THE OPENING 
 
 OP 
 
 THE CRYSTAL PALACE 
 
 CONSIDERED IN SOME OF ITS RELATIONS 
 TO THE PROSPECTS OF ART. 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN, M.A., 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 THE STONES OF VENICE,” “ THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE,” 
 u MODERN PAINTERS,” ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., 65. CORNHILL. 
 
 1854. 
 
London : " 
 
 A. and G. A. Spottiswoode, 
 New-street-Square. 
 
THE OPENING 
 
 OF 
 
 THE CRYSTAL PALACE 
 
 CONSIDERED IN SOME OF ITS RELATIONS TO THE PROSPECTS 
 
 OF ART. 
 
 I read the account in the Times newspaper of the 
 opening of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, as I 
 ascended the hill between Yevay and Chatel St. 
 Denis, and the thoughts which it called up haunted 
 me all day long, as my road wound among the grassy 
 slopes of the Simmenthal. There was a strange con- 
 trast between the image of that mighty palace, raised 
 so high above the hills on which it is built as to make 
 them seem little else than a basement for its glittering 
 stateliness, and those low larch huts, half hidden be- 
 neath their coverts of forest, and scattered like grey 
 stones along the masses of far away mountain. 
 Here, man contending with the power of Nature for 
 his existence ; there, commanding them for his re- 
 creation : here a feeble folk nested among the rocks 
 with the wild goat and the coney, and retaining the 
 same quiet thoughts from generation to generation ; 
 there, a great multitude triumphing in the splendour 
 
4 
 
 THE OPENING OF 
 
 of immeasurable habitation, and haughty with hope 
 of endless progress and irresistible power. 
 
 It is indeed impossible to limit, in imagination, the 
 beneficent results which may follow from the under- 
 taking thus happily begun. For the first time in the 
 history of the world, a national museum is formed in 
 which a whole nation is interested ; formed on a 
 scale which permits the exhibition of monuments of 
 art in unbroken symmetry, and of the productions of 
 nature in unthwarted growth, — formed under the 
 auspices of science which can hardly err, and of 
 wealth which can hardly be exhausted ; and placed 
 in the close neighbourhood of a metropolis overflow- 
 ing with a population weary of labour, yet thirsting 
 for knowledge, where contemplation may be consis- 
 tent with rest, and instruction with enjoyment. It is 
 impossible, I repeat, to estimate the influence of such 
 an institution on the minds of the working- classes. 
 How many hours once wasted may now be profitably 
 dedicated to pursuits in which interest was first 
 awakened by some accidental display in the Norwood 
 palace ; how many constitutions, almost broken, may 
 be restored by the healthy temptation into the 
 country air, — how many intellects, once dormant, 
 may be roused into activity within the crystal walls, 
 and how these noble results may go on multiplying 
 and increasing and bearing fruit seventy times seven- 
 fold, as the nation pursues its career, — are questions 
 as full of hope as incapable of calculation. But with 
 all these grounds for hope there are others for de- 
 spondency, giving rise to a group of melancholy 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 thoughts, of which I can neither repress the impor- 
 tunity nor forbear the expression. 
 
 For three hundred years, the art of architecture 
 has been the subject of the most curious investiga- 
 tion ; its principles have been discussed with all 
 earnestness and acuteness ; its models in all countries 
 and of all ages have been examined with scrupulous 
 care, and imitated with unsparing expenditure. 
 And of all this refinement of enquiry, — this lofty 
 search after the ideal, — this subtlety of investigation 
 and sumptuousness of practice, — the great result, 
 the admirable and long-expected conclusion is, that 
 in the centre of the 19th century, we suppose our- 
 selves to have invented a new style of architecture, 
 when we have magnified a conservatory ! 
 
 In Mr. Laing’s speech, at the opening of the palace, 
 he declares that “ an entirely novel order of architecture , 
 producing, by means of unrivalled mechanical inge- 
 nuity, the most marvellous and beautiful effects, 
 sprang into existence to provide a building.” * In 
 these words, the speaker is not merely giving utter- 
 ance to his own feelings. He is expressing the 
 popular view of the facts, nor that a view merely 
 popular, but one which has been encouraged by 
 nearly all the professors of art of our time. 
 
 It is to this, then, that our Doric and Paliadian 
 pride is at last reduced ! We have vaunted the 
 divinity of the Greek ideal — we have plumed our- 
 selves on the purity of our Italian taste — we have 
 
 * See the Times of Monday, June 12th. 
 
6 
 
 THE OPENING OF 
 
 cast our whole souls into the proportions of pillars, 
 and the relations of orders — and behold the end ! 
 Our taste, thus exalted and disciplined, is dazzled by 
 the lustre of a few rows of panes of glass ; and the 
 first principles of architectural sublimity, so far 
 sought, are found all the while to have consisted 
 merely in sparkling and in space. 
 
 Let it not be thought that I would depreciate 
 (were it possible to depreciate) the mechanical in- 
 genuity which has been displayed in the erection of 
 the Crystal Palace, or that I underrate the effect 
 which its vastness may continue to produce on the 
 popular imagination. But mechanical ingenuity is 
 not the essence either of painting or architecture : and 
 largeness of dimension does not necessarily involve 
 nobleness of design. There is assuredly as much 
 ingenuity required to build a screw frigate, or a 
 tubular bridge, as a hall of glass ; — all these are 
 works characteristic of the age; and all, in their 
 several ways, deserve our highest admiration ; but 
 not admiration of the kind that is rendered to poetry 
 or to art. We may cover the German Ocean with 
 frigates, and bridge the Bristol Channel with iron, 
 and roof the county of Middlesex with crystal, and 
 yet not possess one Milton, or Michael Angelo. 
 
 Well, it may be replied, we need our bridges, and 
 have pleasure in our palaces ; but we do not want 
 Miltons, nor Michael Angelos. 
 
 Truly, it seems so ; for, in the year in which the 
 first Crystal Palace was built, there died among us a 
 man whose name, in after ages, will stand with those 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 7 
 
 of the gi’eat, of all time. Dying, he bequeathed to 
 the nation the whole mass of his most cherished 
 works : and for these three years, while we have been 
 building this colossal receptacle for casts and copies 
 of the art of other nations, these works of our own 
 greatest painter have been left to decay in a dai’k 
 room near Cavendish Square, under the custody of 
 an aged servant. 
 
 This is quite natural. But it is also memorable. 
 
 There is another interesting fact connected with the 
 history of the Crystal Palace as it bears on that of the 
 art of Europe, namely, that in the year 1851, when 
 all that glittering roof was built, in order to exhibit 
 the petty arts of our fashionable luxury — the carved 
 bedsteads of Vienna, and glued toys of Switzerland, 
 and gay jewellery of France — in that very year, I 
 say, the greatest pictures of the V enetian masters were 
 rotting at Venice in the rain, for want of roof to 
 cover them, with holes made by cannon shot through 
 their canvass. 
 
 There is another fact, however, more curious than 
 either of these, which will hereafter be connected 
 with the history of the palace now in building; 
 namely, that at the very period when Europe is con- 
 gratulated on the invention of a new style of archi- 
 tecture, because fourteen acres of ground have been 
 covered with glass, the greatest examples in existence 
 of true and noble Christian architecture were being 
 resolutely destroyed ; and destroyed by the effects of 
 the very interest which was slowly beginning to be ex- 
 cited by them. 
 
8 
 
 THE OPENING OF 
 
 Under the firm and wise government of the third 
 Napoleon, France has entered on a new epoch of pros- 
 perity, one of the signs of which is a zealous care for 
 the preservation of her noble public buildings. Under 
 the influence of this healthy impulse, repairs of the 
 most extensive kind are at this moment proceeding, 
 on the cathedrals of Rheims, Amiens, Rouen, Chartres, 
 and Paris ; (probably also in many other instances 
 unknown to me). These repairs were, in many 
 cases, necessary up to a certain point ; and they have 
 been executed by architects as skilful and learned as 
 at present exist, — executed with noble disregard of 
 expense, and sincere desire on the part of their 
 superintendents that they should be completed in a 
 manner honourable to the country. 
 
 They are nevertheless more fatal to the monuments 
 they are intended to preserve, than fire, war, or re- 
 volution. For they are undertaken, in the plurality 
 of instances, under an impression, which the efforts 
 of all true antiquaries have as yet been unable to 
 remove, that it is possible to reproduce the mutilated 
 sculpture of past ages in its original beauty. 
 
 “ Reproduire avec une exactitude mathematique,” 
 are the words used, by one of the most intelligent 
 writers on this subject *, of the proposed regeneration 
 of the statue of Ste. Modeste, on the north porch of 
 the Cathedral of Chartres. 
 
 Now, it is not the question at present, whether 
 13th century sculpture be of value, or not. Its 
 
 * M. l’Abbe Bulteau, Description de la Cathedrale de Chartres, 
 (8 vo. Paris, Sagnier et Bray, 1850), p. 98, note. 
 
THE CRYSTAL TALACE. 
 
 9 
 
 value is assumed by the authorities who have devoted 
 sums so large to its so-called restoration, and may 
 therefore be assumed in my argument. The worst 
 state of the sculptures whose restoration is demanded 
 may be fairly represented by that of the celebrated 
 group of the Fates, among the Elgin Marbles in the 
 British Museum. With what favour would the 
 guardians of those marbles, or any other persons in- 
 terested in Greek art, receive a proposal from a living 
 sculptor to “reproduce with mathematical exactitude” 
 the group of the Fates, in a perfect form, and to 
 destroy the original ? For with exactly such favour, 
 those who are interested in Gothic art should receive 
 proposals to reproduce the sculpture of Chartres or 
 Rouen. 
 
 In like manner, the state of the architecture which 
 it is proposed to restore, may, at its worst, be fairly 
 represented to the British public by that of the best 
 preserved portions of Melrose Abbey. With what 
 encouragement would those among us who are sin- 
 cerely interested in history, or in art, receive a pro- 
 posal to pull down Melrose Abbey, and “ reproduce 
 it mathematically ? ” There can be no doubt of the 
 answer which, in the instances supposed, it would be 
 proper to return. “ By all means, if you can, re- 
 produce mathematically, elsewhere, the group of the 
 Fates, and the Abbey of Melrose. But leave un- 
 harmed the original fragment, and the existing 
 ruin.” And an answer of the same tenour ought to 
 be given to every proposal to restore a Gothic sculp- 
 ture or building. Carve or raise a model of it in 
 
10 
 
 THE OPENING OF 
 
 some other part of the city : but touch not the 
 actual edifice, except only so far as may be necessary 
 to sustain, to protect it. I said above that repairs 
 were in many instances necessary. These necessary 
 operations consist in substituting new stones for 
 decayed ones, where they are absolutely essential to 
 the stability of the fabric ; in propping, with wood or 
 metal, the portions likely to give way ; in binding 
 or cementing into their places the sculptures which 
 are ready to detach themselves ; and in general care 
 to remove luxuriant weeds, and obstructions of the 
 channels for the discharge of the rain. But no 
 modern or imitative sculpture ought ever , under 
 any circumstances, to be mingled with the ancient 
 work. 
 
 Unfortunately, repairs thus conscientiously executed 
 are always unsightly, and meet with little approbation 
 from the general public ; so that a strong temptation 
 is necessarily felt by all superintendents of public 
 works, to execute the required repairs in a manner 
 which, though indeed fatal to the monument, may be, 
 in appearance, seemly. But a far more cruel tempta- 
 tion is held out to the architect. He who should 
 propose to a municipal body, to build in the form of 
 a new church, to be erected in some other part of 
 their city, models of such portions of their cathedral as 
 were falling into decay, would be looked upon as 
 merely asking for employment, and his offer would 
 be rejected Avith disdain. But let an architect de- 
 clare that the existing fabric stands in need of 
 repairs, and offer to restore it to its original beauty, 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 11 
 
 and lie is instantly regarded as a lover of his country, 
 and has a chance of obtaining a commission which 
 will furnish him with a large and steady income, and 
 enormous patronage, for twenty or thirty years to 
 come. 
 
 I have great respect for human nature. But I 
 would rather leave it to others than myself to pro- 
 nounce how far such a temptation is always likely to be 
 resisted, and how far, when repairs are once permitted 
 to be undertaken, a fabric is likely to be spared from 
 mere interest in its beauty, when its destruction, 
 under the name of restoration, has become perma- 
 nently remunerative to a large body of workmen. 
 
 Let us assume, however, that the architect is 
 always conscientious — always willing, the moment he 
 has done what is strictly necessary for the safety 
 and decorous aspect of the building, to abandon his 
 income, and declare his farther services unnecessary. 
 Let us presume, also, that every one of the two 
 or three hundred workmen who must be employed 
 under him, is equally conscientious, and, during the 
 course of years of labour, will never destroy in care- 
 lessness what it may be inconvenient to save, or in 
 cunning, what it is difficult to imitate. Will all this 
 probity of purpose preserve the hand from error, and 
 the heart from weariness ? Will it give dexterity to 
 the awkward — sagacity to the dull — and at once 
 invest two or three hundred imperfectly educated 
 men with the feeling, intention, and information, of 
 the freemasons of the 13th century ? Grant that it 
 can do all this, and that the new building is both 
 
12 
 
 THE OPENING OF 
 
 equal to the old in beauty, and precisely correspondent 
 to it in detail. Is it, therefore, altogether worth the 
 old building ? Is the stone carved to-day in their 
 masons’ yards altogether the same in value to the 
 hearts of the French people as that which the eyes of 
 St. Louis saw lifted to its place? Would a loving 
 daughter, in mere desire for gaudy dress, ask a 
 jeweller for a bright facsimile of the worn cross which 
 her mother bequeathed to her on her death-bed ? — 
 would a thoughtful nation, in mere fondness for 
 splendour of streets, ask its architects to provide for 
 it facsimiles of the temples which for centuries had 
 given joy to its saints, comfort to its mourners, and 
 strength to its chivalry ? 
 
 But it may be replied, that all this is already ad- 
 mitted by the antiquaries of France and England ; 
 and that it is impossible that works so important 
 should now be undertaken without due consideration 
 and faithful superintendence. 
 
 I answer, that the men who justly feel these truths 
 are rarely those who have much influence in public 
 affairs. It is the poor abbe, whose little garden is 
 sheltered by the mighty buttresses from the north 
 wind, who knows the worth of the cathedral. It is 
 the bustling mayor and the prosperous architect who 
 determine its fate. 
 
 I answer farther, by the statement of a simple fact. 
 I have given many years, in many cities, to the 
 study of Gothic architecture ; and of all that I know, 
 or knew, the entrance to the north transept of Rouen 
 Cathedral was, on the whole, the most beautiful — 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 13 
 
 beautiful, not only as an elaborate and faultless work 
 of the finest time of Gothic art, but yet more beauti- 
 ful in the partial, though not dangerous, decay which 
 had touched its pinnacles with pensive colouring, and 
 softened its severer lines with unexpected change, and 
 delicate fracture, like sweet breaks in a distant music. 
 The upper part of it has been already restored to the 
 white accuracies of novelty ; the lower pinnacles, 
 which flanked its approach, far more exquisite in 
 their partial ruin than the loveliest remains of our 
 English abbeys, have been entirely destroyed, and 
 rebuilt in rough blocks, now in process of sculpture. 
 This restoration, so far as it has gone, has been ex- 
 ecuted by peculiarly skilful workmen ; it is an un- 
 usually favourable example of restoration, especially 
 in the care which has been taken to preserve intact 
 the exquisite, and hitherto almost uninjured sculp- 
 tures which fill the quatrefoils of the tracery above 
 the arch. But I happened myself to have made, five 
 years ago, detailed drawings of the buttress decora- 
 tions on the right and left of this tracery, which are 
 part of the work that has been completely restored. 
 And I found the restorations as inaccurate as they 
 were unnecessary. 
 
 If this is the case in a most favourable instance, 
 in that of a well-known monument, highly esteemed 
 by every antiquary in France, what, during the pro- 
 gress of the now almost universal repairs, is likely 
 to become of architecture which is unwatched and 
 despised ? 
 
 Despised! and more than despised — even hated! 
 
14 
 
 THE OPENING OF 
 
 It is a sad truth, that there is something in the solemn 
 aspect of ancient architecture which, in rebuking fri- 
 volity and chastening gaiety, has become at this time 
 literally repulsive to a large majority of the popula- 
 tion of Europe. Examine the direction which is 
 taken by all the influences of fortune and of fancy, 
 wherever they concern themselves with art, and it 
 will be found that the real, earnest effort of the upper 
 classes of European society is to make every place in 
 the world as much like the Champs Ely sees of Paris 
 as possible. Wherever the influence of that educated 
 society is felt, the old buildings are relentlessly de- 
 stroyed ; vast hotels, like barracks, and rows of high, 
 square-windowed dwelling-houses, thrust themselves 
 forward to conceal the hated antiquities of the great 
 cities of France and Italy. Gay promenades, with 
 fountains and statues, prolong themselves along the 
 quays once dedicated to commerce; ball-rooms and 
 theatres rise upon the dust of desecrated chapels, 
 and thrust into darkness the humility of domestic 
 life. And when the formal street, in all its pride 
 of perfumery and confectionary, has successfully 
 consumed its way through the wrecks of historical 
 monuments, and consummated its symmetry in the 
 ruin of all that once prompted to reflection, or pleaded 
 for regard, the whitened city is praised for its splen- 
 dour, and the exulting inhabitants for their patriotism 
 — patriotism which consists in insulting their fathers 
 with forgetfulness, and surrounding their children 
 with temptation. 
 
 I am far from intending my words to involve any 
 disrespectful allusion to the very noble improvements in 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 15 
 
 the city of Paris itself, lately carried out under the en- 
 couragement of the Emperor. Paris, in its own peculiar 
 character of bright magnificence, had nothing to fear, 
 and everything to gain, from the gorgeous pro- 
 longations of the Rue Rivoli. Rut I speak of the 
 general influence of the rich travellers and proprietors 
 of Europe on the cities Avhich they pretend to admire, 
 or endeavour to improve. I speak of the changes 
 wrought during my own lifetime, on the cities of 
 Venice, Florence, Geneva, Lucerne, and chief of all on 
 Rouen ; a city altogether inestimable for its retention 
 of mediasval character in the infinitely vai’ied streets 
 in which one half of the existing and inhabited houses 
 date from the 15 th or early 16 th century ; and the 
 only town left in France in which the effect of old 
 French domestic architecture can yet be seen in 
 its collective groups. But when I was there, this 
 last spring, I heard that these noble old Norman 
 houses are all, as speedily as may be, to be stripped 
 of the dark slates which protected their timbers, 
 and deliberately whitewashed over all their sculptures 
 and ornaments, in order to bring the interior of 
 the town into some conformity with the “ handsome 
 fronts ” of the hotels and offices on the quay. 
 
 Hotels and offices, and “ handsome fronts ” in 
 general — they can be built in America or Australia 
 — built at any moment, and in any height of 
 splendour. But who shall give us back, when once 
 destroyed, the habitations of the French chivalry 
 and bourgeoisie, in the days of the Field of the Cloth 
 of Gold? 
 
16 
 
 THE OPENING OF 
 
 It is strange that no one seems to think of this ! 
 What do men travel for, in this Europe of ours ? Is 
 it only to gamble with French dies — to drink coffee 
 out of French porcelain — to dance to the beat of 
 German drums, and sleep in the soft air of Italy ? 
 Are the ball-room, the billiard-room, and the Boule- 
 vard, the only attractions that win us into wandering, 
 or tempt us to repose ? And when the time is come, 
 as come it will, and that shortly, when the parsimony 
 — or lassitude — which, for the most part, are the 
 only protectors of the remnants of elder time, shall 
 be scattered by the advance of civilisation — when 
 all the monuments, preserved only because it was 
 too costly to destroy them, shall have been crushed 
 by the energies of the new world, will the proud 
 nations of the twentieth century, looking round 
 on the plains of Europe, disencumbered of their 
 memorial marbles, — will those nations indeed stand 
 up with no other feeling than one of triumph, freed 
 from the paralysis of precedent and the entanglement 
 of memory, to thank us, the fathers of progress, 
 that no saddening shadows can any more trouble the 
 enjoyments of the future, — no moments of reflection 
 retard its activities ; and that the new-born popu- 
 lation of a world without a record and without a 
 ruin, may, in the fulness of ephemeral felicity, dispose 
 itself to eat, and to drink, and to die ? 
 
 Is this verily the end at which we aim, and will 
 the mission of the age have been then only accom- 
 plished, when the last castle has fallen from our 
 rocks, the last cloisters faded from our valleys, the 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 17 
 
 last- streets, in which the dead have dwelt, been 
 effaced from our cities, and regenerated society is 
 left in luxurious possession of towns composed only 
 of bright saloons, overlooking gay parterres ? If this 
 be indeed our end, yet why must it be so laboriously 
 accomplished ? Are there no new countries on the 
 earth, as yet uncrowned by Thorns of cathedral 
 spires, untormented by the consciousness of a past ? 
 Must this little Europe — this corner of our globe, 
 gilded with the blood of old battles, and grey with 
 the temples of old pieties — this narrow piece of the 
 world’s pavement, worn down by so many pilgrims’ 
 feet, be utterly swept and garnished for the masque 
 of the Future ? Is America not wide enough for the 
 elasticities of our humanity ? Asia not rich enough 
 for its pride ? or among the quiet meadow-lands and 
 solitary hills of the old land, is there not yet room 
 enough for the spreadings of pow r er, or the in- 
 dulgences of magnificence, without founding all glory 
 upon ruin, and prefacing all progress with oblitera- 
 tion ? 
 
 We must answer these questions speedily, or w r e 
 answer them in vain. The peculiar character of the 
 evil which is being wrought by this age is its utter 
 irreparableness. Its newly formed schools of art, 
 its extending galleries, and well-ordered museums 
 will assuredly bear some fruit in time, and give once 
 more to the popular mind the power to discern what 
 is great, and the disposition to protect what is 
 precious. But it will be too late. We shall w r ander 
 through our palaces of crystal, gazing sadly on 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 THE OPENING OF 
 
 copies of pictures torn by cannon-shot, and on casts 
 of sculpture dashed to pieces long ago. We shall 
 gradually learn to distinguish originality and sincerity 
 from the decrepitudes of imitation and palsies of 
 repetition; but it will be only in hopelessness to 
 recognise the truth, that architecture and painting 
 can be “ restored” when the dead can be raised, — 
 and not till then. 
 
 Something might yet be done, if it were but 
 possible thoroughly to awaken and alarm the men 
 whose studies of archaeology have enabled them to 
 form an accurate judgment of the importance of the 
 crisis. But it is one of the strange characters of the 
 human mind, necessary indeed to its peace, but 
 infinitely destructive of its power, that we never 
 thoroughly feel the evils which are not actually set 
 before our eyes. If, suddenly, in the midst of the 
 enjoyments of the palate and lightnesses of heart of 
 a London dinner-party, the walls of the chamber 
 were parted, and through their gap, the nearest 
 human beings who were famishing, and in misery, 
 were borne into the midst of the company — feasting 
 and fancy-free — if, pale with sickness, horrible in 
 destitution, broken by despair, body by body, they 
 were laid upon the soft carpet, one beside the chair 
 of every guest, would only the crumbs of the dainties 
 be cast to them — would only a passing glance, a 
 passing thought be vouchsafed to them? Yet the 
 actual facts, the real relations of each Dives and 
 Lazarus, are not altered by the intervention of the 
 house wall between the table and the sick-bed — by 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 19 
 
 the few feet of ground (how few ! ) which are 
 indeed all that separate the merriment from the 
 misery. 
 
 It is the same in the matters of which I have 
 hitherto been speaking. If every one of us, who 
 knows what food for the human heart there is in the 
 great works of elder time, could indeed see with his 
 own eyes their progressive ruin ; if every earnest 
 antiquarian, happy in his well-ordered library, and 
 in the sense of having been useful in preserving an 
 old stone or two out of his parish church, and an 
 old coin or two out of a furrow in the next ploughed 
 field, could indeed behold, each morning as he 
 awaked, the mightiest works of departed nations 
 mouldering to the ground in disregarded heaps ; 
 if he could always have in clear phantasm before 
 his eyes the ignorant monk trampling on the 
 manuscript, the village mason striking down the 
 monument, the court painter daubing the despised 
 and priceless masterpiece into freshness of fatuity, 
 he would not always smile so complacently in 
 the thoughts of the little learnings and petty 
 preservations of his own immediate sphere. And if 
 every man who has the interest of Art and of History 
 at heart, would at once devote himself earnestly — 
 not to enrich his own collection — not even to en- 
 lighten his own neighbours or investigate his own 
 parish-territory — but to far-sighted and /or^-sighted 
 endeavour in the great field of Europe, there is yet 
 time to do much. An association might be formed, 
 thoroughly organised so as to maintain active watchers 
 
20 
 
 THE OTENING OF 
 
 and agents in every town of importance, who, in the 
 first place, should furnish the society Avith a perfect 
 account of every monument of interest in its neigh- 
 bourhood, and then Avith a yearly or half-yearly 
 report of the state of such monuments, and of the 
 changes proposed to be made upon them ; the society 
 then furnishing funds, either to buy, freehold, 
 such buildings or other Avorks of untransferable art 
 as at any time might be offered for sale, or to assist 
 their proprietors, Avhether private individuals or 
 public bodies, in the maintenance of such guardian- 
 ship as Avas really necessary for their safety ; and 
 exerting itself, Avith all the influence which such 
 an association would rapidly command, to prevent 
 umvise restoration, and unnecessary destruction. 
 
 Such a society Avould of course be rewarded only 
 by the consciousness of its usefulness. Its funds Avould 
 have to be supplied, in pure self-denial, by its mem- 
 bers, Avho would be required, so far as they assisted 
 it, to give up the pleasure of purchasing prints or 
 pictures for their OAvn walls, that, they might save 
 pictures Avhich in their lifetime they might never 
 behold ; — they Avould have to forego the enlargement 
 of their OAvn estates, that they might buy, for a 
 European property, ground on which their feet might 
 never tread. But is it absurd to believe that men are 
 capable of doing this ? Is the love of art altogether 
 a selfish principle in the heart ? and are its emotions 
 altogether incompatible Avith the exertions of self- 
 denial, or enjoyments of generosity ? 
 
 I make this appeal at the risk of incurring only 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 21 
 
 contempt for my Utopianism. But I should for 
 ever reproach myself if I were prevented from 
 making it by such a risk ; and I pray those who may 
 be disposed in anywise to favour it, to remember that 
 it must be answered at once or never. The next 
 five years determine what is to be saved — what de- 
 stroyed. The restorations have actually begun like 
 cancers on every important piece of Gothic architec- 
 ture in Christendom ; the question is only how much 
 can yet be saved. All projects, all pursuits, having 
 reference to art, are at this moment of less importance 
 than those which are simply protective. There is 
 time enough for everything else. Time enough for 
 teaching — time enough for criticising — time enough 
 for inventing. But time little enough for saving. 
 Hereafter we can create, but it is now only that we 
 can preserve. By the exertion of great national 
 powers, and under the guidance of enlightened 
 monarchs, we may raise magnificent temples and 
 gorgeous cities ; we may furnish labour for the idle, 
 and interest for the ignorant. But the power neither 
 of emperors, nor queens, nor kingdoms, can ever 
 print again upon the sands of time the effaced foot- 
 steps of departed generations, or gather together 
 from the dust the stones which had been stamped 
 with the spirit of our ancestors. 
 
 THE END. 
 
PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION. 
 
 THE 
 
 THIRD VOLUME 
 
 OF 
 
 MODERN PAINTERS. 
 
 BY JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 London : 
 
 A. and G. A. Spottiswoode, 
 New-street- Square. 
 
 THE GET~V cfrvTc