," which, according to the editor of the magazine, accompanied this communication, was not, however, published. See the magazine.—Ed.

29

Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, Vol. ix., No. 65, pp. 488-90.—Ed.

30

The question here discussed was originally asked in the magazine (Vol. ix., pp. 379-80) by Mr. W. Perceval Hunter with reference to the condition of Bodiam Castle, in Sussex.—Ed.

31

London's Magazine of Natural History, vol. ix., pp. 533-536.—Ed.

32

The query was as follows:—

An Inquiry for the Cause of the Difference in Temperature of River Water and Spring Water, both in Summer and Winter.—In the summer time the river water is much warmer than that from a spring; during the severe frosts of winter it is colder; and when the stream is covered over with ice, the spring, that is, well or pump water is unaffected by frost. Does this difference proceed from the exposure of the surface of the river water, in summer, to the sun's direct influence, and, in winter, to that of frost; while the well water, being covered, is protected from their power? Or is there in river water, from the earthy particles it contains, a greater susceptibility of heat and cold?—Indigena. April 19, 1836.—Ed.

33

From the "Transactions of the Meteorological Society," Vol. i., pp. 56-9 (London, 1839). The full title of the paper was "Remarks on the Present State of Meteorological Science." The Society was instituted in 1823, but appears to have published no previous transactions.—Ed.

34

Read by Mr. Ruskin at the weekly evening meeting of the Royal Institution (see Proceedings, vol. iii., pp. 358-60), April 19, 1861.—Ed.

35

Read by Mr. Ruskin at the weekly evening meeting of the Royal Institution (see Proceedings, vol. iv., pp. 142-46), June 5, 1863.—Ed.

36

Contemporary Review, June, 1871.—Ed.

37

Nineteenth Century, June, 1880.

38

See Time and Tide, § 72.—Ed.

39

Nell, in the "Old Curiosity Shop," was simply killed for the market, as a butcher kills a lamb (see Forster's "Life,") and Paul was written under the same conditions of illness which affected Scott—a part of the ominous palsies, grasping alike author and subject both in "Dombey" and "Little Dorrit."

40

"Chourineur" not striking with dagger-point, but ripping with knife-edge. Yet I do him, and La Louve, injustice in classing them with the two others; they are put together only as parts in the same phantasm. Compare with La Louve, the strength of wild virtue in the "Louvécienne" (Lucienne) of Gaboriau—she, province-born and bred; and opposed to Parisian civilization in the character of her seamstress friend. "De ce Paris, où elle était née, elle savait tout—elle connaissait tout. Rien ne l'étonnait, nul ne l'intimidait. Sa science des détails matériels de l'existence était inconcevable. Impossible de la duper!—Eh bien! cette fille si laborieuse et si économe n'avait même pas la plus vague notion des sentiments qui sont l'honneur de la femme. Je n'avais pas idée d'une si complète absence de sens moral; d'une si inconscience dépravation, d'une impudence si effrontément naïve."—"L'Argent des autres," vol. i. p. 358.

41

The reader who cares to seek it may easily find medical evidence of the physical effects of certain states of brain disease in producing especially images of truncated and Hermes-like deformity, complicated with grossness. Horace, in the "Epodes," scoffs at it, but not without horror. Luca Signorelli and Raphael in their arabesques are deeply struck by it: Dürer, defying and playing with it alternately, is almost beaten down again and again in the distorted faces, hewing halberts, and suspended satyrs of his arabesques round the polyglot Lord's Prayer; it takes entire possession of Balzac in the "Contes Drolatiques"; it struck Scott in the earliest days of his childish "visions" intensified by the ax-stroke murder of his grand aunt (L. i. 142, and see close of this note). It chose for him the subject of the "Heart of Midlothian," and produced afterwards all the recurrent ideas of executions, tainting "Nigel," almost spoiling "Quentin Durward"—utterly the "Fair Maid of Perth": and culminating in "Bizarro" (L. x. 149). It suggested all the deaths by falling, or sinking, as in delirious sleep—Kennedy, Eveline Neville (nearly repeated in Clara Mowbray), Amy Robsart, the Master of Ravenswood in the quicksand, Morris, and Corporal Grace-be-here—compare the dream of Gride, in "Nicholas Nickleby," and Dickens's own last words, on the ground (so also, in my own inflammation of the brain, two years ago, I dreamed that I fell through the earth and came out on the other side). In its grotesque and distorting power, it produced all the figures of the Lay Goblin, Pacolet, Flibbertigibbet, Cockledemoy, Geoffrey Hudson, Fenella, and Nectabanus; in Dickens it in like manner gives Quilp, Krook, Smike, Smallweed, Miss Mowcher, and the dwarfs and wax-work of Nell's caravan; and runs entirely wild in "Barnaby Budge," where, with a corps de drame composed of one idiot, two madmen, a gentleman-fool who is also a villain, a shop-boy fool who is also a blackguard, a hangman, a shriveled virago, and a doll in ribbons—carrying this company through riot and fire, till he hangs the hangman, one of the madmen, his mother, and the idiot, runs the gentleman-fool through in a bloody duel, and burns and crushes the shop-boy fool into shapelessness, he cannot yet be content without shooting the spare lover's leg off, and marrying him to the doll in a wooden one; the shapeless shop-boy being finally also married in two wooden ones. It is this mutilation, observe, which is the very sign manual of the plague; joined, in the artistic forms of it, with a love of thorniness—(in their mystic root, the truncation of the limbless serpent and the spines of the dragon's wing. Compare "Modern Painters," vol. iv., "Chapter on the Mountain Gloom," s. 19); and in all forms of it, with petrifaction or loss of power by cold in the blood, whence the last Darwinian process of the witches' charm—"cool it with a baboon's blood, then the charm is firm and good." The two frescoes in the colossal handbills which have lately decorated the streets of London (the baboon with the mirror, and the Maskelyne and Cooke decapitation) are the final English forms of Raphael's arabesque under this influence; and it is well worth while to get the number for the week ending April 3, 1880, of "Young Folks—a magazine of instructive and entertaining literature for boys and girls of all ages," containing "A Sequel to Desdichado" (the modern development of Ivanhoe), in which a quite monumental example of the kind of art in question will be found as a leading illustration of this characteristic sentence, "See, good Cerberus," said Sir Rupert, "my hand has been struck off. You must make me a hand of iron, one with springs in it, so that I can make it grasp a dagger." The text is also, as it professes to be, instructive; being the ultimate degeneration of what I have above called the "folly" of "Ivanhoe"; for the folly begets folly down, and down; and whatever Scott and Turner did wrong has thousands of imitators—their wisdom none will so much as hear, how much less follow!