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By Anthony Trollope. 3 vols. ... 31 Doran, Dr. Lives of the Princes of Wales ... ... 12 Dred. Bv Mrs. H. B. Stowe ... ... ... 7 Dublin University Magazine, Oct., 1860, to Sept., 1861, each 2 Dunlop, Misses. Plow we Spent the Autumn ... ... 10 at. d. 6 0 6 6 0 0 6 0 6 0 0 6 0 6 6 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 6 0 0 6 0 6 6 6 0 0 0 0 0 6 6 6 6 6 6 0 0 6 6 0 6 6 6 6 6 6 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/selectionsfromwrOOrusk OF THE UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 8 £4 R88s i s&f m amC l "*" ®«« b< Samp.d below. *' Geo rati Rich in/thF, del 1. Frances Soil sc ■ SELECTIONS FROM THE WETTINGS OF JOHN EUSKIN, MASTER OP ARTS, OXOX, AUTHOR OF “MODERN PAINTERS,” “SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE,” “STONES OF VENICE,” ETC. ETC. “ In these hooks of mine, their distinctive character, as essays on art, is then- bringing everything to a root in human passion or human hope. Arising first not in any desire to explain the principles of art, hut in the endeavour to defend an individual painter from injustice, they have been coloured throughout, — nay, continually altered in shape, and even warped and broken, by digressions respecting social questions, which had for me an interest tenfold greater than the work I had been forced into undertaking. Every principle of painting which I have stated is traced to some vital or spiritual fact ; and in my works on architecture the preference accorded finally to one school over another, is founded on a comparison of their influences on the life of the workman — a question by all other writers on the subject of architecture wholly forgotten or despised .” — Modern Painters , vol. v., part ix., chap, i., § 7. WITH A PORTRAIT. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. M.DCCC.LXI. [77(e right of 7'ranslation is reserved .] £e//e> -*) ADVERTISEMENT. The Publisliers beg to state that this volume lias origi- nated in suggestions, from numerous quarters, that a book of the kind would be acceptable to a large circle of readers, to whom, from various and obvious causes, the principal works whence it is derived are not easily accessible. The Publishers think it righ|; to add that Mr. Ruskin, though tacitly consenting to this publication, has taken no part in making the selections, and is in no way responsible for the appearance of the volume. The selections are from the following works : — Modern Painters. Five Volumes. The Seven Lamps op Architecture. The Stones of Venice. Three Volumes. Lectures on Architecture and Painting. The Two Paths. The Harbours of England. The Political Economy of Art. Two or Three Pamphlets. CONTENTS SCENES OF TRAVEL. PAGE PAGE The Tower of Calais Church 1 The Venice of Modern Nuremberg .... 2 Fiction 31 Pine Forest in the Jura 4 Decay of Venice . 32 Falls of the Rhine at Schaff- An English Cathedral and hausen .... 5 St. Mark’s 34 The Country around Fribourg 6 Interior of St. Mark’s . 39 The Rochers des Fys . 9 ! Tomb of the Doge Andrea Mountains of Savoy . 11 Dandolo . 42 Savoyard Peasants 12 Murano 44 Sion in the Valais 15 Torcello 47 Mount Cervin and the Zmutt 1 La Riccia — Sunlight after Glacier .... 17 Storm 49 Plains of Lombardy . 20 The Campagna of Rome 50 From Padua to Venice 21 South Italy . 50 The Approach to Venice 24 Aspects of Northern and Site of Venice 27 Southern Countries . 51 CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. The open Sky . 54 Stones 75 Aspects of Clouds . 56 Office of the Mountains 75 Mysteries of the Clouds . 58 Alpine Mountain Forms 78 Splendours of Sunset . . 59 Beauty of Mountains . 81 Grass .... . 61 Slaty Rocks in a Landscape . 83 Vegetation . . 63 Granite Rocks 84 Leafage of Trees . . 65 Water 85 Branchings of Trees . 67 Beauty of Space . 87 The Pine . 69 Natural Objects at a Distance 88 Lichen and Mosses . 71 Subtle Gradations in Nature 89 Mosses on Rock . . 72 The Mystery of Clearness . 90 Love of Flowers . . 73 A Snow Drift . . . 91 Charm of Flowers . 74 Curvature in Natural Forms 91 VI CONTENTS. PAINT ING- AND PAINTERS. PAGE Painting, a Language . . 93 A True Picture . . .94 Mental and Moral Qualifica- tions cf a Painter . .95 Three Classes of Artists . 97 ! Colouring the Test cf a Painter . . . . 98 , Loveliness cf Colour . . 99 The Sanctity of Colour . 100 Greatness of Style . .102 Greatness in Art . . .106 Characteristics of Great Art 107 Power in Art . . .110 Great Art is delicate . .112 Great and Mean Art . . 113 True Value of Finish . . 114 ; Generalization . . . 116 ! Execution . . . . 116 ' Imitation in Painting . . 118 , Vulgarity in Art . . 119 j Taste in Matters of Art . 120 | Importance of Art . . 1 22 t The False Ideal . . . 123 I Symbolism in Art . .126 Greek and Italian Art . 128 j Fall of Venetian Art . . 130 J Venetian Landscape Painting 132 Orders of Landscape Painting 133 The False Ideal of Land- scape . . . .135 Aims of Landscape Painter . 136 Characteristics of Claude . 139 ! Characteristics cf N. Poussin 140 Character cf Rubens . Wouvermans and Angelico . Dutch Landscape Painters . Peasant Boys of Murillo and William Hunt . Dogs, as painted by the Ve- netians and others . Venice as it is and as painted by Canaletto Water, as painted by the Old Masters . . . . Difficulty of Drawing Waves The Sea after a Storm . The Slave Ship . Turner’s Sun Colour . Three Classes of Painters . Titian’s Portraits Progress cf Mind and Hand Sir Joshua Reynolds . Truth of Resemblance in Portraiture Skill in expressing rounded Surface . . . . Errors of Modern Art . Stothard’s Idealism Boyhoods cf two Painters . Chiaroscuro Fine Art .... Great Art the Type of Noble Life Historical Painting Pre-Raphaelitism Buying Pictures . ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. Architecture and Building . 183 Two Fine Arts only . . 184 Function of Architecture . 185 Fine Architecture . .186 The Bounding Line of a Building . . . . 191 j Two Divisions of Architecture 193 j European Architecture . 195 Majesty of Buildings . Originality in Architecture . Shade in Architecture . Proportion in Architecture . Variety in Architecture The Nature of Gothic . Gothic the most rational Architecture PAGE 141 142 143 144 146 148 149 152 155 156 158 160 163 164 166 166 168 169 171 172 176 178 178 179 181 182 198 200 203 204 206 207 211 CONTENTS. vii PAGE Origin of the Term Gothic . 212 Gothic Architecture not ex- clusively Ecclesiastical . 213 Venetian Gothic suitable to English Dwellings . .215 The Roof . . . .217 Architectural Ornament . 219 Subjects for Ornament . 221 Redundant Ornament . . 222 Naturalism of Gothic Work 223 Law of Decoration . . 226 Decorative Art . . . 228 Room Decoration . . 229 Railroad Stations . . 230 Misplaced Ornament . . 232 True Ornament . . . 233 Test of Good Ornament . 234 The Architect as Ornamentist 235 Luxuriance of Ornament . 236 Noble Ornament . . .. 237 Ignoble Ornamentation . 238 PAGE Machine-made Ornament . 240 Finish 242 Finish in Sculpture , . 245 Architectural Deceits . . 246 Imitations of Marble . . 248 Use of Colour in Ornament 248 Union of Colour and Form . 251 Festoons and Garlands . 253 Ribands in Decoration . 255 Heraldic Decorations . .256 The Appearance of Labour . 256 Towers and Spires . . 260 The Campanile of Giotto . 262 Pleasure derived from Mo- dern Buildings . . . 263 Spirit of Sacrifice in Art . 264 Offerings to the Church . 266 Church Decoration . . 269 Decoration of Pulpits . .271 Restoration of Old Structures 273 Studies for the Architect . 276 ETHICAL. Man’s Use and Function . 278 Man’s Business in Life . 281 Man as he was and is . .281 Effects of the Fall on Man . 285 Ideas of Beauty depend on Purity of Mind . . 286 True and False Life of Man. 288 Love of Change . . .290 Right Development of Man’s Faculties . . . .290 Mental Slavery of Workmen 293 Right and wrong Use of Labour .... 296 Truth 299 Truth spoken by bad Men . 302 Limbs of the Mind . . 303 Influence of Novelty . . 303 Beneficent Influences of Na- ture 305 Secret of true Happiness . 307 Influence of Hills on Religion 308 Mountain Solitudes . . 309 Teachings of Mountains .311 Love of Nature . . . 312 Inteiise Love of Nature .314 Man’s Work in respect to the Universe . . .315 Disregard of God’s Gifts . 316 Partial Knowledge . .317 Pride of Knowledge . .319 Knowledge .... 320 Things never seen completely 321 Imperfection inseparable from Life . . . .321 Lessons of Creation . . 322 God’s Word spoken to Men . 325 Lesson of the Leaf . . 326 The Beautiful alone not good for Man .... 327 Elevation of Physical Pleasure 328 Various Forms of Asceticism 329 Isolation of Man . . .331 Contentment . . . 332 Obedience .... 334 Vill CONTENTS. TAGE The Virtue of Restraint . 335 j Virtue of Right Purpose . 337 I Sacredness of Home . . 339 j Economy .... 342 True Social Improvement . 343 Charity of Thought . . 344 Great Men industrious . . 345 Greatness .... 346 Humility a Test of Greatness 348 Evil of Pride . . . 348 Deteriorating effects of Pride 349 Disparagement of Greatness 350 Gratitude due to the Living 352 PAGE j Interpretation of the Term “ Gentleman ” . . . 353 j The true Gentleman . . 354 i Cunning and Truthfulness . 357 Vulgarity . . . 358 The Right Faith of Man . 360 The Mirror of the Soul . 361 Use of the Associative Faculty 362 The Uses of Imagination . 363 The Imagination weariable . 364 Delight in Objects of Terror 366 Regard for Posterity . . 369 The Infidelity of England . 37 1 MISCELLANEOUS. A Sea Boat .... 374 Our Marine Architecture . 377 War 381 England’s Strength . .381 The War in the Crimea . 382 Care for our Soldiers . . 383 A Highland Scene . . 385 True Mind of a Nation . 388 Great Writers depict the Age they Live in 389 Shakespere . . . .391 The Greek Poets . . 393 The Greek Mind . . . 396 The Inferno of Dante and Milton .... 399 Homer’s and Dante’s Ideas of Forests . . . 400 Two Orders of Poets . . 402 Mediaeval Love of Beauty . 403 Sensibility to Nature . . 405 Pastoral Poetry . . . 407 Poetic Sensibility . . 409 The Modern Mind . .411 Seers and Thinkers . .413 Workers and Thinkers .415 Public Judgment . . .417 Judgment of the Multitude 418 Taste 419 Right Taste . . . 420 Beauty and Ugliness . .421 The Term “Romantic” . 421 Quixotism, or Utopianism . 422 Scenes near a Modern and Mediaeval Town . . 423' St. Mark in the Hearts of the Venetians . . . 425 Two Cities : a Contrast . 427 English and Foreign Villages 428 Tombs .... 429 Marble . . . .430 Iron as the Colouring Matter in Nature . . . 432 Three Kinds of Earth . 433 Irregularity of Nature . 436 Innocent Susceptibility . 437 Man the Great Destroyer . 437 Toil the only Source of Wealth .... 439 Mechanical Advances of the Age 439 SELECTIONS FR03I THE WAITINGS OF JOHN KUSKIN. SCENES OP TRAVEL. The Tower of Calais Church. — I cannot find words to express the intense pleasure I have always in first finding myself, after some prolonged stay in England, at the foot of the old tower of Calais church. The large neglect, the noble unsightliness of it; the record of its years written so visibly, yet without sign of weakness or decay; its stern wasteness and gloom, eaten away by the Channel winds, and overgrown with the bitter sea grasses; its slates and tiles all shaken and rent, and yet not falling ; its desert of brickwork full of bolts, and holes, and ugly fissures, and yet strong, like a bare brown rock; its carelessness of what any one thinks or feels about it, putting forth no claim, having no beauty nor desirableness, pride, nor grace ; yet neither asking for pity ; not, as ruins are, useless and piteous, feebly or fondly garrulous of better days ; but useful still, going through its own daily work, — as some old fisherman beaten grey by storm, yet drawing his daily nets : so it stands, with no complaint about its past youth, in blanched and meagre massiveness and serviceable- ness, gathering human souls together underneath it; the sound of its bells for prayer still rolling through its rents ; and the grey peak of it seen far across the sea, principal of 1 2 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. the three that rise above the waste of surfy sand and hillocked shore, — the lighthouse for life, and the belfry for labour, and this for patience and praise. I cannot tell the half of the strange pleasures and thoughts that come about me at the sight of that old tower; for, in some sort, it is the epitome of all that makes the Continent of Europe interesting, as opposed to new countries ; and, above all, it completely expresses that agedness in the midst of active life which binds the old and the new into harmony. We, in England, have our new street, our new inn, our green shaven lawn, and our piece of ruin emergent from it, — a mere specimen of the middle ages put on a bit of velvet carpet to be shown, which, but for its size, might as well be on a museum shelf at once, under cover. But, on the Continent, the links are unbroken between the past and present, and in such use as they can serve for, the grey-headed wrecks are suffered to stay with men ; while, in unbroken line, the generations of spared buildings are seen succeeding each in its place. And thus in its largeness, in its permitted evidence of slow decline, in its poverty, in its absence of all pretence, of all show and care for outside aspect, that Calais tower has an infinite of symbolism in it, all the more striking because usually seen in contrast with English scenes expressive of feelings the exact reverse of these. — M. P. IV. Pt. v. ch. i. § 2. Nuremberg. — Nuremberg is gathered at the base of a sand- stone rock, rising in the midst of a dry but fertile plain. The rock forms a prolonged and curved ridge, of which the con- cave side, at the highest point, is precipitous ; the other slopes gradually to the plain. Fortified with wall and tower along its whole crest, and crowned with a stately castle, it defends the city — not with its precipitous side — but with its slope. The precipice is turned to the town. It wears no aspect of hostility towards the surrounding fields ; the roads lead down into them by gentle descents from the gates. To the south and east the walls are on the level of the plain; within them, the city itself stands on two swells of hill, divided by a wind- SCENES OF- TRAVEL. 3 ing river. Its architecture has, however, been much over- rated. The effect of the streets, so delightful to the eye of the passing traveller, depends chiefly on one appendage of the roof, namely, its warehouse windows. Every house, almost without exception, has at least one’ boldly opening dormer window, the roof of which sustains a pulley for raising goods ; and the under part of this strong overhanging roof is always carved with a rich pattern, not of refined design, but effective.* Among these comparatively modern structures are mingled, however, not unfrequently, others, turreted at the angles, which are true Gothic of the fifteenth, some of the fourteenth, century ; and the principal churches remain nearly as in Durer’s time. Their Gothic is none of it good, nor even rich (though the facades have their ornament so distributed as to give them a sufficiently elaborate effect at a distance) ; their size is diminutive; their interiors mean, rude, and ill- proportioned, wholly dependent for their interest on ingenious stone-cutting in corners, and finely-twisted ironwork ; of these,, the mason’s exercises are in the worst possible taste, possess- ing not even the merit of delicate execution ; but the designs in metal are usually meritorious, and Fischer’s shrine of St. Sebald is good, and may rank with Italian work. Though, however, not comparable for an instant to any great Italian or French city, Nuremberg possesses one cha- racter peculiar to itself, that of a self-restrained, contented, quaint domesticity. It would have been vain to expect any first-rate painting, sculpture, or poetry, from the well- regulated community of merchants of small ware. But it is evident they were affectionate and trustworthy — that they had playful fancy and honourable pride. There is no exalted grandeur in their city, nor any deep beauty ; but an imagina- tive homeliness, mingled with some elements of melancholy and power, and a few even of grace. — M. P., v., Pt. ix., ch. iv., § 6. * To obtain room for the goods, the roofs slope steeply, and their other dormer windows are richly carved — but all are of wood ; and, for the most part, I think, some hundred years later than Durer’s time. A large number of the oriel and bow windows on the fagacles are wooden also, and of recent date. 1—2 4 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Pine Forest in the Jura. — Among the hours of his life to which the writer looks back with peculiar gratitude, as having been marked by more than ordinary fulness of joy or clearness of teaching, is one passed, now some years ago, near time of sunset, among the broken masses of pine forest which skirt the course of the Ain, above the village of Champagnole, in the Jura. It is a spot which has all the solemnity, with none of the savageness, of the Alps ; where there is a sense of a great power beginning to be manifested in the earth, and of a deep and majestic concord in the rise of the long low lines of piny hills ; the first utterance of those mighty moun- tain symphonies, soon to be more loudly lifted and wildly broken along the battlements of the Alps. But their strength is as yet restrained; and the far-reaching ridges of pastoral mountain succeed each other, like the long and sighing swell which moves over quiet waters from some far-off stormy sea. And there is a deep tenderness pervading that vast monotony. The destructive forces and the stern expression of the central ranges are alike withdrawn. No frost-ploughed, dust-encum- bered paths of ancient glacier fret the soft Jura pastures ; no splintered heaps of ruin break the fair ranks of her forests ; no pale, defiled, or furious rivers rend their rude and changeful ways among her rocks. Patiently, eddy by eddy, the clear green streams wind along their well-known beds ; and under the dark quietness of the undisturbed pines, there spring up, year by year, such company of joyful flowers as I know not the like of among all the blessings of the earth. It was Spring time, too ; and all were coming forth in clusters crowded for very love ; there was room enough for all, but they crushed their leaves into all manner of strange shapes only to be •nearer each other. There was the wood anemone, star after •star, closing every now and then into nebulae; and there was the oxalis, troop by troop, like virginal processions of the Mois de Marie, the dark vertical clefts in the limestone choked up with them as with heavy snow, and touched with ivy on the edges — ivy as light and lovely as the vine; and, ever and anon, a blue gush of violets, and cowslip bells in sunny places ; and in the more open ground, the vetch, and SCENES OF TRAVEL. 5 comfrey, and mezereon, and the small sapphire buds of the Polygala Alpina, and the wild strawberry, just a blossom or two, all showered amidst the golden softness of deep, warm, amber-coloured moss. I came out presently on the edge of the ravine : the solemn murmur of its waters rose suddenly from beneath, mixed with the singing of the thrushes among the 'pine boughs ; and, on the opposite side of the valley, walled all along as it was by grey cliffs of limestone, there was a hawk sailing slowly off their brow, touching them nearly with his wings, and with the shadows of the pines flickering upon his plumage from above ; but with a fall of a hundred fathoms under his breast, and the curling pools of the green river gliding and glittering dizzily beneath him, their foam globes moving with him as he flew. It would be difficult to conceive a scene less dependent upon any other interest than that of its own secluded and serious beauty ; but the writer well remembers the sudden blankness and chill which were cast upon it when he endeavoured, in order more strictly to arrive at the sources of its impressiveness, to imagine it, for a moment, a scene in some aboriginal forest of the New Continent. The flowers in an instant lost their light, the river its music ; the hills became oppressively desolate ; a heaviness in the boughs of the darkened forest showed how much of their former power had been dependent upon a life which was not theirs, how much of the glory of the imperish- able, or continually renewed, creation is reflected from things more precious in their memories than it, in its renewing. Those ever springing flowers and ever flowing streams had been dyed by the deep colours of human endurance, valour, and virtue ; and the crests of the sable hills that rose against the evening sky received a deeper worship, because their far shadows fell eastward over the iron wall of Joux and the four-square keep of Granson. — S. L. A. ch. vi. § 1. Falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen. — Stand for half an hour beside the Fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side where the rapids are long, and watch how the vault of water first bends, unbroken, in pure polished velocity, over the arching c WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. rocks at the brow of the cataract, covering them with a dome of crystal twenty feet thick, so swift that its motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above darts over it like a falling star ; and how the trees are lighted above it under all their leaves, at the instant that it breaks into foam ; and how all the hollows of that foam burn with green fire like so much shattering chrysoprase ; and how, ever and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in the wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with light ; and how, through the curdling wreaths of the restless crashing abyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky through white rain-cloud ; -while the shuddering iris stoops in tremulous stillness over all, fading and flushing alternately through the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among the thick golden leaves which toss to and fro in sympathy with the wild water ; their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away ; the dew gushing from their thick branches through drooping clusters of emerald herbage, and sparkling in white threads along the dark rocks of the shore, feeding the lichens 'which chase and chequer them with purple and silver. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 5, ch. ii. § 3. The Country around Fribourg. — The district which sur- rounds the city of Fribourg in Switzerland, extending from it towards Berne, is of grey sandstone, considerably elevated, but presenting no object of striking interest to the passing traveller ; so th£t, as it is generally seen in the course of a hasty journey from the Bernese Alps to those of Savoy, it is rarely regarded with any other sensation than that of weari- ness, all the more painful because accompanied with reaction from the high excitement caused by the splendour of the Bernese Oberland. The traveller, footsore, feverish, and satiated with glacier and precipice, lies back in the corner of the diligence, perceiving little more than that the road is SCENES OF TRAVEL. 7 winding and hilly, and the country through which it passes cultivated and tame. Let him, however, only do this tame country the justice of staying in it a few days, until his mind has recovered its tone, and take one or two long walks through its fields, and he will have other thoughts of it. It is, as I said, an undulating district of grey sandstone, never attaining any considerable height, but having enough of the mountain spirit to throw itself into continual succession of bold slope and dale ; elevated, also, just far enough above the sea to ren- der the pine a frequent forest tree along its irregular ridges. Through this elevated tract the river cuts its way in a ravine some five or six hundred feet in depth, which winds for leagues between the gentle hills, unthought of, until its edge is approached ; and then suddenly, through the boughs of the firs, the eye perceives, beneath, the green and gliding stream, and the broad walls of sandstone cliff that form its banks ; hollowed out where the river leans against them, at its turns, into perilous overhanging, and, on the other shore, at the same spots, leaving little breadths of meadow between them and the water, half- overgrown with thicket, deserted in their sweetness, inaccessible from above, and rarely visited by any curious wanderers along the hardly traceable footpath which struggles for existence beneath the rocks. And there the river ripples, and eddies, and murmurs in an utter solitude. It is passing through the midst of a thickly-peopled country; but never was a stream so lonely. The feeblest and most far- away torrent among the high hills has its companions : the goats browse beside it ; and the traveller drinks from it, and passes over it with his staff; and the peasant traces a new channel for it down to his mill-wheel. But this stream has no companions : it flows on in an infinite seclusion, not secret nor threatening, but a quietness of sweet daylight and open air, — a broad space of tender and deep desolateness, drooped into repose out of the midst of human labour and life ; the waves plashing lowly, with none to hear them ; and the wild birds building in the boughs, with none to fray them away ; and the soft, fragrant herbs rising, and breathing, and fading, with no hand to gather them ; — and yet all bright and 8 WRITINGS OF JOHN IIUSKIN. bare to the clouds above, and to the fresh fall of the passing sunshine and pure rain. But above the brows of those scarped cliffs, all is in an instant changed. A few steps only beyond the firs that stretch their branches, angular, and wild, and white, like forks of lightning, into the air of the ravine, and we are in an arable country of the most perfect richness ; the swathes of its corn glowing and burning from field to field ; its pretty hamlets all vivid with fruitful orchards and flowery gardens, and goodly with steep-roofed storehouse and barn ; its well- kept, hard, park -like roads rising and falling from hillside to hillside, or disappearing among brown banks of moss, and thickets of the wild raspberry and rose ; or gleaming through lines of tall trees, half glade, half avenue, where the gate opens, or the gateless path turns trustedly aside, unhindered, into the garden of some statelier house, surrounded in rural pride with its golden hives, and carved granaries, and irre- gular domain of latticed and espaliered cottages, gladdening to look upon in their delicate homeliness — delicate, yet, in some sort, rude; not like our English homes — trim, laborious, formal, irreproachable in comfort; but with a peculiar care- lessness and largeness in all their detail, harmonizing with the outlawed loveliness of their country. For there is an un- tamed strength even in all that soft and habitable land. It is, indeed, gilded with corn and fragrant with deep grass, but it is not subdued to the plough or to the scythe. It gives at its own free will, — it seems to have nothing wrested from it nor conquered in it. It is not redeemed from desertness, but unrestrained in fruitfulness, — a generous land, bright with capricious plenty, and laughing from vale to vale in fitful fulness, kind and wild; nor this without some sterner element mingled in the heart of it. For along all its ridges stand the dark masses of innumerable pines, taking no part in its glad- ness, asserting themselves for ever as fixed shadows, not to be pierced or banished, even in the intensest sunlight; fallen flakes and fragments of the night, stayed in their solemn squares in the midst of all the rosy bendings of the orchard boughs, and yellow effulgence of the harvest, and tracing SCENES OF TRAVEL. 9 themselves, in black network and motionless fringes, against the blanched blue of the horizon in its saintly clearness. And yet they do not sadden the landscape, but seem to have been set there chiefly to show how bright everything else is round them ; and all the clouds look of purer silver, and all the air seems filled with a whiter and more living sunshine, where they are pierced by the sable points of the pines; and all the pastures look of more glowing green, where they run up between the purple trunks ; and the sweet field footpaths skirt the edges of the forest for the sake of its shade, sloping up and down about the slippery roots, and losing themselves, every now and then, hopelessly among the violets, and ground ivy, and brown sheddings of the fibrous leaves ; and, at last, plunging into some open aisle where the light, through the distant stems, shows that there is a chance of coming out again on the other side; and coming out, indeed, in a little while, from the scented darkness, into the dazzling air and marvellous landscape, that stretches still farther and farther, in new wilfulnesses of grove and garden, until, at last, the craggy mountains of the Simmenthal rise out of it, sharp into the rolling of the southern clouds. I believe, for general development of human intelligence and sensibility, country of this kind is about the most perfect that exists. A richer landscape, as that of Italy, enervates, or causes wantonness ; a poorer contracts the conceptions, and hardens the temperament of both mind and body; and one more curiously or prominently beautiful deadens the sense of beauty. Even what is here of attractiveness, — far exceeding, as it does, that of most of the thickly-peopled districts of the temperate zone, — seems to act harmfully on the poetical cha- racter of the Swiss; but take its inhabitants all in all, as with deep love and stern penetration they are painted in the works of their principal writer, Gotthelf, and I believe we shall not easily find a peasantry which would completely sustain com- parison with them. — M. P. IV. Pt. v. ch. xi. § 8, 9, 10. The Rochers des Fys. — The range of the Rochers des Fys, above the Col d’Anterne, happens to have a bed of harder 10 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. limestone at the top than in any other part of its mass ; and this bed, protecting its summit, enables it to form itself into most ghastly ranges of pinnacle which I know among moun- tains. In one spot the upper ledge of limestone has formed a complete cornice, or rather bracket — for it is not extended enough to constitute a cornice — which projects far into the air over the wall of ashy rock, and is seen against the clouds, when they pass into the chasm beyond, like the nodding coping-stone of a castle — only the wall below is not less than 2,500 feet in height, — not vertical, but steep enough to seem so to the imagination. Such precipices are among the most impressive as well as the most really dangerous of mountain ranges ; in many spots inaccessible with safety either from below or from above; dark in colour, robed with everlasting mourning, for ever tottering like a great fortress shaken by war, fearful as much in their weakness as in their strength, and yet gathered after every fall into darker frowns and unhumiliated threatening ; for ever incapable of comfort or of healing from herb or flower, nourishing no root in their crevices, touched by no hue of life on buttress or ledge, but, to the utmost, desolate ; knowing no shaking of leaves in the wind, nor of grass beside the stream, — no motion but their own mortal shiver- ing, the deathful crumbling of atom from atom in their cor- rupting stones ; knowing no sound of living voice or living tread, cheered neither by the kid’s bleat nor the marmot’s cry; haunted only by uninterpreted echoes from far off, wandering hither and thither among their walls, unable to escape, and by the hiss of angry torrents, and sometimes the shriek of a bird that flits near the face of them, and sweeps frightened back from under their shadow into the gulph of air : and, sometimes, when the echo has fainted, and the wind has carried the sound of the torrent away, and the bird has vanished, and the mouldering stones are still for a little time, a. brown moth, opening and shutting its wings upon a grain of dust, may be the only thing that moves, or feels, in all the waste of weary precipice, darkening five thousand feet of the blue depth of heaven. — M. P. IV. Pt. v. ch. 16, § 20, 21. SCENES OF TRAVEL. 11 Mountains of Savoy. — I do not know any district possess- ing a more pure or uninterrupted fulness of mountain character (and that of the highest order), or which appears to have been less disturbed by foreign agencies, than that which borders the course of the Trient between Valorsine and Martigny. The paths which lead to it out of the valley of the Rhone, rising at first in steep circles among the walnut-trees, like winding stairs among the pillars of a Gothic tower, retire over the shoulders of the hills into a valley almost unknown, but thickly inhabited by an industrious and patient population. Along the ridges of the rocks, smoothed by old glaciers into long, dark, billowy swellings, like the backs of plunging dolphins, the peasant watches the slow colouring of the tufts of moss and roots of herb which, little by little, gather a feeble soil over the iron substance; then, supporting the narrow strip of clinging ground with a few stones, he. subdues it to the spade ; and in a year or two a little crest of corn is seen waving upon the rocky casque. The irregular meadows run in and out like inlets of lake among these harvested rocks, sweet with perpetual streamlets, that seem always to have chosen the steepest places to come down, for the sake of the leaps, scattering their handfuls of crystal this way and that, as the wind takes them, with all the grace, but with none of the formalism, of fountains ; dividing into fanciful change of dash and spring, yet with the seal of their granite channels upon them, as the lightest play of human speech may bear the seal of past toil, and closing back out of their spray to lave the rigid angles, and brighten, with silver fringes and glassy films, each lower and lower step of sable stone ; until at last, gathered altogether again, — except, perhaps, some chance drops caught on the apple-blossom, where it has budded a little nearer the cascade than it did last spring, — they find their way down to the turf, and lose themselves in that, silently ; with quiet depth of clear water furrowing among the grass blades, and looking only like their shadow, but presently emerging again in little startled gushes and laughing hurries, as if they had remembered suddenly that the day was too short for them to get down the hill. — M. P. iv. Pt. v. ch. xix. § 3. 12 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Savoyard Peasants. — The traveller on his happy journey, as his foot springs from the deep turf and strikes the pebbles gaily over the edge of the mountain road, sees, with a glance of delight, the clusters of nut-brown cottages that nestle among those sloping orchards, and glow beneath the boughs of the pines. Here, it may well seem to him, if there be sometimes hardship, there must be at least innocence and peace, and fellowship of the human soul with nature. It is not so. The wild goats that leap along those rocks have as much passion of joy in all that fair work of God as the men that toil among them. Perhaps more. Enter the street of one of those villages, and you will find it foul with that gloomy foulness that is suffered only by torpor, or by anguish of soul. Here, it is torpor — not absolute suffering, — not starvation or disease, but darkness of calm enduring ; the spring known only as the time of the scythe, and the autumn as the time of the sickle, and the sun only as a warmth, the wind as a chill, and the mountains as a danger. They do not understand so much as the name of beauty, or of knowledge. They understand dimly that of virtue. Love, patience, hospitality, faith, — these things they know. To glean their meadows side by side, so happier ; to bear the burden up the breathless mountain flank unmurmuringly ; to bid the stranger drink from their vessel of milk; to see at the foot of their low deathbeds a pale figure upon a cross, dying also, patiently ; — in this they are different from the cattle and from the 'stones, but in all this unrewarded as far as concerns the present life. For them, there is neither hope nor passion of spirit ; for them neither advance nor exultation. Black bread, rude roof, dark nighty laborious day, weary arm at sunset ; and life ebbs away. No books, no thoughts, no attainments, no rest ; except only sometimes a little sitting in the sun under the church wall, as the bell tolls thin and far in the mountain air ; a pattering of a few prayers not understood, by the altar rails of the dimly gilded chapel, and so back to the sombre home, with the cloud upon them still unbroken — that cloud of rocky gloom, born out of the wild torrents and ruinous stones, and unlightened, even in their religion, except by the vague promise of some SCENES OF TRAVEL. 13 better thing unknown, mingled with threatening, and obscured by an unspeakable horror, — a smoke, as it were, of martyr- dom, coiling up with the incense, and, amidst the images of tortured bodies and lamenting spirits in hurtling flames, the very cross, for them, dashed more deeply than for others, with gouts of blood. Do not let this be thought a darkened picture of the life of these mountaineers. It is literal fact. No contrast can be more painful than that between the dwelling of any well-con- ducted English cottager, and that of the equally honest Savoyard. The one, set in the midst of its dull flat fields and uninteresting hedgerows, shows in itself the love of brightness and beauty; its daisy-studded garden-beds, its smoothly swept brick path to the threshold, its freshly sanded floor and orderly shelves of household furniture, all testify to energy of heart, and happiness in the simple course and simple possessions of daily life. The other cottage, in the midst of an inconceivable, inexpressible beauty, set on some sloping bank of golden sward, with clear fountains flowing beside it, and wild flowers, and noble trees, and goodly rocks gathered round into a perfection as of Paradise, is itself a dark and plague-like stain in the midst of the gentle landscape. Within a certain distance of its threshold the ground is foul, and cattle-trampled ; its timbers are black with smoke, its garden choked with weeds and nameless refuse, its chambers empty and joyless, the light and wind gleaming and filtering through the crannies of their stones. All testifies that to its inhabitant the world is labour and vanity; that for him neither flowers bloom, nor birds sing, nor fountains glisten ; and that his soul hardly differs from the grey cloud that coils and dies upon his hills, except in having no fold of it touched by the sunbeams. Is it not strange to reflect, that hardly an evening passes in London or Paris, but one of those cottages is painted for the better amusement of the fair and idle, and shaded with paste- board pines by the scene-shifter; and that good and kind people, — poetically minded, — delight themselves in imagining the happy life led by peasants who dwell by Alpine fountains, 14 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. and kneel to crosses upon peaks of rock ? that nightly we lay down our gold, to fashion forth simulacra of peasants, in gay ribands and white bodices, singing sweet songs, and bowing gracefully to the picturesque crosses ; and all the while the veritable peasants are kneeling songlessly, to veritable crosses, in another temper than the kind and fair audiences deem of, and assuredly with another kind of answer than is got out of the opera catastrophe ; an answer having reference, it may be in dim futurity, to those very audiences themselves ? If all the gold that has gone to paint the simulacra of the cottages, and to put new songs in the mouths of the simulacra of the peasants, had gone to brighten the existent cottages, and' to put new songs in the mouths of the existent peasants, it might in the end, perhaps, have turned out better so, not only for the peasant, but for even the audience. For that form of the False Ideal has also its correspondent True Ideal, — consisting not in the naked beauty of statues, nor in the gauze flowers and crackling tinsel of theatres, but in the clothed and fed beauty of living men, and in the lights and laughs of happy homes. Night after night, the desire of such an ideal springs up in every idle human heart ; and night after night, as far as idleness can, we work out this desire in costly lies. We paint the faded actress, build the lath landscape, feed our benevo- lence with fallacies of felicity, and satisfy our righteousness with poetry of justice. The time will come when, as the heavy-folded curtain falls upon our own stage of life, we shall begin to comprehend that the justice we loved was intended to have been done in fact, and not in poetry, and the felicity we sympathized in, to have been bestowed and not feigned. We talk much of money’s worth, yet perhaps may one day be surprised to find that what the wise and charitable European public gave to one night’s rehearsal of hypocrisy, — to one hour’s pleasant warbling of Linda or Lucia, — would have filled a whole Alpine valley with happiness, and poured the waves of harvest over the famine of many a Lammennoor. — M. P. IY. Pt. v. ch. xix. § 4, 5, 6. SCENES OP TRAVEL. 15 Sion in the Valais. — Sion is in the midst of a marshy valley, pregnant with various disease ; the water either stag- nant, or disgorged in wild torrents charged with earth ; the air, in the morning, stagnant also, hot, close, and infected ; in the afternoon, rushing up from the outlet at Martigny in fitful and fierce whirlwind ; one side of the valley in almost con- tinual shade, the other (it running east and west) scorched by southern sun, and sending streams of heat into the air all night long from its torrid limestones ; while less traceable plagues than any of these bring on the inhabitants, at a cer- tain time of life, violent affections of goitre, and often, in infancy, cretinism. Agriculture is attended with the greatest difficulties and despondencies ; the land which the labour of a life has just rendered fruitful is often buried in an hour ; and the carriage of materials, as well as the traversing of land on the steep hill sides, attended with extraordinary fatigue. It consists of little more than one main street, winding round the roots of two ridges of crag, and branching, on the side towards the rocks, into a few narrow lanes, on the other, into spaces of waste ground, of which part serve for military exercises, part are enclosed in an uncertain and vague way ; a ditch half-filled up, or wall half-broken down, seeming to indicate their belonging, or having been intended to belong, to some of the unfinished houses which are springing up amidst their weeds. But it is difficult to say, in any part of the town, what is garden-ground or what is waste ; still more, what is new building and what old. The houses have been for the most part built roughly of the coarse limestone of the neighbouring hills, then coated with plaster, and painted, in imitation of Palladian palaces, with grey architraves and pilasters, having draperies from capital to capital. With this false decoration is curiously contrasted a great deal of grace- ful, honest, and original ironwork, in bulging balconies, and fioreted gratings of huge windows, and branching sprays, for any and every purpose of support or guard. The plaster, with its fresco, has in most instances dropped away, leaving the houses peeled and scarred ; daubed into uncertain restora- tion with new mortar, and in the best cases thus left ; but 16 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. commonly fallen also, more or less, into ruin, and either roofed over at the first story when the second has fallen, or hope- lessly abandoned; — not pulled down, but left in white and ghastly shells to crumble into heaps of limestone and dust, a pauper or two still inhabiting where inhabitation is possible. The lanes wind among these ruins ; the blue sky and moun- tain grass are seen through the windows of their rooms and over their partitions, on which old gaudy papers flaunt in rags : the weeds gather, and the dogs scratch about their foundations; yet there are no luxuriant weeds* for their ragged leaves are blanched with lime, crushed under per- petually falling fragments, and worn away by listless standing of idle feet. There is always mason’s work doing, always some fresh patching and whitening ; a dull smell of mortar, mixed with that of stale foulness of every kind, rises with the dust, and defiles every current of air ; the corners are filled with accumulations of stones, partly broken, with crusts of cement sticking to them, and blotches of nitre oozing out of their pores. The lichenous rocks and sunburnt slopes of grass stretch themselves hither and thither among the wreck, curiously traversed by stairs and walls and half-cut paths, that disappear below starkly black arches, and cannot be followed, or rise in windings round the angles, and in unfenced slopes along the fronts, of the two masses of rock which bear, one the dark castle, the other the old church and convent of Sion ; beneath, in a rudely inclosed square at the outskirts of the town, a still more ancient Lombardic church raises its grey tower, a kind of esplanade extending between it and the Episcopal palace, and laid out as a plot of grass, intersected by gravel walks ; but the grass, in strange sympathy with the inhabitants, will not grow as grass, but chokes itself with a network of grey weeds, quite wonderful in its various expres- sion of thorny discontent and savageness ; the blue flower of the borage, which mingles with it in quantities, hardly inter- rupting its character, for the violent black spot in the centre of its blue takes away the tenderness of the flower, and it seems to have grown there in some supernatural mockery of its old renown of being good against melancholy. The rest SCENES OF TRAVEL. 17 of the herbage is chiefly composed of the dwarf mallow, the wild succory, the wall-rocket, goose-foot, and milfoil ; plants, nearly all of them, jagged in leaf, broken and dimly clustered in flower, haunters of waste ground and places of outcast refuse. Beyond this plot of ground the Episcopal palace, a half- deserted, barrack-like building, overlooks a neglected vineyard , of which the clusters, black on the under side, snow-white on the other with lime-dust, gather around them a melancholy hum of flies. Through the arches of its trelliswork the avenue of the great valley is seen in descending distance, enlarged with line beyond line of tufted foliage, languid and rich, degenerating at last into leagues of grey Maremma, wild with the thorn and the willow ; on each side of it, sustaining themselves in mighty slopes and unbroken reaches of colossal promontory, the great mountains secede into supremacy through rosy depths of burning air, and the crescents of snow gleam over their dim summits, as — if there could be Mourn- ing, as once there was War, in Heaven — a line of waning moons might be set for lamps along the sides of some sepul- chral chamber in the Infinite. — M.P . IV. Pt. v. ch. xix. §31. Mount Cervin and the Zmutt Glacier. — As travellers now every day more frequently visit the neighbourhood of the Monte Eosa, it would surely be a permissible, because con- venient poetical licence, to invent some other name for this noble glacier, whose present title, certainly not euphonious, has the additional disadvantage of being easily confounded with that of the Zermatt glacier, properly so called. I mean myself, henceforward, to call it the Eed glacier, because, for two or three miles above its lower extremity, the w r hole surface of it is covered with blocks of reddish gneiss, or other slatey crystalline rocks, — some fallen from the Cervin, some from the Weisshorn, some brought from the Stockhi and Dent d’Erin, but little rolled or ground down in the transit, and covering the ice, often four or five feet deep, with a species of macadamization on a large scale (each stone being usually some foot or foot-and-a-half in diameter), anything but con- venient to a traveller in haste. Higher up, the ice opens into 2 18 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. broad white fields and furrows, hard and dry, scarcely fissured at all, except just under the Cervin, and forming a silent and solemn causeway, paved, as it seems, with white marble from side to side ; broad enough for the march of an army in line of battle, but quiet as a street of tombs in a buried city, and bordered on each hand by ghostly cliffs of that faint granite purple which seems, in its far-away height, as unsubstantial as the dark blue that bounds it; — the whole scene so change- less and soundless ; so removed, not merely from the presence of men, but even from their thoughts ; so destitute of all life of tree or herb, and so immeasurable in its lonely brightness • of majestic death, that it looks like a world from which not only the human, but the spiritual, presences had perished, and the last of its archangels, building the great mountains for their monuments, had laid themselves down in the sunlight to an eternal rest, each in his white shroud The structure of the mass, and the long ranges of horizontal, or nearly horizontal, beds which form its crest, showing in black points like arrow-heads through the snow, where their ridges are left projecting by the avalanche channels, are better seen than at any other point I reached, together with the sweeping and thin zones of sandy gneiss below, bending appa- rently like a coach-spring ; and the notable point about the whole is, that this under-bed, of seemingly the most delicate •substance, is that prepared by Nature to build her boldest precipice with, it being this bed which emerges at the two •bastions or shoulders before noticed, and which by that pro- jection causes the strange oblique distortion of the whole mountain mass, as it is seen from Zermatt. And our surprise will still be increased as we farther examine the materials of which the whole mountain is composed. In many places its crystalline slates, where their horizontal surfaces are exposed along the projecting beds of their founda- tions, break into ruin so total that the foot dashes through their loose red flakes as through heaps of autumn leaves ; and yet, just where their structure seems most delicate, just where they seem to have been swept before the eddies of the streams that first accumulated them, in the most passive whirls, there SCENES OF TRAVEL. 19 the after ages have knit them into the most massive strength, and there have hewn out of them those firm grey bastions of the Cervin, — overhanging, smooth, flawless, unconquerable ! For, unlike the Chamouni aiguilles, there is no aspect of destruction about the Matterhorn cliffs. They are not torn remnants of separating spires, yielding flake by flake, and band by band, to the continual process of decay. They are, on the contrary, an unaltered monument, seemingly sculptured long ago, the huge walls retaining yet the forms into which they were first engraven, and standing like an Egyptian temple, — delicate-fronted, softly coloured, the suns of un- counted ages rising and falling upon it continually, but still casting the same line of shadows from east to west, still, century after century, touching the same purple stains on the lotus pillars ; while the desert sand ebbs and flows about their feet, as those autumn leaves of rock lie heaped and weak about the base of the Cervin. Is not this a strange type, in the very heart and height of these mysterious Alps — these wrinkled hills in their snowy, cold, grey-haired old age, at first so silent, then, as we keep quiet at their feet, muttering and whispering to us garrulously, in broken and dreaming fits, as it were, about their childhood — is it not a strange type of the things which u out of weak- ness are made strong ? ” If one of those little flakes of mica- sand, hurried in tremulous spangling along the bottom of the ancient river, too light to sink, too faint to float, almost too small for sight, could have had a mind given to it as it was at last borne down with its kindred dust into the abysses of the stream, and laid, (would it not have thought ?) for a hopeless eternity, in the dark ooze, the most despised, forgotten, and feeble of all earth’s atoms ; incapable of any use or change ; not fit, down there in the diluvial darkness, so much as to help an earth-wasp to build its nest, or feed the first fibre of a lichen ; — what would it have thought, had it been told that one day, knitted into a strength as of imperishable iron, rust- less by the air, infusible by the flame, out of the substance of it, with its fellows, the axe of God should hew that Alpine tower ; that against it — poor, helpless, mica flake ! — the wild 2—2 20 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. north winds should rage in vain ; beneath it — low-fallen mica flake ! — the snowy hills should lie bowed like flocks of sheep, and the kingdoms of the earth fade away in unregarded blue ; and around it — weak, wave-drifted mica flake ! — the great war of the firmament should burst in thunder, and yet stir it not ; and the fiery arrows and angry meteors of the night fall blunted back from it into the air ; and all the stars in the clear heaven should light, one by one as they rose, new cressets upon the points of snow that fringed its abiding place on the imperishable spire? — M. P. iv. Pt. v. ch. xvi. § 13 , 15 , 16 , 17 . Plains of Lombardy. — When the eye falls casually on a map of Europe, there is no feature by which it is more likely to be arrested than the strange sweeping loop formed by the junction of the Alps and Apennines, and enclosing the great basin of Lombardy. This return of the mountain chain upon itself causes a vast difference in the character of the distribu- tion of its debris on its opposite sides. The rock fragments and sediment which the torrents on the north side of the Alps bear into the plains are distributed over a vast extent of country, and, though here and there lodged in beds of enormous thickness, soon permit the firm substrata to appear from underneath them; but all the torrents which descend from the southern side of the High Alps, and from the northern slope of the Apennines, meet concentrically in the recess or mountain bay which the two ridges enclose ; every fragment which thunder breaks out of their battlements, and every grain of dust which the summer rain washes from their pastures, is at last laid at rest in the blue sweep of the Lom- bardic plain ; and that plain must have risen within its rocky barriers as a cup fills with wine, but for two contrary influences which continually depress, or disperse from its surface, the accumulation of the ruins of ages. I will not tax the reader’s faith in modern science by insist- ing on the singular depression of the surface of Lombardy, which appears for many centuries to have taken place steadily and continually ; the main fact with which we have to do is SCENES OF TRAVEL. 21 the gradual transport, by the Po and its great collateral rivers, of vast masses of the finer sediment to the sea. The character of the Lombardic plains is most strikingly expressed by the ancient walls of its cities, composed for the most part of large rounded Alpine pebbles alternating with narrow courses of brick; and was curiously illustrated in 1848, by the ramparts of these same pebbles thrown up four or five feet high round every field, to check the Austrian cavalry in the battle under the walls of Yerona. The finer dust among which these pebbles are dispersed is taken up by the rivers, fed into continual strength by the Alpine snow, so that, how- ever pure their waters may be when they issue from the lakes at the foot of the great chain, they become of the colour and opacity of clay before they reach the Adriatic ; the sediment which they bear is at once thrown down as they enter the sea, forming avast belt of low land along the eastern coast of Italy. The powerful stream of the Po of course builds forward the fastest ; on each side of it, north and south, there is a tract of marsh, fed by more feeble streams, and less liable to rapid change than the delta of the central river. In one of these tracts is built Eavenna, and in the other Venice. — S. V. II. ch. i. § 3, 4. From Padua to Venice. — Come with me, on an autumnal morning, through the dark gates of Padua, and let us take the broad road leading towards the east. It lies level, for a league or two, between its elms, and vine festoons full laden, their thin leaves veined into scarlet hectic, and their clusters deepened into gloomy blue ; then mounts an embankment above the Brenta, and runs between the river and the broad plain, which stretches to the north in endless lines of mulberry and maize. The Brenta flows slowly, but strongly ; a muddy volume of yellowish-grey water, that neither hastens nor slackens, but glides heavily between its monotonous banks, with here and there a short, babbling eddy twisted for an instant into its opaque surface, and vanishing, as if something had been dragged into it and gone down. Dusty and shadeless, the road fares along the dyke on 22 WHITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. its northern side ; and the tall white tower of Dok> is seen trembling in the heat-mist far away, and never seems nearer than it did at first. Presently, you pass one of the much- vaunted u villas on the Brenta a glaring, spectral shell of brick and stucco, its windows with painted architraves like picture-frames, and a court-yard paved with pebbles in front of it, all burning in the thick glow of the feverish sunshine, but fenced from the high road, for magnificence sake, with goodly posts and chains ; then another, of Kew Gothic, with Chinese variations, painted red and green ; a third, composed for the greater part of dead wall, with fictitious windows painted upon it, each with a pea-green blind, and a classical archi- trave in bad perspective ; and a fourth, with stucco figures set on the top of its garden-wall : some antique, ’like the kind to be seen at the corner of the New Road, and some of clumsy grotesque dwarfs, with fat bodies and large boots. This is the architecture to which her studies of the Renaissance have conducted modern Italy. The sun climbs steadily, and warms into intense white the walls of the little piazza of Dolo, where we change horses. Another dreary stage among the now divided branches of the Brenta, forming irregular and half-stagnant canals ; with one or two more villas on the other side of them, but these of the old Venetian type, which we may have recognized before at Padua, and sinking fast into utter ruin, black, and rent, and lonely, set close to the edge of the dull water, with what were once small gardens beside them, kneaded into mud, and with blighted fragments of gnarled hedges and broken stakes for their fencing ; and here and there a few fragments of marble steps, which have once given them graceful access from the water’s edge, now settling into the mud in broken joints, all aslope, and slippery with green weed. At last the road turns sharply to the north, and there is an open space, covered with bent grass, on the right of it : but do not look that way. Five minutes more, and we are in the upper room of the little inn at Mestre, glad of a moment’s rest in shade. The table is (always, I think) covered with a cloth of nominal white and perennial grey, with plates and glasses at due inter- SCENES OF TRAVEL. 23 vals, and small loaves of a peculiar white bread, made with oil, and more like knots of flour than bread. The view from its balcony is not cheerful : a narrow street, with a solitary brick church and barren campanile on the other side of it ; and some conventual buildings, with a few crimson remnants of fresco about their windows : and, between them and the street, a ditch with some slow current in it, and one Or two small houses beside it, one with an arbour of roses at its door, as in an English tea-garden ; the air, however, about us having in it nothing of roses, but a close smell of garlic and crabs, warmed by the smoke of various stands of hot chest- nuts. There is much vociferation also going on beneath the window respecting certain wdieelbarrows which are in rivalry for our baggage ; we appease their rivalry with our best patience, and follow them down the narrow street. We have but walked some two hundred yards when we come to a low w’harf or quay, at the extremity of a canal, with long steps on each side down to the water, which latter we fancy for an instant has become black with stagnation ; another glance undeceives us, — it is covered with the black boats of Venice. We enter one of them, rather to try if they be real boats or not, than with any definite purpose, and glide away ; at first feeling as if the water were yielding con- tinually beneath the boat and letting her sink into soft vacancy. It is something clearer than any water we have seen lately, and of a pale green ; the banks only two or three feet above it, of mud and rank grass, with here and there a stunted tree ; gliding swiftly past the small casement of the gondola, as if they were dragged by upon a painted scene, j Stroke by stroke, we count the plunges of the oar, each heaving up the side of the boat slightly as her silver beak shoots forward. We lose patience, and extricate ourselves from the cushions ; the sea air blows keenly by, as we stand leaning on the roof of the floating cell. In front, nothing to be seen but long canal and level bank ; to the west, the tower of Mestre is lowering fast, and behind it there have risen purple shapes, of the colour of dead rose-leaves, all round the horizon, feebly defined against the afternoon sky — the Alps of 24 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Bassano. Forward still : the endless canal bends at last, and then breaks into intricate angles about some low bastions, now torn to pieces and staggering in ugly rents towards the water — the bastions of the fort of Malghera. Another turn, and another perspective of canal ; but not interminable. The silver beak cleaves it fast, — it widens : the rank grass of the banks sinks lower, and lower, and at last dies in tawny knots along an expanse of weedy shore. Over it, on the right, but a few years back, we might have seen the lagoon stretching to the horizon, and the warm southern sky bending over Mala- mocco to the sea. Now we can see nothing but what seems a low and monotonous dockyard wall, with fiat arches to let the tide through it; — this is the railroad bridge, conspicuous above all things. But at the end of those dismal arches there rises, out of the wide water, a straggling line of low and confused brick buildings, which, but for the many towers which are mingled among them, might be the suburbs of an English manufacturing town. Four or five domes, pale, and apparently at a greater distance, rise over the centre of the line ; but the object which first catches the eye is a sullen cloud of black smoke brooding over the northern half of it, and which issues from the belfry of a church. It is Venice. — S. V. I. ch. xxx. § 7, 8, 9, 10. The Approach to Venice. — In the olden days of travelling, now to return no more, in which distance could not be van- quished without toil, but in which that toil was rewarded, partly by the power of deliberate survey of the countries through which the journey lay, and partly by the happiness of the evening hours, when, from the top of the last hill he had surmounted, the traveller beheld the quiet village where he was to rest, scattered among the meadows beside its valley stream ; or, from the long hoped for turn in the dusty per- spective of the causeway, saw, for the first time, the towers of some famed city, faint in the rays of sunset — hours of peaceful and thoughtful pleasure, for which the rush of the arrival in the railway station is perhaps not always, or to all men, an equivalent, — in those days, I say, when there was something SCENES OF TRAVEL. 25 more to be anticipated and remembered in the first aspect of each successive halting-place, than a new arrangement of glass roofing and iron girder, there were few moments of which the recollection was more fondly cherished by the traveller, than that which, as I endeavoured to describe in the close of the last chapter, brought him Avithin sight of Venice, as his gon- dola shot into the open lagoon from the canal of Mestre. Not but that the aspect of the city itself was generally the source of some slight disappointment, for, seen in this direc- tion, its buildings are far less characteristic than those of the other great towns of Italy ; but this inferiority was partly disguised by distance, and more than atoned for by the strange rising of its Avails and toAvers out of the midst, as it seemed, of the deep sea; for it was impossible that the mind or the eye could at once comprehend the shallowness of the vast sheet of water which stretched aAvay in leagues of rippling lustre to the north and south, or trace the narrow line of islets bound- ing it to the east. The salt breeze, the white moaning sea- birds, the masses of black Aveed separating and disappearing gradually, in knots of heaving shoal, under the advance of the steady tide, all proclaimed it to be indeed the ocean on whose bosom the great city rested so calmly ; not such blue, soft, lake-like ocean as bathes the Neapolitan promontories, or sleeps beneath the marble rocks of Genoa ; but a sea Avith the bleak power of our own northern waves, yet subdued into a strange spacious rest, and changed from its angry pallor into a field of burnished gold, as the sun declined behind the belfry tower of the lonely island church, fitly named 11 St. George of the Seaweed.” As the boat drew nearer to the city, the coast which the traveller had just left sank behind him into one long, Ioav, sad-coloured line, tufted irregularly with brushwood and Avillows : but, at what seemed its northern extremity, the hills of Arqua rose in a dark cluster of purple pyramids, balanced on the bright mirage of the lagoon ; two or three smooth surges of inferior hill extended themselves about their roots, and beyond these, beginning with the craggy peaks above Vicenza, the chain of the Alps girded the whole horizon to the north — a Avail of jagged blue, here and WHITINGS OF JOHN IiUSKIN. there showing through its clefts a wilderness of misty preci- pices, fading far back into the recesses of Cadore, and itself rising and breaking away eastward, where the sun struck opposite upon its snow, into mighty fragments of peaked light, standing up behind the barred clouds of evening, one after another, countless, the crown of the Adrian Sea, until the eye turned back from pursuing them, to rest upon the nearer burning of the campaniles of Murano, and on the great city, where it magnified itself along the waves, as the quick silent pacing of the gondola drew nearer and nearer. And at last, when its walls were reached, and the outmost of its untrodden streets was entered, not through towered gate or guarded rampart, but as a deep inlet between two rocks of coral in the Indian sea ; when first upon the traveller’s sight opened the long ranges of columned palaces, — each with its black boat moored at the portal, — each with its image cast down, beneath its feet, upon that green pavement which every breeze broke into new fantasies of rich tessellation; when first, at the extremity of the bright vista, the shadowy Eialto threw its colossal curve slowdy forth from behind the palace of the Camerlenghi ; that strange curve, so delicate, so adamantine, strong as a mountain cavern, graceful as a bow just bent; when first, before its moonlike circumference was all risen, the gondolier’s cry, “ Ah ! Stall,” struck sharp upon the ear, and the prow turned aside under the mighty cornices that half met over the narrow canal, where the plash of the water followed close and loud, ringing along the marble by the boat’s side ; and when at last that boat darted forth upon the breadth of silver sea, across which the front of the Ducal palace, flushed with its sanguine veins, looks to the snowy dome of Our Lady of Salvation, it was no marvel that the mind should be so deeply entranced by the visionary charm of a scene so beautiful and so strange, as to forget the darker truths of its history and its being. Well might it seem that such a city had owed her existence rather to the rod of the enchanter, than the fear of the fugitive; that the waters which encircled her had been chosen for the mirror of her state, rather than the shelter of her nakedness ; and that all SCENES OF TRAVEL. 27 which in nature was wild or merciless, — Time and Decay, as well as the waves and tempests, — had been won to adorn her instead of to destroy, and might still spare, for ages to come, that beauty which seemed to have fixed for its throne the sands of the hour-glass as well as of the sea. And although the last few eventful years, fraught with change to the face of the whole earth, have been more fatal in their influence on Venice than the five hundred that preceded them ; though the noble landscape of approach to her can now be seen no more, or seen only by a glance, as the engine slackens its rushing on the iron line ; and though many of her palaces are for ever defaced, and many in desecrated ruins, there is still so much of magic in her aspect, that the hurried traveller, who must leave her before the wonder of that first aspect has been worn away, may still be led to forget the humility of her origin, and to shut his eyes to the depth of her desolation. They, at least, are little to be envied, in whose hearts the great charities of the imagination lie dead, and for whom the fancy has no power to repress the impor- tunity of painful impressions, or to raise what is ignoble, and disguise what is discordant, in a scene so rich in its remem- brances, so surpassing in its beauty. — S. V. II. ch. i. § 1,2. Site oe Venice. — From the mouths of the Adige to those of the Piave there stretches, at a variable distance of from three to five miles from the actual shore, a bank of sand, divided into long islands by narrow channels of sea. The space between this bank and the true shore consists of the sedimentary deposits from these and other rivers, a great plain of calcareous mud, covered, in the neighbourhood of Venice, by the sea at high water, to the depth, in most places, of a foot or a foot and a half, and nearly everywhere exposed at low tide, but divided by an intricate network of narrow and winding channels, from which the sea never retires. In some places, according to the run of the currents, the land has risen into marshy islets, consolidated, some by art, and some by time, into ground firm enough to be built upon, or fruitful enough to be cultivated : in others, on the contrary, 28 WRITINGS OF JOHN RTTSKIN. it has not reached the sea level ; so that, at the average low water, shallow lakelets glitter among its irregularly exposed fields of seaweed. In the midst of the largest of these, increased in importance by the confluence of several large river channels towards one of the openings in the sea bank, the city of Venice itself is built, on a crowded cluster of islands ; the various plots of higher ground which appear to the north and south of this central cluster have at different periods been also thickly inhabited, and now bear, according to their size, the remains of cities, villages, or isolated convents and churches, scattered among spaces of open ground, partly waste and encumbered by ruins, partly under cultivation for the supply of the metropolis. The average rise and fall of the tide is about three feet (varying considerably with the seasons) ; but this fall, on so flat a shore, is enough to cause continual movement in the waters and in the main canals to produce a reflux, which frequently runs like a mill stream. At high water no land is visible for many miles to the north or south of Venice, except in the form of small islands crowned with towers or gleaming with villages : there is a channel, some three miles wide between the city and the mainland, and some mile and a half wide between it and the sandy breakwater called the Lido, which divides the lagoon from the Adriatic, but which is so low as hardly to disturb the impression of the city’s having been built in the midst of the ocean, although the secret of its true position is partly, yet not painfully, betrayed by the clusters of piles set to mark the deep-water channels, which undulate far away in spotty chains like the studded backs of huge sea-snakes, and by the quick glittering of the crisped and crowded waves that flicker and dance before the strong winds upon the unlifted level of the shallow sea. But the scene is widely different at low tide. A fall of eighteen or twenty inches is enough to show ground over the greater part of the lagoon ; and at the complete ebb the city is seen stand- ing in the midst of a dark plain of sea- weed, of gloomy green, except only where the larger branches of the Brenta and its associated streams converge towards the port of the Lido. SCENES OF TRAVEL. 29 Through this salt and sombre plain the gondola and the fishing-boat advance by tortuous channels, seldom more than four or five feet deep, and often so choked with slime that the heavier keels furrow the bottom till their crossing tracks are seen through the clear sea water like the ruts upon a wintry road, and the oar leaves blue gashes upon the ground at every stroke, or is entangled among the thick weed that fringes the banks with the weight of its sullen waves, leaning to and fro upon the uncertain sway of the exhausted tide. The scene is often profoundly oppressive, even at this day, when every plot of higher ground bears some fragment of fair building : but, in order to know what it was once, let the traveller follow in his boat at evening the windings of some unfrequented channel far into the midst of the melancholy plain ; let him remove in his imagination, the brightness of the great city that still extends itself in the distance, and the walls and towers from the islands that are near ; and so wait, until the bright investi- ture and sweet warmth of the sunset are withdrawn from the waters, and the black desert of their shore lies in its naked- ness beneath the night, pathless, comfortless, infirm, lost in dark languor and fearful silence, except where the salt runlets plash into the tideless pools, or the sea-birds flit from their margins with a questioning cry ; and he will be enabled to enter in some sort into the horror of heart with which this solitude was anciently chosen by man for his habitation. They little thought, who first drove the stakes into the sand, and strewed the ocean reeds for their rest, that their children were to be the princes of that ocean, and their palaces its pride ; and yet, in the great natural laws that rule that sor- rowful wilderness, let it be remembered what strange prepara- tion had been made for the things which no human imagination could have foretold, and how the whole existence and fortune of the Venetian nation were anticipated or compelled, by the setting of those bars and doors to the rivers and the sea. Had deeper currents divided their islands, hostile navies would again and again have reduced the rising city into servitude ; had stronger surges beaten their shores, all the richness and refinement of the Venetian architecture must have been ex- 30 WRITINGS OF JOHN RTTSKIN. changed for the walls and bulwarks of an ordinary sea-port. Had there been no tide, as in other parts of the Mediterra- nean, the narrow canals of the city would have become noisome, and the marsh in which it was built pestiferous. Had the tide been only a foot or eighteen inches higher in its rise, the water-access to the doors of the palaces would have been impossible : even as it is, there is sometimes a little difficulty, at the ebb, in landing without setting foot upon the lower and slippery steps,; and the highest tides sometimes enter the courtyards, and overflow the entrance halls. Eighteen inches more of difference between the level of the flood and ebb would have rendered the doorsteps of every palace, at low water, a treacherous mass of weeds and limpets, and the entire system of water-carriage for the higher classes, in their easy and daily intercourse, must have been done away with. The streets of the city would have been widened, its network of canals filled up, and all the peculiar character of the place and the people destroyed. The reader may, perhaps, have felt some pain in the con- trast between this faithful view of the site of the Venetian Throne, and the romantic conception of it which we ordinarily form ; but this pain, if he have felt it, ought to be more than counterbalanced by the value of the instance thus afforded to us at once of the inscrutableness and the wisdom of the ways of God. If, two thousand years ago, we had been permitted to watch the slow settling of the slime of those turbid rivers into the polluted sea, and the gaining upon its deep and fresh waters of the lifeless, impassable, unvoyageable plain, how little could we have understood the purpose with which those islands were shaped out of the void, and the torpid waters enclosed with their desolate walls of sand ! How little could we have known, any more than of what now seems to us most distressful, dark, and objectless, the glorious aim which was then in the mind of Him in whose hand are all the corners of the earth ! how little imagined that in the laws which were stretching forth the gloomy margins of those fruitless banks, and feeding the bitter grass among their shallows, there was indeed a preparation, and the only prepcira - SCENES OF TRAVEL. 81 tion possible , for the founding of a city which was to be set like a golden clasp on the girdle of the earth, to write her history on the white scrolls of the sea-surges, and to word it in their thunder, and to gather and give forth, in the world- wide pulsation, the glory of the West and of the East, from the burning heart of her Fortitude and Splendour. — S. V. II. ch. i. § 5, 6, 7. The Venice of Modern Fiction. — The impotent feelings of romance, so singularly characteristic of this century, may indeed gild, but never save, the remains of those mightier ages to which they are attached like climbing flowers ; and they must be torn away from the magnificent fragments, if we would see them as they stood in their own strength. Those feel- ings, always as- fruitless as they are fond, are in Venice not only incapable of protecting, but even of discerning, the objects to which they ought to have been attached. The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of decay, a stage dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth remembering, or whose sorrow deserved sympathy, ever crossed that “ Bridge of Sighs,” which is the centre of the Byronic ideal of Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever saw that Rialto under which the traveller now passes with breathless interest : the statue which Byron makes Faliero address as of one of his great ancestors, was erected to a soldier of fortune a hundred and fifty years after Faliero’s death ; and the most conspicuous parts of the city have been so entirely altered in the course of the last three centuries, that if Henry Dandolo or Francis Foscari could be summoned from their tombs, and stood each on the deck of t his galley at the entrance of the Grand Canal, that renowned entrance, the painter’s favourite subject, the novelist’s favourite scene, where the water first narrows by the steps of the Church of La Salute, — the mighty Doges would not know in what spot of the world they stood, would literally not recognize one stone of the great city, for whose sake, and by whose ingrati- tude, their grey hairs had been brought down with bitterness 32 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. to the grave. The remains of their Venice lie hidden behind the cumbrous masses which were the delight of the nation in its dotage ; hidden in many a grass-grown court, and silent pathway, and lightless canal, where the slow waves have sapped their foundations for five hundred years, and must soon prevail over them for ever. It must be our task to glean and gather them forth, and restore out of them some faint image of the lost city ; more gorgeous a thousandfold than that which now exists, yet not created in the day-dream of the prince, nor by the ostentation of the noble, but built by iron hands and patient hearts, contending against the adversity of nature and the fury of man, so that its wonderfulness cannot be grasped by the indolence of imagination, but only after frank inquiry into the true nature of that wild and solitary scene, whose restless tides and trembling sands did indeed shelter the birth of the city, but long denied her dominion. — S. V. II. ch. i. § 2. Decay of Venice. — The decay of the city of Venice is, in many respects, like that of an outwearied and aged human frame ; the cause of its decrepitude is indeed at the heart, but the outward appearances of it are first at the extremities. In the centre of the city there are still places where some evi- dence of vitality remains, and where, with kind closing of the eyes to signs, too manifest even there, of distress and declin- ing fortune, the stranger may succeed in imagining, for a little while, what must have been the aspect of Venice in her prime. But this lingering pulsation has not force enough any more to penetrate into the suburbs and outskirts of the city ; the frost of death has there seized upon it irrevocably, and the grasp of mortal disease is marked daily by the increasing breadth of its belt of ruin. Nowhere is this seen more grievously than along the great north-eastern boundary, once occupied by the smaller palaces of the Venetians, built for pleasure or repose; the nobler piles along the grand canal being reserved for the pomp and business of daily life. To such smaller palaces some garden ground was commonly attached, opening to the water-side; and, in front of these villas and gardens, the SCENES OF TRAVEL. 33 lagoon was wont to be covered in the evening by gondolas : the space of it between this part of the city and the island group of Murano being to Venice, in her time of power, what its parks are to London ; only gondolas were used instead of carriages, and the crowd of the population did not come out till towards sunset, and prolonged their pleasures far into the night, company answering to company with alternate singing. If, knowing this custom of the Venetians, and with a vision in his mind of summer palaces lining the shore, and myrtle gardens sloping to the sea, the traveller now seeks this suburb of Venice, he will be strangely and sadly surprised to find a new but perfectly desolate quay, about a mile in length, ex- tending from the arsenal to the Sacca della Misericordia, in front of a line of miserable houses built in the course of the last sixty or eighty years, yet already tottering to their ruin ; and not less to find that the principal object in the view which these houses (built partly in front and partly on the ruins of the ancient palaces) now command is a dead brick wall, about a quarter of a mile across the water, interrupted only by a kind of white lodge, the cheerfulness of which prospect is not enhanced by his finding that this wall encloses the principal public cemetery of Venice. He may, perhaps, marvel for a few moments at the singular taste of the old Venetians in taking their pleasure under a churchyard wall : but, on far- ther inquiry, he will find that the building on the island, like those on the shore, is recent ; that it stands on the ruins of the Church of St. Cristoforo della Pace ; and that, with a singular, because unintended, moral, the modern Venetians have re- placed the Peace of the Christ-bearer by the Peace of Death, and where they once went, as the sun set daily, to their plea- sure, now go, as the sun sets to each of them for ever, to their graves. Yet the power of Nature cannot be shortened by the folly, nor her beauty altogether saddened by the misery, of man. The broad tides still ebb and flow brightly about the island of the dead, and the linked conclave of the Alps know no decline from their old preeminence, nor stoop from their golden thrones in the circle of the horizon. So lovely is the 3 34 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. scene still, in spite of all its injuries, that we shall find our- selves drawn there again and again at evening out of the narrow canals and streets of the city, to watch the wreaths of the sea-mists weaving themselves like mourning veils around the mountains far away, and listen to the green waves as they fret and sigh along the cemetery shore. — S. V. II. ch. iii. § 1 , 2 , 3 . An English Cathedral and St. Mark’s. — I wish that the reader, before I bring him into St. Mark’s Place, would imagine himself for a little time in a quiet English cathedral town, and walk with me to the west front of its cathedral. Let us go together up the more retired street, at the end of which we can see the pinnacles of one of the towers, and then through the low grey gateway, with its battlemented top and small latticed window in the centre, into the inner private- looking road or close, where nothing goes in but the carts of the tradesmen who supply the bishop and the chapter, and where there are little shaven grass-plots, fenced in by neat rails, before old-fashioned groups of somewhat diminutive and excessively trim houses, with little oriel and bay windows jutting out here and there, and deep wooden cornices and eaves painted cream colour and white, and small porches to their doors in the shape of cockle-shells, or little, crooked, thick, indescribable wooden gables warped a little on one side ; and so forward till we come to larger houses, also old- fashioned, but of red brick, and with gardens behind them, and fruit walls, which show here and there, among the necta- rines, the vestiges of an old cloister arch or shaft; and looking in front on the cathedral square itself, laid out in rigid divi- sions of smooth grass and gravel walk, yet not unclieerful, especially on the sunny side where the canons’ children are walking with their nurserymaids. And so, taking care not to tread on the grass, we will go along the straight walk to the west front, and there stand for a time, looking up at its deep- pointed porches and the dark places between their pillars where there were statues once, and where the fragments, here and there, of a stately figure are still left, which has in it the SCENES OF TRAVEL. 35 likeness of a king, perhaps indeed a king on earth, perhaps a saintly king long ago in heaven; and so higher and higher up to the great mouldering wall of rugged sculpture and con- fused arcades, shattered and grey, and grisly with heads of dragons and mocking fiends, worn by the rain and swirling winds into yet unseemlier shape, and coloured on their stony scales by the deep russet-orange lichen, melancholy gold ; and so, higher still, to the bleak towers, so far above that the eye loses itself among the bosses of their traceries, though they are rude and strong, and only sees like a drift of eddying black points, now closing, now scattering, and now settling suddenly into invisible places among the bosses and flowers, the crowd of restless birds that fill the old square with that strange clangour of theirs, so harsh and yet so soothing, like the cries of birds on a solitary coast between the cliffs and the sea. Think for a little while of that scene, and the meaning of all its small formalisms, mixed with its serene sublimity. Estimate its secluded, continuous, drowsy felicities, and its evidence of the sense and steady performance of such kind of duties as can be regulated by the cathedral clock ; and weigh the influence of those dark towers on all who have passed through the lonely square at their feet for centuries, and on all who have seen them rising far away over the wooded plain, or catching on their square masses the last rays of the sunset, when the city at their feet was indicated only by the mist at the bend of the river. And then let us quickly recollect that we are in Venice, and land at the extremity of the Calle Luna San Moise, which may be considered as there answering to the secluded street that led us to our English cathedral gateway. We find ourselves in a paved alley, some seven feet wide where it is .widest, full of people, and resonant with cries of itinerant salesmen, — a shriek in their beginning, and dying away into a kind of brazen ringing, all the worse for its con- finement between the high houses of the passage along which we have to make our way. Over-head an inextricable confu- sion of rugged shutters, and iron balconies and chimney flues 3—2 36 WRITINGS OF JOIIN RUSKIN. pushed out on brackets to save room, and arched windows with projecting sills of Istrian stone, and gleams of green leaves here and there where a fig-tree branch escapes over a lower wall from some inner cortile, leading the eye up to the narrow stream of blue sky high over all. On each side, a row of shops, as densely set as may be, occupying, in fact, intervals between the square stone shafts, about eight feet high, which carry the first floors : intervals of which one is narrow and serves as a door ; the other is, in the more re- spectable shops, wainscoted to the height of the counter and glazed above, but in those of the poorer tradesmen left open to the ground, and the wares laid on benches and tables in the open air, the light in all cases entering at the front only, and fading away in a few feet from the threshold into a gloom which the eye from without cannot penetrate, but which is generally broken by a ray or two from a feeble lamp at the back of the shop, suspended before a print of the Virgin. The less pious shopkeeper sometimes leaves his lamp un- lighted, and is contented with a penny print ; the more reli- gious one has his print coloured and set in a little shrine with a gilded or figured fringe, with perhaps a faded flower or two on each side, and his lamp burning brilliantly. Here at the fruiterer’s, where the dark-green water-melons are heaped upon the counter like cannon-balls, the Madonna has a taber- nacle of fresh laurel leaves ; but the pewterer next door has let his lamp out, and there is nothing to be seen in his shop but the dull gleam of the studded patterns on the copper pans, hanging from his roof in the darkness. Next comes a “ Ven- dita Frittole e Liquori,” where the Virgin, enthroned in a very humble manner beside a tallow candle on a back shelf, presides over certain ambrosial morsels of a nature too ambi- guous to be defined or enumerated. But a few steps farther on, at the regular wine-shop of the calle, where we are offered u Vino Nostrani a Soldi 28*32, ” the Madonna is in great glory, enthroned above ten or a dozen large red casks of three-year- old vintage, and flanked by goodly ranks of bottles of Maras- chino, and two crimson lamps ; and for the evening, when the gondoliers will come to drink out, under her auspices, the SCENES OF TRAVEL. 37 money they have gained during the day, she will have a whole chandelier. :j A yard or two farther, we pass the hostelry of the Black Eagle, and glancing as we pass through the square door of marble, deeply moulded, in the outer wall, we see the shadows of its pergola of vines resting on an ancient well, with a pointed shield carved on its side ; and so presently emerge on the bridge and Campo San Moise, whence to the entrance into St. Mark’s Place, called the Bocca di Piazza (mouth of the square), the Venetian character is nearly destroyed, first by the frightful fa§ade of San Moise, which we will pause at another time to examine, and then by the modernizing of the shops as they near the piazza, and the mingling with the lower Vene- tian populace of lounging groups of English and Austrians. We will push fast through them into the shadow of the pillars at the end of the u Bocca di Piazza,” and then we forget them all ; for between those pillars there opens a great light, and, in the midst of it, as we advance slowly, the vast tower of St. Mark seems to lift itself visibly forth from the level field of chequered stones ; and, on each side, the count- less arches prolong themselves into ranged symmetry, as if the rugged and irregular houses that pressed together above us in the dark alley had been struck back into sudden obe- dience and lovely order, and all their rude casements and broken walls had been transformed into arches charged with goodly sculpture, and fluted shafts of delicate stone. And well may they fall back, for beyond those troops of prdered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far away ; — a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of coloured light ; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculp- ture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory, — sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and flutter- ing among the branches, all twined together into an endless 38 AVRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. network of buds and plumes ; and, in tlie midst of it, the solemn forms of angels, sceptred, and robed to the feet, and leaning to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside them, interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded back among the branches of Eden, when first its gates were angel-guarded long ago. And round the walls of the porches there are set pillars of variegated stones, jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpentine spotted with flakes of snow, and marbles, that half refuse and half yield to the sun- shine, Cleopatra-like, “their bluest veins to kiss” — the shadow, as it steals back from them, revealing line after line of azure undulation, as a receding tide leaves the waved sand ; their capitals rich with interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of acanthus and vine, and mys- tical signs, all beginning and ending in the Cross ; and above them, in the broad archivolts, a continuous chain of language and of life — angels, and the signs of heaven and the labours of men, each in its appointed season upon the earth ; and above these another range of glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches edged with scarlet flowers, — a confusion of delight, amidst which the breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of golden strength, and the St. Mark’s Lion, lifted on a blue field covered with stars, until at last, as if in ecstacy, the crests of the arches break into a marble foam, and toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore had been frost-bound before they fell, and the sea-nymphs had inlaid them with coral and amethyst. Between that grim cathedral of England and this, what an interval ! There is a type of it in the very birds that haunt them ; for, instead of the restless crowd, hoarse-voiced and sable-winged, drifting on the bleak upper air, the St. Mark’s porches are full of doves, that nestle among the marble foliage, and mingle the soft iridescence of their living plumes, chang- ing at every motion, with the tints, hardly less lovely, that have stood unchanged for seven hundred years. And what effect has this splendour on those who pass SCENES OF TRAVEL. 39 beneath it ? You may walk from sunrise to sunset, to and fro, before the gateway of St. Mark’s, and you will not see an eye lifted to it, nor a countenance brightened by it. Priest and layman, soldier and civilian, rich and poor, pass by it alike regardlessly. Up to the very recesses of the porches, the meanest tradesmen of the city push their counters ; nay, the foundations of its pillars are themselves the seats, — not “ of them that sell doves ” for sacrifice, but of the vendors of toys and caricatures. Round the whole square in front of the church there is almost a continuous line of cafes, where the idle Venetians of the middle classes lounge, and read empty journals; in its centre the Austrian bands play during the time of vespers, their martial music jarring with the organ notes, — the march drowning the miserere, and the sullen crowd thickening round them, — a crowd, which, if it had its will, would stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the fecesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards ; and unregarded children, — every heavy glance of their young eyes full of desperation and stony depravity, and their throats hoarse with cursing, — gamble, and fight, and snarl, and sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised cen- tesimi upon the marble ledges of the church porch. And the images of Christ and His angels look down upon it continually. — S. V. II. ch. iv. § 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Interior of St. Mark’s. — Through the heavy door whose bronze network closes the place of his* rest, let us enter the church itself. It is lost in still deeper twilight, to which the eye must be accustomed for some moments before the form of the building can be traced ; and then there opens before us a vast cave, hewn out into the form of a Cross, and divided into shadowy aisles by many pillars. Round the domes of its roof the light enters only through narrow apertures like large stars ; and here and there a ray or two from some far away casement wanders into the darkness, and casts a narrow phos- phoric stream upon the waves of marble that heave and fall * The Doge Andrea Dandolo. 40 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. in a thousand colours along the floor. What else there is of light is from torches, or silver lamps, burning ceaselessly in the recesses of the chapels ; the roof sheeted with gold, and the polished walls covered with alabaster, give back, at every curve and angle, some feeble gleaming to the flames ; and the glories round the heads of the sculptured saints flash out upon us as we pass them, and sink again into the gloom. Under foot and over head, a continual succession of crowded imagery, one picture passing into another, as in a dream ; forms beau- tiful and terrible mixed together ; dragons and serpents, and ravening beasts of prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from running fountains and feed from vases of crystal ; the passions and the pleasures of human life sym- bolized together, and the mystery of its redemption ; for the mazes of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always at last to the Cross, lifted and carved in every place and upon every stone ; sometimes with the serpent of eternity wrapt round it, sometimes with doves beneath its arms, and sweet herbage growing forth from its feet ; but conspicuous most of all on the great rood that crosses the church before the altar, raised in bright blazonry against the shadow of the apse. And although in the recesses of the aisles and chapels, when the mist of the incense hangs heavily, we may see continually a figure traced in faint lines upon their marble, a woman standing with her eyes raised to heaven, and the inscription above her, “ Mother of God,” she is not here the presiding deity. It is the Cross that is first seen, and always, burning in the centre of the temple ; and every dome and hollow of its roof has the figure of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised in power, or returning in judgment. Nor is this interior without effect on the minds of the people. At every hour of the day there are groups collected before the various shrines, and solitary worshippers scattered through the darker places of the church, evidently in prayer both deep and reverent, and, for the most part, profoundly sorrowful. The devotees at the greater number of the re- nowned shrines of Romanism may be seen murmuring their Appointed prayers with wandering eyes and unengaged ges- SCENES OF TRAVEL. 41 tures ; but the step of the stranger does not disturb those who kneel on the pavement of St. Mark’s ; and hardly a moment passes, from early morning to sunset, in which we may not see some half-veiled figure enter beneath the Arabian porch, cast itself into long abasement on the floor of the temple, and then rising slowly with more confirmed step, and with a passionate kiss and clasp of the arms given to the feet of the crucifix, by which the lamps burn always in the northern aisle, leave the church, as if comforted. But we must not hastily conclude from this that the nobler characters of the building have at present any influence in fostering a devotional spirit. There is distress enough in Venice to bring many to their knees, without excitement from external imagery ; and whatever there may be in the temper of the worship offered in St. Mark’s more than can be accounted for by reference [to the unhappy circumstances of the city, is assuredly not owing either to the beauty of its architecture or to the impressiveness of the Scripture histories embodied in its mosaics. That it has a peculiar effect, how- ever slight, on the popular mind, may perhaps be safely con- jectured from the number of worshippers which it attracts, while the churches of St. Paul and the Frari, larger in size and more central in position, are left comparatively empty. But this effect is altogether to be ascribed to its richer assem- blage of those sources of influence which address themselves to the commonest instincts of the human mind, and which, in all ages and countries, have been more or less employed in the support of superstition. Darkness and mystery ; confused recesses of building; artificial light employed in small quantity, but maintained with a constancy which seems to give it a kind of sacredness; preciousness of material easily comprehended by the vulgar eye; close air loaded with a sweet and peculiar odour associated only with religious ser- vices, solemn music, and tangible idols or images having popular legends attached to them,' — these, the stage properties of superstition, which have been from the beginning of the world, and must be to the end of it, employed by all nations, whether openly savage or nominally civilized, to produce a 42 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. false awe in minds incapable of apprehending the true nature of the Deity, are assembled in St. Mark’s to a degree, as far as I know, unexampled in any other European church. The arts of the Magus and the Brahmin are exhausted in the ani- mation of a paralysed Christianity ; and the popular sentiment which these arts excite is to be regarded by us with tio more respect than we should have considered ourselves justified in rendering to the devotion of the worshippers at Eleusis, Ellora, or Edfou. — S. V. II. ch. iv. § 18, 19, 20. Tomb of the Doge Andrea Dandolo. — We are in a low vaulted room ; vaulted, not with arches, but with small cupolas starred with gold, and chequered with gloomy figures : in the centre is a bronze font charged with rich bas-reliefs, a small figure of the Baptist standing above it in a single ray of light that glances across the narrow room, dying as it falls from a window high in the wall, and the first thing that it strikes, and the only thing that it strikes brightly, is a tomb. We hardly know if it be a tomb indeed ; for it is like a narrow couch set beside the window, low-roofed and cur- tained, so that it might seem, but that it is some height above the pavement, to have been drawn towards the window, that the sleeper might be wakened early ; — Only there are two angels who have drawn the curtain back, and are looking down upon him. Let us look also, and thank that gentle light that rests upon his forehead for ever, and dies away upon his breast. The face is of a man in middle life, but there are two deep furrows right across the forehead, dividing it like the founda- tions of a tower : the height of it above is bound by the fillet of the ducal cap. The rest of the features are singularly small and delicate, the lips sharp, perhaps the sharpness of death being added to that of the natural lines ; but there is a sweet smile upon them, and a deep serenity upon the whole countenance. The roof of the canopy above has been blue, filled with stars ; beneath, in the centre of the tomb on which the figure rests, is a seated figure of the Virgin, and the border of it all around is of flowers and soft leaves, growing rich and deep, as if in a field in summer. SCENES OF TRAVEL. 43 It is the Doge Andrea Dandolo, a man early great among the great of Venice ; and early lost. She chose him for her king in his 36th year ; he died ten years later, leaving behind him that history to which we owe half of what we know of her former fortunes. Look round at the room in which he lies. The floor of it is of rich mosaic, encompassed by a low seat of red marble, and its walls are of alabaster, but worn and shattered, and darkly stained with age, almost a ruin, — in places the slabs of marble have fallen away altogether, and the rugged brickwork is seen through the rents, but all beautiful ; the ravaging fissures fretting their way among the islands and channelled zones of the alabaster, and the time-stains on its translucent masses darkened into fields of rich golden brown, like the colour of seaweed when the sun strikes on it through deep sea. The light fades away into the recess of the chamber towards the altar, and the eye can hardly trace the lines of the bas-relief behind it of the baptism of Christ : but on the vaulting of the roof the figures are distinct, and there are seen upon it two great circles, one surrounded by the “ Prin- cipalities and powers in heavenly places,” of which Milton has expressed the ancient division in a single massy line, “ Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,” and around the other, the Apostles ; Christ the centre of both : and upon the walls, again and again repeated, the gaunt figure of the Baptist, in every circumstance of his life and death ; and the streams of the Jordan running down between their cloven rocks ; the axe laid to the root of a fruitless tree that springs upon their shore. 11 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire.” Yes, verily: to be baptized with fire, or to be cast therein; it is the choice set before all men. The march- notes still murmur through the grated window, and mingle with the sounding in our ears of the sentence of judgment, which the old Greek has written on that Baptistery wall. Venice has made her choice. He who lies under that stony canopy would have taught 44 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. her another choice, in his day, if she would have listened to him : but he and his counsels have long been forgotten by her, and the dust lies upon his lips. — S. V. II. ch. iv. § 16, 17, 18. Murano. — It is morning now : we have a hard day’s work to do at Murano, and our boat shoots swiftly from beneath the last bridge of Venice, and brings us out into the open sea and sky. The pure cumuli of cloud lie crowded and leaning against one another, rank beyond rank, far over the shining water, each cut away at its foundation by a level line, trenchant and clear, till they sink to the horizon like a flight of marble steps, except where the mountains meet them, and are lost in them, barred across by the grey terraces of those cloud foundations, and reduced into one crestless bank of blue, spotted here and there with strange flakes of wan, aerial, greenish light, strewed upon them like snow. And under- neath is the long dark line of the mainland, fringed with low trees; and then the wide-waving surface of the burnished lagoon trembling slowly, and shaking out into forked bands of lengthening light the images of the towers of cloud above. To the north, there is first the great cemetery wall, then the long stray buildings of Murano, and the island villages beyond, glittering in intense crystalline vermilion, like so much jewellery scattered on a mirror, their towers poised apparently in the air a little above the horizon, and their re- flections, as sharp and vivid and substantial as themselves, thrown on the vacancy between them and the sea. And thus the villages seem standing on the air ; and, to the east, there is a cluster of ships that seem sailing on the land; for the sandy line of the Lido stretches itself between us and them, and we can see the tall white sails moving beyond it, but not the sea, only there is a sense of the great sea being indeed there, and a solemn strength of gleaming light in the sky above. The most discordant feature in the whole scene is the cloud which hovers above the glass furnaces of Murano ; but this we may not regret, as it is one of the last signs left of human SCENES OF TRAVEL. 45 exertion among the ruinous villages which surround us. The silent gliding of the gondola brings it nearer to us every moment; we pass the cemetery, and a deep sea-channel which separates it from Murano, and finally enter a narrow water-street, with a paved footpath on each side, raised three or four feet above the canal, and forming a kind of quay be- tween the water and the doors of the houses. These latter are, for the most part, low, but built with massy doors and windows of marble or Istrian stone, square set, and barred with iron ; buildings evidently once of no mean order, though now inhabited only by the poor. Here and there an ogee window of the fourteenth century, or a doorway deeply en- riched with cable mouldings, shows itself in the midst of more ordinary features ; and several houses, consisting of one story only carried on square pillars, forming a short arcade along the quay, have windows sustained on shafts of red Yerona marble, of singular grace and delicacy. All now in vain : little care is there for their delicacy or grace among the rough fishermen sauntering on the quay with their jackets hanging loose from their shoulders, jacket and cap and hair all of the same dark -greenish sea-grey. But there is some life in the scene, more than is usual in Venice : the women are sitting at their doors knitting busily, and various work- men of the glasshouses sifting glass dust upon the pavement, and strange cries coming from one side of the canal to the other, and ringing far along the crowded water, from vendors of figs and grapes, and gourds and shell-fish ; cries partly descriptive of the eatables in question, but interspersed with others of a character unintelligible in proportion to their violence, and fortunately so, if we may judge by a sentence which is stencilled in black, within a garland, on the white- washed walls of nearly every other house in the street, but which, how often soever written, no one seems to regard: “ Bestemme non piu. Lodate gesu.” We push our way on between large barges laden with fresh water from Fusina, in round white tubs seven feet across, and complicated boats full of all manner of nets that look as if they could never be disentangled, hanging from their masts 4G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. and over their sides ; and presently pass under a bridge with the lion of St. Mark on its archivolt, and another on a pillar at the end of the parapet, a small red lion with much of the puppy in his face, looking vacantly up into the air (in passing we may note that, instead of feathers, his wings are covered with hair, and in several other points the manner of his sculpture is not uninteresting). Presently the canal turns a little to the left, and thereupon becomes more quiet, the main bustle of the water-street being usually confined to the first straight reach of it, some quarter of a mile long, the Cheap- side of Murano. We pass a considerable church on the left, St. Pietro, and a little square opposite to it with a few acacia trees, and then find our boat suddenly seized by a strong green eddy, and whirled into the tide-way of one of the main channels of the lagoon, which divides the town of Murano into two parts by a deep stream some fifty yards over, crossed only by one wooden bridge. We let ourselves drift some way down the current, looking at the low line of cottages on the other side of it, hardly knowing if there be more cheerfulness or melancholy in the way the sunshine glows on their ruinous but whitewashed walls, and sparkles on the rushing of the green water by the grass-grown quay. It needs a strong stroke of the oar to bring us into the mouth of another quiet canal on the farther side of the tide-way, and we are still somewhat giddy when we run the head of the gondola into the sand on the left hand side of this more sluggish stream, and land under the east end of the Church of San Donato, the “ Matrice ” or “ Mother ” Church of Murano. It stands, it and the heavy campanile detached from it a few yards, in a small triangular field of somewhat fresher grass than is usual near Venice, traversed by a paved walk with green mosaic of short grass between the rude squares of its stones, bounded on one side by ruinous garden walls, on another by a line of low cottages, on the third, the base of the triangle, by the shallow canal from which we have just landed. Near the point of the triangular space is a simple well, bearing date 1502; in its widest part, between the canal and campanile, is a four-square hollow pillar, each SCENES OF TRAVEL. 47 side formed by a separate slab of stone, to which the iron hasps are still attached that once secured the Venetian standard. The cathedral itself occupies the northern angle of the field, encumbered with modern buildings, small outhouse-like chapels, and wastes of white wall with blank square windows, and itself utterly defaced in the whole body of it, nothing but the apse having been spared; the original plan is only disco- verable by careful examination, and even, then but partially. The whole impression and effect of the building are irretreiv- ably lost, but the fragments of it are still most precious. — S. V. II. ch. iii. § 4, 5, 6, 7. Torcello. — Seven miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand, which near the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea. One of the feeblest of these inlets, after winding for some time among buried fragments of masonry, and knots of sunburnt weeds whitened with webs of fucus, stays itself in an utterly stag- nant pool beside a plot of greener grass covered with ground ivy and violets. On this mound is built a rude brick campa- nile, of the commonest Lombardic type, which if we ascend towards evening (and there are none to hinder us, the door of its ruinous staircase swinging idly on its hinges), we may command from it one of the most notable scenes in this wide world of ours. Far as the eye can reach, a waste of wild sea moor, of a lurid ashen grey ; not like our northern moors with their jet-black pools and purple heath, but lifeless, the colour of sackcloth, with the corrupted sea-water soaking through the roots of its acrid weeds, and gleaming hither and thither through its snaky channels. No gathering of fantastic mists, nor coursing of clouds across it; but melancholy clearness of space in the warm sunset, oppressive, reaching to the horizon of its level gloom. To the very horizon, on the north-east ; but, to the north and west, there is a blue line of higher land along the border of it, and above this, but farther 48 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. back, a misty band of mountains, touched with snow. To the east, the paleness and roar of the Adriatic, louder at momentary intervals as the surf breaks on the bars of sand ; to the south, the widening branches of the calm lagoon, alternately purple and pale green, as they reflect the evening clouds or twilight sky; and almost beneath our feet, on the same field which sustains the tower we gaze from, a group of four buildings, two of them little larger than cottages (though built of stone, and one adorned by a quaint belfry), the third an octagonal chapel, of which we can see but little more than the flat red roof with its rayed tiling, the fourth, a considera- ble church with nave and aisles, but of which, in like manner, we can see little but the long central ridge and lateral slopes of roof, which the sunlight separates in one glowing mass from the green field beneath and grey moor beyond. There are no living creatures near the buildings, nor any vestige of village or city round about them. They lie like a little com- pany of ships becalmed on a faraway sea. Then look farther to the south. Beyond the widening branches of the lagoon, and rising out of the bright lake into which they gather, there are a multitude of towers, dark, and scattered among square-set shapes of clustered palaces, a long and irregular line fretting the southern sky. Mother and daughter, you behold them both in their widow- hood, — Torcello, and Venice. Thirteen hundred years ago, the grey moorland looked as it does this day, and the purple mountains stood as radiantly in the deep distances of evening ; but on the line of the horizon, there were strange fires mixed with the light of sunset, and the lament of many human voices mixed with the fretting of the waves on their ridges of sand. The flames rose from the ruins of Altinum; the lament from the multitude of its people, seeking, like Israel of old, a refuge from the sword in the paths of the sea. The cattle are feeding and resting upon the site of the city that they left; the mower’s scythe swept this day at dawn over the chief street of the city that they built, and the swathes of soft grass are now sending up their scent into the. SCENES OF TRAVEL. 49 night air, the only incense that fills the temple of their ancient worship. — S. V. II. ch. ii. § 1, 2. La Riccia. — Sunlight after Storm. — It had been wild weather when I left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping in sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams of sun along the Claudian aqueduct, lighting up the infinity of its arches like the bridge of chaos. But as I climbed the long slope of the Alban Mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble outline of the domes of Albano, and graceful darkness of its ilex grove, rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber; the upper sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in deep palpitating azure, half aether and half dew. The noon-day sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and their masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot call it colour, it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God’s tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life ; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around them, breaking over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset ; the motionless masses of dark rock — dark though flushed with scarlet lichen, casting their quiet shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound ; and over all, the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that 4 50 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. have no darkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless intervals, between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea. — M. P. i. Pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 2. The Campagna of Rome. — Perhaps there is no more im- pressive scene on earth than the solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light. Let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the bones of men.* The long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake fever- ishly along the banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sun- light. Hillocks of mouldering earth heave around him, as if the dead beneath were struggling in their sleep ; scattered blocks of black stone, four-square, remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon another, lie upon them to keep them down. A dull purple poisonous haze stretches level along the desert, veiling its spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on whose rents the red light rests, like dying fire on defiled altars. The blue ridge of the Alban Mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet sky. Watch- towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the promontories of the Apennines. From the plain to the mountains, the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners, pass- ing from a nation’s grave. — M. P. i. Pref. to 2nd Ed. South Italy. — We are accustomed to hear the south of Italy spoken of as a beautiful country. Its mountain forms are graceful above others, its sea bays exquisite in outline and * The vegetable soil of the Campagna is chiefly formed by decom- posed lavas, and under it lies a bed of white pumice, exactly re- sembling remnants of bones. SCENES OF TRAVEL. 51 hue ; but it is only beautiful in superficial aspect. In closer detail it is wild and melancholy. Its forests are sombre- leaved, labyrinth-stemmed ; the carubbe, the olive, laurel, and ilex are alike in that strange feverish twisting of their branches, as if in spasms of half human pain : — Avernus forests ; one fears to break their boughs, lest they should cry to us from the rents ; the rocks they shade are of ashes, or thrice-molten lava ; iron sponge, whose every pore has been filled with fire. Silent villages, earthquake-shaken, without commerce, without industry, without knowledge, without hope, gleam in white ruin from hillside to hillside; far- winding wrecks of immemorial walls surround the dust of cities long forsaken : the mountain streams moan through the cold arches of their foundations, green with weed, and rage over the heaps of their fallen towers. Far above, in thunder- blue serration, stand the eternal edges of the angry Apennine, dark with rolling impendence of volcanic cloud. — M. P. v. Pt. ix. ch. iv. § 12. Aspects of Northern and Southern Countries. — The- charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern science have thrown into a narrow space the expression of a vast amount of knowledge, but I have never yet seen any one pictorial enough to enable the spectator to imagine the kind of contrast in physical character which exists between Northern and Southern countries. We know the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp which would enable us to feel them in their fulness. We know that gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines ; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world’s surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference between the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular -lake, and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun : here and there an angry spot of thunder, a grey stain of 4—2 52 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. storm, moving upon the burning field ; and here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes ; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glow- ing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel and orange, and plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see the orient colours change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzer- land, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire -to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of •rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spread- ing low along the pasture lands : and then, farther north still, to see the earth hea.ve into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas beaten by storm, and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks into barrenness ; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight. And, having once traversed in thought this gradation of the zoned iris of the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life : the multitudes of swift and brilliant creatures that glance in the air and sea, or tread the sands of the southern zone ; striped zebras and spotted leopards, glistening serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet. Let us contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of colour, and swiftness of motion, with the frost- cramped strength, and shaggy covering, and dusky plumage of the northern tribes ; contrast the Arabian horse with the SCENES OF TRAVEL. 53 Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the wolf and hear, the antelope with the elk, the bird of paradise with the osprey : and then, submissively acknowledging the great laws by which the earth and all that it bears are ruled throughout their being, let us not condemn, but rejoice in the expression by man of his own rest in the statutes of the lands that gave him birth. Let us watch him with reverence as he sets side by side the burning gems, and smooths with soft sculpture the jasper pillars, that are to reflect a ceaseless sunshine, and rise into a cloudless sky : but not with less reverence let us stand by him, when, with rough strength and hurried stroke, he smites an uncouth animation out of the rocks which he has torn from among the moss of the moorland, and heaves into the darkened air the pile of iron buttress and rugged wall, instinct with work of an imagination as wild and wayward as the northern sea ; creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of wolfish life ; fierce as the winds that beat, and change- ful as the clouds that shade them. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 8. 54 WRITINGS OF JOHN RTJSKIN. CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. The Open Sky. — It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which Nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. There are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization; but every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be answered, if once in three days, or thereabouts, a great, ugly, black rain-cloud were brought up over the blue, and every thing well watered, and so all left blue again till next time, with perhaps a him of morning and evening mist for dew. And instead of this, there is not a moment of any day of our lives, when nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us, and intended for our perpetual pleasure. And every man, wherever placed, however far from other sources of interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few ; it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of them; he injures them by his presence, he ceases to feel them if he be always with them : but the sky is for all ; bright as it is, it is not “ Too bright, nor good, Tor human nature’s daily food;” it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing it and purifying it from its dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two moments together; CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 55 almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tender- ness, almost divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us is as distinct, as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal, is essential. And yet we never attend to it, we never make it a subject of thought, but as it has to do with our animal sensations ; we look upon all by which it speaks to us more clearly than to brutes, upon all which bears witness to the intention of the Supreme that we are to receive more from the covering vault than the light and the dew which we share with the weed and the worm, only as a succession of meaningless and monotonous accident, too common and too vain to be worthy of a moment of. watchful- ness, or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of? One says, it has been wet ; and another, it has been windy ; and another, it has been warm. Who, among the whole chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at noon yesterday ? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of the south, and smote upon their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain ? Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight left them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like withered leaves ? All has passed, unregretted as unseen; or if the apathy be ever shaken off, even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, or what is extraordinary ; and yet it is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the whirlwind, that the highest characters of the sublime are developed. God is not in the earthquake, nor in the fire ; but in the still, small voice. They are but the blunt and the low faculties of our nature, which can only be addressed through lampblack and lightning. It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the perpetual ; that which must be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood ; things which the angels work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally ; which are never wanting and never repeated ; which are to 56 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. be found always, yet each found but once ; it is through these that the lesson of devotion is chiefly taught, and the blessing of beauty given. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 3, ch. i. §1,2,3. Aspects of Clouds. — Stand upon the peak of some isolated mountain at daybreak, when the night mists first rise from off the plains, and watch their white and lake-like fields, as they float in level bays and winding gulfs about the islanded sum- mits of the lower hills, untouched yet by more than dawn, colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon of midnight; watch when the first sunbeam is sent upon the silver channels, how the foam of their undulating surface parts and passes away, and down under their depths the glittering city and green pasture lie like Atlantis, between the white paths of winding rivers ; the flakes of light falling every moment faster and broader among the starry spires, as the wreathed surges break and vanish above them, and the con- fused crests and ridges of the dark hills shorten their grey- shadows upon the plain. Wait a little longer, and you shall see those scattered mists rallying in the ravines, and floating up towards you, along the winding valleys, till they couch in quiet masses, iridescent with the morning light,* upon the broad breasts of the higher hills, whose leagues of massy undulation will melt back and back into that robe of material light, until they fade away, lost in its lustre, to appear again above, in the serene heaven, like a wild, bright, impossible dream, foundationless and inaccessible, their very bases vanishing in the unsubstantial and mocking blue of the deep lake below. Wait yet a little longer, and you shall see those mists gather themselves into white towers, and stand like fortresses along the promontories, massy and motionless, only piled with every instant higher and higher into the sky, and casting longer shadows athwart the rocks; and out of the pale * I have often seen the white, thin, morning cloud, edged with the seven colours of the prism. I am not aware of the cause of this phe- nomenon, for it takes place not when we stand with our backs to the sun, but in clouds near the sun itself, irregularly and over indefinite spaces, sometimes taking plage in the body of the cloud. The colours are distinct and vivid, but have a kind of metallic lustre upon them. CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 57 blue of the horizon you will see forming and advancing a troop of narrow, dark, pointed vapours, which will cover the sky, inch by inch, with their grey network, and take the light off the landscape with an eclipse which will, stop the singing of the birds and the motion of the leaves, together ; and then you will see horizontal bars of black shadow forming under them, and lurid wreaths create themselves, you know not how, along the shoulders of the hills ; you never see them form, but when you look back to a place which was clear an instant ago, there is a cloud on it, hanging by the precipices, as a hawk pauses over his prey. And then you will hear the sudden rush of the awakened wind, and you will see those watch-towers of vapour swept away from their foundations, and waving curtains of opaque rain let down to the valleys, swinging from the burdened clouds in black bending fringes, or pacing in pale columns along the lake level, grazing its surface into foam as they go. And then, as the sun sinks, you shall see the storm drift for an instant from off the hills, leaving their broad sides smoking, and loaded yet with snow- white, torn, steam-like rags of capricious vapour, now gone, now gathered again; while the smouldering sun, seeming not far away, but burning like a red-hot ball beside you, and as if you could reach it, plunges through the rushing wind and rolling cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all the air about it with blood. And then you shall hear the fainting tempest die in the hollow of the night, and you shall see a green halo kindling on the summit of the eastern hills, brighter — brighter yet, till the large white circle of the slow moon is lifted up among the barred clouds, step by step, line by line ; star after star she quenches with her kindling light, setting in their stead an army of pale, penetrable, fleecy wreaths in the heaven, to give light upon the earth, which move together, hand in hand, company by company, troop by troop, so measured in their unity of motion, that the whole heaven seems to roll with them, and the earth to reel under them. And then wait yet for one hour, until the east again becomes purple,* and the heaving mountains, rolling against it in darkness, like waves of a wild sea, are 58 WRITINGS OF JOHN 11USKIN. drowned one by one in the glory of its burning: watch the white glaciers blaze in their winding paths about the moun- tains, like mighty serpents with scales of fire: watch the columnar peaks of solitary snow, kindling downwards, chasm by chasm, each in itself a new morning; their long avalanches cast down in keen streams brighter than the lightning, send- ing each his tribute of driven snow, like altar-smoke, up to the heaven ; the rose-light of their silent domes flushing that heaven about them and above them, piercing with purer light through its purple lines of lifted cloud, casting a new glory on every wreath as it passes by, until the whole heaven, one scarlet canopy, is interwoven with a roof of waving flame, and tossing, vault beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many companies of angels : and then, when you can look no more for gladness, and when you are bowed down with fear and love of the Maker and Doer of this, tell me who has best delivered this His message unto men ! — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 3, ch.iv. § 35,36,37,38. Mysteries of the Clouds. — That mist which lies in the morning so softly in the valley, level and white, through which the tops of the trees rise as if through an inundation — why is it so heavy ? and why does it lie so low, being yet so thin and frail that it will melt away utterly into splendour of morning, when the sun has shone on it but a few moments more ? Those colossal pyramids, huge and firm, with outlines as of rocks, and strength to bear the beating of the high sun full on their fiery flanks — why are they so light, — their bases high over our heads, high over the heads of Alps ? why will these melt away, not as the sun rises, but as he descends, and leave the stars of twilight clear, while the valley vapour gains again upon the earth like a shroud ? Or that ghost of a cloud, which steals by yonder clump of pines : nay, which does not steal by them, but haunts them, wreathing yet round them, and yet — and yet slowly: now falling in a fair waved line like a woman’s veil ; now fading, now gone : we look away for an instant, and look back, and it is again there. What has it to do with that clump CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 59 of pines, that it broods by them and weaves itself among their branches, to and fro ? Has it hidden a cloudy treasure among the moss at their roots, which it watches thus ? Or has some strong enchanter charmed it into fond returning, or bound it fast within those bars of bough ? And yonder filmy crescent, bent like an archer’s bow above the snowy summit, the highest of all the hill, — that white arch which never forms but over the supreme crest, — how is it stayed there, repelled apparently from the snow — nowhere touching it, the clear sky seen between it and the mountain edge, yet never leaving it — poised as a white bird hovers over its nest ? Or those war-clouds that gather on the horizon, dragon- crested, tongued with fire; — how is their barbed strength bridled ? what bits are these they are champing with their vaporous lips ; flinging off flakes of black foam ? Leagued leviathans of the Sea of Heaven, out of their nostrils goeth smoke, and their eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. The sword of him that layeth at them cannot hold the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. Where ride the captains of their armies ? Where are set the measures of their march ? Fierce murmurers, answering each other from morning until evening — what rebuke is this which has awed them into peace ? what hand has reined them back by the way by which they came ? I know not if the reader will think at first that questions like these are easily answered. So far from it, I rather believe that some of the mysteries of the clouds never will be understood by us at all. “ Knowest thou the balancings of the clouds ? ” Is the answer ever to be one of pride ? “ The wondrous works of Him which is perfect in know- ledge ? ” Is our knowledge ever to be so ? — M. P. y. Pt. vii. ch. i. §2,3. Splendours of Sunset. — We have been speaking hitherto of what is constant and necessary in nature, of the ordi- nary effects of daylight on ordinary colours, and we repeat again that no gorgeousness of the pallet can reach even GO WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. these. But it is a widely different thing when Nature herself takes a colouring fit, and does something extraordi- nary, something really to exhibit her power. She has a thousand ways and means of rising above herself, but incom- parably the noblest manifestations of her capability of colour are in these sunsets among the high clouds. I speak espe- cially of the moment before the sun sinks, when his light turns pure rose-colour, and when this light falls upon a zenith covered with countless cloud-forms of inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes of vapour, which would in common day- light be pure snow-white, and which give, therefore, fair field to the tone of light. There is, then, no limit to the multi- tude, and no check to the intensity, of the hues assumed. The whole sky from the zenith to the horizon becomes one molten mantling sea of colour and fire ; every black bar turns into massy gold, every ripple and wave into unsullied shadowless crimson, and purple, and scarlet, and colours for which there are no words in language, and no ideas in the inind — things which can only be conceived while they are visible ; the intense hollow blue of the upper sky melting through it all, showing here deep, and pure, and lightness ; there, modulated by the filmy formless body of the trans- parent vapour, till it is lost imperceptibly in its crimson and gold. The concurrence of circumstances necessary to produce the sunsets of which I speak does not take place above five or six times in a summer, and then only for a space of from five to ten minutes, just as the sun reaches the horizon. Considering how seldom people think of looking for a sunset at all, and how seldom, if they do, they are in a position from which it can be fully seen, the chances that their atten- tion should be awake, and their position favourable, during these few flying instants of the year, are almost as nothing. What can the citizen, who can see only the red light on the canvas of the waggon at the end of the street, and the crimson colour of the bricks of his neighbour’s chimney, know of the flood of fire which deluges the sky from the horizon to the zenith ? What can even the quiet inhabitant of the English lowlands, whose scene for the manifestation of CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 61 the fire of heaven is limited to the tops of hayricks, and the rooks’ nests in the old elm trees, know of the mighty passages of splendour which are tossed from Alp to Alp over the azure of a thousand miles of champaign ? Even granting the constant vigour of observation, and supposing the posses- sion of such impossible knowledge, it needs but a moment’s reflection to prove how incapable the memory is of retaining for any time the distinct image of the sources even of its most vivid impressions. What recollection have we of the sunsets which delighted us last year ? We may know that they were magnificent, or glowing, but no distinct image of colour or form is retained — nothing of whose degree (for the great difficulty with the memory is to retain, not facts, but degrees of fact) we could be so certain as to say of anything now presented to us, that it is like it. If we did say so, we should be wrong ; for we may be quite certain that the energy of an impression fades from the memory, and becomes more and more indistinct every day; and thus we compare a faded and indistinct image with the decision and certainty of one present to the senses. How constantly do we affirm that the thunderstorm of last week was the most terrible one we ever saw in our lives, because we compare it, not with the thunderstorm of last year, but with the faded and feeble recollection of it. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 2, ch. ii. § 7, 8. G-rass. — Gather a single blade of grass, and examine for a minute, quietly, its narrow sword-shaped strip of fluted green. Nothing, as it seems there, of notable goodness or beauty. A very little strength, and a very little tallness, and a few delicate long lines meeting in a point — not a perfect point neither, but blunt and unfinished, by no means a creditable or apparently much-cared-for example of Nature’s workman- ship ; made, as it seems, only to be trodden on to-day, and to-morrow to be cast into the oven ; and a little pale and hollow stalk, feeble and flaccid, leading down to the dull brown fibres of roots. And yet, think of it well, and judge whether of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in summer air, and of all strong and goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes or 02 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. good for food — stately palm and pine, strong ash and oak, scented citron, burdened vine — there be any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly graced, as that narrow point of feeble green. It seems to me not to have been without a peculiar significance that our Lord, when about to work the miracle which, of all that He showed, appears to have been felt by the multitude as the most impressive — the miracle of the loaves — commanded the people to sit down by companies u upon the green grass.” He was about to feed them with the principal produce of earth and the sea, the simplest represen- tations of the food of mankind. He gave them the seed of the herb ; He bade them sit down upon the herb itself, which was as great a gift, in its fitness for their joy and rest, as its perfect fruit for their sustenance ; thus, in this single order and act, when rightly understood, indicating for ever- more how the Creator had entrusted the comfort, consolation, and sustenance of man, to the simplest and most despised of all the leafy families of the earth. And well does it fulfil its mission. Consider what we owe merely to the meadow grass, to the covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those soft, and countless, and peaceful spears. The fields ! Follow but forth for a little time the thoughts of all that we ought to recognise in those words. All spring and summer is in them — the walks by silent, scented paths — the rests in noonday heat — the joy of herds and flocks — the power of all shepherd life and medita- tion — the life of sunlight upon the world, falling in emerald streaks, and failing in soft blue shadows, where else it would have struck upon the dark mould, or scorching dust — pas- tures beside the pacing brooks — soft banks and knolls of lowly hills — thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea — crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and softening in their fall the sound of loving voices : all these are summed in those simple words ; and these are not all. We may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift, in our own land; though still, as we think of it longer, the infinite of that meadow sweetness, CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 03 Shakspere’s peculiar joy, would open on us more and more, yet we have it but in part. Go out, in the spring time, among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free ; and as you follow the winding mountain paths, beneath arching boughs all veiled and dim with blossom, — paths that for ever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation, steep to the blue water, studded here and there with new- mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness, — look up towards the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines ; and we may, perhaps, at last know the meaning of those quiet words of the 147th Psalm, “ He maketh grass to grow up on the mountains.” There are also several lessons symbolically connected with this subject, which we must not allow to escape us. Observe, the peculiar characters of the grass, which adapt it especially for the service of man, are its apparent humility , and cheer- fulness. Its humility, in that it. seems created only for lowest service, — appointed to be trodden on, and fed upon. Its cheerfulness, in that it seems to exult under all kinds of violence and suffering. You roll it, and it is stronger the next day ; you mow it, and it multiplies its shoots, as if it were grateful ; you tread upon it, and it only sends up richer perfume. Spring comes, and it rejoices with all the earth, — glowing with variegated flame of flowers, — waving in soft depth of fruitful strength. Winter comes, and though it will not mock its fellow plants by growing then, it will not pine and mourn, and turn colourless or leafless as they. It is always green ; and is only the brighter and gayer for the hoar-frost. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch.xiv. § 51, 52. Vegetation. — What infinite wonderfulness there is in this vegetation, considered, as indeed it is, the means by which the earth becomes the companion of man — his friend and his teacher ! In the conditions which we have traced in its G4 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. rocks, there could only be seen preparation for his existence ; — the characters which enable him to live on it safely, and to work with it easily — in all these it has been inanimate and passive; but vegetation is to it as an imperfect soul, given to meet the soul of man. The earth in its depths must remain dead and cold, incapable except of slow crystalline change ; but at its surface, which human beings look upon and deal with, it ministers to them through a veil of strange inter- mediate being ; which breathes, but has no voice ; moves, but cannot leave its appointed place ; passes through life without consciousness, to death without bitterness ; wears the beauty of youth, without its passion; and declines to the weakness of age, without its regret. And in this mystery of intermediate being, entirely subor- dinate to us, with which we can deal as we choose, having just the greater power as we have the less responsibility for our treatment of the unsuffering creature, most of the pleasures which we need from the external world are gathered, and most of the lessons we need are written, all kinds of precious grace and teaching being united in this link between the Earth and Man : wonderful in universal adapta- tion to his need, desire, and discipline ; God’s daily pre- paration of the earth for him, with beautiful means of life. First, a carpet to make it soft for him ; then, a coloured fantasy of embroidery thereon; then, tall spreading of foliage to shade him from sun-heat, and shade also the fallen rain, that it may not dry quickly back into the clouds, but stay to nourish the springs among the moss. Stout wood to bear this leafage : easily to be cut, yet tough and light, to make houses for him, or instruments (lance-shaft, or plough-handle, according to his temper) ; useless it had been, if harder ; useless, if less fibrous ; useless, if less elastic. Winter comes, and the shade of leafage falls away, to let the sun warm the earth ; the strong boughs remain, breaking the strength of winter winds. The seeds which are to prolong the race, innumerable according to the need, are made beautiful and palatable, varied into infinitude of appeal to the fancy of man, or provision for his service : cold juice, or glowing spice, or CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 65 balm, or incense, softening oil, preserving resin, medicine of styptic, febrifuge, or lulling charm : and all these presented in forms of endless change. Fragility or force, softness and strength, in all degrees and aspects ; unerring uprightness, as of temple pillars, or undivided wandering of feeble tendrils on the ground ; mighty resistances of rigid arm and limb to the storms of ages, or wavings to and fro with faintest pulse of summer streamlet. Roots cleaving the strength of rock, or binding the transience of the sand ; crests basking in sun- shine of the desert, or hiding by dripping spring and lightless cave ; foliage far tossing in entangled fields beneath every wave of ocean — clothing with variegated, everlasting films, the peaks of the trackless mountains, or ministering at cottage doors to every gentlest passion and simplest joy of humanity. Being thus prepared for us in all ways, and made beau- tiful, and good for food, and for building, and for instruments of our hands, this race of plants, deserving boundless affection and admiration from us, become, in proportion to their obtain- ing it, a nearly perfect test of our being in right temper of mind and way of life ; so that no one can be far wrong in either who loves the trees enough, and every one is assuredly wrong in both, who does not love them, if his life has brought them in his way. — M. P. V. Pt. vi. ch. i. § 2, 3, 4. Leafage of Trees. — One of the most remarkable characters of natural leafage is the constancy with which, while the leaves are arranged on the spray with exquisite regularity, that regularity is modified in their actual effect. For as in every group of leaves some are seen sideways, forming merely long lines, some foreshortened, some crossing each other, every one differently turned and placed from all the others, the forms of the leaves, though in themselves similar, give rise to a thousand strange and differing forms in the group ; and the shadows of some, passing over the others, still fiirther disguise and confuse the mass, until the eye can distinguish nothing but a graceful and flexible disorder of innumerable forms, with here and there a perfect leaf on the extremity, or a symmetrical association of one or two, just 5 6G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. enough to mark the specific character and to give unity and grace, but never enough to repeat in one group what was done in another, never enough to prevent the eye from feeling that, however regular and mathematical may be the structure of parts, what is composed out of them is as various and infinite as any other part of nature. Nor does this take place in general effect only. Break off an elm bough three feet long, in full leaf, and lay it on the table before you, and try to draw it, leaf for leaf. It is ten to one if in the whole bough (provided you do not twist it about as you work) you find one form of a leaf exactly like another ; perhaps you will not even have one complete. Every leaf will be oblique, or foreshortened, or curled, or crossed by another, or shaded by another, or have something or other the matter with it ; and though the whole bough will look graceful and symmetrical, you will scarcely be able to tell how or why it does so, since there is not one line of it like another But if Nature is so various when you have a bough on the table before you, w r hat must she be when she retires from you, and gives you her whole mass and multitude? The leaves then at the extremities become as fine as dust, a mere confusion of points and lines between you and the sky, a confusion which you might as well hope to draw sea-sand particle by particle, as to imitate leaf for leaf. This, as it comes down into the body of the tree, gets closer, but never opaque ; it is always transparent, with crumbling lights in it letting you through to the sky : then, out of this, come, heavier and heavier, the masses of illumined foliage, all dazzling and inextricable, save here and there a single leaf on the extremi- ties : then, under these, you get deep passages of broken irregular gloom, passing into transparent, green-lighted, misty hollows; the twisted stems glancing through them in their pale and entangled infinity, and the shafted sunbeams, rained from above, running along the lustrous leaves for an instant ; then lost, then caught again on some emerald bank or knotted root, to be sent up again with a faint reflex on the white under-sides of dim groups of drooping foliage, the shadows of the upper boughs running in grey network down the glossy CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 67 stems, and resting in quiet chequers upon the glittering earth ; but all penetrable and transparent, and, in proportion, in- extricable and incomprehensible, except where across the labyrinth and the mystery of the dazzling light and dream- like shadow, falls, close to us, some solitary spray, some wreath of two or three motionless large leaves, the type and embodying of all that in the rest we feel and imagine, but ean never see. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 6, ch. i. § 16, 17, 18. Branchings of Trees. — And in speaking of trees gene- rally, be it observed, when I say all trees, I mean only those ordinary forest or copse trees of Europe, which are the chief subjects of the landscape painter. I do not mean to include every kind of foliage which by any accident can find its way into a picture, but the ordinary trees of Europe ; oak, elm, ash, hazel, willow, birch, beech, poplar, chestnut, pine, mul- berry, olive, ilex, carob, and such others. I do not purpose to examine the characteristics of each tree ; it will be enough to observe the laws common to all. First, then, neither the stems nor the boughs of any of the above trees taper , except where they fork. Wherever a stem sends off a branch, or a branch a lesser bough, or a lesser bough a bud, the stem or the branch is, on the instant, less in diameter by the exact quantity of the branch or the bough they have sent off, and they remain of the same diameter ; or if there be any change, rather increase than diminish until they send off another branch or bough. This law is imperative and without excep- tion ; no bough, nor stem, nor twig, ever tapering or becoming narrower towards its extremity by a hair’s-breadth, save where it parts with some portion of its substance at a fork or bud, so that if all the twigs and sprays at the top and sides of the tree, which are, and have been , could be united without loss of space, they would form a round log of at least the diameter of the trunk from which they spring. But as the trunks of most trees send off twigs and sprays of light under-foliage, of which every individual fibre takes precisely its own thickness of wood from the parent stem, and as many of these drop off, leaving nothing but a small ex- 5—2 G8 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. crescence to record their existence, there is frequently a slight and delicate appearance of tapering caused in the trunk itself ; while the same operation takes place much more extensively in the branches : it being natural to almost all trees to send out from their young limbs more wood than they can support; which, as the stem increases, gets contracted at the point of insertion, so as to check the flow of the sap, and then dies and drops off, leaving all along the bough, first on one side, then on another, a series of small excrescences sufficient to account for a degree of tapering, which is yet so very slight, that if we select a portion of a branch with no real fork or living bough to divide it or diminish it, the tapering is scarcely to be detected by the eye ; and if we select a portion without such evidences of past ramification, there will be found none whatsoever. But Nature takes great care and pains to conceal this uniformity in her boughs. They are perpetually parting with little sprays here and there, which steal away their substance cautiously, and where the eye does not perceive the theft, until, a little way above, it feels the loss ; and in the upper parts of the tree, the ramifications take place so con- stantly and delicately, that the effect upon the eye is precisely the same as if the boughs actually tapered, except here and there, where some avaricious one, greedy of substance, runs on for two or three yards without parting with anything, and becomes ungraceful in so doing. Hence we see that although boughs may, and must be, represented as actually tapering, they must only be so when they are sending off foliage and sprays, and when they are at such a distance that the particular forks and divi- sions cannot be evident to the eye ; and farther, even in such circumstances, the tapering never can be sudden or rapid. No bough ever, with appearance of smooth tapering, loses more than one-tenth of its diameter in a length of ten diameters. Any greater diminution than this must be ac- counted for by visible ramification, and must take place by steps, at each fork. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 6, ch. i. § 2, 3, 4, 5. * CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 09 The Pine. — O f the many marked adaptations of nature to the mind of man, it seems one of the most singular, that trees intended especially for the adornment of the wildest moun- tains should be, in broad outline, the most formal of trees. The vine, which is to be the companion of man, is waywardly docile in its growth, falling into festoons beside his cornfields, or roofing his garden-walks, or casting its shadow all summer upon his door. Associated always with the trimness of cul- tivation, it introduces all possible elements of sweet wildness. The pine, placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate, brings into them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them, or a bank of cowslips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem; — it shall point to the centre of the earth as long as the tree lives I wish the reader to fix his attention for a moment on these two great characters of the pine, its straightness and rounded perfectness ; both wonderful, and in their issue lovely, though they have hitherto prevented the tree from being drawn. I say, first, its straightness. Because we constantly see it in the wildest scenery, we are apt to remember only as charac- teristic examples of it those which have been disturbed by violent accident or disease. Of course, such instances are frequent. The soil of the pine is subject to continual change; perhaps the rock in which it is rooted splits in frost and falls forward, throwing the young stems aslope, or the whole mass of earth round it is undermined by rain, or a huge boulder falls on its stem from above, and forces it for twenty years to grow with weight of a couple of tons leaning on its side. Hence, especially at edges of loose cliffs, about waterfalls, or at glacier banks, and in other places liable to disturbance, the pine may be seen distorted and oblique Other trees, tufting crag or hill, yield to the form and sway 70 WHITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. of the ground, clothe it with soft compliance, are partly itfl subjects, partly its flatterers, partly its comforters. But the pine rises in serene resistance, self-contained ; nor can I ever without awe stay long under a great Alpine cliff, far from all house or work of men, looking up to its companies of pine, as they stand on the inaccessible juts and perilous ledges of the enormous wall, in quiet multitudes, each like the shadow of the one beside it — upright, fixed, spectral, as troops of ghosts standing on the walls of Hades, not knowing each other — * dumb for ever. You cannot reach them, cannot cry to them ; — those trees never heard human voice ; they are far above all sound but of the winds. No foot ever stirred fallen leaf of theirs. All comfortless they stand, between the two eternities of the Vacancy and the Bock : yet with such iron will, that the rock itself looks bent and shattered beside them — fragile, weak, inconsistent, compared to their dark energy of delicate life, and monotony of enchanted pride : — unnum- bered, unconquerable. Then note, farther, their perfectness. The impression on most people’s minds must have been received more from pictures than reality, so far as I can judge; — so ragged they think the pine ; whereas its chief character in health is green and full roundness. It stands compact, like one of its own cones, slightly curved on its sides, finished and quaint as a carved tree in some Elizabethan garden ; and instead of being wild in expression, forms the softest of all forest scenery ; for other trees show their trunks and twisting boughs : but the pine, growing either in luxuriant mass or in happy isolation, allows no branch to be seen. Summit behind summit rise its pyramidal ranges, or down to the very grass sweep the circlets of its boughs ; so that there is nothing but green cone and green carpet. Nor is it only softer, but in one sense more cheerful than other foliage ; for it casts only a pyramidal shadow. Lowland forest arches overhead, and chequers the ground with darkness; but the pine, growing in scattered groups, leaves the glades between emerald-bright. Its gloom is all its own ; narrowing into the sky, it lets the sunshine strike down to the dew CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 71 And then the third character which I want you to notice in the pine is its exquisite fineness. Other trees rise against the sky in dots and knots, but this in fringes. You never see the edges of it, so subtle are they ; and for this reason — it alone of trees, so far as I know, is capable of the fiery change which we saw before had been noticed by Shakspere. When the sun rises behind a ridge crested with pine, provided the ridge be at a distance of about two miles, and seen clear, all the trees, for about three or four degrees on each side of the sun, become trees of light, seen in clear flame against the darker sky, and dazzling as the sun itself. I thought at first this was owing to the actual lustre of the leaves ; but I believe now it is caused by the cloud-dew upon them, — every minutest leaf carrying its diamond. It seems as if these trees, living always among the clouds, had caught part of their glory from them ; and themselves the darkest of vegeta- tion, could yet add splendour to the sun itself. — M. P. V. Pt. vi. ch. ix. § 4, 6, 7, 8, 9. Lichen and Mosses. — We have found beauty in the tree yielding fruit, and in the herb yielding seed. How of the herb yielding no seed,* the fruitless, flowerless lichen of the rock ? Lichen, and mosses (though these last in their luxu- riance are deep and rich as herbage, yet both for the most part humblest of the green things that live), — how of these ? Meek creatures ! the first mercy of the earth, veiling with hushed softness its dintless rocks ; creatures full of pity, covering with strange and tender honour the scarred disgrace of ruin, — laying quiet finger on the trembling stones, to teach them rest. No words, that I know of, will say what these mosses are. None are delicate enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough. How is one to tell of the rounded bosses of furred and beaming green, — the starred divisions of rubied bloom, fine-filmed, as if the Kock Spirits could spin porphyry as we do glass, — the traceries of intricate silver, and fringes of * The reader must remember always that my work is concerning the aspects of things only of course a lichen has seeds just as other plants have, but not effectually or visibly for man. 72 WHITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. amber, lustrous, arborescent, burnished through every fibre into fitful brightness and glossy traverses of silken change, yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for simplest, sweetest offices of grace. They will not be gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet or love token ; but of these the wild bird will make its nest, and the wearied child his pillow. And, as the earth’s first mercy, so they are its last gift to us. When all other service is vain, from plant and tree, the soft mosses and gray lichen take up their watch by the head- stone. The woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses, have done their parts for a time, but these do service for ever. Trees for the builder’s yard, flowers for the bride’s chamber, corn for the granary, moss for the grave. Yet as in one sense the humblest, in another they are the most honoured of the earth-children. Unfading as motion- less, the worm frets them not, and the autumn wastes not. Strong in lowliness, they neither blanch in heat nor pine in frost. To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted the weaving of the dark, eternal tapestries of the hills ; to them, slow-pencilled, iris-dyed, the tender framing of their endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they share also its endurance ; and while the winds of departing spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow the drooping of its cowslip-gold, — far above, among the moun- tains, the silver lichen-spots rest, star-like, on the stone ; and the gathering orange-stain upon the edge of yonder western peak reflects the sunsets of a thousand years. — M. P. Y. Pt. vi. ch.x. § 24,25. Mosses on Rock. — I never have had time to examine and throw into classes the varieties of the mosses which grow on the two kinds of rock, nor have I been able to ascertain whether there are really numerous differences between the species, or whether they only grow more luxuriantly on the crystallines than on the coherents. But this is certain, that on the broken rocks of the foreground in the crystalline groups the mosses seem to set themselves consentfully and CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 73 deliberately to the task of producing the most exquisite har- monies of colour in their power. They will not conceal the form of the rock, but will gather over it in little brown bosses, like small cushions of velvet made of mixed threads of dark ruby silk and gold, rounded over more subdued films of white and grey, with lightly crisped and curled edges like hoar frost on fallen leaves, and minute clusters of upright orange stalks with pointed caps, and fibres of deep green, and gold, and faint purple passing into black, all woven together, and follow- ing with unimaginable fineness of gentle growth the undu- lation of the stone they cherish, until it is charged with colour so that it can receive no more ; and instead of looking rugged, or cold, or stern, as anything that a rock is held to be at heart, it seems to be clothed with a soft, dark leopard skin, embroidered with arabesque of purple and silver. But in the lower ranges this is not so. The mosses grow in more inde- pendent spots, not in such a clinging and tender way over the whole surface ; the lichens are far poorer and fewer ; and the colour of the stone itself is seen more frequently ; altered, if at all, only into a little chiller grey than when it is freshly broken. So that a limestone landscape is apt to be dull and cold in general tone, with some aspect even of barrenness. — M. P. IY. Pt. v. ch. xi. § 6. Love of Flowers. — Perhaps, it may be thought, if we understood flowers better, we might love them less. We do not love them much, as it is. Few people care about flowers. Many, indeed, are fond of finding a new shape of blossom, caring for it as a child cares about a kaleido- scope. Many, also, like a fair service of flowers in the greenhouse, as a fair service of plate on the table. Many are scientifically interested in them, though even these in the nomenclature rather than the flowers. And a few enjoy their gardens : but Phave never heard of a piece of land, which would let well on a building lease, remaining unlet because it was a flowery piece. I have never heard of parks being kept for wild hyacinths, though often of their being kept for wild beasts. And the blossoming time of the year 74 WKITIXGS OF JOHN EUSKIN. being principally spring, I perceive it to be the mind of most people, during that period, to stay in towns. A year or two ago, a keen-sighted and eccentrically-minded friend of mine, having taken it into his head to violate this national custom, and go to the Tyrol in spring, was passing through a valley near Landech, with several similarly head- strong companions. A strange mountain appeared in the distance, belted about its breast with a zone of blue, like our English Queen. Was it a blue cloud ? A blue horizontal bar of the air that Titian breathed in youth, seen now far away, which mortal might never breathe again ? Yfas it a mirage — a meteor ? Would it stay to be approached? (ten miles of winding road yet between them and the foot of its mountain.) Such questioning had they concerning it. My keen-sighted friend alone maintained it to be substantial : whatever it might be, it was not air, and would not vanish. The ten miles of road were overpassed, the carriage left, the mountain climbed. It stayed patiently, expanding still into richer breadth and heavenlier glow — a belt of gentians. Such things may verily be seen among the Alps in spring, and in spring only. Which being so, I observe most people prefer going in autumn. — M. P. Y. Pt. vi. ch. x. § 2, 3. Charm of Flowers. — Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity : children love them ; quiet, tender, contented ordinary people love them as they grow ; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them gathered. They are the cottager’s treasure ; and in the crowded town, mark, as with a little broken fragment of rainbow, the windows of the workers in whose heart rests the covenant of peace. Passionate or religious minds contemplate them with fond, feverish intensity ; the affection is seen severely calm in the works of many old religious painters, and mixed with more open and true country sentiment in those of our own pre- Raphaelites. To the child and the girl, the peasant and the manufacturing operative, to the grisette and the nun, the lover and monk, they are precious always. But to the men CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 75 of supreme power and thoughtfulness, precious only at times ; symbolically and pathetically often to the poets, but rarely for their own sake. They fall forgotten from the great work- men’s and soldiers’ hands. Such men will take, in thankful- ness, crowns of leaves, or crowns of thorns — not crowns of flowers. — M. P. V. Pt. vi. ch. x. §7. Stones. — There are no natural objects out of which more can be thus learned than out of stones. They seem to have been created especially to reward a patient observer. Nearly all other objects in nature can be seen, to some extent, with- out patience, and are pleasant even in being half seen. Trees, clouds, and rivers are enjoyable even by the careless ; but the stone under his foot has for carelessness nothing in it but stumbling no pleasure is languidly to be had out of it, nor food, nor good of any kind ; nothing but symbolism of the hard heart and the unfatherly gift. And yet, do but give it some reverence and watchfulness, and there is bread of thought in it, more than in any other lowly feature of all the landscape. For a stone, when it is examined, will be found a mountain in miniature. The fineness of Nature’s work is so great, that, into a single block, a foot or two in diameter, she can compress as many changes of form and structure, on a small scale, as she needs for her mountains on a large one ; and, taking moss for forests, and grains of crystal for crags, the surface of a stone, in by far the plurality of instances, is more interesting than the surface of an ordinary hill ; more fantastic in form, and incomparably richer in colour. — M. P. iv. Pt. v. ch. xviii. § 6, 7. Office of the Mountains. — It is deeply necessary for all men to consider the magnificence of the accomplished purpose, and the depth of the wisdom and love which are manifested in the ordinances of the hills. For observe, in order to bring the world into the form which it now bears, it was not mere sculpture that was needed ; the mountains could not stand for 7G WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. a day unless they were formed of materials altogether different from those which constitute the lower hills, and the surfaces of the valleys. A harder substance had to be prepared for every mountain chain ; yet not so hard but that it might be capable of crumbling down into earth fit to nourish the alpine forest and the alpine flower; not so hard but that, in the midst of the utmost majesty of its enthroned strength, there should be seen on it the seal of death, and the writing of the same sentence that had gone forth against the human frame, “ Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” And with this perishable substance the most majestic forms were to be framed that were consistent with the safety of man ; and the peak was to be lifted, and the cliff rent, as high and as steeply as was possible, in order yet to permit the shepherd to feed his flocks upon the slope, and the cottage to nestle beneath their shadow. And observe, two distinct ends were to be accomplished in the doing this. It was, indeed, absolutely necessary that such eminences should be created, in order to fit the earth in any wise for human habitation ; for without mountains the air could not be purified, nor the flowing of the rivers sustained, and the earth must have become for the most part desert plain, or stagnant marsh. But the feeding of the rivers and the purifying of the winds are the least of the services appointed to the hills. To fill the thirst of the human heart for the beauty of God’s working, — to startle its lethargy with the deep and pure agitation of astonishment, — are their higher missions. They are as a great and noble architecture; first giving shelter, comfort, and rest ; and covered also with mighty sculpture and painted legend. It is impossible to examine in their connected system the features of even the most ordinary mountain scenery, without concluding that it has been prepared in order to unite as far as possible, and in the closest compass, every means of delighting and sanctifying the heart of man. “As far as possible;" that is, as far as is consistent with the fulfilment of the sentence of condem- nation on the whole earth. Death must be upon the hills ; and the cruelty of the tempests smite them, and the briar CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 77 and thorn spring up upon them : but they so smite, as to bring their rocks into the fairest forms ; and so spring, as to make the very desert blossom as the rose. Even among our own hills of Scotland and Cumberland, though often too barren to be perfectly beautiful, and always too low to be perfectly sublime, it is strange how many deep sources of delight are gathered into the compass of their glens and vales ; and how, down to the most secret cluster of their far-away flowers, and the idlest leap of their straying streamlets, the whole heart of Nature seems thirsting to give, and still to give, shedding forth her everlasting beneficence with a pro- fusion so patient, so passionate, that our utmost observance and thankfulness are but, at last, neglect of her nobleness, and apathy to her love. But among the true mountains of the greater orders the Divine purpose of appeal at once to all the faculties of the human spirit becomes still more manifest. Inferior hills ordinarily interrupt, in some degree, the richness of the valleys at their feet ; the grey downs of southern England, and treeless coteaux of central France, and grey swells of Scottish moor, whatever peculiar charm they may possess in themselves, are at least destitute of those which belong to the woods and fields of the lowlands. But the great mountains lift the lowlands on their sides. Let the reader imagine, first, the appearance of the most varied plain of some richly cultivated country; let him imagine it dark with graceful woods, and soft with deepest pastures ; let him fill the space of it, to the utmost horizon, with innumerable and changeful incidents of scenery and life ; leading pleasant streamlets through its meadows, strewing clusters of cottages beside their banks, tracing sweet footpaths through its avenues, and animating its fields with happy flocks, and slow wandering spots of cattle ; and when he has wearied himself with endless imagining, and left no space without some love- liness of its own, let him conceive all this great plain, with its infinite treasures of natural beauty and happy human life, gathered up in God’s hands from one edge of the horizon to the other, like a woven garment ; and shaken into deep falling folds, as the robes droop from a king’s shoulders ; all 78 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. its bright rivers leaping into cataracts along the hollows of its fall, and all its forests rearing themselves aslant against its slopes, as a rider rears himself back when his horse plunges ; and all its villages nestling themselves into the new windings of its glens ; and all its pastures thrown into steep waves of greensward, dashed with dew along the edges of their folds, and sweeping down into endless slopes, with a cloud here and there lying quietly, half on the grass, half in the air; and he will have as yet, in all this lifted world, only the foundation of one of the great Alps. And whatever is lovely in the lowland scenery becomes lovelier in this change: the trees which grew heavily and stiffly from the level line of plain assume strange curves of strength and grace as they bend themselves against the mountain side ; they breathe more freely, and toss their branches more carelessly as each climbs higher, looking to the clear light above the topmost leaves of its brother tree : the flowers which on the arable plain fell before the plough, now find out for themselves unapproachable places, where year by year they gather into happier fellowship, and fear no evil ; and the streams which in the level land crept in dark eddies by unwholesome banks, now move in showers of silver, and are clothed with rainbows, and bring health and life wherever the glance of their waves can reach. — M. P. iy. Pt. v. ch. vii. § 3, 4. Alpine Mountain Forms. — The longer I stayed among the Alps, and the more closely I examined them, the more I was struck by the one broad fact of their being a vast Alpine plateau, or mass of elevated land, upon which nearly all the highest peaks stood like children set upon a table, removed, in most cases, far back from the edge of the plateau, as if for fear of their falling. And the most majestic scenes in the Alps are produced, not so much by any violation of this law, as by one of the great peaks having apparently walked to the edge of the table to look over, and thus showing itself suddenly above the valley in its full height. This is the case with the Wetterhorn and Eiger at Grindelwald, and with the Grande Jorasse, above the Col de Ferret. But the raised CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 79 bank or table is always intelligibly in existence, even in these apparently exceptional cases ; and, for the most part, the great peaks are not allowed to come to the edge of it, but remain like the keeps of castles far withdrawn, surrounded, league beyond league, by comparatively level fields of mountain, over which the lapping sheets of glacier writhe and flow, foaming about the feet of the dark central crests like the surf of an enormous sea-breaker hurled over a rounded rock, and islanding some fragment of it in the midst. And the result of this arrangement is a kind of division of the whole of Switzerland into an upper and lower mountain- world ; the lower world consisting of rich valleys bordered by steep, but easily accessible, wooded banks of mountain, more or less divided by ravines, through which glimpses are caught of the higher Alps ; the upper world, reached after the first steep banks, of 3,000 or 4,000 feet in height, have been surmounted, consisting of comparatively level, but most desolate, tracts of moor and rock, half covered by glacier, and stretching to the feet of the true pinnacles of the chain. It can hardly be necessary to point out the perfect wisdom and kindness of this arrangement, as a provision for the safety of the inhabitants of the high mountain regions. If the great peaks rose at once from the deepest valleys, every stone which was struck from their pinnacles, and every snow- wreath which slipped from their ledges, would descend at once upon the inhabitable ground, over which no year would pass without recording some calamity of earth-slip or avalanche ; while, in the course of their fall, both the stones and the snow would strip the woods from the hill sides, leaving only naked channels of destruction where there are now the sloping meadow and the chestnut glade. Besides this, the masses of snow, cast down at once into the warmer air, would all melt rapidly in the spring, causing furious inundation of every great river for a month or six weeks. The snow being then all thawed, except what lay upon the highest peaks in regions of nearly perpetual frost, the rivers would be supplied, during the summer, only by fountains, and the feeble tricklings on sunny days from the high snows. 80 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. The Rhone under such circumstances would hardly be larger at Lyons than the Severn at Shrewsbury, and many Swiss valleys would be left almost without moisture. All these calamities are prevented by the peculiar Alpine structure which has been described. The broken rocks and the sliding snow of the high peaks, instead of being dashed at once to the vales, are caught upon the desolate shelves or shoulders which everywhere surround the central crests. The soft banks which terminate these shelves, traversed by no falling fragments, clothe themselves with richest wood ; while the masses of snow heaped upon the ledge above them, in a climate neither so warm as to thaw them quickly in the spring, nor so cold as to protect them from all the power of the summer sun, either form themselves into glaciers, or remain in slowly wasting fields even to the close of the year, — in either case supplying constant, abundant, and regular streams to the villages and pastures beneath, and to the rest of Europe, noble and navigable rivers. Now, that such a structure is the best and wisest possible, is, indeed, sufficient reason for its existence ; and to many people it may seem useless to question farther respecting its origin. But I can hardly conceive any one standing face to face with one of these towers of central rock, and yet not also asking himself, Is this indeed the actual first work of the Divine Master on which I gaze ? Was the great precipice shaped by His finger, as Adam was shaped out of the dust ? Were its clefts and ledges carved upon it by its Creator, as the letters were on the Tables of the Law, and was it thus left to bear its eternal testimony to His beneficence among these clouds of heaven ? Or is it the descendant of a long race of mountains, existing under appointed laws of birth and endurance, death and decrepitude ? There can be no doubt as to the answer. The rock itself answers audibly by the murmur of some falling stone or rending pinnacle. It is not as it was once. Those waste leagues around its feet are loaded with the wrecks of what it was. On these, perhaps, of all mountains, the characters of decay are written most clearly ; around these are spread CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 81 most gloomily the memorials of their pride, and the signs of their humiliation. — M. P. IV. Pt. v. ch. xiii. §11, 12, 13, 14. Beauty of Mountains. — The best image which the world can give of Paradise is in the slope of the meadows, orchards, and corn-fields on the sides of a great Alp, with its purple rocks and eternal snows above ; this excellence not being in any wise a matter referable to feeling, or individual prefer- ences, but demonstrable by calm enumeration of the number of lovely colours on the rocks, the varied grouping of the trees, and quantity of noble incidents in stream, crag, or cloud, presented to the eye at any given moment. For consider, first, the difference produced in the whole tone of landscape colour by the introduction of purple, violet, and deep ultramarine blue, which we owe to mountains. In an ordinary lowland landscape we have the blue of the sky ; the green of grass, which I will suppose (and this is an unnecessary concession to the lowlands) entirely fresh and bright ; the green of trees ; and certain elements of purple, far more rich and beautiful than we generally should think, in their bark and shadows (bare hedges and thickets, or tops of trees, in subdued afternoon sunshine, are nearly perfect purple, and of an exquisite tone), as well as in ploughed fields, and dark ground in general. But among mountains, in addition to all this, large unbroken spaces of pure violet and purple are introduced in their distances ; and even near, by films of cloud passing over the darkness of ravines or forests, blues are produced of the most subtle tenderness; these azures and purples passing into rose-colour of other- wise wholly unattainable delicacy among the upper summits, the blue of the sky being at the same time purer and deeper than in the plains. Nay, in some sense, a person who has never seen the rose-colour of the rays of dawn crossing a blue mountain twelve or fifteen miles away, can hardly be said to know what tenderness in colour means at all ; bright tenderness he may, indeed, see in the sky or in a flower, but this grave tenderness of the far-away hill-purples he cannot conceive. 6 82 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. Together with this great source of pre-eminence in mass of colour, we have to estimate the influence of the finished in- laying and enamel- work of the colour-jewellery on every stone ; and that of the continual variety in species of flower ; most of the mountain flowers being, besides, separately lovelier than the lowland ones. The wood hyacinth and wild rose are, indeed, the only supreme flowers that the lowlands can gene- rally show ; and the wild rose is also a mountaineer, and more fragrant in the hills, while the wood hyacinth, or grape hyacinth, at its best, cannot match even the dark bell-gentian, leaving the light-blue star-gentian in its uncontested queenli- ness, and the Alpine rose and Highland heather wholly without similitude. The violet, lily of the valley, crocus, and wood anemone are, I suppose, claimable partly by the plains as well as the hills ; but the large orange lily and narcissus I have never seen but on hill pastures, and the exquisite oxalis is pre-eminently a mountaineer And, observe, all these superiorities are matters plainly measurable and calculable, not in any wise to be referred to estimate of sensation. Of the grandeur or expression of the hills I have not spoken ; how far they are great, or strong, or terrible, I do not for the moment consider, because vastness, and strength, and terror, are not to all minds subjects of desired contemplation. It may make no difference to some men whether a natural object be* large or small, whether, it be strong or feeble. But loveliness of colour, perfectness of form, endlessness of change, wonderfulness of structure, are precious to all undiseased human minds ; and the supe- riority of the mountains in all these things to the lowland is, I repeat, as measurable as the richness of a painted window matched with a white one, or the wealth of a museum com- pared with that of a simply furnished chamber. They seem to have been built for the human race, as at once their schools and cathedrals ; full of treasures of illuminated manu- script for the scholar, kindly in simple lessons to the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper. And of these great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates of rock, pavements of cloud, choirs of stream CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 83 and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple traversed by the continual stars, — of these, as we have seen, it was written, nor long ago, by one of the best of the poor human race for whom they were built, wondering in himself for whom their Creator could have made them, and thinking to have entirely discerned the Divine intent in them — “ They are inhabited by the Beasts.” — M. P. IY. Pt. v. ch. xx. § 3, 4, 5, 9. Slaty Eocks in a Landscape. — The slaty coherents are often employed to form those landscapes of which the purpose appears to be to impress us with a sense of horror and pain, as a foil to neighbouring scenes of extreme beauty. There are many spots among the inferior ridges of the Alps, such as the Col de Ferret, the Col d’Anterne, and the associated ranges of the Buet, which, though commanding prospects of great nobleness, are themselves very nearly types of all that is most painful to the human mind : vast wastes of mountain ground, covered here and there with dull grey grass or moss, but breaking continually into black banks of shattered slate, all glistening and sodden with slow tricklings of clogged, incapable streams ; the snow water oozing through them in a cold sweat, and spreading itself in creeping stains among their dust ; ever and anon a shaking here and there, and a handful or two of their particles or flakes trembling down, one sees not why, into more total dissolution, leaving a few jagged teeth, like the edges of knives eaten away by vinegar, projecting through the half-dislodged mass from the inner rock, keen enough to cut the hand or foot that rests on them, yet crumbling as they wound, and soon sinking again into the smooth, slippery, glutinous heap, looking like a beach of black scales of dead fish, cast ashore from a poisonous sea, and sloping away into foul ravines, branched down immea- surable slopes of barrenness, where the winds howl and wander continually, and the snow lies in wasted and sorrowful fields, covered with sooty dust, that collects in streaks and stains at the bottom of all its thawing ripples. I know no other scenes so appalling as these in storm, or so woful in sunshine. 6—2 84 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Where, however, these same rocks exist in more favourable positions, that is to say, in gentler banks and at lower eleva- tions, they form a ground for the most luxuriant vegetation ; and the valleys of Savoy owe to them some of their loveliest solitudes, — exquisitely rich pastures, interspersed with arable and orchard land, and shaded by groves of walnut and cherry. Scenes of this kind, and of that just described, so singularly opposed, and apparently brought together as foils to each other, are, however, peculiar to certain beds of the slaty coherents, which are both vast in elevation, and easy of destruction. In Wales and Scotland, the same groups of rocks possess far greater hardness, while they attain less elevation ; and the result is a totally different aspect of scenery. The severity of the climate, and the comparative durableness of the rock, forbid the rich vegetation ; but the exposed summits, though barren, are not subject to laws of destruction so rapid and fearful as in Switzerland ; and the natural colour of the rock is oftener developed in the purples and greys which, mingled with the heather, form the principal elements of the deep and beautiful distant blue of the British hills. Their gentler mountain streams also permit the beds of rock to remain in firm, though fantastic forms, along their banks, and the gradual action of the cascades and eddies upon the slaty cleavage produces many pieces of foreground scenery to which higher hills can present no parallel. — M.P . IV. Pt. v. ch. x. § 4, 5. Granite Rocks. — The third universal characteristic of compact crystalline rocks is their decomposition into the purest sand and clay. Some of them decompose sponta- neously, though slowly, on exposure to weather ; the greater number only after being mechanically pulverized ; but the sand and clay to which by one or the other process they are reducible, are both remarkable for their purity. The clay is the finest and best that can be found for porcelain ; the sand often of the purest white, always lustrous aud bright in its particles. The result of this law is a peculiar aspect of purity in the landscape composed of such rocks. It cannot CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 85 become muddy, or foul, or unwholesome. The streams which descend through it may indeed be opaque, and as white as cream with the churned substance of the granite ; but their ■water, after this substance has been thrown down, is good and pure, and their shores are not slimy or treacherous, but of pebbles, or of firm and sparkling sand. The quiet streams, springs, and lakes, are always of exquisite clearness, and the sea which washes a granite coast is as unsullied as a flawless emerald. It is remarkable to what an extent this intense purity in the country seems to influence the character of its inhabitants. It is almost impossible to make a cottage built in a granite country look absolutely miserable. Rough it may be, — neglected, cold, full of aspect of hardship, — but it never can look foul ; no matter how carelessly, how indo- lently, its inhabitants may live, the water at their doors will not stagnate, the soil beneath their feet will not allow itself to be trodden into slime, the timbers of their fences will not rot, they cannot so much as dirty their faces or hands if they try ; do the worst they can, there will still be a feeling of firm ground under them, and pure air about them, and an inherent wholesomeness in their abodes which it will need the misery of years to conquer. And, as far as I remember, the inha- bitants of granite countries have always a force and healthi- ness of character, more or less abated or modified, of course, according to the other circumstances of their life, but still definitely belonging to them, as distinguished from the inha- bitants of the less pure districts of the hills. — M. P. iv. Pt. v. ch. viii. § 18. Water. — Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, and without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we have seen in clouds ; then as the instrument by which the earth we have contem- plated was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled into grace ; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the moun- tains it has made, with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had not seen ; then as it exists in 86 WRITINGS ON JOHN HUSKIN'. the foam of the torrent, in the iris which spans it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and glancing river; finally, in that which is to all human minds the best emblem of unwearied, unconquerable power, the wild, various, fantastic, tameless unity of the sea; what shall we compare to this mighty, this universal element, for glory and for beauty ? or how shall we follow its eternal changefulness of feeling ? It is like trying to paint a soul. To suggest the ordinary appearance of calm water, to lay on canvass as much evidence of surface and reflection as may make us understand that water is meant, is, perhaps, the easiest task of art ; and even ordinary running or falling water may be sufficiently rendered, by observing careful curves of projection with a dark ground, and breaking a little white over it, as we see done with judgment and truth by Euysdael. But to paint the actual play of hue on the reflective surface, or to give the forms and fury of water when it begins to show itself ; to give the flashing and rocket-like velocity of a noble cataract, or the precision and grace of the sea wave, so exquisitely modelled, though so mockingly transient, so mountainous in its form, yet so cloud- like in its motion, with its variety and delicacy of colour, when every ripple and wreath has some peculiar passage of reflection upon itself alone, and the radiating and scintillating sunbeams are mixed with the dim hues of transparent depth and dark rock below — to do this perfectly is beyond the power of man ; to do it even partially has been granted to but one or two, even of those few who have dared to attempt it The fact is that there is hardly a road-side pond or pool which has not as much landscape in it as above it. It is not the brown, muddy, dull thing we suppose it to be ; it has a heart like ourselves, and in the bottom of that there are the boughs of the tall trees, and the blades of the shaking grass, and all manner of hues of variable pleasant light out of the sky. Nay, the ugly gutter, that stagnates over the drain- bars in the heart of the foul city, is not altogether base; CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 87 down in that, if you will look deep enough, you may see the dark serious blue of far-off sky, and the passing of pure clouds. It is at your own will that you see in that despised stream either the refuse of the street, or the image of the sky. So it is with almost all other things that we unkindly despise. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 5, ch. i. §1,2. Beauty of Space. — Few forget the emotion caused by all open ground, or lines of any spacious kind against the sky, behind which there might be conceived the Sea. It is an emotion more pure than that caused by the sea itself, for I recollect distinctly running down behind the banks of a high beach to get their land line cutting against the sky, and receiving a more strange delight from this than from the sight of the ocean. I am not sure that this feeling is common to all children (or would be common, if they were all in circum- stances admitting it), but I have ascertained it to be frequent among those who possess the most vivid sensibilities for nature; and I am certain that the modification of it which belongs to our after years is common to all, the love, namely, of a light distance appearing over a comparatively dark horizon. This I have tested too frequently to be mistaken by offering to indifferent spectators forms of equal abstract beauty in half tint, relieved, the one against dark sky, the other against a bright distance. The preference is invariably given to the latter; and it is very certain that this preference arises not from any supposition of there being greater truth in this than the other, for the same preference is unhesitatingly accorded to the same effect in Nature herself. Whatever beauty there may result from effects of light on foreground objects, from the dew of the grass, the flash of the cascade, the glitter of the birch trunk, or the fair daylight hues of darker things (and joyfulness there is in all of them), there is jet a light which the eye invariably seeks with a deeper feeling of the beautiful, the light of the declining or breaking day, and the flakes of scarlet cloud burning like watch fires in the green sky of the horizon; a deeper feeling, I say, not perhaps more acute, but having more of spiritual hope and 88 WRITINGS OF JOHN 11USKIN. longing, less of animal and present life, more manifest, in- variably, in those of more serious and determined mind (I use the word serious, not as being opposed to cheerful, but to trivial and volatile), but, I think, marked and unfailing even in those of the least thoughtful dispositions. I am willing to let it rest on the determination of every reader, whether the pleasure which he has received from these effects of calm and luminous distance be not the most singular and memorable of which he has been conscious ; whether all that is dazzling in colour, perfect in form, gladdening in expression, be not of evanescent and shallow appealing, when compared with the still small voice of the level twilight behind purple hills, or the scarlet arch of dawn over the dark, troublous-edged sea. — M. P. II. Pt. iii. sec. 1, ch. v. § 3, 4. Natural Objects at a Distance. — Are not all natural things, it may be asked, as lovely near as far away ? Nay, not so. Look at the clouds, and watch the delicate sculpture of their alabaster sides, and the rounded lustre of their magnificent rolling. They were meant to be beheld far away ; they were shaped for their place, high above your head ; approach them, and they fuse into vague mists, or whirl away in fierce fragments of thunderous vapour. Look at the crest of the Alp, from the far-away plains over which its light is cast, whence human souls have communion with it by their myriads. The child looks up to it in the dawn, and the husbandman in the burden and heat of the day, and the old man in the going down of the sun, and it is to them all as the celestial city on the world’s horizon; dyed with the depth of heaven, and clothed with the calm of eternity. There was it set, for holy dominion, by Him who marked for the sun his journey, and bade the moon know her going down. It was built for its place in the far-off sky ; approach it, and, as the sound of the voice of man dies away about its foundation, and the tide of human life, shallowed upon the vast aerial shore, is at last met by the Eternal “ Here shall thy waves be stayed,” the glory of its aspect fades into blanched fearfulness : its purple walls are rent into grisly CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 89 rocks, its silver fretwork saddened into wasting snow: the storm-brands of ages are on its breast, the ashes of its own ruin lie solemnly on its white raiment. Nor in such instances as these alone, though, strangely enough, the discrepancy between apparent and actual beauty is greater in proportion to the unapproachableness of the object, is the law observed. For every distance from the eye there is a peculiar kind of beauty, or a different system of lines of form; the sight of that beauty is reserved for that distance, and for that alone. If you approach nearer, that kind of beauty is lost, and another succeeds, to be disorganized and reduced to strange and incomprehensible means and appliances in its turn. If you desire to perceive the great harmonies of the form of a rocky mountain, you must not ascend upon its sides. All is there disorder and accident, or seems so ; sudden starts of its shattered beds hither and thither; ugly struggles of unexpected strength from under the ground ; fallen fragments, toppling one over another into more helpless fall. Eetire from it, and, as your eye commands it more and more, as you see the ruined mountain world with a wider glance, behold ! dim sympathies begin to busy them- selves in the disjointed mass; line binds itself into stealthy fellowship with line ; group by group, the helpless fragments gather themselves into ordered companies; new captains of hosts and masses of battalions become visible, one by one, and far away answers of foot to foot, and of bone to bone, until the powerless chaos is seen risen up with girded loins, and not one piece of all the unregarded heap could now be spared from the mystic whole. — S. V. I. ch. xxi. § 17, 18. Subtle Gradations in Nature. — What curvature is to lines, gradation is to shade and colours. It is their infinity, and divides them into an infinite number of degrees. Abso- lutely without gradation no natural surface can possibly be, except under circumstances of so rare conjunction as to amount to a lusus naturae ; for we have seen that few surfaces are without curvature, and every curved surface must be gra- dated by the nature of light ; and for the gradation of the few 90 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. plane surfaces that exist, means are provided in local colour, aerial perspective, reflected lights, &c., from which it is but barely conceivable that they should ever escape. For instances of the complete absence of gradation we must look to man’s work, or to his disease and decrepitude. Compare the gradated colours of the rainbow with the stripes of a target, and the gradual deepening of the youthful blood in the cheek with an abrupt patch of rouge, or with the sharply drawn veins of old age. Gradation is so inseparable a quality of all natural shade, that the eye refuses in painting to understand a shadow which appears without it; while, on the other hand, nearly all the gradations of nature are so subtle, and between degrees of tint so slightly separated, that no human hand can in any wise equal, or do anything more than suggest the idea of them. In proportion to the space over which gradation extends, and to its invisible subtlety, is its grandeur : and in proportion to its narrow limits and violent degrees, its vulgarity. — M.P. II. Pt. iii. sec. 1, ch. v. § 16,17. The Mystery of Clearness. — In an Italian twilight, when, sixty or eighty miles away, the ridge of the Western Alps rises in its dark and serrated blue against the crystalline vermilion, there is still unsearchableness, but an unsearch- ableness without cloud or concealment, — an infinite unknown, but no sense of any veil or interference between us and it : we are separated from it, not by any anger of storm, not by any vain and fading vapour, but only by the deep infinity of the thing itself. I find that the great religious painters rejoiced in that kind of unknowableness, and in that only; and I feel that even if they had had all the power to do so, still they would not have put rosy mists and blue shadows behind their sacred figures, but only the far-away sky and cloudless mountains. Probably the right conclusion is that the clear and cloudy mysteries are alike noble ; but that the beauty of the wreaths of frost mist, folded over banks of green- sward deep in dew, and of the purple clouds of evening, and the wreaths of fitful vapour gliding through groves of pine, CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. 91 and irised around the pillars of waterfalls, is more or less typical of the kind of joy which we should take in the imper- fect knowledge granted to the earthly life, while the serene and cloudless mysteries set forth that belonging to the redeemed life. But of one thing I am well assured, that so far as the clouds are regarded, not as concealing the truth of other things, but as themselves true and separate creations, they are not usually beheld by us with enough honour: we have too great veneration for cloudlessness. — M. P. IV. Pt. v. ch. v. §21. A Snow Drift. — In the range of inorganic nature, I doubt if any object can be found more perfectly beautiful than a fresh, deep snow drift, seen under warm light. Its curves are of inconceivable perfection and changefulness ; its surface and transparency alike exquisite ; its light and shade of inex- haustible variety and inimitable finish, the shadows sharp, pale, and of heavenly colour, the reflected lights intense and multitudinous, and mingled with the sweet occurrences of transmitted light. No mortal hand can approach the majesty or loveliness of it, yet it is possible, by care and skill, at least to suggest the preciousness of its forms and intimate the nature of its light and shade : but this has never been attempted ; it could not be done except by artists of a rank exceedingly high, and there is something about the feeling of snow in ordinary scenery which such men do not like. But when the same qualities are exhibited on a magnificent Alpine scale, and in a position where they interfere with no feeling of life, I see not why they should be neglected, as they have hitherto been, unless that the difficulty of reconciling the brilliancy of snow with a picturesque light and shade is so great that most good artists disguise or avoid the greater part of upper Alpine scenery, and hint at the glacier so slightly that they do not feel the necessity of careful study of its forms. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 4, ch. ii. § 19. Curvature in Natural Forms. — That all forms of acknow- ledged beauty are composed exclusively of curves will, I believe, be at once allowed ; but that which there will be need 92 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. more especially to prove is, the subtlety and constancy oi curvature in all natural forms whatsoever. I believe that, except in crystals, in certain mountain forms admitted for the sake of sublimity or contrast (as in the slope of debris), in rays of light, in the levels of calm water and alluvial land, and in some few organic developments, there are no lines nor surfaces of nature without curvature ; though as we before saw in clouds, more especially in their under lines towards the horizon, and in vast and extended plains, right lines are often suggested which are not actual. Without these we could not be sensible of the value of the contrasting curves ; and while, therefore, for the most part the eye is fed in natural forms with the grace of curvature which no hand nor instru- ment can follow, other means are provided to give beauty to those surfaces which are admitted for contrast, as in water by its reflection of the gradations which it possesses not itself. In freshly broken ground which Nature has not yet had time to model, in quarries and pits which are none of her cutting, in those convulsions and evidences of convulsion, and gene- rally in all ruin and disease, the curves vanish, and violently opposed or broken and unmeaning lines take their place. — M. P. II. Pt. iii. sec. 1, ch. v. § 15. 93 PAINTING AND PAINTEES. Painting, a Language. — Painting, or art generally, as such, with all its technicalities, difficulties, and particular ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing. He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of paint- ing, that is, the art of representing any natural object faith- fully, has as yet only learned the language by which his thoughts are to be expressed. He has done just as much towards being that which we ought to respect as a great painter, as a man who has learned how to express himself grammatically and melodiously has towards being a great poet. The language is, indeed, more difficult of acquirement in the one case than in the other, and possesses more power of delighting the sense, while it speaks to the intellect ; but it is, nevertheless, nothing more than language, and all those excellences which are peculiar to the painter as such, are merely what rhythm, melody, precision, and force are in the words of the orator and the poet, necessary to their greatness, but not the tests of their greatness. It is not by the mode of representing and saying, but by what is represented and said, that the respective greatness either of the painter or the writer is to be finally determined. Speaking with strict propriety, therefore, we should call a man a great painter only as he excelled in precision and force in the language of lines, and a great versifier, as he excelled in precision or force in the language of words. A great poet would then be a term strictly, and in precisely the same sense applicable to both, if warranted by the character of the images or thoughts which each in their respective languages conveyed. Take, for instance, one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I use the words as synonymous) which modern 94 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. times have seen : — the u Old Shepherd’s Chief-mourner.” Here the exquisite execution of the glossy and crisp hair of the dog, the bright sharp touching of the green bough beside it, the clear painting of the wood of the coffin and the folds of the blanket, are language — language clear and expres- sive in the highest degree. But the close pressure of the dog’s breast against the wood, the convulsive clinging of the paws, which has dragged the blanket off the trestle, the total powerlessness of the head laid, close and motionless, upon its folds, the fixed and tearful fall of the eye in its utter hope- lessness, the rigidity of repose which marks that there has been no motion nor change in the trance of agony since the last blow was struck on the coffin-lid, the quietness and gloom of the chamber, the spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last closed, indicating how lonely has been the life — how un watched the departure, of him who is now laid solitary in his sleep; — these are all thoughts — thoughts by which the picture is separated at once from hundreds of equal merit, as far as mere painting goes, by which it ranks as a work of high art, and stamps its author, not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the man of Mind. — M. P. I. sec. 1, ch. ii. § 2, 3, 4. A True Picture. — That only should be considered a pic- ture, in which the spirit, not the materials, observe, but the animating emotion, of many such studies is concentrated, and exhibited by the aid of long studied, painfully chosen forms ; idealized in the right sense of the word, not by audacious liberty of that faculty of degrading God’s works which man calls his “ imagination,” but by perfect assertion of entire knowledge of every part and character and function of the object, and in which the details are completed to the last line compatible with the dignity and simplicity of the whole, wrought out with that noblest industry which concentrates profusion into point, and transforms accumulation into struc- ture. Neither must this labour be bestowed on every subject which appears to afford a capability of good, but on chosen subjects in which nature has prepared to the artist’s hand the PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 95 purest sources of the impression he would convey. These may be humble in their order, but they must be perfect of their kind. There is a perfection of the hedgerow and cot- tage, as well as of the forest and the palace; and more ideality in a great artist’s selection and treatment of roadside weeds and brook-worn pebbles, than in all the struggling caricature of the meaner mind, which heaps its foreground with colossal columns, and heaves impossible mountains into the encumbered sky. Finally, these chosen subjects must not be in any way repetitions of one another, but each founded on a new idea, and developing a totally distinct train of thought: so that the work of the artist’s life should form a consistent series of essays, rising through the scale of creation from the humblest scenery to the most exalted ; each picture being a necessary link in the chain, based on what preceded, introducing to what is to follow, and all, in their lovely system, exhibiting and drawing closer the bonds of nature to the human heart. — M. P. I. Pref. pp. 40, 41. Mental and Moral Qualifications of a Painter. — What- ever the means used may be, the certainty and directness of them imply absolute grasp of the whole subject, and without this grasp there is no good painting. This, finally, let me declare, without qualification — that partial conception is no conception. The whole picture must be imagined, or none of it is. And this grasp of the whole implies very strange and sublime qualities of mind. It is not possible, unless the feelings are completely under control ; the least excitement or passion will disturb the measured equity of power ; a painter needs to be as cool as a general ; and as little moved or subdued by his sense of pleasure, as a soldier by the sense of pain. Nothing good can be done without intense feeling ; but it must be feeling so crushed, that the work is set about with mechanical steadiness, absolutely untroubled, as a surgeon — not without pity, but conquering it and putting it aside — begins an operation. Until the feelings can give strength enough to the will to enable it to conquer them, they are not strong enough. If you cannot leave your picture at any 9G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. moment ; — cannot turn from it, and go on with another, while the colour is drying; — cannot work at any part of it you choose with equal contentment — you have not firm enough grasp of it. It follows, also, that no vain or selfish person can possibly paint, in the noble sense of the word. Vanity and selfishness are troublous, eager, anxious, petulant : — painting can only be done in calm of mind. Resolution is not enough to secure this ; it must be secured by disposition as well. You may resolve to think of your picture only ; but, if you have been fretted before beginning, no manly or clear grasp of it will be possible for you. No forced calm is calm enough. Only honest calm, — natural calm. You might as well try by external pressure to smoothe a lake till it could reflect the sky, as by violence of effort to secure the peace through which only you can reach imagination. That peace must come in its own time, as the waters settle themselves into clearness as well as quietness ; you can no more filter your mind into purity than you can compress it into calmness; you must keep it pure, if you would have it pure ; and throw no stones into it, if you would have it quiet. Great courage and self- command may, to a certain extent, give power of painting without the true calmness underneath; but never of doing first-rate work. There is sufficient evidence of this, in even what we know of great men, though of the greatest, we nearly always know the least (and that necessarily; they being very silent, and not much given to setting themselves forth to questioners ; apt to be contemptuously reserved, no less than unselfishly). But in such writings and sayings as we possess of theirs, we may trace a quite curious gentleness and serene courtesy. Rubens’ letters are almost ludicrous in their un- hurried politeness. Reynolds, swiftest of painters, was gentlest of companions; so also Velasquez, Titian, and Veronese. It is gratuitous to add that no shallow or petty person can paint. Mere cleverness or special gift never made an artist. It is only perfectness of mind, unity, depth, decision, the highest qualities, in fine, of the intellect, which will form the imagination. PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 97 And, lastly, no false person can paint. A person false at heart may, when it suits his purposes, seize a stray truth here or there; but the relations of truth, its perfectness, that which makes it wholesome truth, he can never perceive. As wholeness and wholesomeness go together, so also sight with sincerity ; it is only the constant desire of and submis- siveness to truth, which can measure its strange angles and mark its infinite aspects ; and fit them and knit them into the strength of sacred invention. Sacred, I call it deliberately; for it is thus, in the most accurate senses, humble as well as helpful ; meek in its receiving, as magnificent in its disposing ; the name it bears being rightly given even to invention formal, not because it forms, but because it finds. For you cannot find a lie ; you must make it for yourself. False things may be imagined, and false things composed ; but only truth can be invented. M. P. Y. Pt. viii. ch. iv. § 20, 21, 22, 23. Three Classes of Artists. — Artists, considered as searchers after truth, are to be divided into three great classes, a right, a left, and a centre. Those on the right perceive, and pursue the good, and leave the evil : those in the centre, the greatest, perceive and pursue the good and evil together, the whole thing as it verily is : those on the left perceive and pursue the evil, and leave the good. The first class, I say, take the good and leave the evil. Out of whatever is presented to them, they gather what it has of grace, and life, and light, and holiness, and leave all, or at least as much as possible, of the rest undrawn. The faces of their figures express no evil passions ; the skies of their land- scapes are without storm; the prevalent character of their colour is brightness, and of their chiaroscuro fulness of light. The early Italian and Flemish painters, Angelico and Hemling, Perugino, Francia, Eaphael in his best time, John Bellini, and our own Stothard, belong eminently to this class. The second, or greatest class, render all that they see in nature unhesitatingly, with a kind of divine grasp and govern- ment of the whole, sympathizing with all the good, and yet 7 98 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. confessing, permitting, and bringing good out of the evil also. Their subject is infinite as nature, their colour equally balanced between splendour and sadness, reaching occasionally the highest degrees of both, and their chiaroscuro equally balanced between light and shade. The principal men of this class are Michael Angelo, Leo- nardo, Giotto, Tintoret, and Turner. Raphael, in his second time, Titian, and Rubens are transitional ; the first inclining to the eclectic, and the last two to the impure class ; Raphael rarely giving all the evil, Titian and Rubens rarely all the good. The last class perceive and imitate evil only. They cannot draw the trunk of a tree without blasting and shattering it, nor a sky except covered with stormy clouds ; they delight in the beggary and brutality of the human race ; their colour is for the most part subdued or lurid, and the greatest spaces of their pictures are occupied by darkness. Happily the examples of this class are seldom seen in per- fection. Salvator Rosa and Caravaggio are the most charac- teristic : the other men belonging to it approach towards the central rank by imperceptible gradations, as they perceive and represent more and more of good. But Murillo, Zurbaran, Camillo Procaccini, Rembrandt, and Teniers, all belong naturally to this lower class. — S. V. II. chap. vi. §51,52, 53, 54. Colouring the Test of a Painter. — As I have said, the business of a painter is to paint. If he can colour, he is a painter, though he can do nothing else ; if he cannot colour, he is no painter, though he may do everything else. But it is, in fact, impossible, if he can colour, but that he should be able to do more for a faithful study of colour will always give power over form, though the most intense study of form will give no power over colour. The man who can see all the greys, and reds, and purples in a peach, will paint the peach rightly round, and rightly altogether ; but the man who has only studied its roundness, may not see its purples and greys, and if he does not, will never get it to look like PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 99 peach ; so that great power over colour is always a sign of large general art-intellect. Expression of the most subtle hind can be often reached by the slight studies of carica- turists ; sometimes elaborated by the toil of the dull, and sometimes by the sentiment of the feeble ; but to colour well requires real talent and earnest study, and to colour perfectly is the rarest and most precious power an artist can possess. Every other gift may be erroneously cultivated, but this will guide to all healthy, natural, and forcible truth ; the student may be led into folly by philosophers, and into false- hood by purists ; but he is always safe, if he holds the hand of a colourist. — M. P. TV. Pt. v. ch. iii. § 24. The Nobleness and Loveliness of Colour. — Of all God’s gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. We speak rashly of gay colour and sad colour, for colour cannot at once be good and gay. All good colour is in some degree pensive ; the loveliest is melan- choly, and the purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most. I know that this will sound strange in many ears, and will be especially startling to those who have considered the sub- ject chiefly with reference to painting; for the great Venetian schools of colour are not usually understood to be either pure or pensive, and the idea of its pre-eminence is associated in nearly every mind with the coarseness of Rubens, and the sensualities of Correggio and Titian. But a more compre- hensive view of art will soon correct this impression. It will be discovered, in the first place, that the more faithful and earnest the religion of the painter, the more pure and preva- lent is the system of his colour. It will be found, in the second place, that where colour becomes a primal intention with a painter otherwise mean or sensual, it instantly elevates him, and becomes the one sacred and saving element in his work. The very depth of the stoop to which the Venetian painters and Rubens sometimes condescend, is a consequence of their feeling confidence in the power of their colour to keep them from falling. They hold on by it, as by a chain 100 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. let down from heaven, with one hand, though they may sometimes seem to gather dust and ashes with the other. And, in the last place, it will be found that so surely as a painter is irreligious, thoughtless, or obscene in disposition, so surely is his colouring cold, gloomy, and valueless. The opposite poles of art in this respect are Fra Angelico and Salvator Eosa ; of whom the one was a man who smiled seldom, wept often, prayed constantly, and never harboured an impure thought. His pictures are simply so many pieces of jewellery, the colours of the draperies being perfectly pure, as various as those of a painted window, chastened only by paleness, and relieved upon a gold ground. Salvator was a dissipated jester and satirist, a man who spent his life in masquing and revelry. But his pictures are full of horror, and their colour is for the most part gloomy grey. Truly it would seem as if art had so much of eternity in it, that it must take its dye from the close rather than the course of life : — 11 In such laughter the heart of man is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness.” These are no singular instances. I know no law more severely without exception than this of the connection of pure colour with profound and noble thought. The late Flemish pictures, shallow in conception and obscene in subject, are always sober in colour. But the early religious painting of the Flemings is as brilliant in hue as it is holy in thought. The Bellinis, Francias, Peruginos painted in crimson, and blue, and gold. The Caraccis, Guidos, and Eembrandts in brown and grey. The builders of our great cathedrals veiled their casements and wrapped their pillars with one robe of purple splendour. The builders of the luxurious Kenaissance left their palaces filled only with cold white light, and in the paleness of their native stone. — S. V. II. eh. v. § 30, 31, 32. The Sanctity of Colour. — I have already insisted upon the fact of the sacredness of colour, and its necessary con- nection with all pure and noble feeling. What we have seen of the use of colour by the poets will help to confirm this PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 101 truth; but perhaps I have not yet enough insisted on the simplest and readiest to hand of all proofs, — the way, namely, in which God has employed colour in His creation as the unvarying accompaniment of all that is purest, most innocent, and most precious ; while for things precious only in material uses, or dangerous, common colours are reserved. Consider for a little while what sort of a world it would be if all flowers were grey, all leaves black, and the sky brown. Imagine that as completely as may be, and consider whether you would think the world any whit more sacred for being thus transfigured into the hues of the shadows in Raphael’s Transfiguration. Then observe how constantly innocent things are bright in colour; look at a dove’s neck, and compare it with the grey back of a viper; I have often heard talk of brilliantly-coloured serpents ; and I suppose there are such, — as there are gay poisons, like the foxglove and kalrnia — types of deceit : but all the venomous serpents I have really seen are grey, brick -red, or brown, variously mottled ; and the most awful serpent I have seen, the Egyptian asp, is precisely of the colour of gravel, or only a little greyer. So, again, the crocodile and alligator are grey, but the innocent lizard green and beautiful. I do not mean that the rule is invariable, otherwise it would be more convincing than the lessons of the natural universe are intended ever to be ; there are beau- tiful colours on the leopard and tiger, and in the berries of the nightshade; and there is nothing very notable in bril- liancy of colour either in sheep or cattle (though, by the way, the velvet of a brown bull’s hide in the sun, or the tawny white of the Italian oxen, is, to my mind, lovelier than any leopard’s or tiger’s skin) : but take a wider view of nature, and compare generally rainbows, sunrises, roses, violets, butterflies, birds, gold-fish, rubies, opals, and corals, with alligators, hippopotami, lions, wolves, bears, swine, sharks, slugs, bones, fungi,* fogs, and corrupting, stinging, * It is notable, however, that nearly all the poisonous agarics are scarlet or speckled, and wholesome ones brown or grey, as if to show us that things rising out of darkness and decay are always most deadly when they are well drest. 102 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. destroying things in general, and you will feel then how the question stands between the colourists and chiaroscurists, — which of them have nature and life on their side, and which have sin and death. Finally : the ascertainment of the sanctity of colour is not left to human sagacity. It is distinctly stated in Scripture. I have before alluded to the sacred chord of colour (blue, purple, and scarlet, with white and gold) as appointed in the Tabernacle ; this chord is the fixed base of all colouring with the workmen of every great age; the purple and scarlet will be found constantly employed by noble painters, in various unison, to the exclusion in general of pure crimson; — it is the harmony described by Herodotus as used in the battle- ments of Ecbatana, and the invariable base of all beautiful missal-painting ; the mistake continually made by modem restorers, in supposing the purple to be a faded crimson, and substituting full crimson for it, being instantly fatal to the •whole work, as, indeed, the slightest modification of any hue in a perfect colour-harmony must always be. In this chord the scarlet is the powerful colour, and is on the whole the most perfect representation of abstract colour which exists ; blue being in a certain degree associated with shade, yellow with light, and scarlet, as absolute colour , standing alone. . . . All men, completely organized and justly tempered, enjoy colour ; it is meant for the perpetual comfort and delight of the human heart ; it is richly bestowed on the highest works of creation, and the eminent sign and seal of perfection in them ; being associated with life in the human body, with light in the sky, with purity and hardness in the earth, — death, night, and pollution of all kinds being colourless. — M. P. IY. Pt. v. ch. iii. § 23, 24. Greatness of Style. — Greatness of style consists, first, in the habitual choice of subjects of thought which involve wide interests and profound passions, as opposed to those which in- volve narrow interests and slight passions. The style is greater or less in exact proportion to the nobleness of the interests and passions involved in the subject. The habitual choice of PAINTING- AND FAINTERS. ioa sacred subjects, such as the Nativity, Transfiguration, Cruci- fixion (if the choice be sincere), implies that the painter has a natural disposition to dwell on the highest thoughts of which humanity is capable ; it constitutes him, so far forth, a painter of the highest order, as, for instance, Leonardo, in his painting of the Last Supper : he who delights in representing the acts or meditations of great men, as, for instance, Raphael painting the School of Athens, is, so far forth, a painter of the second order : he who represents the passions and events of ordinary life, of the third. And in this ordinary life, he who repre- sents deep thoughts and sorrows, as, for instance, Hunt, in his Claudio and Isabella, and such other works, is of the highest rank in his sphere ; and he who represents the slight maligni-. ties and passions of the drawing-room, as, for instance, Leslie, of the second rank; he who represents the sports of boys or simplicities of clowns, as Webster or Teniers, of the third rank ; and he who represents brutalities and vices. (for delight in them, and not for rebuke of them), of no rank at all, or rather of a negative rank, holding a certain order in the abyss. The reader will, I hope, understand how much importance is to be attached to the sentence in the first parenthesis, “ if the choice be sincere;” for choice of subject is, of course, only available as a criterion of the rank of the painter, when it is made from the heart. Indeed, in the lower orders of painting, the choice is always made from such heart as the painter has; for his selection of the brawls of peasants or sports of children can, of course, proceed only from the fact that he has more sympathy with such brawls or pastimes than with nobler subjects. But the choice of the higher kind of subjects is often insincere ; and may, therefore, afford no real criterion of the painter’s rank. The greater number of men who have lately painted religious or heroic subjects have done so in mere ambition, because they had been taught that it was a good thing to be a “high art” painter; and the fact is that, in nine cases out of ten, the so-called historical or “high art” painter is a person infinitely inferior to the painter of flowers or still life. He is, in modern times, nearly 104 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. always a man who has great vanity without pictorial capa- city, and differs from the landscape or fruit painter merely in misunderstanding and over-estimating his own powers. He mistakes his vanity for inspiration, his ambition for greatness of soul, and takes pleasure in what he calls “ the ideal,” merely because he has neither humility nor capacity enough to comprehend the real. But also observe, it is not enough even that the choice be sincere. It must also be wise. It happens very often that a man of weak intellect, sincerely desiring to do what is good and useful, will devote himself to high art subjects because he thinks them the only ones on which time and toil can be usefully spent, or, sometimes, because they are really the only ones he has pleasure in contemplating. But not having intel- lect enough to enter into the minds of truly great men, or to imagine great events as they really happened, he cannot become a great painter ; he degrades the subjects he intended to honour, and his work is more utterly thrown away, and his rank as an artist in reality lower, than if he had devoted him- self to the imitation of the simplest objects of natural history. The works of Overbeck are a most notable instance of this form of error. It must also be remembered, that, in nearly all the great periods of art, the choice of subject has not been left to the painter. His employer, — abbot, baron, or monarch, — deter- mined for him whether he should earn his bread by making cloisters bright with choirs of saints, painting coats of arms on leaves of romances, or decorating presence-chambers with complimentary mythology ; and his own personal feelings are ascertainable only by watching, in the themes assigned to him, what are the points in which he seems to take most pleasure. Thus in the prolonged ranges of varied subjects with which Benozzo Gozzoli decorated the cloisters of Pisa, it is easy to see that love of simple domestic incident, sweet landscape, and glittering ornament, prevails slightly over the solemn elements of religious feeling, which, nevertheless, the spirit of the age instilled into him in such measure as to form a very lovely and noble mind, though still one of the PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 105 second order. In the work of Orcagna, an intense solemnity and energy in the sublimest groups of his figures, fading away as he touches inferior subjects, indicate that his home was among the archangels, and his rank among the first of the sons of men ; while Correggio, in the sidelong grace, artificial smiles, and purple languors of his saints, indicates the inferior instinct which would have guided his choice in quite other directions, had it not been for the fashion of the age, and the need of the day. It will follow, of course, from the above considerations, that the choice which characterizes the school of high art is seen as much in the treatment of a subject as in its selection, and that the expression of the thoughts of the persons repre- sented will always be the first thing considered by the painter who worthily enters that highest school. For the artist who sincerely chooses the noblest subject will also choose chiefly to represent what makes that subject noble, namely, the various heroism or other noble emotions of the persons repre- sented. If, instead of this, the artist seeks only to make his picture agreeable by the composition of its masses and colours, or by any other merely pictorial merit, as fine drawing of limbs, it is evident, not only that any other sub- ject would have answered his purpose as well, but that he is unfit to approach the subject he has chosen, because he cannot enter into its deepest meaning, and therefore cannot in reality .have chosen it for that meaning. Nevertheless, while the expression is always to be the first thing considered, all other merits must be added to the utmost of the painter’s power ; for until he can both colour and draw beautifully he has no business to consider himself a painter at all, far less to attempt the noblest subjects of painting ; and, when he has once possessed himself of these powers, he will naturally and fitly employ them to deepen and perfect the impression made by the sentiment of his subject. The perfect unison of expression, as the painter’s main purpose, with the full and natural exertion of his pictorial power in the details of the work, is found only in the old pre-Kaphaelite periods, and in the modern pre-Raphaelite 106 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. school. In the works of Giotto, Angelico, Orcagna, John Bellini, and one or two more, these two conditions of high art are entirely fulfilled, so far as the knowledge of those days enabled them to be fulfilled ; and in the modem pre- Raphaelite school they are fulfilled nearly to the uttermost. Hunt’s Light of the World, is, I believe, the most perfect instance of expressional purpose with technical power which the world has yet produced. The second characteristic of the great school of art is, that it introduces in the conception of its subject as much beauty as is possible, consistently with truth. For instance, in any subject consisting of a number of figures, it will make as many of those figures beautiful as the faithful representation of humanity will admit. It will not deny the facts of ugliness or decrepitude, or relative infe- riority and superiority of feature as necessarily manifested in a crowd, but it will, so far as it is in its power, seek for, and dwell upon, the fairest forms, and in all things insist on the beauty that is in them, not on the ugliness. In this respect, schools of art become higher in exact proportion to the degree in which they apprehend and love the beautiful. Thus, Angelico, intensely loving all spiritual beauty, will be of the highest rank ; and Paul Veronese and Correggio, in- tensely loving physical and corporeal beauty, of the second rank ; and Albert Durer, Rubens, and in general the Northern artists, apparently insensible to beauty, and caring only for truth, whether shapely or not, of the third rank ; and Teniers and Salvator, Caravaggio, and other such worshippers of the depraved, of no rank, or, as we said before, of a certain order in the abyss. — M. P. ill. Pt. iv. ch. iii. § 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12. Greatness in Art. — If I say that the greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind of the spectator the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a definition which will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure which art is capable of conveying. If I were to say, on the contrary, that the best picture was that which most closely imitated nature, I should assume that art could only please by imitating TAINTING AND PAINTERS. 107 nature ; and I should cast out of the pale of criticism those parts of works of art which are not imitative, that is to say, intrinsic beauties of colour and form, and those works of art wholly, which, like the Arabesques of Raphael in the Loggias, are not imitative at all. Now I want a definition of art wide enough to include all its varieties of aim. I do not say there- fore that the art is greatest which gives most pleasure, because perhaps there is some art whose end is to teach, and not to please. I do not say that the art is greatest which teaches us most, because perhaps there is some art whose end is to please, and not to teach. I do not say that the art is greatest which imitates best, because perhaps there is some art whose end is to create, and not to imitate. But I say that the art is greatest which conveys to the mind of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of the greatest ideas ; and I call an idea great in proportion as it is received by a higher faculty of the mind, and as it more fully occupies, and in occupying, exercises and exalts, the faculty by which it is received. If this then be the definition of great art, that of a great artist naturally follows. He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas. — M. P. I. Pt. i. sec. 1. ch. ii. § 9. Characteristics of Great Art. — Great art dwells on all that is beautiful ; but false art omits or changes all that is ugly. Great art accepts Nature as she is, but directs the eyes and thoughts to what is most perfect in her ; false art saves itself the trouble of direction by removing or altering whatever it thinks objectionable. The evil results of which proceeding are twofold. First. That beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadow ceases to be enjoyed as light. A white canvass can- not produce an effect of sunshine; the painter must darken it in some places before he can make it look luminous in others ; nor can an uninterrupted succession of beauty produce the true effect of beauty ; it niust be foiled by inferiority before 108 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. its own power can be developed. Nature lias for the most part mingled her inferior and noble elements as she mingles sunshine with shade, giving due use and influence to both, and the painter who chooses to remove the shadow, perishes in the burning desert he has created. The truly high and beautiful art of Angelico is continually refreshed and strength- ened by his frank portraiture of the most ordinary features of his brother monks, and of the recorded peculiarities of un- gainly sanctity ; but the modern German and Raphaelesque schools lose all honour and nobleness in barber-like admira- tion of handsome faces, and have, in fact, no real faith except in straight noses, and curled hair. Paul Veronese opposes the dwarf to the soldier, and the negress to the queen ; Shakspere places Caliban beside Miranda, and Autolycus beside Perdita ; but the vulgar idealist withdraws his beauty to the safety of the saloon, .and his innocence to the seclusion of the cloister; he pretends that he does this in delicacy of choice and purity of sentiment, while in truth he has neither courage to front the monster, nor wit enough to furnish the knave. It is only by the habit of representing faithfully all things that we can truly learn what is beautiful, and what is not. The ugliest objects contain some element of beauty; and in all it is an element peculiar to themselves, which cannot be separated from their ugliness, but must either be enjoyed together with it, or not at all. The more a painter accepts nature as he finds it, the more unexpected beauty he dis- covers in what he at first despised ; but once let him arrogate the right of rejection, and he will gradually contract his circle of enjoyment, until what he supposed to be nobleness of selec- tion ends in narrowness of perception. Dwelling perpetually upon one class of ideas, his art becomes at once monstrous and morbid ; until at last he cannot faithfully represent even what he chooses to retain ; his discrimination contracts into darkness, and his fastidiousness fades into fatuity. High art, therefore, consists neither in altering, nor in im- proving nature ; but in seeking throughout nature for 11 what- soever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are pure;” in PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 109 loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter’s power such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle emphasis. Art ( cceteris paribus ) is great in exact proportion to the love of beauty shown by the painter, provided that love of beauty forfeit no atom of truth. The next characteristic of great art is that it includes the largest possible quantity of Truth in the most perfect possible harmony. If it were possible for art to give all the truths of nature, it ought to do it. But this is not' possible. Choice must always be made of some facts which can be represented, from among others which must be passed by in silence, or even, in some respects, misrepresented. The inferior artist chooses unimportant and scattered truths ; the great artist chooses the most necessary first, and afterwards the most con- sistent with these, so as to obtain the greatest possible and most harmonious sum . For instance, Eembrandt always chooses to represent the exact force with which the light on the most illumined part of an object is opposed to its obscurer portions. In order to obtain this, in most cases, not very important truth, he sacrifices the light and colour of five- sixths of his picture ; and the expression of every character of objects which depends on tenderness of shape or tint. But he obtains his single truth, and what picturesque and forcible expression is dependent upon it, with magnificent skill and subtlety. Veronese, on the contrary, chooses to represent the great relations of visible things to each other, to the heaven above, and to the earth beneath them. He holds it more important to show how a figure stands relieved from delicate air, or marble wall ; how as a red, or purple, or white figure, it separates itself, in clear discernibility, from things not red, nor purple, nor white ; how infinite daylight shines round it ; how innumerable veils of faint shadow invest it ; how its blackness and darkness are, in the excess of their nature, just as limited and local as its intensity of light : all this, I say, he feels to be more important than showing merely the exact measure of the spark of sunshine that gleams on a dagger-hilt, or glows on a jewel. All this, moreover, 110 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. he feels to be harmonious, — capable of being joined in one great system of spacious truth. And with inevitable watch- fulness, inestimable subtlety, he unites all this in tenderest balance, noting in each hair’s-breadth of colour, not merely what its rightness or wrongness is in itself, but what its rela- tion is to every other on his canvass ; restraining, for truth’s sake, his exhaustless energy, reining back, for truth’s sake, his fiery strength ; veiling, before truth, the vanity of bright- ness ; penetrating, for truth, the discouragement of gloom ; ruling his restless invention with a rod of iron ; pardoning no error, no thoughtlessness, no forgetfulness; and subduing all his powers, impulses, and imaginations, to the arbitrament of a merciless justice, and the obedience of an incorruptible verity. I give this instance with respect to colour and shade ; but, in the whole field of art, the difference between the great and inferior artists is of the same kind, and may be deter- mined at once by the question, which of them conveys the largest sum of truth ? — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. iii. § 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 . Power in Art. — The sensation of power is in proportion to the apparent inadequacy of the means to the end; so that the impression is much greater from a partial success attained with slight effort, than from perfect success attained with greater proportional effort. Now, in all art, every touch or effort does individually less in proportion as the work approaches perfec- tion. The first five chalk touches bring a head into existence out of nothing. No five touches in the whole course of the work will ever do so much as these, and the difference made by each touch is more and more imperceptible as the work approaches completion. Consequently, the ratio between the means employed and the effect produced is constantly decreas- ing, and therefore the least sensation of power is received from the most perfect work. It is thus evident that there are sensations of power about imperfect art, so that it be right art as far as it goes, which must always be wanting in its perfection ; and that there are TAINTING AND PAINTERS. Ill sources of pleasure in the hasty sketch and the rough-hewn block, which are partially wanting in the tinted canvass and the polished marble. But it is nevertheless wrong to prefer the sensation of power to the intellectual perception of it. There is in reality greater power in the completion than in the commencement ; and though it be not so manifest to the senses, it ought to have higher influence on the mind; and therefore in praising pictures for the ideas of power they convey, we must not look to the keenest sensation, but to the highest estimate, accompanied with as much of the sensation as is compatible with it; and thus we shall consider those pictures as conveying the highest ideas of power which attain the most perfect end with the slightest possible means; not, observe, those in which, though much has been done with little, all has not been done, but from the picture in which all has been done, and yet not a touch thrown away. The quantity of work in the sketch is necessarily less in proportion to the effect obtained than in the picture ; but yet the picture involves the greater power, if, out of all the additional labour bestowed on it, not a touch has been lost. For instance, there are few drawings of the present day that involve greater sensations of power than those of Frederick Tayler. Every dash tells, and the quantity of effect obtained is enormous, in proportion to the apparent means. But the effect obtained is not complete. Brilliant, beautiful, and right, as a sketch, the work is still far from perfection, as a drawing. On the contrary, there are few drawings of the present day that bear evidence of more labour bestowed, or more complicated means employed, than those of John Lewis. The result does not, at first, so much convey an impression of inherent power as of prolonged exertion; but the result is complete. Water-colour drawing can be carried no farther; nothing has been left unfinished or untold. And on examina- tion of the means employed, it is found and felt that not one touch out of the thousands employed has been thrown away ; — that not one dot nor dash could be spared without loss of effect ; — and that the exertion has been as swift as it has been 112 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. prolonged — as bold as it has been persevering. The power involved in such a picture is of the highest order, and the enduring pleasure following on the estimate of it pure. — M. P. i. Pt. i. sec. 2. ch. i. § 5, 6, 7, 8. Great Art is Delicate. — As its greatness depends on the sum of truth, and this sum of truth can always be increased by delicacy of handling, it follows that all great art must have this delicacy to the utmost possible degree. This rule is infallible and inflexible. All coarse work is the sign of low art. Only, it is to be remembered, that coarseness must be estimated by the distance from the eye ; it being necessary to consult this distance, when great, by laying on touches which appear coarse when seen near ; but which, so far from being coarse, are, in reality, more delicate in a master’s work than the finest close handling, for they involve a calculation of result, and are laid on with a subtlety of sense precisely correspondent to that with which * good archer draws his bow ; the spectator seeing in the a l nothing but the strain of the strong arm, while there is, i ality, in the finger and eye, an ineffably delicate estimate c listance, and touch on the arrow plume. And, indeed, tuis delicacy is generally quite perceptible to those who know what the truth is, for strokes by Tintoret or Paul Veronese, which were done in an instant, and look to an ignorant spectator merely like a violent dash of loaded colour, (and are, as such, imitated by blun- dering artists,) are, in fact, modulated by the brush and finger to that degree of delicacy that no single grain of the colour could be taken from the touch without injury ; and little golden particles of it, not the size of a gnat’s head, have important share and function in the balances of light in a picture perhaps fifty feet long. Nearly every other rule appli- cable to art has some exception but this. This has absolutely none. All great art is delicate art, and all coarse art is bad art. Nay, even to a certain extent, all hold art is bad art ; for boldness is not the proper word to apply to the courage and swiftness of a great master, based on knowledge, and coupled with fear and love. There is as much difference PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 113 between the boldness of the true and the false masters, as there is between the courage of a pure woman and the shame- lessness of a lost one. The last characteristic of great art is that it must be inventive, that is, be produced by the imagination. In this respect, it must precisely fulfil the definition already given of poetry ; and not only present grounds for noble emotion, but furnish these grounds by imaginative power. Hence there is at once a great bar fixed between the two schools of Lower and Higher Art. The lower merely copies what is set before it, whether in portrait, landscape, or still-life ; the higher either entirely imagines its subject, or arranges the materials presented to it, so as to manifest the imaginative power. — M.P. ill. Pt.iv. ch.iii. §20,21. Great and Mean Art. — The difference between great and mean art lies, not in definable methods of handling, or styles of representation, or choices of subjects, but wholly in the nobleness of the end to which the effort of the painter is addressed. We cannot say that a painter is great because he paints boldly, or paints delicately ; because he generalizes or particularizes ; because he loves detail, or because he disdains it. He is great if, by any of these means, he has laid open noble truths, or aroused noble emotions. It does not matter whether he paint the petal of a rose, or the chasms of a precipice, so that Love and Admiration attend him as he labours, and wait for ever upon his work. It does not matter whether he toil for months upon a few inches of his canvass, or cover a palace front with colour in a day, so only that it be with a solemn purpose that he has filled his heart with patience, or urged his hand to haste. And it does not matter whether he seek for his subjects among peasants or nobles, among the heroic or the simple, in courts or in fields, so only that he behold all things with a thirst for beauty, and a hatred of meanness and vice. There are, indeed, certain methods of representation which are usually adopted by the most active minds, and certain characters of subject usually delighted in by the noblest hearts ; but it is quite possible, 8 114 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. quite easy, to adopt the manner of painting without sharing the activity of mind, and to imitate the choice of subject without possessing the nobility of spirit ; while, on the other hand, it is altogether impossible to foretel on what strange objects the strength of a great man will sometimes be concen- trated, or by what strange means he will sometimes express himself. So that true criticism of art never can consist in the mere application of rules ; it can be just only when it is founded on quick sympathy with the innumerable instincts and changeful efforts of human nature, chastened and guided by unchanging love of all things that God has created to be beau- tiful, and pronounced to be good. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. ii. § 8. True Value of Finish. — Never demand an exact finish, when it does not lead to a noble end. For observe, I have only dwelt upon the rudeness of Gothic, or any other kind of imperfectness, as admirable, where it was impossible to get design or thought without it. If you are to have the thought of a rough and untaught man, you must have it in a rough and untaught way ; but from an educated man, who can without effort express his thoughts in an educated way, take the graceful expression, and be thankful. Only get the thought, and do not silence the peasant because he cannot speak good grammar, or until you have taught him his gram- mar. Grammar and refinement are good things, both ; only be sure of the better thing first. And thus in art, delicate finish is desirable from the greatest masters, and is always given by them. In some places Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Phidias, Perugino, Turner, all finished with the most exquisite care ; and the finish they give always leads to the fuller accomplishment of their noble purposes. But lower men than these cannot finish, for it requires consummate know- ledge to finish consummately, and then we must take their thoughts as they are able to give them. So the rule is simple. Always look for invention first, and after that, for such execu- tion as will help the invention, and as the inventor is capable of without painful effort, and no more. Above all, demand no refinement of execution where there is no thought, for that PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 115 is slaves’ work, unredeemed. Rather choose rough work than smooth work, so only that the practical purpose be answered, and never imagine there is reason to be proud of anything that may be accomplished by patience and sand-paper. I shall only give one example, which however will show the reader what I mean, from the manufacture of glass. Our modern glass is exquisitely clear in its substance, true in its form, accurate in its cutting. We are proud of this. We ought to be ashamed of it. The old Venice glass was muddy, inaccurate in all its forms, and clumsily cut, if at all. And the old Venetian was justly proud of it. For there is this difference between the English and Venetian workman, that the former thinks only of accurately matching his patterns, and getting his curves perfectly true and his edges perfectly sharp, and becomes a mere machine for rounding curves and sharpening edges, while the old Venetian cared not a whit whether his edges were sharp or not, but he invented a new design for every glass that he made, and never moulded a handle or a lip without a new fancy in it. And therefore, though some Venetian glass is ugly and clumsy enough, when made by clumsy and unin- ventive workmen, other Venetian glass is so lovely in its forms that no price is too great for it ; and we never see the same form in it twice. Now you cannot have the finish and the varied form too. If the workman is thinking about his edges, he cannot be thinking of his design ; if of his design, he can- not think of his edges. Choose whether you will pay for the lovely form or the perfect finish, and choose at the same mo- ment whether you will make the worker a man or a grindstone. Nay, but the reader interrupts me, — “ If the workman can design beautifully, I would not have him kept at the furnace. Let him be taken away and made a gentleman, and have a studio, and design his glass there, and I will have it blown and cut for him by common workmen, and so I will have my design and my finish too.” All ideas of this kind are founded upon two mistaken sup- positions : the first, that one man’s thoughts can be, or ought to be, executed by another man’s hands ; the second, that 8—2 116 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. manual labour is a degradation, when it is governed by intel- lect. — S. V. ii. ch. vi. § 19, 20. • Generalization. — Generalization, as the word is commonly understood, is the act of a vulgar, incapable, and unthinking mind. To see in all mountains nothing but similar heaps of earth; in all rocks, nothing but similar concretions of solid matter; in all trees, nothing 'but similar accumulations of leaves, is no sign of high feeling or extended thought. The more we know, and the more we feel, the more we separate ; we separate to obtain a more perfect unity. Stones, in the thoughts of the peasant, lie as they do on his field ; one is like another, and there is no connection between any of them. The geologist distinguishes, and, in distinguishing, connects them. Each becomes different from his fellow, but in differing from, assumes a relation to, his fellow ; they are no more each the repetition of the other, they are parts of a system ; and each implies, and is connected with, the existence of the rest. That generalization then is right, true, and noble, which is based on the knowledge of the distinctions and observance of the relations of individual kinds. That gene- ralization is wrong, false, and contemptible, which is based on ignorance of the one, and disturbance of the other. It is indeed no generalization, but confusion and chaos; it is the generalization of a defeated army into undistinguisliable impotence, the generalization of the elements of a dead carcass into dust. — M. P. 1. Preface 2nd Ed. p. 33. Execution. — By the term Execution, I understand the right mechanical use of the means of art to produce a given end. All qualities of execution, properly so called, are influenced by, and in a great degree dependent on, a far higher power than that of mere execution, — knowledge of truth. For exactly in proportion as an artist is certain of his end, will he be swift and simple in his means; and as he is accurate and deep in his knowledge, will he be refined and precise in his touch. The first merit of manipulation, then, is that delicate and ceaseless expression of refined truth which is carried out PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 117 to the last touch, and shadow of a touch, and which makes every hair’s-breadth of importance, and every gradation full of meaning. It is not, properly speaking, execution ; but it is the only source of difference between the execution of a commonplace, and that of a perfect, artist. The lower draughts- man, if he have spent the same time in handling the brush, may be equal to the highest in the other qualities of execution (in swiftness, simplicity, and decision) ; but not in truth. It is in the perfection and precision bf r! the instantaneous line that the claim to immortality is laid. . . • 5 . . The second quality of execution is simplicity. The more unpretending, quiet, and retiring the means, the more impres- sive their effect. Any ostentation, brilliancy, or pretension of touch, — any exhibition of power or quickness, merely as such, — above all, any attempt to render lines attractive at the expense of their meaning, — is vice. The third is mystery. Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means ; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable. That execution which is the most incomprehensible, and which therefore defies imitation (other qualities being supposed alike), is the best. The fourth is inadequacy. The less sufficient the means appear to the end, the greater (as has been already noticed) will be the sensation of power. The fifth is decision : the appearance, that is, that whatever is done, has been done fearlessly and at once ; because this gives us the impression that both the fact to be represented, and the means necessary to its representation, were perfectly known. The sixth is velocity. Not only is velocity, or the appear- ance of it, agreeable as decision is, because it gives ideas of power and knowledge ; but of two touches, as nearly as possible the same in other respects, the quickest will invariably be the best. Truth being supposed equally present in the shape and direction of both, there will be more evenness, grace, and variety, in the quick one, than in the slow one. It will be more agreeable to the eye as a touch or line, and will possess more of the qualities of the lines of nature — gradation, uncertainty, and unity. 118 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. These six qualities are the only perfectly legitimate sources of pleasure in execution, but I might have added a seventh — strangeness, which in many cases is productive of a pleasure not altogether mean or degrading, though scarcely right. Supposing the other higher qualities first secured, it adds in no small degree to our impression of the artist’s knowledge, if the means used be such as we should never have thought of, or should have thought adapted to a contrary effect. — M. P. i. Pt. i. sec. 2. ch. ii. § 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Imitation in Painting. — There is one source of pleasure in works of art which I conceive to be properly and accurately expressed by the word 11 imitation one which, though con- stantly confused in reasoning, because it is always associated in fact, with other means of pleasure, is totally separated from them in its nature, and is the real basis of whatever com- plicated or various meaning may be afterwards attached to the word in the minds of men. I wish to point out this distinct source of pleasure clearly at once, and only to use the word “ imitation” in reference to it. Whenever anything looks like what it is not, the resem- blance being so great as nearly to deceive, we feel a kind of pleasurable surprise, an agreeable excitement of mind, exactly the same in its nature as that which we receive from juggling. Whenever we perceive this in something produced by art, that is to say, whenever the work is seen to resemble some- thing which we know it is not, we receive what I call an idea of imitation. Why such ideas are pleasing, it would be out of our present purpose to inquire ; we only know that there is no man who does not feel pleasure in his animal nature from gentle surprise, and that such surprise can be excited in no more distinct manner than by the evidence that a thing is not what it appears to be. Now two things are requisite to our complete and most pleasurable perception of this : first, that the resemblance be so perfect as to amount to a deception; secondly, that there be some means of proving at the same moment that it is a deception. The most perfect ideas and pleasures of imitation are, therefore, when one sense PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 119 is contradicted by another, both bearing as positive evidence on the subject as each is capable of alone; as when the eye says a thing is round, and the finger says it is flat : they are, therefore, never felt in so high a degree as in painting, where appearance of projection, roughness, hair, velvet, &c., are given with a smooth surface, or in waxwork, where the first evidence of the senses is perpetually contradicted by their experience. But the moment we come to marble, our defini- tion checks us, for a marble figure does not look like what it is not: it looks like marble, and like the form of a man, but then it is marble, and it is the form of a man. It does not look like a man, which it is not, but like the form of a man, which it is. Form is form, bond fide and actual, whether in marble or in flesh — not an imitation or resemblance of form, but real form. The chalk outline of the bough of a tree on paper is not an imitation; it looks like chalk and paper — not like wood, and that which it suggests to the mind is not properly said to .be like the form of a bough, it is the form of a bough. Now, then, we see the limits of an idea of imitation ; it extends only to the sensation of trickery and deception occa- sioned by a thing’s intentionally seeming different from what it is ; and the degree of the pleasure depends on the degree of difference and the perfection of the resemblance, not on the nature of the thing resembled. The simple pleasure in the imitation would be precisely of the same degree (if the accu- racy could be equal), whether the subject of it were the hero or his horse. There are other collateral sources of pleasure which are necessarily associated with this, but that part of the plea- sure which depends on the imitation is the same in both. Ideas of imitation, then, act by producing the simple plea- sure of surprise, and that not of surprise in its higher sense and function, but of the mean and paltry surprise which is felt in jugglery. These ideas and pleasures are the most contemptible which can be received from art. — M. P. I. Pt. i. sec. 1. chap. iv. § 1, 2, 3, 4. Vulgarity in Art. — There is, indeed, perhaps, no greater sign of innate and real vulgarity of mind or defective education 120 WRITINGS OP JOHN BUSKIN. than the want of power to understand the universality of the ideal truth ; the absence of sympathy with the colossal grasp of those intellects, which have in them so much of divine, that nothing is small to them, and nothing large ; but with equal and unoffended vision they take in the sum of the world, — Straw Street and the seventh heavens, — in the same instant. A certain portion of this divine spirit is visible even in the lower examples of all the true men ; it is, indeed, perhaps, the clearest test of their belonging to the true and great group, that they are continually touching what to the multitude appear vulgarities. The higher a man stands, the more the word “vulgar” becomes unintelligible to him. Vulgar ? what, that poor farmer’s girl of William Hunt’s, bred in the stable, putting on her Sunday gown, and pinning her best cap out of the green and red pin- cushion ! Not so ; she may be straight on the road to those high heavens, and may shine hereafter as one of the stars in the firmament for ever. Nay, even that lady in the satin bodice with her arm laid over a balustrade to show it, and her eyes turned up to heaven to show them ; and the sportsman waving his rifle for the terror of beasts, and displaying his perfect dress for the delight of men, are kept, by the very misery and vanity of them, in the thoughts of a great painter, at a sorrowful level, somewhat above vulgarity. It is only when the minor painter takes them on his easel, that they become things for the universe to be ashamed of. We may dismiss this matter of vulgarity in plain and few words, at least as far as regards art. There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in conceal- ment of truth, or in affectation. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. vii. § 9. Taste in Matters of Art. — Wherever the word “ taste ” is used with respect to matters of art, it indicates either that the thing spoken of belongs to some inferior class of objects, or that the person speaking has a false conception of its nature. For, consider the exact sense in which a work of art. is said to be u in good or bad taste.” It does not mean that it is true or false ; that it is beautiful, or ugly : but that it does or PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 121 does not comply either with the laws of choice, which are enforced by certain modes of life ; or the habits of mind pro- duced by a particular sort of education. It does not mean merely fashionable, that is, complying with a momentary caprice of the upper classes; but it means agreeing with the habitual sense which the most refined education common to those upper classes at the period gives to their whole mind. Now, therefore, so far as that education does indeed tend to make the senses delicate, and the perceptions accurate, and thus enables people to be pleased with quiet instead of gaudy colour, and with graceful instead of coarse form ; and, by long acquaintance with the best things, to discern quickly what is fine from what is common ; — so far, acquired taste is an honourable faculty, and it is true praise of anything to say it is “ in good taste.” But so far as this higher education has a tendency to narrow the sympathies and harden the heart, diminishing the interest of all beautiful things by familiarity, until even what is best can hardly please, and what is brightest hardly entertain ; — so far as it fosters pride, and leads men to found the pleasure they take in anything, not on the worthiness of the thing, but on the degree in which it indicates some greatness of their own (as people build marble porticos, and inlay marble floors, not so much because they like the colours of marble, or find it pleasant to the foot, as because such porches and floors are costly, and separated in all human eyes from plain entrances of stone and timber) ; — so far as it leads people to prefer gracefulness of dress, manner, and aspect, to value of substance and heart, liking a well said thing better than a true thing, and a well- trained manner better than a sincere one, and a delicately formed face better than a good-natured one, and in all other ways and things setting custom and semblance above ever- lasting truth ; — so far, finally, as it induces a sense of inherent distinction between class and class, and causes everything to be more or less despised which has no social rank, so that the affection, pleasure, or grief of a clown are looked upon as of no interest compared with the affection and grief of a well-bred man ; — -just so far, in all these several ways, the 122 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. feeling induced by what is called a “liberal education” is utterly adverse to the understanding of noble art ; and the name which is given to the feeling, — Taste, Gofit, Gusto, — in all languages, indicates the baseness of it, for it implies that art gives only a kind of pleasure analogous to that derived from eating by the palate. Modern education, not in art only, but in all other things referable to the same standard, has invariably given taste in this bad sense ; it has given fastidiousness of choice without judgment, superciliousness of manner without dignity, refine- ment of habit without purity, grace of expression without sincerity, and desire of loveliness without love ; and the modern “ideal” of high art is a curious mingling of the gracefulness and reserve of the drawing-room with a cer- tain measure of classical sensuality. — M. P. ill. Pt. iv. ch.v. §6,7. Importance of Art. — Art, properly so called, is no recrea- tion ; it cannot be learned at spare moments, nor pursued when we have nothing better to do. It is no handiwork for drawing-room tables, no relief of the ennui of boudoirs ; it must be understood and undertaken seriously, or not at all. To advance it men’s lives must be given, and to receive it their hearts. “Le peintre Rubens s’amuse a etre ambas- sadeur,” said one with whom, but for his own words, we might have thought that effort had been absorbed in power, and the labour of his art in its felicity. “E faticoso lo studio della pittura, e sempre si fa il mare maggiore,” said he, who of all men was least likely to have left us discouraging report of anything that majesty of intellect could grasp, or continuity of labour overcome. But that this labour, the necessity of which in all ages has been most frankly admitted by the greatest men, is justifiable in a moral point of view, that it is not a vain devotion of the lives of men, that it has functions of usefulness addressed to the weightiest of human interests, and that the objects of it have calls upon us which it is incon- sistent alike with our human dignity and our heavenward duty to disobey, has never been boldly asserted nor fairly PAINTING AND PAINTEKS. 123 admitted ; least of all is it likely to be so in these days of despatch and display, where vanity, on the one side, supplies the place of that love of art which is the only effective patron- age, and, on the other, that of the incorruptible and earnest pride which no applause, no reprobation, can blind to its shortcomings, or beguile of its hope. — M. P. II. Pt. iii. ch. i. § 2. The False Ideal. — Every one can easily appreciate the merit of regular features and well-formed limbs, but it requires some attention, sympathy, and sense, to detect the charm of passing expression, or life-disciplined character. The beauty of the Apollo Belvidere, or Venus de Medicis, is perfectly palpable to any shallow fine lady or fine gentleman, though they would have perceived none in the face of an old weather- beaten St. Peter, or a grey -haired “ Grandmother Lois.” The knowledge that long study is necessary to produce these regular types of the human form renders the facile admiration matter of eager self-complacency ; the shallow spectator, delighted that he can really, and without hypocrisy, admire what required much thought to produce, supposes himself endowed with the highest critical faculties, and easily lets himself be carried into rhapsodies about the “ ideal,” which, when all is said, if they be accurately examined, will be found literally to mean nothing more than that the figure has got handsome calves to its legs, and a straight nose. That they do mean, in reality, nothing more than this may be easily ascertained by watching the taste of the same persons in other things. The fashionable lady who will write five or six pages in her diary respecting the effect upon her mind of such and such an “ideal” in marble, will have her drawing-room table covered with Books of Beauty, in which the engravings represent the human form in every possible aspect of distortion and affectation ; and the connoisseur who, in the morning, pretends to the most exquisite taste in the antique, will be seen, in the evening, in his opera-stall, applauding the least graceful gestures of the least modest figurante. 124 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. But even this vulgar pursuit of physical beauty (vulgar in the profoundest sense, for there is no vulgarity like the vulgarity of education) would be less contemptible if it really succeeded in its object ; but, like all pursuits carried to inordinate length, it defeats itself. Physical beauty is a noble thing when it is seen in perfectness ; but the manner in which the moderns pursue their ideal prevents their ever really seeing what they are always seeking ; for, requiring that all forms should be regular and faultless, they permit, or even compel, their painters and sculptors to work chiefly by rule, altering their models to fit their preconceived notions of what is right. When such artists look at a face, they do not give it the attention necessary to discern what beauty is already in its peculiar features ; but only to see how best it may be altered into something for which they have them- selves laid down the laws. Nature never unveils her beauty to such a gaze. She keeps whatever she has done best close sealed, until it is regarded with reverence. To the painter who honours her she will open a revelation in the face of a street mendicant ; but in the work of the painter who alters her she will make Portia become ignoble, and Perdita graceless. Nor is the effect less for evil on the mind of the general observer. The lover of ideal beauty, with all his conceptions narrowed by rule, never looks carefully enough upon the features which do not come under his law (or any others) to discern the inner beauty in them. The strange intricacies about the lines of the lips, and marvellous shadows and watch- fires of the eye, and wavering traceries of the eyelash, and infinite modulations of the brow, wherein high humanity is embodied, are all invisible to him. He finds himself driven back at last, with all his idealism, to the lionne of the ball- room, whom youth and passion can as easily distinguish as his utmost critical science; whereas, the observer who has accustomed himself to take human faces as God made them, will often find as much beauty on a village green as in the proudest room of state, and as much in the free seats of a church aisle, as in all the sacred paintings of the Vatican or the Pitti. PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 125 Then, farther, the habit of disdaining ordinary truth, and seeking to alter it so as to fit the fancy of the beholder, gradually infects the mind in all its other operation; so that it begins to propose to itself an ideal in history, an ideal in general narration, an ideal in portraiture and description, and in everything else where truth may be painful or uninterest- ing; with the necessary result of more or less weakness, wickedness, and uselessness in all that is done or said, with the desire of concealing this painful truth. And, finally, even when truth is not intentionally concealed, the pursuer of idealism will pass his days in false and useless trains of thought, pluming himself, all the while, upon his superiority therein to the rest of mankind. A modern German, without either invention or sense, seeing a rapid in a river, will imme- diately devote the remainder of the day to the composition of dialogues between amorous water nymphs and unhappy ma- riners ; while the man of true invention, power, and sense will, instead, set himself to consider whether the rocks in the river could have their points knocked off, or the boats upon it be made with stronger bottoms. Of this final baseness of the false ideal, its miserable waste of the time, strength, and available intellect of man, by turn- ing, as I have said above, innocence of pastime into serious- ness of occupation, it is, of course, hardly possible to sketch out even so much as the leading manifestations. The vain and haughty projects of youth for future life ; the giddy reveries of insatiable self-exaltation ; the discontented dreams of what might have been or should be, instead of the thankful un- derstanding of what is ; the casting about for sources of interest in senseless fiction, instead of the real human histories of the people round us ; the prolongation from age to age of romantic historical deceptions instead of sifted truth ; the pleasures taken in fanciful portraits of rural or romantic life in poetry and on the stage, without the smallest effort to rescue the living rural population of the world from its ignorance or misery ; the excitement of the feelings by laboured imagina- tion of spirits, fairies, monsters, and demons, issuing in total blindness of heart and sight to the true presences of beneficent 126 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. or destructive spiritual powers around us ; in fine, the constant abandonment of all the straightforward paths of sense and duty, for fear of losing some of the enticement of ghostly joys, or trampling somewhat “ sopra lor vanita, che par persona;” all these various forms of false idealism have so entangled the modern mind, often called, I suppose ironically, practical, that truly I believe there never yet was idolatry of stock or staff so utterly unholy as this our idolatry of shadows ; nor can I think that, of those who burnt incense under oaks, and poplars, and elms, because “ the shadow thereof was good,” it could in any wise be more justly or sternly declared than of us — “The wind hath bound them up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.” — M. P. III. Pt.iv. ch.v. §8,9,10,11,12,13. Symbolism in Art. — We hear it not unfrequently asserted that symbolism or personification should not be introduced in painting at all. Such assertions are in their grounds unintel- ligible, and in their substance absurd. Whatever is in words described as visible, may with all logical fitness* be rendered so by colours ; and not only is this a legitimate branch of ideal art, but I believe there is hardly any other so widely useful and instructive ; and I heartily wish that every great allegory which the poets ever invented were powerfully put on canvass, and easily accessible by all men, and that our artists were perpetually exciting themselves to invent more. And as far as authority bears on the question, the simple fact is that allegorical painting has been the delight of the greatest men and of the wisest multitudes, from the beginning of art, and will be till art expires. Orcagna’s Triumph of Death ; Simon Memmi’s frescoes in the Spanish Chapel; Giotto’s principal works at Assisi, and partly at the Arena; Michael Angelo’s two best statues, the Night and Day; Albert Durer’s noble Melancholy, and hundreds more of his best works; a full third, I should think, of the works of Tintoret and Veronese, and nearly as large a portion of those of Raphael and Rubens, are entirely symbolical or personifiant; and, except in the * Though, perhaps, only in a subordinate degree. PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 127 case of the last-named painter, are always among the most interesting works the painters executed. The greater and more thoughtful the artists, the more they delight in sym- bolism, and the more fearlessly they employ it. Dead symbolism, second-hand symbolism, pointless symbolism, are indeed "objectionable enough ; but so are most other things that are dead, second-hand, and pointless. It is also true that both symbolism and personification are somewhat more apt than most things to have their edges taken off by too much handling; and what with our modern Fames, Jus- tices, and various metaphorical ideals, largely used for signs and other such purposes, there is some excuse for our not well knowing what the real power of personification is. But that power is gigantic and inexhaustible, and ever to be grasped with peculiar joy by the painter, because it permits him to introduce picturesque elements and flights of fancy into his work, which otherwise would be utterly inadmissible ; — to bring the wild beasts of the desert into the room of state, fill the air with inhabitants as well as the earth, and render the least (visibly) interesting incidents themes for the most thrilling drama. Even Tintoret might sometimes have been hard put to it, when he had to fill a large panel in the Ducal Palace with the portrait of a nowise interesting Doge, unless he had been able to lay a winged lion beside him, ten feet long from the nose to the tail, asleep upon the Turkey carpet ; and Rubens could certainly have made his flatteries of Mary of Medicis palatable to no one but herself, without the help of rosy-cheeked goddesses of abundance, and seven-headed hydras of rebellion. For observe, not only does the introduction of these imagi- nary beings permit greater fantasticism of incident , but also infinite fantasticism of treatment ; and, I believe, so far from the pursuit of the false ideal having in anywise exhausted the realms of fantastic imagination, those realms have hardly yet been entered, and that a universe of noble dream-land lies before us, yet to be conquered. For, hitherto, when fantastic creatures have been introduced, either the masters have been so realistic in temper that they made the spirits as substantial 128 .WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. as their figures of flesh and blood, — as Rubens, and, for the most part, Tintoret; or else they have been weak and un- practised in realization, and have painted transparent or cloudy spirits because they had no power of painting grand ones. But if a really great painter, thoroughly capable of giving substantial truth, and master of the elements of pictorial effect which have been developed by modern art, would solemnly, and yet fearlessly, cast his fancy free in the spiritual world, and faithfully follow out such masters of that world as Dante and Spenser, there seems no limit to the splendour of thought which painting might express. — M. P.iii. Pt. iv. ch. viii. § 6, 7. Greek and Italian Art. — All the nobleness, as well as the faults, of the Greek art were dependent on its making the most of this present life ; its dominion was in this world. Florentine art was essentially Christian, ascetic, expectant of a better world, and antagonistic, therefore, to the Greek temper. So that the Greek element, once forced upon it, destroyed it. There was absolute incompatibility between them. Florentine art, also, could not produce landscape. It despised the rock, the tree, the vital air itself, aspiring to breathe empyreal air. Venetian art began with the same aim and under the same restrictions. Both are healthy in the youth of art. Heavenly aim and severe law for boyhood ; earthly work and fair free- dom for manhood. The Venetians began, I repeat, with asceticism ; always, however, delighting in more massive and deep colour than other religious painters. They are especially fond of saints who have been cardinals, because of their red hats, and they sunburn all their hermits into splendid russet brown. They differed from the Pisans in having no Maremma between them and the sea ; from the Romans, in continually quarrelling with the Pope; and from the Florentines in having no gardens. They had another kind of garden, deep-furrowed, with blossom in white wreaths — fruitless. Perpetual May therein, and singing of wild nestless birds. And they had no Maremma PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 129 to separate them from this garden of theirs. The destiny of Pisa was changed, in all probability, by the ten miles of marsh-land and poisonous air between it and the beach. The Genoese energy was fev.erish ; too much heat reflected from their torrid Apennine. But the Venetian had his free horizon, his salt breeze, and sandy Lido-shore ; sloped far and flat, — ridged sometimes under the Tramontane winds with half a mile’s breadth of rollers ; — sea and sand shrivelled up together in one yellow careering field of fall and roar. They were, also, we said, always quarrelling with the Pope. Their religious liberty came, like their bodily health, from that wave-training; for it is one notable effect of a life passed on ship-board to destroy weak beliefs in appointed forms of religion. A sailor may be grossly superstitious, but his superstitions will be connected with amulets and omens, not cast in systems. He must accustom himself, if he prays at all, to pray anywhere and anyhow. Candlesticks and incense not being portable into the maintop, he perceives those decorations to be, on the whole, inessential to a maintop mass. Sails must be set and cables bent, be it never so strict a saint’s day, and it is found that no harm comes of it. Absolution on a lee- shore must be had of the breakers, it appears, if at all, and they give it plenary and brief, without listening to confession. Whereupon our religious opinions become vague, but our religious confidences strong ; and the end of it all is that we perceive the Pope to be on the other side of the Apennines, and able, indeed, to sell indulgences, but not winds, for any money. W'hereas, God and the sea are with us, and we must even trust them both, and take what they shall send. Then, farther. This ocean-work is wholly adverse to any morbid conditions of sentiment. Eeverie, above all things, is forbidden by Scylla and Charybdis. By the dogs and the depths, no dreaming ! The first thing required of us is presence of mind. Neither love, nor poetry, nor piety, must ever so take up our thoughts as to make us slow or unready. In sweet Val d’Arno it is permissible enough to dream among the orange-blossoms, and forget the day in twilight of ilex. But along the avenues of the Adrian waves there can be no care- 9 130 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. less walking. Vigilance, night and day, required of us, besides learning of many practical lessons in severe and humble dexterities. It is enough for the Florentine to know how to use his sword and to ride. We Venetians, also, must be able to use our swords, and on ground which is none of the steadiest; but, besides, we must be able to do nearly every- thing that hands can turn to — rudders, and yards, and cables, all needing workmanly handling and workmanly knowledge, from captain as well as from men. To drive a nail, lash a spar, reef a sail — rude work this for noble hands; but to be done sometimes, and done well, on pain of death. All which not only takes mean pride out of us, and puts nobler pride of power in its stead ; but it tends partly to soothe, partly to chasten, partly to employ and direct, the hot Italian temper, and make us every way greater, calmer, and happier. Moreover, it tends to induce in us great respect for the whole human body ; for its limbs, as much as for its tongue or its wit. Policy and eloquence are well ; and, indeed, we Venetians can be politic enough, and can speak melodiously when we choose ; but to put the helm up at the right moment is the beginning of all cunning — and for that we need arm and eye ; — not tongue. And with this respect for the body: as such, comes also the sailor’s preference of massive beauty in bodily form. The landsmen, among their roses and orange- blossoms, and chequered shadows of twisted vine, may well please themselves with pale faces, and finely-drawn eyebrows, and fantastic braiding of hair. But from the sweeping glory of the sea we learn to love another kind of beauty ; broad- breasted ; level-browed, like the horizon ; — thighed and shouldered like the billows; — footed like their stealing foam ; — bathed in cloud of golden hair, like their sunsets.— M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. iii. § 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Fall of Venetian Art. — In all its roots of power, and modes of work ; — in its belief, its breadth, and its judgment, I find the Venetian mind perfect. How, then, did its art so swiftly pass away ? How become, what it became unquestionably, one of the chief causes of the PAINTING- AND PAINTERS. 181 corruption of the mind of Italy, and of her subsequent decline in moral and political power ? By reason of one great, one fatal fault; — recklessness in aim. Wholly noble in its sources, it was wholly unworthy in its purposes. Separate and strong, like Samson, chosen from its youth, and with the Spirit of God visibly resting on it, — like him, it warred in careless strength, and wantoned in untimely plea- sure. No Venetian painter ever worked with any aim beyond that of delighting the eye, or expressing fancies agreeable to himself or flattering to his nation. They could not be either, unless they were religious. But he did not desire the reli- gion. He desired the delight. The Assumption is a noble picture, because Titian believed in the Madonna. But he did not paint it to make any one else believe in her. He painted it, because he enjoyed rich masses of red and blue, and faces flushed with sunlight. Tintoret’s Paradise is a noble picture, because he believed in Paradise. But he did not paint it to make any one think of heaven ; but to form a beautiful termination for the hall of the greater council. Other men used their effete faiths and mean faculties with a high moral purpose. The Venetian gave the most earnest faith, and the lordliest faculty, to gild the shadows of an ante- chamber, or heighten the splendours of a holiday. Strange, and lamentable as this carelessness may appear, I find it to be almost the law with the great workers. Weak and vain men have acute consciences, and labour under a profound sense of responsibility. The strong men, sternly disdainful of themselves, do what they can, too often merely as it pleases them at the moment, reckless what comes of it. I know not how far in humility, or how far in bitter and hopeless levity, the great Venetians gave their art to be blasted by the sea-winds or wasted by the worm. I know not whether in sorrowful obedience, or in wanton compliance, they fos- tered the folly, and enriched the luxury of their age. This only I know, that in proportion to the greatness of their power was the shame of its desecration and the suddenness of its 9—2 132 WHITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. fall. The enchanter’s spell, woven by centuries of toil, was broken in the weakness of a moment ; and swiftly, and utterly, as a rainbow vanishes, the radiance and the strength faded from the wings of the Lion. — M. P. v. Pt. ix. ch. iii. § 31, 32, 33. Venetian Landscape Painting. — The worst point we have to note respecting the spirit of Venetian landscape is its pride. It was observed in the course of the third volume how the mediaeval temper had rejected agricultural pursuits, and what- ever pleasures could come of them. At Venice this negation had reached its extreme. Though the Florentines and Romans had no delight in farming, they had in gardening. The Venetian possessed, and cared for, neither fields nor pastures. Being delivered, to his loss, from all the wholesome labours of tillage, he was also shut out from the sweet wonders and charities of the earth, and from the pleasant natural history of the year. Birds and beasts, and times and seasons, all unknown to him. No swallow chat- tered at his window, nor, nested under his golden roofs, claimed the sacredness of his mercy ; no Pythagorean fowl taught him the blessings of the poor, nor did the grave spirit of poverty rise at his side to set forth the delicate grace and honour of lowly life. No humble thoughts of grasshopper sire had he, like the Athenian ; no gratitude for gifts of olive ; no childish care for figs, any more than thistles. The rich Venetian feast had no need of the figtree spoon. Dramas about birds, and wasps and frogs, would have passed unheeded by his proud fancy; carol or murmur of them had fallen unrecognized on ears accustomed only to grave syllables of war-tried men, and wash of songless wave. No simple joy was possible to him. Only stateliness and power ; high intercourse with kingly and beautiful humanity, proud thoughts, or splendid pleasures ; throned sensualities, and ennobled appetites. But of innocent, childish, helpful, holy pleasures, he had none. As in the classical landscape, nearly all rural labour is banished from the Titianesque : there is one bold etching of a landscape, with grand ploughing in the foreground, but this is only a caprice ; the customary PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 188 Venetian background is without sign of laborious rural life. "We find, indeed, often a shepherd with his flock, sometimes a woman spinning, but no division of fields, no growing crops, nor nestling villages. In the numerous drawings and wood- cuts variously connected with or representative of Venetian work, a watermill is a frequent object, a river constant, gene- rally the sea. But the prevailing idea in all the great pictures I have seen, is that of mountainous land with wild but grace- ful forest, and rolling or horizontal clouds. The mountains are dark blue ; the clouds glowing or soft grey, always massive ; the light, deep, clear, melancholy ; the foliage, neither intricate nor graceful, but compact and sweeping (with undulated trunks), dividing much into horizontal flakes, like the clouds ; the ground rocky and broken somewhat monotonously, but richly green -with wild herbage ; here and there a flower, by preference white or blue, rarely yellow, still more rarely red. — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. iii. § 10, 11. Several Orders of Landscape Painting. — We may arrange nearly all existing landscape under the following heads : — I. Heroic. — Representing an imaginary world, inhabited by men not, perhaps, perfectly civilized, but noble, and usually subjected to severe trials, and by spiritual powers of the highest order. It is frequently without architecture ; never without figure-action, or emotion. Its principal master is Titian. II. Classical. — Representing an imaginary world, inhabited by perfectly civilized men, and by spiritual powers of an infe- rior order. It generally assumes this condition of things to have existed among the Greek and Roman nations. It contains usually archi- tecture of an elevated character, and always incidents of figure- action, or emotion. Its principal master is Nicolo Poussin. III. Pastoral. — Representing peasant life and its daily work, or such scenery as may naturally be suggestive of it, consist- ing usually of simple landscape, in part subjected to agricul- ture, with figures, cattle, and domestic buildings. No supernatural being is ever visibly present. It does not in 134 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. ordinary cases admit architecture of an elevated character, nor exciting incident. Its principal master is Cuyp. IV. Contemplative . — Directed principally to the observance of the powers of nature, and record of the historical associa- tions connected with landscape, illustrated by, or contrasted with, existing states of human life. No supernatural being is visibly present. It admits every variety of subject, and requires, in general, figure incident, but not of an exciting character. It was not developed completely until recent times. Its principal master is Turner. These are the four true orders of landscape, not of course distinctly separated from each other in all cases, but very distinctly in typical examples. Two spurious forms require separate note. (a.) Picturesque . — This is indeed rather the degradation (or sometimes the undeveloped state) of the Contemplative, than a distinct class ; but it may be considered generally as in- cluding pictures meant to display the skill of the artist, and his powers of composition; or to give agreeable forms and colours, irrespective of sentiment. It will include much modern art, with the street views and church interiors of the Dutch, and the works of Canaletto, Guardi, Tempesta, and the like. (b.) Hybrid . — Landscape in which the painter endeavours to unite the irreconcileable sentiment of two or more of the above-named classes. Its principal masters are Berghem and "VVouvermans. Passing for the present by these inferior schools, we find that all true landscape, whether simple or exalted, depends primarily for its interest on connection with humanity, or with spiritual powers. Banish your heroes and nymphs from the classical landscape — its laurel shades will move you no more. Show that the dark clefts of the most romantic mountain are uninhabited and untraversed; it will cease to be romantic. Fields without shepherds and without fairies will have no gaiety in their green, nor will the noblest masses of ground or colours of cloud arrest or raise your thoughts, if the earth has no life to sustain, and the heaven none to refresh. — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. i. § 2, 3, 4. PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 35 Tiie False Ideal of Landscape — The Mill, by Claude. — The foreground is a piece of very lovely and perfect forest scenery, with a dance of peasants by a brook side; quite enough subject to form, in the hands of a master, an impres- sive and complete picture. On the other side of the brook, however, we have a piece of pastoral life ; a man with some bulls and goats tumbling headforemost into the water, owing to some sudden paralytic affection of all their legs. Even this group is one too many ; the shepherd had no business to drive his flock so near the dancers, and the dancers will certainly frighten the cattle. But when we look farther into the picture, our feelings receive a sudden and violent shock, by the unexpected appearance, amidst things pastoral and musical, of the military ; a number of Roman soldiers riding in on hobby-horses, with a leader on foot, apparently encou- raging them to make an immediate and decisive charge on the musicians. Beyond the soldiers is a circular temple, in exceedingly bad repair; and close beside it, built against its very walls, a neat watermill in full work. By the mill flows a large river with a weir all across it. The weir has not been made for the mill (for that receives its water from the hills by a trough carried over the temple), but it is particularly ugly and monotonous in its line of fall, and the water below forms a dead-looking pond, on which some people are fishing in punts. The banks of this river resemble in contour the later geological formations around London, constituted chiefly of broken pots and oyster-shells. At an inconvenient distance from the water-side stands a city, composed of twenty-five round towers and a pyramid. Beyond the city is a handsome bridge; beyond the bridge, part of the Campagna, with fragments of aqueducts ; beyond the Campagna, the chain of the Alps ; on the left, the cascades of Tivoli. This is, I believe, a fair example of what is commonly called an “ideal” landscape; i. e., a group of the artist’s studies from nature, individually spoiled, selected with such opposition of character as may insure their neutralizing each other’s effect, and united with sufficient unnaturalness and violence of association to insure their producing a general 13G WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. sensation of the impossible. Let us analyze the separate subjects a little in this ideal work of Claude’s. First, we will reduce the multitudinous precipices of the Apennines to four sugar-loaves. Secondly, we will remove the Alban Mount, and put a large dust-heap in its stead. Next, we will knock down the greater part of the aque- ducts, and leave only an arch or two, that their infinity of length may no longer be painful from its monotony. For the purple mist and declining sun, we will substitute a bright blue sky, with round white clouds. Finally, we will get rid of the unpleasant ruins in the foreground ; we will plant some handsome trees therein, we will send for some fiddlers, and get up a dance, and a picnic party. It will be found, throughout the picture, that the same species of improvement is made on the materials which Claude had ready to his hand. The descending slopes of the city of Rome, towards the pyramid of Caius Cestius, supply not only lines of the most exquisite variety and beauty, but matter for contemplation and reflection in every fragment of their build- ings. This passage has been idealized by Claude into a set of similar round towers, respecting which no idea can be formed but that they are uninhabitable, and to which no interest can be attached, beyond the difficulty of conjecturing what they could have been built for. The ruins of the temple are rendered unimpressive by the juxtaposition of the water- mill, and inexplicable by the introduction of the Roman soldiers. The glide of the muddy streams of the melancholy Tiber and Anio through the Campagna is impressive in itself, but altogether ceases to be so, when we disturb their stillness of motion by a weir, adorn their neglected flow with a hand- some bridge, and cover their solitary surface with punts, nets, and fishermen. — M.P. I. Preface to 2nd Ed. p. 36. Aims of the Landscape Painter. — The landscape painter must always have two great and distinct ends : the first, to induce in the spectator’s mind the faithful conception of any natural objects whatsoever ; the second, to guide the spec- tator’s mind to those objects most worthy of its contemplation, PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 137 and to inform him of the thoughts and feelings with which these were regarded by the artist himself. In attaining the first end the painter only places the spec- tator where he stands himself ; he sets him before the land- scape and leaves him. The spectator is alone. He may follow out his own thoughts as he would in the natural soli- tude ; or he may remain untouched, unreflecting, and regard- less, as his disposition may incline him : but he has nothing of thought given to him ; no new ideas, no unknown feelings, forced on hi§ attention or his heart. The artist is his con- veyance, not his companion, — his horse, not his friend. But in attaining the second end, the artist not only places the spec- tator, but talks to him ; makes him a sharer in his own strong feelings and quick thoughts ; hurries him away in his own enthusiasm ; guides him to all that is beautiful ; snatches him from all that is base ; and leaves him more than delighted, — ennobled and instructed, under the sense of having not only beheld a new scene, but of having held communion with a new mind, and having been endowed for a time with the keen perception and the impetuous emotion of a nobler and more penetrating intelligence. Each of these different aims of art will necessitate a differ- ent system of choice of objects to be represented. The first does not indeed imply choice at all, but it is usually united with the selection of such objects as may be naturally and constantly pleasing to all men, at all times ; and this selection, when perfect and careful, leads to the attainment of the pure ideal. But the artist aiming at the second end, selects his objects for their meaning and character, rather than for their beauty ; and uses them rather to throw light upon the par- ticular thought he wishes to convey, than as in themselves objects of unconnected admiration. Now, although the first mode of selection, when guided by deep reflection, may rise to the production of works possessing a noble and ceaseless influence on the human mind, it is likely to degenerate into, or rather, in nine cases out of ten, it never goes beyond, a mere appeal to such parts of our animal nature as are constant and common, — shared by all, and perpetual in 138 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. all ; such, for instance, as the pleasure of the eye in the oppo- sition of a cold and warm colour, or of a massy form with a delicate one. It also tends to induce constant repetition of the same ideas, and reference to the same principles ; it gives rise to those rules of art which properly excited Reynolds’s indignation when applied to its higher efforts ; it is the source of, and the apology for, that host of technicalities and absur- dities which in all ages have been the curse of art and the crown of the connoisseur. But art, in its second and highest aim, is not an appeal to constant animal feelings, but an expression and awakening of individual thought : it is therefore as various and as extended in its efforts as the compass and grasp of the directing mind ; and we feel, in each of its results, that we are looking, not at a specimen of a tradesman’s wares, of which he is ready to make us a dozen to match, but at one corruscation of a per- petually active mind, like which there has not been, and will not be another. Hence, although there can be no doubt which of these branches of art is the highest, it is equally evident that the first will be the more generally felt and appreciated. For the simple statement of the truths of nature must in itself be pleasing to every order of mind ; because every truth of nature is more or less beautiful : and if there be just and right selection of the more important of these truths — based, as above ex- plained, on feelings and desires common to all mankind, — the facts so selected must, in some degree, be delightful to all, and their value appreciable by all ; more or less, indeed, as their senses and instinct have been rendered more or less acute and accurate by use and study ; but in some degree by all, and in the same way by all. But the highest art, being based on sensations of peculiar minds, sensations occurring to them only at particular times, and to a plurality of mankind perhaps never, and being expressive of thoughts which could only rise out of a mass of the most extended knowledge, and of dispositions modified in a thousand ways by peculiarity of intellect, can only be met and understood by persons having some sort of sympathy with the high and solitary minds PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 139 which produced it — sympathy only to be felt by minds in some degree high and solitary themselves. He alone can appreciate the art, who could comprehend the conversation of the painter, and share in his emotion, in moments of his most fiery passion and most original thought. And whereas the true meaning and end of his art must thus be sealed to thou- sands, or misunderstood by them ; so also, as he is sometimes obliged, in working out his own peculiar end, to set at defiance those constant laws which have arisen out of our lower and changeless desires, that whose purpose is unseen is frequently in its means and parts displeasing. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 1. ch. i. § 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Characteristics of Claude. — Claude had a fine feeling for beauty of form and considerable tenderness of perception. His aerial effects are unequalled. Their character appears to me to arise rather from a delicacy of bodily constitution in Claude, than from any mental sensibility : such as they are, they give a kind of feminine charm to his work, which partly accounts for its wide influence. To whatever the character may be traced, it renders him incapable of enjoying or painting any- thing energetic or terrible. Hence the weakness of his con- ceptions of rough sea. He had sincerity of purpose; but in common with other landscape painters of his day, neither earnestness, humility, nor love, such as would ever cause him to forget himself. That is to say, so far as he felt the truth, he tried to be .true; but he never felt it enough to sacrifice supposed pro- priety, or habitual method to it. Very few of his sketches, and none of his pictures, show evidence of interest in other natural phenomena than the quiet afternoon sunshine which would fall methodically into a composition. One would sup- pose he had never seen scarlet in a morning cloud, nor a storm burst on the Apennines. But he enjoys a quiet misty after- noon in a ruminant sort of way, yet truly ; and strives for the likeness of it, therein differing from Salvator, who never attempts to be truthful, but only to be impressive. III. His seas are the most beautiful in old art. For he 140 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. studied tame waves, as he did tame skies, with great sincerity, and some affection ; and modelled them with more care not only than any other landscape painter of his day, but even than any of the great men ; for they, seeing the perfect paint- ing of sea to be impossible, gave up the attempt, and treated it conventionally. But Claude took so much pains about this, feeling it was one of his fortes , that I suppose no one can model a small wave better than he. IV. He first set the pictorial sun in the pictorial heaven. We will give him the credit of this, with no drawbacks. Y. He had hardly any knowledge of physical science, and shows a peculiar incapacity of understanding the main point of a matter. Connected with which incapacity is his want of harmony in expression. Such were the principal qualities of the leading painter of classical landscape, his effeminate softness carrying him to dislike all evidences of toil, or distress or terror, and to delight in the calm formalities which mark the school. Although he often introduces romantic incidents and mediaeval as well as Greek or Boman personages, his land- scape is always in the true sense classic — everything being “ elegantly ” (selectingly or tastefully), not passionately, treated. The absence of indications of rural labour, of hedges, ditches, haystacks, ploughed fields, and the like ; the frequent occurrence of ruins of temples, or masses of unruined palaces ; and the graceful wildness of growth in his trees, are the prin- cipal sources of the “ elevated ” character which so many persons feel in his scenery. — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. v. § 10 , 11 , 12 . Characteristics of Nicolo Poussin. — It would take con- siderable time to enter into accurate analysis of Poussin’s strong but degraded mind ; and bring us no reward, because whatever he has done has been done better by Titian. His peculiarities are, without exception, weaknesses, induced in a highly intellectual and inventive mind by being fed on medals, books, and bassi-relievi, instead of nature, and by the want of any deep sensibility. His best works are his Bacchanalian PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 141 revels, always brightly wanton and wild, full of frisk and fire; but they are coarser than Titian’s, and infinitely less beautiful. In all minglings of the human and brutal character he leans on the bestial, yet with a sternly Greek severity of treatment. This restraint, peculiarly classical, is muck too manifest in him ; for, owing to his habit of never letting himself be free, he does nothing as well as it ought to be done, rarely even as well as he can himself do it ; and his best beauty is poor, in- complete, and characterless, though refined. The Nymph pressing the honey in the u nursing of Jupiter,” and the Muse leaning against the tree, in the “ Inspiration of Poet ” (both in the Dulwich Gallery), appear to me examples of about his highest reach in this sphere. His want of sensibility permits him to paint frightful sub- jects, without feeling any true horror: his pictures of the Plague, the Death of Polydectes, &c., are thus ghastly in incident, sometimes disgusting, but never impressive. The prominence of the bleeding head in the Triumph of David marks the same temper. His battle pieces are cold and feeble; his religious subjects wholly nugatory; they do not excite him enough to develope even his ordinary powers of invention. Neither does he put much power into his land- scape when it becomes principal ; the best pieces of it occur in fragments behind his figures. Beautiful vegetation, more or less ornamental in character, occurs in nearly all his mytho- logical subjects, but his pure landscape is notable only for its dignified reserve; the great squareness and horizontally of its masses, with lowness of tone, giving it a deeply meditative character. His Deluge might be much depreciated, under this head of ideas of relation, but it is so uncharacteristic of him that I pass it by. Whatever power this lowness of tone, light in the distance, &c., give to his landscape, or to Gaspar’s, is in both conventional and artificial. — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. v. § 17, 18. Character of Rubens. — No phenomenon in human mind is more extraordinary than the junction of this cold and worldly temper with great rectitude of principle, and tranquil 142 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. kindness of heart. Rubens was an honourable and entirely well-intentioned man, earnestly industrious, simple and tem- perate in habits of life, high-bred, learned, and discreet. His affection for his mother was great ; his generosity to contem- porary artists unfailing. He is a healthy, worthy, kind- hearted, courtly-phrased — Animal — without any clearly perceptible traces of a soul, except when he paints his chil- dren. . . . Observe, Rubens is always entirely honourable in his state- ments of what is done by himself and what not. He is religious, too, after his manner ; hears mass every morning, and perpetually uses the phrase “ by the grace of God,” or some other such, in writing of any business he takes in hand ; but the tone of his religion may be determined by one fact. Veronese painted himself and his family as worshipping the Madonna. Rubens has also painted himself and his family in an equally elaborate piece. Rut they are not worshipping the Madonna. They are performing the Madonna, and her saintly entourage. His favourite wife “ En Madone;” his youngest boy u as Christ ; ” his father-in-law (or father* it matters not which), 11 as Simeon;” another elderly relation, with a beard, “ as St. Jerome ; ” and he himself u as St. George.” — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. vi. §, 8, 9. Wouvermans and Angelico. — The thoughts of Wouver- mans are wholly of this world. For him there is no heroism, awe, or mercy, hope, or faith. Eating and drinking, and slaying; rage and lust; the pleasures and distresses of the debased body — from these, his thoughts, if so we may call them, never for an instant rise or range. The soul of Angelico is in all ways the precise reverse of this ; habitually as incognizant of any earthly pleasure as Wouvermans of any heavenly one. Both are exclusive with absolute exclusiveness; — neither desiring nor conceiving any- thing beyond their respective spheres. Wouvermans lives under grey clouds, his lights come out as spots. Angelico lives in an unclouded light : his shadows themselves are PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 143 colour; his lights are not the spots, but his darks. Wouver- mans lives in perpetual tumult — tramp of horse — clash of cup — ring of pistol-shot. Angelico in perpetual peace. Not seclusion from the world. No shutting out of the world is needful for him. There is nothing to shut out. Envy, lust, contention, discourtesy, are to him as though they were not ; and the cloister walk of Fiesole no penitential solitude, barred from the stir and joy of life, but a possessed land of tender blessing, guarded from the entrance of all but holiest sorrow. The little cell was as one of the houses of heaven prepared for him by his Master. u What need had it to be elsewhere ? Was not the Val d’Arno, with its olive woods in white blossom, paradise enough for a poor monk? or could Christ be indeed in heaven more than here? Was He not always with him ? Could he breathe or see, but that Christ breathed beside him, and looked into his eyes ? Under every cypress avenue the angels walked; he had seen their white robes, whiter than the dawn, at his bedside, as he awoke in early summer. They had sung with him, one on each side, when his voice failed for joy at sweet vesper and matin time ; his eyes were blinded by their wings in the sunset, when it sank behind the hills of Luni.” There may be weakness in this, but there is no baseness ; and while I rejoice in all recovery from monasticism which leads to practical and healthy action in the world, I must, in closing this work, severely guard my pupils from the thought that sacred rest may be honourably exchanged for selfish and mindless activity. In Wouvermans we have the entirely carnal mind — wholly versed in the material world, and incapable of conceiving any goodness or greatness whatsoever. In Angelico, you have the entirely spiritual mind, wholly versed in the heavenly world, and incapable of conceiving any wickedness or vileness whatsoever. — M. P. Y. Pt. ix. ch. viii. § 12 , 13 , 15 . Dutch Landscape Painters. — I should attach greater im- portance to their respect for rural life if there were any true 144 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. humanity in it, or any feeling for beauty. But there is nei- ther. No incidents of this lower life are painted for the sake of the incidents, but only for the effects of light. You will find that the best Dutch painters do not care about the people, but about the lustres on them. Paul Potter, their best herd and cattle painter, does not care even for sheep, but only for wool ; regards not cows, but cowhide. He attains great dexterity in drawing tufts and locks, lingers in the little parallel ravines and furrows of fleece that open across sheep’s backs as they turn ; is unsurpassed in twisting a horn or pointing a nose ; but he cannot paint eyes, nor perceive any condition of an animal’s mind, except its desire of grazing. Cuyp can, indeed, paint sunlight, the best that Holland’s sun can show ; he is a man of large natural gift, and sees broadly, nay, even seriously; finds out — a wonderful thing for men to find out in those days — that there are reflections in water, and that boats require often to be painted upside down. A brewer by trade, he feels the quiet of a summer afternoon, and his work will make you marvellously drowsy. It is good for nothing else that I know of : strong ; but unhelpful and un- thoughtful. Nothing happens in his pictures, except some indifferent person’s asking the way of somebody else, who, by their cast of countenance, seems not likely to know it. For farther entertainment perhaps a red cow and a white one; or puppies at play, not playfully ; the man’s heart not going even with the puppies. Essentially he sees nothing but the shine on the flaps of their ears. — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. vi. § 12. Peasant Boys of Murillo and William Hunt. — Yet, go into the Dulwich Gallery, and meditate for a little over that much celebrated picture of the two beggar boys, one eating, lying on the ground, the other standing beside him. We have among our own painters one who cannot indeed be set beside Murillo as a painter of Madonnas, for he is a pure Naturalist, and, never having seen a Madonna, does not paint any; but who, as a painter of beggar or peasant boys, may be set beside Murillo, or any one else, — W. Hunt. He loves PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 145 peasant boys, because be finds them more roughly and picturesquely dressed, and more healthily coloured, than others. And he paints all that he sees in them fearlessly; all the health and humour, and freshness and vitality, together with such awkwardness and stupidity, and what else of negative or positive harm there may be in the creature ; but yet so that on the whole we love it, and find it perhaps even beautiful, or, if not, at least we see that there is capability of good in it, rather than of evil ; and all is lighted up by a sunshine and sweet colour that makes the smock frock as precious as cloth of gold. But look at those two ragged and vicious vagrants that Murillo has gathered out of the street. You smile at first, because they are eating so naturally, and their roguery is so complete. But is there anything else than roguery there, or was it well for the painter to give his time to the painting of those repulsive and wicked children ? Do you feel moved with any charity towards children as you look at them ? Are we the least more likely to take any interest in ragged schools, or to help the next pauper child that comes in our way, because the painter has shown us a cunning beggar feeding greedily? Mark the choice of the act. He might have shown hunger in other ways, and given interest to even this act of eating, by making the face wasted, or the eye wistful. But he did not care to do this. He delighted merely in the disgusting manner of eating, the food filling the cheek ; the boy is not hungry, else he would not turn round to talk and grin as he eats. But observe another point in the lower figure. It lies so that the sole of the foot is turned towards the spectator ; not because it would have lain less easily in another attitude, but that the painter may draw, and exhibit, the grey dust engrained in the foot. Do not call this the painting of nature : it is mere delight in foulness. The lesson, if there be any, in the picture, is not one whit the stronger. We all know that a beggar’s bare foot cannot be clean ; there is no need to thrust its degradation into the light, as if no human imagi- nation were vigorous enough for its conception. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 60. 10 146 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Dogs as painted by the Venetians and Others. — I stated, in speaking of Venetian religion, that the Venetians always introduced the dog as a contrast to the high aspects of humanity. They do this, not because they consider him the basest of animals, but the highest — the connecting link between men and animals ; in whom the lower forms of really human feeling may be best exemplified, such as conceit, gluttony, indolence, petulance. But they saw the noble qualities of the dog, too ; — all his patience, love, and faith- fulness; therefore Veronese, hard as he is often on lap-dogs, has painted one great heroic poem on the dog. Two mighty brindled mastiffs, and beyond them, darkness. You scarcely see them at first, against the gloomy green. No other sky for them — poor things. They are grey themselves, spotted with black all over; their multitudinous doggish vices may not be washed out of them — are in grain of nature. Strong thewed and sinewed, however, — no blame on them as far as bodily strength may reach ; their heads coal-black, with drooping ears and fierce eyes, bloodshot a little. Wildest of beasts perhaps they would have been, by nature. But between them stands the spirit of their human Love, dove- winged and beautiful, the resistless Greek boy, golden- , quivered ; his glowing breast and limbs the only light upon the sky — purple and pure. He has cast his chain about the dogs’ necks, and holds it in his strong right hand, leaning proudly a little back from them. They will never break loose. This is Veronese’s highest, or spiritual view of the dog’s nature. He can only give this when looking at tlia creature alone. When he sees it in company with men, he subdues it, like an inferior light in presence of the sky ; and generally then gives it a merely brutal nature, not insisting even on its affection. It is thus used in the Marriage in Cana to symbolize gluttony. That great picture I have not yet had time to examine in all its bearings of thought ; but the chief purpose of it is, I believe, to express the pomp and pleasure of the world, pursued without thought of the presence of Christ; therefore the Fool with the bells is put in the centre, immediately underneath the Christ ; and in front are the PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 147 couple of dogs in leash, one gnawing a bone. A cat lying on her back scratches at one of the vases which hold the wine of the miracle. In the picture of Susannah, her little pet dog is merely doing his duty, barking at the Elders. But in that of the Magdalen (at Turin) a noble piece of bye-meaning is brought out by a dog’s help. On one side is the principal figure, the Mary washing Christ’s feet; on the other, a dog has just come out from beneath the table (the dog under the table eating of the crumbs), and in doing so, has touched the robe of one of the Pharisees, thus making it unclean. The Pharisee gathers up his robe in a passion, and shows the hem of it to a by- stander, pointing to the dog at the same time. In the Supper at Emmaus, the dog’s affection is, however, fully dwelt upon. Veronese’s own two little daughters are playing, on the hither side of the table, with a great wolf- hound, larger than either of them. One with her head down, nearly touching his nose, is talking to him, — asking him questions it seems, nearly pushing him over at the same time : — the other, raising her eyes, half archly, half dreamily, — some far-away thought coming over her, — leans against him on the other side, propping him with her little hand, laid slightly on his neck. He, all passive, and glad at heart, yielding himself to the pushing or sustaining hand, looks ear- nestly into the face of the child close to his ; would answer her with the gravity of a senator, if so it might be: — can only look at her, and love her. To Velasquez and Titian dogs seem less interesting than to Veronese; they paint them simply as noble brown beasts, but without any special character; perhaps Velasquez’ dogs are sterner and more threatening than the Venetian’s, as are also his kings and admirals. This fierceness in the animal in- creases, as the spiritual power of the artist declines; and, with the fierceness, another character. One great and infal- lible sign of the absence of spiritual power is the presence of the slightest taint of obscenity. Dante marked this strongly in all his representations of demons, and as we pass from the Venetians and Florentines to the Dutch, the passing away of 10—2 148 WHITINGS OF JOHN HUSKIN. the soul-power is indicated by every animal becoming savage or foul. The dog is used by Teniers, and many other Hol- landers, merely to obtain unclean jest; while by the more powerful men, Rubens, Snyders, Eembrandt, it is painted only in savage chase, or butchered agony. I know no pic- tures more shameful to humanity than the boar and lion hunts of Rubens and Snyders, signs of disgrace all the deeper, because the powers desecrated are so great. The painter of the village alehouse sign may, not dishonourably, paint the fox-hunt for the village squire ; but the occupation of magnificent art-power in giving semblance of perpetuity to those bodily pangs which Nature has mercifully ordained to be transient, and in forcing us, by the fascination of its stormy skill, to dwell on that from which eyes of merciful men should instinctively turn away, and eyes of high-minded men scornfully, is dishonourable, alike in the power which it degrades, and the joy to which it betrays. In our modern treatment of the dog, of which the prevail- ing tendency is marked by Landseer, the interest taken in him is disproportionate to that taken in man, and leads to a somewhat trivial mingling of sentiment, or warping by carica- ture ; giving up the true nature of the animal for the sake of a pretty thought or pleasant jest. Neither Titian nor Velasquez ever jest; and though Veronese jests gracefully and tenderly, he never for an instant oversteps the absolute facts of nature. But the English painter looks for sentiment or jest primarily, and reaches both by a feebly romantic taint of fallacy, except in one or two simple and touching pictures, such as the Shepherd’s Chief Mourner. — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. vi. § 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Venice as it is and as painted by Canaletto. — Cana- letto, had he been a great painter, might have cast his re- flections wherever he chose, and rippled the water wherever he chose, and painted his sea sloping if he chose, and neither I nor any one else should have dared to say a word against him ; but he is a little and a bad painter, and so continues everywhere multiplying and magnifying mistakes, and adding PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 149 apathy to error, until nothing can any more be pardoned in him. If it be but remembered that every one of the sur- faces of those multitudinous ripples is in nature a mirror ■which catches, according to its position, either the image of the sky, or of the silver beaks of the gondolas, or of their black bodies and scarlet draperies, or of the white marble, or the green sea- weed on the low stones, it cannot but be felt that those waves would have something more of colour upon them than that opaque dead green. Green they are by their own nature, but it is a transparent and emerald hue, mixing itself with the thousand reflected tints without overpowering the weakest of them ; and thus, in every one of those indivi- dual waves, the truths of colour are contradicted by Canaletto by the thousand. Venice is sad and silent now, to what she was in his time ; the canals are choked gradually one by one, and the foul water laps more and more sluggishly against the rent foun- dations : but even yet, could I but place the reader at the early morning on the quay below the Rialto, when the market boats, full laden, float into groups of golden colour, and let him watch the dashing of the water about their glittering steely heads, and under the shadows of the vine leaves ; and show him the purple of the grapes and the figs, and the glow- ing of the scarlet gourds, carried away in long streams upon the waves; and among them, the crimson fish-baskets, plash- ing and sparkling, and flaming as the morning sun falls on their wet tawny sides; and above, the painted sails of the fishing-boats, orange and white, scarlet and blue; and better than all such florid colour, the naked, bronzed, burning limbs of the seamen, the last of the old Venetian race, who yet keep the right Giorgione colour on their brows and bosoms, in strange contrast with the sallow sensual degrada- tion of the creatures that live in the cafes of the Piazza, he would not be merciful to Canaletto any more. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 5, ch. i. § 19. Water as painted by the Old Masters. — It is one of the most difficult things in the world to express the light 150 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. reflection of the blue sky on a distant ripple, and to make the eye understand the cause of the colour, and the motion of the apparently smooth water, especially where there are buildings above to be reflected, for the eye never understands the want of the reflection. But it is the easiest and most agreeable thing in the world to give the inverted image : it occupies a vast space of otherwise troublesome distance in the simplest way possible, and is understood by the eye at once. Hence Canaletto is glad, as any other inferior workman would be,, not to say obliged, to give the reflections in the distance. But when he comes up clo^e to the spectator, he finds the smooth surface just as troublesome near, as the ripple would have been far off. It is a very nervous thing for an ignorant artist to have a great space of vacant smooth water to deal with, close to him, too far down to take reflections from build- ings, and yet which must be made to look flat, and retiring, and transparent. Canaletto, with his sea-green, did not at all feel himself equal to anything of this kind, and had therefore no resource but in the white touches above described, which occupy the alarming space without any troublesome necessity for knowledge or invention, and supply by their gradual diminution some means of expressing retirement of surface. It is easily understood, therefore, why he should adopt this system, which is just what any awkward workman would naturally cling to, trusting to the inaccuracy of observation of the public to secure him from detection. Now in all these cases it is not the mistake or the licence itself, it is not the infringement of this or that law, which condemns the picture, but it is the spirit and habit of mind in which the licence is taken, the cowardice or bluntness of feeling which infects every part alike, and deprives the whole picture of vitality. . . . Yet even Canaletto, in relation to the truths he had to paint, is spiritual, faithful, powerful, compared with the Dutch painters of sea. It is easily understood why his green paint and concave, touches should be thought expressive of the water on which the real colours are not to be discerned but by attention, which is never given ; but it is not so easily understood, con- PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 151 siclering how many there are who love the sea, and look at it, that Vandevelde and such others should be tolerated. As I before said, I feel utterly hopeless in addressing the admirers of these men, because I do not know what it is in their works which is supposed to be like nature. Foam appears to me to curdle and cream on the wave sides, and to fly flashing from their crests, and not to be set astride upon them like a peruke; and waves appear to me to fall, and plunge, and toss, and nod, and crash over, and not to curl up like shavings; and water appears to me, when it is grey, to have the grey of stormy air mixed with its own deep, heavy, thunderous, threatening blue, and not the grey of the first coat of cheap paint on a deal door; and many other such things appear to me, which, as far as I can conjecture by what is admired of marine painting, appear to few else ; yet I shall have something more to say about these men presently, with respect to the effect they have had upon Turner; and something more, I hope, hereafter, with the help of illustration. There is a sea-piece of Ruysdael’s in the Louvre, which, though nothing very remarkable in any quality of art, is at least forceful, agreeable, and, as far as it goes, natural ; the waves have much freedom of action, and power of colour; the wind blows hard over the shore, and the whole picture may be studied with profit, as a proof that the deficiency of colour and everything else, in Backhuysen’s works, is no fault of the Dutch sea. There is sublimity and power in every field of nature from the pole to the line; and though the painters of one country are often better and greater universally than those of another, this is less because the sub- jects of art are wanting anywhere, than because one country or one age breeds mighty and thinking men, and another none. Ruysdael’s painting of falling water and brook scenery is also generally agreeable; more than agreeable it can hardly be considered. There appears no exertion of mind in any of his works ; nor are they calculated to produce either harm or good by their feeble influence. They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame. 152 WHITINGS OF JOHN KUSXIN. The seas of Claude are the finest pieces of water-painting in ancient art. I do not say that I like them, because they appear to me selections of the particular moment when the sea is most insipid and characterless ; but I think that they are exceedingly true to the forms and time selected, or at least that the fine instances of them are so, of which there are exceedingly few. On the right hand of one of the marines of Salvator, in the Pitti palace, there is a passage of sea reflecting the sunrise, which is thoroughly good, and very like Turner; the rest of the picture, as the one opposite to it, utterly virtueless. I have not seen any other instance of Salvator’s painting water with any care ; it is usually as conventional as the rest of his work, yet conventionalism is perhaps more tolerable in water painting than elsewhere ; and if his trees and rocks had been good, the rivers might have been generally accepted without objection. The merits of Poussin as a sea or water painter may, I think, be sufficiently determined by the Deluge in the Louvre, where the breaking up of the fountains of the deep is typified by the capsizing of a wherry over a weir. — M. P. I. Pt. xi. sec. 5. ch. i. § 18, 20, 21. Difficulty of drawing Sea-waves. — More determined, efforts have at all periods been made in sea-painting than in torrent-painting, yet less successful. It is easy to obtain a resemblance of broken running water by tricks and dexterities, but the sea must be legitimately drawn ; it cannot be given as utterly disorganized and confused, its weight and mass must be expressed, and the efforts at expression of it end in failure with all but the most powerful men ; even with these few a partial success must be considered worthy of the highest praise. As the right rendering of the Alps depends on power of drawing snow, so the right painting of the sea must depend, at least in all coast scenery, in no small measure on the power of drawing foam. Yet there are two conditions of foam of invariable occurrence on breaking waves, of which I have never seen the slightest record attempted; first, the PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 153 thick, creamy, curdling, overlapping, massy foam, which remains for a moment only after the fall of the wave, and is seen in perfection in its running up the beach ; and secondly, the thin white coating into which this subsides, which opens into oval gaps and clefts, marbling the waves over their whole surface, and connecting the breakers on a flat shore by long dragging streams of white. It is evident that the difficulty of expressing either of these two conditions must be immense. The lapping and curdling foam is difficult enough to catch, even when the lines of its undulation alone are considered; but the lips, so to speak, which lie along these lines, are full, projecting, and marked by beautiful light and shade ; each has its high light, a grada- tion into shadow of indescribable delicacy, a bright reflected light, and a dark cast shadow : to draw all this requires labour, and care, and firmness of work, which, as I imagine, must always, however skilfully bestowed, destroy all impression of wildness, accidentalism, and evanescence, and so kill the sea. Again, the openings in the thin subsided foam, in their irregular modifications of circular and oval shapes dragged hither and thither, would be hard enough to draw, even if they could be seen on a flat surface ; instead of which, every one of the openings is seen in undulation on a tossing surface, broken up over small surges and ripples, and so thrown into perspectives of the most hopeless intricacy. Now it is not easy to express the fall of a pattern with oval openings on the folds of drapery. I do not know that any one under the mark of Veronese or Titian could even do this as it ought to be done, yet in drapery much stiffness and error may be over- looked : not so in sea ; the slightest inaccuracy, the slightest want of flow and freedom in the line, is attached by the eye in a moment of high treason, and I believe success to be impossible. Yet there is not a wave, or any violently agitated sea, on which both these forms do not appear ; the latter especially, after some time of storm, extends over their whole surfaces : the reader sees, therefore, why I said that sea could only be painted by means of more or less dexterous conventionalism, 154 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. since two of its most enduring phenomena cannot be repre- sented at all. Again, as respects the form of breakers on an even shore there is difficulty of no less formidable kind. There is in them an irreconcilable mixture of fury and formalism. Their hollow surface is marked by parallel lines, like those of a smooth mill-weir, and graduated by reflected and transmitted lights of the most wonderful intricacy, its curve being at the same time necessarily of mathematical purity and precision ; yet at the top of this curve, when it nods over, there is a sudden laxity and giving way, the water swings and jumps along the ridge like a shaken chain, and the motion runs from part to part as it does through a serpent’s body. Then the wind is at work on the extreme edge, and instead of letting it fling itself off naturally, it supports it, and drives it back, or scrapes it off, and carries it bodily away; so that the spray at the top is in a continual transition between forms projected by their own weight, and forms blown and carried off with their weight overcome. Then at last, when it has come down, who shall say what shape that may be called, which shape has none, of the great crash where it touches the beach ? It is not, however, from the shore that Turner usually studies his sea. Seen from the land, the curl of the breakers, even in nature, is somewhat uniform and monotonous ; the size of the waves out at sea is uncomprehended ; and those nearer the eye seem to succeed and resemble each other, to move slowly to the beach, and to break in the same lines and forms. Afloat even twenty yards from the shore, we receive a totally different impression. Every wave around us appears vast, every one different from all the rest ; and the breakers present, now that we see them with their backs towards us, the grand, extended, and varied lines of long curvature which are peculiarly expressive both of velocity and power. Reck- lessness, before unfelt, is manifested in the mad, perpetual, changeful, undirected motion, not of wave after wave, as it appears from the shore, but of the very same water rising and falling. Of waves that successively approach and break, each appears to the mind a separate individual, whose part being PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 155 performed, it perishes, and is succeeded by another; and there is nothing in this to impress us with the idea of restless- ness, any more than in any successive and continuous functions of life and death. But it is when we perceive that it is no succession of wave, but the same water, constantly rising, and crashing, and recoiling, and rolling in again in new forms and with fresh fury, that we perceive the perturbed spirit, and feel the intensity of its unwearied rage. The sensation of power is also trebled ; for not only is the vastness of apparent . size much increased, but the whole action is different ; it is not a passive wave, rolling sleepily forward until it tumbles heavily, prostrated upon the beach ; but a sweeping exertion of tremendous and living strength, which does not now appear to fall , but to burst upon the shore ; which never perishes, but recoils and recovers. — M.P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 5, ch. iii. §29,30. The Sea after a prolonged Storm. — Few people, com- paratively, have ever seen the effect on the sea of a powerful gale continued without intermission for three or four days and nights ; and to those who have not, I believe it must be unimaginable, not from the mere force or size of surge, but from the complete annihilation of the limit between sea and air. The water from its prolonged agitation is beaten, not into mere creaming foam, but into masses of accumulated yeast,* which hang in ropes and wreaths from wave to wave, and, where one curls over to* break, form a festoon like a drapery from its edge ; these are taken up by the wind, not in dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling masses, which make the air white and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a foot or two long each : the surges themselves * The “yesty waves” of Shakspere have made the likeness familiar, and probably most readers take the expression as merely equivalent to “foamy;” but Shakspere knew better. Sea-foam does not, under ordinary circumstances, last a moment after it is formed, but disappears, as above described, in a mere white film. But the foam of a prolonged tempest is altogether different; it is “ whipped ” foam, thick, permanent, and, in a foul or discoloured sea, very ugly, especially in the way it hangs about the tops of the waves, and gathers into clotted concretions before the driving wind. The sea looks truly working or fermenting. 156 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. are full of foam in their very bodies, underneath, making them white all through, as the water is under a great cataract; and their masses, being thus half water and half air, are torn to pieces by the wind whenever they rise, and carried away in roaring smoke, which chokes and strangles like actual water. Add to this, that when the air has been exhausted of its moisture by long rain, the spray of the sea is caught by it as described above, and covers its surface not merely with the smoke of finely divided water, but with boiling mist ; imagine also the low rain-clouds brought down to the very level of the sea, as I have often seen them, whirling and flying in rags and fragments from wave to wave; and finally, conceive the surges themselves in their utmost pitch of power, velocity, vastness and madness, lifting themselves in precipices and peaks, furrowed with their whirl of ascent, through all this chaos ; and you will understand that there is indeed no dis- tinction left between the sea and air; that no object, nor horizon, nor any land-mark or natural evidence of position is left ; that the heaven is all spray, and the ocean all cloud, and that you can see no farther in any direction than you could see through a cataract. Suppose the effect of the first sun- beam sent from above to show this annihilation to itself, and you have the sea picture of the Academy, 1842, the Snow- storm, one of the very grandest statements of sea-motion, mist, and light, that has ever been put on canvas, even by Turner. Of course it was not understood ; his finest works never are : but there was some apology for the public’s not comprehend- ing this, for few people have had the opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have, cannot face it. To hold by a mast or a rock, and watch it, is a prolonged endurance of drowning which few people have courage to go through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons of nature. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 5, ch. iii. § 38. The Slave Ship. — I think, the noblest sea that Turner has ever painted, and, if so, the noblest certainly ever painted by man, is that of the Slave Ship, the chief Academy picture of the Exhibition of 1840. It is a sunset on the Atlantic, after PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 157 prolonged storm ; but the storm is partially lulled, and the torn and streaming rain-clouds are moving in scarlet lines to lose themselves in the hollow of the night. The whole surface of sea included in the picture is divided into two ridges of enormous swell, not high, nor local, but a low broad heaving of the whole ocean, like the lifting of its bosom by deep- drawn breath after the torture of the storm. Between these two ridges the fire of the sunset falls along the trough of the sea, dyeing it with an awful but glorious light, the intense and lurid splendour which burns like gold, and bathes like blood. Along this fiery path and valley, the tossing waves by which the swell of the sea is restlessly divided, lift them- selves in dark, indefinite, fantastic forms, each casting a faint and ghastly shadow behind it along the illumined foam. They do not rise everywhere, but three or four together in wild groups, fitfully and furiously, as the under strength of the swell compels or permits them ; leaving between them trea- cherous spaces of level and whirling water, now lighted with green and lamp-like fire, now flashing back the gold of the declining sun, now fearfully dyed from above with the indis- tinguishable images of the burning clouds, which fall upon them in flakes of crimson and scarlet, and give to the reckless waves the added motion of their own fiery flying. Purple and blue, the lurid shadows of the hollow breakers are cast upon the mist of the night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like the shadow of death upon the guilty* ship as it labours amidst the lightning of the sea, its thin masts written upon the sky in lines of blood, girded with condemnation in that fearful hue which signs the sky with horror and mixes its flaming flood with the sunlight, and, cast far along the desolate heave of the sepulchral waves, incarnadines the multitudi- nous sea. I believe, if I were reduced to rest Turner’s immortality upon any single work, I should choose this. Its daring con- ception, ideal in the highest sense of the word, is based on the purest truth, and wrought out with the concentrated know- * She is a slaver, throwing her slaves overboard. The near sea is encumbered with corpses. 158 WRITINGS OP JOHN RUSKIN. ledge of a life ; its colour is absolutely perfect, not one false or morbid hue in any part or line, and so modulated that every square inch of canvass is a perfect composition; its drawing as accurate as fearless; the ship buoyant, bending, and full of motion ; its tones as true as they are wonderful ; and the whole picture dedicated to the most sublime of sub- jects and impressions (completing thus the perfect system of all truth, which we have shown to be formed by Turner’s works) — the power, majesty, and deathfulness of the open, deep, illimitable sea. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 5, ch. iii. § 39. Turner’s Painting of Sun Colour. — Claude and Cuyp had painted the sun shine. Turner alone, the sun colour. Observe this accurately. Those easily understood effects of afternoon light, gracious and sweet so far as they reach, are produced by the softly warm or yellow rays of the sun falling through mist. They are low in tone, even in nature, and disguise the colours of objects. They are imitable even by persons who have little or no gift of colour, if the tones of the picture are kept low and in true harmony, and the reflected lights warm. But they never could be painted by great colourists. The fact of blue and crimson being effaced by yellow and gray, puts such effect at once out of the notice or thought of a colourist, unless he has some special interest in the motive of it. You might as well ask a musician to com- pose with only three notes, as Titian to paint without crimson and blue. Accordingly the colourists in general, feeling that no other than this yellow sunshine was imitable, refused it, and painted in twlight, when the colour was full. There- fore, from the imperfect colourists, — from Cuyp, Claude, Both, Wilson, we get deceptive effect of sunshine ; never from the Venetians, from Rubens, Reynolds or Velasquez. From these we get only conventional substitutions for it, Rubens being especially daring* in frankness of symbol. Turner, however, as a landscape painter, had to represent sunshine of one kind or another. He went steadily through * There is a very wonderful, and almost deceptive, imitation of sunlight by Rubens at Berlin. It falls through broken clouds upon angels, the flesh being chequered with sunlight and shade. PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 159 the subdued golden chord, and painted Cuyp’s favourite effect, “ sun rising through vapour,” for many a weary year. But this was not enough for him. He must paint the sun in his strength, the sun rising not ‘‘'through vapour. If you glance at that Apollo slaying the Python, you will see there is rose colour and blue on the clouds, as well as gold ; and if then you turn to the Apollo in the Ulysses and Polyphemus — his horses are rising beyond the horizon, — you see he is not “rising through vapour,” but above it; — gaining somewhat of a victory over vapour, it appears. The old Dutch brewer, with his yellow mist, was a great man and a good guide, but he was not Apollo. He and his dray-horses led the way through the flats, cheerily, for a little time; we have other horses now flaming out “beyond the mighty sea.” .... Thus, then, for the last time, rises the question, what is the true dignity of colour? We left that doubt a little while ago among the clouds, wondering what they had been made so scarlet for. Now Turner brings the doubt back to us, unescapable any more. No man, hitherto, had painted the clouds scarlet. Hesperid iEgle, and Erytheia, throned there in the west, fade into the twilights of four thousand years, uncon- fessed. Here is at last one who confesses them, but is it well ? Men say these Hesperids are sensual goddesses, — traitresses, — that the Gfraiae are the only true ones. Nature made the western and the eastern clouds splendid in fallacy. Crimson is impure and vile ; let us paint in black if we would be virtuous. Note, with respect to this matter, that the peculiar innova- tion of Turner was the perfection of the colour chord by means of scarlet. Other painters had rendered the golden tones, and the blue tones, of sky ; Titian especially the latter, in perfectness. But none had dared to paint, none seem to have seen, the scarlet and purple. Nor was it only in seeing this colour in vividness when it occurred in full light, that Turner differed from preceding painters. His most distinctive innovation as a colourist was his discovery of the scarlet shadow. “ True, there is a sun- shine whose light is golden, and its shadow gray; but there 1G0 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. is another sunshine, and that the purest, whose light is white, and its shadow scarlet.” This was the essentially offensive, inconceivable thing, which he could not be believed in. There was some ground for the incredulity, because no colour is vivid enough to express the pitch of light of pure white sunshine, so that the colour given without the true intensity of light looks false. Nevertheless, Turner could not but report of the colour truly. “ I must indeed be lower in the the key, but that is no reason why I should be false in the note. Here is sunshine which glows even when subdued ; it has not cool shade, but fiery shade.” This is the glory of sunshine. — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. xi. § 3, 4, 5, 6. Three Classes of Painters. — Let us endeavour briefly to mark the real relations of three vast ranks of men, whom I shall call, for convenience in speaking of them, Purists, Naturalists, and Sensualists; not that these terms express their real characters, but I know no word, and cannot coin a convenient one, which would accurately express the opposite of Purist; and I keep the terms Purist and Naturalist in order to comply, as far as possible, with the established usage of language on the Continent. Now, observe: in saying that nearly everything presented to us in nature has mingling in it of good and evil, I do not mean that nature is conceivably improvable, or that anything that God has made could be called evil, if we could see far enough into its uses ; but that, with respect to immediate effects or appearances, it may be so, just as the hard rind or bitter kernel of a fruit may be an evil to the eater, though in the one is the protection of the fruit, and in the other its continuance. The Purist, there- fore, does not mend nature, but receives from nature and from God that which is good for him; while the Sensualist fills himself 11 with the husks that the swine did eat.” The three classes may, therefore, be likened to men reap- ing wheat, of which the Purists take the fine flour, and the Sensualists the chaff and straw, but the Naturalists take all home, and make their cake of the one, and their couch of the other. PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 1G1 For instance. We know more certainly every day that whatever appears to us harmful in the universe has some beneficent or necessary operation ; that the storm which destroys a harvest brightens the sunbeams for harvests yet unsown, and that the volcano which buries a city preserves a thousand from destruction. But the evil is not for the time less fearful, because we have learned it to be necessary ; and we easily understand the timidity or the tenderness of the spirit which would withdraw itself from the presence of destruction, and create in its imagination a world of which the peace should be unbroken, in which the sky should not darken nor the sea rage, in which the leaf should not change nor the blossom wither. That man is greater, however, who contemplates with an equal mind the alternations of terror and of beauty; who not rejoicing less beneath the sunny sky, can bear also to watch the bars of twilight narrowing on the horizon ; and, not less sensible to the blessing of the peace of nature, can rejoice in the magnificence of the ordinances by which that peace is protected and secured. But separated from both by an immeasurable distance would be the man who delighted in convulsion and disease for their own sake ; who found his daily food in the disorder of nature mingled with the suffering of humanity; and watched joyfully at the right hand of the Angel whose appointed work is to destroy as well as to accuse, while the corners of the house of feast- ing were struck by the wind from the wilderness. And far more is this true when the subject of contempla- tion is humanity itself. The passions of mankind are partly protective, partly beneficent, like the chaff and grain of the corn; but none without their use, none without nobleness when seen in balanced unity with the rest of the spirit which they are charged to defend. The passions of which the end is the continuance of the race; the indignation which is to arm it against injustice, or strengthen it to resist wanton in- jury; and the fear* which lies at the root of prudence, reverence, and awe, are all honourable and beautiful, so long * Not selfish fear, caused by want of trust in God, or of resolution in the soul. 11 1C2 WRITINGS OF JOHN RTTSKIN. as man is regarded in his relations to the existing world. The religious Purist, striving to conceive him withdrawn from those relations, effaces from the countenance the traces of all transitory passion, illumines it with holy hope and love, and seals it with the serenity of heavenly peace ; he conceals the forms of the body by the deep-folded garment, or else repre- sents them under severely chastened types, and would rather paint them emaciated by the fast, or pale from the torture, than strengthened by exertion or flushed by emotion. But the great naturalist takes the human being in its wholeness, in its mortal as well as its spiritual strength. Capable of sounding and sympathizing with the whole range of its passions, he brings one majestic harmony out of them all; he represents it fearlessly in all its acts and thoughts, in its haste, its anger, its sensuality, and its pride, as well as in its forti- tude or faith, but makes it noble in them all; he casts aside the veil from the body, and beholds the mysteries of its form like an angel looking down on an inferior creature : there is nothing which he is reluctant to behold, nothing that he is ashamed to confess ; with all that lives, triumphing, falling, or suffering, he claims kindred, either in majesty or in mercy, yet standing, in a sort, afar off, unmoved even in the deep- ness of his sympathy ; for the spirit within him is too thought- ful to be grieved, too brave to be appalled, and too pure to be polluted. How far beneath these two ranks of men shall we place in the scale of being, those whose pleasure is only in sin or in suffering ; who habitually contemplate humanity in poverty or decrepitude, fury or sensuality; whose works are either temptations to its weakness, or triumphs over its ruin, and recognize no other subjects for thought or admiration than the subtlety of the robber, the rage of the soldier, or the joy of the Sybarite. It seems strange, when thus definitely stated, that such a school should exist. Yet consider a little what gaps and blanks would disfigure our gallery and chamber walls, in places that we have long approached with reve- rence, if every picture,* every statue, were removed from them, of which the subject was either the vice or the misery of PAINTING AND PAINTEKS. 163 mankind, portrayed without any moral purpose: consider the innumerable groups having reference merely to various forms of passion, low or high; drunken revels and brawls among peasants, gambling or fighting scenes among soldiers, amours and intrigues among every class, brutal battle pieces, banditti subjects, gluts of torture and death in famine, wreck, or slaughter, for the sake merely of the excitement — that quickening and suppling of the dull spirit that cannot be gained for it but by bathing it in blood, afterwards to wither back into stained and stiffened apathy ; and then that whole vast false heaven of sensual passion, full of nymphs, satyrs, graces, goddesses, and I know not what, from its high seventh circle in Correggio’s Antiope, down to the Grecized ballet- dancers and smirking Cupids of the Parisian upholsterer. Sweep away all this, remorselessly, and see how much art we should have left. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 56, 57, 58, 59. Titian’s Portraits. — There is only one way of seeing things rightly, and that is, seeing the whole of them, without any choice, or more intense perception of one point than another, owing to our special idiosyncrasies. Thus, when Titian or Tintoret look at a human being, they see at a glance the whole of its nature, outside and in; all that it has of form, of colour, of passion, or of thought ; saintliness, and loveliness ; fleshly body, and spiritual power ; grace, or strength, or soft- ness, or whatsoever other quality, those men will see to the full, and so paint, that, when narrower people come to look at what they have done, every one may, if he chooses, find his own special pleasure in the work. The sensualist will find sensuality in Titian; the thinker will find thought; the saint, sanctity ; the colourist, colour ; the anatomist, form ; and yet the picture will never be a popular one in the full sense, for none of these narrower people will find their special taste so alone consulted, as that the qualities which would ensure their gratification shall be sifted or separated from others; they are checked by the presence of the other quali- ties which ensure the gratification of other men. Thus, Titian is not soft enough for the sensualist, — Correggio suits him 11 — 2 1G4 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. better; Titian is not defined enough for the formalist, — Leonardo suits him better ; Titian is not pure enough for the religionist, — Raphael suits him better; Titian is not polite enough for the man of the world, — Vandyke suits him better; Titian is not forcible enough for the lover of the picturesque, — Rembrandt suits him better. So Correggio is popular with a certain set, and Vandyke with a certain set, and Rembrandt with a certain set. All are great men, but of inferior stamp, and therefore Vandyke is popular, and Rembrandt is popular,* but nobody cares much at heart about Titian ; only there is a strange undercurrent of everlasting murmur about his name, which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they — the consent of those who, having sat long enough at his feet, have found in that restrained harmony of his strength there are indeed depths of each balanced power more wonderful than all those separate manifestations in inferior painters : that there is a softness more exquisite than Correggio’s, a purity loftier than Leonardo’s, a force mightier than Rembrandt’s, a sanctity more solemn even than Raphael’s . — The Two Paths, Lect. 2. Progress of Mind and Hand. — There is a singular sense in which the child may peculiarly be said to be father of the man. In many arts and attainments, the first and last stages of progress, the infancy and the consummation, have many features in common; while the intermediate stages are wholly unlike either, and are farthest from the right. Thus it is in the progress of a painter’s handling. We see the perfect child, the absolute beginner, using of necessity a broken, im- perfect, inadequate line, which, as he advances, becomes gra- dually firm, severe, and decided. Yet before he becomes a perfect artist, this severity and decision will again be ex- changed for a light and careless stroke, which in many points will far more resemble that of his childhood than of his middle age, differing from it only by the consummate effect wrought out by the apparently inadequate means. So it is in * And Murillo, of all true painters the narrowest, feeblest, and most superficial, for those reasons the most popular. TAINTING AND PAINTERS. 165 many matters of opinion. Our first and last coincide, though on different grounds ; it is the middle stage which is farthest from the truth. Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, which it is the pride of utmost age to recover. Perhaps this is in no instance more remarkable than in the opinion we form upon the subject of detail in works of art. Infants in judgment, we look for specific character, and com- plete finish ; we delight in the faithful plumage of the well- known bird, in the finely drawn leafage of the discriminated flower. As we advance in judgment, we scorn such detail altogether ; we look for impetuosity of execution, and breadth of effect. But, perfected in judgment, we return in a great measure to our early feelings, and thank Raphael for the shells upon his sacred beach, and for the delicate stamens of the herbage beside his inspired St. Catharine. Of those who take interest in art, nay, even of artists themselves, there are an hundred in the middle stage of judg- ment, for one who is in the last; and this, not because they are destitute of the power to discover, or the sensibility to enjoy, the truth, but because the truth bears so much semblance of error, the last stage of the journey to the first, that every feeling which guides to it is checked in its origin. The rapid and powerful artist necessarily looks with such contempt on those who seek minutiae of detail rather than grandeur of impression, that it is almost impossible for him to conceive of the great last step in art, by which both become compatible. He has so often to dash the delicacy out of the pupil’s work, and to blot the details from his encumbered canvas ; so frequently to lament the loss of breadth and unity, and so seldom to reprehend the imperfection of minutiae, that he necessarily looks upon complete parts as the very sign of error, weakness, and ignorance. Thus, fre- quently to the latest period of his life, he separates, like Sir Joshua, as chief enemies, the details and the whole, which an artist cannot be great unless he reconciles ; and because details alone, and unreferred to a final purpose, are the sign of a tyro’s work, he loses sight of the remoter truth, that details 1G6 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. perfect in unity, and contributing to a final purpose, are the sign of the production of a consummate master. — M. P. I. Preface to 2nd Ed. xxviii., xxix. Sir Joshua Reynolds. — I am inclined to think that, con- sidering all the disadvantages of circumstances and education under which his genius was developed, there was perhaps hardly ever born a man with a more intense and innate gift of insight into nature than our own Sir Joshua Reynolds. Con- sidered as a painter of individuality in the human form and mind, I think him, even as it is, the prince of portrait painters. Titian paints nobler pictures, and Vandyke had nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as Sir Joshua did into the minor varieties of human heart and temper ; and when you consider that, with a frightful conven- tionality of social habitude all around him, he yet conceived the simplest types of all feminine and childish loveliness; — that in a northern climate, and with gray, and white, and black, as the principal colours around him, he yet became a colourist who can be crushed by none, even of the Venetians ; — and that with Dutch painting and Dresden china for the prevailing types of art in the saloons of his day, he threw himself at once at the feet of the great masters of Italy, and arose from their feet to share their throne — I know not that in the whole history of art you can produce another instance of so strong, so unaided, so unerring an instinct for all that was true, pure, and noble . — The Two PathSj Lect. 2. Truth of Resemblance in Portraiture. — We constantly recognize things by their least important attributes, and by help of very few of those : and if these attributes exist not in the imitation, though there may be thousands of others far f higher and more valuable, yet if those be wanting, or imper- fectly rendered, by which we are accustomed to recognize the object, we deny the likeness; while, if these be given, though all the great and valuable and important attributes may be wanting, we affirm the likeness. Recognition is no proof of real and intrinsic resemblance. We recognize our books by PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 1G7 their bindings, though the true and essential characteristics lie inside. A man is known to his dog by the smell, to his tailor by the coat, to his friend by the smile : each of these knows him, but how little, or how much, depends on the dignity of the intelligence. That which is truly and indeed characteristic of the man, is known only to God. One por- trait of a man may possess exact accuracy of feature, and no atom of expression; it may be, to use the ordinary terms of admiration bestowed on such portraits by those whom they please, “ as like as it can stare.” Everybody, down to his cat, would know this. Another portrait may have neglected or misrepresented the features, but may have given the flash of the eye, and the peculiar radiance of the lip, seen on him only in his hours of highest mental excitement. None but his friends would know this. Another may have given none of his ordinary expressions, but one which he wore in the most excited instant of his life, when all his secret passions and all his highest powers were brought into play at once. None but those who had then seen him might recognize this as like. But which would be the most truthful portrait of the man? The first gives the accidents of body — the sport of climate, and food, and time — which corruption inhabits, and the worm waits for. The second gives the stamp of the soul upon the flesh ; but it is the soul seen in the emotions which it shares with many, which may not be characteristic of its essence — the results of habit, and education, and accident — a gloze, whether purposely worn or unconsciously assumed, perhaps totally contrary to all that is rooted and real in the mind which it conceals. The third has caught the trace of all that was most hidden and most mighty, when all hypocrisy, and all habit, and all petty and passing emotion — the ice, and the bank, and the foam of the immortal river — were shivered, and broken, and swallowed up in the awakening of its inward strength ; when the call and claim of some divine motive had brought into visible being those latent forces and feelings which the spirit’s own volition could not summon, nor its consciousness comprehend, which God only knew, and God only could awaken — the depth and the mystery of its peculiar 1G8 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. and separating attributes. And so it is with external nature : she has a body and a soul like man ; but her soul is the Deity. It is possible to represent the body without the spirit ; and this shall be like, to those whose senses are only cognizant of body. It is possible to represent the spirit in its ordinary and inferior manifestations ; and this shall be like, to those who have not watched for its moments of power. It is possible to represent the spirit in its secret and high opera- tions ; and this shall be like, only to those to whose watching they have been revealed. All these are truth ; but according to the dignity of the truths he can represent or feel, is the power of the painter — the justice of the judge. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. 1, ch. ii. § 8. Skill in expressing Rounded Surface. — One of the most marked distinctions between one artist and another, in the point of skill, will be found in their relative delicacy of per- ception of rounded surface ; the full power of expressing the perspective, foreshortening and various undulation of such surface is, perhaps, the last and most difficult attainment of the hand and eye. For instance : there is, perhaps, no tree which has baffled the landscape painter more than the com- mon black spruce fir. It is rare that we see any representation of it other than caricature. It is conceived as if it grew in one plane, or as a section of a tree, with a set of boughs sym- metrically dependent on opposite sides. It is thought formal, unmanageable, and ugly. It would be so, if it grew as it is drawn. But the Power of the tree is not in that chandelier- like section. It is in the dark, flat, solid tables of leafage, which it holds out on its strong arms, curved slightly over them like shields, and spreading towards the extremity like a hand. It is vain to endeavour to paint the sharp, grassy, in- tricate leafage, until this ruling form has been secured ; and in the boughs that approach the spectator, the foreshortening of it is like that of a wide hill country, ridge just rising over ridge in successive distances ; and the finger-like extremities, foreshortened to absolute bluntness, require a delicacy in the rendering of them like that of the drawing of the hand of PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 169 the Magdalene upon the vase in Mr. Rogers’s Titian. Get but the back of that foliage, and you have the tree ; but I cannot name the artist who has thoroughly felt it. So, in all drawing and sculpture, it is the power of rounding, softly and perfectly, every inferior mass which preserves the serenity, as it follows the truth, of Nature, and which demands the highest knowledge and skill from the workman. — S. L. A. ch. iii. § 17. Errors of Modern Art. — In the post-Raphaelite period of ancient art, and in the spurious high art of modern times, two broad forms of error divide the schools ; the one consist- ing in (A) the superseding of expression by technical excel- lence, and the other in (B) the superseding of technical excellence by expression. (A.) Superseding expression by technical excellence. — This takes place most frankly, and therefore most innocently, in the work of the Venetians. They very nearly ignore expres- sion altogether, directing their aim exclusively to the render- ing of external truths of colour and form. Paul Veronese will make the Magdalene wash the feet of Christ with a countenance as absolutely unmoved as that of any ordinary servant bringing a ewer to her master, and will introduce the supper at Emmaus as a background to the portraits of two children playing with a dog. Of the wrongness or rightness of such a proceeding we shall reason in another place; at present we have to note it merely as displacing the Venetian work from the highest or expressional rank of art. But the error is generally made in a more subtle and dangerous way. The artist deceives himself into the idea that he is doing all he can to elevate his subject by treating it under rules of art, introducing into it accurate science, and collecting for it the beauties of (so called) ideal form ; whereas he may, in reality, be all the while sacrificing his subject to his own vanity or pleasure, and losing truth, nobleness, and impres- siveness for the sake of delightful lines or creditable pedantries. (B.) Superseding technical excellence by expression. — This is usually done under the influence of another kind of vanity. The artist desires that men should think he has an 170 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. elevated soul, affects to despise the ordinary excellence of art, contemplates with separated egotism the course of his own imaginations or sensations, and refuses to look at the real facts round about him, in order that he may adore at leisure the shadow of himself. He lives in an element of what he calls tender emotions and lofty aspirations ; which are, in fact, nothing more than very ordinary weaknesses or instincts, contemplated through a mist of pride. A large range of modern German art comes under this head. A more interesting and respectable form of this error is fallen into by some truly earnest men, who, finding their powers not adequate to the attainment of great artistical ex- cellence, but adequate to rendering, up to a certain point, the expression of the human countenance, devote themselves to that object alone, abandoning effort in other directions, and executing the accessaries of their pictures feebly or carelessly. With these are associated another group of philosophical painters, who suppose the artistical merits of other parts adverse to the expression, as drawing the spectator’s attention away from it, and who paint in grey colour, and imperfect light and shade, by way of enforcing the purity of their con- ceptions. Both these classes of conscientious but narrow- minded artists labour under the same grievous mistake of imagining that wilful fallacy can ever be either pardonable or helpful. They forget that colour, if used at all, must be either true or false, and that what they call chastity, dignity, and re- serve is, to the eye of any person accustomed to nature, pure, bold, and impertinent falsehood. It does not in the eyes of any soundly minded man, exalt the expression of a female face that the cheeks should be painted of the colour of clay, nor does it in the least enhance his reverence for a saint to find the scenery around him deprived, by his presence, of sunshine. It is an important consolation, however, to reflect that no artist ever fell into any of these last three errors (under head B.) who had really the capacity of becoming a great painter. No man ever despised colour who could pro- duce it ; and the error of these sentimentalists and philoso- phers is not so much in the choice of their manner of PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 171 painting, as in supposing themselves capable of painting at all. Some of them might have made efficient sculptors, but the greater number had their mission in some other sphere than that of art, and would have found, in works of practical charity, better employment for their gentleness and senti- mentalism, than in denying to human beauty its colour, and to natural scenery its light; in depriving heaven of its blue, and earth of its bloom, valour of its glow, and modesty of its blush .—if. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. iii. § 10, 11. Stothard’s Idealism. — The works of our own Stothard are examples of the operation of a mind, singular in gentleness and purity, upon mere worldly subjects. It seems as if Stothard could not conceive wickedness, coarseness, or baseness; every one of his figures looks as if it had been copied from some creature who had never harboured an unkind thought, or permitted itself in an ignoble action. With this intense love of mental purity is joined, in Stothard, a love of mere physical smoothness and softness, so that he lived in a universe of soft grass and stainless fountains, tender trees, and stones at which no foot could stumble. All this is very beautiful, and may sometimes urge us to an endeavour to make the world itself more like the conception of the painter. At least, in the midst of its malice, misery, and baseness, it is often a relief to glance at the graceful shadows, and take, for momentary companionship, creatures full only of love, gladness, and honour.' But the perfect truth will at last vindicate itself against the partial truth ; the help which we can gain from the unsubstantial vision will be only like that which we may sometimes receive, in weariness, from the scent of a flower or the passing of a breeze. For all firm aid, and steady use, we must look to harder realities ; and, as far as the painter himself is regarded, we can only receive such work as the sign of an amiable imbecility. It is indeed ideal ; but ideal as a fair dream is in the dawn of morning, before the faculties are astir. The apparent com- pleteness of grace can never be attained without much definite falsification as well as omission ; stones, over which we cannot 172 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSICIN. stumble, must be ill-drawn stones ; trees, which are all gentle- ness and softness, cannot be trees of wood ; nor companies without evil in them, companies of flesh and blood. The habit of falsification (with whatever aim) begins always in dulness and ends always in incapacity : nothing can be more pitiable than any endeavour by Stothard to express facts beyond his own sphere of soft pathos or graceful mirth, and nothing more unwise than the aim at a similar ideality by any painter who has power to render a sincerer truth. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. vi. § 5. Boyhoods of Two Painters. — Born half-way between the mountains and the sea — that young George of Castelfranco — of the Brave Castle: — Stout George they called him, George of Georges, so goodly a boy he was — Giorgione. Have you ever thought what a world his eyes opened on — fair, searching eyes of youth ? What a world of mighty life, from those mountain roots to the shore ; of loveliest life, when he went down, yet so young, to the marble city — and became himself as a fiery heart to it ? A city of marble, did I say ? nay, rather a golden city, paved with emerald. For truly, every pinnacle and turret glanced or glowed, overlaid with gold, or bossed with jasper. Beneath, the unsullied sea drew in deep breathing, to and fro, its eddies of green wave. Deep-hearted, majestic, terrible as the sea — the men of Venice moved in sway of power and war; pure as her pillars of alabaster, stood her mothers and maidens ; from foot to brow, all noble, walked her knights ; the low bronzed gleaming of sea-rusted armour shot angrily under their blood-red mantle-folds. Fearless, faithful, patient, impenetrable, implacable — every word a fate — sate her senate. In hope and honour, lulled by flowing of wave around their isles of . sacred sand, each with his name written and the cross graved at his side, lay her dead. A wonderful piece of world. Father, itself a world. It lay along the face of the waters, no larger, as its captains saw it from their masts at evening, than a bar of sunset that could not pass away ; but for its power, it must have seemed to them as if PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 173 they were sailing in the expanse of heaven, and this a great planet, whose orient edge widened through ether. A world from which all ignoble care and petty thoughts were banished, with all the common and poor elements of life. No foulness, nor tumult, in those tremulous streets, that filled, or fell, beneath the moon; but rippled music of majestic change, or thrilling silence. No weak walls could rise above them; no low-roofed cottage, nor straw-built shed. Only the strength as of rock, and the finished setting of stones most precious. And around them, far as the eye could reach, still the soft moving of stainless waters, proudly pure; as not the flower, so neither the thorn nor the thistle, could grow in the glancing fields. Ethereal strength of Alps, dream-like, vanishing in high procession beyond the Torcellan shore ; blue islands of Paduan hills, poised in the golden west. Above, free winds and fiery clouds ranging at their will ; — brightness out of the north, and balm from the south, and the stars of the even- ing and morning clear in the limitless light of arched heaven and circling sea. Such was Giorgione’s school — such Titian’s home. Near the south-west corner of Covent Garden, a square brick pit or well is formed by a close-set block of houses, to the back windows of which it admits a few rays of light. Access to the bottom of it is obtained out of Maiden Lane, through a low archway and an iron gate; and if you stand long enough under the archway to accustom your eyes to the darkness, you may see on the left hand a narrow door, which formerly gave quiet access to a respectable barber’s shop, of which the front window, looking into Maiden Lane, is still extant, filled, in this year (1860), with a row of bottles, con- nected, in some defunct manner, with a brewer’s business. A more fashionable neighbourhood, it is said, eighty years ago than now — never certainly a cheerful one — wherein a boy being born on St. George’s day, 1775, began soon after to take interest in the world of Covent Garden, and put to ser- vice such spectacles of life as it afforded. No knights to be seen there, nor, I imagine, many beautiful ladies; their costume at least disadvantageous, depending 174 WRITINGS OF JOHN ItUSKIN. much on incumbency of hat and feather, and short waists ; the majesty of men founded similarly on shoebuckles and wigs ; — impressive enough when Reynolds will do his best for it ; but not suggestive of much ideal delight to a boy. 11 Bello ovile dov’ io dormii agnello : ” of things beautiful, besides men and women, dusty sunbeams up or down the street on summer mornings ; deep furrowed cabbage-leaves at the greengrocer’s; magnificence of* oranges in wheelbarrows round the corner ; and Thames’ shore within three minutes’ race. None of these things very glorious ; the best, however, that England, it seems, was then able to provide for a boy of gift : who, such as they are, loves them — never, indeed, forgets them. The short waists modify to the last his visions of Greek ideal. His foregrounds had always a succulent cluster or two of greengrocery at the corners. Enchanted oranges gleam in Covent Gardens of the Hesperides ; and great ships go to pieces in order to scatter chests of them on the waves. That mist of early sunbeams in the London dawn crosses, many and many a time, the clearness of Italian air; and by Thames’ shore, with its stranded barges and glidings of red sail, dearer to us than Lucerne lake or Venetian lagoon — by Thames’ shore we will die. With such circumstance round him in youth, let us note what necessary effects followed upon the boy. I assume him to hate had Giorgione’s sensibility (and more than Giorgione’s, if that be possible,) to colour and form. I tell you farther, and this fact you may receive trustfully, that his sensibility to human affection and distress was no less keen than even his sense for natural beauty — heart-sight deep as eyesight. Consequently, he attaches himself with the faithfullest child-love to everything that bears an image of the place he was born in. No matter how ugly it is — has it anything about it like Maiden Lane, or like Thames’ shore ? If so, it shall be painted for their sake. Hence, to the very close of life, Turner could endure ugliness which no one else, of the same sensibility, would have borne with for an instant. Dead, brick walls, blank square windows, old clothes, market- PAINTING AND PAINTEKS. 175 womanly types of humanity — anything fishy and muddy, like Billingsgate or Hungerford Market, had great attraction for him ; black barges, patched sails, and every possible condition of fog. You will find these tolerations and affections guiding or sustaining him to the last hour of his life; the notabiest of all such endurances being that of dirt. No Venetian ever draws anything foul ; but Turner devoted picture after picture to the illustration of effects of dinginess, smoke, soot, dust, and dusty texture ; old sides of boats, weedy roadside vegeta- tion, dung-hills, straw-yards, and all the soilings and stains of every common labour. And more than this, he not only could endure, but enjoyed and looked for litter , like Covent Garden wreck after the market. His pictures are often full of it, from side to side ; their foregrounds differ from all others in the natural way that things have of lying about in them. Even his richest vegetation, in ideal work, is confused; and he delights in shingle, debris, and heaps of fallen stones. The last words he ever spoke to me about a picture were in gentle exultation about his St. Gothard : 11 that litter of stones which I endea- voured to represent.” The second great result of this Covent Garden training was, understanding of and regard for the poor, whom the Venetians, we saw, despised ; whom, contrarily, Turner loved, and more than loved — understood. He got no romantic sight of them, but an infallible one, as he prowled about the end of his lane, watching night effects in the wintry streets ; nor sight of the poor alone, but of the poor in direct relations with the rich. He knew, in good and evil, what both classes thought of, and how they dealt with, each other. Reynolds and Gainsborough, bred in country villages, learned there the country boy’s reverential theory of 11 the squire,” and kept it. They painted the squire and the squire’s lady as centres of the movements of the universe, to the end of their lives. But Turner perceived the younger squire in other aspects about his lane, occurring prominently in its night scenery, as a dark figure, or one of two, against the 176 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. moonlight. He saw also the working of city commerce, from endless warehouse, towering over Thames, to the back shop in the lane, with its stale herrings — highly interesting these last; one of his father’s best friends, whom he often after- wards visited affectionately at Bristol, being a fishmonger and glue-boiler ; which gives us a friendly turn of mind towards herring-fishing, whaling, Calais poissardes, and many other of our choicest subjects in after life; all this being connected with that mysterious forest below London Bridge on one side ; — and, on the other, with these masses of human power and national wealth which weigh upon us, at Covent Garden here, with strange compression, and crush us into narrow Hand Court. “ That mysterious forest below London Bridge ” — better for the boy than wood of pine, or grove of myrtle. How he must have tormented the watermen, beseeching them to let him crouch anywhere in the bows, quiet as a log, so only that he might get floated down there among the ships, and round and round the ships, and with the ships, and by the ships, and under the ships, staring, and clambering ; — these the only quite beautiful things he can see in all the world, except the sky; but these, when the sun is on their sails, filling or falling, endlessly disordered by sway of tide and stress of anchorage, beautiful unspeakably; which ships also are inhabited by glorious creatures — red-faced sailors, with pipes, appearing over the gunwales, true knights, over their castle parapets — the most angelic beings in the whole compass of London world. And Trafalgar happening, long before we can draw ships, we, nevertheless, coax all current stories out of the wounded sailors, do our best at present to show Nelson’s funeral streaming up the Thames; and vow that Trafalgar shall have its tribute of memory some day. Which, accord- ingly, is accomplished — once, with all our might, for its death ; twice, with all our might, for its victory ; thrice, in pensive farewell to the old Temeraire, and, with it, to that order of things. — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. ix. § 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Chiaroscuro. — Chiaroscuro is a very noble subject of study ; but it is not so noble a study as human nature : nor PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 177 is it the subject which should mainly occupy our thoughts when we have human nature before us. Generally, we ought to see more in man or woman than that their foreheads come dark against the sky, or their petticoats and pantaloons white against it. If we see nothing but this, and think of nothing else in the company of our fellow-creatures but the depth of their shadows, we are assuredly in such insensitive state of mind as must render all true painting impossible to us. It may be the most important thing about a pollard willow that it comes greyly against a cloud, or gloomily out of a pool. But respecting a man, his greyness or opacity are not the prin- cipal facts which it is desirable to state of him. If you cannot see his human beauty, and have no sympathy with his mind, don’t paint him. Go and paint logs, or stones, or weeds; — you will not, indeed, paint even these at all supremely, for their best beauty is also in a sort human: nevertheless, you will not insult them, as you do living crea- tures, by perceiving in them only opacity. Immense harm has been done in this matter by the popular misunderstanding of Rembrandt — for Rembrandt’s strength is in rendering of human character — not in chiaroscuro. Rembrandt’s chiar- oscuro is always forced — generally false, and wholly vulgar : it is in all possible ways inferior, as chiaroscuro, to Correggio’s, Titian’s, Tintoret’s, Veronese’s, or Velasquez’s. But in rendering human character, such as he saw about him, Rembrandt is nearly equal to any of these men, and the real power of him is in his stern and steady touch on lip and brow — seen best in his lightest etchings — or in the lightest parts of the handling of his portraits, the head of the Jew in our own Gallery being about as good and thorough work as it is possible to see of his. And when this is so, and the great qualities of character and of form are first secured — after them, and in due subordination to them — chiaroscuro and everything else will come rightly and gloriously ; and they always do come in such order ; no chiaroscuro ever was good, as such, which was not subordinate to character and to form ; and all search after it as a first object ends in the loss of the thing itself so sought. . One of our English painters, Constable, 12 178 WHITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. professed this pursuit in its simplicity. 11 Though my pic- tures should have nothing else, they shall have chiaroscuro.” The sacrifice was accepted by the Fates, but the prayer denied. His pictures had nothing else; but they had not chiaroscuro. — Notes on Pictures , No. 5. Fine Art. — Fine Art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together. Recollect this triple group ; it will help you to solve many difficult problems. And remember that though the hand must be at the bottom of everything, it must also go to the top of everything ; for Fine Art must be produced by the hand of man in a much greater and clearer sense than manufacture is. Fine Art must always be produced by the subtlest of all machines, which is the human hand. No machine yet contrived, or hereafter contrivable, will ever equal the fine machinery of the human fingers. Thoroughly perfect art is that which proceeds from the heart, which in- volves all the noble emotions ; — associates with these the head, yet as inferior to the heart ; and the hand, yet as inferior to the heart and head ; and thus brings out the whole man. Hence it follows that since manufacture is simply the operation of the hand of man in producing that which is useful to him, it essentially separates itself from the emotions ; when emotions interfere with machinery they spoil it : machi- nery must go evenly, without emotion. But the Fine Arts cannot go evenly ; they always must have emotion ruling their mechanism, and until the pupil begins to feel, and until all he does associates itself with the current of his feeling, he is not an artist. — The Two Paths , Lect. 2. Great Art the Type of Noble Life. — There are two characters in which all greatness of art consists : — First, the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts ; then the ordering those facts by strength of human intellect, so as to make them, for all who look upon them, to the utmost serviceable, memorable, and beautiful. And thus great art is nothing else than the type of strong and noble life ; for, as the ignoble PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 179 person, in liis dealings with all that occurs in the world about him, first sees nothing clearly, — looks nothing fairly in the face, and then allows himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent, and unescapable force, of the things that he would not foresee, and could not understand : so the noble person, looking the facts of the world full in the face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, then deals with them in unalarmed intelligence and unhurried strength, and becomes, with his human intellect and will, no unconscious nor insig- nificant agent in consummating their good, and restraining their evil. Thus in human life you have the two fields of rightful toil for ever distinguished, yet for ever associated ; Truth first — plan, or design, founded thereon : so in art, you have the same two fields for ever distinguished, for ever associated; Truth first — plan, or design, founded thereon. — The Two Paths , Lect. 1 . Historical Painting. — What do you at present mean by historical painting ? Now-a-days, it means the endeavouring, by the power of imagination, to portray some historical event of past days. But in the middle ages, it meant representing the acts of their own days ; and that is the only historical painting worth a straw. Of all the wastes of time and sense which Modernism has invented — and they are many — none are so ridiculous as this endeavour to represent past history. What do you suppose our descendants will care for our imaginations of the events of former days? Suppose the Greeks, instead of representing their own warriors as they fought at Marathon, had left us nothing but their imaginations of Egyptian battles ; and suppose the Italians, in like manner, instead of portaits of Can Grande and Dante, or of Leo the Tenth and Raphael, had left us nothing but imaginary portraits of Pericles and Miltiades ? What fools we should have thought them ! how bitterly we should have been provoked with their folly ! And that is precisely what our descendants will feel towards us, so far as our grand historical and classical schools are concerned. What do we care, they will say, what those 12 — 2 180 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. 19th century people fancied about Greek and Roman history ! If they had left us a few plain and rational sculptures and pictures of their own battles, and their own men, in their everyday dress, we should have thanked them. Well, but, you will say, we have left them portraits of our great men, and paintings of our great battles. Yes, you have indeed, and that is the only historical painting that you either have, or can have ; but you don’t call that historical painting. You don’t thank the men who do it ; you look down upon them and dissuade them from it, and tell them they don’t belong to the grand schools. And yet they are the only true historical painters, and the only men who will produce any effect on their own generation, or on any other. Wilkie was a historical painter, Chantrey a historical sculptor, because they painted, or carved, the veritable things and men they saw, not men and things as they believed they might have been, or should have been. But no one tells such men they are historical painters, and they are discontented with what they do ; and poor Wilkie must needs travel to see the grand school, and imitate the grand school, and ruin himself. And you have had multitudes of other painters ruined, from the beginning, by that grand school. There was Etty, naturally as good a painter as ever lived, but no one told him what to paint, and he studied the antique, and the grand schools, and painted dances of nymphs in red and yellow shawls to the end of his days. Much good may they do you ! He is gone to the grave, a lost mind. There was Flaxman, another naturally great man, with as true an eye for nature as Raphael,- — he stumbles over the blocks of the antique statues — wanders in the dark valley of their ruins to the end of his days. He has left you a few outlines of muscular men straddling and frowning behind round shields. Much good may they do you ! Another lost mind. And of those who are lost name- lessly, who have not strength enough even to make themselves known, the poor pale students who lie buried for ever in the abysses of the great schools, no account can be rendered ; they are numberless. And the wonderful thing is, that of all these men whom PAINTING AND PAINTERS. 181 you now have come to call the great masters, there was not one who confessedly did not paint his own present world, plainly and truly. Homer sang of what he saw ; Phidias carved what he saw ; Eaphael painted the men of his own time in them own caps and mantles ; and every man who has arisen to eminence in modern times has done so altogether by his working in their way, and doing the things he saw. How did Reynolds rise ? Not by painting Greek women, but by painting the glorious little living Ladies This, and Ladies That, of his own time. How did Hogarth rise ? Not by painting Athenian follies, but London follies. Who are the men who have made an impression upon you yourselves, — upon your own age ? I suppose the most popular painter of the day is Landseer. Do you suppose he studied dogs and eagles out of the Elgin Marbles ? And yet in the very face of these plain, incontrovertible, all-visible facts, we go on from year to year with the base system of Academy teaching, in spite of which every one of these men have risen : I say in spite of the entire method and aim of our art-teaching. It destroys the greater number of its pupils altogether ; it hinders and paralyzes the greatest. There is not a living painter whose eminence is not in spite of every- thing he has been taught from his youth upwards, and who, whatever his eminence may be, has not suffered much injury in the course of his victory. For observe : this love of what is called ideality or beauty in preference to truth, operates not only in making us choose the past rather than the present for our subjects, but it makes us falsify the present when we do take it for our subject . — Lectures on Architecture and Painting , Lect. 4. Pre-Raphaelitism. — Pre-Raphaelitism has but one princi- ple, that of absolute uncompromising truth in all that it does, obtained by working everything, down to the most minute detail, from nature, and from nature only.* Every pre- * Or, where imagination is necessarily trusted to, by always endea- vouring to conceive a fact as it really was likely to have happened, rather than as it most prettily might have happened. 182 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Raphaelite landscape background is painted to the last touch, in the open air, from the thing itself. Every pre-Raphaelite figure, however studied in expression, is a true portrait of some living person. Every minute accessory is painted in the same manner This is the main pre-Raphaelite principle . — Lectures on Architecture and Painting , Lect. 4. Buying Pictures. — -As we arrange our payment of pictures at present, no artist’s work is worth half its proper value while he is alive. The moment he dies, his pictures, if they are good, reach double their former value ; but, that rise of price represents simply a profit made by the intelligent dealer or purchaser on his past purchases. So that the real facts of the matter are, that the British public, spending a certain sum annually in art, determines that, of every thousand it pays, only five hundred shall go to the painter, or shall be at all concerned in the production of art ; and that the other five hundred shall be paid merely as a testimonial to the intelligent dealer, who knew what to buy. Now, testimonials are very pretty and proper things, within due limits ; but testimonial to the amount of a hundred per cent, on the total expenditure is not good political economy. Do not therefore, in general, unless you see it to be necessary for its preservation, buy the picture of a dead artist. If you fear that it may be exposed to contempt or neglect, buy it ; its price will then, probably, not be high : if you want to put it into a public gallery, buy it; you are sure, then, that you do not spend your money selfishly : or, if you loved the man’s work while he was alive, and bought it then, buy it also now, if you can see no living work equal to it. But if you did not buy it while the man was living, never buy it after he is dead : you are then doing no good to him, and you are doing some shame to yourself. Look around you for pictures that you really like, and in buying which you can help some genius yet unperished — that is the best atonement you can make to the one you have neglected — and give to the living and struggling painter at once wages, and testimonial . — Political Economy of Arty Lect. ii. p. 145. 183 ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. Architecture as distinguished from Building. — Architec- ture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure. It is very necessary, in the outset of all inquiry, to dis- tinguish carefully between Architecture and Building. * To build, — literally, to confirm, — is by common understand- ing to put together and adjust the several pieces of any edifice or receptacle of a considerable size. Thus we have church building, house building, ship building, and coach building. That one edifice stands, another floats, and another is suspended on iron springs, makes no difference in the nature of the art, if so it may be called, of building or edification. The persons who profess that art, are severally builders, ecclesiastical, naval, or of whatever other name their work may justify ; but building does not become architecture merely by the stability of what it erects; and it is no more architecture which raises a church, or which fits it to receive and contain with comfort a required number of persons occupied in certain religious offices, than it is architecture which makes a carriage commodious, or a ship swift. I do not, of course, mean that the word is not often, or even may not be legitimately, applied in such a sense (as we speak of naval architecture) ; but in that sense architecture ceases to be one of the fine arts, and it is therefore better not to run the risk, by loose nomenclature, of the confusion which would arise, and has often arisen, from extending principles which belong altogether to building, into the sphere of architecture proper. Let us, therefore, at once confine the name to that art which, taking up and admitting, as conditions of its working, the necessities and common uses of the building, impresses on 184 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. its form certain characters venerable or beautiful, but other- wise unnecessary. Thus, I suppose, no one would call the laws architectural which determine the height of a breast- work or the position of a bastion. But if to the stone facing of that bastion be added an unnecessary feature, as a cable moulding, that is Architecture. It would be similarly unreasonable to call battlements or machicolations architec- tural features, so long as they consist only of an advanced gallery supported on projecting masses, with open intervals beneath for offence. But if these projecting masses be carved beneath into rounded courses, which are useless, and if the headings of the intervals be arched and trefoiled, which is use- less, that is Architecture. It may not be always easy to draw the line so sharply and simply, because there are few buildings which have not some pretence or colour of being architec- tural; neither can there be any architecture which is not based on building, nor any good architecture which is not based on good building; but it is perfectly easy, and very necessary, to keep the ideas distinct, and to understand fully that Architecture concerns itself only with those characters of an edifice which are above and beyond its common use. I say common ; because a building raised to the honour of God, or in memory of men, has surely a use to which its archi- tectural adornment fits it; but not a use which limits, by any inevitable necessities, its plan or details. — S. L. A. ch. i. § 1. Two Fine Arts only. — There are only two fine arts pos- sible to the human race, sculpture and painting. What we call architecture is only the association of these in noble masses, or the placing them in fit places. All architecture other than this is, in fact, mere building ; and though it may sometimes be graceful, as in the groinings of an abbey roof; or sublime, as in the battlements of a border tower ; there is, in such examples of it, no more exertion of the powers of high art, than in the gracefulness of a well-ordered chamber, or the nobleness of a well-built ship of war. All high art consists in the carving or painting natural objects, chiefly figures : it has always subject and meaning, ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 185 * never consisting solely in arrangement of lines, or even of colours. It always paints or carves something that it sees or believes in ; nothing ideal or uncredited. For the most part, it paints and carves the men and things that are visible around it. And as soon as we possess a body of sculptors able, and willing, and having leave from the English public, to carve on the facades of our cathedrals portraits of the living bishops, deans, canons, and choristers, who are to minister in the said cathedrals ; and on the fa9ades of our public buildings, portraits of the men chiefly moving or acting in the same ; and on our buildings, generally, the birds and flowers which are singing and budding in the fields around them, we shall have a school of English architecture. Not till then. — JS. L. A. Preface. The Function of Architecture. — We are forced, for the sake of accumulating our power and knowledge, to live in cities : but such advantage as we have in association with each other is in great part counterbalanced by our loss of fellow- ship with nature. We cannot all have our gardens now, nor our pleasant fields to meditate in at eventide. Then the func- tion of our architecture is, as far as may be, to replace these ; to tell us about nature; to possess us with memories of her quietness; to be solemn and full of tenderness, like her, and rich in portraitures of her ; full of delicate imagery of the flowers we can no more gather, and of the living creatures now far away from us in their own solitude. If ever you felt or found this in a London street, — if ever it furnished you with one serious thought, or one ray of true and gentle pleasure, — if there is in your heart a true delight in its grim railings and dark casements, and wasteful finery of shops, and feeble coxcombry of club-houses, — it is well: promote the building of more like them. But if they never taught you anything, and never made you happier as you passed beneath them, do not think they have any mysterious goodness nor occult sublimity. Have done with the wretched affectation, the futile barbarism, of pretending to enjoy; for, as surely as you know that the meadow grass, meshed with fairy rings, is 186 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. better than the wood pavement, cut into hexagons; and as surely as you know the fresh winds and sunshine of the upland are better than the choke-damp of the vault, or the gas-light of the ball-room, you may know, as I told you that you should, that the good architecture, which has life, and truth, and joy in it, is better than the bad architecture, which has death, dishonesty, and vexation of heart in it, from the beginning to the end of time. — S. V. I. ch. xxx. § 6. Fine Architecture. — In recalling the impressions we have received from the works of man, after a lapse of time long enough to involve in obscurity all but the most vivid, it often happens that we find a strange pre-eminence and durability in many upon whose strength we had little calculated, and that points of character which had escaped the detection of the judgment, become developed under the waste of memory ; as veins of harder rock, whose places could not at first have been discovered by the eye, are left salient under the action of frosts and streams. The traveller who desires to correct the errors of his judgment, necessitated by inequalities of temper, infelicities of circumstance, and accidents of associa- tion, has no other resource than to "wait for the calm verdict of interposing years ; and to watch for the new arrangements of eminence and shape in the images which remain latest in his memory ; as in the ebbing of a mountain lake, he would watch the varying outline of its successive shore, and trace, in the form of its departing waters, the true direction of the forces which had cleft, or the currents which had excavated, the deepest recesses of its primal bed. In thus reverting to the memories of those works of archi- tecture by which we have been most pleasurably impressed, it will generally happen that they fall into two broad classes : the one characterized by an exceeding preciousness and delicacy, to which we recur with a sense of affectionate admiration ; and the other by a severe, and, in many cases mysterious, majesty, which we remember with an undiminished awe, like that felt at the presence and operation of some great Spiritual Power. From about these two groups, more or less harmo- ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 187 nized by intermediate examples, but always distinctively marked by features of beauty or of power, there will be swept away, in multitudes, the memories of buildings, perhaps, in their first address to our minds, of no inferior pretension, but owing their impressiveness to characters of less enduring nobility — to value of material, accumulation of ornament, or ingenuity of mechanical construction. Especial interest may, indeed, have been awakened by such circumstances, and the memory may have been, consequently, rendered tenacious of particular parts or effects of the structure; but it will recall even these only by an active effort, and then without emotion ; while in passive moments, and with thrilling influence, the images of purer beauty, and of more spiritual power, will return in a fair and solemn company ; and while the pride of many a stately palace, and the wealth of many a jewelled shrine, perish from our thoughts in a dust of gold, there will rise, through their dimness, the white image of some secluded marble chapel, by river or forest side, with the fretted flower- work shrinking under its arches, as if under vaults of late- fallen snow ; or the vast weariness of some shadowy wall whose separate stones are like mountain foundations, and yet numberless. Now, the difference between these two orders of building is not merely that which there is in nature between things beautiful and sublime. It is, also, the difference between what is derivative and original in man’s work ; for whatever is in architecture fair or beautiful, is imitated from natural forms ; and what is not so derived, but depends for its dignity upon arrangement and government received from human mind, becomes the expression of the power of that mind, and receives a sublimity high in proportion to the power expressed. All building, therefore, shows man either as gathering or govern- ing ; and the secrets of his success are his knowing what to gather, and how to rule. These are the two great intellectual Lamps of Architecture ; the one consisting in a just and humble veneration for the works of God upon the earth, and the other in an understanding of the dominion over those works which has been vested in man. — S. L. A. ch. iii. §1,2. 188 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. The Sublime in Architecture. — Besides this expression of living authority and power, there is, however, a sympathy in the forms of noble building, with what is most sublime in natural things; and it is the governing Power directed by this sympathy, whose operation I shall at present endeavour to trace, abandoning all inquiry into the more abstract fields of Invention : for this latter faculty, and the questions of proportion and arrangement connected with its discussion, can only be rightly examined in a general view of all the arts ; but its sympathy, in architecture, with the vast con- trolling powers of Nature herself, is special, and may shortly be considered ; and that with the more advantage, that it has, of late, been little felt or regarded by architects. I have seen, in recent efforts, much contest between two schools, one affecting originality, and the other legality — many attempts at beauty of design — many ingenious adaptations of construc- tion ; but I have never seen any aim at the expression of abstract power ; never any appearance of a consciousness that, in this primal art of man, there is room for the marking of his relations with the mightiest, as well as the fairest, works of God ; and that those works themselves have been permitted, by their Master and his, to receive an added glory from their association with earnest efforts of human thought. In the edifices of Man there should be found reverent worship and following, not only of the spirit which rounds the pillars of the forest, and arches the vault of the avenue — which gives veining to the leaf, and polish to the shell, and grace to every pulse that agitates animal organisation, — but of that also which reproves the pillars of the earth, and builds up her barren precipices into the coldness of the clouds, and lifts her shadowy cones of mountain purple into the pale arch of the sky ; for these, and other glories more than these, refuse not to connect themselves, in his thoughts, with the work of his own hand ; the grey cliff loses not its nobleness when it reminds us of some Cyclopean waste of mural stone ; the pinnacles of the rocky promontory arrange themselves, undegraded, into fantastic semblances of fortress towers ; and even the awful cone of the far-off mountain has a melancholy ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 189 mixed with, that of its own solitude, which is cast from the images of nameless tumuli on white sea-shores, and of the heaps of reedy clay, into which chambered cities melt in their mortality. Let us, then, see what is this power and majesty, which Nature herself does not disdain to accept from the works of man; and what that sublimity in the masses built up by his coralline-like energy, which is honourable, even when transferred by association to the dateless hills, which it needed earthquakes to lift, and deluges to mould. And, first, of mere size : It might not be thought possible to emulate the sublimity of natural objects in this respect; nor would it be, if the architect contended with them in pitched battle. It would not be well to build pyramids in the valley of Chamouni ; and St. Peter’s, among its many other errors, counts for not the least injurious its position on the slope of an inconsiderable hill. But imagine it placed on the plain of Marengo, or like the Superga of Turin, or like La Salute at Venice ! The fact is, that the apprehension of the size of natural objects, as well as of architecture, depends more on fortunate excitement of the imagination than on measurements by the eye ; and the architect has a peculiar advantage in being 'able to press close upon the sight, such magnitude as he can command. There are few rocks, even among the Alps, that have a clear vertical fall as high as the choir of Beauvais ; and if we secure a good precipice of wall, or a sheer and unbroken flank of tower, and place them where there are no enormous natural features to oppose them, we shall feel in them no want of sublimity of size. And it may be matter of encouragement in this respect, though one also of regret, to observe how much oftener man destroys natural sublimity, than nature crushes human power. It does not need much to humiliate a mountain. A hut will sometimes do it ; I never look up to the Col de Balme from Chamouni, without a violent feeling of provocation against its hospitable little cabin, whose bright white walls form a visibly four- square spot on the green ridge, and entirely destroy all idea of its elevation. A single villa will often mar a whole land- 190 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. scape, and dethrone a dynasty of hills, and the Acropolis of Athens, Parthenon and all, has, I believe, been dwarfed into a model by the palace lately built beneath it. The fact is, that hills are not so high as we fancy them, and, when to the actual impression of no mean comparative size, is added the sense of the toil of manly hand and thought, a sublimity is reached, which nothing but gross error in arrangement of its parts can destroy. While, therefore, it is not to be supposed that mere size will ennoble a mean design, yet every increase of magnitude will bestow upon it a certain degree of nobleness : so that it is well to determine at first, whether the building is to be markedly beautiful, or markedly sublime ; and if the latter, not to be withheld by respect to smaller parts from reaching largeness of scale ; provided only, that it be evidently in the architect’s power to reach at least that degree of magnitude which is the lowest at which sublimity begins, rudely definable as that which will make a living figure look less than life beside it. It is the misfortune of most of our modern buildings that we would fain have an universal excellence in them; and so part of the funds must go in painting, part in gilding, part in fitting up, part in painted windows, part in small steeples, part in ornaments here and there ; and neither the windows, nor the steeple, nor the ornaments, are worth their materials. For there is a crust about the impressible part of men’s minds, which must be pierced through before they can be touched to the quick ; and though we may prick at it and scratch it in a thousand separate places, we might as well have let it alone if we do not come through somewhere with a deep thrust : and if we can give such a thrust anywhere, there is no need of another ; it need not be even so u wide as a church door,” so that it be enough. And mere weight will do this ; it is a clumsy way of doing it, but an effectual one, too ; and the apathy which cannot be pierced through by a small steeple, nor shone through by a small window, can be broken through in a moment by the mere weight of a great wall. Let, there- fore, the architect who has not large resources, choose his point of attack first, and, if he choose size, let him abandon ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 191 decoration ; for, unless they are concentrated, and numerous enough to make their concentration conspicuous, all his orna- ments together will not be worth one huge stone. And the choice must be a decided one, without compromise. It must be no question whether his capitals would not look better with a little carving — let him leave them huge as blocks ; or whether his arches should not have richer architraves — let him throw them a foot higher, if he can ; a yard more across the nave will be worth more to him than a tesselated pave- ment ; and another fathom of outer wall, than an army of pinnacles. The limitation of size must be only in the uses of the building, or in the ground at his disposal. That limitation, however, being by such circumstances determined, by what means, it is to be next asked, may the actual magnitude be best displayed ; since it is seldom, perhaps never, that a building of any pretension to size looks so large as it is. The appearance of a figure in any distant, more especially in any upper, parts of it will almost always prove that we have under-estimated the magnitude of those parts. — S. L. A. ch. iii. § 3, 4, 5, 6. The Bounding Line of a Building. — It has often been observed that a building, in order to show its magnitude, must be seen all at once. It would, perhaps, be better to say, must be bounded as much as possible by continuous lines, and that its extreme points should be seen all at once ; or we may state, in simpler terms still, that it must have one visible bounding line from top to bottom, and from end to end. This bounding line from top to bottom may either be inclined inwards, and the mass, therefore, pyramidical ; or vertical, and the mass form one grand cliff ; or inclined out- wards, as in the advancing fronts of old houses, and, in a sort, in the Greek temple, and in all buildings with heavy cornices or heads. Now, in all these cases, if the bounding line be violently broken ; if the cornice project, or the upper portion of the pyramid recede too violently, majesty will be lost ; not because the building cannot be seen all at once, — for in the case of a heavy cornice no part of it is necessarily 192 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. concealed, — but because the continuity of its terminal line is broken, and the length of that line , therefore, cannot be estimated. But the error is, of course, more fatal when much of the building is also concealed ; as in the well-known case of the recession of the dome of St. Peter’s, and, from the greater number of points of view, in churches whose highest portions, whether dome or tower, are over their cross. Thus there is only one point from which the size of the Cathedral of Florence is felt ; and that is from the corner of the Via de’ Balestrieri, opposite the south-east angle, where it happens that the dome is seen rising instantly above the apse and transepts. In all cases in which the tower is over the cross, the grandeur and height of the tower itself are lost, because there is but one line down which the eye can trace the whole height, and that is in the inner angle of the cross, not easily discerned. Hence, while, in symmetry and feeling, such designs may often have pre-eminence, yet, where the height of the tower itself is. to be made apparent, it must be at the west end, or, better still, detached as a campanile. Imagine the loss to the Lombard churches if their campaniles were carried only to their present height over their crosses ; or to the Cathedral of Rouen, if the Tour de Beurre were made central,® in the place of its present debased spire ! Whether, therefore, we have to do with tower or wall, there must be one bounding line from base to coping ; and I am much inclined, myself, to love the true vertical, or the vertical, with a solemn frown of projection, (not a scowl,) as in the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence. This character is always given to rocks by the poets; with slight founda- tion, indeed, real rocks being little given to overhanging — but with excellent judgment ; for the sense of threatening conveyed by this form is a nobler character than that of mere size. And, in buildings, this threatening should be somewhat carried down into their mass. A mere projecting shelf is not enough; the whole wall must, Jupiter like, nod as well as frown. Hence, I think the propped machicolations ©f the Palazzo Vecchio and Duomo of Florence far grander ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 193 headings than any form of Greek cornice. Sometimes the projection may be thrown lower, as in the doge’s palace of Venice, where the chief appearance of it is above the second arcade ; or it may become a grand swell from the ground, as the head of a ship of the line rises from the sea. This is very nobly attained by the projection of the niches in the third story of the Tour de Beurre at Eouen. — S. L. A. ch. iii. § 6, 7. Two Broad Divisions of Architecture. — Of the many broad divisions under which architecture may be considered, none appear to me more significant than that into buildings whose interest is in their walls, and those whose interest is in the lines dividing their walls. In the Greek temple the wall is as nothing ; the entire interest is in the detached columns and the frieze they bear ; in French Flamboyant, and in our detestable Perpendicular, the object is to get rid of the wall surface, and keep the eye altogether on tracery of line ; in Komanesque work and Egyptian, the wall is a confessed and honoured member, and the light is often allowed to fall on large areas of it, variously decorated. Now, both these principles are admitted by Nature, the one in her woods and thickets, the other in her plains, and cliffs, and waters ; but the latter is pre-eminently the principle of power, and, in some sense, of beauty also. For, whatever infinity of fair form there may be in the maze of the forest, there is a fairer, as I think, in the surface of the quiet lake ; and I hardly know that association of shaft or tracery, for which I would exchange the warm sleep of sunshine on some smooth, broad, human-like front of marble. Nevertheless, if breadth is to be beautiful, its substance must in some sort be beautiful ; and w r e must not hastily condemn the exclusive resting of the northern architects in divided lines, until at least we have remembered the difference between a blank surface of Caen stone, and one mixed from Genoa and Carrara, of serpentine with snow : but as regards abstract power and awfulness, there is no question ; without breadth of surface it is in vain to seek them, and it matters little, so that the surface be 13 194 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. wide, bold, and unbroken, whether it be of brick or of jasper ; the light of heaven upon it, and the weight of earth in it, are all we need : for it is singular how forgetful the mind may become both of material and workmanship, if only it have space enough over which to range, and to remind it, however feebly, of the joy that it has in contemplating the flatness and sweep of great plains and broad seas. And. it is a noble thing for men to do this with their cut stone or moulded clay, and to make the face of a wall look infinite, and its edge against the sky like an horizon : or even if less than this be reached, it is still delightful to mark the play of passing light on its broad surface, and to see by how many artifices and gradations of tinting and shadow, time and storm will set their wild signatures upon it ; and how in the rising or declining of the day the unbroken twilight rests long and luridly on its high lineless forehead, and fades away untrace- ably down its tiers of confused and countless stone. This, then, being, as I think, one of the peculiar elements of sublime architecture, it may be easily seen how neces- sarily consequent upon the love of it will be the choice of a form approaching to the square for the main outline. Tor, in whatever direction the building is contracted, in that direction the eye will be drawn to its terminal lines ; and the sense of surface will only be at its fullest when those lines are removed, in every direction, as far as possible. Thus the square and circle are pre-eminently the areas of power among those bounded by purely straight or curved lines ; and these, with their relative solids, the cube and sphere, and relative solids of progression, (as in the investigation of the laws of proportion I shall call those masses which are gene- rated by the progression of an area of given form along a line in a given direction,) the square and cylindrical column, are the elements of utmost power in all architectural arrange- ments. On the other hand, grace and perfect proportion require an elongation in some one direction ; and a sense of power may be communicated to this form of magnitude by a continuous series of any marked features, such as the eye may be unable to number ; while yet we feel, from their ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 195 boldness, decision, and simplicity, that it is indeed their multitude which has embarrassed us, not any confusion or indistinctness of form. This expedient of continued series forms the sublimity of arcades and aisles, of all ranges of columns, and, on a smaller scale, of those Greek mouldings, of which, repeated as they now are in all the meanest and most familiar forms of our furniture, it is impossible altoge- ther to weary. Now, it is evident that the architect has choice of two types of form, each properly associated with its own kind of interest or decoration : the square, or greatest area, to be chosen especially when the surface is to be the sub- ject of thought; and the elongated area, when the divisions of the surface are to be subjects of thought. Both these orders of form, as I think nearly every other source of power and beauty, are marvellously united in that building which I fear to weary the reader by bringing forward too frequently, as a model of all perfection — the Doge’s palace at Venice : its general arrangement, a hollow square ; its principal fa 9 ade, an oblong, elongated to the eye by a range of thirty-four small arches, and thirty-five columns, while it is separated by a richly canopied window in the centre, into two massive divisions, ■whose height and length are nearly as four to five ; the arcades which give it length being confined to the lower stories, and the upper, between its broad windows left a mighty surface of smooth marble, chequered with blocks of alternate rose-colour and white. It would be impossible, I believe, to invent a more magnificent arrange- ment of all that is in building most dignified and most fair. — /S'. L. A. ch. iii. § 8, 9. Origin of European Architecture. — All European archi- tecture, bad and good, old and new, is derived from Greece through Borne, and coloured and perfected from the East. The history of architecture is nothing but the tracing of the various modes and directions of this derivation. Understand this, once for all : if you hold fast this great connecting clue, you may string all the types of successive architectural inven- tion upon it like so many beads. The Doric and the Corinthian 13—2 19G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. orders are the roots, the one of all Romanesque, massy- capitaled buildings — Norman, Lombard, Byzantine, and what else you can name of the kind ; and the Corinthian of all Gothic, Early English, French, German, and Tuscan. Now observe : those old Greeks gave the shaft ; Rome gave the arch ; the Arabs pointed and foliated the arch. The shaft and arch, the frame-work and strength of architecture, are from the race of Japheth: the spirtuality and sanctity of it from Ismael, Abraham, and Shem. There is high probability that the Greek received his shaft system from Egypt; but I do not care to keep this earlier derivation in the mind of the reader. It is only necessary that he should be able to refer to a fixed point of origin, when the form of the shaft was first perfected. But it may be incidentally observed, that if the Greeks did indeed receive their Doric from Egypt, then the three families of the earth have each contributed their part to its noblest architecture: and Ham, the servant of the others, furnishes the sustaining or bearing member, the shaft; Japheth the arch; Shem the spiritualization of both. I have said that the two orders, Doric and Corinthian, are the roots of all European architecture. You have, perhaps, heard of five orders: but there are only two real orders ; and there never can be any more until doomsday. On one of these orders the ornament is convex : those are Doric, Norman, and what else you recollect of the kind. On the other the orna- ment is concave; those are Corinthian, Early English, Deco- rated, and what else you recollect of that kind. The transitional form, in which the ornamental line is straight, is the centre or root of both. All other orders are varieties of these, or phantasms and grotesques, altogether indefinite in number and species. This Greek architecture, then, with its two orders, was clumsily copied and varied by the Romans with no particular result, until they began to bring the arch into extensive practical service; except only that the Doric capital was spoiled in endeavours to mend it, and the Corinthian much varied and enriched with fanciful, and often very beautiful imagery. And in this state of things came Christianity: ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 197 seized upon the arch as her own : decorated it, and delighted in it: invented a new Doric capital to replace the spoiled Roman one: and all over the Roman empire set to work, with such materials as were nearest at hand, to express and adorn herself as best she could. This Roman Christian architecture is the exact expression of the Christianity of the time, very fervid and beautiful — but very imperfect; in many respects ignorant, and yet radiant with a strong, childlike light of imagination, which flames up under Constantine, illumines all the shores of the Bosphorus and the Aegean and the Adriatic Sea, and then gradually, as the people give themselves up to idolatry, becomes corpse-light. The architecture, like the religion it expressed, sinks into a settled form — a strange, gilded, and embalmed repose ; and so would have remained for ever, — so does remain, where its languor has been un- disturbed. But rough wakening was ordained for it. This Christian art of the declining empire is divided into * two great branches, western and eastern; one centred at Rome, the other at Byzantium, of which the one is the early Christian Romanesque, properly so called, and the other, carried to higher imaginative perfection by Greek workmen, is distinguished from it as Byzantine. But I wish the reader, for the present, to class these two branches of art together in his mind, they being, in points of main importance, the same ; that is to say, both of them a true continuance and sequence of the art of old Rome itself, flowing uninterruptedly down from the fountain-head, and entrusted always to the best workmen who could be found — Latins in Italy and Greeks in Greece ; and thus both branches may be ranged under the general term of Christian Romanesque, an architecture which had lost the refinement of Pagan art in the degradation of the empire, but which was elevated by Christianity to higher aims, and by the fancy of the Greek workmen endowed with brighter forms. And this art the reader may conceive as extending in its various branches over all the central pro- vinces of the empire, taking aspects more or less refined, according to its proximity to the seats of government ; depen- dent for all its power on the vigour and freshness of the 108 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. religion which animated it; and as that vigour and purity- departed, losing its own vitality, and sinking into nerveless rest, not deprived of its beauty, but benumbed, and incapable of advance or change. — S. V. I. ch. i. § 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Majesty of Buildings. — The relative majesty of buildings depends more on the weight and vigour of their masses, than on any other attribute of their design : mass of everything, of bulk, of light, of darkness, of colour, not mere sum of any of these, but breadth of them; not broken light, nor scat- tered darkness, nor divided weight, but solid stone, broad sunshine, starless shade. Time would fail me altogether, if I attempted to follow out the range of the principle ; there is not a feature, however apparently trifling, to which it cannot give power. The wooden fillings of belfry lights, necessary to protect their interiors from rain, are in England usually divided into a number of neatly-executed cross-bars, like those of Venetian blinds, which, of course, become as con- spicuous in their sharpness as they are uninteresting in their precise carpentry, multiplying, moreover, the horizontal lines which directly contradict those of the architecture. Abroad, such necessities are met by three or four downright penthouse roofs, reaching each from within the window to the outside shafts of its mouldings ; instead of the horrible row of ruled lines, the space is thus divided into four or five grand masses of shadow, with grey slopes of roof above, bent or yielding into all kinds of delicious swells and curves, and covered with warm' tones of moss and lichen. Very often the thing is more delightful than the stone-work itself, and all because it is broad, dark, and simple. It matters not how clumsy, how common, the means are, that get weight and shadow — sloping roof, jutting porch, projecting balcony, hollow niche, massy gargoyle, frowning parapet ; get but gloom and simplicity, and all good things will follow in their place and time ; do but design with the owl’s eyes first, and you will gain the falcon’s afterwards. I am grieved to have to insist upon what seems so simple : it looks trite and commonplace when it is written, but pardon ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 199 me this : for it is anything but an accepted or understood principle in practice, and the less excusably forgotten, because it is, of all the great and true laws of art, the easiest to obey. The executive facility of complying with its demands cannot be too earnestly, too frankly, asserted. There are not five men in the kingdom who could compose, not twenty who could cut, the foliage with which the windows of Or San Michele are adorned ; but there is many a village clergyman who could invent and dispose its black openings, and not a village mason who could not cut them. Lay a few clover or woodroof leaves on white paper, and a little alteration in their positions will suggest a figure which, cut boldly through a slab of marble, would be worth more window traceries than an architect could draw in a summer’s day. There are few men in the world who could design a Greek capital ; there are few who could not produce some vigour of effect with leaf designs on a Byzantine block : few who could design a Palladian front, or a flamboyant pediment; many who could build a square mass like the Strozzi palace. But I know not how it is, unless that our English hearts have more oak than stone in them, and have more filial sympathy with acorns than Alps ; but all that we do is small and mean, if not worse — thin, and wasted, and unsubstantial. It is not modern work only ; we have built like frogs and mice since the thirteenth century (except only in our castles). What a contrast between the pitiful little pigeon-holes which stand for doors in the east front of Salisbury, looking like the entrances to a beehive or a wasp’s nest, and the soaring arches and kingly crowning of the gates of Abbeville, Rouen, and Rheims, or the rock-hewn piers of Chartres, or the dark and vaulted porches and writhed pillars of Yerona ! Of domestic architecture what need is there to speak ? How small, how cramped, how poor, how miserable in its petty neatness is our best ! how beneath the mark of attack, and the level of contempt, that which is common with us ! What a strange sense of formalized deformity, of shrivelled preci- sion, of starved accuracy, of minute misanthropy have we, as we leave even the rude streets of Picardy for the market 200 WHITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. towns of Kent ! Until that street architecture of ours is bettered, until we give it some size and boldness, until we give our windows recess, and our walls thickness, I know not how we are to blame our architects for their feebleness in more important work; their eyes are inured to narrowness and slightness: can we expect them at a word to conceive and deal with breadth and solidity? — JS. L. A. ch. iii. § 23, 24. Originality in Architecture. — A day never passes with- out our hearing our English architects called upon to be original, and to invent a new style: about as sensible and necessary an exhortation as to ask of a man who has never had rags enough on his back to keep out cold, to invent a new mode of cutting a coat. Give him a whole coat first, and let him concern himself about the fashion of it after- wards. We want no new style of architecture. Who wants a new style of painting or sculpture ? But we want some style. It is of marvellously little importance, if we have a code of laws and they be good laws, whether they be new or old, foreign or native, Roman or Saxon, or Norman, or English laws. But it is of considerable importance that we should have a code of laws of one kind or another, and that code accepted and enforced from one side of the island to another, and not one law made ground of judgment at York and another in Exeter. And in like manner it does not matter one marble splinter whether we have an old or new architecture, but it matters everything whether we have an architecture truly so called or not ; that is, whether an archi- tecture whose laws might be taught at our schools from Cornwall to Northumberland, as we teach English spelling and English grammar, or an architecture which is to be invented fresh every time we build a workhouse or a parish school. There seems to me to be a wonderful misunder- standing among the majority of architects of the present day as to the very nature and meaning of originality, and of all wherein it consists. Originality in expression does not depend on invention of new words ; nor originality in poetry on invention of new measures; nor, in painting, on invention ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 201 of new colours, or new modes of using them. The chords of music, the harmonies of colour, the general principles of the arrangement of sculptural masses, have been deter- mined long ago, and, in all probability, cannot be added to any more than they can be altered. Granting that they may be, such additions or alterations are much more the work of time and of multitudes than of individual inventors. We may have one Van Eyck, who will be known as the introducer of a new style once in ten centuries, but he him- self will trace his invention to some accidental by-play or pursuit ; and the use of that invention will depend altogether on the popular necessities or. instincts of the period. Origi- nality depends on nothing of the kind. A man who has the gift, will take up any style that is going, the style of his day, and will work in that, and be great in that, and make everything that he does in it look as fresh as if every thought of it had just come down from heaven. I do not say that he will not take liberties with his materials, or with his rules : I do not say that strange changes will not sometimes be wrought by his efforts, or his fancies, in both. But those changes will be instructive, natural, facile, though sometimes marvellous ; they will never be sought after as things necessary to his dignity or to his independence ; and those liberties will be like the liberties that a great speaker takes with the language, not a defiance of its rules for the sake of singularity; but inevitable, uncalculated, and brilliant consequences of an effort to express what the language, without such infraction, could not Neither originality, nor change, good though both may be, and this is commonly a most merciful and enthusiastic supposition with respect to either, are ever to be sought in themselves, or can ever be healthily obtained by any struggle or rebellion against common laws. We want neither the one nor the other. The forms of architecture already known are good enough for us, and for far better than any of us ; and it will be time enough to think of changing them for better when we can use them as they are. But there are some things which we not only want, but cannot do without ; and 202 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. which all the struggling and raving in the world, nay more, which all the real talent and resolution in England, will never enable us to do without : and these are Obedience, Unity, Fellowship, and Order. And all our schools of design, and committees of taste ; all our academies and lectures, and journalisms, and essays ; all the sacrifices which we are be- ginning to make, all the truth which there is in our English nature, all the power of our English will, and the life of our English intellect, will in this matter be as useless as efforts and emotions in a dream, unless we are contented to submit architecture and all art, like other things, to English law. I say architecture and all art ; for I believe architecture must be the beginning of arts, and that the others must follow her in their time and order ; and I think the prosperity of our schools of painting and sculpture, in which no one will deny the life, though many the health, depends upon that of our architecture. I think that all will languish until that takes the lead, and (this I do not think, but I proclaim, as confidently as I would assert the necessity, for the safety of society, of an understood and strongly administered legal government) our architecture will languish, and that in the very dust, until the first principle of common sense be man- fully obeyed, and an universal system of form and workman- ship be everywhere adopted and enforced. It may be said that this is impossible. It may be so — I fear it is so : I have nothing to do with the possibility or impossibility of it ; I simply know and assert the necessity of it. If it be impos- sible, English art is impossible. Give it up at once. You are wasting time, and money, and energy upon it, and though you exhaust centuries and treasuries, and break hearts for it, you will never raise it above the merest dilettanteism. Think not of it. It is a dangerous vanity, a mere gulph in which genius after genius will be swallowed up, and it will not close. And so it will continue to be, unless the one bold and broad step be taken at the beginning. We shall not manufacture art out of pottery and printed stuffs ; we shall not reason out art by our philosophy ; we shall not stumble upon art by our experiments, nor create it by our fancies : I do not say that ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 203 we can even build it out of brick and stone ; but there is a chance for us in these, and there is none else ; and that chance rests on the bare possibility of obtaining the consent, both of architects and of the public, to choose a style, and to use it universally. — S. L. A. ch. vii. § 4, 5, 6. Shade in Architecture. — Positive shade is a more neces- sary and more sublime thing in an architect’s hands than in a painter’s. For the latter being able to temper his light with an under tone throughout, and. to make it delightful with sweet colour, or awful with lurid colour, and to represent distance, and air, and sun, by the depth of it, and fill its whole space with expression, can deal with an enormous, nay, almost with an universal, extent of it, and the best painters most delight in such extent ; but as light, with the architect, is nearly always liable to become full and untempered sunshine seen upon solid surface, his only rests, and his chief means of sublimity, are definite shades. So that, after size and weight, the Power of architecture may be said to depend on the quantity (whether measured in space or intenseness) of its shadow ; and it seems to me, that the reality of its works, and the use and influence they have in the daily life of men, (as opposed to those works of art with which we have nothing to do but in times of rest or of pleasure,) require of it that it should express a kind of human sympathy, by a measure of darkness as great as there is in human life : and that as the great poem and great fiction generally affect us most by the majesty of their masses of shade, and cannot take hold upon us if they affect a continuance of lyric sprightliness, but must be serious often, and sometimes melancholy, else they do not express the truth of this wild world of ours ; so there must be, in this magnificently human art of architecture, some equivalent expression for the trouble and wrath of life, for its sorrow and its mystery : and this it can only give by depth or diffusion of gloom, by the frown upon its front, and the shadow of its recess. So that Rembrandtism is a noble manner in architecture, though a false one in painting ; and I do not believe that ever any building was truly great, unless 204 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. it had mighty masses, vigorous and deep, of shadow mingled ■with its surface. And among the first habits that a young architect should learn, is that of thinking in shadow, not looking at a design in its miserable liny skeleton ; but con- ceiving it as it will be when the dawn lights it, and the dusk leaves it ; when its stones will be hot, and its crannies cool ; when the lizards will bask on the one, and the birds build in the other. Let him design with the sense of cold and heat upon him ; let him cut out the shadows, as men dig wells in unwatered plains ; and lead along the lights, as a founder does his hot metal ; let him keep the full command of both, and see that he knows how they fall, and where they fade. His paper lines and proportions are of no value : all that he has to do must be done by spaces of light and darkness ; and his business is to see that the one is broad and bold enough not to be swallowed up by twilight, and the other deep enough not to be dried like a shallow pool by a noon-day sun. And, that this may be, the first necessity is that the quan- tities of shade or light, whatever they may be, shall be thrown into masses, either of something like equal weight, or else large masses of the one relieved with small of the other ; but masses of one or other kind there must be. No design that is divided at all, and is not divided into masses, can ever be of the smallest value : this great law respecting breadth, precisely the same in architecture and painting, is so impor- tant, that the examination of its two principal applications will include most of the conditions of majestic design on which I would at present insist. — jS. L. A. ch. iii. § 13. Proportion in Architecture. — Of which the first is, that wherever Proportion exists at all, one member of the compo- sition must be either larger than, or in some way supreme over, the rest. There is no proportion between equal things. They can have symmetry only, and symmetry without pro- portion is not composition. It is necessary to perfect beauty, but it is the least necessary of its elements, nor of course is there any difficulty in obtaining it. Any succession of ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 205 equal tilings is agreeable ; but to compose is to arrange unequal tilings, and tlie first thing to be done in beginning a composition is to determine which is to be the principal thing. I believe that - all that has been written and taught about proportion, put together, is not to the architect worth the single rule, well enforced, “ Have one large thing and several smaller things, or one principal thing and several inferior things, and bind them well together.” Sometimes there may be a regular gradation, as between the heights of stories in good designs for houses; sometimes a monarch with a lowly train, as in the spire with its pinnacles: the varieties of arrangement are infinite, but the law is universal — have one thing above the rest, either by size, or office, or interest. Don’t put the pinnacles without the spire. What a host of ugly church towers have we in England, with pinnacles at the corners, and none in the middle ! How many buildings like King’s College Chapel at Cambridge, looking like tables upside down, with their four legs in the air ! What ! it will be said, have not beasts four legs ? Yes, but legs of different shapes, and with a head between them. So they have a pair of ears : and perhaps a pair of horns : but not at both ends. Knock down a couple of pinnacles at either end in King’s College Chapel, and you will have a kind of proportion instantly. So in a cathedral you may have one tower in the centre, and two at the west end ; or two at the west end only, though a worse arrangement : but you must not have two at the west and two at the east end, unless you have some central member to connect them ; and even then, buildings are generally bad which have large balancing features at the extremities, and small connecting ones in the centre, because it is not easy then to make the centre dominant. The bird or moth may indeed have wide wings, because the size of the wing does not give supremacy to the wing. The head and life are the mighty things, and the plumes, however wide, are subordinate. In fine west fronts with a pediment and two towers, the centre is always the principal mass, both in bulk and interest (as having the main gateway), and the towers are subordinated to it, as an animal’s horns are to its head. 206 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. The moment the towers rise so high as to overpower the body and centre, and become themselves the principal masses, they will destroy the proportion, unless they are made unequal, and one of them the leading feature of the cathedral, as at Antwerp and Strasburg. But the purer method is to keep them down in due relation to the centre, and to throw up the pediment into a steep connecting mass, drawing the eye to it by rich tracery. This is nobly done in St. Wulfran of Abbe- ville, and attempted partly at Rouen, though that west front is made up of so many unfinished and supervening designs that it is impossible to guess the real intention of any one of its builders. — S. L. A. ch. iv. § 26. Variety in Architecture. — Change or variety is as much a necessity to the human heart and brain in buildings as in books ; that there is no merit, though there is some occasional use, in monotony ; and that we must no more expect to derive either pleasure or profit from an architecture whose ornaments are of one pattern, and whose pillars are of one proportion, than we should out of a universe in which the clouds were all of one shape, and the trees all of one size. And this we confess in deeds, though not in words. All the pleasure which the people of the nineteenth century take in art, is in pictures, sculpture, minor objects of virtu, or mediaeval architecture, which we enjoy under the term pic- turesque: no pleasure is taken anywhere in modern build- ings, and we find all men of true feeling delighting to escape out of modern cities into natural scenery: hence that peculiar love of landscape which is characteristic of the age. It would be well, if, in all other matters, we were as ready to put up with what we dislike, for the sake of compliance with esta- blished law, as we are in architecture. How so debased a law ever came to be established, we shall see when we come to describe the Renaissance schools: here we have only to note, as the second most essential element of the Gothic spirit, that it broke through that law wherever it found it in existence; it not only dared, but delighted in, the infringement of every servile principle; and ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 207 invented a series of forms of which the merit was, not merely that they were new, but that they were capable of perpetual novelty. The pointed arch was not merely a bold variation from the round, but it admitted of millions of variations in itself ; for the proportions of a pointed arch are changeable to infinity, while a circular arch is always the same. The grouped shaft was not merely a bold variation from the single one, but it admitted of millions of variations in its grouping, and in the proportions resultant from its grouping. The introduc- tion of tracery was not only a startling change in the treat- ment of window lights, but admitted endless changes in the interlacement of the tracery bars themselves. So that, while in all living Christian architecture the love of variety exists, the Gothic schools exhibited that love in culminating energy; and their influence, wherever it extended itself, may be sooner and farther traced by this character than by any other; the tendency to the adoption of Gothic types being always first shown by greater irregularity and richer variation in the forms of the architecture it is about to supersede, long before the appearance of the pointed arch or of any other recognizable outward sign of the Gothic mind. We must, however, herein note carefully what distinction there is between a healthy and a diseased love of change; for as it was in healthy love of change that the Gothic architec- ture rose, it was partly in consequence of diseased love of change that it was destroyed. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 29, 30, 31, 32. The Nature of Gothic. — I shall endeavour to give the reader an idea, at once broad and definite, of the true nature of Gothic architecture, properly so called; not of that of Venice only, but of universal Gothic The principal difficulty in doing this arises from the fact that every building of the Gothic period differs in some important respect from every other ; and many include features which, if they occurred in other buildings,, would not be considered Gothic at all ; so that all we have to reason upon is merely, if I may be allowed so to express it, a greater or less degree of Gothicness in each building we examine. 208 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. And it is this Gothicness, — the character which, according as it is found more or less in a building, makes it more or less Gothic, — of which I want to define the nature ; and I feel the same kind of difficulty in doing so which would be encountered by any one who undertook to explain, for instance, the nature of Eedness, without any actually red thing to point to, but only orange and purple things. Sup- pose he had only a piece of heather and a dead oak-leaf to do it with. He might say, the colour which is mixed with the yellow in this oak-leaf, and with the blue in this heather, would be red, if you had it separate ; but it would be difficult, nevertheless, to make the abstraction perfectly intel- ligible : and it is so in a far greater degree to make the abstraction of the Gothic character intelligible, because that character itself is made up of many mingled ideas, and can consist only in their union. That is to say, pointed arches do not constitute Gothic, nor vaulted roofs, nor flying buttresses, nor grotesque sculptures ; but all or some of these things, and many other things with them, when they come together so as to have life. Observe also, that, in the definition proposed, I shall only endeavour to analyze the idea which I suppose already to exist in the reader’s mind. We all have some notion, most of us a very determined one, of the meaning of the term Gothic; but I know that many persons have this idea in their minds without being able to define it : that is to say, understanding generally that Westminster Abbey is Gothic, and St. Paul’s is not, that Strasburg Cathedral is Gothic, and St. Peter’s is not, they have, nevertheless, no ' clear notion of what it is that they recognize in the one or miss in the other, such as would enable them to say how far the work at Westminster or Strasburg is good and pure of its kind ; still less to say of any nondescript building, like St. James’s Palace or Windsor Castle, how much right Gothic element there is in it, and how much wanting. And I believe this inquiry to be a pleasant and profitable one ; and that there will be found something more than usually interesting in tracing out this grey, shadowy, many-pinnacled image of the ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 209 Gothic spirit within us ; and discerning what fellowship there is between it and our Northern hearts. And if, at any point of the inquiry, I should interfere with any of the reader’s previously formed conceptions, and use the term Gothic in any sense which he would not willingly attach to it, I do not ask him to accept, but only to examine and understand, my interpretation, as necessary to the intelligibility of what fol- lows in the rest of the work. We have, then, the Gothic character submitted to our analysis, just as the rough mineral is submitted to that of the chemist, entangled with many other foreign substances, itself perhaps in no place pure, or ever to be obtained or seen in purity for more than instant ; but nevertheless a thing of definite and separate nature, however inextricable or con- fused in appearance. Now observe : the chemist defines his mineral by two separate kinds of character ; one external, its crystalline form, hardness, lustre, &c.; the other internal, the proportions and nature of its constituent atoms. Exactly in the same manner, we shall find that Gothic architecture has external forms, and internal elements. Its elements are certain mental tendencies of the builders, legibly expressed in it ; as fancifulness, love of variety, love of richness, and such others. Its external forms are pointed arches, vaulted roofs, &c. And unless both the elements and the forms are there, we have no right to call the style Gothic. It is not enough that it has the Form, if it have not also the power and life. It is not enough that it has the Power, if it have not the form. We must therefore inquire into each of these characters successively ; and determine first, what is the Mental Expression, and secondly, what the Material Form, of Gothic architecture, properly so called. 1st. Mental Power or Expression. What characters, we have to discover, did the Gothic builders love, or instinctively express in their work, as distinguished from all other builders? Let us go back for a moment to our chemistry, and note that, in defining a mineral by its constituent parts, it is not one nor another of them, that can make up the mineral, but the union of all : for instance, it is neither in charcoal, nor 14 210 WRITINGS OP JOHN RUSKIN. ill oxygen, nor in lime, that there is the making of chalk, but in the combination of all three in certain measures ; they are all found in very different things from chalk, and there is nothing like chalk either in charcoal or in oxygen, but they are nevertheless necessary to its existence. So in the various mental characters which make up the soul of Gothic. It is not one nor another that produces it ; but their union in certain measures. Each one of them is found in many other architectures besides Gothic ; but Gothic cannot exist where they are not found, or, at least, where their place is not in some way supplied. Only there is this great difference between the composition of the mineral and of the architectural style, that if we withdraw one of its elements from the stone, its form is utterly changed, and its existence as such and such a mineral is destroyed ; but if we withdraw one of its mental elements from the Gothic style, it is only a little less Gothic than it was before, and the union of two or three of its elements is enough already to bestow a certain Gothicness of character which gains in intensity as we add the others, and loses as we again withdraw them. I believe, then, that the characteristic or moral elements of Gothic are the following, placed in the order of their importance : — 1. Savageness. 2. Changefulness. 3. Naturalism. 4. Grotesqueness. 5. Rigidity. 6. Redundance. These characters are here expressed as belonging to the building ; as belonging to the builder, they would be ex- pressed thus : — 1. Savageness, or Rudeness. 2. Love of Change. 3. Love of Nature. 4. Disturbed Imagination. 5. Obstinacy. 6. Generosity. And I repeat, that the with- drawal of any one, or any two, will not at once destroy the Gothic character of a building, but the removal of a maj ority of them will. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 211 Gothic the most rational Architecture. — In one point of view Gothic is not only the best, but the only rational archi- tecture, as being that which can fit itself most easily to all services, vulgar or noble. Undefined in its slope of roof, height of shaft, breadth of arch, or disposition of ground plan, it can shrink into a turret, expand into a hall, coil into a staircase, or spring into a spire, with undegraded grace and unexhausted energy ; and whenever it finds occasion for change in its form or purpose, it submits to it without the slightest sense of loss either to its unity or majesty, — subtle and flexible like a fiery serpent, but ever attentive to the voice of the charmer. And it is one of the chief virtues of the Gothic builders, that they never suffered ideas of outside symmetries and consistencies to interfere with the real use and value of what they did. If they wanted a window, they opened one ; a room, they added one ; a buttress, they built one ; utterly regardless of any established conventionalities of external appearance, knowing (as indeed it always happened) that such daring interruptions of the formal plan would rather give additional interest to its symmetry than injure it. So that, in the best times of Gothic, a useless window would rather have been opened in an unexpected place for the sake of the surprise, than a useful one forbidden for the sake of symmetry. Every successive architect, employed upon a great work, built the pieces he added in his own way, utterly regardless of the style adopted by his predecessors ; and if two towers were raised in nominal correspondence at the sides of a cathedral front, one was nearly sure to be different from the other, and in each the style at the top to be different from the style at the bottom. These marked variations were, however, only permitted as part of the great system of perpetual change which ran through every member of Gothic design, and rendered it as endless a field for the beholder’s inquiry, as for the builder’s imagination : change, which in the best schools is subtle and delicate, and rendered more delightful by intermingling of a noble monotony ; in the more barbaric schools is somewhat fantastic and redundant ; but, in all, a necessary and constant 14—2 212 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. condition of the life of the school. Sometimes the variety is in one feature, sometimes in another ; it may be in the capitals or crockets, in the niches or the traceries, or in all together, but in some one or other of the features it will be found always. If the mouldings are constant, the surface sculpture will change ; if the capitals are of a fixed design, the traceries will change ; if the traceries are monotonous, the capitals will change ; and if even, as in some fine schools, the early English for example, there is the slightest approximation to an unvary- ing type of mouldings, capitals, and floral decoration, the variety is found in the disposition of the masses, and in the figure sculpture. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 38, 39. Origin of the term “ Gothic.” — I am not sure when the word “ Gothic” was first generically applied to the architec- ture of the North ; but I presume that, whatever the date of its original usage, it was intended to imply reproach, and express the barbaric character of the nations among whom that architecture arose. It never implied that they were literally of Gothic lineage, far less that their architecture had been originally invented by the Goths themselves ; but it did imply that they and their buildings together exhibited a degree of sternness and rudeness, which, in contradistinction to the character of Southern and Eastern nations, appeared like a perpetual reflection of the contrast between the Goth and the Roman in their first encounter. And when that fallen Roman, in the utmost impotence of his luxury, and insolence of his guilt, became the model for the imitation of civilized Europe, at the close of the so-called Dark ages, the word Gothic became a term of unmitigated contempt, not unmixed with aversion. From that contempt, by the exertion of the anti- quaries and architects of this century, Gothic architecture has been sufficiently vindicated ; and perhaps some among us, in our admiration of the magnificent science of its structure, and sacredness of its expression, might desire that the term of ancient reproach should be withdrawn, and some other, of more apparent honourableness, adopted in its place. There is no chance, as there is no need, of such a substitution. As ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 213 far as the epithet was used scornfully, it was used falsely ; but there is no reproach in the word, rightly understood ; on the contrary, there is a profound truth, which the instinct oi mankind almost unconsciously recognizes. It is true, greatly and deeply true, that the architecture of the North is rude and wild ; but it is not true, that, for this reason, Ave are to condemn it, or despise. Far otherwise : I believe it is in this very character that it deserves our profoundest reverence. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 7. Gothic Architecture not exclusively Ecclesiastical. — We attach, in modern days, a kind of sacredness to the pointed arch and the groined roof, because, while we look habitually out of square windows and live under flat ceilings, we meet with the more beautiful forms in the ruins of our abbeys. But when those abbeys were built, the pointed arch was used for every shop door, as well as for that of the cloister, and the feudal baron and freebooter feasted, as the monk sang, under vaulted roofs ; not because the vaulting was thought especially appropriate to either the revel or psalm, but because it was then the form in which a strong roof was easiest built. We have destroyed the goodly architecture of our cities; we have substituted one wholly devoid of beauty or meaning; and then we reason respecting the strange effect upon our minds of the fragments which, fortunately, we have left in our churches, as if those churches had always been designed to stand out in strong relief from all the buildings around them, and Gothic architecture had always been, what it is now, a religious language, like Monkish Latin. Most readers know, if they would arouse their knowledge, that this was not so ; but they take no pains to reason the matter out : they abandon themselves drowsily to the impression that Gothic is a peculiarly ecclesiastical style; and sometimes, even, that richness in church ornament is a condition or furtherance of the Bomish religion. Undoubtedly it has become so in modern times : for there being no beauty in our recent archi- tecture, and much in the remains of the past, and these remains being almost exclusively ecclesiastical, the High 214 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. Church and Romanist parties have not been slow in availing themselves of the natural instincts which were deprived of all food except from this source ; and have willingly promulgated the theory, that because all the good architecture that is now left is expressive of High Church or Romanist doctrines, all good architecture ever has been and must be so, — a piece of absurdity from which, though here and there a country clergyman may innocently believe it, I hope the common sense of the nation will soon manfully quit itself. It needs but little inquiry into the spirit of the past, to ascertain what, once for all, I would desire here clearly and forcibly to assert, that wherever Christian church architecture has been good and lovely, it has been merely the perfect development of the common dwelling-house architecture of the period; that when the pointed arch was used in the street, it was used in the church; when the round arch was used in the street, it was used in the Church ; when the pinnacle was set over the garret window, it was set over the belfry tower; when the flat roof was used for the drawing-room, it was used for the nave. There is no sacredness in round arches, nor in pointed ; none in pinnacles, nor in buttresses ; none in pillars, nor in traceries. Churches were larger than most other buildings, because they had to hold more people ; they were more adorned than most other buildings, because they were safer from violence, and were the fitting subjects of devotional offering: but they were never built in any separate, mystical, and religious style ; they were built in the manner that was common and familiar to everybody at the time. The flamboyant traceries that adorn the facade of Rouen Cathedral had once their fellows in every window of every house in the market-place ; the sculptures that adorn the porches of St. Mark’s had once their match on the walls of every palace on the Grand Canal ; and the only difference between the church and the dwelling-house was, that there existed a symbolical meaning in the distribution of the parts of all buildings meant for worship, and that the painting or sculpture was, in the one case, less frequently of profane subject than in the other. A more severe distinction cannot be drawn : for secular history was constantly intro- ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 215 duced into church architecture ; and sacred history or allusion generally formed at least one half of the ornament of the dwelling-house. ... I do not mean that every dwelling- house of mediaeval cities was as richly adorned and as exqui- site in composition as the fronts of their cathedrals, but that they presented features of the same kind, often in parts quite as beautiful ; and that the churches were not separated by any change of style from the buildings round them, as they are now, but were merely more finished and full examples of a universal style, rising out of the confused streets of the city as an oak tree does out of an oak copse, not differing in leafage, but in size and symmetry. Of course the quainter and smaller forms of turret and window necessary for domestic service, the inferior materials, often wood instead of stone, and the fancy of the inhabitants, which had free play in the design, intro- duced oddness, vulgarities, and variations into house archi- tecture, which were prevented by the traditions, the wealth, and the skill of the monks and freemasons; while, on the other hand, conditions of vaulting, buttressing, and arch and tower building, were necessitated by the mere size of the cathedral, of which it would be difficult to find examples elsewhere. — S. V. n. ch. iv. § 53, 54. Venetian Gothic Suitable to English Dwellings.— Whether noble, or merchant, or, as frequently happened, both, every Venetian appears, at this time, to have raised his palace or dwelling-house upon one type. Under every con- dition of importance, through every variation of size, the forms and mode of decoration of all the features were uni- versally alike ; not , servilely alike, but fraternally; not with the sameness of coins cast from one mould, but with the like- ness of the members of one family. No fragment of the period is preserved, in which the windows, be they few or many, a group of three or an arcade of thirty, have not the noble cusped arch of the fifth order. And they are especially to be noted by us at this day, because these refined and richly ornamented forms were used in the habitations of a nation as laborious, as practical, as brave, and as prudent as ourselves ; 21G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. and they were built at a time when that nation was struggling with calamities and changes threatening its existence almost every hour. And, farther, they are interesting because per- fectly applicable to modern habitation. The refinement of domestic life appears to have been far advanced in Venice from her earliest days ; and the remains of her Gothic palaces are, at this day, the most delightful residences in the city, having undergone no change in external form, and probably having been rather injured than rendered more convenient by the modifications which poverty and Renaissance taste, con- tending with the ravages of time, have introduced in the interiors. So that, at Venice and the cities grouped around it, Vicenza, Padua, and Verona, the traveller may ascertain, by actual experience, the effect which would be produced upon the comfort or luxury of daily life by the revival of the Gothic school of architecture. He can still stand upon the marble balcony in the soft summer air, and feel its smooth surface warm from the noontide as he leans on it in the twilight ; he can still see the strong sweep of the unruined traceries drawn on the deep serenity of the starry sky, and watch the fantastic shadows of the clustered arches shorten in the moonlight on the chequered floor; or he may close the casements fitted to their unshaken shafts against such wintry winds as would have made an English house vibrate to its foundation, and, in either case, compare their influence on his daily home feeling with that of the square openings in his English wall. And let him be assured, if he find there is more to be enjoyed in the Gothic window, there is also more to be trusted. It is the best and strongest building, as it is the most beau- tiful. I am not now speaking of the particular form of Venetian Gothic, but of the general strength of the pointed arch as opposed to that of the level lintel of the square window; and I plead for the introduction of the Gothic form into our domestic architecture, not merely because it is lovely, but because it is the only form of faithful, strong, enduring, and honourable building, in such materials as come daily to our hands. By increase of scale and cost, it is possible to ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 217 build, in any style, what will last for ages ; but only in the Gothic is it possible to give security and dignity to work wrought with imperfect means and materials. And I trust that there will come a time when the English people may see the folly of building basely and insecurely. It is common with those architects against whose practice my writings have hitherto been directed, to call them merely theoretical and imaginative. I answer, that there is not a single principle asserted either in the 11 Seven Lamps” or here, but is of the simplest, sternest veracity, and the easiest practicability; that buildings, raised as I would have them, would stand unshaken for a thousand years ; and the buildings raised by the architects who oppose them will not stand for one hundred and fifty — they sometimes do not stand for an hour. —S. V. II. ch.vii. §46,47. The Roof. — I am sure that all of you must readily acknowledge the charm which is imparted to any land- scape by the presence of cottages ; and you must over and over again have paused at the wicket gate of some cot- tage garden, delighted by the simple beauty of the honey- suckle porch and latticed window. Has it ever occurred to you to ask the question, what effect the cottage would have upon your feelings if it had no roof? no visible roof, I mean ; — if, instead of the thatched slope, in which the little upper windows are buried deep, as in a nest of straw — or the rough shelter of its mountain shales — or warm colouring of russet tiles — there were nothing but a flat leaden top to it, making it look like a large packing-case with windows in it ? I don’t think the rarity of such a sight would make you feel it to be beautiful ; on the contrary, if you think over the matter you will find that you actually do owe, and ought to owe, a great part of your pleasure in all cottage scenery, and in all the inexhaustible imagery of literature which is founded upon it, to the conspicuousness of the cottage roof — to the subordina- tion of the cottage itself to its covering, which leaves, in nine cases out of ten, really more roof than anything else. It is, indeed, not so much the whitewashed walls — nor the flowery 218 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. garden — nor the rude fragments of stones set for steps at the door — nor any other picturesqueness of the building, which interest you, so much as the grey bank of its heavy eaves, deep- cushioned with green moss and golden stonecrop. And there is a profound, yet evident, reason for this feeling. The very soul of the cottage — the essence and meaning of it — are in its roof ; it is that, mainly, wherein consists its shelter ; that, wherein it differs most completely from a cleft in rocks, or bower in woods. It is in its thick impenetrable coverlid of close thatch that its whole heart and hospitality are concen- trated. Consider the difference, in sound, of the expressions “ beneath my roof” and “ within my walls,” — consider whether you would be best sheltered, in a shed, with a stout roof sustained on corner posts, or in an inclosure of four walls without a roof at all, — and you will quickly see how important a part of the cottage the roof must always be to the mind as well as to the eye, and how, from seeing it, the greatest part of our pleasure must continually arise. Now, do you suppose that which is so all-important in a cottage, can be of small importance in your own dwelling- house ? Do you think that by any splendour of architecture — any height of stories — you can atone to the mind for the loss of the aspect of the roof. It is vain to say you take the roof for granted. You may as well say you take a man’s kindness for granted, though he neither looks nor speaks kindly. You may know him to be kind in reality, but you will not like him so well as if he spoke and looked kindly also. And whatever external splendour you may give your houses, you will always feel there is something wanting, unless you see their roofs plainly. And this especially in the north. In southern architecture the roof is of far less importance ; but here the soul of domestic building is in the largeness and conspicuousness of the protection against the ponderous snow and driving sleet. You may make the fa<^ade of the square pile, if the roof be not seen, as handsome as you please, — you may cover it with decoration, — but there will always be a heartlessness about it, which you will not know how to con- quer; above all, a perpetual difficulty in finishing the wall at ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 219 top, which will require all kinds of strange inventions in parapets and pinnacles for its decoration, and yet will never look right. Now, I need not tell you that, as it is desirable, for the sake of the effect upon the mind, that the roof should be visible, so the best and most natural form of roof in the north is that which will render it most visible, namely,, the steep gable: the best and most natural, I say, because this form not only throws off snow and rain most completely, and dries fastest, but obtains the greatest interior space within walls of a given height, removes the heat of the sun most effectually from the upper rooms, and affords most space for ventilation . — Lectures on Architecture and Painting , Lect. 1. Architectural Ornament. — What is the place for orna- ment ? Consider first that the characters of natural objects which the architect can represent are few and abstract. The greater part of those delights by which Nature recommends herself to man at all times, cannot be conveyed by him into his imitative work. He cannot make his grass green and cool and good to rest upon, which in nature is its chief use to man ; nor can he make his flowers tender and full of colour and of scent, which in nature are the chief powers of giving joy. Those qualities which alone he can secure are certain severe characters of form, such as men only see in nature on deliberate examination, and by the full and set appliance of sight and thought : a man must lie down on the bank of grass on his breast and set himself to watch and penetrate the inter- twining of it, before he finds that which is good to be gathered by the architect. So then while Nature is at all times pleasant to us, and while the sight and sense of her work may mingle happily with all our thoughts, and labours, and times of exist- ence, that image of her which the architect carries away represents what we can only perceive in her by direct in- tellectual exertion, and demands from us, wherever it appears, an intellectual exertion of a similar kind in order to under- stand it and feel it. It is the written or sealed impression of a thing sought out, it is the shaped result of inquiry and •bodily expression of thought. 220 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Now let us consider for an instant what would be the effect of continually repeating an expression of a beautiful thought to any other of the senses at times when the mind could not address that sense to the understanding of it. Suppose that in time of serious occupation, of stern business, a companion should repeat in our ears continually some favourite passage of poetry, over and over again all day long. We should not only soon be utterly sick and weary of the sound of it, but that sound would at the end of the day have so sunk into the habit of the ear that the entire meaning of the passage would be dead to us, and it would ever thenceforward require some effort to fix and recover it. The music of it would not mean- while have aided the business in hand, while its own delight- fulness would thenceforward be in a measure destroyed. It is the same with every other form of definite thought. If you violently present its expression to the senses, at times when the mind is otherwise engaged, that expression will be in- effective at the time, and will have its sharpness and clearness destroyed for ever. Much more if you present it to the mind at times when it is painfully affected or disturbed, or if you associate the expression of pleasant thought with incongruous circumstances, you will affect that expression thenceforward with a painful colour for ever. Apply this to expressions of thought received by the eye. Eemember that the eye is at your mercy more than the ear. “ The eye, it cannot choose but see.” Its nerve is not so easily numbed as that of the ear, and it is often busied in tracing and watching forms when the ear is at rest. Now if you present lovely forms to it when it cannot call the mind to help it inits work, and among objects of vulgar use and un- happy position, you will neither please the eye nor elevate the vulgar object. But you will fill and weary the eye with the beautiful form, and you will infect that form itself with the vulgarity of the thing to which you have violently attached it. It will never be of much use to you any more ; you have killed, or defiled it ; its freshness and purity are gone. You will have to pass it through the fire of much thought before you will cleanse it, and warm it ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 221 with much love before it will revive. — S. L. A. ch. iv. § 16 , 17 , 18 . Subjects for Architectural Ornament. — Consider what a field is opened to your fancy merely in the subject matter which architecture admits. Nearly every other art is severely limited in its subjects — the landscape painter, for instance, gets little help from the aspects of beautiful humanity ; the historical painter, less, perhaps, than he ought, from the accidents of wild nature; and the pure sculptor, still less, froni the minor details of common life. But is there anything within range of sight, or conception, which may not be of use to you , or in which your interest may not be excited with advantage to your art ? From visions of angels, down to the least important gesture of a child at play, whatever may be conceived of Divine, or beheld of Human, may be dared or adopted by you ; throughout the kingdom of animal life, no creature is so vast, or so minute, that you cannot deal with it, or bring it into service ; the lion and the crocodile will couch about your shafts ; the moth and the bee will sun themselves upon your flowers ; for you, the fawn will leap ; for you, the snail be slow ; for you, the dove smooth her bosom; and the hawk spread her wings towards the south. All the wide world of vegetation blooms and bends for you ; the leaves tremble that you may bid them be still under the marble snow ; the thorn and the thistle, which the earth casts forth as evil, are to you the kindliest servants ; no dying petal, nor drooping tendril, is so feeble as to have no help for you; no robed pride of blossom so kingly, but it will lay aside its purple to receive at your hands the pale immortality. Is there anything in common life too mean, — in common things too trivial, — to be ennobled by your touch ? As there is nothing in life, so there is nothing in lifelessness which has not its lesson for you, or its gift ; and when you are tired of watching the strength of the plume, and the tenderness of the leaf, you may walk down to your rough river-shore, or into the thickest markets of your thoroughfares ; and there is not a piece of torn cable that will not twine into a perfect mould- 222 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. ing ; there is not a fragment of castaway matting, or shattered basket-work, that will not work into a chequer or a capital. Yes : and if you gather up the very sand, and break the stone on which you tread, among its fragments of all but invisible shells you will find forms that will take their place, and that proudly, among the starred traceries of your vaulting; and you, who can crown the mountain with its fortress, and the city with its towers, are thus able also to give beauty to ashes, and worthiness to dust . — The Two Paths , Lect. 4. Kedundant Ornament of Gothic.— In the most charac- teristic buildings, a certain portion of their effect depends upon accumulation of ornament ; and many of those which have most influence on the minds of men, have attained it by means of this attribute alone. And although, by careful study of the school, it is possible to arrive at a condition of taste which shall be better contented by a few perfect lines than by a whole facade covered with fretwork, the building which only satisfies such a taste is not to be considered the best. For the very first requirement of Gothic architecture being, as we saw above, that it shall both admit the aid, and appeal to the admiration, of the rudest as well as the most refined minds, the richness of the work is, paradoxical as the statement may appear, a part of its humility. No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple ; which refuses to address the eye, except in a few clear and forceful lines; which implies, in offering so little to our regards, that all it has offered is perfect ; and disdains, either by the complexity or the attractiveness of its features, to embarrass our investi- gation, or betray us into delight. That humility, which is the very life of the Gothic school, is shown not only in the imperfection, but in the accumulation, of ornament. The inferior rank of the workman is often shown as much in the richness, as the roughness, of his work ; and if the co-opera- tion of every hand, and the sympathy of every heart, are to be received, we must be content to allow the redundance which disguises the failure of the feeble, and wins the regard of the inattentive. There are, however, far nobler interests ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 223 mingling, in the Gothic heart, with the rude love of decora- tive accumulation : a magnificent enthusiasm, which feels as if it never could do enough to reach the fulness of its ideal ; an unselfishness of sacrifice, which would rather cast fruitless labour before the altar than stand idle in the market ; and, finally, a profound sympathy with the fulness and wealth of the material universe, rising out of that Naturalism whose operation we have already endeavoured to define. The sculptor who sought for his models among the forest leaves, could not but* quickly and deeply feel that complexity need not involve the loss of grace, nor richness that of repose ; and every hour which he spent in the study of the minute and various works of Nature, made him feel more forcibly the barrenness of what was best in that of man : nor is it to be wondered at, that, seeing her perfect and exquisite creations poured forth in a profusion which conception could not grasp nor calculation sum, he should think that it ill became him to be niggardly of his own rude craftsmanship ; and where he saw throughout the universe a faultless beauty lavished on measureless spaces of broidered field and blooming mountain, to grudge his poor and imperfect labour to the few stones that he had raised one upon another for habitation or memo- rial. The years of his life passed away before his task was accomplished; but generation succeeded generation with un- wearied enthusiasm, and the cathedral front was at last lost in the tapestry of its traceries, like a rock among the thickets and herbage of spring. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 78. Naturalism of Gothic Work. — Gothic -work, when re- ferred to the arrangement of all art, as purist, naturalist, or sensualist, is naturalist. This character follows necessarily on its extreme love of truth, prevailing over the sense of beauty, and causing it to take delight in portraiture of every kind, and to express the various characters of the human countenance and form, as it did the varieties of leaves and the ruggedness of branches. And this tendency is both increased and ennobled by the same Christian humility which we saw expressed in the first character of Gothic work, its 224 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. rudeness. For as that resulted from a humility which con- fessed the imperfection of the workman , so this naturalist portraiture is rendered more faithful by the humility which confesses the imperfection of the subject. The Greek sculptor could neither bear to confess his own feebleness, nor to tell the faults of the forms that he portrayed. But the Christian workman, believing that all is finally to work together for good, freely confesses both, and neither seeks to disguise his own roughness of work, nor his subject’s roughness of make. Yet this frankness being joined, for the most part, with depth of religious feeling in other directions, and especially with charity, there is sometimes a tendency to Purism in the best Gothic sculpture ; so that it frequently reaches great dignity of form and tenderness of expression, yet never so as to lose the veracity of portraiture, wherever portraiture is possible : not exalting its kings into demi-gods, nor its saints into arch- angels, but giving what kingliness and sanctity was in them, to the full, mixed with due record of their faults ; and this in the most part with a great indifference like that of Scripture history, which sets down, with unmoved and unexcusing resoluteness, the virtues and errors of all men of whom it speaks, often leaving the reader to form his own estimate of them, without an indication of the judgment of the historian. And this veracity is carried out by the Gothic sculptors in the minuteness and generality, as well as the equity, of their delineation : for they do not limit their art to the portraiture of saints and kings, but introduce the most familiar scenes and most simple subjects; filling up the backgrounds of Scrip- ture histories with vivid and curious representations of the commonest incidents of daily life, and availing themselves of every occasion in which, either as a symbol, or an explanation of a scene or time, the things familiar to the eye of the work- man could be introduced and made of account. Hence Gothic sculpture and painting are not only full of valuable portraiture of the greatest men, but copious records of all the domestic customs and inferior arts of the ages in which it flourished.* * The best art either represents the facts of its own day, or, if facts of the past, expresses them with accessories Q e the time in which the ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 225 There is, however, one direction in which the Naturalism of the Gothic workmen is peculiarly manifested; and this direction is even more characteristic of the school than the Naturalism itself ; I mean their peculiar fondness for the forms of Vegetation. In rendering the various circumstances of daily life, Egyptian and Ninevite sculpture is as frank and as diffuse as the Gothic. From the highest pomps of state or triumphs of battle, to the most trivial domestic arts and amusements, all is taken advantage of to fill the field of granite with the perpetual interest of a crowded drama ; and the early Lombardic and Bomanesque sculpture is equally copious in its description of the familiar circumstances of war and the chase. But in all the scenes portrayed by the work- men of these nations, vegetation occurs only as an explanatory accessary ; the reed is introduced to mark the course of the river, or the tree to mark the covert of the wild beast, or the ambush of the enemy, but there is no especial interest in the forms of the vegetation strong enough to induce them to make it a subject of separate and accurate study. Again, among the nations who followed the arts of design exclusively, the forms of foliage introduced were meagre and general, and their real intricacy and life were neither admired nor ex- pressed. But to the Gothic workman the living foliage became a subject of intense affection, and he struggled to render all its characters with as much accuracy as was com- patible with the laws of his design and the nature of his material, not unfrequently tempted in his enthusiasm to transgress the one and disguise the other. There is a peculiar significance in this, indicative both of higher civilization and gentler temperament, than had before been manifested in architecture. Budeness, and the love of change, which we have insisted upon as the first elements of Gothic, are also elements common to all healthy schools. But here is a softer element mingled with them, peculiar to the work was done. All good art, representing past events, is therefore full of the most frank anachronism, and always ought to be. No painter has any business to be an antiquarian. We do not want his impressions or suppositions respecting things that are past. We want his clear assertions respecting things present. 15 22 G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Gothic itself. The rudeness or ignorance which would have been painfully exposed in the treatment of the human form, are still not so great as to prevent the successful rendering of the wayside herbage ; and the love of change, which becomes morbid and feverish in following the haste of the hunter, and the rage of the combatant, is at once soothed and satisfied as it watches the wandering of the tendril, and the budding of the flower. Nor is this all : the new direction of mental interest marks an infinite change in the means and the habits of life. The nations whose chief support was in the chase, whose chief interest was in the battle, whose chief pleasure was in the banquet, would take small care respecting the shapes of leaves and flowers ; and notice little in the forms of the forest trees which sheltered them, except the signs indicative of the wood which would make the toughest lance, the closest roof, or the clearest fire. The affectionate observation of the grace and outward character of vegetation is the sure sign of a more tranquil and gentle existence, sustained by the gifts, and gladdened by the splen- dour, of the earth. In that careful distinction of species, and richness of delicate and undisturbed organization, which cha- racterize the Gothic design, there is the history of rural and thoughtful life, influenced by habitual tenderness, and devoted to subtle inquiry ; and every discriminating and delicate touch of the chisel, as it rounds the petal or guides the branch, is a prophecy of the developement of the entire body of the natural sciences, beginning with that of medicine, of the recovery of literature, and the establishment of the most necessary principles of domestic wisdom and national peace. — aS. V. II. ch. vi. § G7, 68, 69. Law of Decoration. — It is a general law, of singular im- portance in the present day, a law of simple common sense, — not to decorate things belonging to purposes of active and occupied life. Wherever you can rest, there decorate ; where rest is forbidden, so is beauty. You must not mix ornament with business, any more than you may mix play. Work first, and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 227 use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel. Do not thresh with sculptured flails : nor put bas-reliefs on mill- stones. What ! it will be asked, are we in the habit of doing so ? Even so ; always and everywhere. The most familiar position of Greek mouldings is in these days on shop fronts. There is not a tradesman’s sign nor shelf nor counter in all the streets of all our cities, which has not upon it ornaments which were invented to adorn temples and beautify kings’ palaces. There is not the smallest advantage in them where they are. Absolutely valueless — utterly without the power of giving pleasure, they only satiate the eye, and vulgarize their own forms. Many of these are in themselves thoroughly good copies of fine things, which things themselves we shall never, in consequence, enjoy any more. Many a pretty bead- ing and graceful bracket there is in wood or stucco above our grocers’ and cheesemongers’ and hosiers’ shops : how is it that the tradesmen cannot understand that custom is to be had only by selling good tea and cheese and cloth, and that people come to them for their honesty, and their readiness, and their right wares, and not because they have Greek cornices over their windows, or their names in large gilt letters on their house fronts ? How pleasurable it would be to have the power of going through the streets of London, pulling down those brackets and friezes and large names, restoring to the trades- men the capital they had spent in architecture, and putting them on honest and equal terms, each with his name in black letters over his door, not shouted down the street from the upper stories, and each with a plain wooden shop casement, with small panes in it that people would not think of breaking in order to be sent to prison ! How much better for them would it be — how much happier, how much wiser, to put their trust upon their own truth and industry, and not on the idiocy of their customers. It is curious, and it says little for our national probity on the one hand, or prudence on the ether, to see the whole system of our street decoration based on the idea that people must be baited to a shop as moths are to a candle. But it will be said that much of the best wooden decoration 15—2 228 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. of the middle ages was in shop fronts. No ; it was in house fronts, of which the shop was a part, and received its natural and consistent portion of the ornament. In those days men lived, and intended to live by their shops, and over them, all their days. They were contented with them and happy in them : they were their palaces and castles. They gave them therefore such decoration as made themselves happy in their own habitation, and they gave it for their own sake. The upper stories were always the richest, and the shop was decorated chiefly about the door, which belonged to the house more than to it. And when our tradesmen settle to their shops in the same way, and form no plans respecting future villa architecture, let their whole houses be decorated, and their shops too, but with a national and domestic decoration. However, our cities are for the most part too large to admit of contented dwelling in them throughout life ; and I do not say there is harm in our present system of separating the shop from the dwelling-house ; only where they are so separated, let us remember that the only reason for shop decoration is removed, and see that the decoration be removed also. — S.L.A. ch.iv. § 19,20. Decorative Art. — With all our talk about it, the very meaning of the words 11 Decorative art ” remains confused and undecided. I want, if possible, to settle this question for you, and to show you that the principles on which you must work are likely to be false, in proportion as they are narrow ; true, only as they are founded on a perception of the connection of all branches of art with each other. Observe, then, first — the only essential distinction between Decorative and other art is the being fitted for a fixed place ; and in that place, related, either in subordination or in com- mand, to the effect of other pieces of art. And all the greatest art which the world has produced is thus fitted for a place, and subordinated to a purpose. There is no existing highest- order art but is decorative. The best sculpture yet produced has been the decoration of a temple front — the best painting, ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 229 the decoration of a room. Raphael’s best doing is merely the wall- colouring of a suite of apartments in the Vatican, and his cartoons were made for tapestries. Correggio’s best doing is the decoration of two small church cupolas at Parma ; Michael Angelo’s, of a ceiling in the Pope’s private chapel ; Tintoret’s, of a ceiling and side wall belonging to a charitable society at Venice; while Titian and Veronese threw out their noblest thoughts, not even on the inside, but on the outside of the common brick and plaster walls of Venice. Get rid, then, at once of any idea of Decorative art being a degraded or a separate kind of art. Its nature or essence is simply its being fitted for a definite place ; and, in that place, forming part of a great and harmonious whole, in companion- ship with other art ; and so far from this being a degradation to it — so far from Decorative art being inferior to other art because it is fixed to a spot — on the whole it may be considered as rather a piece of degradation that it should be portable. Portable art — independent of all place — is for the most part ignoble art. Your little Dutch landscape, which you put over your sideboard to-day, and between the windows to-morrow, is a far more contemptible piece of work than the extents of field and forest with which Benozzo has made green and beau- tiful the once melancholy arcade of the Campo Santo at Pisa ; and the wild boar of silver which you use for a seal, or lock into a velvet case, is little likely to be so noble a beast as the bronze boar who foams forth the fountain from under his tusks in the market-place of Florence. It is, indeed, possible that the portable picture or image may be first-rate of its kind, but it is not first-rate because it is portable ; nor are Titian’s frescoes less than first-rate because they are fixed ; nay, very frequently the highest compliment you can pay to a cabinet picture is to say — u It is as grand as a fresco.” — The Two Paths , Lect. 3. Room Decoration. — You will every day hear it absurdly said that room decoration should be by flat patterns — by dead colours — by conventional monotonies, and I know not what. Now, just be assured of this — nobody ever yet used conven- 230 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. tional art to decorate with, when he could do anything better, and knew that what he did would be safe. Nay, a great painter will always give you the natural art, safe or not. Correggio gets a commission to paint a room on the ground floor of a palace at Parma. Any of our people — bred on our fine modern principles — would have covered it with a diaper, or with stripes or flourishes, or mosaic patterns. Not so Correggio : — he paints a thick trellis of vine-leaves, with oval openings, and lovely children leaping through them into the room ; and lovely children, depend upon it, are rather more desirable decorations than diaper, if you can do them — but they are not quite so easily done. In like manner Tintoret has to paint the whole end of the Council Hall at Venice. An orthodox decorator would have set himself to make the wall look like a wall — Tintoret thinks it would be rather better, if he can manage it, to make it look a little like Paradise ; — stretches his canvas right over the wall, and his clouds right over his canvas; brings the light through his clouds — all blue and clear — zodiac beyond zodiac ; rolls away the vaporous flood from under the feet of saints, leaving them at last in infinitudes of light — unorthodox in the last degree, but, on the whole, pleasant. And so in all other cases whatever, the greatest decorative art is wholly unconventional — downright, pure, good painting and sculpture, but always fitted for its place ; and subordinated to the purpose it has to serve in that place . — The Two Paths t Lect. 3. Decoration of Kailroad Stations. — Another of the strange and evil tendencies of the present day is to the decoration of the railroad station. Now, if there be any place in the world in which people are deprived of that portion of temper and discretion which are necessary to the contemplation of beauty, it is there. It is the very temple of discomfort, and the only charity that the builder can extend to us is to show us, plainly as may be, how soonest to escape from it. The whole system of railroad travelling is addressed to people who, being in a hurry, are, therefore, for ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 231 the time being, miserable. No one would travel in that manner who could help it — who had time to go leisurely over hills and between hedges, instead of through tunnels and between banks : at least those who would, have no sense of beauty so acute as that we need consult it at the station. The railroad is in all its relations a matter of earnest busi- ness, to be got through as soon as possible. It transmutes a man from a traveller into a living parcel. For the time he has parted with the nobler characteristics of his humanity for the sake of a planetary power of locomotion. Do not ask him to admire anything. You might as well ask the wind. Carry him safely, dismiss him soon : he will thank you for nothing else. All attempts to please him in any other way are mere mockery, and insults to the things by which you endeavour to do so. There never was more flagrant nor impertinent folly than the smallest portion of ornament in anything con- cerned with railroads or near them. Keep them out of the way, take them through the ugliest country you can find, confess them the miserable things they are, and spend nothing upon them but for safety and speed. Give large salaries to efficient servants, large prices to good manufac- turers, large wages to able workmen ; let the iron be tough, and the brickwork solid, and the carriages strong. The time is perhaps not distant when these first necessities may not be easily met : and to increase expense in any other direction is madness. Better bury gold in the embankments, than put it in ornaments on the stations. Will a single traveller be willing to pay an increased fare on the South Western, because the columns of the terminus are covered with patterns from Nineveh ? — he will only care less for the Ninevite ivories in the British Museum : or on the North Western, because there are old English-looking spandrils to the roof of the station at Crewe ? — he will only have less pleasure in their prototypes at Crewe House. Rail- road architecture has, or would have, a dignity of its own if it were only left to its work. You would not put rings on the fingers of a smith at his anvil. — S. L. A. ch. iv. § 21. 232 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. Misplaced Ornament. — It is not however only in these marked situations that the abuse of which I speak takes place. There is hardly, at present, an application of orna- mental work, which is not in some sort liable to blame of the same kind. We have a bad habit of trying to disguise dis- agreeable necessities by some form of sudden decoration, which is, in all other places, associated with such necessities. I will name only one instance, that to which I have alluded before — the roses which conceal the ventilators in the flat roofs of our chapels. Many of those roses are of very beau- tiful design, borrowed from fine works: all their grace and finish are invisible when they are so placed, but their general form is afterwards associated with the ugly buildings in which they constantly occur ; and all the beautiful roses of the early French and English Gothic, especially such elaborate ones as those of the triforium of Coutances, are in consequence deprived of their pleasurable influence : and this without our having accomplished the smallest good by the use we have made of the dishonoured form. Not a single person in the congregation ever receives one ray of pleasure from those roof roses ; they are regarded with mere indifference, or lost in the general impression of harsh emptiness. Must not beauty, then, it will be asked, be sought for in the forms which we associate with our every-day life ? Yes, if you do it consistently, and in places where it can be calmly seen ; but not if you use the beautiful form only as a mask and covering of the proper conditions and uses of things, nor if you thrust it into the places set apart for toil. Put it in the drawing-room, not into the workshop ; put it upon domestic furniture, not upon tools of handicraft. All men have sense of what is right in this matter, if they would only use and apply that sense ; every man knows where and how beauty gives him pleasure, if he would only ask for it when it does so, and not allow it to be forced upon him when he does not want it. Ask any one of the passengers over London Bridge at this instant whether he cares about the forms of the bronze leaves on its lamps, and he will tell you, No. Modify these forms of leaves to a less scale, and put them on his milk- ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 233 jug at breakfast, and ask him whether he likes them, and he will tell you, Yes. People have no need of teaching if they could only think and speak truth, and ask for what they like and want, and for nothing else : nor can a right disposition of beauty be ever arrived at except by this common sense, and allowance for the circumstances of the time and place. It does not follow, because bronze leafage is in bad taste on the lamps of London Bridge, that it would be so on those of the Ponte della Trinita ; nor, because it would be a folly to decorate the house fronts of 'Gracechurch Street, that it would be equally so to adorn those of some quiet provincial town. The question of greatest external or internal decora- tion depends entirely on the conditions of probable repose. It was a wise feeling which made the streets of Venice so rich in external ornament, for there is no couch of rest like the gondola. So, again, there is no subject of street orna- ment so wisely chosen as the fountain, where it is a fountain of use ; for it is just there that perhaps the happiest pause takes place in the labour of the day, when the pitcher is rested on the edge of it, and the breath of the bearer is drawn deeply, and the hair swept from the forehead, and the uprightness of the form declined against the marble ledge, and the sound of the kind word or light laugh mixes with the trickle of the falling water, heard shriller and shriller as the pitcher fills. What pause is so sweet as that — so full of the depth of ancient days, so softened with the calm of pastoral solitude ? — S. L. A. ch. iv. § 22, 23. Characteristic of True Ornament. — No perfect piece either of painting or sculpture is an architectural ornament at all , except in that vague sense in which any beautiful thing is said to ornament the place it is in. Thus we say that pictures ornament a room ; but we should not thank an architect who told us that his design, to be complete, required a Titian to be put in one corner of it, and a Velasquez in the other ; and it is just as unreasonable to call perfect sculp- ture, niched in, or encrusted on a building, a portion of the ornament of that building, as it would be to hang pictures 234 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. by way of ornament on the outside of it. It is very possible that the sculptured work may be harmoniously associated with the building, or the building executed with reference to it ; but in this latter case the architecture is subordinate to the sculpture, as in the Medicean chapel, and I believe also in the Parthenon. And so far from the perfection of the work conducing to its ornamental purpose, we may say, with entire security, that its perfection, in some degree, unfits it for its purpose, and that no absolutely complete sculpture can be decoratively right. We* have a familiar instance in the flower-work of St. Paul’s, which is probably, in the abstract, as perfect flower sculpture as could be produced at the time ; and which is just as rational an ornament of the building as so many valuable Van Huy sums, framed and glazed, and hung up over each window. The especial condition of true ornament is, that it be beau- tiful in its place, and nowhere else, and that it aid the effect of every portion of the building over which it has influence ; that it does not, by its richness, make other parts bald, or, by its delicacy, make other parts coarse. Every one of its qualities has reference to its place and use: and it is fitted for its service by what would be faults and deficiencies if it had no especial duty. Ornament, the servant, is often formal, where sculpture, the master, would have been free ; the servant is often silent where the master would have been eloquent; or hurried, where the master would have been serene. — S. V. I. ch. xxi. § 3, 4. Test of Good Ornament. — I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this : Was it done with enjoyment — was the carver happy while he was about it ? It may be the hardest work possible, and the harder because so much pleasure was taken in it ; but it must have been happy too, or it will not be living. How much of the stone-mason’s toil this condition would exclude I hardly ven- ture to consider, but the condition is absolute. There is a Gothic church lately built near Rouen, vile enough, indeed, in its general composition, but excessively rich in detail ; many of the details are designed with taste, and all evidently ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 235 by a man who has studied old work closely. But it is all as dead as leaves in December; there is not one tender touch, not one warm stroke, on the whole fagade. The men who did it hated it, and were thankful when it was done. And so long as they do so they are merely loading your walls with shapes of clay : the garlands of everlastings in Pere la Chaise are more cheerful ornaments. You cannot get the feeling by paying for it — money will not buy life. I am not sure even that you can get it by watching or waiting for it. — S. L. A. ch. v. § 24. The Architect as Ornamentist. — The architect has no right, as we said before, to require of us a picture of Titian’s in order to complete his design; neither has he the right to calculate on the co-operation of perfect sculptors, in subordinate capacities. Far from this ; his business is to dispense with such aid altogether, and to devise such a system of ornament as shall be capable of execution by un- inventive and even unintelligent workmen ; for supposing that he required noble sculpture for his ornament, how far would this at once limit the number and the scale of possible buildings ? Architecture is the work of nations ; but we cannot have nations of great sculptors. Every house in every street of every city ought to be good architecture, but we cannot have Flaxman or Thorwaldsen at work upon it : nor, even if we chose only to devote ourselves to our public buildings, could the mass and majesty of them be great, if we required all to be executed by great men : greatness is not to be had in the required quantity. Giotto may design a campanile, but he cannot carve it ; he can only carve one or two of the bas-reliefs at the base of it. And with every increase of your fastidiousness in the execution of your ornament, you diminish the possible number and grandeur of your buildings. Do not think you can educate your workmen, or that the demand for perfection will increase the supply : educated imbecility and finessed foolish- ness are the worst of all imbecilities and foolishnesses ; and there is no free-trade measure which will ever lower the 23G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. price of brains, — there is no California of common sense. Exactly in the degree in which you require your decora- tion to be wrought by thoughtful men, you diminish the extent and number of architectural works. Your business as an architect, is to calculate only on the co-operation of inferior men, to think for them, and to indicate for them such expressions of your thoughts as the weakest capacity can comprehend and the feeblest hand can execute. This is the definition of the purest architectural abstractions. They are the deep and laborious thoughts of the greatest men, put into such easy letters that they can be written by the simplest. They are expressions of the ' mind of manhood by the hands of childhood. — S. V. I. ch. xxi. § 11. Luxuriance of Ornament. — It is one of the affectations of architects to speak of overcharged ornament. Orna- ment cannot be overcharged if it be good, and is always overcharged when it is bad It is not less the boast of some styles that they can bear orna- ment, than of others that they can do without it ; but we do not often enough reflect that those very styles, of so haughty simplicity, owe part of their pleasurableness to contrast, and would be wearisome if universal. They are but the rests and monotones of the art; it is to its far happier, far higher, exaltation that we owe those fair fronts of variegated mosaic, charged with wild fancies and dark hosts of imagery, thicker and quainter than ever filled the depth of midsummer dream ; those vaulted gates, trellised with close leaves ; those window-labyrinths of twisted tracery and starry light; those misty masses of multitudi- nous pinnacle and diademed tower ; the only witnesses, perhaps, that remain to us of the faith and fear of nations. All else for which the builders sacrificed, has passed away — all their living interests, and aims, and achievements. We know not for what they laboured, and we see no evidence of their reward. Victory, wealth, authority, happiness — all have departed, though bought by many a bitter sacrifice. But of them, and their life and their toil upon the earth, one ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 237 reward, one evidence, is left to us in those grey heaps of deep-wrought stone. They have taken with them to the grave their powers, their honours, and their errors ; but they have left us their adoration. — S. L. A. ch. i. § 15. Noble Ornament. — All ornament is base which takes for its subject human work : it is utterly base, — painful to every rightly-toned mind, without perhaps immediate sense of the reason, but for a reason palpable enough when we do think of it. For to carve our own work, and set it up for admira- tion, is a miserable self-complacency, a contentment in our own wretched doings, when we might have been looking at God’s doings. And all noble ornament is the exact reverse of this. It is the expression of man’s delight in God’s work. For observe, the function of ornament is. to make you happy. Now in what are you rightly happy ? Not in thinking of what you have done yourself ; not in your own pride ; not your own birth ; not in your own being, or your own will, but in looking at God ; watching what He does ; what He is ; and obeying His law, and yielding yourself to His will. You are to be made happy by ornaments ; therefore they must be the expression of all this. Not copies of your own handiwork ; not boastings of your own grandeur ; not heraldries ; not king’s arms, nor any creature’s arms, but God’s arm, seen in His work. Not manifestation of your delight in your own laws, or your own liberties, or your own inventions ; but in divine laws, constant, daily, common laws 5 — not Composite laws, nor Doric laws, nor laws of the five orders, but of the Ten Commandments. Then the proper material of ornament will be whatever God has created ; and its proper treatment, that which seems in accordance with or symbolical of His laws. And, for material, we shall therefore have, first, the abstract lines which are most frequent in nature; and then, from lower to higher, the whole range of systematised inorganic and organic forms. — S. V. I. ch. xx. § 15, 16, 17. 238 WHITINGS OF JOHN ItUSKIN. Ignoble Ornamentation. — I said that all noble ornamenta- tion was the expression of man’s delight in God’s work. This implied that there was an /(/noble ornamentation, which was the expression of man’s delight in his own. There is such a school, chiefly degraded classic and Eenaissance, in which the ornament is composed of imitations of things made by man. I think, before inquiring what we like best of God’s work, we had better get rid of all this imitation of man’s, and be quite sure we do not like that The custom of raising trophies on pillars, and of dedicating arms in temples, appears to have first suggested the idea of employing them as the subjects of sculptural ornament: thenceforward, this abuse has been chiefly characteristic of classical architecture, whether true or Eenaissance. Armour is a noble thing in its proper service and subordination to the body ; so is an animal’s hide, on its back ; but a heap of cast skins, or of shed armour, is alike unworthy of all regard or imitation. We owe much true sublimity and more of delightful picturesqueness to the introduction of armour both in painting and sculpture : in poetry it is better still, — Homer’s undressed Achilles is less grand than his crested and shielded Achilles, though Phidias would rather have had him naked: in all mediseval painting, arms, like all other parts of costume, are treated with exquisite care and delight; in the designs of Leonardo, Eaphael, and Perugino, the armour sometimes becomes almost too conspicuous from the rich and endless invention bestowed upon it ; while Titian and Eubens seek in its flash, what the Milanese and Perugian sought in its form, sometimes subordinating heroism to the light of the steel, while the great designers wearied themselves in its ela- borate fancy. But all this labour was given to the living, not the dead armour; to the shell with its animal in it, not the cast shell of the beach ; and even so, it was introduced more sparingly by the good sculptors than the good painters ; for the former felt, and with justice, that the painter had the power of conquering the over prominence of costume by the expres- sion and colour of the countenance, and that by the darkness ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 239 of the eye, and glow of the cheek, he could always conquer the gloom and the flash of the mail ; but they could hardly by any boldness or energy of the marble features, conquer the forwardness and conspicuousness of the sharp armorial forms. Their armed figures were therefore almost always subordinate, their principal figures draped or naked, and their choice of subject was much influenced by this feeling of necessity. But the Renaissance sculptors displayed the love of a Camilla for the mere crest and plume. Paltry and false alike in every feeling of their narrowed minds, they attached themselves, not only to costume without the person, but to the pettiest details of the costume itself. They could not describe Achilles, but they could describe his shield ; a shield like those of dedicated spoil, without a handle, never to be waved in the face of war. And then we have helmets and lances, banners and swords, sometimes with men to hold them, sometimes without ; but always chiselled with a tailor- like love of the chasing or the embroidery, — show helmets of the stage, no Yulcan work on them, no heavy hammer strokes, no Etna fire in the metal of them, nothing but paste- board crests and high feathers. And these, cast together in disorderly heaps, or grinning vacantly over keystones, form one of the leading decorations of Renaissance architecture, and that one of the best ; for helmets and lances, however, loosely laid, are better than violins, and pipes, and books of music, which were another of the Palladian and Sansovinian sources of ornament. Supported by ancient authority, the abuse soon became a matter of pride, and since it was easy to copy a heap of cast clothes, but difficult to manage an arranged design of human figures, the indolence of archi- tects came to the aid of their affectation, until by the moderns we find the practice carried out to its most interesting results, and a large pair of boots occupying the principal place in the bas-reliefs on the base of the Colonne Vendome. A less offensive, because singularly grotesque, example of the abuse at its height, occurs in the Hotel des Invalides, where the dormer windows are suits of armour down to the bottom of the corslet, crowned 240 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. by the helmet, and with the "window in the middle of the breast. Instruments of agriculture and the arts are of less frequent occurrence, except in hieroglyphics and other work, where they are not employed as ornaments, but represented for the sake of accurate knowledge, or as symbols. Wherever they have purpose of this kind, they are of course perfectly right ; but they are then part of the building’s conversation, not conducive to its beauty. The French have managed, with great dexterity, the representation of the machinery for the elevation of their Luxor obelisk, now sculptured on its base. — S. V. I. ch. xx. §3,5,6. Machine-made Ornament. — There are two reasons, both weighty, against the substitution of cast or machine work for that of the hand : one, that all cast and machine work is bad, as work; the other, that it is dishonest. Of its badness I shall speak in another place, that being evidently no efficient reason against its use when other cannot be had. Its dishonesty, however, which, to my mind, is of the grossest kind, is, I think, a sufficient reason to determine absolute and unconditional rejection of it. Ornament, as I have often before observed, has two entirely distinct sources of agreeableness: one, that of the abstract beauty of its forms, which, for the present, we will suppose to be the same whether they come from the hand or the machine ; the other, the sense of human labour and care spent upon it. How great this latter influence we may perhaps judge, by considering that there is not a cluster of "weeds growing in any cranny of ruin which has not a beauty in all respects nearly equal, and, in some, immeasurably superior, to that of the most elaborate sculpture of its stones : and that all our interest in the carved work, our sense of its richness, though it is tenfold less rich than the knots of grass beside it ; of its delicacy, though it is a thousandfold less delicate ; of its admirableness, though a millionfold less admirable ; results from our consciousness of its being the work of poor, clumsy, toilsome man. Its true ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 241 delightfulness depends on our discovering in it the record of thoughts, and intents, and trials, and heart-breakings — of recoveries and joyfulnesses of success : all this can be traced by a practised eye ; but, granting it even obscure, it is pre- sumed or understood ; and in that is the worth of the thing, just as much as the worth of anything else we call precious. The worth of a diamond is simply the understanding of the time it must take to look for it before it is found ; and the worth of an ornament is the time it must take before it can be cut. It has an intrinsic value besides, which the diamond has not ; (for a diamond has no more real beauty than a piece of glass ;) but I do not speak of that at present ; I place the two on the same ground ; and I suppose that hand- wrought ornament can no more be generally known from machine work, than a diamond can be known from paste ; nay, that the latter may deceive, for a moment, the mason’s, as the other the jeweller’s, eye ; and that it can be detected only by the closest examination. Yet exactly as a woman of feeling would not wear false jewels, so would a builder of honour disdain false ornaments. The using of them is just as downright and inexcusable a lie. You use that which pretends to a worth which it has not ; which pretends to have cost, and to be, what it did not, and is not ; it is an imposition, a vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin. Down with it to the ground, grind it to powder, leave its ragged place upon the wall, rather ; you have not paid for it, you have no business with it, you do not want it. Nobody wants ornaments in this world, but everybody wants integrity. All the fair devices that ever were fancied, are not worth a lie. Leave your walls as bare as a planed board, or build them of baked mud and chopped straw, if need be ; but do not rough-cast them with falsehood. — S. L. A. ch. ii. § 19. One thing we have in our power — the doing without machine ornament and cast-iron work. All the stamped metals, and artificial stones, and imitation woods and bronzes, over the invention of which we hear daily exultation — all the short, and cheap, and easy ways of doing that whose difficulty is its honour — are just so many new obstacles in our already 16 242 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. encumbered road. They will not make one of us happier or wiser — they will extend neither the pride of judgment nor the privilege of enjoyment — they will only make us shallower in our understandings, colder in our hearts, and feebler in our wits. And most justly. For we are not sent into this world to do any thing into which we cannot put our hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be done strenuously ; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done heartily : neither is to be done by halves and shifts, but with a will ; and what is not worth this effort is not to be done at all. Perhaps all that we have to do is meant for nothing more than an exercise of the heart and of the will, and is useless in itself ; but, at all events, the little use it has may well be spared if it is not worth putting our hands and our strength to. It does not become our immortality to take an ease inconsistent with its authority, nor to suffer any instruments with which it can dispense, to come between it and the things it rules : and he who would form the creations of his own mind by any other instrument than his own hand, would also, if he might, give grinding organs to Heaven’s angels, to make their music easier. There is dreaming enough, and earthiness enough, and sensuality enough in human existence without our turning the few glowing moments of it into mechanism ; and since our life must at the best be but a vapour that appears for a little time * and then vanishes away, let it at least appear as a cloud in the height of Heaven, not as the thick darkness that broods over the blast of the Furnace, and rolling of the Wheel. — S. L. A. ch. v. § 24. Finish. — There are two great and separate senses in which we call a thing finished, or well-finished. One, which refers to the mere neatness and completeness of the actual work, as we speak of a well-finished knife-handle or ivory toy (as opposed to ill-cut ones) ; and, secondly, a sense which refers to the effect produced by the thing done, as we call a picture well- finished if it is so full in its details, as to produce the effect of reality on the spectator. And, in England, we seem at ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 243 present to value highly the first sort of finish which belongs to workmanship, in our manufactures and general doings of any kind, but to despise totally the impressive finish which belongs to the work; and therefore we like smooth ivories better than rough ones, — but careless scrawls or daubs better than the most complete paintings. Now, I believe that we exactly reverse the fitness of judgment in this matter, and that we ought, on the contrary, to despise the finish of work- manship , which is done for vanity’s sake, and to love the finish of work , which is done for truth’s sake, — that we ought, in a word, to finish our ivory toys more roughly, and our pictures more delicately. Let us think over this matter. Perhaps one of the most remarkable points of difference between the English and Continental nations is in the degree of finish given to their ordinary work. It is enough to cross from Dover to Calais to feel this difference ; and to travel farther only increases the sense of it. English windows for the most part fit their sashes, and their woodwork is neatly planed and smoothed : French windows are larger, heavier, and framed with wood that looks as if it had been cut to its shape with a hatchet ; they have curious and cumbrous fastenings, and can only be forced asunder or together by some ingenuity and effort, and even then not properly. JSo with everything else — French, Italian, and German, and, as far as I know, Continental. Foreign drawers do not slide as well as ours ; foreign knives do not cut so well ; foreign wheels do not turn so well ; and we commonly plume our- selves much upon this, believing that generally the English people do their work better and more thoroughly, or as they say, “turn it out of their hands in better style,” than foreigners. I do not know how far this is really the case. There may be a flimsy neatness, as well as a substantial roughness; it does not necessarily follow that the window which shuts easiest will last the longest, or that the harness which glitters the most is assuredly made of the toughest leather. I am afraid, that if this peculiar character of finish in our workmanship ever arose from a greater heartiness 16—2 244 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. and thoroughness in our ways of doing things, it does so only now in the case of our best manufacturers ; and that a great deal of the work done in England, however good in appearance, is but treacherous and rotten in substance. Still I think that there is really in the English mind, for the most part, a stronger desire to do things as well as they can be done, and less inclination to put up with inferiorities or insufficiencies, than in general characterize the temper o£ foreigners. There is in this conclusion no ground for national vanity ; for though the desire to do things as well as they can be done at first appears like a virtue, it is cer- tainly not so in all its forms. On the contrary, it proceeds in nine cases out of ten more from vanity than conscientious- ness ; and that, moreover, often a weak vanity. I suppose that as much finish is displayed in the fittings of the private carriages of our young rich men as in any other department of English manufacture ; and that our St. James’s Street cabs, dogcarts, and liveries are singularly perfect in their way. But the feeling with which this perfection is insisted upon (however desirable as a sign of energy of purpose) is not in itself a peculiarly amiable or noble feeling; neither is it an ignoble disposition which would induce a country gentleman to put up with certain deficiencies in the appear- ance of his country-made carriage. It is true that such philosophy may degenerate into negligence, and that much thought and long discussion would be needed before we could determine satisfactorily the limiting lines between virtuous contentment and faultful carelessness; but at all events we have no right at once to pronounce ourselves the wisest people because we like to do all things in the best way. There are many little things which to do admirably is to waste both time and cost; and the real question is not so much whether we have done a given thing as well as pos- sible, as whether we have turned a given quantity of labour to the best account. Now, so far from the labour’s being turned to good account which is given to our English “ finishing,” I believe it to be usually destructive of the best powers of our work- ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 245 men’s minds. For it is evident, in the first place, that there is almost always a useful and a useless finish ; the hammering and welding which are necessary to produce a sword blade of the best quality, are useful finishing; the polish of its surface, useless.* In nearly all work this distinction will, more or less, take place between substantial finish and appa- rent finish, or what may be briefly characterized as “ Make ” and “Polish.” And so far as finish is bestowed for purposes of “make,” I have nothing to say against it. Even the vanity which displays itself in giving strength to our work is rather a virtue than a vice. But so far as finish is bestowed for purposes of “polish,” there is much to be said against it; this first, and very strongly, that the qualities aimed at in common finishing, namely, smoothness, delicacy, or fine- ness, cannot in reality exist, in a degree worth admiring, in anything done by human hands. Our best finishing is but coarse and blundering work after all. We may smoothe, and soften, and sharpen till we are sick at heart ; but take a good magnifying-glass to our miracle of skill, and the invi- sible edge is a jagged saw, and the silky thread a rugged cable, and the soft surface a granite desert. Let all the ingenuity and all the art of the human race be brought to bear upon the attainment of the utmost possible finish, and they could not do what is done in the foot of a fly, or the film of a bubble. God alone can finish ; and the more intel- ligent the human mind becomes, the more the infiniteness of interval is felt between human and Divine work in this respect. So then it is not a little absurd to weary ourselves in strug- gling towards a point which we never can reach, and to exhaust our strength in vain endeavours to produce qualities which exist inimitably and inexhaustibly in the commonest things around us. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. ix. § 3, 4. Finisi-i in Sculpture. — I cannot too often repeat, it is not coarse cutting, it is not blunt cutting, that is necessarily bad ; * “ With his Yemen sword for aid; Ornament it carried none, But the notches on the blade.” 246 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. but it is cold cutting — the look of equal trouble everywhere — the smooth, diffused tranquillity of heartless pains — the regu- larity of a plough in a level field. The chill is more likely, indeed, to show itself in finished work than in any other — men cool and tire as they complete: and if completeness is thought to be vested in polish, and to be attainable by help of sand paper, we may as well give the work to the engine- lathe at once. But right finish is simply the full rendering of the intended impression ; and high finish is the rendering of a well intended and vivid impression ; and it is oftener got by rough than fine handling. I am not sure whether it is frequently enough observed that sculptnre is not the mere cutting of the form of any thing in stone ; it is the cutting of the effect of it. Very often the true form, in the marble, would not be in the least like itself. The sculptor must paint with his chisel : half his touches are not to realize, but to put power into, the form : they are touches of light and shadow ; and raise a ridge, or sink a hollow, not to represent an actual ridge or hollow, but to get a line of light, or a spot of dark- ness. — S. L. A. ch. v. § 21. Architectural Deceits. — The violations of truth, which dishonour poetry and painting, are for the most part confined to the treatment of their subjects. But in architecture another and a less subtle, more contemptible, violation of truth is possible ; a direct falsity of assertion respecting the nature of material, or the quantity of labour. And this is, in the full sense of the word, wrong ; it is as truly deserving of reproba- tion as any other moral delinquency ; it is unworthy alike of architects and of nations; and it has been a sign, wherever it has widely and with toleration existed, of a singular debase- ment of the arts; that it is not a sign of worse than this, of a general want of severe probity, can be accounted for only by our knowledge of the strange separation which has for some centuries existed between the arts and all other subjects of human intellect, as matters of conscience. This withdrawal of conscientiousness from among the faculties concerned with art, while it has destroyed the arts themselves, has also ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 247 rendered in a measure nugatory tlie evidence which other- wise they might have presented respecting the character of the respective nations among whom they have been cultivated ; otherwise it might appear more than strange that a nation so distinguished for its general uprightness and faith as the English, should admit in their architecture more of pretence, concealment, and deceit, than any other of this or of past time. They are admitted in thoughtlessness, but with fatal effect upon the art in which they are practised. If there were no other causes for the failures which of late have marked every great occasion for architectural exertion, these petty dis- honesties would be enough to account for all. It is the first step, and not the least, towards greatness to do away with these; the first, because so evidently and easily in our power. We may not be able to command good, or beautiful, or inventive architecture ; but we can command an honest archi- tecture : the meagreness of poverty may be pardoned, the sternness of utility respected ; but what is there but scorn for the meanness of deception? Architectural Deceits are broadly to be considered under three heads : — 1st. The suggestion of a mode of structure or support, other than the true one ; as in pendants of late Gothic roofs. 2nd. The painting of surfaces to represent some other material than that of which they actually consist (as in the marbling of wood), or the deceptive representation of sculp- tured ornament upon them. 3rd. The use of cast or machine-made ornaments of any kind. Now, it may be broadly stated, that architecture will be noble exactly in the degree in which all these false expedients are avoided. Nevertheless, there are certain degrees of them, which, owing to their frequent usage, or to other causes, have so far lost the nature of deceit as to be admissible; as, for instance, gilding, which is in architecture no deceit, because it is therein not understood for gold ; while in jewellery it is a deceit, because it is so understood, and therefore altogether to 248 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. be reprehended. So that there arise, in the application of the strict rules of right, many exceptions and niceties of con- science. — S. L. A. ch. II. § 5, G. Imitations of Marble and Wood. — There is not a meaner occupation for the human mind than the imitation of the stains and striae of marble and wood. When engaged in any easy and simple mechanical occupation, there is still some liberty for the mind to leave the literal work ; and the clash of the loom or the activity of the fingers will not always pre- vent the thoughts from some happy expatiation in their own domains. But the grainer must think of what he is doing ; and veritable attention and care, and occasionally considerable skill, are consumed in the doing of a more absolute nothing than I can name in any other department of painful idleness. I know not anything so humiliating as to see a human being, with arms and limbs complete, and apparently a head, and assuredly a soul, yet into the hands of which when you have put a brush and pallet, it cannot do anything with them but imitate a piece of wood. It cannot colour, it has no ideas of colour ; it cannot draw, it has no ideas of form ; it cannot caricature, it has no ideas of humour. It is incapable of anything beyond knots. All its achievement, the entire result of the daily application of its imagination and immor- tality, is to be such a piece of texture as the sun and dew are sucking up out of the muddy ground, and weaving together, far more finely, in millions of millions of growing branches, over every rood of waste woodland and shady hill. — S. V. III. ch. i. § 46. Use of Colour in Architectural Ornament. — I do not feel able to speak with any confidence respecting the touching of sculpture with colour. I would only note one point, that sculpture is the representation of an idea, while architecture is itself a real thing. The idea may, as I think, be left colourless, and coloured by the beholder’s mind : but a reality ought to have reality in all its attributes : its colour should be as fixed as its form. I cannot, therefore, ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. . 249 consider architecture as in any wise perfect without colour. Farther, I think the colours of architecture should be those of natural stones ; partly because more durable, but also because more perfect and graceful. For to conquer the harshness and deadness of tones laid upon stone or on gesso, needs the management and discretion of a true painter ; and on this co-operation we must not calculate in laying down rules for general practice. If Tintoret or Giorgione are at hand, and ask us for a wall to paint, we will alter our whole design for their sake, and become their servants; but we must, as architects, expect the aid of the common workman only; and the laying of colour by a mechanical hand, and its toning under a vulgar eye, are far more offensive than rudeness in cutting the stone. The latter is imperfection only ; the former deadness or discordance. At the best, such colour is so in- ferior to the lovely and mellow hues of the natural stone, that it is wise to sacrifice some of the intricacy of design, if by so doing we may employ the nobler material. And if, as we looked to Nature for instruction respecting form, we look to her also to learn the management of colour, we shall, per- haps, find that this sacrifice of intricacy is for other causes expedient. First, then, I think that in making this reference we are to consider our building as a kind of organized creature; in colouring which we must look to the single and separately organized creatures of Nature, not to her landscape combina- tions. Our building, if it is well composed, is one thing, and is to be coloured as Nature would colour one thing — a shell, a flower, or an animal ; not as she colours groups of things. And the first broad conclusion we shall deduce from observance of natural colour in such cases will be, that it never follows form, but is arranged on an entirely sepa- rate system. What mysterious connection there may be between the shape of the spots on an animal’s skin and its anatomical system, I do not know, nor even if such a connec- tion has in anywise been traced ; but to the eye the systems are entirely separate, and in many cases that of colour is accidentally variable. The stripes of a zebra do not follow 250 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. the lines of its body or limbs, still less the spots of a leopard. In the plumage of birds, each feather bears a part of the pattern which is arbitrarily carried over the body, having indeed certain graceful harmonies with the form, diminishing or enlarging in directions which sometimes follow, but also not unfrequently oppose, the directions of its muscular lines. Whatever harmonies there may be, are distinctly like those of two separate musical parts, coinciding here and there only — never discordant, but essentially different. I hold this, then, for the first great principle of architectural colour. Let it be visibly independent of form. Never paint a column with vertical lines, but always cross it. Never give separate mouldings separate colours (I know this is heresy, but I never shrink from any conclusions, however contrary to human authority, to which I am led by observance of natural principles) ; and in sculptured ornaments do not paint the leaves or figures (I cannot help the Elgin frieze) of one colour and their ground of another, but vary both the ground and the figures with the same harmony. Notice how Nature does it in a variegated flower ; not one leaf red and another white, but a point of red and a zone of white, or whatever it may be, to each. In certain places you may run your two systems closer, and here and there let them be parallel for a note or two, but see that the colours and the forms coincide only as two orders of mouldings do ; the same for an instant, but each holding its own course. So single members may sometimes have single colours: as a bird’s head is sometimes of one colour and its shoulders another, you may make your capital one colour and your shaft another ; but in general the best place for colour is on broad surfaces, not on the points of interest in form. An animal is mottled on its breast and back, rarely on its paws or about its eyes ; so put your variegation boldly on the flat wall and broad shaft, but be shy of it in the capital and moulding ; in all cases it is a safe rule to simplify colour when form is rich, and vice versa ; and I think it would be well in general to carve all capitals and graceful ornaments in white marble, and so leave them. — S. L. A. ch. iv. § 35,36. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 251 Union of Colour and Form. — Infinite nonsense has been written about the union of perfect colour with perfect form. They never will, never can be united. Colour, to be perfect, must have a soft outline or a simple one : it cannot have a refined one ; and you w r ill never produce a good painted window with good figure-drawing in it. You will lose per- fection of colour as you give perfection of line. Try to put in order and form the colours of a piece of opal. I conclude, then, that all arrangements of colour, for its own sake, in graceful forms, are barbarous ; and that, to paint a colour pattern with the lovely lines of a Greek leaf mould- ing is an utterly savage procedure. I cannot find anything in natural colour like this : it is not in the bond. I find it in all natural form — never in natural colour. If, then, our architectural colour is to be beautiful as its form was, by being imitative, we are limited to these conditions — to simple masses of it, to zones, as in the rainbow and the zebra; cloudings and flamings, as in marble shells and plumage, or spots of various shapes and dimensions. All these conditions are susceptible of various degrees of sharpness and delicacy, and of complication in arrangement. The zone may become a delicate line, and arrange itself in chequers and zigzags. The flaming may be more or less defined, as on a tulip leaf, and may at last be represented by a triangle of colour, and arrange itself in stars or other shapes ; the spot may be also graduated into a stain, or defined into a square or circle. The most exquisite harmonies may be composed of these simple elements : some soft and full, of flushed and melting spaces of colour ; others piquant and sparkling, or deep and rich, formed of close groups of the fiery fragments : perfect and lovely proportion may be exhibited in the relation of their quantities, infinite invention in their disposition : but, in all cases, their shape will be effective only as it determines their quantity, and regulates their operation on each other ; points or edges of one being introduced between breadths of others, and so on. Triangular and barred forms are there- fore convenient, or others the simplest possible ; leaving the pleasure of the spectator to be taken in the colour, and in 252 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. that only. Curved outlines, especially if refined, deaden the colour, and confuse the mind. Even in figure painting the greatest colourists have either melted their outline away, as often Correggio and Rubens ; or purposely made their masses of ungainly shape, as Titian ; or placed their brightest hues in costume, where they could get quaint patterns, as Veronese, and especially Angelico, with whom, however, the absolute virtue of colour is secondary to grace of line. Hence, he never uses the blended hues of Correggio, like those on the wing of the little Cupid, in the “ Venus and Mercury,” but always the severest type — the peacock plume. Any of these men would have looked with infinite disgust upon the leafage and scroll-work which form the ground of colour in our modern painted windows, and yet all whom I have named were much infected with the love of renaissance designs. We must also allow for the freedom of the painter’s subject, and looseness of his associated lines ; a pattern being severe in a picture, which is over luxurious upon a building. I believe, therefore, that it is impossible to be over quaint or angular in architectural colouring ; and thus many dispositions which I have had occasion to reprobate in form, are, in colour, the best that can be invented. I have always, for instance, spoken with contempt of the Tudor style, for this reason, that, having surrendered all pretence to spaciousness and breadth, — having divided its surfaces by an infinite number of lines, it yet sacrifices the only characters which can make lines beautiful ; sacrifices all the variety and grace which long atoned for the caprice of the flamboyant, and adopts, for its leading feature, an entanglement of cross bars and verticals, showing about as much invention or skill of design as the reticulation of the bricklayer’s sieve. Yet this very reticu- lation would in colour be highly beautiful ; and all the heraldry, and other features which, in form, are monstrous, may be delightful as themes of colour (so long as there are no fluttering or over-twisted lines in them) ; and this, observe, because, when coloured, they take the place of a mere pattern, and the resemblance to nature, which could not be found in their sculptured forms, is found in their piquant variegation ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 253 of other surfaces. There is a beautiful and bright bit of wall painting behind the Duomo of Verona, composed of coats of arms, whose bearings are balls of gold set in bars of green (altered blue?) and white, with cardinal’s hats in alternate squares. This is of course, however, fit only for domestic work. The front of the Doge’s palace at Venice is the purest and most chaste model that I can name (but one) of the fit application of colour to public buildings. The sculpture and mouldings are all white ; but the wall surface is chequered with marble blocks of pale rose, the chequers being in no wise harmonized, or fitted to the forms of the windows ; but looking as if the surface had been completed first, and the windows cut out of it. — S. L. A. ch. iv. § 38, 39. Festoons and Garlands in Architecture. — Garlands and festoons of flowers, as architectural decorations, are just as ugly as unnatural forms ; and architecture, in borrowing the objects of nature, is bound to place them, as far as may be in her power, in such associations as may befit and express their origin. She is not to imitate directly the natural arrange- ment ; she is not to carve irregular stems of ivy up her columns to account for the leaves at the top, but she is never- theless to place her most exuberant vegetable ornament just where Nature would have placed it, and to give some in- dication of that radical and connected structure which Nature would have given it. Thus the Corinthian capital is beautiful, because it expands under the abacus just as Nature would have expanded it ; and because it looks as if the leaves had one root, though that root is unseen. And the flamboyant leaf mouldings are beautiful, because they nestle and run up the hollows, and fill the angles, and clasp the shafts which natural leaves would have delighted to fill and to clasp. They are no mere cast of natural leaves : they are counted, orderly, and architectural : but they are naturally, and therefore beau- tifully, placed. Now I do not mean to say that Nature never uses festoons : she loves them, and uses them lavishly ; and though she does so only in those places of excessive luxuriance wherein it 251 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. seems to me that architectural types should seldom be sought, yet a falling tendril or pendent bough might, if managed with freedom and grace, be well introduced into luxuriant deco- ration (or if not, it is not their want of beauty, but of architectural fitness, which incapacitates them for such uses). But what resemblance to such example can we trace in a mass of all manner of fruit and flowers, tied heavily into a long bunch, thickest in the middle, and pinned up by both ends against a dead wall ? For it is strange that the wildest and most fanciful of the builders of truly luxuriant archi- tecture never ventured, so far as I know, even a pendent tendril; while the severest masters of the revived Greek permitted this extraordinary piece of luscious ugliness to be fastened in the middle of their blank surfaces. So surely as this arrangement is adopted, the whole value of the flower- work is lost. Who among the crowds that gaze upon the building ever pause to admire the flowerwork of St. Paul’s ? It is as careful and as rich as it can be, yet it adds no delight- fulness to the edifice. It is no part of it. It is an ugly excrescence. We always conceive the building without it, and should be happier if our conception were not disturbed by its presence. It makes the rest of the architecture look poverty-stricken, instead of sublime ; and yet it is never enjoyed itself. Had it been put, where it ought, into the capitals, it would have been beheld with never-ceasing de- light. I do not mean that it could liave been so in the present building, for such kind of architecture has no business with rich ornament in any place ; but that if those groups of flowers had been put into natural places in an edifice of another style, their value would have been felt as vividly as now their uselessness. What applies to festoons is still more sternly true of garlands. A garland is meant to be seen upon a head. There it is beautiful, because we suppose it newly gathered and joyfully worn. But it is not meant to be hung upon a wall. If you want a circular ornament, put a flat circle of coloured marble, as in the Casa d’Oro and other such palaces at Venice ; or put a star, or a medallion, or if you want a ring, put a solid one, but do not carve the images ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 255 of garlands, looking as if they had been used in the last procession, and been hung up to dry and serve next time withered. Why not also carve pegs, and hats upon them ? — S. L. A. ch. iv. § 12, 13. Ribands in Decoration. — Ribands occur frequently in arabesques, — in some of a high order, too, — tying up flowers^ or flitting in and out among the fixed forms. Is there any- thing like ribands in nature ? It might be thought that grass and seaweed afforded apologetic types. They do not. There is a wide difference between their structure and that of a riband. They have a skeleton, an anatomy, a central rib, or fibre, or framework of some kind or another, which has a beginning and an end, a root and head, and whose make and strength affect every direction of their motion, and every line of their form. The loosest weed that drifts and waves under the heaving of the sea, or hangs heavily on the brown and slippery shore, has a marked strength, structure, elasticity, gradation of substance ; its extremities are more finely fibred than its centre, its centre than its root : every fork of its ramification is measured and proportioned ; every wave of its languid lines is lovely. It has its allotted size, and place, and function; it is a specific creature. What is there like this in a riband ? It has no structure : it is a succession of cut threads all alike ; it has no skeleton, no make, no form, no size, no will of its own. You cut it and crush it into what you will. It has no strength, no languor. It cannot fall into a single graceful form. It cannot wave, in the true sense, but only flutter ; it cannot bend, in the true sense, but only turn and be wrinkled. It is a vile thing ; it spoils all that is near its wretched film of an existence. Never use it. Let the flowers come loose if they cannot keep together without being tied ; leave the sentence unwritten if you cannot write it on a tablet or book, or plain roll of paper. I know what authority there is against me. I remember the scrolls of Perugino’s angels, and the ribands of Raphael’s arabesques and of Ghiberti’s glorious bronze flowers : no matter ; they are every one of them vices and uglinesses. Raphael usually 25G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. felt this, and used an honest and rational tablet, as in the Madonna di Fuligno. I do not say there is any type of such tablets in nature, but all the difference lies in the fact that the tablet is not considered as an ornament, and the riband, or flying scroll, is. The tablet, as in Albert Durer’s Adam and Eve, is introduced for the sake of the writing, understood and allowed as an ugly but necessary interruption. The scroll is extended as an ornamental form, which it is not, nor ever can be. — S. L. A. ch.iv. § 10. Heraldic Decorations. — We may condemn all heraldic decoration, so far as beauty is its object. Its pride and sig- nificance have their proper place, fitly occurring in prominent parts of the building, as over its gates ; and allowable in places where its legendry may be plainly read, as in painted windows, bosses of ceilings, &c. And sometimes, of course, the forms which it presents may be beautiful, as of animals, or simple symbols like the fleur-de-lis ; but, for the most part, heraldic similitudes and arrangements are so professedly and pointedly unnatural, that it would be difficult to invent anything uglier ; and the use of them as a repeated decoration will utterly destroy both the power and beauty of any building. Common sense and courtesy also forbid their repetition. It is right to tell those who enter your doors that you are such a one, and of such a rank; but to tell it to them again and again, wherever they turn, becomes soon impertinence, and at last folly. Let, therefore, the entire bearings occur in few places, and these not considered as an ornament, but as an inscription ; and for frequent appliance, let any single and fair symbol be chosen out of them. Thus we may multiply as much as we choose the French fleur-de-lis or the Florentine giglio bianco, or the English rose ; but we must not multiply a King’s arms. — S. L. A. ch. iv. § 8. The Appearance of Labour upon Architecture is, indeed , one of the most frequent sources of pleasure which belong to the art, always, however, within certain somewhat remarkable limits. For it does not at first appear easily to be explained ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 257 why labour, as represented by materials of value, should, without sense of wrong or error, bear being wasted; while the waste of actual workmanship is always painful, so soon as it is apparent. But so it is, that while precious materials may, with a certain profusion and negligence, be employed for the magnificence of what is seldom seen, the work of man cannot be carelessly and idly bestowed, without an immediate sense of wrong ; as if the strength of the living creature were never intended by its Maker to be sacrificed in vain, though it is well for us sometimes to part with what we esteem precious of substance, as showing that in such service it becomes but dross and dust. And in the nice balance between the straitening of effort or enthusiasm on the one hand, and vainly casting it away upon the other, there are more ques- tions than can be met by any but very just and watchful feeling. In general it is less the mere loss of labour that offends us, than the lack of judgment implied by such loss ; so that if men confessedly work for work’s sake, and it does not appear that they are ignorant where or how to make their labour tell, we shall not be grossly offended. On the con- trary, we shall be pleased if the work be lost in carrying out a principle, or in avoiding a deception. It, indeed, is a law properly belonging to another part of our subject, but it may be allowably stated here, that, whenever, by the construction of a building, some parts of it are hidden from the eye which are the continuation of others bearing some consistent orna- ment, it is not well that the ornament should cease in the parts concealed; credit is given for it, and it should not be deceptively withdrawn: as, for instance, in the sculpture of the backs of the statues of a temple pediment ; never, perhaps, to be seen, but yet not lawfully to be left unfinished. And so in the working out of ornaments, in dark or concealed places, in which it is best to err on the side of completion ; and in the carrying round of string courses, and other such continuous work ; not but that they may stop sometimes, on the point of going into some palpably impenetrable recess, but then let them stop boldly and markedly, on some distinct terminal ornament, and never be supposed to exist where they 17 258 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. do not. The arches of the towers which flank the transepts of Rouen Cathedral have rosette ornaments on their spandrils, on the three visible sides ; none on the side towards the roof. The right of this is rather a nice point for question. Visibility, however, we must remember, depends, not only on situation but on distance; and there is no way in which work is more painfully and unwisely lost than in its over delicacy on parts distant from the eye. Here, again, the principle of honesty must govern our treatment : we must not work any kind of ornament which is, perhaps, to cover the whole building (or at least to occur on all parts of it) delicately where it is near the eye, and rudely where it is removed from it. That is trickery and dishonesty. Consider, first, what kinds of ornaments will tell in the distance and what near, and so distribute them, keeping such as by their nature are delicate down near the eye, and throwing the bold and rough kinds of work to the top ; and if there be any kind which is to be both near and far off, take care that it be as boldly and rudely wrought where it is well seen as where it is distant, so that the spectator may know exactly what it is, and what it is worth. Thus chequered patterns, and in general such orna- ments as common workmen can execute, may extend over the whole building ; but bas-reliefs, and fine niches and capitals, should be kept down ; and the common sense of this will always give a building dignity, even though there be some abruptness or awkwardness in the resulting arrange- ments. Thus at San Zeno at Verona, the bas-reliefs, full of incident and interest, are confined to a parallelogram of the front, reaching to the height of the capitals of the columns of the porch. Above these, we find a simple, though most lovely, little arcade ; and above that, only blank wall, with square face shafts. The whole effect is tenfold grander and better than if the entire fa<^ade had been covered with bad work, and may serve for an example of the way to place little where we cannot afford much. So, again, the transept gates of Rouen are covered with delicate bas-reliefs (of which I shall speak at greater length presently) up to about once and a half a man’s height ; and above that come the usual and more ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 259 visible statues and niches. So in the campanile at Florence, the circuit of bas-reliefs is on its lowest story ; above that come its statues ; and above them all is pattern mosaic, and twisted columns, exquisitely finished, like all Italian work of the kind, but still, in the eye of the Florentine, rough and commonplace by comparison with the bas-reliefs. So generally the most delicate niche work and best mouldings of the French Gothic are in gates and low windows well within sight; although, it being the very spirit of that style to trust to its exuberance for effect, there is occasionally a burst upwards and blossoming unrestrainably to the sky, as in the pediment of the west front of Rouen, and in the recess of the rose window behind it, where there are some most elaborate flower-mouldings, all but invisible from below, and only adding a general enrichment to the deep shadows that relieve the shafts of the advanced pediment. It is observable, however, that this very work is bad flamboyant, and has corrupt renaissance characters in its detail as well as use ; while in the earlier and grander north and south gates, there is a very noble proportioning of the work to the distance, the niches and statues which crown the northern one, at a height of about one hundred feet from the ground, being alike colossal and simple; visibly so from below, so as to induce no decep- tion, add yet honestly and well finished above, and all that they are expected to be ; the features very beautiful, full of expression, and as delicately wrought as any work of the period. It is to be remembered, however, that while the ornaments in every fine ancient building, without exception so far as I am aware, are most delicate at the base, they are often in greater effective quantity on the upper parts. In high towers this is perfectly natural and right, the solidity of the founda- tion being as necessary as the division and penetration of the superstructure; hence the lighter work and richly pierced crowns of late gothic towers. The campanile of Giotto at Florence already alluded to, is an exquisite instance of the union of the two principles, delicate bas-reliefs adorning its massy foundation, while the open tracery of the upper 17—2 2C0 WRITINGS OF JOHN EUSKIN. windows attracts the eye by its slender intricacy, and a rich cornice crowns the whole. In such truly fine cases of this disposition the upper work is effective by its quantity and intricacy only, as the lower portions by delicacy ; so also in the Tour de Beurre at Rouen, where, however, the detail is massy throughout, subdividing into rich meshes as it ascends. In the bodies of buildings the principle is less safe, but its discussion is not connected with our present subject. — S.L.A. ch.i. § 11,12, 13. Architecture of Towers and Spires. — The subject of spire and tower architecture, however, is so interesting and exten- sive, that I have thoughts of writing a detached essay upon it, and, at all events, cannot enter upon it here : but this much is enough for the reader to note for our present purpose, that, although many towers do in reality stand on piers or shafts, as the central towers of cathedrals, yet the expression of all of them, and the real structure of the best and strongest, are the elevation of gradually diminishing weight on massy or even solid foundation. Nevertheless, since the tower is in its origin a building for strength of defence, and faithfulness of watch, rather than splendour of aspect, its true expression is of just so much diminution of weight upwards as may be necessary to its fully balanced strength, not a jot more. There must be no light-headedness in your noble tower : impregnable foundation, wrathful crest, with the vizor down, and the dark vigilance seen through the clefts of it ; not the filigree crown or embroidered cap. No towers are so grand as the square browed ones, with massy cornices and rent battlements : next to these come the fantastic towers, with their various forms of steep roof ; the best, not the cone, but the plain gable thrown very high ; last of all in my mind (of good towers), those with spires or crowns, though these, of course, are fittest for ecclesiastical purposes, and capable of the richest ornament. The paltry four or eight pinnacled things we call towers in England (as in York Minster) are mere confectioner’s Gothic, and not worth classing. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 261 But, in all of them, this I believe to be a point of chief necessity, — that they shall seem to stand, and shall verily stand, in their own strength ; not by help of buttresses nor artful balancings on this side and on that. Your noble tower must need no help, must be sustained by no crutches, must give place to no suspicion of decrepitude. Its office may be to withstand war, look forth for tidings, or to point to heaven : but it must have in its own walls the strength to do this ; it is to be itself a bulwark, not to be sustained by other bul- warks; to rise and look forth, “the tower of Lebanon that looketh toward Damascus,” like a stern sentinel, not like a child held up in its nurse’s arms. A tower may, indeed, have a kind of buttress, a projection, or subordinate tower at each of its angles ; but these are to its main body like the satellites to a shaft, joined with its strength, and associated in its uprightness, part of the tower itself : exactly in the pro- portion in which they lose their massive unity with its body, and assume the form of true buttress walls set on its angles, the tower loses its dignity. These two characters, then, are common to all noble towers, however otherwise different in purpose or feature, — the first, that they rise from massive foundation to lighter summits, frowning with battlements perhaps, but yet evi- dently more pierced and thinner in wall than beneath, and, in most ecclesiastical examples, divided into rich open work : the second, that whatever the form of the tower, it shall not appear to stand by help of buttresses. It follows from the first condition, as indeed it would have followed from ordinary aesthetic requirements, that we shall have continual variation in the arrangements of the stories, and the larger number of aper- tures towards the top, — a condition exquisitely carried out in the old Lombardic towers, in which, however small they may be, the number of apertures is always regularly increased towards the summit ; generally one window in the lowest stories, two in the second, then three, five, and six ; often, also, one, two, four, and six, with beautiful symmetries of placing, not at present to our purpose. — S. V. I. ch. xix. <§ 11 , 12 , 13 . 262 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. The Campanile of Giotto at Florence. — The charac- teristics of Power and Beauty occur more or less in different buildings, some in one and some in another. But all together, and all in their highest possible relative degrees, they exist, as far as I know, only in one building in the world, the Campa- nile of Giotto at Florence In its first appeal to the stranger’s eye there is something unpleasing ; a mingling, as it seems to him, of over severity with over minuteness. But let him give it time, as he should to all other consummate art. I remember well how, when a boy, I used to despise that Campanile, and think it meanly smooth and finished. But I have since lived beside it many a day, and looked out upon it from my windows by sunlight and moonlight, and I shall not soon forget how profound and gloomy appeared to me the savageness of the Northern Gothic, when I afterwards stood, for the first time, beneath the front of Salisbury. The con- trast is indeed strange, if it could be quickly felt, between the rising of those grey walls out of their quiet swarded space, like dark and barren rocks out of a green lake, with their rude, mouldering, rough -grained shafts, and triple lights, without tracery or other ornament than the martins’ nests in the height of them, and that bright, smooth, sunny surface of glowing jasper, those spiral shafts and fairy traceries, so white, so faint, so crystalline, that their slight shapes are hardly traced in darkness on the pallor of the Eastern sky, that serene height of mountain alabaster, coloured like a morning cloud, and chased like a sea shell. And if this be, as I believe it, the model and mirror of perfect architecture, is there not something to be learned by looking back to the early life of him who raised it ? I said that the Power of human mind had its growth in the Wilderness ; much more must the love and the conception of that beauty, whose every line and hue we have seen to be, at the best, a faded image of God’s daily work, and an arrested ray of some star of creation, be given chiefly in the places which He has gladdened by planting there the fir-tree and the pine. Not within the walls of Florence, but among the far away fields of her lilies, ■was the child trained who was to raise that headstone of ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 263 Beauty above her towers of watch and war. Bemember all that he became ; count the sacred thoughts with which he filled the heart of Italy; ask those who followed him what they learned at his feet; and when you have numbered his labours, and received their testimony, if it seem to you that God had verily poured out upon this His servant no common nor restrained portion of His Spirit, and that he was indeed a king among the children of men, remember also that the legend upon his crown was that of David’s : — “ I took thee from the sheepcote, and from following the sheep.” — S.L.A . ch.iv. §43. Pleasure derived from Modern Buildings. — We take no pleasure in the building provided for us, resembling that which we take in a new book or a new picture. We may be proud of its size, complacent in its correctness, and happy in its convenience. We may take the same pleasure in its symmetry and workmanship as in a well-ordered room, or a skilful piece of- manufacture. And this we suppose to be all the pleasure that architecture was ever intended to give us. The idea of reading a building as we would read Milton or Dante, and getting the same kind of delight out of the stones as out of the stanzas," never enters our minds for a moment. And for good reason ; — There is indeed rhythm in the verses, quite as strict as the symmetries or rhythm of the archi- tecture, and a thousand times more beautiful, but there is something else than rhythm. The verses were neither made to order, nor to match, as the capitals were ; and we have therefore a kind of pleasure in them other than a sense of propriety. But it requires a strong effort of common sense to shake ourselves quit of all that we have been taught for the last two centuries, and wake to the perception of a truth just as simple and certain as it is new : that great art, whether expressing itself in words, colours, or stones, does not say the same thing over and over again ; that the merit of architectural, as of every other art, consists in its saying new and different things ; that to repeat itself is no more a characteristic of genius in marble than it is of genius in 264 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. print ; and that we may, without offending any laws of good taste, require of an architect, as we do of a novelist, that he should be not only correct, but entertaining. Yet all this is true, and self-evident; only hidden from, us, as many other self-evident things are, by false teaching Nothing is a great work of art, for the production of which either rules or models can be given. Exactly so far as archi- tecture works on known rules, and from given models, it is not an art, but a manufacture ; and it is, of the two pro- cedures, rather less rational (because more easy) to copy capitals or mouldings from Phidias, and call ourselves archi- tects, than to copy heads and hands from Titian, and call ourselves painters. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 28. A Spirit of Sacrifice ennobles Art. — Though it may not be necessarily the interest of religion to admit the service of the arts, the arts will never flourish until they have been primarily devoted to that service — devoted, both by architect and employer ; by the one in scrupulous, earnest, affectionate, design ; by the other in expenditure at least more frank, at least less calculating, than that which he would admit in the indulgence of his own private feelings. Let this principle be but once fairly acknowledged among us ; and however it may be chilled and repressed in practice, however feeble may be its real influence, however the sacredness of it may be diminished by counter- workings of vanity and self-interest, yet its mere acknowledgment would bring a reward ; and with our present accumulation of means and of intellect, there would be such an impulse and vitality given to art as it has not felt since the thirteenth century. And I do not assert this as other than a natural consequence : I 'should, indeed, expect a larger measure of every great and spiritual faculty to be always given where those faculties had been wisely and religiously employed ; but the impulse to which I refer would be, humanly speaking, certain ; and would naturally result from obedience to the two great conditions enforced by the Spirit of Sacrifice, first, that we should in every thing do our best ; and, secondly, that we should con- ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 265 sider increase of apparent labour as an increase of beauty in the building. A few practical deductions from these two conditions, and I have done. For the first : it is alone enough to secure success, and it is for want of observing it that we continually fail. We are none of us so good architects as to be able to work habitually beneath our strength ; and yet there is not a building that I know of, lately raised, wherein it is not sufficiently evident that neither architect nor builder has done his best. It is the especial characteristic of .modern work. All old work nearly has been hard work. It may be the hard work of children, of barbarians, of rustics ; but it is always their utmost. Ours has as constantly the look of money’s worth, of a stopping short wherever and whenever we can, of a lazy compliance with low conditions ; never of a fair putting forth of our strength. Let us have done with this kind of work at once : cast off every temptation to it : do not let us degrade our- selves voluntarily, and then mutter and mourn over our short- comings ; let us confess our poverty or our parsimony, but not belie our human intellect. It is not even a question of how much we are to do, but of how it is to be done ; it is not a question of doing more, but of doing better. Do not let us boss our roofs with wretched, half-worked, blunt-edged rosettes ; do not let us flank our gates with rigid imitations of mediaeval statuary. Such things are mere insults to common sense, and only unfit us for feeling the nobility of their prototypes. We have so much, suppose, to be spent in decoration ; let us go to the Flaxman of his time, whoever he may be ; and bid him carve for us a single statue, frieze, or capital, or as many as we can afford, compelling upon him the one condition, that they shall be the best he can do ; place them where they will be of most value, and be content. Our other capitals may be mere blocks, and our other niches empty. No matter : better our work unfinished than all bad. It may be that we do not desire ornament of so high an order : choose, then, a less developed style, as also, if you will, rougher material ; the law which we are enforcing requires only that what we pretend to do and to give, shall both be 26 G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. the best of their kind ; choose, therefore, the Norman hatchet work, instead of the Flaxman frieze and statue, but let it be the best hatchet work ; and if you cannot afford marble, use Caen stone, but from the best bed; and if not stone, brick, but the best brick ; preferring always what is good of a lower order of work or material, to what is • bad of a higher ; for this is not only the way to improve every kind of work, and to put every kind of material to better use ; but it is more honest and unpretending, and is in harmony with other just, upright, and manly principles. — S. L. A. ch. i. § 9 , 10 . Offerings to the Church. — It has been said — it ought always to be said, for it is true — that a better and more honourable offering is made to our Master in ministry to the poor, in extending the knowledge of His name, in the prac- tice of the virtues by which that name is hallowed, than in material presents to His temple. Assuredly it is so : woe to all who think that any other kind or manner of offering may in any wise take the place of these ! Do the people need place to pray, and calls to hear His word ? Then it is no time -for smoothing pillars or carving pulpits ; let us have enough first of walls and roofs. Do the people need teaching from house to house, and bread from day to day? Then they are deacons and ministers we want, not architects. I insist on this, I plead for this ; but let us examine ourselves, and see if this be indeed the reason for our backwardness in the lesser work. The question is not between God’s house and his poor : it is not between God’s house and his gospel. It is between God’s house and ours. Have we no tesselated colours on our floors ? no frescoed fancies on our roofs ? no niched statuary in our corridors? no gilded furniture in our chambers? no costly stones in our cabinets ? Has even the tithe of these been offered ? They are, or they ought to be, the signs that enough has been devoted to the great purposes of human stewardship, and that there remains to us what we can spend in luxury ; but there is a greater and prouder luxury than this selfish one — that of bringing a portion of such things as ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 267 these into sacred service, and presenting them for a memorial that our pleasure as well as our toil has been hallowed by the remembrance of Him who gave both the strength and the reward. And until this has been done, I do not see how such possessions can be retained in happiness. I do not under- stand the feeling which would arch our own gates and pave our own thresholds, and leave the church with its narrow door and foot-worn sill ; the feeling which enriches our own chambers with all manner of costliness, and endures the bare wall and mean compass of the temple. There is seldom even so severe a choice to be made, seldom so much self- denial to be exercised. There are isolated cases, in which men’s happiness and mental activity depend upon a certain degree of luxury in their houses ; but then this is true luxury, felt and tasted, and profited by. In the plurality of instances nothing of the kind is attempted, nor can be enjoyed ; men’s average resources cannot reach it ; and that which they can reach, gives them no pleasure, and might be spared. It will be seen, in the course of the following chapters, that I am no advocate for meanness of private habitation. I would fain introduce into it all magnificence, care, and beauty, where they are possible ; but I would not have that useless expense in unnoticed fineries or formalities; cornicing of ceilings and graining of doors, and fringing of curtains, and thousands such ; things which have become foolishly and apathetically habitual — things on whose common appliance hang whole trades, to which there never yet belonged the blessing of giving one ray of real pleasure, or becoming of the remotest or most contemptible use — things which cause half the expense of life, and destroy more than half its com- fort, manliness, respectability, freshness, and facility. I speak from experience : I know what it is to live in a cottage with a deal floor and roof, and a hearth of mica slate; and I know it to be in many respects healthier and happier than living between a Turkey carpet and gilded ceiling, beside a steel grate and polished fender. I do not say that such things have not their place and propriety ; but I say this, 268 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. emphatically, that the tenth part of the expense which is sacrificed in domestic vanities if not absolutely and meaning- lessly lost in domestic discomforts and incumbrances, would, if collectively offered and wisely employed, build a marble church for every town in England ; such a church as it should be a joy and a blessing even to pass near in our daily ways and walks, and as it would bring the light into the eyes to see from after, lifting its fair height above the purple crowd of humble roofs. I have said for every town : I do not want a marble church for every village ; nay, I do not want marble churches at all for their own sake, but for the sake of the spirit that would build them. The church has no need of any visible splendours ; her power is independent of them, her purity is in some degree opposed to them. The simplicity of a pastoral sanctuary is lovelier than the majesty of an urban temple ; and it may be more than questioned whether, to the people, such majesty has ever been the source of any increase of effective piety ; but to the builders it has been, and must ever be. It is not the church we want, but the sacrifice; not the emotion of admiration, but the act of adoration ; not the gift, but the giving. And see how much more charity the full understanding of this might admit, among classes of men of naturally opposite feelings ; and how much more nobleness in the work. There is no need to offend by im- portunate, self-proclaimant splendour. Your gift may be given in an unpresuming way. Cut one or two shafts out of a porphyry whose preciousness those only would know who would desire it to be so used; add another month’s labour to the under-cutting of a few capitals, whose delicacy will not be seen nor loved by one beholder of ten thousand ; see that the simplest masonry of the edifice be perfect and substantial ; and to those who regard such things, their witness will be clear and impressive ; to those who regard them not, all will at least be inoffensive. But do not think the feeling itself a folly, or the act itself useless. Of what use was that dearly bought water of the well of Bethlehem with which the king of Israel slaked the dust of Adullam ? ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 269 yet was it not thus better than if he had drunk it ? Of what use was that passionate act of Christian sacrifice, against which, first uttered by the false tongue, the very objection we would now conquer took a sullen tone for ever ? So also let us not ask of what use our offering is to the church : it is at least better for us than if it had been retained for ourselves. It may be better for others also : there is, at any rate, a chance of this ; though we must always fearfully and widely shun the thought that the magnificence of the temple can materially add to the efficiency of the worship or to the power of the ministry. Whatever we do, or what- ever we offer, let it not interfere with the simplicity of the one, or abate, as if replacing, the zeal of the other. — S. L. A. ch. i. § 7, 8. Church Furniture and Decoration. — The first condition which just feeling requires in church furniture is, that it should be simple and unaffected, not fictitious nor tawdry. It may not be in our power to make it beautiful, but let it at least be pure; and if we cannot permit much to the architect, do not let us permit any thing to the upholsterer ; if we keep to solid stone and solid wood, whitewashed, if we like, for cleanliness’ sake, (for whitewash has so often been used as the dress of noble things that it has thence received a kind of nobility itself,) it must be a bad design indeed, which is grossly offensive. I recollect no instance of a want of sacred character, or of any marked and painful ugliness, in the simplest or the most awkwardly built village church, where stone and wood were roughly and nakedly used, and the windows latticed with white glass. But the smoothly stuccoed walls, the flat roofs with ventilator ornaments, the barred windows with jaundiced borders and dead ground square panes, the gilded or bronzed wood, the painted iron, the wretched upholstery of curtains and cushions, and pew heads, and altar railings, and Birmingham metal candlesticks, and, above, all, the green and yellow sickness of the false marble — disguises all, observe ; falsehoods all — who are they who like these things ? who defend them ? who do them ? 270 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. I have never spoken to any one who did like them, though to many who thought them matters of no consequence. Perhaps not to religion ; (though I cannot but believe that there are many to whom, as to myself, such things are serious obstacles to the repose of mind and temper which should precede devotional exercises ;) but to the general tone of our judgment and feeling — yes ; for assuredly we shall regard, with tolerance, if not with affection, whatever forms of material things we have been in the habit of associating with our worship, and be little prepared to detect or blame hypocrisy, meanness, and disguise in other kinds of decora- tion, when we suffer objects belonging to the most solemn of all services to be tricked out in a fashion so fictitious and unseemly. Painting, however, is not the only mode in which material may be concealed, or rather simulated ; for merely to conceal is, as we have seen, no wrong. Whitewash, for instance, though often (by no means always) to be regretted as a concealment, is not to be blamed as a falsity. It shows itself for what it is, and asserts nothing of what is beneath it. Gilding has become, from its frequent use, equally innocent. It is understood for what it is, a film merely, and is, there- fore, allowable to any extent. I do not say expedient : it is one of the most abused means of magnificence we possess, and I much doubt whether any use we ever make of it, balances that loss of pleasure, which, from the frequent sight and perpetual suspicion of it, we suffer in the contem- plation of any thing that is verily of gold. I think gold was meant to be seldom seen, and to be admired as a precious thing ; and I sometimes wish that truth should so far literally prevail as that all should be gold that glittered, or rather that nothing should glitter that was not gold. Nevertheless, nature herself does not dispense with such semblance, but uses light for it ; and I have too great a love for old and saintly art to part with its burnished field, or radiant nimbus ; only it should be used with respect, and to express mag- nificence, or sacredness, and not in lavish vanity, or in sign painting. — S.L.A. ch. ii. § 16, 17. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 271 Decoration of Pulpits. — It is worth while pausing for a moment to consider how far the manner of decorating a pulpit may have influence on the efficiency of its service, and whether our modern treatment of this, to us all-important, feature of a church be the best possible. When the sermon is good we need not much concern ourselves about the form of the pulpit. But sermons cannot always be good ; and I believe that the temper in which the congregation set them- selves to listen may be in some degree modified by their per- ception of fitness or unfitness, impressiveness or vulgarity, in the disposition of the place appointed for the speaker, — not to the same degree, but somewhat in the same way, that they may be influenced by his own gestures or expression, irre- spective of the sense of what he says. I believe, therefore, in the first place, that pulpits ought never to be highly decorated; the speaker is apt to look mean or diminutive if the pulpit is either on a very large scale or covered with splendid orna- ment, and if the interest of the sermon should flag the mind is instantly tempted to wander. I have observed that in almost all cathedrals, when the pulpits are peculiarly magnificent, sermons are not often preached from them ; but rather, and especially for any important purpose, from some temporary erection in other parts of the building: and though this may often be done because the architect has consulted the effect upon the eye more than the convenience of the ear in the placing of his larger pulpit, I think it also proceeds in some measure from a natural dislike in the preacher to match himself with the magnificence of the rostrum, lest the sermon should not be thought worthy of the place. Yet this will rather hold of the colossal sculptures and pyramids of fantastic tracery which encumber the pulpits of Flemish and German churches, than of the delicate mosaics and ivory-like carving of the Romanesque basilicas, for when the form is kept simple, much loveliness of colour and costliness of work may be introduced, and yet the speaker not be thrown into the shade by them. But, in the second place, whatever ornaments we admit ought clearly to be of a chaste, grave, and noble kind ; and 272 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. what furniture we employ, evidently more for the honouring of God’s word than for the ease of the preacher. For there are two ways of regarding a sermon, either as a human com- position, or a Divine message. If we look upon it entirely as the first, and require our clergymen to finish it with their utmost care and learning, for our better delight whether of ear or intellect, we shall necessarily be led to expect much formality and stateliness in its delivery, and to think that all is not well if the pulpit have not a golden fringe round it, and a goodly cushion in front of it, and if the sermon be not fairly written in a black book, to be smoothed upon the cushion in a majestic manner before beginning; all this we shall duly come to expect: but we shall at the same time consider the treatise thus prepared as something to which it is our duty to listen without restlessness for half an hour or three quarters, but which, when that duty has been decorously performed, we may dismiss from our minds in happy con- fidence of being provided with another when next it shall be necessary. But if once we begin to regard the preacher, whatever his faults, as a man sent with a message to us, which it is a matter of life or death whether we hear or refuse; if we look upon him as set in charge over many spirits in danger of ruin, and having allowed to him but an hour or two in the seven days to speak to them ; if we make some endeavour to conceive how precious these hours ought to be to him, a small vantage on the side of God after his flock have been exposed for six days together to the full weight of the world’s temptation, and he has been forced to watch the thorn and the thistle springing in their hearts, and to see what wheat had been scattered there snatched from the wayside by this wild bird and the other, and at last, when breathless and weary with the week’s labour they give him this interval of imperfect and languid hearing, he has but thirty minutes to get at the separate hearts of a thousand men, to convince them of all their weaknesses, to shame them for all their sins, to warn them of all their dangers, to try by this way and that to stir the hard fastenings of those doors where the Master himself has stood and knocked yet none opened, ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 273 and to call at the openings of those dark streets where Wisdom herself has stretched forth her hands and no man regarded, — thirty minutes to raise the dead in, — let us but once under- stand and feel this, and we shall look with changed eyes upon that frippery of gay furniture about the place from which the message of judgment must be delivered, which either breathes upon the dry bones that they may live, or, if ineffectual, remains recorded irf condemnation, perhaps against the utterer and listener alike, but assuredly against one of them. We shall not so easily bear with the silk and gold upon the seat of judgment, nor with ornament of oratory in the mouth of the messenger ; we shall wish that his words may be simple, even when they are sweetest, and the place from which he speaks like a marble rock in the desert, about which the people have gathered in their thirst. — S. V. II. ch. i. § 12, 13, 14. Kestoeation of Old Structures. — Neither by the public, nor by those who have the care of public monuments, is the true meaning of the word restoration understood. It means the most total destruction which a building can suffer: a destruction out of which no remnants can be gathered : a destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed. Do not let us deceive ourselves in this important matter ; it is impossible , as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, never can be recalled. Another spirit may be given by another time, and it is then a new building ; but the spirit of the dead workman cannot be summoned up, and commanded to direct other hands, and other thoughts. And as for direct and simple copying, it is palpably impossible. What copying can there be of surfaces that have been worn half an inch down? The whole finish of the work was in the half inch that is gone ; if you attempt to restore that finish, you do it conjecturally; if you copy what is left, granting fidelity to be possible, (and what care, or watchfulness, or cost can secure it,) how is the new work better than the old ? 18 274 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. There was yet in the old some life, some mysterious suggestion of what it had been, and of what it had lost ; some sweetness in the gentle lines which rain and sun had wrought. There can be none in the brute hardness of the new carving. . . . The first step to restoration, (I have seen it, and that again and again, seen it on the Baptistery of Pisa, seen it on the Casa d’ Oro at Venice, seen it on the Cathedral of Lisieux,) is to dash the old work to pieces ; the second is usually to put up the cheapest and basest imitation which can escape detection, but in all cases, however careful, and however laboured, an imitation still, a cold model of such parts as can be modelled, with conjectural supplements; and my experience has as yet furnished me with only one instance, that of the Palais de Justice at Rouen, in which even this, the utmost degree of fidelity which is possible, has been attained, or even attempted. Do not let us talk then of restoration. The thing is a Lie from beginning to end. You may make a model of a build- ing as you may of a corpse, and your model may have the shell of the old walls within it as your cast might have the skeleton, with what advantage I neither see nor care : but the old building is destroyed, and that more totally and mercilessly than if it had sunk into a heap of dust, or melted into a mass of clay: more has been gleaned out of desolated Nineveh than ever will be out of re-built Milan. But, it is said, there may come a necessity for restoration! Granted. Look the neces- sity full in the face, and understand it on its own terms. It is a necessity for destruction. Accept it as such, pull the building down, throw its stones into neglected corners, make ballast of them, or mortar, if you will ; but do it honestly, and do not set up a Lie in their place. And look that necessity in the face before it comes, and you may prevent it. The principle of modern times, (a principle which, I believe, at least in France, to be systematically acted on by the masons , in order to find themselves work, as the abbey of St. Ouen was pulled down by the magistrates of the town by way of giving work to some vagrants,) is to neglect buildings first, and restore them afterwards. Take proper care of your monu- ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 275 ments, and yon will not need to restore them. A few sheets of lead put in time upon the roof, a few dead leaves and sticks swept in time out of a water-course, will save both roof and walls from ruin. Watch an old building with an anxious care; guard it as best you may, and at any cost, from every influence of dilapidation. Count its stones as you would jewels of a crown; set watches about it as if at the gates of a besieged city ; bind it together with iron where it loosens ; stay it with timber where it declines ; do not care about the unsight- liness of the aid : better a crutch than a lost limb ; and do this tenderly, and reverently, and continually, and many a generation will still be born and pass away beneath its shadow. Its evil day must come at last ; but let it come declaredly and openly, and let no dishonouring and false sub- stitute deprive it of the funeral offices of memory. Of more wanton or ignorant ravage it is vain to speak; my words will not reach those who commit them, and yet, be it heard or not, I must not leave the truth unstated, that it is again no question of expediency or feeling whether we shall preserve the buildings of past times or not. We have no right whatever to touch them. They are not ours. They belong partly to those who built them, and partly to all the genera- tions of mankind who are to follow us. The dead have still their right in them : that which they laboured for, the praise of achievement or the expression of religious feeling, or what- soever else it might be which in those buildings they intended to be permanent, we have no right to obliterate. What we have ourselves built, we are at liberty to throw down ; but what other men gave their strength and wealth and life to accomplish, their right over does not pass away with their death : still less is the right to the use of what they have left vested in us only. It belongs to all their successors. It may hereafter be a subject of sorrow, or a cause of injury, to mil- lions, that we have consulted our present convenience by casting down such buildings as we choose to dispense with. That sorrow, that loss we have no right to inflict. . . . A fair building is necessarily worth the ground it stands upon, and will be so until central Africa and America shall 18—2 27 G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. have become as populous as Middlesex; nor is any cause whatever valid as a ground for its destruction. If ever valid, certainly not now, when the place both of the past and future is too much usurped in our minds by the restless and discon- tented present. The very quietness of nature is gradually withdrawn from us ; thousands who once in their necessarily prolonged travel were subjected to an influence, from the silent sky and slumbering fields, more effectual than known or confessed, now bear with them even there the ceaseless fever of their life ; and along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All vitality is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into the central cities ; the country is passed over like a green sea by narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in continually closer crowds upon the city gates. The only influence which can in any wise there take the place of that of the woods and fields, is the power of ancient Architecture. Do not part with it for the sake of the formal square, or of the fenced and planted walk, nor of the goodly street nor opened quay. The pride of a city is not in these. Leave them to the crowd ; but remember that there will surely be some within the circuit of the disquieted walls who would ask for some other spots than these wherein to walk ; for some other forms to meet their sight familiarly : like him who sat so often where the sun struck from the west, to watch the lines of the dome of Florence drawn on the deep sky, or like those, his Hosts, who could bear daily to behold, from their palace chambers, the places where their fathers lay at rest, at the meeting of the dark streets of Verona. — S. L.A. ch. vi. §18,19,20. Studies for the Architect. — An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome. There was something in the old power of architecture, which it had from the recluse more than from the citizen. The buildings of which I have spoken with chief praise, rose, indeed, out of the war of the piazza, and above ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. 277 the fury of the populace: and Heaven forbid that for such cause we should ever have to lay a larger stone, or rivet a firmer bar, in our England ! But we have other sources of power, in the imagery of our iron coasts and azure hills ; of power more pure, nor less serene, than that of the hermit spirit which once lighted with white lines of cloisters the glades of the Alpine pine, and raised into ordered spires the wild rocks of the Norman sea; which gave to the temple gate the depth and darkness of Elijah’s Horeb cave; and lifted out of the populous city, grey cliffs of lonely stone, into the midst of sailing birds and silent air. — S. L. A. ch. iii. § 24. 278 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. ETHICAL. Man’s Use and Function.-— M an’s use and function (and let him who will not grant me this follow me no farther, for this I purpose always to assume) are, to be the witness of the glory of God, and to advance that glory by his reasonable obedience and resultant happiness. Whatever enables us to fulfil this function is, in the pure and first sense of the word, Useful to us ; pre-eminently there- fore, whatever sets the glory of God more brightly before us. But things that only help us to exist are, in a secondary and mean sense, useful; or rather, if they be looked for alone, they are useless, and worse, for it would be better that we should not exist, than that we should guiltily disappoint the purposes of existence. And yet people speak in this working age, when they speak from their hearts, as if houses and lands, and food and raiment, were alone useful, and as if Sight, Thought, and Admiration were all profitless, so that men insolently call themselves Utilitarians, who would turn, if they had their way, them- selves and their race into vegetables ; men who think, as far as such can be said to think, that the meat is more than the life, and the raiment than the body, who look to the earth as a stable, and to its fruit as fodder ; vinedressers and husband- men, who love the corn they grind, and the grapes thdjy crush, better than the gardens of the angels upon the slopes of Eden ; hewers of wood and drawers of water, who think that it is to give them wood to hew, and water to draw, that the pine-forests cover the mountains like the shadow of God, and the great rivers move like His eternity. And so come upon us that Woe of the preacher, that though God “ hath made everything beautiful in his time, also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.” ETHICAL. 279 This Nebuchadnezzar curse, that sends men to grass like oxen, seems to follow but too closely on the excess or continu- ance of national power and peace. In the perplexities of nations, in their struggles for existence, in their infancy, their impotence, or even their disorganization, they have higher hopes and nobler passions. Out of the suffering comes the serious mind ; out of the salvation, the grateful heart ; out of endurance, fortitude ; out of deliverance, faith : but when they have learned to live under providence of laws, and with decency and justice of regard for each other, and when they have done away with violent and external sources of suffering, worse evils seem to arise out of their rest ; evils that vex less and mortify more, that suck the blood though they do not shed it, and ossify the heart though they do not torture it. And deep though the causes of thankfulness must be to every people at peace with others and at unity in itself, there are causes of fear, also, a fear greater than of sword and sedition : that dependence on God may be forgotten, because the bread is given and the water sure ; that gratitude to him may cease, because his constancy of protection has taken the semblance of a natural law ; that heavenly hope may grow faint amidst the full fruition of the world ; that selfishness may take place of undemanded devotion, compassion be lost in vain glory, and love in dissimulation ; that enervation may succeed to strength, apathy to patience, and the noise of jesting words and foulness of dark thoughts, to the earnest purity of the girded loins and the burning lamp. About the river of human life there is a wintry wind, though a heavenly sunshine ; the iris colours its agitation, the frost fixes upon its repose. Let us beware that our rest become not the rest of stones, which so long as they are torrent-tossed and thunder-stricken maintain their majesty, but when the stream is silent, and the storm passed, suffer the grass to cover them and the lichen to feed on them, and are ploughed down into dust. And though I believe that we have salt enough of ardent and holy mind amongst us to keep us in some measure from this moral decay, yet the signs of it must be watched with anxiety, in all matter however trivial, in all directions 280 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. however distant. And at this time, when the iron roads are tearing up the surface of Europe, as grapeshot do the sea, when their great net is drawing and twitching the ancient frame and strength together, contracting all its various life, its rocky arms and rural heart, into a narrow, finite, calculating metropolis of manufactures; when there is not a monument throughout the cities of Europe that speaks of old years and mighty people, but it is being swept away to build cafes and gaming-houses ; when the honour of God is thought to con- sist in the poverty of his temple, and the column is shortened and the pinnacle shattered, the colour denied to the case- ment and the marble to the altar, while exchequers are exhausted in luxury of boudoirs and pride of reception-rooms; when we ravage without a pause all the loveliness of creation which God in giving pronounced Good, and destroy without a thought all those labours which men have given their lives and their sons’ sons’ lives to complete, and have left for a legacy to all their kind, a legacy of more than their hearts’ blood, for it is of their souls’ travail; there is need, bitter need, to bring back into men’s minds, that to live is nothing, unless to live be to know Him by whom we live ; and that He is not to be known by marring his fair works, and blotting out the evidence of his influences upon his creatures ; not amidst the hurry of crowds and crash of innovation, but in solitary places, and out of the glowing intelligences which he gave to men of old. He did not teach them how to build for glory and for beauty, he did not give them the fearless, faith- ful, inherited energies that worked on and down from death to death, generation after generation, that we might give the work of their poured-out spirit to the axe and the hammer ; He has not cloven the earth with rivers, that their white wild waves might turn wheels and push paddles, nor turned it up under, as it were fire, that it might heat wells and cure diseases ; He brings not up his quails by the east wind, only to let them fall in flesh about the camp of men ; He has not heaped the rocks of the mountain only for the quarry, nor clothed the grass of the field only for the oven. — M. P. II. Pt. iii. sec. 1, ch. i. § 7. ETHICAL. 281 Man’s Business in Life. — Men’s proper business in this world falls mainly into three divisions : First, to know themselves, and the existing state of the things they have to do with. Secondly, to be happy in themselves, and in the existing state of things. Thirdly, to mend themselves, and the existing state of things, as far as either are marred and mendable. These, I say, are the three plain divisions of proper human business on this earth. For these three, the following are usually substituted and adopted by human creatures : First, to be totally ignorant of themselves, and the existing state of things. Secondly, to be miserable in themselves, and in the existing state of things. Thirdly, to let themselves, and the existing state of things, alone (at least, in the way of correction.) The dispositions which induce us to manage, thus wisely, the affairs of this life seem to be : First, a fear of disagreeable facts, and conscious shrinking from clearness of light, which keep us from examining our- selves, and increase gradually into a species of instinctive terror at all truth, and love of glosses, veils, and decorative lies of every sort. Secondly, a general readiness to take delight in anything past, future, far off, or somewhere else, rather than in things now, near, and here; leading us gradually to place our pleasure principally in the exercise of the imagination, and to build all our satisfaction on things as they are not. Which power being one not accorded to the lower animals, and having indeed, when disciplined, a very noble use, we pride ourselves upon it, whether disciplined or not, and pass our lives complacently, in substantial discontent, and visionary satisfaction. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. iv. § 2, 3. Man as he was and as he is. — For nearly six thousand years the energies of man have pursued certain beaten paths, manifesting some constancy of feeling throughout all that 282 WItITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. period, and involving some fellowship at heart, among the various nations who by turns succeeded or surpassed each other in the several aims of art or policy. So that, for these thousands of years, the whole human race might be to some extent described in general terms. Man was a creature separated from all others by his instinctive sense of an Existence superior to his own, invariably manifesting this sense of the being of a God more, strongly in proportion to his own perfectness of mind and body ; and making enormous and self-denying efforts, in order to obtain some persuasion of the immediate presence or approval of the Divinity. So that, on the whole, the best things he did were done as in the presence, or for the honour, of his gods ; and, whether in statues, to help him to imagine them, or temples raised to their honour, or acts of self-sacrifice done in the hope of their love, he brought whatever was best and skilfullest in him into their service, and lived in a perpetual subjection to their unseen power. Also, he was always anxious to know some- thing definite about them ; and his chief books, songs, and pictures were filled with legends about them, or specially devoted to illustration of their lives and nature. Next to these gods he was always anxious to know some- thing about his human ancestors ; fond of exalting the memory, and telling or painting the history of old rulers and benefactors ; yet full of an enthusiastic confidence in himself, as having in many ways advanced beyond the best efforts of past time ; and eager to record his own doings for future fame. He was a creature eminently warlike, placing his principal pride in dominion ; eminently beautiful, and having great delight in his own beauty ; setting forth this beauty by every species of invention in dress, and rendering his arms and accoutrements superbly decorative of his form. He took, however, very little interest in anything but what belonged to humanity ; caring in no wise for the external world, except as it influenced his own destiny ; honouring the lightning because it could strike him, the sea because it could drown him, the fountains because they gave him drink, and the grass because it yielded him seed ; but utterly incapable of ETHICAL. 283 feeling any special happiness in the love of such things, or any earnest emotion about them, considered as • separate from man ; therefore giving no time to the study of them ; — knowing little of herbs, except only which were hurtful, and which healing ; of stones, only which would glitter brightest in a crown, or last the longest in a wall ; of the wild beasts, which were best for food, and which the stoutest quarry for the hunter ; — thus spending only on the lower creatures and inanimate things his waste energy, his dullest thoughts, his most languid emotions, and reserving all his acuter intellect for researches into his own nature and that of the gods ; all his strength of will for the acquirement of political or moral power ; all his sense of beauty for things immediately con- nected with his own person and life ; and all his deep affections for domestic or divine companionship. Such, in broad light and brief terms, was man for five thousand years. Such he is no longer. Let us consider what he is now, comparing the descriptions clause by clause. I. He was invariably sensible of the existence of gods, and went about all his speculations or works holding this as an acknowledged fact, making his best efforts in their service. Now he is capable of going through life with hardly any positive idea on this subject, — doubting, fearing, suspecting, analyzing, — doing everything, in fact, but believing; hardly ever getting quite up to that point which hitherto was wont to be the starting point for all generations. And human work has accordingly hardly any reference to spiritual beings, but is done either from a patriotic or personal interest, — either to benefit mankind, or reach some selfish end, not (I speak of human work in the broad sense) to please the gods. II. He was a beautiful creature, setting forth this beauty by all means in his power, and depending upon it for much of his authority over his fellows. So that the ruddy cheek of David, and the ivory skin of Atrides, and the towering presence of Saul, and the blue eyes of Cceur de Lion, were among chief reasons why they should be kings ; and it was one of the aims of all education, and of all dress, to make 284 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. the presence of the human form stately and lovely. Now it has become the task of grave philosophy partly to depreciate or conceal this bodily beauty ; and even by those who esteem it in their hearts, it is not made one of the great ends of education : man has become, upon the whole, an ugly animal, and is not ashamed of his ugliness. III. He was eminently warlike. He is now gradually becoming more and more ashamed of all the arts and aims of battle. So that the desire of dominion, which was once frankly confessed or boasted of as a heroic passion, is now sternly reprobated or cunningly disclaimed. IV. He used to take no interest in anything but what immediately concerned himself. Now, he has deep interest in the abstract natures of things, inquires as eagerly into the laws which regulate the economy of the material world, as into those of his own being, and manifests a passionate admiration of inanimate objects, 'closely resembling, in its elevation and tenderness, the affection which he bears to those living souls with which he is brought into the nearest fellowship. It is this last change only which is to be the subject of our present inquiry ; but it cannot be doubted that it is closely connected with all the others, and that we can only thoroughly understand its nature by considering it in this connection. For, regarded by itself, we might, perhaps, too rashly assume it to be a natural consequence of the progress of the race. There appears to be a diminution of selfishness in it, and a more extended and heartfelt desire of understanding the manner of God’s working ; and this the more, because one of the permanent characters of this change is a greater accuracy in the statement of external facts. When the eyes of men were fixed first upon themselves, and upon nature solely and secondarily as bearing upon their interests, it was of less consequence to them what the ultimate laws of nature were, than what their immediate effects were upon human beings. Hence they could rest satisfied with phenomena instead of principles, and accepted without scrutiny every fable which seemed sufficiently or gracefully to account for those pheno- ETHICAL. 285 mena. But so far as the eyes of men are now withdrawn from themselves, and turned upon the inanimate things about them, the results cease to be of importance, and the laws become essential. In these respects, it might easily appear to us that this change was assuredly one of steady and natural advance. But when we contemplate the others above noted, of which it is clearly one of the branches or consequences, we may suspect ourselves of over-rashness in our self congratulation, and admit the necessity of a scrupulous analysis both of the feeling itself and of its tendencies. — M. P. ill. Pt. iv. ch. xi. § 7, 8, 9, 10, 1 1 . Effects of the Fall on Man. — We must not determinedly banish from the human form and countenance, in our restoration of its ideal, everything which can be ultimately traced to the Adamite Fall for its cause, but only the immediate operation and presence of the degrading power of sin. For there is not any part of our nature, nor can there be through eternity, uninfluenced or unaffected by the fall, and that not in any way of degradation, for the renewing in the divinity of Christ is a nobler condition than that of Paradise : and yet throughout eternity it must imply and refer to the dis- obedience, and the corrupt state of sin and death, and the suffering of Christ himself, which can we conceive of any redeemed soul as for an instant forgetting, or as remembering without sorrow ? Neither are the alternations of joy and such sorrow as by us is inconceivable, being only as it were a softness and silence in the pulse of an infinite felicity, incon- sistent with the state even of the unfallen; for the angels, who rejoice over repentance, cannot but feel an uncom- prehended pain as they try and try again in vain, whether they may not warm hard hearts with the brooding of their kind wings. So that we have not to banish from the ideal countenance the evidences of sorrow, nor of past suffering, nor even of past and conquered sin, but only the immediate operation of any evil, or the immediate coldness and hollow- ness of any good emotion. And hence in that contest before noted, between the body and the soul, we may often have to 286 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. indicate the body as far conquered and outworn, and with signs of hard struggle and bitter pain upon it ; and yet with- out ever diminishing the purity of its ideal : and since it is not in the power of any human imagination to reason out or conceive the countless modifications of experience, suffering, and separated feeling, which have modelled and written their indelible images, in various order, upon every human coun- tenance, so no right ideal can be reached by any combina- tion of feature nor by any moulding and melting of individual beauties together, and still less without model or example at all; but there is a perfect ideal to be wrought out of every face around us that has on its forehead the writing and the seal of the angel ascending from the East, by the earnest study and penetration of the written history thereupon, and the banishing of the blots and stains, wherein we still see, in all that is human, the visible and instant operation of unconquered Sin. — M.P. ii. Pt. iii. ch. xiv. §11,12. Ideas of Beauty depend on Purity of Mind. — It is necessary to the existence of an idea of beauty, that the sen- sual pleasure which may be its basis should be accompanied first with joy, then with love of the object, then with the perception of kindness in a superior intelligence, finally, with thankfulness and veneration towards that intelli- gence itself ; and as no idea can be at all considered as in any way an idea of beauty, until it be made up of these emotions, any more than we can be said to have an idea of a letter of which we perceive the perfume and the fair writing, without understanding the contents of it, or intent of it ; and as these emotions are in no way resultant from, nor obtainable by, any operation of the Intellect ; it is evident that the sensation of beauty is not sensual on the one hand, nor is it intellectual on the other, but is dependent on a pure, right, and open state of the heart, both for its truth and for its intensity, insomuch that even the right after-action of the Intellect upon facts of beauty so apprehended, is dependent on the acuteness of the heart-feeling about them. And thus the Apostolic words come true, in this minor respect as in all others, that men ETHICAL. 287 are alienated from tlie life of God through the ignorance that is in them, having the Understanding darkened because of the hardness of their hearts, and so, being past feeling, give themselves up to lasciviousness. For we do indeed see con- stantly that men having naturally acute perceptions of the beautiful, yet not receiving it with a pure heart, nor into their hearts at all, never comprehend it, nor receive good from it, but make it a mere minister to their desires, and accom- paniment and seasoning of lower sensual pleasures, until all their emotions take the same earthly stamp, and the sense of beauty sinks into the servant of lust. Nor is what the world commonly understands by the culti- vation of taste, anything more or better than this ; at least in times of corrupt and over-pampered civilization, when men build palaces and plant groves and gather luxuries, that they and their devices may hang in the corners of the world like fine-spun cobwebs, with greedy, puffed-up, spider-like lusts in the middle. And this, which in Christian times is the abuse and corruption of the sense of beauty, was in that Pagan life of which St. Paul speaks, little less than the essence of it, and the best they had. I do not know that of the expressions of affection towards external nature to be found among Heathen writers, there are any of which the leading thought leans not towards the sensual parts of her. Her beneficence they sought, and her power they shunned ; her teaching through both they understood never. The pleasant influences of soft winds, and ringing streamlets, and shady coverts, of the violet couch and plane-tree shade, they received, perhaps, in a more noble way than we ; but they found not anything, except fear, upon the bare mountain, or in the ghostly glen. The Hybla heather they loved more for its sweet hives than its purple hues. But the Christian Theoria seeks not, though it accepts and touches with its own purity, what the Epicurean sought ; but finds its food and the objects of its love everywhere, in what is harsh and fearful as well as in what is kind : nay, even in all that seems coarse and commonplace, seizing that which is good ; and sometimes delighting more at finding its table spread in strange places, and in the presence of its enemies, and its honey 288 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. coming out of the rock, than if all were harmonized into a less wondrous pleasure ; hating only what is self-sighted and inso- lent of men’s work, despising all that is not of God, unless reminding it of God, yet able to find evidence of him still where all seems forgetful of him, and to turn that into a wit- ness of his working which was meant to obscure it ; and so with clear and unoffended sight beholding him for ever, accord- ing to the written promise, “ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” — M. P. II. Pt. iii. ch. ii. § 8, 9, 10. True and False Life of Man. — When we begin to be concerned with the energies of man, we find ourselves in- stantly dealing with a double creature. Most part of his being seems to have a fictitious counterpart, which it is at his peril if he do not cast off and deny. Thus he has a true and false (otherwise called a living and dead, or a feigned or unfeigned) faith. He has a true and a false hope, a true and a false charity, and, finally, a true and a false life. His true life is like that of lower organic beings, the independent force by which he moulds and governs external things ; it is a force of assimilation which converts everything around him into food, or into instruments ; and which, however humbly or obediently it may listen to or follow the guidance of supe- rior intelligence, never forfeits its own authority as a judging principle, as a will capable either of obeying or rebelling. His false life is, indeed, but one of the conditions of death or stupor, but it acts, even when it cannot be said to animate, and is not always easily known from the true. It is that life of custom and accident in which many of us pass much of our time in the world; that life in which we do what we have not purposed, and speak what we do not mean, and assent to what we do not understand ; that life which is over- laid by the weight of things external to it, and is moulded by them, instead of assimilating them; that, which instead of growing and blossoming under any wholesome dew, is crys- tallised over with it, as with hoar-frost, and becomes to the true life what an arborescence is* to a tree, a candied agglo- meration of thoughts and habits foreign to it, brittle, obstinate, ETHICAL. 289 and icy, which can neither bend nor grow, but must be crushed and broken to bits, if it stand in our way. All men are liable to be in some degree frost-bitten in this sort ; all are partly encumbered and crusted over with idle matter; only, if they have real life in them, they are always breaking this bark away in noble rents, until it becomes, like the black strips upon the birch tree, only a witness of their own inward strength. But, with all the efforts that the best men make, much of their being passes in a kind of dream, in which they indeed move, and play their parts sufficiently, to the eyes of their fellow dreamers, but have no clear consciousness of what is around them, or within them; blind to the one, insensible to the other, vojQpoi. I would not press the defini- tion into its darker application to the dull heart and heavy ear ; I have to do with it only as it refers to the too frequent condition of natural existence, whether of nations or indi- viduals, settling commonly upon them in proportion to their age. The life of a nation is usually, like the flow of a lava stream, first bright and fierce, then languid and covered, at last advancing only by the tumbling over and over of its frozen blocks. And that last condition is a sad one to look upon. All the steps are marked most clearly in the arts, and in Architecture more than in any other ; for it, being espe- cially dependent, as we have just said, on the warmth of the true life, is also peculiarly sensible of the hemlock cold of the false : and I do not know anything more oppressive, when the mind is once awakened to its characteristics, than the aspect of a dead architecture. The feebleness of childhood is full of promise and of interest, — the struggle of imperfect knowledge full of energy and continuity, — but to see impo- tence and rigidity settling upon the form of the developed man ; to see the types which once had the die of thought struck fresh upon them, worn flat by over use ; to see the shell of the living creature in its adult form, when its colours are faded, and its inhabitant perished, — this is a sight more humiliating, more melancholy, than the vanishing of all knowledge, and the return to confessed and helpless infancy. 19 290 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Nay, it is to be wished that such return were always pos- sible. There would be hope if we could change palsy into puerility; but I know not how far we can become children again, and renew our lost life. — S. L. A. ch. v. § 3. Love of Change. — It will be found that they are the weakest -minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love variety and change : for the weakest-minded are those who both wonder most at things new, and digest worst things old ; in so far that everything they have lies rusty, and loses lustre for want of use, neither do they make any stir among their possessions, nor look over them to see what may be made of them, nor keep any great store, nor are householders with storehouses of things new and old; but they catch at the new-fashioned garments, and let the moth and thief look after the rest: and the hardest-hearted men are those that least feel the endearing and binding power of custom, and hold on by no cords of affection to any shore, but drive with the waves that cast up mire and dirt. And certainly it is not to be held that the perception of beauty, and desire of it, are greatest in the hardest heart and weakest brain ; but the love of variety is so, and therefore variety can be no cause of the beautiful, except, as I have said, when it is necessary for the perception of unity. Neither is there any better test of beauty than its surviving or annihilating the love of change ; a test which the best judges of art have need frequently to use ; for there is much that surprises by its brilliancy, or attracts by its singularity, that can hardly but by course of time, though assuredly it will by course of time, be winnowed away from the right and real beauty whose retentive power is for ever on the increase, a bread of the soul for which the hunger is continual. — M. P. II. Pt. iii. ch. vi. § 7. Eight Development of Man’s Faculties. — The modern English mind has this much in common with that of the Greek, that it intensely desires, in all things, the utmost completion or perfection compatible with their nature. This is a noble character in the abstract, but becomes ignoble ETHICAL. 291 when it causes us to forget the relative dignities of that nature itself, and to prefer the perfectness of the lower nature to the imperfection of the higher; not considering that as, judged by such a rule, all the brute animals would be pre- ferable to man, because more perfect in their functions and kind, and yet are always held inferior to him, so also in the works of man, those which are more perfect in their kind are always inferior to those which are, in their nature, liable to more faults and shortcomings. For the finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness of it ; and it is a law of this universe, that the best things shall be seldomest seen in their best form. The wild grass grows well and strongly, one year with another ; but the wheat is, according to the greater nobleness of its nature, liable to the bitterer blight. And, therefore, while in all things that we see, or do, we are to desire perfection, and strive for it, we are nevertheless not to set the meaner thing, in its narrow accomplishment, above the nobler thing, in its mighty pro- gress ; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered majesty; not to prefer mean victory to honourable defeat; not to lower the level of our aim, that we may the more surely enjoy the complacency of success. But, above all, in our dealings with the souls of other men, we are to take care how we check, by severe requirement or narrow caution, efforts which might otherwise lead to a noble issue ; and, still more, how we withhold our admiration from great excellencies, because they are mingled with rough faults. Now, in the make and nature of every man, however rude or simple, whom we employ in manual labour, there are some powers for better things : some tardy imagination, torpid capacity of emotion, tottering steps of thought, there are, even at the worst ; and in most cases it is all our own fault that they are tardy or torpid. But they cannot be strength- ened, unless we are content to take them in their feebleness, and unless we prize and honour them in their imperfection above the best and most perfect manual skill. And this is what we have to do with all our labourers ; to look for the thoughtful part of them, and get that out of them, whatever 19—2 292 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. we lose for it, whatever faults and 'errors we are obliged to take with it. For the best that is in them cannot manifest itself, but in company with much error. Understand this clearly : You can teach a man to draw a straight line, and to cut one ; to strike a curved line, and to carve it ; and to copy and carve any number of given lines or forms, with admi- rable speed and perfect precision; and you find his work perfect of its kind : but if you ask him to think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find any better in his own head, he stops ; his execution becomes hesitating ; he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong ; ten to one he makes a mistake in the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being. But you have made a man of him for all that. He was only a machine before, an animated tool. And observe, you are put to stern choice in this matter. You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like cog-wheels, and heir arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize hem. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make cogs and compasses of themselves. All their attention and strength must go to the accomplishment of the mean act. The eye of the soul must be bent upon the finger-point, and the soul’s force must fill all the invisible nerves that guide it, ten hours a day, that it may not err from its steely precision, and so soul and sight be worn away, and the whole human being be lost at last — a heap of sawdust, so far as its intel- lectual work in this world is concerned ; saved only by its Heart, which cannot go into the form of cogs and compasses, but expands, after the ten hours are over, into fireside humanity. On the other hand, if you will make a man of the working creature, you cannot make a tool. Let him but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing ; and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness, all his dulness, all his incapability ; shame upon shame, failure upon failure, pause after pause: but ETHICAL. 293 out comes the whole majesty of him also ; and we know the height of it only, when we see the clouds settling upon him. And, whether the clouds be bright or dark, there will be transfiguration behind and within them. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 11, 12. Mental Slavery of Modern Workmen. — Eeader, look round this English room of yours, about which you have been proud so often, because the work of it was so good and strong, and the ornaments of it so finished. Examine again all those accurate mouldings, and perfect polishings, and unerring adjustments of the seasoned wood and tempered steel. Many a time you have exulted over them, and thought how great England was, because her slightest work was done so thoroughly. Alas ! if read rightly, these per- fectnesses are signs of a slavery in our England a thousand times more bitter and more degrading than that of the scourged African, or helot Greek. Men may be beaten, chained, tormented, yoked like cattle, slaughtered like sum- mer flies, and yet remain in one sense, and the best sense, free. But to smother their souls within them, to blight and hew into rotting pollards the suckling branches of their human intelligence, to make the flesh and skin which, after the worm’s work on it, is to see God, into leathern thongs to yoke machinery with, — this it is to be slave-masters indeed ; and there might be more freedom in England, though her feudal lords’ lightest words were worth men’s lives, and though the blood of the vexed husbandman dropped in the furrows of her fields, than there is while the animation of her multitudes is sent like fuel to feed the factory smoke, and the strength of them is given daily to be wasted into the fineness of a web, or racked into the exactness of a line. And, on the other hand, go forth again to gaze upon the old cathedral front, where you have smiled so often at the fantastic ignorance of the old sculptors : examine once more those ugly goblins, and formless monsters, and stern statues, anatomiless and rigid ; but do not mock at 294 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. them, for they are signs of the life and liberty of every workman who struck the stone ; a freedom of thought and rank in scale of being, such as no laws, no charters, no charities can secure ; but which it must be the first aim of all Europe at this day to regain for her children. Let me not be thought to speak wildly or extravagantly. It is verily this degradation of the operative into a machine, which, more than any other evil of the times, is leading the mass of the nations everywhere into vain, incoherent, destruc- tive struggling for a freedom of which they cannot explain the nature to themselves. Their universal outcry against wealth, and against nobility, is not forced from them either by the pressure of famine, or the sting of mortified pride. These do much, and have done much in all ages ; but the foundations of society were never yet shaken as they are at this day. It is not that men are ill fed, but that they have no pleasure in the work by which they make their bread, and therefore look to wealth as the only means of pleasure. It is not that men are pained by the scorn of the upper classes, but they cannot endure their own ; for they feel that the kind of labour to which they are condemned is verily a degrading one, and makes them less than men. Never had the upper classes so much sympathy with the lower, or charity for them, as they have at this day, and yet never were they so much hated by them : for, of old, the separation between the noble and the poor was merely a wall built by law ; now it is a veritable difference in level of standing, a precipice between upper and lower grounds in the field of humanity, and there is pestilential air at the bottom it. I know not if a day is ever to come when the nature of right freedom will be understood, and when men will see that to obey another man, to labour for him, yield reverence to him or to his place, is not slavery. It is often the best kind of liberty, — liberty from care. The man who says to one, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh, has, in most cases, more sense of restraint and difficulty than the man who obeys him. The movements of the one are hindered by the burden on his shoulder ; of the other, by the bridle on his lips : there ETHICAL. 295 is no way by which the burden may be lightened ; but we need not suffer from the bridle if we do not champ at it. To yield reverence to another, to hold ourselves and our lives at his disposal, is not slavery ; often, it is the noblest state in which a man can live in this world. There is, indeed, a reverence which is servile, that is to say irrational or selfish : but there is also noble reverence, that is to say, reasonable and loving; and a man is never so noble as when he is reverent in this kind; nay, even if the feeling pass the bounds of mere reason, so that it be loving, a man is raised by it. Which had, in reality, most of the serf nature in him, — the Irish peasant who was lying in wait yesterday for his land- lord, with his musket muzzle thrust through the ragged hedge; or that old mountain servant, who, 200 years ago, at Inver- keithing, gave up his own life and the lives of his seven sons for his chief? — as each fell, calling forth his brother to the death, u Another for Hector ! ” And therefore, in all ages and all countries, reverence has been paid and sacrifice made by men to each other, not only without complaint, but rejoic- ingly ; and famine, and peril, and sword, and all evil, and all shame, have been borne willingly in the causes of masters and kings ; for all these gifts of the heart ennobled the men who gave, not less than the men who received them, and nature prompted, and God rewarded the sacrifice. But to feel their souls withering within them, unthanked ; to find their whole being sunk into an unrecognized abyss; to be counted off into a heap of mechanism, numbered with its wheels, and weighed with its hammer strokes ; — this nature bade not, — this God blesses not, — this humanity for no long time is able to endure. We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized invention of the division of labour ; only we give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided ; but the men : — Divided into mere segments of men — broken into small fragments and crumbs of life ; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin, or the head of a nail. Now it 296 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. is a good and desirable thing, truly, “to make many pins in a day ; but if we could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished, — sand of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what it is, — we should think there might be some loss in it also. And the great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this, — that we manufacture everything there except men ; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten,, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our myriads can be met only in one way : not by teaching nor preaching, for to teach them is but to show them their misery, and to preach to them, if we do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. It can be met only by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, and making them happy ; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience, or beauty, or cheapness as is to be got only by the degradation of the workman ; and by equally deter- mined demand for the products and results of healthy and ennobling labour. And how, it will be asked, are these products to be recog- nized, and this demand to be regulated ? Easily : by the observance of three broad and simple rules : 1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not absolutely necessary, in the production of which Invention has no share. 2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only for some practical or noble end. 3. Never encourage imitation or copying of any kind, except for the sake of preserving record of great works. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Right and Wrong Use of Labour. — If you are a young lady, and employ a certain number of sempstresses for a given time, in making a given number of simple and serviceable dresses, suppose seven ; of which you can wear one yourself ETHICAL. 297 for half the winter, and give six away to poor girls who have none, you are spending your money unselfishly. But if you employ the same number of sempstresses for the same number of days, in making four, or five, or six beautiful flounces for your own ball-dress — flounces which will clothe no one but yourself, and which you will yourself be unable to wear at more than one ball — you are employing your money selfishly. You have maintained, indeed, in each case, the same number of people ; but in the one case you have directed their labour to the service of the community ; in the other case you have consumed it wholly upon yourself. I don’t say you are never to do so ; I don’t say you ought not sometimes to think of yourselves only, and to make yourselves as pretty as you can ; only do not confuse coquettishness with benevolence, nor cheat yourselves into thinking that all the finery you can wear is so much put into the hungry mouths of those beneath you : it is not so 5 it is what you yourselves, whether you will or no, must sometimes instinctively feel it to be — it is what those who stand shivering in the streets, forming a line to watch you as you step out of your carriages, know it to be ; those fine dresses do not mean that so much has been put into their mouths, but that so much has been taken out of their mouths. The real politico-economical signification of every one of those beautiful toilettes, is just this ; that you have had a certain number of people put for a certain number of days wholly under your authority, by the sternest of slave- masters, — hunger and cold; and you have said to them, “I will feed you, indeed, and clothe you, and give you fuel for so many days ; but during those days you shall work for me only : your little brothers need clothes, but you shall make none for them : your sick friend needs clothes, but you shall make none for her : you yourself will soon need another, and a warmer dress ; but you shall make none for yourself. You shall make nothing but lace and roses for me ; for this fort- night to come, you shall work at the patterns and petals, and then I will crush and consume them away in an hour.” You will perhaps answer, — “ It may not be particularly benevolent to do this, and we won’t call it so ; but at any rate we do no 298 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. wrong in taking their labour when we pay them their wages : if we pay for their work we have a right to it.” No ; — a thousand times no. The labour which you have paid for, does indeed become, by the act of purchase, your own labour : you have bought the hands and the time of those workers ; they are, by right and justice, your own hands, your own time. But have you a right to spend your own time, to work with your own hands, only for your own advantage ? — much more, when, by purchase, you have invested your own person with the strength of others ; and added to your own life, a part of the life of others? You may, indeed, to a certain extent, use their labour for your delight : remember, I am making no general assertions against splendour of dress, or pomp of accessories of life ; on the contrary, there are many reasons for thinking that we do not at present attach enough importance to beautiful dress, as one of the means of influencing general taste and character. But I do say, that you must weigh the value of what you ask these workers to produce for you in its own distinct balance ; that on its own worthiness or desirableness rests the question of your kindness, and not merely on the fact of your having employed people in producing it : and I say farther, that as long as there are cold and nakedness in the land around you, so long there can be no question at all but that splendour of dress is a crime. In due time, when we have nothing better to set people to work at, it may be right to let them make lace and cut jewels; but, as long as there are any who have no blankets for their beds, and no rags for their bodies, so long it is blanket-making and tailoring we must set people to work at — • not lace. And it would be strange, if at any great assembly which, while it dazzled the young and the thoughtless, beguiled the gentler hearts that beat beneath the embroidery, with a placid sensation of luxurious benevolence — as if by all that they wore in waywardness of beauty, comfort had been first given to the distressed, and aid to the indigent ; it would be strange, I say, if, for a moment, the spirits of Truth and of Terror, which walk invisibly among the masques of the earth, would ETHICAL. 299 lift the dimness from our erring thoughts, and show us how — inasmuch as the sums exhausted for that magnificence would have given back the failing breath to many an unsheltered outcast on moor and street — they who wear it have literally entered into partnership with Death ; and dressed themselves in his spoils. Yes, if the veil could be lifted not only from your thoughts, but from your human sight, you would see — the angels do see — on those gay white dresses of yours, strange dark spots, and crimson patterns that you knew not of — spots of the inextinguishable red that all the seas cannot wash away ; yes, and among the pleasant flowers that crown your fair heads, and glow on your wreathed hair, you would see that one weed was always twisted which no one thought of — the grass that grows on graves. — Political Economy of Art , Lect. 1, § 2. Truth. — There is a marked likeness between the virtue of man and the enlightenment of the globe he inhabits — the same diminishing gradation in vigour up to the limits of their domains, the same essential separation from their con- traries — the same twilight at the meeting of the two : a something wider belt than the line where the world rolls into night, that strange twilight of the virtues ; that dusky debateable land, wherein zeal becomes impatience, and tem- perance becomes severity, and justice becomes cruelty, and faith superstition, and each and all vanish into gloom. Nevertheless, with the greater number of them, though their dimness increases gradually, we may mark the moment of their sunset ; and, happily, may turn the shadow back by the way by which it had gone down : but for one, the line of the horizon is irregular and undefined ; and this, too, the very equator and girdle of them all — Truth ; that only one of which there are no degrees, but breaks and rents con- tinually ; that pillar of the earth, yet a cloudy pillar ; that golden and narrow line, which the very powers and virtues that lean upon it bend, which policy and prudence conceal, which kindness and courtesy modify, which courage over- shadows with his shield, imagination covers with her wings, 300 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. and charity dims with her tears. How difficult must the maintenance of that authority be, which, while it has to restrain the hostility of all the worst principles of man, has also to restrain the disorders of his best — which is con- tinually assaulted by the one and betrayed by the other, and which regards with the same severity the lightest and the boldest violations of its law ! There are some faults slight in the sight of love, some errors slight in the estimate of wisdom ; but truth forgives no insult, and endures no stain. We do not enough consider this ; nor enough dread the slight and continual occasions of offence against her. We are too much in the habit of looking at falsehood in its darkest associations, and through the colour of its worst purposes. That indignation which we profess to feel at deceit absolute, is indeed only at deceit malicious. We resent calumny, hypocrisy, and treachery, because they harm us, not because they are untre. Take the detraction and the mischief from the untruth, and we are little offended by it ; turn it into praise, and we may be pleased with it. And yet it is not calumny nor treachery that does the largest sum of mischief in the world ; they are continually crushed, and are felt only in being conquered. But it is the glistening and softly spoken lie ; the amiable fallacy ; the patriotic lie of the historian, the provident lie of the politician, the zealous lie of the partizan, the merciful lie of the friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself, that cast that black mystery over humanity, through which we thank any man who pierces, as we would thank one who dug a well in a desert ; happy, that the thirst for truth still remains with us, even when we have wilfully left the fountains of it. It would be well if moralists less frequently confused the greatness of a sin with its unpardonableness. The two characters are altogether distinct. The greatness of a fault depends partly on the nature of the person against whom it is committed, partly upon the extent of its consequences. Its pardonableness depends, humanly speaking, on the degree of ETHICAL. 301 temptation to it. One class of circumstances determines the weight of the attaching punishment ; the other, the claim to remission of punishment : and since it is not always easy for men to estimate the relative weight, nor always possible for them to know the relative consequences, of crime, it is usually wise in them to quit the care of such nice measurements, and to look to the other and clearer condition of culpability, esteeming those faults worst which are committed under least temptation. I do not mean to diminish the blame of the injurious and malicious sin, of the selfish and deliberate falsity ; yet it seems to me, that the shortest way to check the darker forms of deceit is to set watch more scrupulous against those which have mingled, unregarded and unchastised, with the current of our life. Do not let us lie at all. Do not think of one falsity as harmless, and another as slight, and another as unintended. Cast them all aside : they may be light and accidental ; but they are an ugly soot from the smoke of the pit, for all that ; and it is better that our hearts should be swept clean of them, without over care as to which is largest or blackest. Speaking truth is like writing fair, and comes only by practice ; it is less a matter of will than of habit, and I doubt if any occasion can be trivial which permits the practice and formation of such a habit. To speak and act truth with constancy and precision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps as meritorious, as to speak it under intimidation or penalty ; and it is a strange thought how many men there are, as I trust, who would hold to it at the cost of fortune or life, for one who would hold to it at the cost of a little daily trouble. And seeing that of all sin there is, perhaps, no one more flatly opposite to the Almighty, no one more “ wanting the good of virtue and of being,” than this of lying, it is surely a strange insolence to fall into the foulness of it on light or on no temptation, and surely becoming an honourable man to resolve, that, whatever semblances or fallacies the necessary course of his life may compel him to bear or to believe, none shall disturb the serenity of his voluntary actions, nor diminish the reality" of his chosen delights. — S. L. A. ch. ii. § 1. 302 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Truth sometimes Spoken by Bad Men. — It is neither by us ascertainable what moments of pure feeling or aspiration may occur to men of minds apparently cold and lost, nor by us to be pronounced through what instruments, and in what strangely occurrent voices, God may choose to communicate good to men. It seems to me that much of what is great, and to all men beneficial, has been wrought by those who neither intended nor knew the good they did ; and that many mighty harmonies have been discoursed by instruments that had been dumb or discordant, but that God knew their stops. The Spirit of Prophecy consisted with the avarice of Balaam, and the disobedience of Saul. Could we spare from its page that parable, which he said, who saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open ; though we know that the sword of his punishment was then sharp in its sheath beneath him in the plains of Moab ? or shall we not lament with David over the shield, cast away on the Gilboa mountains, of him to whom God gave another heart that day, when he turned his back to go from Samuel ? It is not our part to look hardly, nor to look always, to the character or the deeds of men, but to accept from all of them, and to hold fast, that which we can prove good, and feel to be ordained for us. We know that whatever good there is in them is itself divine ; and wherever we see the virtue of ardent labour and self-surrendering to a single purpose, wherever we find constant reference made to the written scripture of natural beauty, this at least we know is great and good; this we know is not granted by the counsel of God without purpose, nor maintained without result: their interpretation we may accept, into their labour we may enter, but they themselves must look to it, if what they do has no intent of good, nor any reference to the Giver of all gifts. Selfish in their industry, unchastened in their wills, ungrateful for the Spirit that is upon them, they may yet be helmed by that Spirit whithersoever the Governor listeth ; involuntary instruments they may become of others’ good ; unwillingly they may bless Israel, doubtingly dis- comfort Amalek ; but short coming there will be of their glory, and sure, of their punishment. — M. P. n. Pt. iii. ch. xv. § 8. ETHICAL. 303 Limbs of the Mind. — As our bodies, to be in health, must be generally exercised, so our minds, to be in health, must be generally cultivated. You would not call a man healthy who had strong arms, but was paralytic in his feet ; nor one who could walk well, but had no use of his hands; nor one who could see well, if he could not *hear. You would not voluntarily reduce your bodies to any such partially developed state. Much more, then, you would not, if you could help it, reduce your minds to it. Now, your minds are endowed with a vast number of gifts of totally different uses — limbs of mind as it were, which, if you don’t exercise, you cripple. One is curiosity; that is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing; Avhich if you destroy, you make yourselves cold* and dull. Another is sympathy; the power of sharing in the feelings of living creatures, which if you destroy, you make yourselves hard and cruel. Another of your limbs of mind is admiration; the power of enjoying beauty or ingenuity, which if you destroy, you make yourselves base and irreverent. Another is wit; or the power of playing with the lights on the many sides of truth ; which if you destroy, you make yourselves gloomy, and less useful and cheering to others than you might be. So that in choosing your way of work it should be your aim, as far as possible, to bring out all these faculties, as far as they exist in you ; not one merely, nor another, but all of them. And the way to bring them out, is simply to concern yourselves attentively with the subjects of each faculty. To cultivate sympathy you must be among living creatures, and thinking about them ; and to cultivate admiration, you must be among beautiful things and looking at them . — The Tivo Paths, Lect. 4. Influence of Novelty. — The enormous influence of novelty — the way in which it quickens observation, sharpens sensa- tion, and exalts sentiment — is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. I think that what Wordsworth speaks of as d glory in the child, because it has come fresh from God’s hands, is in reality nothing more than the freshness of all things to its newly opened sight. I WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. 604 find that by keeping long away from hills, I can in great part still restore the old childish feeling about them ; and the more I live and work among them, the more it vanishes. This evil is evidently common to all minds; Wordsworth himself mourning over it in the same poem : “ Custom hangs upon us, with a weight Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.” And if we grow impatient under it, and seek to recover the mental energy by more quickly repeated and brighter novelty, it is all over with our enjoyment. There is no cure for this evil, any more than for the weariness of the imagination %lready described, but in patience and rest: if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous ; and then w r e are reduced to that old despair, “ If water chokes, what will you drink after it?” And the two points of prac- tical wisdom in this matter are, first, to be content with as little novelty as possible at a time ; and, secondly, to pre- serve, as much as possible in the world, the sources of novelty. I say, first, to be content with as little change as possible. If the attention is awake, and the feelings in proper train, a turn of a country road, with a cottage beside it, which we have not seen before, is as much as we need for refreshment ; if we hurry past it, and take two cottages at a time, it is already too much : hence, to any person who has all his senses about him, a quiet walk along not more than ten or twelve miles of road a day, is the most amusing of all travelling; and all travelling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity. Going by railroad I do not consider as travelling at all ; it is merely “ being sent” to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel ; the next step to it would of course be telegraphic transport, of which, however, I suppose it has been truly said by Octave Feuillet, “ II y aurait des gens assez betes pour trouver 5a amusant.” If we walk more than ten or twelve miles, it breaks up the day too much ; leaving no time for stopping at the stream ETHICAL. 305 sides or shady banks, or for any work at the end of the day ; besides that the last few miles are apt to be done in a hurry, and may then be considered as lost ground. But if, advancing thus slowly, after some days we approach any more interest- ing scenery, every yard of the changeful ground becomes precious and piquant ; and the continual increase of hope, and of surrounding beauty, affords one of the most exquisite enjoyments possible to the healthy mind; besides that real knowledge is acquired of whatever it is the object of travel- ling to learn, and a certain sublimity given to all places, so attained, by the true sense of the spaces of earth that separate them. A man who really loves travelling would as soon consent to pack a day of such happiness into an hour of rail- road, as one who loved eating would agree, if it were possible, to concentrate his dinner into a pill. And, secondly, I say that it is wisdom to preserve as much as possible the innocent sources of novelty; — not definite inferiorities of one place to another, if such can be done away ; but differences of manners and customs; of language and architecture. The greatest effort ought especially to be made by all wise and far-sighted persons, in the present crisis of civilization, to enforce the distinction between wholesome reform, and heartless abandonment of ancestral custom; between kindly fellowship of nation with nation, and ape- like adoption, by one, of the habits of another. — M. P . III. Pt. iv. ch. xvii. § 22, 23, 24, 25. Beneficent Influences of Nature. — It has been said by Schiller, in his letters on aesthetic culture, that the sense of beauty never farthered the performance of a single duty. Although this gross and inconceivable falsity will hardly be accepted by any one in so many words, seeing that there are few who do not receive, and know that they receive, at certain moments, strength of some kind, or rebuke, from the appealings of outward things ; and that it is not possible for a Christian man to walk across so much as a rood of the natural earth, with mind unagitated and rightly poised, with- out receiving strength and hope from some stone, flower, leaf, 20 30G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. or sound, nor without a sense of a' dew falling upon him out of the sky ; though, I say, this falsity is not wholly and in terms admitted, yet it seems to be partly and practically so in much of the doing and teaching even of holy men, who in the recommending of the love of God to us, refer but seldom to those things in which it is most abundantly and immediately shown: though they insist much on his giving of bread, and raiment, and health (which he gives to all inferior creatures), they require us not to thank him for that glory of his works which he has permitted us alone to per- ceive: they tell us often to meditate in the closet, but they send us not, like Isaac, into the fields at even; they dwell on the duty of self-denial, but they exhibit not the duty of delight. Now there are reasons for this, manifold, in the toil and warfare of an earnest mind, which, in its efforts at the raising of men from utter loss and misery, has often but little time or disposition to take heed of anything more than the mere life, and of those so occupied it is not for us to judge ; but I think, that of the weaknesses, distresses, vanities, schisms, and sins, which often even in the holiest men diminish their usefulness, and mar their happiness, there would be fewer if, in their struggle with nature fallen, they sought for more aid from nature undestroyed. It seems to me that the real sources of bluntness in the feelings towards the splendour of the grass and glory of the flower, are less to be found in ardour of occupation, in seriousness of com- passion, or heavenliness of desire, than in the turning of the eye at intervals of rest too selfishly within ; the want of power to shake off the anxieties of actual and near interest, and to leave results in God’s hands; the scorn of all that does not seem immediately apt for our purposes, or open to our understanding, and perhaps something of pride, which desires rather to investigate than to feel. I believe that the root of almost every schism and heresy from which the Christian church has ever suffered, has been the effort of men to earn, rather than to receive, their salvation ; and that the reason that preaching is so commonly ineffectual is, that it calls on men oftener to work for God, than to behold God ETHICAL. 307 working for them. If, for every rebuke that we utter of men’s vices, we put forth a claim upon their hearts ; if, for every assertion of God’s demands from them, we could sub- stitute a display of his kindness to them; if, side by side, with every warning of death, we could exhibit proofs and promises of immortality; if, in fine, instead of assuming the being of an awful Deity, which men, though they cannot and dare not deny, are always unwilling, sometimes unable, to conceive, we were to show them a near, visible, inevitable, but all-beneficent Deity, whose presence makes the earth itself a heaven, I think there would be fewer deaf children sitting in the market-place. At all events, whatever may be the inability, in this present life, to mingle the full enjoyment of the Divine works with the full discharge of every practical duty, and confessedly in many cases this must be, let us not attribute the inconsistency to any indignity of the faculty of con- templation, but to the sin and suffering of the fallen state, and the change of order from the keeping of the garden to the tilling of the ground. We cannot say how far it is right or agreeable with God’s will, while men are perishing round about us ; while grief, and pain, and wrath, and impiety, and death, and all the powers of the air, are working wildly and evermore, and the cry of blood going up to heaven, that any of us should take hand from the plough ; but this we know, that there will come a time when the service of God shall be the beholding of him; and though in these stormy seas, where we are now driven up and down, his Spirit is dimly seen on the face of the waters, and we are left to cast anchors out of the stern, and wish for the day, that day will come, when, with the evangelists on the crystal and stable sea, all the creatures of God shall be full of eyes within, and there shall be “no more curse, but his servants shall serve him, him, and shall see his face.” — M.P. II. Pt. iii. sec. 1, ch. xv. § 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 . Secret of true Happiness. — Gradually, thinking on from point to point, we shall come to perceive that all true happi- ness and nobleness are near us, and yet neglected by us ; and 20—2 308 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. that till we have learned how to be happy and noble we have not much to tell, even to Red Indians. The delights of horse- racing and hunting, of assemblies in the night instead of the day, of costly and wearisome music, of costly and burdensome dress, of chagrined contention for place or power, or wealth, or the eyes of the multitude ; and all the endless occupation without purpose, and idleness without rest, of our vulgar world, are not, it seems to me, enjoyments we need be ambitious to communicate. And all real and wholesome enjoyments possible to man have been just as possible to him, since first he was made of the earth, as they are now ; and they are possible to him chiefly in peace. To watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set ; to draw hard breath over plough- share or spade ; to read, to think, to love, to hope, tb pray, — these are the things that make men happy ; they have always had the power of doing these, they never will have power to do more. The world’s prosperity or adversity depends upon our knowing and teaching these few things : but upon iron, or glass, or electricity, or steam, in no wise. And I am Utopian and enthusiastic enough to believe that the time will come when the world will discover this. It has now made its experiments in every possible direction but the right one ; and it seems that it must, at last, try the right one, in a mathematical necessity. — M.P. III. Pt. iv. ch. xvii. § 36, 37. Influence of Hills on Religion. — Muck of the apparently harmful influences of hills on the religion of the world is nothing else than their general gift of exciting the poetical and inventive faculties, in peculiarly solemn tones of mind. Their terror leads into devotional casts of thought ; their beauty and wildness prompt the invention at the same time ; and where the mind is not gifted with stern reasoning powers, or protected by purity of teaching, it is sure to mingle the invention with its creed, and the vision with its prayer. Strictly speaking, we ought to consider the superstitions of the hills, universally, as a form of poetry ; regretting only that men have not yet learned how to distinguish poetry from well-founded faith. And if we do this, and enable ourselves ETHICAL. 309 thus to review, without carping or sneering, the shapes of solemn imagination which have arisen among the inhabitants of Europe, we shall find, on the one hand, the mountains of Greece and Italy forming all the loveliest dreams, first of the Pagan, then of the Christian mythology ; on the other, those of Scandinavia to be the first sources of whatever mental (as well as military) power was brought by the Normans into Southern Europe. Normandy itself is to all intents and purposes a hill country; composed, over large extents, of granite and basalt, often rugged and covered with heather on the summits, and traversed by beautiful and singular dells, at once soft and secluded, fruitful and wild. We have thus one branch of the Northern religious imagination rising among the Scandinavian fiords, tempered in France by various encounters with elements of Arabian, Italian, Proven£al, or other southern poetry, and then reacting upon southern England ; while other forms of the same rude religious imagination, resting like clouds upon the mountains of Scot- land and Wales, met and mingled with the Norman Christi- anity, retaining even to the latest times some dark colour of superstition, but giving all its poetical and military pathos to Scottish poetry, and a peculiar sternness and wildness of tone to the Reformed faith, in its manifestations among the Scottish hills. It is on less disputable ground that I may claim the reader’s gratitude to the mountains, as having been the centres not only of imaginative energy, but of purity both in doctrine and practice. The enthusiasm of the persecuted Covenanter, and his various modified claims to miraculous protection or pro- phetic inspiration, hold exactly the same relation to the smooth proprieties of lowland Protestantism, that the demon-combats, fastings, visions, and miracles of the mountain monk or anchorite hold to the wealth and worldliness of the Vatican. — M.P. IY. Pt. v. ch. xx. §13,14. Influence of Mountain Solitudes. — The idea of retire- ment from the world for the sake of self-mortification, of combat with demons, or communion with angels, and with 310 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. their King, — authoritatively commended as it was to all men by the continual practice of Christ Himself, — gave to all mountain solitude at once a sanctity and a terror, in the mediseval mind, which were altogether different from anything that it had possessed in the un-Christian periods. On the one side, there was an idea of sanctity attached to rocky wilder- ness, because it had always been among hills that the Deity had manifested Himself most intimately to men, and to the hills that His saints had nearly always retired for meditation, for especial communion with Him, and to prepare for death. Men acquainted with the history of Moses, alone at Horeb, or with Israel at Sinai, — of Elijah by the brook Cherith, and in the Horeb cave ; of the deaths of Moses and Aaron on Hor and Nebo ; of the preparation of Jephthah’s daughter for her death among the Judea mountains; of the continual retire- ment of Christ Himself to the mountains for prayer, His temptation in the desert of the Dead Sea, His sermon on the hills of Capernaum, His transfiguration on the crest of Tabor, and His evening and morning walks over Olivet for the four or five days preceding His crucifixion, — were not likely to look with irreverent or unloving eyes upon the blue hills that girded their golden horizon, or drew down upon them the mysterious clouds out of the height of the darker heaven. But with this impression of their greater sanctity was involved also that of a peculiar terror. In all this, — their haunting by the memories of prophets, the presences of angels, and the ever- lasting thoughts and words of the Redeemer, — the mountain ranges seemed separated from the active world, and only to be fitly approached by hearts which were condemnatory of it. J ust in so much as it appeared necessary for the noblest men to retire to the hill-recesses before their missions could be accomplished, or their spirits perfected, in so far did the daily world seem, by comparison, to be pronounced profane and dangerous; and to those who loved that world, and its work, the mountains were thus voiceful with perpetual rebuke, and necessarily contemplated with a kind of pain and fear, such as a man engrossed by vanity feels at being by some accident forced to hear a startling sermon, or to assist at a funeral ETHICAL. 311 service. Every association of this kind was deepened by the practice and the precept of the time ; and thousands of hearts, which might otherwise have felt that there was loveliness in the wild landscape, shrank from it in dread, because they knew that the monk retired to it for penance, and the hermit for contemplation. The horror which the Greek had felt for hills only when they were uninhabitable and barren, attached itself now to many of the sweetest spots of earth; the feeling was conquered by political interests, but never by admiration; military ambition seized the frontier rock, or maintained itself in the unassailable pass; but it was only for their punishment, or in their despair, that men con- sented to tread the crocussed slopes of the Chartreuse, or the soft glades and dewy pastures of Vallombrosa. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. xiv. § 10. Teachings of Mountains. — Finally, there are two lessons to be gathered from the opposite conditions of mountain decay, of perhaps a wider range of meaning than any which were suggested even by the states of mountain strength. In the first, we find the unyielding rock, undergoing no sudden danger, and capable of no total fall, yet, in its hardness of heart, worn away by perpetual trampling of torrent waves, and stress of wandering storm. Its fragments, fruitless and restless, are tossed into ever-changing heaps : no labour of man can subdue them to his service, nor can his utmost patience secure any dwelling-place among them. In this they are the type of all that humanity which, suffering under no sudden punishment or sorrow, remains “stony ground,” afflicted, indeed, continually by minor and vexing cares, but only broken by them into fruitless ruin of fatigued life. Of this ground not “ corn-giving,” — this “ rough valley, neither eared nor sown,” of the common world, it is said, to those who have set up their idols in the wreck of it — “ Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion. They, they are thy lot.” But, as we pass beneath the hills which have been shaken by earthquake and torn by convulsion, we find that periods 312 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. of perfect repose succeed those of destruction. The pools of calm water lie clear beneath their fallen rocks, the water- lilies gleam, and the reeds whisper among their shadows ; the village rises again over the forgotten graves, and its church- tower, white through the storm-twilight, proclaims a renewed appeal to His protection ifi whose hand “ are all the corners of the earth, and the strength of the hills is His also.” There is no loveliness of Alpine valley that does not teach the same lesson. It is just where “ the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place,” that, in process of years, the fairest meadows bloom between the frag- ments, the clearest rivulets murmur from their crevices among the flowers, and the clustered cottages, each sheltered beneath some strength of mossy stone, now to be removed no more, and with their pastured flocks around them, safe from the eagle’s stoop and the wolf’s ravin, have written upon their fronts, in simple words, the mountaineer’s faith in the ancient promise — “ Neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh ; “For thou shalt be in league with the Stones of the Field ; and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.”— M.P. IV. Pt. v. ch. xviii. §26. Love of Nature. — Though the absence of the love of nature is not an assured condemnation, its presence is an invariable sign of goodness of heart and justness of moral perception , though by no means of moral practice ; that in proportion to the degree in which it is felt, will probably be the degree in which all nobleness and beauty of character will also be felt ; that when it is originally absent from any mind, that mind is in many other respects hard, worldly, and degraded ; that where, having been originally present, it is repressed by art or education, that repression appears to have been detrimental to the person suffering it; and that wherever the feeling exists, it acts for good on the character to which it belongs, though, as it may often belong to characters weak in other respects, it may carelessly be mistaken for a source of evil in them. ETHICAL. 01 o olo And having arrived at this conclusion by a review of facts, which I hope it will be admitted, whether accurate or not, has at least been candid, these farther considerations may confirm our belief in its truth. Observe : the whole force of education, until very lately, has been directed in every possible way to the destruction of the love of nature. The only knowledge which has been considered essential among us is that of words, and, next after it, of the abstract sciences ; while every liking shown by children for simple natural his- tory has been either violently checked (if it took an incon- venient form for the housemaids), or else scrupulously limited to hours of play: so that it has really been impossible for any child earnestly to study the works of God but against its conscience; and the love of nature has become inherently the characteristic of truants and idlers. While also the art of drawing, which is of more real importance to the human race than that of writing (because people can hardly draw any- thing without being of some use both to themselves and others, and can hardly write anything without wasting their own time and that of others), — this art of drawing, I say, which on plain and stern system should be taught to every child, just as writing is, has been so neglected and abused, that there is not one man in a thousand, even of its professed teachers, who knows its first principles : and thus it needs much ill -fortune or obstinacy — much neglect on the part of his teachers, or rebellion on his own — before a boy can get leave to use his eyes or his fingers ; so that those who can use them are for the most part neglected or rebellious lads — runaways and bad scholars — passionate, erratic, self-willed, and restive against all forms of education ; while your well- behaved and amiable scholars are disciplined into blindness and palsy of half their faculties. Wherein there is at once a notable ground for what difference we have observed between the lovers of nature and its despisers ; between the somewhat immoral and unrespectable watchfulness of the one, and the moral and respectable blindness of the other. One more argument remains, and that, I believe, an un- answerable one. As, by the accident of education, the love 314 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. of nature has been, among us, associated with wilfulness , so, by the accident of time, it has been associated with faithless- ness. I traced, above, the peculiar mode in which this faithlessness was indicated; but I never intended to imply, therefore, that it was an invariable concomitant of the love. Because it happens that, by various concurrent operations of evil, we have been led, according to those words of the Greek poet already quoted, to “ dethrone the gods, and crown the whirlwind,” it is no reason that we should forget there was once a time when “ the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.” And if we now take final and full view of the matter, we shall find that the love of nature, wherever it has existed, has been a faithful and sacred element of human feeling; that is to say, supposing all circumstances otherwise the same with respect to two individuals, the one who loves nature most will be always found to have more faith in God than the other. It is in- tensely difficult, owing to the confusing and counter influences which always mingle in the data of the problem, to make this abstraction fairly ; but so far as we can do it — so far, I boldly assert, the result is constantly the same: the nature-worship will be found to bring with it such a sense of the presence and power of a Great Spirit as no mere reasoning can either induce or controvert. — M.P. III. Pt. iv. ch. xvii. § 30, 31, 32. Intense Love of Nature. — Intense love of nature is, in modern times, characteristic of persons not of the first order of intellect, but of brilliant imagination, quick sympathy, and undefined religious principle, suffering also usually under strong and ill-governed passions : while in the same individual it will be found to vary at different periods, being, for the most part, strongest in youth, and associated with force of emotion, and with indefinite and feeble powers of thought ; also, throughout life, perhaps developing itself most at times when the mind is slightly unhinged by love, grief, or some other of the passions. But, on the other hand, while these feelings of delight in natural objects cannot be construed into signs of the highest ETHICAL. 315 mental powers, or purest moral principles, we see that they are assuredly indicative of minds above the usual standard of power, and endowed with sensibilities of great preciousness to humanity ; so that those who find themselves entirely destitute of them, must make this want a subject of humiliation, not of pride. The apathy which cannot perceive beauty is very different from the stern energy which disdains it ; and the coldness of heart which receives no emotion from external nature, is not to be confounded with the wisdom of purpose which represses emotion in action. In the case of most men, it is neither acuteness of the reason, nor breadth of humanity, which shields them from the impressions of natural scenery, but rather low anxieties, vain discontents, and mean pleasures ; and for one who is blinded to the works of God by profound abstraction or lofty purpose, tens of thousands have their eyes sealed by vulgar selfishness, and their intelligence crushed by impious care. Observe, then : we have, among mankind in general, the three orders of being ; — the lowest, sordid and selfish, which neither sees nor feels ; the second, noble and sympathetic, but which sees and feels without concluding or acting ; the third and highest, which loses sight in resolution, and feeling in work. — M.P. ill. Pt. iv. ch. xvii. §8,9. Man’s Work in respect to the Universe. — This infinite universe is unfathomable, inconceivable, in its whole ; every human creature must slowly spell out, and long contemplate, such part of it as may be possible for him to reach ; then set forth what he has learned of it for those beneath him ; extri- cating it from infinity, as one gathers a violet out of grass ; one does not improve either violet or grass in gathering it, but one makes the flower visible ; and then the human being has to make its power upon his own heart visible also, and to give it the honour of the good thoughts it has raised up in him, and to write upon it the history of his own soul. And sometimes he may be able to do more than this, and to set it in strange lights, and display it in a thousand ways before unknown : ways specially directed to necessary and 310 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. noble purposes, for which he had to choose instruments out of the wide armoury of God. All this he may do : and in this he is only doing what every Christian has to do with the written, as well as the created word, “ rightly dividing the word of truth.” Out of the infinity of the written word, he has also to gather and set forth things new and old, to choose them for the season and the work that are before him, to explain and manifest them to others, with such illustration and enforcement as may be in his power, and to crown them with the history of what, by them, God has done for his soul. • — S. V. I. ch. xxx. § 5. Disregard of God’s Gifts. — There is no subject of thought more melancholy, more wonderful, than the way in which God permits so often His best gifts to be trodden under foot of men, His richest treasures to be wasted by the moth, and the mightiest influences of His Spirit, given but once in the world’s history, to be quenched and shortened by miseries of chance and guilt. I do not wonder at what men Suffer, but I winder often at what they Lose. We may see how good rises out of pain and evil ; but the dead, naked, eyeless loss, what good comes of that ? The fruit struck to the earth before its ripeness ; the glowing life and goodly purpose dis- solved away in sudden death ; the words, half- spoken, choked upon the lips with clay for ever ; or, stranger than all, the whole majesty of humanity raised to his fulness, and every gift and power necessary for a given purpose, at a given moment, centred in one man, and all this perfected blessing permitted to be refused, perverted, crushed, cast aside by those who need it most, — the city which is Not set on a hill, the candle that giveth light to None that are in the house ; — these are the heaviest mysteries of this strange world, and, it seems to me, those w r hich mark its curse the most. And it is true that the power with which this Venice had been entrusted, was perverted, when at its highest, in a thousand miserable ways : still, it was possessed by her alone ; to her all hearts have turned which could be moved by its manifestation, and none without being made stronger and nobler by what her ETHICAL. 317 hand had wrought. That mighty Landscape, of dark moun- tains that guard the horizon with their purple towers, and solemn forests, that gather their weight of leaves, bronzed with sunshine, not with age, into those gloomy masses fixed in heaven, which storm and frost have power no more to shake, or shed; — that mighty Humanity, so perfect and so proud, that hides no weakness beneath the mantle, and gains no greatness from the diadem ; the majesty of thoughtful form, on which the dust of gold and flame of jewels are dashed as the sea-spray upon the rock, and still the great Manhood seems to stand bare against the blue sky ; — that mighty Mythology, which fills the daily walks of men with spiritual companionship, and beholds the protecting angels break with their burning presence through the arrow-flights of battle: — measure the compass of that field of creation, weigh the value of the inheritance that Venice thus left to the nations of Europe, and then judge if so vast, so beneficent a power could indeed have been rooted in dissipation or decay. It was when she wore the ephod of the priest, not the motley of the masquer, that the fire fell upon her from heaven ; and she saw the first rays of it through the rain of her own tears, when, as the barbaric deluge ebbed from the hills of Italy, the circuit of her palaces, and the orb of her fortunes, rose together, like the Iris, painted upon the Cloud. — S. V. II. ch. v. § 36. Partial Knowledge. — Our happiness as thinking beings must depend on our being content to accept only partial knowledge, even in those matters which chiefly concern us. If we insist upon perfect intelligibility and complete de- claration in every moral subject, we shall instantly fall into misery of unbelief. Our whole happiness and power of ener- getic action depend upon our being able to breathe and live in the cloud ; content to see it opening here and closing there ; rejoicing to catch, through the thinnest films of it, glimpses of stable and substantial things ; but yet perceiving a nobleness even in the concealment, and rejoicing that the kindly veil is spread where the untempered light might have scorched us, or the infinite clearness wearied. 318 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. And I believe that the resentment of this interference of the mist is one of the forms of proud error which are too easily mistaken for virtues. To be content in utter darkness and ignorance is indeed unmanly, and therefore we think that to love light and seek knowledge must always be right. Yet (as in all matters before observed), wherever pride has any share in the work, even knowledge and light may be ill pursued. Knowledge is good, and light is good, yet man perished in seeking knowledge, and moths perish in seeking light ; and if we, who are crushed before the moth, will not accept such mystery as is needful for us, we shall perish in like manner. But, accepted in humbleness, it instantly becomes an element of pleasure ; and I think that every rightly constituted mind ought to rejoice, not so much in knowing anything clearly, as in feeling that there is infinitely more which it cannot know. None but proud or weak men would mourn over this, for we may always know more if we choose, by working on ; but the pleasure is, I think, to humble people, in knowing that the journey is endless, the treasure inexhaustible, — watching the cloud still march before them with its summitless pillar, and being sure that, to the end of time and to the length of eternity, the mysteries of its infinity will still open farther and farther, their dimness being the sign and necessary ad- junct of their inexhaustibleness. I know there are an evil mystery and a deathful dimness, — the mystery of the great Babylon — the dimness of the sealed eye and soul ; but do not let us confuse these with the glorious mystery of the things which the angels “ desire to look into,” or with the dimness which, even before the clear eye and open soul, still rests on sealed pages of the eternal volume. And going down from this great truth to the lower truths which are types of it in smaller matters, we shall find, that as soon as people try honestly to see all they can of anything, they come to a point where a noble dimness begins. They see more than others ; but the consequence of their seeing more is, that they feel they cannot see all; and the more intense their perception, the more the crowd of things which they partly see will multiply upon them ; and their delight ETHICAL. 319 may at last principally consist in dwelling on this cloudy part of their prospect, somewhat casting away or aside what to them has become comparatively common, but is perhaps the sum and substance of all that other people see in the thing, for the utmost subtleties and shadows and glancings of it cannot be caught but by the most practised vision. — M. P. iv. Pt. v. ch. v. § 3, 4, 5. Pride of Knowledge. — There is nothing of which man has any right to be proud ; but the very last thing of which, with any shadow of reason, he can make his boast is his knowledge, except only that infinitely small portion of it which he has discovered for himself. For what is there to be more proud of in receiving a piece of knowledge from another person, than in receiving a piece of money ? Beggars should not be proud, whatever kind of alms they receive. Knowledge is like current coin. A man may have some right to be proud of possessing it, if he has worked for the gold of it, and assayed it, and stamped it, so that it may be received of all men as true ; or earned it fairly, being already assayed : but if he has done none of these things, but only had it thrown in his face by a passer-by, what cause has he to be proud ? And though, in this mendicant fashion, he had heaped together the wealth of Croesus, would pride any more, for this, become him, as, in some sort, it becomes the man who has laboured for his fortune, however small ? So, if a man tells me the sun is larger than the earth, have I any cause for pride in knowing it ? or, if any multitude of men tell me any number of things, heaping all their wealth of knowledge upon me, have I any reason to feel proud under the heap ? And is not nearly all the knowledge of which we boast in these days cast upon us in this dishonourable way ; worked for by other men, proved by them, and then forced upon us, even against our wills, and beaten into us in our youth, before we have the wit even to know if it be good or not ? (Mark the distinction between knowledge and thought). Truly a noble possession to be proud of! Be assured, there is no part of the furniture of a man’s mind which he has a right to exult in, but that 320 WRITINGS OF JOHN RHSKIN. which he has hewn and fashioned for himself. He who has built himself a hut on a desert heath, and carved his bed, and table, and chair out of the nearest forest, may have some right to take pride in the appliances of his narrow chamber, as assuredly he will have joy in them. But the man who has had a palace built, and adorned, and furnished for him, may, indeed, have many advantages above the other, but he has no reason to be proud of his upholsterer’s skill ; and it is ten to one if he has half the joy in his couches of ivory that the other will have in his pallet of pine. — S. V. III. ch. ii. § 34. Knowledge. — The real animating power of knowledge is only in the moment of its being first received, when it fills us with wonder and joy ; a joy for which, observe, the previous ignorance is just as necessary as the present knowledge. That man is always happy who is in the presence of some- thing which he cannot know to the full, which he is always going on to know. This is the necessary condition of a finite creature with divinely rooted and divinely directed intelligence ; this, therefore, its happy state, — but observe, a state, not of triumph or joy in what it knows, but of joy rather in the continual discovery of new ignorance, continual self-abasement, continual astonishment. Once thoroughly our own, the knowledge ceases to give us pleasure. It may be practically useful to us, it may be good for others, or good for usury to obtain more ; but, in itself, once let it be thoroughly familiar, and it is dead. The wonder is gone from it, and all the fine colour which it had when first we drew it up out of the infinite sea All men feel this, though they do not think of it, nor reason out its consequences. They look back to the days of child- hood as of greatest happiness, because those were the days of greatest wonder, greatest simplicity, and most vigorous imagination. And the whole difference between a man of genius and other men, it has been said a thousand times, and most truly, is that the first remains in great part a child, seeing with the large eyes of children, in perpetual wonder, not conscious of much knowledge, — conscious, rather, of ETHICAL. 321 infinite ignorance, and yet infinite power ; a fountain of eternal admiration, delight, and creative force within him meeting the ocean of visible and governable things around him. — S. V. in. ch. ii. § 28, 29. Things neYer seen completely. — Some years ago, as I was talking of the curvilinear forms in a piece of rock to one of our academicians, he said to me, in a somewhat despondent accent, “ If you look for curves, you will see curves ; if you look for angles, you will see angles.” The saying appeared to me an infinitely sad one. It was the utterance of an experienced man ; and in many ways true, for one of the most singular gifts, or, if abused, most singular weaknesses, of the human mind is its power of persuading itself to see whatever it chooses ; — a great gift, if directed to the discernment of the things needful and pertinent to its own work and being ; a great weakness, if directed to the discovery of things profitless or discouraging. In all things, throughout the world, the men who look for the crooked will see the crooked, and the men who look for the straight will see the straight. But yet the saying was a notably sad one for it came of the conviction in the speaker’s mind that there was in reality no crooked and no straight ; that all so called discernment was fancy, and that men might, with equal rectitude of judgment, and good-deserving of their fellow-men, perceive and paint whatever was convenient to them. Whereas things may always be seen truly by candid people, though never completely. No human capacity ever yet saw the whole of a thing ; but we may see more and more of it the longer we look. Every individual temper will see some- thing different in it : but supposing the tempers honest, all the differences are there. Every advance in our acuteness of perception will show us something new ; but the old and first discerned thing will still be there, not falsified, only modified and enriched by the new perceptions. — M. P. IY. Pt. v. ch. xviii. § 4, 5. Imperfection inseparable from Life. — Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign 21 322 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The foxglove blossom, — a third part bud, a third part past, a third part in full bloom, — is a type of the life of this world. And in all things that live there arc certain irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change ; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 25. Lessons of Creation. — It has always appeared to me that there was, even in healthy mountain districts, a certain degree of inevitable melancholy ; nor could I ever escape from the feeling that here, where chiefly the beauty of God’s working was manifested to men, warning was also given, and that to the full, of the enduring of His indignation against sin. It seems one of the most cunning and frequent of self- deceptions to turn the heart away from this warning and refuse to acknowledge anything in the fair scenes of the natural creation but beneficence. Men in general lean towards the light, so far as they contemplate such things at all, most of them passing “by on the other side,” either in mere plodding pursuit of their own work, irrespective of what good or evil is around them, or else in selfish gloom, or selfish delight, resulting from their own circumstances at the moment. Of those who give themselves to any true contemplation, the plurality, being humble, gentle, and kindly hearted, look only in nature for what is lovely and kind; partly, also, God gives the disposition to every healthy human mind in some degree to pass over or even harden itself against evil things, else the suffering would be too great to be borne ; and humble people, with a quiet trust that everything is for the best, do not ETHICAL. 323 fairly represent the facts to themselves, thinking them none of their business. So, what between hard-hearted people, thoughtless people, busy people, humble people, and cheerfully minded people, — giddiness of youth, and preoccupations of age,- — philosophies of faith, and cruelties of folly, — priest and Levite, masquer and merchantmen, all agreeing to keep their own side of the way, — the evil that God sends to warn us gets to be forgotten, and the evil that He sends to be mended by us gets left unmended. And then, because people shut their eyes to the dark indisputableness of the facts in front of them, their Faith, such as it is, is shaken or uprooted by every darkness in what is revealed to them. In the present day it is not easy to find a well-meaning man among our more earnest thinkers, who will not take upon himself to dispute the whole system of redemption, because he cannot unravel the mystery of the punishment of sin. But can he unravel the mystery of the punishment of no sin? Can he entirely account for all that happens to a cab -horse ? Has he ever looked fairly at the fate of one of those beasts as it is dying, — measured the work it has done, and the reward it has got, — put his hand upon the bloody wounds through which its bones are piercing, and so looked up to Heaven with an entire understanding of Heaven’s ways about the horse? Yet the horse is a fact — no dream — no revelation among the myrtle trees by night ; and the dust it dies upon, and the dogs that eat it, are facts ; — and yonder happy person, whose the horse was till its knees were broken over the hurdles, who had an immortal soul to begin with, and wealth and peace to help forward his immortality ; who has also devoted the powers of his soul, and body, and wealth, and peace, to the spoiling of houses, the corruption of the inno- cent, and the oppression of the poor ; and has, at this actual moment of his prosperous life, as many curses waiting round about him in calm shadow, with their death-eyes fixed upon him, biding their time, as ever the poor cab-horse had launched at him in meaningless blasphemies, when his failing feet stumbled at the stones, — this happy person shall have no stripes, — shall have only the horse’s fate of annihilation ; 21—2 324 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. or, if other things are indeed reserved for him, Heaven's kindness or omnipotence is to be doubted therefore. We cannot reason of these things. But this I know — and this may by all men be known — that no good or lovely thing exists in this world without its correspondent darkness ; and that the universe presents itself continually to mankind under the stern aspect of warning, or of choice, the good and the evil set on the right hand and the left. And in this mountain gloom, which weighs so strongly upon the human heart that in all time hitherto, as we have seen, the hill defiles have been either avoided in terror or inhabited in penance, there is but the fulfilment of the universal law, that where the beauty and wisdom of the Divine working are most manifested, there also are mani- fested most clearly the terror of God’s wrath, and inevitable- ness of His power. Nor is this gloom less wonderful so far as it bears witness to the error of human choice, even when the nature of good and evil is most definitely set before it. The trees of Paradise were fair ; but our first parents hid themselves from God u in medio ligni Paradisi,” — in the midst of the trees of the garden. The hills were ordained for the help of man ; but, instead of raising his eyes to the hills, from whence cometh his help, he does his idol sacrifice “ upon every high hill and under every green tree.” The mountain of the Lord’s house is established above the hills ; but Nadab and Abihu shall see under His feet the body of heaven in his clearness, yet go down to kindle the censer against their own souls. And so to the end of time it will be ; to the end, that cry will still be heard along the Alpine winds, “ Hear, O ye moun- tains, the Lord’s controversy ! ” Still, their gulfs of thawless ice, and unretarded roar of tormented waves, and deathful falls of fruitless waste, and unredeemed decay, must be the imasre of the souls of those who have chosen the darkness, and whose cry shall be to the mountains to fall on them, and to the hills to cover them ; and still, to the end of time, the clear waters of the unfailing springs, and the white pasture-lilies in their clothed multitude, and the abiding of ETHICAL. 325 the burning peaks in their nearness to the opened heaven, shall be the types, and the blessings, of those who have chosen light, and of whom it is written, “ The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, righteousness.” — M. P. iv. Pt. v. ch. xix. § 32, 33. God’s Word Spoken to Men. — The greater number of the words which are recorded in Scripture, as directly spoken to men by the lips of the Deity, are either simple revelations of His law, or special threatenings, commands, and promises relating to special events. But two passages of God’s speaking, one in the Old and one in the New Testament, possess, it seems to me, a different character from any of the rest, having been uttered, the one to effect the last necessary change in the mind of a man whose piety was in other respects perfect; and the other, as the first statement to all men of the principles of Christianity by Christ himself — I mean the 38th to 41st chapters of the Book of Job, and the Sermon on the Mount. Now the first of these passages is, from beginning to end, nothing else than a direction of the mind which was to be perfected to humble observance of the works of God in nature. And the other consists only in the inculcation of three things : 1st, right conduct ; 2nd, looking for eternal life ; 3rd, trusting God, through watchfulness of His dealings with His creation: and the entire contents of the Book of Job, and of the Sermon on the Mount, will be resolvable simply into these three requirements from all men, — that they should act rightly, hope for heaven, and watch God’s wonders and work in the earth ; the right conduct being always summed up under the three heads of justice , mercy , and truth, and no mention of any doctrinal point whatsoever occurring in either piece of divine teaching. As far as I can judge of the ways of men, it seems to me that the simplest and most necessary truths are always the last believed; and I suppose that well-meaning people in general would rather regulate their conduct and creed by almost any other portion of Scripture whatsoever, than by that Sermon on the Mount, which contains the things that 326 WRITINGS OF JOHN ETJSKIN. Christ thought it first necessary for all men to understand. Nevertheless, I believe the time will soon come for the full force of these two passages of Scripture to be accepted. Instead of supposing the love of nature necessarily connected with the faithlessness of the age, I believe it is connected properly with the benevolence and liberty of the age ; that it is precisely the most healthy element which distinctively belongs to us; and that out of it, cultivated no longer in levity or ignorance, but in earnestness, and as a duty, results will spring of an importance at present inconceivable; and lights arise, which, for the first time in man’s history, will reveal to him the true nature of his life, the true field for his energies, and the true relations between him and his Maker. — M. P. m. Pt. iv. ch. xvii. § 33, 34. Lesson of the Leaf. — We men, sometimes, in what we presume to be humility, compare ourselves with leaves ; but we have as yet no right to do so. The leaves may well scorn the comparison. We, who live for ourselves, and neither know how to use nor keep the work of past time, may humbly learn, — as from the ant, foresight, — from the leaf, reverence. The power of every great people, as of every living tree, depends on its not effacing, but confirming and concluding, the labours of its ancestors. Looking back to the history of nations, we may date the beginning of their decline from the moment when they ceased to be reverent in heart, and accumulative in hand and brain ; from the moment when the redundant fruit of age hid in them the hollowness of heart, whence the simplicities of custom and sinews of tradition had withered away. Had men but guarded the righteous laws, and protected the precious works of their fathers, with half the industry they have given to change and to ravage, they would not now have been seeking vainly, in millennial visions and mechanic servitudes, the accomplish- ment of the promise made to them so long ago : “As the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands ; they shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are ethical. 327 the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.” This lesson we have to take from the leaf’s life. One more we may receive from its death. If ever in autumn, a pensive- ness falls upon us as the leaves drift by in their fading, may we not wisely look up in hope to their mighty monuments ? Behold how fair, how far prolonged, in arch and aisle, the avenues of the valleys ; the fringes of the hills ! So stately, — so eternal ; the joy of man, the comfort of all living creatures, the glory of the earth, — they are but the monuments of those poor leaves that flit faintly past us to die. Let them not pass, without our understanding their last counsel and example : that we also, careless of monument by the grave, may build it in the world — monument by which men may be taught to remember, not where we died, but where we lived. — • M.P. v. Pt. vi. ch. viii. §19,20. The Beautiful alone not Good for Man. — I believe that it is not good for man to live among what is most beautiful ; — that he is a creature incapable of satisfaction by anything upon earth ; and that to allow him habitually to possess, in any kind whatsoever, the utmost that earth can give, is the surest way to cast him into lassitude or discontent. If the most exquisite orchestral music could be continued without a pause for a series of years, and children were brought up and educated in the room in which it was per- petually resounding, I believe their enjoyment of music, or understanding of it, would be very small. And an accurately parallel effect seems to be produced upon the powers of con- templation, by the redundant and ceaseless loveliness of the high mountain districts. The faculties are paralyzed by the abundance, and cease, as we before noticed of the imagination, to be capable of excitement, except by other subjects of inte- rest than those which present themselves to the eye. So that it is, in reality, better for mankind that the forms of their common landscape should offer no violent stimulus to the emotions, — that the gentle upland, browned by the bending furrows of the plough, and the fresh sweep of the chalk down, 328 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. and the narrow winding of the copse-clad dingle, should be more frequent scenes of human life than the Arcadias of cloud-capped mountain or luxuriant vale ; and that, while humbler (though always infinite) sources of interest are given to each of us around the homes to which we are restrained for the greater part of our lives, these mightier and stranger glories should become the objects of adventure, — at once the cynosures of the fancies of childhood, and themes of the happy memory, and the winter’s tale of age. Nor is it always that the inferiority is felt. For, so natural is it to the human heart to fix itself in hope rather than in present possession, and so subtle is the charm which the imagination casts over what is distant or denied, that there is often a more touching power in the scenes which con- tain far-away promise of something greater than themselves, than in those which exhaust the treasures and powers of Nature in an unconquerable and excellent glory, leaving nothing more to be by the fancy pictured, or pursued. — M. P. IV. Pt. v. ch. xi. § 7, 8. Elevation of Physical Pleasure. — The mere animal consciousness of pleasantness I call iEsthesis ; but the exult- ing, reverent, and grateful perception of it I call Theoria. For this, and this only, is the full comprehension and con- templation of the beautiful as a gift of God ; a gift not necessary to our being, but added to, and elevating it, and twofold ; first of the desire, and secondly of the thing desired. And that this joyfulness and reverence are a necessary part of Theoretic pleasure is very evident, when we consider that, by the presence of these feelings, even the lower and more sensual pleasures may be rendered Theoretic. Thus Aristotle has subtly noted that “ we call not men intemperate so much with respect to the scents of roses or herb-perfumes as of ointments and of condiments,” though the reason that he gives for this be futile enough. For the fact is, that of scents artificially prepared the extreme desire is intemperance ; but of natural and God-given scents, which take their part in the harmony and pleasantness of creation, there can hardly ETHICAL. 329 be intemperance : not that there is any absolute difference between the two' kinds, but that these are likely to be received with gratitude and joyfulness rather than those ; so that we despise the seeking of essences and unguents, but not the sowing of violets along our garden banks. But all things may be elevated by affection, as the spikenard of Mary, and in the Song of Solomon the myrrh upon the handles of the lock, and the sense of Isaac of the field-fragrance upon his son. And the general law for all these pleasures is, that, when sought in the abstract and ardently, they are foul things ; but when received with thankfulness and with refer- ence to God’s glory, they become Theoretic : and so we may find something divine in the sweetness of wild fruits, as well as in the pleasantness of the pure air, and the tenderness of its ^natural perfumes that come and go as they list. — M. P. III. Pt. iii. ch. ii. § 7. Various Forms of Asceticism. — Three principal forms of asceticism have existed in this weak world. Religious asce- ticism, being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake (as supposed) of religion; seen chiefly in the middle ages. Military asceticism, being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake of power ; seen chiefly in the early days of Sparta and Rome. And monetary asceticism, con- sisting in the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake of money ; seen in the present days of London and Manchester. “ We do not come here to look at the mountains,” said the Carthusian to me at the Grande Chartreuse. “We do not come here to look at the mountains,” the Austrian generals would say, encamping by the shores of Garda. “We do not come here to look at the mountains,” so the thriving manu- facturers tell me, between Rochdale and Halifax. All these asceticisms have their bright and their dark sides. I myself like the military asceticism best, because it is not so necessarily a refusal of general knowledge as the two others, but leads to acute and marvellous use of mind, and perfect use of body. Nevertheless, none of the three are a healthy or central state of man. There is much to be respected in 330 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. each, but they are not what we should wish large numbers of men to become. A monk of La Trappe, a French soldier of the Imperial Guard, and a thriving mill- owner, supposing each a type, and no more than a type, of his class, are all interesting specimens of humanity, but narrow ones, — so narrow that even all the three together would not make up a perfect man. Nor does it appear in any way desirable that either of the three classes should extend itself so as to include a majority of the persons in the world, and turn large cities into mere groups of monastery, barracks, or factory. I do not say that it may not be desirable that one city, or one country, sacrificed for the good of the rest, should become a mass of barracks or factories. Perhaps, it may be well that this England should become the furnace of the world; so that the smoke of the island, rising out of the sea, should be seen from a hundred leagues away, as if it were a field of fierce volcanoes ; and every kind of sordid, foul, or venomous work which, in other countries, men dreaded or disdained, it should become England’s duty to do, — becoming thus the offscourer of the earth, and taking the hyena instead of the lion upon her shield. I do not, for a moment, deny this ; but, looking broadly, not at the destiny of England, nor of any country in particular, but of the world, this is certain — that men exclusively occupied either in spiritual reverie, mecha- nical destruction, or mechanical productiveness, fall below the proper standard of their race, and enter into a lower form of being; and that the true perfection of the race, and, there- fore, its power and happiness, are only to be attained by a life which is neither speculative nor productive ; but essen- tially contemplative and protective, which (A) does not lose itself in the monk’s vision or hope, but delights in seeing present and real things as they truly are ; which (B) does not mortify itself for the sake of obtaining powers of destruc- tion, but seeks the more easily attainable powers of affection, observance, and protection; which (C), finally, does not mor- tify itself with a view to productive accumulation, but delights itself in peace, with its appointed portion. So that the things to be desired for man in a healthy state, are that ETHICAL. 331 he should not see dreams, but realities ; that he should not destroy life, but save it ; and that he should be not rich, but content. Towards which last state of contentment, I do not see that the world is at present approximating. — M. P. y. Pt. ix. ch.xi. §17,18,19. Isolation of Man. — I have repeatedly said that all great art is the expression of man’s delight in God’s work, not in his own. Observe, he is not himself his own work : he is him- self precisely the most wonderful piece of God’s workmanship extant. In this best piece not only he is bound to take delight, but cannot, in a right state of thought, take delight in anything else, otherwise than through himself. Through himself, however, as the sun of creation, not as the creation. In himself, as the light of the world. Not as being the world. Let him stand in his due relation to other creatures, and to inanimate things — know them all and love them, as made for him, and he for them ; — and he becomes himself the greatest and holiest of them. But let him cast off this relation, despise and forget the less creation round him, and instead of being the light of the world, he is as a sun in space — a fiery ball, spotted with storm. All the diseases of mind leading to fatalest ruin consist primarily in this isolation. They are the concentration of man upon himself, whether his heavenly interests or his worldly interests, matters not ; it is the being his own interests which makes the regard of them so mortal. Every form of asceticism on one side, of sensualism on the other, is an isolation of his soul or of his body ; the fixing his thoughts upon them alone : while every healthy state of nations and of individual minds consists in the unselfish presence of the human spirit everywhere, energizing over all things ; speaking and living through all things. Man being thus the crowning and ruling work of God, it will follow that all his best art must have something to tell about himself, as the soul of things, and ruler of creatures. It must also make this reference to himself under a true 332 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. conception of his own nature. Therefore all art which involves no reference to man is inferior or nugatory. And all art which involves misconception of man, or base thought of him, is in that degree false, and base. Now the basest thought possible concerning him is, that he has no spiritual nature; and the foolishest misunderstanding of him possible is, that he has or should have, no animal nature. For his nature is nobly animal, nobly spiritual — coherently and irrevocably so ; neither part of it may, but at its peril, expel, despise, or defy the other. All great art confesses and worships both. The art which, since the writings of Rio and Lord Lindsay, is specially known as “ Christian,” erred by pride in its denial of the animal nature of man; — and, in connection with all monkish and fanatical forms of religion, by looking always to another world instead of this. It wasted its strength in visions, and was therefore swept away, notwithstanding all its good and glory, by the strong truth of the naturalist art of the sixteenth century. But -that naturalist art erred on the other side; denied at last the spiritual nature of man, and perished in corruption. A contemplative reaction is taking place in modern times, out of which it may be hoped a new spiritual art may be developed. — M.P. v. Pt. ix. ch. ii. §1,2,3, 4. Contentment. — There are two forms of discontent : one laborious, the other indolent and complaining. We respect the man of laborious desire, but let us not suppose that his restlessness is peace, or his ambition meekness. It is because of the special connection of meekness with contentment that it is promised that the meek shall “ inherit the earth.” Neither covetous men, nor the Grave, can inherit anything ; they can but consume. Only contentment can possess. The most helpful and sacred work, therefore, which can at present be done for humanity, is to teach people (chiefly by example, as all best teaching must be done) not how “to better themselves,” but how to “ satisfy themselves.” It is the curse of every evil nation and evil creature to eat, and not be ETHICAL. 333 satisfied. The words of blessing are, that they shall eat and be satisfied. And as there is only one kind of water which quenches all thirst, so there is only one kind of bread which satisfies all hunger, the bread of justice or righteousness ; which hungering after, men shall always be filled, that being the bread of Heaven; but hungering after the bread, or wages, of unrighteousness, shall not be filled, that being the bread of Sodom. And, in order to teach men how to be satisfied, it is neces- sary fully to understand the art and joy of humble life, — this, at present, of all arts or sciences being the one most needing study. Humble life, — that is to say, proposing to itself no future exaltation, but only a sweet continuance ; not excluding the idea of foresight, but wholly of fore-sorrow, and taking no troublous thought for coming days : so, also, not excluding the idea of providence, or provision, but wholly of accumulation; — the life of domestic affection and domestic peace, full of sensitiveness to all elements of costless and kind pleasure; — therefore, chiefly to the loveliness of the natural world. What length and severity of labour may be ultimately found necessary for the procuring of the due comforts of life, I do not know ; neither what degree of refinement it is pos- sible to unite with the so-called servile occupations of life : but this I know, that right economy of labour will, as it is understood, assign to each man as much as will be healthy for him, and no more ; and that no refinements are desirable which cannot be connected with toil. I say, first, that due economy of labour will assign to each man the share which is right. Let no technical labour be wasted on things useless or unpleasurable ; and let all physical exertion, so far as possible, be utilized, and it will be found no man need ever work more than is good for him. I believe an immense gain in the bodily health and happiness of the upper classes would follow on their steadily endeavouring, however clumsily, to make the physical exertion they now necessarily take in amusements, definitely serviceable. It would be far better, for instance, that a gentleman should 334 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. mow his own fields, than ride over other people’s. — M.P. V. Pt.ix. ch.xi. § 19,20,21,22,23. Obedience. — That principle to which Polity owes its stability, Life its happiness, Faith its acceptance, and Creation its continuance, is Obedience. Nor is it the least among the sources of more serious satisfaction which I have found in the pursuit of a subject that at first appeared to bear but slightly on the grave in- terests of mankind, that the conditions of material perfection which it leads me in conclusion to consider, furnish a strange proof how false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty : most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms ; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible. There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not ; the earth has it not ; the sea has it not ; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment. In one of the noblest poems* for its imagery and its music belonging to the recent school of our literature, the writer has sought in the aspect of inanimate nature the expression of that Liberty which, having once loved, he had seen among men in ite true dyes of darkness. But with what strange fallacy of interpretation ! since in one noble line of his invocation he has contradicted the assumptions of the rest, and acknowledged the presence of a subjection, surely not less severe because eternal ? How could he otherwise ? since if there be any one principle more widely than another confessed by every utterance, or more sternly than another imprinted on every atom of the visible creation, that principle is not Liberty, but Law. The enthusiast would reply that by Liberty he meant the Law of Liberty. Then why use the single and misunder- stood word ? If by liberty you mean chastisement of the passions, discipline of the intellect, subjection of the will ; if * Coleridge’s Ode to France. ETHICAL. 335 yon mean the fear of inflicting, the shame of committing, a wrong ; if you mean respect for all who are in authority, and consideration for all who are in dependence ; veneration for the good, mercy to the evil, sympathy with the weak ; if you mean watchfulness over all thoughts, temperance in all pleasures, and perseverance in all toils ; if you mean, in a word, that Service which is defined in the liturgy of the English church to be perfect Freedom, why do you name this by the same word by which the luxurious mean licence, and the reckless mean change ; by which the rogue means rapine, and the fool, equality, by which the proud mean anarchy, and the malignant mean violence ? Call it by any name rather than this, but its best and truest is Obedience. Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind of freedom, else it would become mere subjugation, but that freedom is only granted that obedience may be more perfect ; and thus, while a measure of licence is necessary to exhibit the indi- vidual energies of things, the fairness and pleasantness and perfection of them all consist in their Restraint. Compare a river that has burst its banks with one that is bound by them, and the clouds that are scattered over the face of the whole heaven with those that are marshalled into ranks and orders by its winds. So that though restraint, utter and unrelaxing, can never be comely, this is not because it is in itself an evil, but only because, when too great, it over- powers the nature of the thing restrained, and so counteracts the other laws of which that nature is itself composed. — S. L. A. ch. vii. § 1, 2. The Virtue of Restraint. — As the plough is the typical instrument of industry, so the fetter is the typical instrument of the restraint or subjection necessary in a nation — either literally, for its evil-doers, or figuratively, in accepted laws, for its wise and good men. You have to choose between this figurative and literal use ; for depend upon it, the more laws you accept, the fewer penalties you will have to endure, and the fewer punishments to enforce. For wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chain mail — 336 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. strength and defence, though something also of an incum- brance. And this necessity of restraint, remember, is just as honourable to man as the necessity of labour. You hear every day greater numbers of foolish people speaking about liberty, as if it were such an honourable thing : so far from being that, it is, on the whole, and in the broadest sense, dishonourable, and an attribute of the lower creatures. No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish. There is always something that he must, or must not do ; while the fish may do whatever he likes. All the kingdoms of the world put together are not half so large as the sea, and all the railroads and wheels that ever were, or will be, invented are not so easy as fins. You will find, on fairly thinking of it, that it is his Restraint which is honourable to man, not his Liberty; and, what is more, it is restraint which is honourable even in the lower animals. A butterfly is much more free than a bee ; but you honour the bee more, just because it is subject to certain laws which fit it for orderly function in bee society. And throughout the world, of the two abstract things, liberty and restraint, restraint is always the more honourable. It is true, indeed, that in these and all other matters you never can reason finally from the abstraction, for both liberty and restraint are good when they are nobly chosen, and both are bad when they are basely chosen ; but of the two, I repeat, it is restraint which characterizes the higher creature, and betters the lower creature : and, from the ministering of the archangel to the labour of the insect, — from the poising of the planets to the gravitation of a grain of dust, — the power and glory of all creatures, and all matter, consist in their obedience, not in their freedom. The Sun has no liberty — a dead leaf has much. The dust of which you are formed has no liberty. Its liberty will come — with its corruption. And, therefore, I say boldly, though it seems a strange thing to say in England, that as the first power of a nation consists in knowing how to guide the Plough, its second power consists in knowing how to wear the Fetter . — The Two Paths , Lect. v. ETHICAL. 337 Virtue of Right Purpose. — There is no branch of human work whose constant laws have not close analogy with those which govern every other mode of man’s exertion. But more than this, exactly as we reduce to greater simplicity and surety any one group of these practical laws, we shall find them passing the mere condition of connection or analogy, and becoming the actual expression of some ultimate nerve or fibre of the mighty laws which govern the moral world. However mean or inconsiderable the act, there is something in the well doing of it, which has fellowship with the noblest forms of manly virtue; and the truth, decision, and temper- ance, which we reverently regard as honourable conditions of the spiritual being, have a representative or derivative influence over the works of the hand, the movements of the frame, and the action of the intellect. And as thus every action, down even to the drawing of a line or utterance of a syllable, is capable of a peculiar dig- nity in the manner of it, which we sometimes express by saying it is truly done (as a line or tone is true), so also it is capable of dignity still higher in the motive of it. For there is no action so slight, nor so mean, but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled therefore ; nor is any pur- pose so great but that slight actions may help it, and may be so done as to help it much, most especially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing of God. Hence George Herbert — “ A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine; Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, Makes that and the action fine.” Therefore, in the pressing or recommending of any act or manner of acting, we have choice of two separate lines of argument : one based on representation of the expediency or inherent value of the work, which is often small and always disputable ; the other based on proofs of its relations to the higher orders of human virtue, and of its acceptableness, so far as it goes, to Him who is the origin of virtue. The former is commonly the more persuasive method, the latter assuredly the more conclusive ; only it is liable to give 22 338 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. offence, as if there were irreverence in adducing considera- tions so weighty in treating subjects of small temporal im- portance. I believe, however, that no error is more thoughtless than this. We treat God with irreverence by banishing Him from our thoughts, not by referring to His will on slight occasions. His is not the finite authority or intelligence which cannot be troubled with small things. There is nothing so small but that we may honour God by asking His guidance of it, or insult Him by taking it into our own hands ; and what is true of the Deity is equally true of His Revelation. We use it most reverently when most habitually : our insolence is in ever acting without reference to it, our true honouring of it is in its universal application. I have been blamed for the familiar introduction of its sacred words. I am grieved to have given pain by so doing ; but my excuse must be my wish that those words were made the ground of every argument and the test of every action. We have them not often enough on our lips, nor deeply enough in our memories, nor loyally enough in our lives. The snow, the vapour, and the stormy wind fulfil His word. Are our acts and thoughts lighter and wilder than these — that we should forget it ? I have, therefore, ventured, at the risk of giving to some passages the appearance of irreverence, to take the higher line of argument wherever it appeared clearly traceable : and this, I would ask the reader especially to observe, not merely because I think it the best mode of reaching ultimate truth, still less because I think the subject of more importance than many others ; but because every subject should surely, at a period like the present, be taken up in this spirit, or not at all. The aspect of the years that approach us is as solemn as it is full of mystery ; and the weight of evil against which we have to contend, is increasing like the letting out of water. It is no time for the idleness of metaphysics, or the entertainment of the arts. The blasphemies of the earth are sounding louder, and its miseries heaped heavier every day ; and if, in the midst of the exertion which every good man is called upon to put forth for their repression or relief, ETHICAL. 339 it is lawful to ask for a thought, for a moment, for a lifting of the finger, in any direction but that of the immediate and overwhelming need, it is at least incumbent upon us to approach the questions in which we would engage him, in the spirit which has become the habit of his mind, and in the hope that neither his zeal nor his usefulness may be checked by the withdrawal of an hour, which has shown him how even those things which seemed mechanical, indifferent, or contemptible, depend for their perfection upon the acknow- ledgment of the sacred principles of faith, truth, and obe- dience, for which it has become the occupation of his life to contend. — S. L. A. Introductory pages, 4, 5, 6. Sacredness of Home. — I cannot but think it an evil sign of a people when their houses are built to last for one generation only. There is a sanctity in a good man’s house w T hich can- not be renewed in every tenement that rises on its ruins : and I believe that good men would generally feel this ; and that having spent their lives happily and honourably, they would be grieved at the close of them to think that the place of their earthly abode, which had seen, and seemed almost to sympa- thise in, all their honour, their gladness, or their suffering, — that this, with all the record it bare of them, and all of material things that they had loved and ruled over, and set the stamp of themselves upon — was to be swept away, as soon as there was room made for them in the grave ; that no respect was to be shown to it, no affection felt for it, no good to be drawn from it by their children; that though there was a monument in the church, there was no warm monument in the hearth and house to them ; that all that they ever treasured was despised, and the places that had sheltered and comforted them were dragged down to the dust. I say that a good man would fear this; and that, far more, a good son, a noble descendant, would fear doing it to his father’s house. I say that if men lived like men indeed, their houses would be temples — temples which we should hardly dare to injure, and in which it would make us holy to be permitted to live ; and there must be a strange dissolution of natural affection, a 22 — 2 340 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. strange until ankfulness for all that homes have given and parents taught, a strange consciousness that we have been unfaithful to our fathers’ honour, or that our own lives are not such as would make our dwellings sacred to our children, when each man would fain build to himself, and build for the little revolution of his own life only. And I look upon those pitiful concretions of lime and clay which spring up in mildewed forwardness out of the kneaded fields about our capital — upon those thin, tottering, foundationless shells of splintered wood and imitated stone — upon those gloomy rows of formalized minuteness, alike without difference and without fellowship, as solitary as similar — not merely with the careless disgust of an offended eye, not merely with sorrow for a desecrated landscape, but with a painful fore- boding that the roots of our national greatness must be deeply cankered when they are thus loosely struck in their native ground ; that those comfortless and unhonoured dwellings are the signs of a great and spreading spirit of popular discontent; that they mark the time when every man’s aim is to be in some more elevated sphere than his natural one, and every man’s past life is his habitual scorn ; when men build in the hope of leaving the places they have built, and live in the hope of forgetting the years that they have lived ; when the comfort, the peace, the religion of home have ceased to be felt ; and the crowded tenements of a strug- gling and restless population differ only from the tents of the Arab or the Gipsy by their less healthy openness to the air of heaven, and less happy choice of their spot of earth ; by their sacrifice of liberty without the gain of rest, and of stability without the luxury of change. This is no slight, no consequenceless evil ; it is ominous, infectious, and fecund of other fault and misfortune. When men do not love their hearths, nor reverence their thresholds, it is a sign that they have dishonoured both, and that they have never acknowledged the true universality of that Christian worship which was indeed to supersede the idolatry, but not the piety, of the pagan. Our God is a household God, as well as a heavenly one ; He has an altar in every ETHICAL. 341 man’s dwelling; let men look to it when they rend it lightly and pour out its ashes. It is not a question of mere ocular delight, it is no question of intellectual pride, or of cultivated and critical fancy, how, and with what aspect of durability and of completeness, the domestic buildings of a nation shall be raised. It is one of those moral duties, not with more impunity to be neglected because the perception of them depends on a finely toned and balanced conscientiousness, to build our dwellings with care, and patience, and fondness, and diligent completion, and with a view to their duration at least for such a period as, in the ordinary course of national revo- lutions, might be supposed likely to extend to the entire alteration of the direction of local interests. This at the least ; but it would be better if, in every possible instance, men built their own houses on a scale commensurate rather with their condition at the commencement, than their attainments at the termination, of their worldly career ; and built them to stand as long as human work at its strongest can be hoped to stand ; recording to their children what they had been, and from what, if so it had been permitted them, they had risen. And when houses are thus built, we may have that true domestic architecture, the beginning of all other, which does not disdain to treat with respect and thoughtfulness the small habitation as well as the large, and which invests with the dignity of contented manhood the narrowness of worldly circumstance. I look to this spirit of honourable, proud, peaceful self-pos- session, this abiding wisdom of contented life, as probably one of the chief sources of great intellectual power in all ages, and beyond dispute as the very primal source of the great archi- tecture of old Italy and France. To this day, the interest of their fairest cities depends, not on the isolated richness of palaces, but on the cherished and exquisite decoration of even the smallest tenements of their proud periods. The most elaborate piece of aichitecture in Venice is a small house at the head of the Grand Canal, consisting of a ground floor with two stories above, three windows in the first, and two in the second. Many of the most exquisite buildings are on the narrower canals, and of no larger dimensions. One of the most interesting pieces 342 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. of fifteenth century architecture in North Italy, is a small house in a back street, behind the market-place of Vicenza ; it bears date 1481, and the motto, II. n'est. rose. sans, epine. ; it has also only a ground floor and two stories, with three windows in each, separated by rich flower- work, and with balconies, supported, the central one by an eagle with open wings, the lateral ones by winged griffins standing on cornu- copia. The idea that a house must be large in order to be well built, is altogether of modern growth, and is parallel with the idea, that no picture can be historical, except of a size admitting figures larger than life. I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to last, and built to be lovely : as rich and full of pleasantness as may be, within and without ; with what degree of likeness to each other in style and manner, I will say presently, under another head ; but, at all events, with such differences as might suit and express each man’s character and occupation, and partly his history. This right over the house, I conceive, belongs to its first builder, and is to be respected by his children; and it would be well that blank stones should be left in places, to be inscribed with a summary of his life and of its experience, raising thus the habitation into a kind of monument, and developing, into more systematic instructive- ness, that good custom which was of old universal, and which still remains among some of the Swiss and Germans, of acknowledging the grace of God’s permission to build and pos- sess a quiet resting-place. — S. L. A. ch. vi. § 3, 4, 5, 6 Econ.omy. — All economy, whether of states, households, or individuals, may be defined to be the art of managing labour. The world is so regulated by the laws of Providence, that a man’s labour, well applied, is always amply sufficient to pro- vide him during his life with all things needful to him, and not only with those, but with many pleasant objects of luxury ; and yet farther, to procure him large intervals of healthful rest and serviceable leisure. And a nation’s labour, well- applied, is in like manner amply sufficient to provide its whole population with good food and comfortable habitation ; ETHICAL. 343 and not with those only, but with good education besides, and objects of luxury, art treasures, such as these you have around you now. But by those same laws of Nature and Providence, if the labour of the nation or of the individual be misapplied, and much more if it be insufficient, — if the nation or man be indolent and unwise, — suffering and want result, exactly in proportion to the indolence and improvidence, — to the refusal of labour, or to the misapplication of it. Wherever you see want, or misery, or degradation, in this world about you, there, be sure, either industry has been wanting or industry has been in error. It is not accident, it is not Heaven-commanded calamity, it is not the original and in- evitable evil of man’s nature, which fill your streets with lamentation, and your graves with prey. It is only that, when there should have been providence, there has been waste ; when there should have been labour, there has been lasciviousness ; and wilfulness, when there should have been subordination. Now, we have warped the word “ economy ” in our English language into a meaning which it has no business whatever to bear. In our use of it, it constantly signifies merely sparing or saving ; economy of money means saving money — economy of time, sparing time, and so on. But that is a wholly bar- barous use of the word — barbarous in a double sense, for it is not English, and it is bad Greek; barbarous in a treble sense, for it is not English, it is bad Greek, and it is worse sense. Economy no more means saving money than it means spending money. It means, the administration of a house; its stewardship ; spending or saving, that is, whether money or time, or anything else, to the best possible advantage. In the simplest and clearest definition of it, economy, whether public or private, means the wise management of labour ; and it means this mainly in three senses : namely, first, applying your labour rationally ; secondly, preserving its produce care- fully ; lastly,, distributing its produce seasonably . — Political Economy of Art , Lect. 1. True Social Improvement. — All effort in social improve- ment is paralyzed, because no one has been bold or clear- 344 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIX. sighted enough to put and press home this radical question : “ What is indeed the noblest tone and reach of life for men ; and how can the possibility of it be extended to the greatest numbers ? ” It is answered, broadly and rashly, that wealth is good ; that knowledge is good ; that art is good ; that luxury is good. Whereas none of them are good in the abstract, but good only if rightly received. Nor have any steps whatever been yet securely taken, — nor, otherwise than in the resultless rhapsody of moralists, — to ascertain what luxuries and what learning it is either kind to bestow, or wise to desire. This however, at least we know, shown clearly by the history of all time, that the arts and sciences, ministering to the pride of nations, have invariably hastened their ruin; and this, also, without venturing to say that I know, I nevertheless firmly believe, that the same arts and sciences will tend as distinctly to exalt the strength and quicken the soul of every nation which employs them to increase the comfort of lowly life, and grace with happy intelligence the unambitious courses of honourable toil. — M. P. v. Pt. ix. ch. xi. § 25. Charity of Thought. — You know how often it is difficult to be wisely charitable, to do good without multiplying the sources of evil. You know that to give alms is nothing unless you give thought also ; and that therefore it is written, not “ blessed is he that feedeth the poor,” but, “ blessed is he that considereth the poor.” And you know that a little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money. Now this charity of thought is not merely to be exercised towards the poor; it is to be exercised towards all men. There is assuredly no action of our social life, however unim- portant, which by kindly thought may not be made to have a beneficial influence upon others ; and it is impossible to spend the smallest sum of money, for any not absolutely necessary purpose, without a grave responsibility attaching to the man- ner of spending it. The object we ourselves covet may, indeed, be desirable and harmless, so far as we are concerned, but the providing us with it may, perhaps, be a very preju- ETHICAL. 345 dicial occupation to some one else. And then it becomes instantly a moral question, whether we are to indulge our- selves or not. Whatever we wish to buy, we ought first to consider not only if the thing be fit for us, but if the manufac- ture of it be a wholesome and happy one ; and if, on the whole, the sum we are going to spend will do as much good spent in this way as it would if spent in any other way. It may be said that we have not time to consider all this before we make a purchase. But no time could be spent in a more important duty ; and God never imposes a duty without giving the time to do it. Let us, however, only acknowledge the principle ; — once make up your mind to allow the consideration of the effect of your purchases to regulate the hind of your purchase, and you will soon easily find grounds enough to decide upon. The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities. It is written, u If thou sayest, Behold we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? ” — Lectures on Archi- tecture , Lect. 2. Great Men Industrious. — If we were to be asked abruptly, and required to answer briefly, what qualities chiefly dis- tinguish great artists from feeble artists, we should answer, I suppose, first, their sensibility and tenderness; secondly, their imagination ; and thirdly, their industry. Some of us might, perhaps, doubt the justice of attaching so much importance to this last character, because we have all known clever men who were indolent, and dull men who were industrious. But though you may have known clever men who were indolent, you never knew a great man who was so; and, during such investigation as I have been able to give to the lives of the artists whose works are in all points noblest, no fact ever looms so large upon me — no law remains so steadfast in the universality of its applica- tion, as the fact and law that they are all great workers: nothing concerning them is matter of more astonishment than the quantity they have accomplished in the given length of their life ; and when I hear a young man spoken WRITINGS OP JOHN RUSICIN. 346 of, as giving promise of high genius, the first question I ask about him is always — Does he work ? But though this quality of industry is essential to an artist, it does not in any wise make an artist; many people are busy, whose doings are little worth. Neither does sensibility make an artist ; since, as I hope, many can feel both strongly and nobly, who yet care nothing about art. But the gifts which distinctively mark the artist — without which he must be feeble in life, forgotten in death — with which he may become one of the shakers of the earth, and one of the signal lights in heaven — are those of sympathy and imagination . — The Two Paths , Lect. 4. Greatness. — Greatness is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but the expression of the mind of a God-made great man ; teach, or preach, or labour as you will, everlasting difference is set between one man’s capacity and another’s ; and this God-given supremacy is the priceless thing, always just as rare in the world at one time as another. What you can manufacture, or communicate, you can lower the price of, but this mental supremacy is incommunicable ; you will never multiply its quantity, nor lower its price; and nearly the best thing that men can generally do is to set themselves, not to the attainment, but the discovery of this ; learning to know gold, when we see it, from iron-glance, and diamonds from flint-sand, being for most of us a more profit- able employment than trying to make diamonds out of our own charcoal. And for this God-made supremacy, I gene- rally have used, and shall continue to use, the word Inspiration, not carelessly nor lightly, but in all logical calmness and per- fect reverence. We English have many false ideas about reverence : we should be shocked, for instance, to see a market-woman come into church with a basket of eggs on her arm : we think it more reverent to lock her out till Sunday ; and to surround the church with respectability of iron rail- ings, and defend it with pacing inhabitation of beadles. I believe this to be irreverence ; and that it is more truly reve- ETHICAL. 347 rent, when the market-woman, hot and hurried, at six in the morning, her head much confused with calculations of the probable price of eggs, can nevertheless get within church porch, and church aisle, and church chancel, lay the basket down on the very steps of the altar, and receive thereat so much of help and hope as may serve her for the day’s work. In like manner we are solemnly, but I think not wisely, shocked at any one who comes hurriedly into church, in any figurative way, with his basket on his arm ; and perhaps, so long as we feel it so, it is better to keep the basket out. But, as for this one commodity of high mental supremacy, it cannot be kept out, for the very fountain of it is in the church wall, and there is no other right word for it but this of Inspiration ; a word, indeed, often ridiculously perverted, and irreverently used of fledgling poets and pompous orators — no one being offended then, and yet cavilled at when quietly used of the spirit that is in a truly great man ; cavilled at, chiefly, it seems to me, because we expect to know inspiration by the look of it. Let a man have shaggy hair, dark eyes, a rolling voice, plenty of animal energy, and a facility of rhyming or sentencing, and — improvisatore or sentimentalist — we call him “ inspired” willingly enough ; but let him be a rough, quiet worker, not proclaiming himself melodiously in anywise, but familiar with us, unpretending, and letting all his littlenesses and feeblenesses be seen, unhindered, — wear- ing an ill-cut coat withal, and, though he be such a man as is only sent upon the earth once ill five hundred years, for some special human teaching, it is irreverent to call him “ inspired.” But, be it irreverent or not, this word I must always use ; and the rest of what work I have here before me, is simply to prove the truth of it, with respect to the one among these mighty spirits whom we have just lost; who divided his hearers, as many an inspired speaker has done before now, into two great sects — a large and a narrow; these searching the Nature-scripture calmly, u whether those things were so,” and those standing haughtily on their Mars hill, asking, “what will this babbler say?” — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. x. § 22. 348 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Humility a Test of Greatness. — I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean, by humility, doubt of his own power, or hesitation in speaking his opinions ; but a right understanding of the relation between what he can do and say, and the rest of the world’s sayings and doings. All great men not only know their business, but usually know that they know it ; and are not only right in their main opinions, but they usually know that they are right in them ; only, they do not think much of themselves on that account. Arnolfo knows he can build a good dome at Florence; Albert Durer writes calmly to one who had found fault with his work, 11 It cannot be better done Sir Isaac Newton knows that he has worked out a problem or two that would have puzzled anybody else ; — only they do not expect their fellow-men therefore to fall down and worship them ; they have a curious under-sense of powerlessness, feel- ing that the greatness is not in them, but through them ; that they could not do or be anything else than God made them. And they see something divine and God-made in every other man they meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly mer- ciful. — M. P. in. Pt. iv. ch. xvi. § 24. Evil of Pride. — I have been more and more convinced, the more I think of it, that in general pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes. All the other passions do occasional good, but whenever pride puts in its word, everything goes wrong, and what it might really be desirable to do, quietly and innocently, it is mortally dangerous to do, proudly. Thus, while it is very often good for the artist to make studies of things, for the sake of knowing their forms, with their high lights all white, the moment he does this in a haughty way, and thinks himself drawing in the great style, because he leaves high lights white, it is all over with him; and half the degradation of art in modern times has been owing to endeavours, much fostered by the metaphysical Germans, to see things without colour, as if colour were a vulgar thing, the result being, in most students, that they end by not being able to see anything at all ; whereas the true and perfect way ETHICAL. 349 of studying any object is simply to look what its colour is in high light, and put that safely down, if possible ; or, if you are making a chiaroscuro study, to take the grey answering to that colour, and cover the whole object at once with that grey, firmly resolving that no part of it shall be brighter than that ; then look for the darkest part of it, and if, as is pro- bable, its darkest part be still a great deal lighter than black, or than other things about it, assume a given shade, as dark as, with due reference to other things, you can have it, but no darker. Mark that for your extreme dark on the object, and between those limits get as much drawing as you can, by subtlety of gradation. That will tax your powers of drawing indeed ; and you will find this, which seems a childish and simple way of going to work, requires verily a thousandfold more power to carry out than all the pseudo-scientific abstractions that ever were invented. — M. P. IY. Pt. v. ch. iii. § 22. Deteriorating Effects of Pride. — Those signs of evil which are commonly most manifest on the human features are roughly divisible into these four kinds; the signs of pride, of sensuality, of fear, and of cruelty. Any one of which will destroy the ideal character of the countenance and body. Now of these, the first, Pride, is perhaps the most destruc- tive of all the four, seeing it is the undermost and original vice of all : and it is base also from the necessary foolishness of it, because at its best, when grounded on a just estimation of our own elevation or superiority above certain others, it cannot but imply that our eyes look downward only, and have never been raised above our own measure ; for there is not the man so lofty in his standing or capacity, but he must be humble in thinking of the cloud habitation and far sight of the angelic intelligences above him ; and in perceiving what infinity there is of things he cannot know, nor even reach unto, as it stands compared with that little body of things he can reach, and of which nevertheless he can altogether under- stand not one ; not to speak of that wicked and fond attributing 350 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. of such excellency as he may have to himself, and thinking of it as his own getting, which is the real essence and criminality of Pride ; nor of those viler forms of it, founded on false estimation of things beneath us and irrational contemning of them ; but, taken at its best, it is still base to that degree, that there is no grandeur of feature which it cannot destroy and make despicable, so that the first step towards the ennobling of any face is the ridding it of its vanity ; to which aim there cannot be anything more contrary than that principle of portraiture which prevails with us in these days, whose end seems to be the expression of vanity throughout, in face and in all circumstances of accompaniment ; tending constantly to insolence of attitude, and levity and haughtiness of expression, and worked out farther in mean accompaniments of worldly splendour and possession ; together with hints or proclamations of what the person has done or supposes him- self to have done, which, if known, it is gratuitous in the portrait to exhibit, and, if unknown, it is insolent in the portrait to proclaim : whence has arisen such a school of portraiture as must make the people of the nineteenth century the shame of their descendants, and the butt of all time. To which practices are to be opposed both the glorious severity of Holbein, and the mighty and simple modesty of Raphael, Titian, Giorgione, and Tintoret, with whom armour does not constitute the warrior, neither silk the dame. And from what feeling the dignity of that portraiture arose is best traceable at Venice, where we find their victorious doges painted neither in the toil of battle nor the triumph of return ; nor set forth with thrones and curtains of state, but kneeling* always crownless, and returning thanks to God for His help ; or as priests interceding for the nation in its affliction. But this feeling and its results have been so well traced by Rio,* that I need not speak of it farther. — M. P, H. Pt. iii. ch. xiv. § 18, 19. Disparagement of Greatness. — Nothing, perhaps, bears on the face of it more appearance of folly, ignorance, and im- * De la Poesie Chretienne. Forme de l’Art, chap. viii. ETHICAL. 351 pertinence, than any attempt to diminish the honour of those to whom the assent of many generations has assigned a throne ; for the truly great of later times have, almost without excep- tion, fostered in others the veneration of departed power which they felt themselves ; satisfied in all humility to take their seat at the feet of those whose honour is brightened by the hoariness of time, and to wait for the period when the lustre of many departed days may accumulate on their own heads, in the radiance which culminates as it recedes. The envious and incompetent have usually been the leaders of attack, content if, like the foulness of the earth, they may attract to themselves notice by their noisomeness, or, like its insects, exalt themselves by virulence into visibility. While, however, the envy of the vicious, and the insolence of the ignorant, are occasionally shown in their nakedness by futile efforts to degrade the dead, it is worthy of consideration whether they may not more frequently escape detection in successful efforts to degrade the living; whether the very same malice may not be gratified, the very same incompetence demonstrated, in the unjust lowering of present greatness, and the unjust exaltation of a perished power, as, if exerted and manifested in a less safe direction, would have classed the critic with Nero and Caligula, with Zoilus and Perrault. Be it remembered, that the spirit of detraction is detected only when unsuccessful, and receives least punishment where it effects the greatest injury; and it cannot but be felt that here is as much danger that the rising of new stars should be concealed by the mists which are unseen, as that those throned in heaven should be darkened by the clouds which are visible. There is, I fear, so much malice in the hearts of most men, that they are chiefly jealous of that praise which can give the greatest pleasure, and are then most liberal of eulogium when it can no longer be enjoyed. They grudge not the whiteness of the sepulchre, because by no honour they can bestow upon it can the senseless corpse be rendered an object of envy; but they are niggardly of the reputation which contributes to happiness, or advances to fortune. They are glad to obtain 352 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. credit for generosity and humility by exalting those who are beyond the reach of praise,’ and thus to escape the more painful necessity of doing homage to a living rival. They are re- joiced to set up a standard of imaginary excellence, which may enable them, by insisting on the inferiority of a con- temporary work to the things that have been, to withdraw the attention from its superiority to the things that are. The same under-current of jealousy operates in our reception of animadversion. Men have commonly more pleasure in the criticism which hurts than in that which is innocuous ; and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes, than of that which falls impotently on the grave. And thus well says the good and deep-minded Richard Hooker : “ To the best and wisest, while they live, the world is continually a froward opposite ; and a curious observer of their defects and imperfections, their virtues afterwards it as much admireth. And for this cause, many times that which deserveth admiration would hardly be able to find favour, if they which propose it were not content to profess themselves therein scholars and followers of the ancient. For the world will not endure to hear that we are wiser than any have been which went before.” — Book v. ch. vii. 3. He therefore who would maintain the cause of contemporary excellence against .that of elder time, must have almost every class of men arrayed against him. The generous, because they would not find matter of accusation against established dignities ; the envious, because they like not the sound of a living man’s praise; the wise, because they prefer the opinion of cen- turies to that of days ; and the foolish, because they are incapable of forming an opinion of their own. — M.P. I. Preface to 2nd edit., pp. 13, 14. Gratitude due to the Living. — Let us not forget, that if honour be for the dead, gratitude can only be for the living. He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been for ever closed, feeling how impotent, there , are the wild love and the keen sorrow, ETHICAL. 353 to give one instant’s pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart, which can only be discharged to the dust. But the lesson which men receive as individuals, they do not learn as nations. Again and again they have seen their noblest descend into the grave, and have thought it enough to gar- land the tombstone when they had not crowned the brow, and to pay the honour to the ashes which they had denied to the spirit. Let it not displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult and the dazzle of their busy life, to listen for the few voices, and watch for the few lamps, which God has toned and lighted to charm and to guide them, that they may not learn their sweetness by their silence, nor their light by their decay. — M. P. I. sec. i. ch. i. § 5. Interpretation of the Term “ Gentleman.” — Two great errors, colouring, or rather discolouring, severally, the minds of the higher and lower classes, have sown wide dissention } and wider misfortune, through the society of modern days, These errors are in our modes of interpreting the word 11 gentleman.” Its primal, literal, and perpetual meaning is “ a man of pure race;” well bred, in the sense that a horse or dog is well bred. The so-called higher classes, being generally of purer race than the lower, have retained the true idea, and the convic- tions associated with it; but are afraid to speak it out, and equivocate about it in public; this equivocation mainly pro- ceeding from their desire to connect another meaning with it, and a false one ; — that of “ a man living in idleness on other people’s labour ;” — with which idea the term has nothing whatever to do. The lower classes, denying vigorously, and with reason, the notion that a gentleman means an idler, and rightly feel- ing that the more any one works, the more of a gentleman he becomes, and is likely to become, — have nevertheless got little of the good they otherwise might, from the truth, 23 354 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. because, with it, they wanted to hold a falsehood, — namely, that race was of no consequence. It being precisely of as much consequence in man as it is in any other animal. The nation cannot truly prosper till both these errors are finally got quit of. Gentlemen have to learn that it is no part of their duty or privilege to live on other people’s toil. They have to learn that there is no degradation in the hardest manual, or the humblest servile, labour, when it is honest. But that there is degradation, and that deep, in extravagance, in bribery, in indolence, in pride, in taking places they are not fit for, or in coining places for which there is no need. It does not disgrace a gentleman to become an errand boy, or a day labourer ; but it disgraces him much to become a knave or a thief. And knavery is not the less knavery because it involves large interests, nor theft the less theft because it is countenanced by usage, or accompanied by failure in undertaken duty. It is an incomparably less guilty form of robbery to cut a purse out of a man’s pocket, than to take it out of his hand on the understanding that you are to steer his ship up channel, when you do not know the soundings. On the other hand, the lower orders, and all orders, have to learn that every vicious habit and chronic disease com- municates itself by descent; and that by purity of birth the entire system of the human body and soul may be gradually elevated, or, by recklessness of birth, degraded; until there shall be as much difference between the well-bred and ill- bred human creature (whatever pains be taken with their education) as between a wolf-hound and the vilest mongrel cur. And the knowledge of this great fact ought to regulate the education of our youth, and the entire conduct of the nation. — M. P. Y. Pt. ix. ch. vii. § 1, 2, 3. Characteristics of the True Gentleman. — A gentle- man’s first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body, which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation ; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies — one may say, simply, “ fineness of ETHICAL 355 nature.” This is, of course, compatible with heroic bodily * strength and mental firmness ; in fact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy. Elephantine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel no touch of the boughs; but the white skin of Homer’s Atrides would have felt a bent rose-leaf, yet subdue its feeling in glow of battle, and behave itself like iron. I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal ; but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his non-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature ; not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot; but in the way he will lift his foot if .a child lies in his way ; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honour. And, though rightness of moral conduct is ultimately the great purifier of race, the sign of nobleness is not in this rightness of moral conduct, but in sensitiveness. When the make of the creature is fine, its temptations are strong, as well as its perceptions ; it is liable to all kinds of impressions from without in their most violent form ; liable, therefore, to be abused and hurt by all kinds of rough things which would do a coarser creature little harm, and thus to fall into fright- ful wrong if its fate will have it so. Thus David, coming of gentlest as well as royalist race, of Ruth as well as of Judah, is sensitiveness through all flesh and spirit ; not that his oompassion will restrain him from murder when his terror urges him to it ; nay, he is driven to the murder all the more by his sensitiveness to the shame which otherwise threatens him. But when his own story is told him under a disguise, though only a lamt is now concerned, his passion about it leaves him no time for thought. “ The man shall die ” — note the reason — “ because he had no pity.” He is so eager and indignant that it never occurs to him as strange that Nathan hides the name. This is true gentleman. A vulgar man would assuredly have been cautious, and asked “ who it was ? ” Hence it will follow that one of the probable signs of high- breeding in men generally will be their kindness and merci- 23—2 356 WHITINGS OF JOHN HUSKIN. fulness; these always indicating more or less fineness of make in the mind; and miserliness and cruelty the contrary; hence * that of Isaiah : u The vile person shall no more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.” But a thousand things may prevent this kindness from displaying or con- tinuing itself ; the mind of the man may be warped so as to bear mainly on his own interests, and then all his sensibilities will take the form of pride, or fastidiousness, or revengeful- ness; and other wicked, but not ungentlemanly, tempers; or, farther, they may run into utter sensuality and covetous- ness, if he is bent on pleasure, accompanied with quite infi- nite cruelty when the pride is wounded or the passions thwarted ; — until your gentleman becomes Ezzelin, and your lady, the deadly Lucrece ; yet still gentleman and lady, quite incapable of making anything else of themselves, being so born. A truer sign of breeding than mere kindness is therefore sympathy ; — a vulgar man may often be kind in a hard way, on principle, and because he thinks he ought to be; whereas, a highly-bred man, even when cruel, will be cruel in a softer way, understanding and feeling what he inflicts, and pitying his victim. Only we must carefully remember that the quan- tity of sympathy a gentleman feels can never be judged of by its outward expression, for another of his chief characteristics is apparent reserve. I say u apparent ” reserve ; for the sympathy is real, but the reserve not : a perfect gentleman is never reserved, but sweetly and entirely open, so far as it is good for others, or possible, that he should be. In a great many respects it is impossible that he should be open except to men of his own kind. To them, he can open himself, by a word, or syllable, or a glance; but to men not of his kind he cannot open himself, though he tried it through an eternity of clear grammatical speech. By the very acuteness of his sympathy he knows how much of himself he can give to anybody; and he gives that much frankly; — would always be glad to give more if he could, but is obliged, never- theless, in his general intercourse with the world, to be a somewhat silent person ; silence is to most people, he ETHICAL. 357 finds, less reserve than speech. — M. P. v. Pt. ix. ch. vii. § 5, 6, 7, 8. Cunning and Truthfulness. — Cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of over-reaching, accompanied with enjoyment and a sense of superiority. It is associated with small and dull conceit, and with an absolute want of sympathy or affec- tion. Its essential connection with vulgarity may be at once exemplified by the expression of the butcher’s dog in Land- seer’s “ Low Life.” Cruikshank’s “ Noah Claypole,” in the illustrations to Oliver Twist, in the interview with the Jew, is, however, still more characteristic. It is the intensest rendering of vulgarity absolute and utter with which I am acquainted. The truthfulness which is opposed to cunning ought, per- haps, rather to be called the desire of truthfulness ; it consists more in unwillingness to deceive than in not deceiving, — an unwillingness implying sympathy with .and respect for the person deceived ; and a fond observance of truth up to the possible point, as in a good soldier’s mode of retaining his honour through a mse-de-guerre. A cunning person seeks for opportunities to deceive ; a gentleman shuns them. A cunning person triumphs in deceiving ; a gentleman is humi- liated by his success, or at least by so much of the success as is dependent merely on the falsehood, and not on his intellectual superiority. The absolute disdain of all lying belongs rather to Christian chivalry than to mere high breeding The essence of lying is in deception, not in words ; a lie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a syllable , by a glance of the eye attaching a peculiar signifi- cance to a sentence ; and all these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded ; so that no form of blinded conscience is so far sunk as that which comforts itself for having deceived, because the deception was by gesture or silence, instead of utterance ; and, finally, according to Tennyson’s deep and trenchant line, “A lie which is half a truth is ever the worst of lies.” — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. vii. §11,12. 358 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Vulgarity. — A great sign of vulgarityis also, when traced to its root, another phase of insensibility, namely, the undue regard to appearances and manners, as in the households of vulgar persons of all stations, and the assumption of behaviour, language, or dress unsuited to them, by persons in inferior stations of life. I say “ undue ” regard to appearances, because in the undueness consists, of course, the vulgarity. It is due and wise in some sort to care for appearances, in another sort undue and unwise. Wherein lies the difference ? At first one is apt to answer quickly : the vulgarity is simply in pretending to be what you are not. But that answer will not stand. A queen may dress like a waiting maid, — perhaps succeed, if she chooses, in passing for one; but she will not, therefore, be vulgar : nay, a waiting maid may dress like a queen, and pretend to be one, and yet need not be vulgar, unless there is inherent vulgarity in her. In Scribe’s very absurd but very amusing Heine dun jour , a milliner’s girl sustains the part of a queen for a day. She several times amazes and disgusts her courtiers by her straight- forwardness ; and once or twice very nearly betrays herself to her maids of honour by an unqueenly knowledge of sewing ; but she is not in the least vulgar, for she is sensitive, simple,, and generous, and a queen could be no more. Is the vulgarity, then, only in trying to play a part you cannot play, so as to be continually detected ? No ; a bad amateur actor may be continually detected in his part, but yet continually detected to be a gentleman : a vulgar regard to appearances has nothing in it necessarily of hypocrisy. You shall know a man not to be a gentleman by the perfect and neat pronunciation of his words : but he does not pretend to pronounce accurately ; he does pronounce accurately ; the vulgarity is in the real (not assumed) scrupulousness. It will be found on farther thought, that a vulgar regard for appearances is, primarily, a selfish one, resulting, not out of a wish to give pleasure (as a wife’s wish to make herself beautiful for her husband), but out of an endeavour to mortify others, or attract for pride’s sake ; — the common “ keeping up appearances ” of society, being a mere selfish ETHICAL. 359 struggle of the vain with the vain. But the deepest stain of the vulgarity depends on this being done, not selfishly only, but stupidly, without understanding the impression which is really produced, nor the relations of importance between oneself and others, so as to suppose that their atten- tion is fixed upon us, when we are in reality ciphers in their eyes — all which comes of insensibility. Hence pride simple is not vulgar (the looking down on others because of their true inferiority to us), nor vanity simple (the desire of praise), but conceit simple (the attribution to ourselves of qualities we have not), is always so. In cases of over-studied pronun- ciation, &c., there is insensibility, first, in the person’s thinking more of himself than of what he is saying ; and, secondly, in his not having musical fineness of ear enough to feel that his talking is uneasy and strained. Finally, vulgarity is indicated by coarseness of language or manners, only so far as this coarseness has been contracted under circumstances not necessarily producing it. The illite- rateness of a Spanish or Calabrian peasant is not vulgar, because they had never an opportunity of acquiring letters ; but the illiterateness of an English school-boy is. So again provincial dialect is not vulgar ; but cockney dialect, the corruption, by blunted sense, of a finer language continually heard, is so in a deep degree ; and again, of this corrupted dialect, that is the worst which consists, not in the direct or expressive alteration of the form of a word, but in an unmusical destruction of it by dead utterance and bad or swollen formation of lip. There is no vulgarity in — “Blythe, blythe, blythe was she, Blythe was she, but and ben, And weel she liked a Hawick gill, And leugh to see a tappit hen ; ” but much in Mrs. Gamp’s inarticulate “ bottle on the chumleypiece, and let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged.” So also of personal defects, those only are vulgar which imply insensibility or dissipation. There is no vulgarity in the emaciation of Don Quixote, 360 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. the deformity of the Black Dwarf, or the corpulence of FalstafF; but much in the same personal characters, as they are seen in Uriah Heep, Quilp, and Chadband. One of the most curious minor questions in this matter is respecting the vulgarity of excessive neatness, complicating itself with inquiries into the distinction between base neat- ness, and the perfectness of good execution in the fine arts. It will be found on final thought that precision and exquisite- ness of arrangement are always noble ; but become vulgar only when they arise from an equality (insensibility) of temperament, which is incapable of fine passion, and is set ignobly, and with a dullard mechanism, on accuracy in vile things All the different impressions connected with negligence or foulness depend in like manner, on the degree of insensibility implied. Disorder in a drawing-room is vulgar, in an anti- quary’s study, not ; the black battle-stain on a soldier’s face is not vulgar, but the dirty face of a housemaid is. And lastly, courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is pecu- liarly the mark of a gentleman or a lady : but it becomes vulgar if rude or insensitive, while timidity i3 not vulgar, if it be a characteristic of race or fineness of make. A fawn is not vulgar in being. timid, nor a crocodile “gentle” because courageous. Without following the inquiry into farther detail, we may conclude that vulgarity consists in a deadness of the heart and body, resulting from prolonged, and especially from inherited, conditions of “ degeneracy,” or literally “ un- racing ;’’ — gentlemanliness, being another word for an intense humanity. And vulgarity shows itself primarily in dulness of heart, not in rage or cruelty, but in inability to feel or conceive noble character or emotion. This is its essential, pure, and most fatal form. Dulness of bodily sense and general stupidity, with such forms of crime as peculiarly issue from stupidity, are its material manifestation. — M. P. Y. Pt.ix. ch.vii. § 16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23. The Eight Faith of Man. — The right faith of man is not intended to give him repose, but to enable him to do his ETHICAL. 3G1 work. It is not intended that he should look away from the place he lives in now, and cheer himself with thoughts of the place he is to live in next, but that he should look stoutly into this world, in faith that if he does his work thoroughly here, some good to others or himself, with which however he is not at present concerned, will come of it hereafter. And this kind of brave, but not very hopeful or cheerful faith, I perceive to be always rewarded by clear practical success and splendid intellectual power ; while the faith which dwells on the future fades away into rosy mist, and emptiness of musical air. That result indeed follows naturally enough on its habit of assuming that things must be right, or must come right, when, probably, the fact is, that so far as we are concerned, they are entirely wrong ; and going wrong : and also on its weak and false way of looking on what these religious persons call “ the bright side of things,” that is to say, on one side of them only, when God has given them two sides, and intended us to see both. — M.P. Y. Pt. ix. ch. ii. § 10. The Mirror of the Soul. — Here is a short piece of precious word revelation, for instance, 11 God is love.” Love ! yes. But what is that ? The revelation does not tell you that, I think. Look into the mirror, and you will see. Out of your own heart you may know what love is. In no other possible way, — by no other help or sign. All the words and sounds ever uttered, all the revelations of cloud, or flame, or crystal, are utterly powerless. They cannot tell you, in the smallest point, what love means. Only the broken mirror can. Here is more revelation. “ God is just ! ” Just ! What is that ? The revelation cannot help you to discover. You say it is dealing equitably or equally. But how do you discern the equality ? Not by inequality of mind ; not by a mind incapable of weighing, judging, or distributing. If the lengths seem unequal in the broken mirror, for you they are unequal; but if they seem equal, then the mirror is true. So far as you recognize equality, and your conscience tells you what is just, so far your mind is the image of God’s: and so far as you do not discern this nature of justice or 362 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. equality, the words, “God is just” bring no revelation to you. “ But His thoughts are not as our thoughts.” No: the sea is not as the standing pool by the wayside. Yet when the breeze crisps the pool, you may see the image of the breakers, and a likeness of the foam. Nay, in some sort, the same foam. If the sea is for ever invisible to you, something you may learn of it from the pool. Nothing, assuredly, any otherwise. “ But this poor miserable Me ! Is this, then, all the book I have got to read about God in?” Yes, truly so. No other book, nor fragment of book, than that, will you ever find; — no velvet-bound missal, nor frankincensed manuscript; — nothing hieroglyphic nor cuneiform ; papyrus and pyramid are alike silent on this matter ; nothing in the clouds above, nor in the earth beneath. That flesh-bound volume is the only revelation that is, that was, or that can be. In that is the image of God painted ; in that is the law of God written ; in that is the promise of God revealed. Know thyself; for through thyself only thou canst know God. Through the glass, darkly. But, except through the glass, in nowise. A tremulous crystal, waved as water, poured out upon the ground; — you may defile it, despise it, pollute it, at your pleasure, and at your peril ; for on the peace of those weak waves must all the heaven you shall ever gain be first seen ; and through such purity as you can win for those dark waves, must all the light of the risen Sun of righteousness be bent down, by faint refraction. Cleanse them, and calm them, as you love your life. Therefore it is that all the power of nature depends on sub- jection to the human soul. Man is the sun of the world ; more than the real sun. The fire of his wonderful heart is the only light and heat worth gauge or measure. Where he is, are the tropics ; where he is not, the ice-world. — M. P. v. Pt. ix. § 12, 15. Use of the Associative Faculty. — I believe that mere pleasure and pain have less associative power than duty per- ETHICAL. 363 formed or omitted, and that the great use of the Associative faculty is not to add beauty to material things, but to add force to the Conscience. But for this external and all-power- ful witness, the voice of the inward guide might be lost in each particular instance, almost as soon as disobeyed; the echo of it in after time, whereby, though perhaps feeble as warning, it becomes powerful as punishment, might be silenced, and the strength of the protection pass away in the lightness of the lash. Therefore it has received the power of enlisting external and unmeaning things in its aid, and trans- mitting to all that is indifferent its own authority to reprove or reward ; so that, as we travel the way of life, we have the choice, according to our working, of turning all the voices of Nature into one song of rejoicing, and all her lifeless creatures into a glad company, whereof the meanest shall be beautiful in our eyes by its kind message, or of withering and quench- ing her sympathy into a fearful withdrawn silence of con- demnation, or into a crying out of her stones, and a shaking of her dust against us. Nor is it any marvel that the theoretic faculty should be overpowered by this momentous operation, and the indifferent appeals and inherent glories of external things in the end overlooked, when the perfection of God’s works is felt only as the sweetness of his promises, and their admirableness only as the threatenings of his power. — M. P. II. Pt. iii. sec. i. ch. iv. § 10. The Uses of Imagination. — What are the legitimate uses of the imagination, that is to say, of the power of perceiving, or conceiving with the mind, things which cannot be perceived by the senses. Its first and noblest use is, to enable us to bring sensibly to our sight the things which are recorded as belonging to our future state, or as invisibly surrounding us in this. It is given us, that we may imagine the cloud of witnesses in heaven and earth, and see, as if they were now present, the souls of the righteous waiting for us; that we may conceive the great army of the inhabitants of heaven, and discover among them those whom we most desire to be with for ever; that we may 3G4 WHITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. be able to vision forth the ministry of angels beside us, and see the chariots of fire on the mountains that gird us round; but, above all, to call up the scenes and facts in which we are commanded to believe, and be present, as if in the body, at every recorded event of the history of the Redeemer. Its second and ordinary use is to empower us to traverse the scenes of all other history, and force the facts to become again visible, so as to make upon us the same impression which they would have made if we had witnessed them : and in the minor necessities of life, to enable us, out of any present good, to gather the utmost measure of enjoyment by investing it with happy associations, and, in any present evil, to lighten it, by summoning back the images of other hours; and, also, to give to all mental truths some visible type in allegory, simile, or personification, which shall more deeply enforce them ; and, finally, when the mind is utterly outwearied, to refresh it with such innocent play as shall be most in harmony with the suggestive voices of natural things, permitting it to possess living companionship instead of silent beauty, and create for itself fairies in the grass, and naiads in the wave. These being the uses of imagination, its abuses are either in creating, for mere pleasure, false images, where it is its duty to create true ones ; or in turning what was intended for the mere refreshment of the heart into its daily food, and changing the innocent pastime of an hour into the guilty occupation of a life. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. iv. § 5, 6. The Imagination Weariable. — The imagination is emi- nently a weariable faculty, eminently delicate, and incapable of bearing fatigue ; so that if we give it too many objects at a time to employ itself upon, or very grand ones for a long time together, it fails under the effort, becomes jaded, exactly as the limbs do by bodily fatigue, and incapable of answering any farther appeal till it has had rest. And this is the real nature of the weariness which is so often felt in travelling, from seeing too much. It is not that the monotony and num- ber of the beautiful things seen have made them valueless, but that the imaginative power has been overtaxed; and, instead ETHICAL. 3G5 of letting it rest, the traveller, wondering to find himself dull, and incapable of admiration, seeks for something more admi- rable, excites and torments, and drags the poor fainting imagi- nation up by the shoulders : “ Look at this, and look at that, and this more wonderful still I ” — until the imaginative faculty faints utterly away, beyond all farther torment, or pleasure, dead for many a day to come ; and the despairing prodigal takes to horse-racing in the Campagna, good now for nothing else than that; whereas, if the imagination had only been laid down on the grass, among simple things, and left quiet for a little while, it would have come to itself gradually, recovered its strength and colour, and soon been fit for work again. So that, whenever the imagination is tired, it is necessary to find for it something, not more admirable but less admirable ; such as in that weak state it can deal with ; then give it peace, and it will recover. I well recollect the walk on which I first found out this ; it was on the winding road from Sallenche, sloping up the hills towards St. Gervais, one cloudless Sunday afternoon. The road circles softly between bits of rocky bank and mounded pasture; little cottages and chapels gleaming out from among the trees at every turn. Behind me, some leagues in length, rose the jagged range of the mountains of the Beposoir; on the other side of the valley, the mass of the Aiguille de Yarens, heaving its seven thousand feet of cliff into the air at a single effort, its gentle gift of waterfall, the Nant d’Arpenaz, like a pillar of cloud at its feet ; Mont Blanc and all its aiguilles, one silver flame, in front of me ; marvel- lous blocks of mossy granite and dark glades of pine around me ; but I could enjoy nothing, and could not for a long while make out what was the matter with me, until at last I discovered that if I confined myself to one thing, — and that a little thing, — a tuft of moss, or a single crag at the top of the Yarens, or a wreath or two of foam at the bottom of the the Nant d’Arpenaz, I began to enjoy it directly, because then I had mind enough to put into the thing, and the enjoyment arose from the quantity of the imaginative energy I could bring to bear upon it; but when I looked at or thought of all 366 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. together, moss, stones, Varens, Nant d’Arpenaz, and Mont Blanc, I had not mind enough to give to all, and none were of any value. The conclusion which would have been formed, upon this, by a German philosopher, would have been that the Mont Blanc was of no value ; that he and his imagination only were of value ; that the Mont Blanc, in fact, except so far as he was able to look at it, could not be considered as having any existence. But the only conclusion which occurred to me as reasonable under the circumstances (I have seen no ground for altering it since) was, that I was an exceedingly small creature, much tired, and, at the moment, not a little stupid, for whom a blade of grass, or a wreath of loam, was quite food enough and to spare, and that if I tried to take any more, I should make myself ill. Where- upon, associating myself fraternally with some ants, who were deeply interested in the conveyance of some small sticks over the road, and rather, as I think they generally are, in too great a hurry about it, I returned home in a little while with great contentment, thinking how well it was ordered that, as Mont Blanc and his pine forests could not be everywhere, nor all the world come to see them, the human mind, on the whole, should enjoy itself most surely in an ant-like manner, and be happy and busy with the bits of stick and grains of crystal that fall in its way to be handled, in daily duty. — M. P. Ill, Pt. iv. ch. x. § 14, 15. Delight in Objects of Terror. — There is one peculiarity of feeling which manifests itself among the European nations, so far as I have noticed, irregularly, — appearing sometimes to be the characteristic of a particular time, sometimes of a particular race, sometimes of a particular locality, and to involve at once much that is to be blamed and much that is praiseworthy. 1 mean the capability of enduring, or even delighting in, the contemplation of objects of terror — a senti- ment which especially influences the temper of some groups of mountaineers, and of which it is necessary to examine the causes, before we can form any conjecture whatever as to the real effect of mountains on human character. ETHICAL. 3G7 For instance, the unhappy alterations which have lately taken place in the town of Lucerne have still spared two of its ancient bridges ; both of which, being long covered walks, appear, in past times, to have been to the population of the town what the Mall was to London, or the Gardens of the Tuileries are to Paris. For the continual contemplation of those who sauntered from pier to pier, pictures were painted on the woodwork of the roof. These pictures, in the one bridge, represent all the important Swiss battles and victories ; in the other they are the well-known series of which Long- fellow has made so beautiful a use in the Golden Legend, the Dance of Death. Imagine the countenances with which a committee, ap- pointed for the establishment of a new 11 promenade ” in some flourishing modern town, would receive a proposal to adorn such promenade with pictures of the Dance of Death ! Now just so far as the old bridge at Lucerne, with the pure, deep, and blue water of the Reuss eddying down between its piers, and with the sweet darkness of green hills, and far- away gleaming of lake and Alps alternating upon the eye on either side ; and the gloomy lesson frowning in the shadow, as if the deep tone of a passing-bell, overhead, were mingling for ever with the plashing of the river as it glides by beneath ; just so far, I say, as this differs from the straight and smooth strip of level dust, between two rows of round-topped acacia trees, wherein the inhabitants of an English watering-place or French fortified town take their delight, — so far I believe the life of the old Lucernois, with all its happy waves of light, and mountain strength of will, and solemn expectation of eternity, to have differed from the generality of the lives of those who saunter for their habitual hour up and down the modern promenade. But the gloom is not always of this noble kind. As we penetrate farther among the hills we shall find it becoming very painful. We are walking, perhaps, in a summer afternoon, up the valley of Zermatt (a German valley), the sun shining brightly on grassy knolls and through fringes of pines, the goats leaping happily, and the cattle bells ringing sweetly, and the snowy mountains 3G8 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. shining like heavenly castles far above. We see, a little way off, a small white chapel, sheltered behind one of the flowery hillocks of mountain turf ; and we approach its little window, thinking to look through it into some quiet home of prayer ; but the window is grated with iron, and open to the winds, and when Ave look through it, behold — a heap of white human bones mouldering into whiter dust ! So also in that same sweet valley, of which I have just been speaking, between Chamouni and the Valais, at every turn of the pleasant pathway, where the scent of the thyme lies richest upon its rocks, we shall see a little cross and shrine set under one of them ; and go up to it, hoping to receive some happy thought of the Redeemer, by whom all these lovely things were made, and still consist. But when we come near — behold, beneath the cross, a rude picture of souls tormented in red tongues of hell fire, and pierced by demons. As we pass towards Italy the appearance of this gloom deepens ; and when we descend the southern slope of the Alps we shall find this bringing forward of the image of Death associated with an endurance of the most painful aspects of disease; so that conditions of human suffering, which in any other country would be confined in hospitals, are permitted to be openly exhibited by the wayside ; and with this ex- posure of the degraded human form is farther connected an insensibility to ugliness and imperfection in other things ; so that the ruined wall, neglected garden, and uncleansed cham- ber, seem to unite in expressing a gloom of spirit possessing the inhabitants of the whole land. It does not appear to arise from poverty, nor careless contentment with little : there is here nothing of Irish recklessness or humour ; but there seems a settled obscurity in the soul, — a chill and plague, as if risen out of a sepulchre, which partly deadens, partly darkens, the eyes and hearts of men, and breathes a leprosy of decay through every breeze and every stone. “ Instead of well-set hair, baldness, and burning instead of beauty.” Nor are definite proofs wanting that the feeling is inde- pendent of mere poverty or indolence. In the most gorgeous and costly palace garden the statues will be found green ETHICAL. 369 with moss, the terraces defaced or broken ; the palace itself, partly coated with marble, is left in other places rough with cementless and jagged brick, its iron balconies bent and rusted, its pavements overgrown with grass. The more energetic the effort has been to recover from this state, and to shake off all appearance of poverty, the more assuredly the curse seems to fasten on the scene, and the unslaked mortar, and unfinished wall, and ghastly desolation of incom- pleteness entangled in decay, strike a deeper despondency into the beholder. — M. P. IY. Pt. v. ch. xix. § 9, 10, 11, 12. Kegard for Posterity. — The benevolent regards and pur- poses of men in masses seldom can be supposed to extend beyond their own generation. They may look to posterity as an audience, may hope for its attention, and labour for its praise : they may trust to its recognition of unacknowledged merit, and demand its justice for contemporary wrong. But all this is mere selfishness, and does not involve the slightest regard to, or consideration of, the interest of those by whose numbers we would fain swell the circle of our flatterers, and by whose authority we would gladly support our presently disputed claims. The idea of self-denial for the sake of poste- rity, of practising present economy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, of planting forests that our descendants may live under their shade, or of raising cities for future nations to inhabit, never, I suppose, efficiently takes place among pub- licly recognized motives of exertion. Yet these are not the less our duties; nor is our part fitly sustained upon the earth, unless the range of our intended and deliberate usefulness include, not only the companions, but the successors, of our pilgrimage. God has lent us the earth for our life ; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us ; and we have no right, by any thing that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath. And this the more, because it is one of the appointed conditions of the labour of men that, in proportion 24: 370 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. to the time between the seed-sowing and the harvest, is the fulness of the fruit ; and that generally, therefore, the farther off we place our aim, and the less we desire to be ourselves the witnesses of what we have laboured for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our success. Men cannot benefit those that are with them as they can benefit those who come after them ; and of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave. Nor is there, indeed, any present loss, in such respect for futurity. Every human action gains in honour, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that, above all other attributes, separate man from man, and near him to his Maker ; and there is no action nor art, whose majesty we may not measure by this test. Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build for ever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone ; let it be such work as our de- scendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them, u See ! this our fathers did for us.” For, indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. It is in their lasting witness against men, in their quiet contrast with the transitional character of all things, in the strength which, through the lapse of seasons and times, and the decline and birth of dynasties, and the changing of the face of the earth, and of the limits of the sea, maintains its sculptured shapeliness for a time insuperable, connects forgotten and following ages with each other, and half constitutes the identity, as it concentrates the sympathy, of nations ; it is in that golden stain of time, that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture ; f and it is ETHICAL. 371 not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess of language and of life. — S. L. A. ch. vi. § 9, 10. The Infidelity of England. — The form which the infidelity of England, especially, has taken, is one hitherto unheard of in human history. No nation ever before declared boldly, by print and word of mouth, that its religion was good for show, but “ would not work.” Over and over again it has happened that nations have denied their gods, but they denied them bravely. The Greeks in their decline jested at their religion, and frittered it away in flatteries and fine arts ; the French refused theirs fiercely, tore down their altars and brake their carven images. The question about God with both these nations was still, even in their decline, fairly put, though falsely answered. “ Either there is or is not a Supreme Euler ; we consider of it, declare there is not, and proceed accordingly.” But we English have put the matter in an entirely new light : u There is a Supreme Euler, no question of it, only He cannot rule. His orders won’t work. He will be quite satisfied with euphonious and respectful repetition of them. Execution would be too dangerous under existing circumstances, which He certainly never contemplated.” I had no conception of the absolute darkness which has covered the national mind in this respect, until I began to come into collision with persons engaged in the study of economical and political questions. The entire naivete and undisturbed imbecility with which I found them declare that the laws of the Devil were the only practicable ones, and that the laws of God were merely a form of poetical language, passed all that I had ever before heard or read of mortal infidelity. I knew the fool had often said in his heart, there was no God ; but to hear him say clearly out with his lips, u There is a foolish God,” was something which my art 24—2 372 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. studies had not prepared me for. The French had indeed, for a considerable time, hinted much of the meaning in the delicate and compassionate blasphemy of their phrase “ le bon Dieu ,” but had never ventured to put it into more precise terms. Now this form of unbelief in God is connected with, and necessarily productive of, a precisely equal unbelief in man. Co-relative with the assertion, “ There is a foolish God,” is the assertion, “ There is a brutish man.” “As no laws but those of the Devil are practicable in the world, so no impulses but those of the brute ” (says the modern political economist) “ are appealable to in the world. Faith, generosity, honesty, zeal, and self-sacrifice are poetical phrases. None of these things can, in reality, be counted upon ; there is no truth in man which can be used as a moving or productive power. All motive force in him is essentially brutish, covetous, or contentious. His power is only power of prey : otherwise than the spider, he cannot design ; otherwise than the tiger, he cannot feed.” This is the modern interpretation of that embarrassing article of the Creed, “the communion of saints.” It has always seemed very strange to me, not indeed that this creed should have been adopted, it being the entirely necessary consequence of the previous fundamental article ; — but that no one should ever seem to have any misgivings about it; — that, practically, no one had seen how strong work was done by man ; how either for hire, or for hatred, it never had been done ; and that no amount of pay had ever made a good soldier, a good teacher, a good artist, or a good work- man. You pay your soldiers and sailors so many pence a day, at which rated sum, one will do good fighting for you ; another, bad fighting. Pay as you will, the entire goodness of the fighting depends, always, on its being done for nothing ; or rather, less than nothing, in the expectation of no pay but death. Examine the work of your spiritual teachers, and you will find the statistical law respecting them is, “ The less pay, the better work.” Examine also your writers and artists : for ten pounds you shall have a Paradise Lost, and for a plate of figs, a Purer drawing ; but . for a million of money ETHICAL. 373 sterling, neither. Examine your men of science : paid by starvation, Kepler will discover the laws of the orbs of heaven for you ; — and, driven out to die in the street, Swammerdam shall discover the laws of life for you — such hard terms do they make with you, these brutish men, who can only be had for hire. Neither is good work ever done for hatred, any more than hire ; — but for love only. For love of their country, or their leader, or their duty, men fight steadily; but for massacre and plunder, feebly. Your signal, 11 England expects every man to do his duty,” they will answer ; your signal of black flag and death’s head, they will not answer. And verily they will answer it no more in commerce than in battle. The cross bones will not make a good shop-sign, you will find ulti- mately, any more than a good battle-standard. Not the cross bones, but the cross. Now the practical result of this infidelity in man, is the utter ignorance of all the ways of getting his right work out of him. From a given quantity of human power and intel- lect, to produce the least possible result, is a problem solved, nearly with mathematical precision, by the present methods of the nation’s economical procedure. The power and intellect are enormous. With the best soldiers, at present existing, we survive in battle, and but survive, because, by help of Providence, a man whom we have kept all his life in com- mand of a company forces his way at the age of seventy so far up as to obtain permission to save us, and die, unthanked. With the shrewdest thinkers in the world, we have not yet succeeded in arriving at any national conviction respecting the uses of life. — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. xii. § 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 374 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. MISCELLANEOUS. A Sea Boat. — Of all things, living or lifeless, upon this strange earth, there is but one which, having reached the mid-term of appointed human endurance on it, I still regard with unmitigated amazement. I know, indeed, that all around me is wonderful ; but I cannot answer it with wonder : a dark veil with the foolish words, Nature of Things, upon it casts its deadening folds between me and their dazzling strangeness. Flowers open, and stars rise, and it seems to me they could have done no less. The mystery of distant mountain-blue only makes me reflect that the earth is of necessity mountainous ; the sea wave breaks at my feet, and I do not see how it should have remained unbroken. But one object there is still, which I never pass without the renewed wonder of childhood, and that is the bow of a boat. Not of a racing- wherry, or revenue cutter, or clipper-yacht, but the blunt head of a common bluff, undecked sea-boat, lying aside in its furrow of beach sand. The sum of naviga- tion is in that. You may magnify it or decorate it as you will ; you do not add to the wonder of it. Lengthen it into hatchet-like edge of iron, strengthen it with complex tracery of ribs of oak, carve it and gild it till a column of light moves beneath it on the sea, you have made no more of it than it was at first. That rude simplicity of bent plank, that can breast its way through the death that is in the deep sea, has in it the soul of shipping. Beyond this, we may have more work, more men, more money ; we cannot have more miracle. For there is first an infinite strangeness in the perfection of the thing as work of human hands. I know nothing else that man does which is perfect, but that. All his other doings have some sign of weakness, affectation, or ignorance in them. They are over-finished, or under-finished ; they do MISCELLANEOUS. 375 not quite answer their end, or they show a mean vanity in answering it too well. But the boat’s bow is naively perfect ; complete without an effort. The man who made it knew not that he was making anything beautiful as he bent its planks into those mysterious ever- changing curves. It grows under his hands into the image of a sea-shell, the seal, as it were, of the flowing of the great tides and streams of ocean stamped on its delicate rounding. He leaves it when all is done, without a boast. It is simple work, but it will keep out water, and every plank, thenceforward, is a fate, and has men’s lives wreathed in the knots of it, as the cloth yard shaft had their deaths in its plumes. Then, also, it is wonderful, on account of the greatness of the thing accomplished. No other work of human hands ever gained so much. Steam-engines and telegraphs, indeed, help us to fetch and carry, and talk ; they lift weights for us, and bring messages with less trouble than would have been needed otherwise ; this saving of trouble, however, doe& not constitute a new faculty, it only enhances the powers we already possess. But in that bow of the boat is the gift of another world. Without it, what prison wall would be so strong as that white and wailing fringe of sea? What maimed creatures, were we all chained to our rocks, Andromeda- like, or wandering by the endless shores, wasting our incommunicable strength, and pining in hopeless watch of unconquerable waves ! The nails that fasten together the planks of the boat’s bow are the rivets of the fellowship of the world. Their iron does more than draw lightning out of heaven, it leads love round the earth. Then, also, it is wonderful on account of the greatness of the enemy that it does battle with. To lift dead weight, to overcome length of languid space, to multiply or systematize a given force ; this we may see done by the bar, or beam, or wheel, without wonder. But to war with that living fury of waters, to bare its breast, moment after moment, against the unwearied enmity of ocean ; the subtle, fitful, implacable smiting of the black, waves, provoking each other on endlessly, 37 G WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. all the infinite march of the Atlantic rolling on behind them to their help, and still to strike them back into a wreath of smoke and futile foam, and win its way against them, and keep its charge of life from them. Does any other soulless thing do as much as this ? I should not have talked of this feeling of mine about a boat if I had thought it was mine only ; but I believe it to be common to all of us who are not seamen. With a seaman wonder changes into fellowship and close affection ; but to all landsmen, from youth upwards, the boat remains a piece of enchantment, at least, unless we entangle our vanity in it, and refine it away into mere lath, giving up all its protective nobleness Jor pace. With those in whose eyes the perfection of a boat is swift fragility I have no sympathy. The glory of a boat is first, its steadiness of poise, its assured standing on the clear softness of the abyss, and after that so much capacity of progress by oar or sail as shall be consistent with this defiance of the treachery of the sea. And this being understood, it is very notable how commonly the poets, creating for themselves an ideal of motion, fasten upon the charm of a boat. They do not usually express any desire for wings, or, if they do, it is only in some vague and half- unintended phrase such as, “ flit ” or “ soar,” involving winged- ness. Seriously, they are evidently content to let the wings belong to the horse, or muse, or angel, rather than to them- selves ; but they all somehow or other express an honest wish for a spiritual boat. I will not dwell on poor Shelley’s paper navies and seas of quicksilver, lest we should begin to think evil of boats in general, because of that traitorous one in Spezzia Bay ; but it is a triumph to find the pastorally- minded Wordsworth imagine no other way of visiting the stars than in a boat u no bigger than the crescent moon ; ” and to find Tennyson — although his boating, in an ordinary way, has a very marshy and punt-like character — at last, in his highest inspiration, enter in where the wind began, “ to sweep a music out of sheet and shroud.” But the chief triumph of all is in Dante. He had known all manner of travelling ; had been borne through vacancy on the shoulders MISCELLANEOUS. 377 of chimeras, and lifted through upper heaven in the grasp of its spirits ; but yet I do not remember that he ever expresses any positive wish on such matters, except for a boat. — “ Harbours of England.” Our Marine Architecture. — Down to Elizabeth’s time chivalry lasted, and grace of dress and mien, and all else that was connected with chivalry. Then came the ages which, when they have taken their due place in the depths of the past, will be, by a wise and clear-sighted futurity, per- haps well comprehended under a common name, as the ages of Starch ; periods of general stiffening and bluish whitening, with a prevailing washerwoman’s taste in everything; in- volving a change of steel armour into cambric ; of natural hair into peruke; of natural walking, into that which will disarrange no wristbands ; of plain language into quips and embroideries ; and of human life in general, from a green racecourse, where to be defeated was at worst only to fall behind and recover breath, into a slippery pole to be climbed with toil and contortion, and in clinging to which each man’s foot is on its neighbour’s head. But, meanwhile, the marine deities were incorruptible. It was not possible to starch the sea, and precisely as the stiffness fastened upon men, it vanished from ships. What had once been a mere raft, with rows of formal benches pushed along by laborious flap of oars, and with infinite fluttering of flags and swelling of poops above, gradually began to lean more heavily into the deep water, to sustain a gloomy weight of guns, to draw back its spider-like feebleness of limb and open its bosom to the wind, and finally darkened down from all its painted vanities into the long low hull familiar with the overflying foam ; that has no other pride but in its daily duty and victory ; while through all these changes it gained continually in grace, strength, audacity, and beauty, until at last it has reached such a pitch of all these that there is not, except the very loveliest creatures of the living world, anything in nature so absolutely notable, be- witching, and, according to its means and measure, heart- 378 WHITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. occupying as a well-handled ship under sail on a stormy day. Any ship, from lowest to proudest, has due place in that architecture of the sea; beautiful not so much in this or that piece of it, as in the unity of all, from cottage to cathedral, into their great buoyant dynasty. Yet among them, the fisher-boat, corresponding to the cottage on the land (only far more sublime than a cottage ever can be), is on the whole the thing most venerable. I doubt if ever academic grove were half so fit for profitable meditation, as the little strip of shingle between two black, steep, overhanging sides of stranded fishing-boats. The clear, heavy water-edge of ocean rising and falling close to their bows, in that unaccountable way which the sea has always in calm weather, turning the pebbles over and over, as if with a rake to look for some- thing, — and then stopping a moment down at the bottom of the bank, and coming up again with a little run and clash, throwing a foot’s depth of salt crystal in an instant between you and the round stone you were going to take in your hand ; sighing all the while as if it would infinitely rather be doing something else. And the dark flanks of the fishing-boats, all aslope above, in their shining quietness ; hot in the morn- ing sun, rusty and seamed, with square patches of planks nailed over their rents; just rough enough to let the little flat-footed fisher-children haul or twist themselves up to the gunwales, and drop back again along some stray rope ; just round enough to remind us in their broad and gradual curves of the sweep of the green surges they know so well, and of the hours when those old sides of seared timber, all ashine with the sea, plunge and dip into the deep green purity of the mounded waves more joyfully than a deer lies down among the grass of spring, the soft white cloud of foam opening momen- tarily at the bows, and fading or flying high into the breeze where the sea-gulls toss and shriek, — the joy and beauty of it all the while so mingled with the sense of unfathomable danger, and the human effort and sorrow going on perpetually from age to age, waves rolling for ever, and winds moaning for ever, and faithful hearts trusting and sickening for ever, and brave lives dashed away about the rattling beach like MISCELLANEOUS. 379 weeds for ever ; and still at the helm of every lonely boat, through starless night and hopeless dawn, His hand, who spread the fisher’s net over the dust of the Sidonian palaces, and gave into the fisher’s hand the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Next after the fishing-boat, which, as I said, in the archi- tecture of the sea, represents the cottage, more especially the pastoral or agricultural cottage, watchful over some pathless domain of moor-land or arable, as the fishing-boat swims humbly in the midst of the broad green fields and hills of ocean, out of which it has to win such fruit as they can give, and to compass with net or drag such flocks as it may find, — next to this ocean-cottage ranks in interest, it seems to me, the small over-wrought, under-crewed, ill-caulked merchant brig or schooner; the kind of ship which first shows its couple of thin masts over the low fields or marshes as we near any third-rate seaport, and which is sure somewhere to stud the great space of glittering water, seen from any sea- cliff, with its four or five square-set sails. Of the larger and more polite tribes of merchant vessels, three-masted and passenger-carrying, I have nothing to say, feeling in general little sympathy with people who want to go anywhere, nor caring much about anything which, in the essence of it, expresses a desire to get to other sides of the world ; but only for homely and stay-at-home ships, that live their life and die their death about English rocks. Neither have I any interest in the higher branches of commerce, such as traffic with spice islands, and porterage of painted tea-chests or carved ivory, for all this seems to me to fall under the head of commerce of the drawing-room — costly, but not venerable. I respect in the merchant service only those ships that carry coals, herrings, salt, timber, iron, and such other commodities, and that have disagreeable odour and unwashed decks. But there are few things more impressive to me than one of these ships lying up against some lonely quay in a black sea-fog, with the furrow traced under its tawny keel far in the harbour slime. The noble misery that there is in it, the might of its rent and strained unseemliness, its wave-worn melancholy, 380 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. resting there for a little while in the comfortless ebb, unpitied and claiming no pity ; still less honoured, least of all con- scious of any claim to honour ; casting and craning by due balance whatever is in its hold up to the pier, in quiet truth of time ; spinning of wheel, and slackening of rope, and swinging of spade, in as accurate cadence as a w T altz-music ; one or tw r o of its crew, perhaps, away forward, and a hungry boy and yelping dog eagerly interested in something from which a blue dull smoke rises out of a pot or pan ; but dark-browed and silent, their limbs, slack, like the ropes above them, entangled as they are in those inextricable meshes about the patched knots and heaps of ill-reefed sable sail. What a majestic sense of service in all that languor ; the rest of human limbs and hearts, at utter need, not in sweet meadows or soft air, but in harbour slime and biting fog ; so drawing their breath once more to go out again without lament from between the two skeletons of pier -heads vocal with wash of under-wave into the grey troughs of tumbling brine ; there, as they can, with slacked rope and patched sail and leaky hull again to roll and stagger far away amidst the wind and salt sleet from dawn to dusk, and dusk to dawn, winning day by day their daily bread ; and for last reward, when their old hands on some winter night lose feeling among the frozen ropes, and their old eyes miss mark of the light- house, quenched in foam, the so long impossible rest, that shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more — their eyes and mouths filled with the brown sea sand. ****** Take it all in all, a ship of the line is the most honourable thing that man, as a gregarious animal, has ever produced. By himself, unhelped, he can do better things than ships of the line ; he can make poems and pictures, and other such concentrations of what is best in him. But as a being living in flocks, and hammering out with alternate strokes and mutual agreement, what is necessary for him in those flocks to get or produce, the ship of the line is his first work. Into that he has put as much of his human patience, common MISCELLANEOUS. 381 sense, forethought, experimental philosophy, self-control, habits of order and obedience, thoroughly wrought handwork, defiance of brute elements, careless courage, careful patriotism, and calm expectation of the judgment of God, as can well be put into a space of three hundred feet long by eighty broad. And I am thankful to have lived in an age when I could see this thing so done. — “ Harbours of England.” War. — Wherever there is war, there must be injustice on one side or the other, or on both. There have been wars which were little more than trials of strength between friendly nations, and in which the injustice was not to each other, but to the God who gave them life. But in a malignant war of these present ages there is injustice of ignobler kind, at once to God and man, which must be stemmed for both their sakes. It may, indeed, be so involved with national prejudices, or ignorances, that neither of the contending nations can conceive it as attaching to their cause ; nay, the constitution of their governments, and the clumsy crookedness of their political dealings with each other, may be such as to prevent either of them from knowing the actual cause for which they have gone to war. — M . P. III. Pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 32. England’s Strength — “ Luff Boy ! ” — -War with France ? it may be ; and they say good ships are building at Cherbourg. War with Russia ? That also is conceivable ; and the Russians invent machines that explode under water by means of knobs. War with the fiend in ourselves? That may not so easily come to pass, he and we being in close treaty hitherto, yet perhaps in good time may be looked for. And against enemies, foreign or eternal, French, Sclavonic, or Dajmoniac, what arms have we to count upcn ? I hear of good artillery practice at Woolwich: — of new methods of sharpening sabres invented by Sikhs, — of a modern condition of the blood of Nessus, which sets sails on fire, and makes an end of Herculean ships, like Phoenixes. All which may perhaps be well, or ill for us. But if our enemies want to judge of our proved weapons and armour, let them come and look here. Bare 382 WHITINGS OF JOJIN RUSKIN. head, bare fist, bare foot, and blue jacket. If these will not save us, nothing will . — Notes on the Academy Pictures , 1859. The War in the Crimea. — I believe war is at present productive of good more than of evil. I will not argue this hardly and coldly, as I might, by tracing in past his- tory some of the abundant evidence that nations have always reached their highest virtue, and wrought their most accom- plished works, in times of straitening and battle ; as, on the other hand, no nation ever yet enjoyed a protracted and triumphant peace without receiving in its own bosom ineradi- cable seeds of future decline. I will not so argue this matter ; but I will appeal at once to the testimony of those whom the war has cost the dearest. I know what would be told me, by those who have suffered nothing ; whose domestic happiness has been unbroken ; whose daily comfort undisturbed ; whose experience of calamity consists, at its utmost, in the incertitude of a speculation, the dearness of a luxury, or the increase of demands upon their fortune which they could meet fourfold without inconvenience. From these, I can well believe, be they prudent economists, or careless pleasure-seekers, the cry for peace will rise alike vociferously, whether in street or senate. But I ask their witness, to whom the war has changed the aspect of the earth, and imagery of heaven, whose hopes it has cut off like a spider’s web, whose treasure it has placed, in a moment, under the seals of clay. Those who can never more see. sunrise, nor watch the climbing light gild the Eastern clouds without thinking what graves it has gilded, first, far down behind the dark earth-line, — who never more shall see the crocus bloom in spring, without thinking what dust it is that feeds the wild flowers of Balaclava. Ask their witness, and see if they will not reply that it is well with them, and with theirs ; that they would have it no otherwise ; would not, if they might, receive back their gifts of love and life, nor take again the purple of their blood out of the cross on the breast- plate of England. Ask them : and though they should answer only with a sob, listen if it does not gather upon their lips into the sound of the old Seyton war-cry — “ Set on.” MISCELLANEOUS. 383 And this not for pride — not because the names of their lost ones will be recorded to all time, as of those who held the breach and kept the gate of Europe against the North, as the Spartans did against the East ; and lay down in the place they had to guard, with the like home message, “O stranger, go and tell the English that we are lying here, having obeyed their words ; ” — not for this, but because, also, they have felt that the spirit which has discerned them for eminence in sor- row — the helmed and sworded skeleton that rakes with its white fingers the sands of the Black Sea beach into grave-heap after grave-heap, washed by everlasting surf of tears — has been to them an angel of other things than agony : that they have learned, with those hollow, undeceivable eyes of his, to see all the earth by the sunlight of deathbeds ; — no inch-high stage for foolish griefs and feigned pleasures ; no dream, neither, as its dull moralists told them : — Am/thing but that : a place of true, marvellous, inextricable sorrow and power ; a question- chamber of trial by rack and fire, irrevocable decision record- ing continually ; and no sleep, nor folding of hands, among the demon -questioners ; none among the angel- watchers, none among the men who stand or fall beside those hosts of God. They know now the strength of sacrifice, and that its flames, can illumine as well as consume ; they are bound by new fidelities to all that they have saved, — by new love to all for whom they have suffered ; every affection which seemed to sink with those dim life-stains into the dust, has been delegated, by those who need it no more, to the cause for which they have expired ; and every moulding arm, which will never more embrace the beloved ones, has be- queathed to them its strength and its faithfulness. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 32. Care for our Soldiers. — The three talismans of national existence are expressed in these three short words — Labour, Law, and Courage. This last virtue we at least possess ; and all that is to be alleged against us is that we do not honour it enough. I do not mean honour by acknowledgment of service, though sometimes we are slow in doing even that. 384 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. But we do not honour it enough in consistent regard to the lives and souls of our soldiers. How wantonly we have wasted their lives you have seen lately in the reports of their mortality by disease, which a little care and science might have prevented ; but we regard their souls less than their lives, by keeping them in ignorance and idleness, and regard- ing them merely as instruments of battle. The argument brought forward for the maintenance of a standing army usually refers only to expediency in the case of unexpected war, whereas one of the chief reasons for the maintenance of an army is the advantage of the military system as a method of education. The most fiery and headstrong, who are often also the most gifted and generous of your youths, have always a tendency both in the lower and upper classes to offer them- selves for your soldiers : others, weak and unserviceable in a civil capacity, are tempted or entrapped into the army in a fortunate hour for them : out of this fiery or uncouth material it is only soldier’s discipline which can bring the full value and power. Even at present, by mere force of order and authority, the army is the salvation of myriads ; and men who, under other circumstances, would have sunk into lethargy or dissipation, are redeemed into noble life by a service which at once summons and directs their energies. How much more than this military education is capable of doing, you will find only when you make it education indeed. We have no excuse for leaving our private soldiers at their present level of ignorance and want of refinement, for we shall invariably find that, both among officers and men, the e-entlest and best informed are the bravest ; still less have we excuse for diminishing our army, either in the present state of political events, or, as I believe, in any other conjunction of them that for many a year will be possible in this world. You may, perhaps, be surprised at my saying this; perhaps surprised at my implying that war itself can be right, or necessary, or noble at all. Nor do I speak of all war as necessary, nor of all war as noble. Both peace and war are noble or ignoble according to their kind and occasion. No man has a profounder sense of the horror and guilt of ignoble MISCELLANEOUS. 385 war than I have : I have personally seen its effects, npon nations, of unmitigated evil, on soul and body, with perhaps as much pity, and as much bitterness of indignation, as any of those whom you will hear continually declaiming in the cause of peace. But peace may be sought in two ways. One way is as Gideon sought it, when he built his altar in Ophrah, naming it, “ God.' send peace,” yet sought this peace that he loved, as he was ordered to seek it, and the peace was sent, in God’s way : — 11 the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon.” And the other way of seeking peace is as Menahem sought it, when he gave the King of Assyria a thousand talents of silver, “ that his hand might be with him.” That is, you may either win your peace, or buy it : — win it, by resistance to evil ; buy it, by compromise with evil. You may buy your peace, with silenced con- sciences; you may buy it, with broken vows, buy it, with lying words, buy it, with base connivances, buy it with the blood of the slain, and the cry of the captive, and the silence of lost souls — over hemispheres of the earth, while you sit smiling at your serene hearths, lisping comfortable prayers evening and morning, and counting your pretty Protestant beads (which are flat, and of gold, instead of round, and of ebony, as the monks’ ones were), and so mutter continually to yourselves, “ Peace, peace,” when there is No peace ; but only captivity and death, for you, as well as for those you leave unsaved ; — and yours darker than theirs . — The Two Paths , Lect. 5. A Highland Scene. — I was, reading but the other day, in a book by a zealous, useful, and able Scotch clergyman, one of these rhapsodies, in which he described a scene in the Highlands to show (he said) the goodness of God. In this Highland scene there was nothing but sunshine, and fresh breezes, and bleating lambs, and clean tartans, and all manner of pleasantness. Now a Highland scene is, beyond dispute, pleasant enough in its own way; but, looked close at, has its shadows. Here, for instance, is the very fact of one, as pretty as I can remember — having seen many. It is a 25 380 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. little valley of soft turf, enclosed in its narrow oval by jutting rocks and broad flakes of nodding fern. From one side of it to the other winds, serpentine, a clear brown stream, drooping into quicker ripple as it reaches the end of the oval field, and then, first islanding a purple and white rock with an amber pool, it dashes away into a narrow fall of foam under a thicket of mountain-ash and alder. The autumn sun, low but clear, shines on the scarlet ash-berries and on the golden birch-leaves, which, fallen here and there, when the breeze has not caught them, rest quiet in the crannies of the purple rock. Beside the rock, in the hollow under the thicket, the carcass of a ewe, drowned in the last flood, lies nearly bare to the bone, its white ribs protruding through the skin, raven-torn ; and the rags of its wool still flickering from the branches that first stayed it as the stream swept it down. A little lower, the current plunges, roaring, into a circular chasm like a well, surrounded on three sides by a chimney-like hollowness of polished rock, down which the foam slips in detached snow-flakes. Round the edges of the pool beneath, the water circles slowly, like black oil ; a little butterfly lies on its back, its wings glued to one of the eddies, its limbs feebly quivering ; a fish rises, and it is gone. Lower down the stream, I can just see, over a knoll, the green and damp turf roofs of four or five hovels, built at the edge of a morass, which is trodden by the cattle into a black Slough of Despond at their doors, and traversed by a few ill-set stepping-stones, with here and there a flat slab on the tops, where they have sunk out of sight ; and at the turn of the brook I see a man fishing, with a boy and a dog — a picturesque and pretty group enough certainly, if they had not been there all day starving. I know them, and I know the dog’s ribs also, which are nearly as bare as the dead ewe’s ; and the child’s wasted shoulders, cutting his old tartan jacket through, so sharp are they. We will go down and talk with the man. Or, that I may not piece pure truth with fancy, for I have none of his words set down, let us hear a word or two from another such, a Scotchman also, and as true-hearted, and in MISCELLANEOUS. 387 just as fair a scene. I write out the passage, in which I have kept his few sentences, word for word, as it stands in my private diary: — “22nd April (1851). Yesterday I had a long walk up the Via Gellia, at Matlock, coming down upon it from the hills above, all sown with anemones and violets, and murmuring with sweet springs. Above all the mills in the valley, the brook, in its first purity, forms a small shallow pool, with a sandy bottom covered with cresses, and other water plants. A man was wading in it for cresses as I passed up the valley, and bade me good-day. I did not go much farther ; he was there when I returned. I passed him again, about one hundred yards, when it struck me I might as well learn all I could about watercresses : so I turned back. I asked the man, among other questions, what he called the common weed, something like watercress, but with a serrated leaf, which grows at the edge of nearly all such pools. *We calls that brooklime, hereabouts,’ said a voice behind me. I turned, and saw three men, miners or manufacturers — two evidently Derbyshire men, and respectable-looking in their way ; the third, thin, poor, old, and harder-featured, and utterly in rags. ‘ Brooklime ? ’ I said. ‘ What do you call it lime for ? ’ The man said he did not know, it was called that. ‘ You’ll find that in the British ’Erba,’ said the weak, calm voice of the old man. I turned to him in much surprise ; but he went on saying something drily (I hardly understood what) to the cress-gatherer; who contradicting him, the old man said he ‘ didn’t know fresh water,’ he ‘ knew enough of sa’t.’ 1 Have you been a sailor ? ’ I asked. 1 1 was a sailor for eleven years and ten months of my life,’ he said, in the same strangely quiet manner. ‘ And what are you now?’ ‘I lived for ten years after my wife’s death by picking up rags and bones ; I hadn’t much occasion afore.’ ‘ And now how do you live?’ ‘Why, I lives hard and honest, and haven’t got to live long,’ or something to that effect. He then went on, in a kind of maundering way, about his wife. ‘ She had rheumatism and fever very bad ; and her second rib grow’d over her hench-bone. A’ was a clever woman, but a’ grow’d to be a very little one ’ (this with an 25—2 388 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. expression of deep melancholy). ‘Eighteen years after her first lad she was in the family-way again, and they had doctors up from Lunnon about it. They wanted to rip her open, and take the child out of her side. But I never would give my consent..’ (Then, after a pause) : 4 She died twenty- six hours and ten minutes after it. I never cared much what come of me since ; but I know that I shall soon reach her ; that’s a knowledge I would na gie for the king’s crown.’ 4 You are a Scotchman, are not you ?’ I asked. 4 I’m from the Isle of Skye, sir ; I’m a McGregor.’ I said something about his religious faith. 4 Ye’ll know I .was bred in the Church of Scotland, sir,’ he said, 4 and I love it as I love my own soul; but I think thae Wesleyan Methodists ha’ got salvation among them, too.’ ” Truly, this Highland and English hill-scenery is fair enough ; but has its shadows ; and deeper colouring, here and there, than that of heath and rose. — M. P. v. Pt. ix. ch. ii. § 11, 12. True Mind of a Nation. — I believe the true mind of a nation, at any period, is always best ascertainable by ex- amining that of its greatest men ; and that simpler and truer results will be attainable for us by simply comparing Homer, Dante, and Walter Scott, than by attempting (what my limits must have rendered absurdly inadequate, and in which, also, both n? j time and knowledge must have failed me) an analysis of the landscape in the range of contemporary literature. All that I can do, is t'' state the general impression which has been made upon me by my desultory reading, and to mark accurately the grounds for this impression, in the works of the greatest men. Now it is quite true that in others of the Greeks, especially in iEschylus and Aristophanes, there is infinitely more of modern feeling, of pathetic fallacy, love of picturesque or beautiful form, and other such elements, than there is in Homer; but then these appear to me just the parts of them which were not Greek, the elements of their minds by which (as one division of the human race always must be with subsequent ones) they are connected with the MISCELLANEOUS. 389 medisBvals and moderns. And without doubt, in his influence over future mankind, Homer is eminently the Greek of Greeks : if I were to associate any one with him it would be Herodotus, and I believe all I have said of the Homeric landscape will be found equally true of the Herodotean, as assuredly it will be of the Platonic; — the contempt, which Plato sometimes expresses by the mouth of Socrates, for the country in general, except so far as it is shady, and has cicadas and running streams to make pleasant noises in it, being almost ludicrous. But Homer is the great type, and the more notable one because of his influence on Virgil, and, through him, on Dante, and all the after ages : and, in like manner, if we can get the abstract of mediaeval landscape out of Dante, it will serve us as well as if we had read all the songs of the troubadours, and help us to the farther changes in derivative temper, down to ail modern time. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. xiii. § 27. Great Writers depict the Age they live in. — It is a con- stant law that the greatest men, whether poets or historians, live entirely in their own age, and that the greatest fruits of their work are gathered out of their own age. Dante paints Italy in the thirteenth century;’ Chaucer, England in the fourteenth ; Masaccio, Florence in the fifteenth; Tintoret, Venice in the sixteenth ; — all of them utterly regardless of anachronism and minor error of every kind, but getting always vital truth out of the vital present. If it be said that Shakspere wrote perfect historical plays on subjects belonging to the preceding centuries, I answer, that they are perfect plays just because there is no care about centuries in them, but a life which all men recognize for the human life of all time ; and this it is, not because Shakspere sought to give universal truth,* but because, painting honestly and completely from the men about him, he painted that human nature which is, indeed, constant enough, — a rogue in the fifteenth century being, at heart , what a rogue is in the nineteenth and was in the twelfth ; and an honest or a knightly man being, in like manner, very similar to other such at any 390 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. other time. And the work of these great idealists is, there- fore, always universal; not because it is not portrait , but because it is complete portrait down to the heart, which is the same in all ages: and the work of the mean idealists is not universal, not because it is portrait, but because it is half portrait, — of the outside, the manners and the dress, not of the heart. Thus Tintoret and Shakspere paint, both of them, simply Venetian and English nature as they saw it in their time, down to the root; and it does for all time; but as for any care to cast themselves into the particular ways and tones of thought, or custom, of past time in their historical work, you will find it in neither of them, nor in any other perfectly great man that I know of. If there had been no vital truth in their present, it is hard to say what these men could have done. I suppose, primarily, they would not have existed ; that they, and the matter they have to treat of, are given together, and that the strength of the nation and its historians correlatively rise and fall — Herodotus springing out of the dust of Marathon. It is also* hard to say how far our better general acquaintance with minor details of past history may make us able to turn the shadow on the imaginative dial backwards, and naturally to live, and even live strongly if we choose, in past periods ; but this main truth will always be unshaken, that the only historical painting deserving the name is portraiture of our own living men and our own passing times, and that all efforts to summon up the events of bygone periods, though often useful and touching, must come under an inferior class- of poetical painting ; nor will it, I believe, ever be much followed as their main work by the strongest men, but only by the weaker and comparatively sentimental (rather than imaginative) groups. This marvellous first half of the nine- teenth century has in this matter, as in nearly all others, been making a double blunder. It has, under the name of improvement, done all it could to efface the records which departed ages have left of themselves, while it has declared the forgery of false records of these same ages to be the great work of its historical painters ! I trust that in a few years MISCELLANEOUS. 391 more we shall come somewhat to our senses in the matter, and begin to perceive that our duty is to preserve what the past has had to say for itself, and to say for our- selves also what shall be true for the future. Let us strive, with just veneration for that future, first to do what is worthy to be spoken, and then to speak it faithfully; and, with veneration for the past, recognize that it is indeed in the power of love to preserve the monument, but not of incantation to raise the dead. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. vii. § 19 , 20 , 21 . Shakspere. — Shakspere seems to have been sent essen- tially to take universal and equal grasp of the human nature ; and to have been removed, therefore, from all influences which could in the least warp or bias his thoughts. It was necessary that he should lean no way ; that he should con- template, with absolute equality of judgment, the life of the court, cloister, and tavern, and be able to sympathize so com- pletely with all creatures as to deprive himself, together with his personal identity, even of his conscience, as he casts him- self into their hearts. He must be able to enter into the soul of Falstaff or Shylock with no more sense of contempt or horror than Falstaff or Shylock themselves feel for or in themselves ; otherwise his own conscience and indignation would make him unjust to them ; he would turn aside from something, miss some good, or overlook some essential pallia- tion. He must be utterly without anger, utterly without purpose ; for if a man has any serious purpose in life, that which runs counter to it, or is foreign to it, will be looked at ffowningly or carelessly by him. Shakspere was forbidden of Heaven to have any plans. To do any good or get any good, in the common sense of good, was not to be within his permitted range of work. Not, for him, the founding of institutions, the preaching of doctrines, or the repression of abuses. Neither he, nor the sun, did on any morning that they rose together, receive charge from their Maker concerning such things. They were both of them to shine on the evil and good ; both to behold unoffendedly all that was upon the 392 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. earth, to burn unappalled upon the spears of kings, and undis- daining, upon the reeds of the river. Therefore, so far as nature had influence over the early- training of this man, it was essential to his perfectness that the nature should be quiet. No mountain passions were to be allowed in him. Inflict upon him but one pang of the monastic conscience ; cast upon him but one cloud of the mountain gloom ; and his serenity had been gone for ever — his equity — his infinity. You would have made another Dante of him ; and all that he would have ever uttered about poor, soiled, and frail humanity would have been the quarrel between Sinon and Adam of Brescia, — speedily retired from, as not worthy a man’s hearing, nay, not to be heard without heavy fault. All your Falstaffs, Slenders, Quicklys, Sir Tobys, Lances, Touchstones, and Quinces would have been lost in that. Shakspere could be allowed no moun- tains ; nay, not even any supreme natural beauty. He had to be left with his kingcups, and clover ; — pansies — the passing clouds — the Avon’s flow — and the undulating hills and woods of Warwick ; nay, he was not to love even these in any exceeding measure, lest it might make him in the least over- rate their power upon the strong, full-fledged minds of men. He makes the quarrelling fairies concerned about them ; poor lost Ophelia find some comfort in them ; fearful, fair, wise- hearted Perdita, trust the speaking of her good will and good hostess-ship to them ; and one of the brothers of Imogen con- fide his sorrow to them, — rebuked instantly by his brother for “ wenchlike words ; ” but any thought of them in his mighty men I do not find : it is not usually in the nature of such men ; and if he had loved the flowers the least better himself, he would assuredly have been offended at this, and given a botanical turn of mind to Csesar, or Othello. And it is even among the most curious proofs of the neces- sity to all high imagination that it should paint straight from the life, that he has not given such a turn of mind to some of his great men ; Henry the Fifth, for instance. Doubtless some of my readers, having been accustomed to hear it repeated thoughtlessly from mouth to mouth that MISCELLANEOUS. 393 Sliakspere conceived the spirit of all ages, were as much offended as surprised at my saying that he only painted human nature as he saw it in his own time. They will find, if they look into his work closely, as much antiquarianism as they do geography, and no more. The commonly received notions about the things that had been, Shakspere took as he found them, animating them with pure human nature, of any time and all time ; but inquiries into the minor detail of tem- porary feeling, he despised as utterly as he did maps ; and wheresoever the temporary feeling was in anywise contrary to that of his own day, he errs frankly, and paints from his own time. — M. P. IV. Pt. v. ch. xx. § 28, 30. The Greek Poets. — The ruling purpose of Greek poetry is the assertion of victory, by heroism, over fate, sin, and death. The terror of these great enemies is dwelt upon chiefly by the tragedians. The victory over them, by Homer. The adversary chiefly contemplated by the tragedians is Fate, or predestinate misfortune. And that under three prin- cipal forms. a. Blindness, or ignorance ; not in itself guilty, but inducing acts which otherwise would have been guilty ; and leading, no less than guilt, to destruction. b. Visitation upon one person of the sin of another. c. Repression by brutal, or tyrannous strength, of a bene- volent will. In all these cases sorrow is much more definitely connected with sin by the Greek tragedians than by Shakspere. The “fate” of Shakspere is, indeed, a form of blindness, but it issues in little more than haste or indiscretion. It is, in the literal sense, “ fatal,” but hardly criminal. The “ I am fortune’s fool ” of Romeo, expresses Shakspere’s primary idea of tragic circumstance. Often his victims are entirely innocent, swept away by mere current of strong encompassing calamity (Ophelia, Cordelia, Arthur, Queen Katharine). This is rarely so with the Greeks. The victim may indeed be innocent, as Antigone, but is in some way 3U WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. resolutely entangled with crime, and destroyed by it, as if it struck by pollution, no less than participation. The victory over sin and death is therefore also with the Greek tragedians more complete than with Shakspere. As the enemy has more direct moral personality, — as it is sinfulness more than mischance, it is met by a higher moral resolve, a greater preparation of heart, a more solemn patience and purposed self-sacrifice. At the close of a Shakspere tragedy nothing remains but dead march and clothes of burial. At the close of a Greek tragedy there are far-off sounds of a divine triumph, and a glory as of resurrection. The Homeric temper is wholly different. Far more tender, more practical, more cheerful ; bent chiefly on present things and giving victory now, and here, rather than in hope, and hereafter. The enemies of mankind, in Homer’s conception, are more distinctly conquerable ; they are ungoverned passions, especially anger, and unreasonable impulse gene- rally (aV?)). Hence the anger of Achilles, misdirected by pride, but rightly directed by friendship, is the subject of the Iliad. The anger of Ulysses (’O tivootvg “the angry”), mis- directed at first into idle and irregular hostilities, directed at last to execution of sternest justice, is the subject of the Odyssey. Though this is the central idea of the two poems, it is connected with general display of the evil of all unbridled passions, pride, sensuality, indolence, or curiosity. The pride of Atrides, the passion of Paris, the sluggishness of Elpenor, the curiosity of Ulysses himself about the Cyclops, the im- patience of his sailors in untying the winds, and all other faults or follies, down to that — (evidently no small one in Homer’s mind) — of domestic disorderliness, are throughout shown in contrast with conditions of patient affection and household peace. Also, the wild powers and mysteries of Nature are in the Homeric mind among the enemies of man ; so that all the labours of Ulysses are an expression of the contest of man- hood, not only with its own passions or with the folly of MISCELLANEOUS. 395 others, but with the merciless and mysterious powers of the natural world Now observe that in their dealing with all these subjects the Greeks never shrink from horror ; down to its utter- most depth, to its most appalling physical detail, they strive to sound the secrets of sorrow. For them there is no passing by on the other side, no turning away the eyes to vanity from pain. Literally, they have not “lifted up their souls unto vanity.” Whether there be consolation for them or not, neither apathy nor blindness shall be their saviours; if, for them, thus knowing the facts of the grief of earth, any hope, relief, or triumph may hereafter seem possible, — well ; but if not, still hopeless, reliefless, eternal, the sorrow shall be met face to face. This Hector, so righteous, so merciful, so brave, has, nevertheless, to look upon his dearest brother in miserablest death. His own soul passes away in hopeless sobs through the throat-wound of the Grecian spear. That is one aspect of things in this world, a fair world truly, but having, among its other aspects, this one, highly ambiguous. Meeting it boldly as they may, gazing right into the skeleton face of it, the ambiguity remains ; nay, in some sort gains upon them. We trusted in the gods ; — we thought that wisdom and courage would save us. Our wisdom and courage themselves deceive us to our death. Athena had the aspect of Deiphobus — terror of the enemy. She has not terrified him, but left us, in our mortal need. And beyond that mortality, what hope have we ? Nothing is clear to us on that horizon, nor comforting. Funeral honours ; perhaps also rest ; perhaps a shadowy life — artless, joyless, loveless. No devices in that darkness of the grave, nor daring, nor delight. Neither marrying nor giving in marriage, nor casting of spears, nor rolling of chariots, nor voice of fame. Lapped in pale Elysian mist, chilling the for- getful heart and feeble frame, shall we waste on for ever? Can the dust of earth claim more of immortality than this ? Or shall we have even so much as rest ? May we, indeed, lie down again in the dust, or have our sins not hidden from us even the things that belong to that peace? May not 396 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. chance and the whirl of passion govern us there ; when there shall be no thought, nor work, nor wisdom, nor breathing of the soul ? Be it so. With no better reward, no brighter hope, we will be men while we may : men, just, and strong, and fear- less, and up to our power, perfect. — M. P. V. Pt. ix. ch. ii. § 14 , 15 , 16 , 18 , 19 . The Greek Mind. — The Greek lived, in all things, a healthy, and, in a certain degree, a perfect, life. He had no morbid or sickly feeling of any kind. He was accustomed to face death without the slightest shrinking, to undergo all kinds of bodily hardship without complaint, and to do what he supposed right and honourable, in most cases, as a matter of course. Confident of his own immortality, and of the power of abstract justice, he expected to be dealt with in the next world as was right, and left the matter much in his gods’ hands ; but being thus immortal, and finding in his own soul something which it seemed quite as difficult to master, as to rule the elements, he did not feel that it was an appalling superiority in those gods to have bodies of water, or fire, instead of flesh, and to have various work to do among the clouds and waves, out of his human way ; or sometimes, even, in a sort of service to himself. Was not the nourishment of herbs and flowers a kind of ministering to his wants ? were not the gods in some sort his husbandmen, and spirit-servants ? Their mere strength or omnipresence did not seem to him a distinction absolutely terrific. It might be the nature of one being to be in two places at once, and of another to be only in one ; but that did not seem of itself to infer any absolute lordliness of one nature above the other, any more than an insect must be a nobler creature than a man, because it can see on four sides of its head, and the man only in front. They could kill him or torture him, it was true ; but even that not unjustly, or not for ever. There was a fate, and a Divine Justice, greater than they ; so that if they did wrong, and he right, he might fight it out with them, and have the better of them at last. In a general way, they were wiser, stronger, MISCELLANEOUS. 397 and better than lie; and to ask counsel of them, to obey them, to sacrifice to them, to thank them for all good, this was well ; but to be utterly downcast before them, or not to tell them his mind in plain Greek if they seemed to him to be conducting themselves in an ungodly manner, — this would not be well. Such being their general idea of the gods, we can now easily understand the habitual tone of their feelings towards what was beautiful in nature. With us, observe, the idea of the Divinity is apt to get separated from the life of nature ; and imagining our God upon a cloudy throne, far above the earth, and not in the flowers or waters, we approach those visible things with a theory that they are dead, governed by physical laws, and so forth. But coming to them, we find the theory fail ; that they are not dead ; that, say what we choose about them, the instinctive sense of their being alive is too strong for us ; and in scorn of all physical law, the wilful fountain sings, and the kindly flowers rejoice. And then, puzzled, and yet happy; pleased, and yet ashamed of being so ; accepting sympathy from nature, which we do not believe it gives, and giving sympathy to nature, which we do not believe it receives, — mixing, besides, all manner of purposeful play and conceit with these involuntary fellowships, — we fall necessarily into the curious web of hesitating sentiment, pathetic fallacy, and wandering fancy, which form a great part of our modern view of nature. But the Greek never removed his god out of nature at all ; never attempted for a moment to contradict his instinctive sense that God was everywhere. “ The tree is glad,” said he, “I know it is ; I can cut it down ; no matter, there was a nymph in it. The water does sing,” said he ; “I can dry it up; but no matter, there was a naiad in it.” But in thus clearly defining his belief, observe, he threw it entirely into a human form, and gave his faith to nothing but the image of his own humanity. What sympathy and fellowship he had, were always for the spirit in the stream, not for the stream ; always for the dryad in the wood, not for the wood. Content with this human sympathy, he approached the actual waves and woody fibres with no sympathy at all. The spirit that ruled them, he received as 398 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. a plain fact. Them, also, ruled and material, he received as plain facts ; they, without their spirit, were dead enough. A rose was good for scent, and a stream for sound and cool- ness; for the rest, one was no more than leaves, the other no more than water ; he could not make anything else of them ; and the divine power, which was involved in their existence, having been all distilled away by him into an independent Flora or Thetis, the poor leaves or waves were left, in mere cold corporealness, to make the most of their being discernibly red- and soft, clear and wet, and unacknowledged in any other power whatsoever. Then, observe farther, the Greeks lived in the midst of the most beautiful nature, and were as familiar with blue sea, clear air, and sweet outlines of mountain, as we are with brick walls, black smoke, and level fields. This perfect familiarity rendered all such scenes of natural beauty unex- citing, if not indifferent to them, by lulling and overwearying the imagination as far as it was concerned with such things; but there was another kind of beauty which they found it required effort to obtain, and which, when thoroughly obtained, seemed more glorious than any of this wild loveli- ness — the beauty of the human countenance and form. This, they perceived, could only be reached by continual exercise of virtue ; and it was in Heaven’s sight, and theirs, all the more beautiful because it needed this self-denial to obtain it. So they set themselves to reach this, and having gained it, gave it their principal thoughts, and set it off with beautiful dress, as best they might. But making this their object, they were obliged to pass their lives in simple exercise and disciplined employments. Living wholesomely, giving themselves no fever fits, either by fasting or over-eating, constantly in the open air, and full of animal spirit and physical power, they became incapable of every morbid condition of mental emotion. Unhappy love, disappointed ambition, spiritual despondency, or any other disturbing sensation, had little power over the well-braced nerves, and healthy flow of the blood ; and what bitterness might yet fasten on them was soon boxed or raced out of a boy, and spun or woven out of a girl, or danced out MISCELLANEOUS. 399 of both. They had indeed their sorrows, true and deep, but still, more like children’s sorrows than ours, whether bursting into open cry of pain, or hid with shuddering under the veil, still passing over the soul as clouds do over heaven, not sullying it, not mingling with it; — darkening it, perhaps, long or utterly, but still not becoming one with it, and, for the most part, passing away in dashing rain of tears, and leaving the man unchanged ; in nowise affecting, as our sorrow does, the whole tone of his thought and imagination thenceforward. — M. P. ill. Pt. iv. ch. xiii. §12,13,14. The Inferno of Dante and Milton. — Milton’s effort, in all that he tells us of his Inferno, is to make it indefinite ; Dante’s, to make it definite. Both, indeed, describe it as entered through 'gates ; but, within the gate, all is wild and fenceless with Milton, having indeed its four rivers, — the last vestige of the mediaeval tradition, — but rivers which flow through a waste of mountain and moorland, and by u many a frozen, many a fiery Alp.” But Dante’s Inferno is accu- rately separated into circles drawn with well -pointed com- passes; mapped and properly surveyed in every direction, trenched in a thoroughly good style of engineering from depth to depth, and divided in the u accurate middle ” (dritto mezzo) of its deepest abyss, into a concentric series of ten moats and embankments, like those about a castle, with bridges from each embankment to the next ; precisely in the manner of those bridges over Hiddekel and Euphrates, which Mr. Macaulay thinks so innocently designed, apparently not aware that he is also laughing at Dante. These larger fosses are of rock, and the bridges also ; but as he goes farther into detail, Dante tells us of various minor fosses and embankments, in which he anxiously points out to us not only the formality, but the neatness and perfectness, of the stonework. For instance, in describing the river Phlegethon, he tells us that it was “ paved with stone at the bottom, and at the sides, and over the edges of the sides just as the water is at the baths of Bulicame ; and for fear we should think this embankment at all larger than it really was, 400 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Dante adds, carefully, that it was made just like the embank- ments of Ghent or Bruges against the sea, or those in Lombardy which bank the Brenta, only u not so high, nor so wide,” as any of these. And besides the trenches, we have two well-built castles ; one, like Ecbatana, with seven circuits of wall (and surrounded by a fair stream), wherein the great poets and sages of antiquity live ; and another, a great fortified city with walls of iron, red-hot, and a deep fosse round it, and full of “ grave citizens,” — the city of Dis. Now, whether this be in what we moderns call “good taste,” or not, I do not mean just now to inquire — Dante having nothing to do with taste, but with the facts of what he had seen ; only, so far as the imaginative faculty of the two poets is concerned, note that Milton’s vagueness is not the sign of imagination, but of its absence, so far as it is significative in the matter. For it does not follow, because Milton did not map out his Inferno as Dante did, that he could not have done so if he had chosen ; only, it was the easier and less imaginative process to leave it vague than to define it. Imagination is always the seeing and asserting faculty ; that which obscures or conceals may be judgment or feeling, but not invention. The invention, whether good or bad, is in the accurate engineering, not in the fog and uncertainty. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. ch. xiv. § 29, 30. Homer’s and Dante’s Idea of Forests. — Homer seems to attach a pleasant idea, for the most part, to forests ; regarding them as sources of wealth and places of shelter; and we find constantly an idea of sacredness attached to them, as being haunted especially by the gods ; so that even the wood which surrounds the house of Circe is spoken of as a sacred thicket, or rather, as a sacred glade, or labyrinth of glades (of the particular word used I shall have more to say presently) ; and so the wood is sought as a kindly shelter by Ulysses, in spite of its wild beasts; and evidently regarded with great affection by Sophocles, for, in a passage which is always regarded by readers of Greek tragedy with peculiar pleasure, MISCELLANEOUS. 401 the aged and blind CEdipus, brought to rest in “ the sweetest resting-place ” in all the neighbourhood of Athens, has the spot described to him as haunted perpetually by nightingales, which sing “ in the green glades and in the dark ivy, and in the thousand-fruited, sunless, and windless thickets of the god ” (Bacchus) ; the idea of the complete shelter from wind and sun being here, as with Ulysses, the uppermost one. After this come the usual staples of landscape, — narcissus, crocus, plenty of rain, olive trees ; and last, and the greatest boast of all, — “ it is a good country for horses, and conveni- ently by the sea ; ” but the prominence and pleasantness of the thick wood in the thoughts of the writer are very notable ; whereas to Dante the idea of a forest is exceedingly repulsive, so that, as just noticed, in the opening of his poem, he cannot express a general despair about life more strongly than by saying he was lost in a wood so savage and terrible, that u even to think or speak of it is distress, — it was so bitter, — it was something next door to death ; ” and one of the saddest scenes in all the Inferno is in a forest, of which the trees are haunted by lost souls ; while (with only one excep- tion), whenever the country is to be beautiful, we find our- selves coming out into open air and open meadows. It is quite true that this is partly a characteristic, not merely of Dante, or of mediaeval writers, but of southern writers ; for the simple reason that the forest, being with them higher upon the hills, and more out of the way than in the north, was generally a type of lonely and savage places ; while in England, the “ greenwood,” coming up to the very walls of the towns, it was possible to be “ merry in the good greenwood,” in a sense which an Italian could not have understood. Hence Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakspere send their favourites perpetually to the woods for pleasure or meditation ; and trust their tender Canace, or Kosalind, or Helena, or Silvia, or Belphcebe, where Dante would have sent no one but a condemned spirit. Nevertheless, there is always traceable in the mediaeval mind a dread of thick foliage, which was not present to that of a Greek ; so that, even in the north, we have our sorrowful “ children in the 26 402 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. wood,” and black huntsmen of the Hartz forests, and such other wood terrors ; the principal reason for the difference being that a Greek, being by no means given to travellings regarded his woods as so much valuable property ; and if he ever went into them for pleasure, expected to meet one or two gods in the course of his walk, but no banditti ; while a mediaeval, much more of a solitary traveller, and expecting to meet with no gods in the thickets, but only with thieves, or a hostile ambush, or a bear, besides a great deal of trouble- some ground for his horse, and a very serious chance, next to a certainty, of losing his way, naturally kept in the open ground as long as he could, and regarded the forests, in general, with anything but an eye of favour. — M. P. ill. Pt. iv. ch. xiv. § 33. Two Orders of Poets. — I admit two orders of poets, but no third ; and by these two orders I mean the Creative (Shakspere, Homer, Dante), and Reflective or Perceptive (Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson). But both of these must be Jirst-i'ate in their range, though their range is different ; and with poetry second-rate in quality no one ought to be allowed to trouble mankind. There is quite enough of the best, — much more than we can ever read or enjoy in the length of a life ; and it is a literal wrong or sin in any person to encumber us with inferior work. I have no patience with apologies made by young pseudo-poets, “that they believe there is some good in what they have written : that they hope to do better in time,” &c. Some good ! If there is not all good, there is no good. If they ever hope to do better, why do they trouble us now ? Let them rather courageously burn all they have done, and wait for the better days. There are few men, ordinarily educated, who in moments of strong* feeling could not strike out a poetical thought, and afterwards polish it so as to be presentable. But men of sense know better than so to waste their time ; and those who sincerely love poetry, know the touch of the master’s hand on the chords too well to fumble among them after him. Nay, more than this; all inferior poetry is an injury to the good, inas- MISCELLANEOUS. 403 much as it takes away the freshness of rhymes, blunders upon and gives a wretched commonalty to good thoughts ; and, in general, adds to the weight of human weariness in a most woful and culpable manner. There are few thoughts likely to come across ordinary men, which have not already been expressed by greater men in the best possible way; and it is a wiser, more generous, more noble thing to remember and point out the perfect words, than to invent poorer ones, wherewith to encumber temporarily the world. — M. P. III. Pt. iv. note to ch. xii. Medieval Love of Beauty. — One character which the medisevals had in common with the ancients, and that exactly the most eminent character in both, opposed itself steadily to all the feelings we have hitherto been examining, — the admi- ration, namely, and constant watchfulness, of human beauty. Exercised in nearly the same manner as the Greeks, from their youth upwards, their countenances were cast even in a higher mould ; for, although somewhat less regular in feature, and affected by minglings of Northern bluntness and stolidity of general expression, together with greater thinness of lip and shaggy formlessness of brow, these less sculpturesque features were, nevertheless, touched with a seriousness and refinement proceeding first from the modes of thought inculcated by the Christian religion, and secondly from their more romantic and various life. Hence a degree of personal beauty, both male and female, was attained in the Middle Ages, with which classical periods could show nothing for a moment comparable : and this beauty was set forth by the most perfect splendour, united with grace, in dress, which the human race have hitherto invented. The strength of their art-genius was directed in great part to this object ; and their best workmen and most brilliant fanciers were employed in wreathing the mail or embroidering the robe. The exquisite arts of enamel- ling and chasing metal enabled them to make the armour as radiant and delicate as the plumage of a tropical bird ; and the most various and vivid imaginations were displayed in the alternations of colour, and fiery freaks of form, on shield 26—2 404 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. and crest : so tliat of all the beautiful things which the eyes of men could fall upon, in the world about them, the most beautiful must have been a young knight riding out in morn- ing sunshine, and in faithful hope. Now, the effect of this superb presence of human beauty on men in general was, exactly as it had been in Greek times, first, to turn their thoughts and glances in great part away from all other beauty but that, and to make the grass of the field take to them always more or less the aspect of a carpet to dance upon, a lawn to tilt upon, or a serviceable crop of hay ; and, secondly, in what attention they paid to this lower nature, to make them dwell exclusively on what was graceful, symmetrical, and bright in colour. All that was rugged, rough, dark, wild, unterminated, they rejected at once, as the domain of “ salvage men ” and monstrous giants : all that they admired was tender, bright, balanced, enclosed, sym- metrical — only symmetrical in the noble and free sense : for what we moderns call “symmetry,” or “balance,” differs as much from mediaeval symmetry as the poise of a grocers scales, or the balance of an Egyptian mummy with its hands tied to its sides, does from the balance of a knight on his horse striking with the battle-axe, at the gallop ; the mummy’s balance looking wonderfully perfect, and yet sure to be one- sided if you weigh the dust of it, — the knight’s balance swaying and changing like the wind, and yet as true and accurate as the laws of life. And this love of symmetry was still farther enhanced by the peculiar duties required of art at the time ; for, in order to fit a flower or leaf for inlaying in armour, or showing clearly in glass, it was absolutely necessary to take away its complexity, and reduce it to the condition of a disciplined and orderly pattern ; and this the more, because, for all military purposes, the device, whatever it was, had to be distinctly intelligible at extreme distance. That it should be a good imitation of nature, when seen near, was of no moment ; but it was of highest moment that when first the knight’s banner flashed in the sun at the turn of the mountain road, or rose, torn and bloody, through the drift of the battle dust, it MISCELLANEOUS. 405 should still be discernible what the bearing was. — M.P. III. Pt. iv. ch. xiv. § 11)12, 13. Sensibility to External Nature. — The degree of igno- rance of external nature in which men may thus remain depends, therefore, partly on the number and character of the subjects with which their minds may be otherwise occupied, and partly on a natural want of sensibility to the power of beauty of form, and the other attributes of external objects. I do not think that there is ever such absolute incapacity in the eye for distinguishing and receiving pleasure from certain forms and colours, as there is in persons who are technically said to have no ear for distinguishing notes ; but there is naturally every degree of bluntness and acuteness, both for perceiving the truth of form, and for receiving pleasure from it when perceived. And although I believe even the lowest degree of these faculties can be expanded almost unlimitedly by cultivation, the pleasure received rewards not the labour necessary, and the pursuit is abandoned. So that while in those whose sensations are naturally acute and vivid, the call of external nature is so strong that it must be obeyed, and is ever heard louder as the approach to her is nearer, — in those whose sensations are naturally blunt, the call is overpowered at once by other thoughts, and their faculties of perception, weak originally, die of disuse. With this kind of bodily sensibility to colour and form is intimately connected that higher sensibility which we revere as one of the chief attri- butes of all noble minds, and as the chief spring of real poetry. I believe this kind of sensibility may be entirely resolved into the acuteness of bodily sense of which I have been speaking, associated with love, love I mean in its infinite and holy functions, as it embraces divine and human and brutal intelligences, and hallows the physical perception of external objects by association, gratitude, veneration, and other pure feelings of our moral nature. And although the discovery of truth is in itself altogether intellectual, and dependent merely on our powers of physical perception and abstract intellect, wholly independent of our moral nature, 4-06 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. yet these instruments (perception and judgment) are so sharpened and brightened, and so far more swiftly and effectively used, when they have the energy and passion of our moral nature to bring them into action — perception is so quickened by love, and judgment so tempered by veneration, that, practically, a man of deadened moral sensation is always dull in his perception of truth ; and thousands of the highest and most divine truths of nature are wholly concealed from him, however constant and indefatigable may be his intel- lectual search. Thus then, the farther we look, the more we are limited in the number of those to whom we should choose to appeal as judges of truth, and the more we perceive how great a number of mankind may be partially incapacitated from either discovering or feeling it. Next to sensibility, which is necessary for the perception of facts, come reflection and memory, which are necessary for the retention of them, and recognition of their resemblances. For a man may receive impression after impression, and that vividly and with delight, and yet, if he take no care to reason upon those impressions and trace them to their sources, he may remain totally ignorant of the facts that produced them ; nay, may attribute them to facts with which they have no connection, or may coin causes for them that have no exist- ence at all. And the more sensibility and imagination a man possesses, the more likely will he be to fall into error ; for then he will see whatever he expects, and admire and judge with his heart, and not with his eyes. How many people are misled, by what has been said and sung of the serenity of Italian skies, to suppose they must be more blue than the skies of the north, and think that they see them so ; whereas the sky of Italy is far more dull and grey in colour than the skies of the north, and is distinguished only by its intense repose of light. And this is confirmed by Benvenuto Cellini, who, I remember, on his first entering France, is especially struck with the clearness of the sky, as contrasted with the mist of Italy. And what is more strange still, when people see in a painting what they suppose to have been the source of their impressions, they will affirm it to be truthful, MISCELLANEOUS. 407 though they feel no such impression resulting from it. — M. P. I. Pt. ii. sec. i. ch. ii. Pastoral Poetry. — Exactly as hoops, and starch, and false hair, and all that in mind and heart these things typify and betray, as these, I say, gained upon men, there was a necessary reaction in favour of the natural. Men had never lived so utterly in defiance of the laws of nature before ; but they could not do this without feeling a strange charm in that which they defied ; and, accordingly, we find this reactionary sentiment expressing itself in a base school of what was called pastoral poetry ; that is to say, poetry written in praise of the country, by men who lived in coffee-houses and on the Mall. The essence of pastoral poetry is the sense of strange delightfulness in grass, which is occasionally felt by a man who has seldom set his foot on it ; it is essentially the poetry of the cockney, and for the most part corresponds in its aim and rank, as compared with other literature, to the porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses on a chimney-piece, as compared with great works of sculpture. Of course, all good poetry, descriptive of rural life, is essen- tially pastoral, or has the effect of the pastoral on the minds of men living in cities ; but the class of poetry which I mean, and which you probably understand, by the term pastoral, is that in which a farmer’s girl is spoken of as a- “ nymph,” and a farmer’s boy as a 11 swain,” and in which, throughout, a ridiculous and unnatural refinement is supposed to exist in rural life, merely because the poet himself has neither had the courage to endure its hardships, nor the wit to conceive its realities. If you examine the literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, you will find that nearly all its expressions, having reference to the country, show something of this kind; either a foolish sentimentality, or a morbid fear, both of course coupled with the most curious ignorance. You will find all its descriptive expressions at once vague and mono- tonous. Brooks are always 11 purling ; ” birds always “ warbling ; ” mountains always “ lift their horrid peaks above the clouds ; ” vales always “ are lost in the shadow of 408 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. gloomy woods ; ” a few more distinct ideas about haymaking and curds and cream, acquired in the neighbourhood of Richmond Bridge, serving to give an occasional appearance of freshness to the catalogue of the sublime and beautiful which descended from poet to poet ; while a few true pieces of pastoral, like the Vicar of Wakefield , and Walton’s Angler , relieved the general waste of dulness. Even in these better productions, nothing is more remarkable than the general conception of the country merely as a series of green fields, and the combined ignorance and dread of more sublime scenery; of which the mysteries and dangers were enhanced by the difficulties of travelling at the period. Thus in Walton’s Angler , you have a meeting of two friends, one a Derbyshire man, the other a lowland traveller, who is as much alarmed, and uses nearly as many expressions of asto- nishment, at having to go down a steep hill and ford a brook, as a traveller uses now at crossing the glacier of the Col de Geant. I am not sure whether the difficulties which, until late years, have lain in the way of peaceful and convenient travelling, ought not to have great weight assigned to them among the other causes of the temper of the century ; but be that as it may, if you will examine the whole range of its literature — keeping this point in view — I am well persuaded that you will be struck most forcibly by the strange deadness to the higher sources of landscape sublimity which is mingled with the morbid pastoralism. The love of fresh air and green grass forced itself upon the animal natures of men ; but that of the sublimer features of scenery had no place in minds whose chief powers had been repressed by the formalisms of the age. And although in the second-rate writers con- tinually, and in the first-rate ones occasionally, you find an affectation of interest in mountains, clouds, and forests, yet whenever they write from their heart, you will find an utter absence of feeling respecting anything beyond gardens and grass. Examine, for instance, the novels of Smollett, Fielding, and Sterne, the comedies of Moliere, and the writings of Johnson and Addison, and I do not think you will find a single expression of true delight in sublime nature in any MISCELLANEOUS. 409 one of them. Perhaps Sterne’s Sentimental Journey , in its total absence of sentiment on any subject but humanity, and its entire want of notice of anything at Geneva which might not as well have been seen at Coxwold, is the most striking instance I could give you ; and if you compare with this negation of feeling on one side, the interludes of Moliere, in which shepherds and shepherdesses are introduced in court dress, you will have a very accurate conception of the general spirit of the age. It was in such a state of society that the landscape of Claude, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator Rosa attained its repu- tation. It is the complete expression on canvas of the spirit of the time. Claude embodies the foolish pastoralism, Salvator the ignorant terror, and Gaspar the dull and affected erudition . — Lectures on Architecture and Painting , Lect. 3. Poetic Sensibility. — The temperament which admits the pathetic fallacy, is that of a mind and body in some sort too weak to deal fully with what is before them or upon them; borne away, or over-clouded, or over-dazzled by emotion ; and it is a more or less noble state, according to the force of the emotion which has induced it. For it is no credit to a man that he is not morbid or inaccurate in his perceptions, when he has no strength of feeling to warp them ; and it is in general a sign of higher capacity and stand in the ranks of being, that the emotions should be strong enough to vanquish, partly, the intellect, and make it believe what they choose. But it is still a grander condition when the intellect also rises, till it is strong enough to assert its rule against, or together with, the utmost efforts of the passions; and the whole man stands in an iron glow, white hot, perhaps, but still strong, and in no wise evaporating; even if he melts, losing none of his weight. So, then, we have the three ranks: the man who perceives rightly, because he does not feel, and to whom the primrose is very accurately the primrose, because he does not love it. Then, secondly, the man who perceives wrongly, because he feels, and to whom the primrose is anything else than a 410 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. primrose : a star, or a sun, or a fairy’s shield, or a forsaken maiden. And then, lastly, there is the man who perceives rightly in spite of his feelings, and to whom the primrose is for ever nothing else than itself — a little flower, apprehended in the very plain and leafy fact of it, whatever and how many soever the associations and passions may be, that crowd around it. And, in general, these three classes may be rated in comparative order, as the men who are not poets at all, and the poets of the second order, and the poets of the first; only however great a man may be, there are always some subj ects which ought to throw him oft his balance ; some, by which his poor human capacity of thought should be con- quered, and brought into the inaccurate and vague state of perception, so that the language of the highest inspiration becomes broken, obscure, and wild in metaphor, resembling that of the weaker man, overborne by weaker things. And thus, in full, there are four classes : the men who feel nothing, and therefore see truly ; the men who feel strongly, think weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets) ; the men who feel strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first order of poets) ; and the men who, strong as human creatures can be, are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and see in a sort untruly, because what they see is inconceiv- ably above them. This last is the usual condition of prophetic inspiration. I separate these classes, in order that their character may be clearly understood ; but of course they are united each to the other by imperceptible transitions, and the same mind, according to the influences to which it is subjected, passes at different times into the various states. Still, the difference between the great and less man is, on the whole, chiefly in this point of alterahility . That is to say, the one knows too much, and perceives and feels too much of the past and future, and of all things beside and around that which imme- diately affects him, to be in any wise shaken by it. His mind is made up ; his thoughts have an accustomed current ; his ways are steadfast ; it is not this or that new sight which will at once unbalance him. He is tender to impression at MISCELLANEOUS. 411 the surface, like a rock with deep moss upon it ; but there is too much mass of him to be moved. The smaller man, with the same degree of sensibility, is at once carried off his feet ; he wants to do something he did not want to do before ; he views all the universe in a new light through his tears ; he is gay or enthusiastic, melancholy or passionate, as things come and go to him. Therefore the high creative poet might even be thought, to a great extent, impassive (as shallow people think Dante stern), receiving indeed all feelings to the full, but having a great centre of reflection and knowledge in which he stands serene, and watches the feeling, as it were, from far off. — M.P. hi. Pt. iv. ch. xii. §8,9,10. Characteristics of the Modern Mind. — The title “ Dark ages,” given to the mediaeval centuries, is, respecting art, wholly inapplicable. They were, on the contrary, the bright ages ; ours are the dark ones. I do not mean metaphysically, but literally. They were the ages of gold ; ours are the ages of umber. This is partly mere mistake in us ; we build brown brick walls, and wear brown coats, because we have been blunder- ingly taught to do so, and go on doing so mechanically. There is, however, also some cause for the change in our own tempers. On the whole, these are much sadder ages than the early ones ; not sadder in a noble and deep way, but in a dim, wearied way, — the way of ennui, and jaded intellect, and uncomfortableness of soul and body. The Middle Ages had their wars and agonies, but also intense delights. Their gold was dashed with blood; but ours is sprinkled with dust. Their life was inwoven with white and purple; ours is one seamless stuff of brown. Not that we are without apparent festivity, but festivity more or less forced, mistaken, embit- tered, incomplete — not of the heart. How wonderfully, since Shakspere’s time, have we lost the power of laughing at bad jests ! The very finish of our wit belies our .gaiety. The profoundest reason of this darkness of heart is, I believe, our want of fdith. There never yet was a generation of men (savage or civilized) who, taken as a body, so wofully 412 WRITINGS OF JOIRN RUSKIN. fulfilled the words, “ having no hope, and without God in the world,” as the present civilized European race. A Red Indian or Otaheitan savage has more sense of a Divine existence round him, or government over him, than the plurality of refined Londoners and Parisians; and those among us who may in some sense be said to believe, are divided almost without exception into two broad classes, Romanist and Puritan ; who, but for the interference of the unbelieving portions of society, would, either of them, reduce the other sect as speedily as possible to ashes; the Romanist having always done so whenever he could, from the beginning of their separation, and the Puritan at this time holding him- self in complacent expectation of the destruction of Rome by volcanic fire. Such division as this between persons nominally of one religion, that is to say, believing in the same God, and the same revelation, cannot but become a stumbling-block of the gravest kind to all thoughtful and far-sighted men, — a stumbling-block which they can only surmount under the most favourable circumstances of early education. Hence, nearly all our powerful men in this age of the world are unbelievers ; the best of them in doubt and misery ; the worst in reckless defiance ; the plurality in plodding hesita- tion, doing, as well as they can, what practical work lies ready to their hands. Most of our scientific men are in this last class; our popular authors either set themselves definitely against all religious form, pleading for simple truth and bene- volence (Thackeray, Dickens), or give themselves up to bitter and fruitless statement of facts (De Balzac), or surface- painting (Scott), or careless blasphemy, sad or smiling (Byron, Beranger). Our earnest poets, and deepest thinkers, are doubtful and indignant (Tennyson, Carlyle) ; one or two, anchored, indeed, but anxious, or weeping (Wordsworth, Mrs. Browning) ; and of these two, the first is not so sure of his anchor, but that now and then it drags with him, even to make him cry out, — “ Great God, I had rather be A Pagan suckled in some creed outworn ; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn.” MISCELLANEOUS. 413 In politics, religion is now a name ; in art, a hypocrisy or affectation. Over German religious pictures the inscription, “ see how Pious I am,” can be read at a glance by any clear- sighted person. Over French and English religious pictures, the inscription, “ See how Impious I am,” is equally legible. All sincere and modest art is, among us, profane.* This faithlessness operates among us according to our tempers, producing either sadness or levity, and being the ultimate root alike of our discontents and of our wantonnesses. It is marvellous how full of contradiction it makes us: we are first dull, and seek for wild and lonely places because we have no heart for the garden ; presently we recover our spirits, and build an assembly room among the mountains, because we have no reverence for the desert. I do not know if there be game on Sinai, but I am always expecting to hear of some one’s shooting over it. — M. P. ill. Pt. iv. ch. xvi. § 9, 10, 11. Seers and Thinkers. — The more I think of it I find this conclusion more impressed upon me, — that the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, — all in one. Therefore, finding the world of Literature more or less divided into Thinkers and Seers, I believe we shall find also that the Seers are wholly the greater race of the two. A true Thinker, who has practical purpose in his thinking, and is sincere, as Plato, or Cartyle, or Helps, becomes in some sort a seer, and must be always of infi- nite use in his generation ; but an affected Thinker, who supposes his thinking of any other importance than as it tends to work, is about the vainest kind of person that can be found in the occupied classes. Nay, I believe that meta- physicians and philosophers are, on the whole, the greatest * Pre-Kaphaelitism, of course, excepted, which is a new phase of art. Blake was sincere, but full of wild creeds and somewhat diseased in brain. 414 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSICIN. troubles the world has got to deal with ; and that while a tyrant or bad man is of some use in teaching people submis- sion or indignation, and a thoroughly idle man is only harmful in setting an idle example, and communicating to other lazy people his own lazy misunderstandings, busy meta- physicians are always entangling good and active people, and weaving cobwebs among the finest wheels of the world’s business ; and are as much as possible, by all prudent persons, to be brushed out of their way, like spiders, and the meshed weed that has got into the Cambridgeshire canals, and other such impediments to barges and business. And if we thus clear the metaphysical element out of modern literature, we shall find its bulk amazingly diminished, and the claims of the remaining writers, or of those whom we have thinned by this abstraction of their straw stuffing, much more easily adjusted. Again : the mass of sentimental literature, concerned with the analysis and description of emotion, headed by the poetry of Byron, is altogether of lower rank than the literature which merely describes what it saw. The true Seer always feels as intensely as any one else ; but he does not much describe his feelings. He tells you whom he met, and what they said; leaves you to make out, from that, what they feel, and what he feels, but goes into little detail. And, generally speaking, pathetic writing and careful explanation of passion are quite easy, compared with this plain recording of what people said and did, or with the right invention of what they are likely to say and do ; for this reason, that to invent a story, or admirably and thoroughly tell any part of a story, it is necessary to grasp the entire mind of every personage con- cerned in it, and know precisely how they would be affected by what happens ; which to do requires a colossal intellect ; but to describe a separate emotion delicately, it is only needed that one should feel it oneself ; and thousands of people are capable of feeling this or that noble emotion, for one who is able to enter into all the feelings of somebody sitting on the other side of the table. Even, therefore, where this senti- mental literature is first rate, as in passages of Byron, MISCELLANEOUS. 415 Tennyson, and Keats, it ought not to be ranked so high as the Creative. — M . P. ill. Pt. iv. ch. xvi. § 28,29. Workers and Thinkers. — On a large scale, and in work determinable by line and rule, it is indeed both possible and necessary that the thoughts of one man should be carried out by the labour of others ; in this sense I have already defined the best architecture to be the expression of the mind of man- hood by the hands of childhood. But on a smaller scale, and in a design which cannot be mathematically defined, one man’s thoughts can never be expressed by another : and the differ- ence between the spirit of touch of the man who is inventing and of the man who is obeying directions, is often all the difference between a great and a common work of art. How wide the separation is between original and second-hand execution, I shall ^ndeavour to show elsewhere; it is not so much to our purpose here as to mark the other and more fatal error of despising manual labour when governed by intellect ; for it is no less fatal an error to despise it when thus regulated by intellect, than to value it for its own sake. We are always in these days endeavouring to separate the two ; we want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always working,, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative ; whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both should be gentlemen, in the best sense. As it is, we make both ungentle, the one envying, the other despising, his brother ; and the mass of society is made up of morbid thinkers, and miserable workers. Now it is only by labour that thought can be made healthy,, and only by thought that labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity. It would be well if all of us were good handicraftsmen in some kind, and the dis- honour of manual labour done away with altogether ; so that though there should still be a trenchant distinction of race between nobles and commoners, there should not, amon^f the latter, be a trenchant distinction of employment, as between idle and working men, or between men of liberal and illiberal professions. All professions should be liberal, and there should 41G WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. be less pride felt in peculiarity of employment, and more in excellence of achievement. And yet more, in each several profession, no master should be too proud to do its hardest work. The painter should grind his own colours ; the archi- tect work in the mason’s yard with his men ; the master- manufacturer be himself a more skilful operative than any man in his mills ; and the distinction between one man and another be only in experience and skill, and the authority and wealth which these must naturally and justly obtain. I should be led far from the matter in hand, if I were to pursue this interesting subject. Enough, I trust, has been said to show the reader that the rudeness or imperfection which at first rendered the term “ Gothic ” one of reproach is indeed, when rightly understood, one of the most noble characters of Christian architecture, and not only a noble but an essential one. It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect. And this is easily demonstrable. For since the architect, whom we will suppose capable of doing all in perfection, cannot execute the whole with his own hands, he must either make slaves of his work- men in the old Greek, and present English fashion, and level his work to a slave’s capacities, which is to degrade it; or else he must take his workmen as he finds them, and let them show their weaknesses together with their strength, which will involve the Gothic imperfection, but render the whole work as noble as the intellect of the age can make it. But the principle may be stated more broadly still. I have confined the illustration of it to architecture, but I must not leave it as if true of architecture only. Hitherto I have used the words imperfect and perfect merely to distinguish between work grossly unskilful, and work executed with average precision and science ; and I have been pleading that any degree of unskilfulness should be admitted, so only that the labourer’s mind had room for expression. But, accurately speaking, no good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunder- standing of the ends of art. — S. V. II. ch. vi. § 21, 22, 23. MISCELLANEOUS. 417 Public Judgment. — If it be true, and it can scarcely be disputed, that nothing has been for centuries consecrated by public admiration, without possessing in a high degree some kind of sterling excellence, it is not because the average intellect and feeling of the majority of the public are com- petent in any way to distinguish what is really excellent, but because all erroneous opinion is inconsistent, and all un- grounded opinion transitory; so that, while the fancies and feelings which deny deserved honour, and award what is undue, have neither root nor strength sufficient to maintain consistent testimony for a length of time, the opinions formed on right grounds by those few who are in reality competent judges, being necessarily stable, communicate themselves gradually from mind to mind, descending lower as they extend wider, until they leaven the whole lump, and rule by absolute authority, even where the grounds and reasons for them cannot be understood. On this gradual victory of what is consistent over what is vacillating, depends the reputation of all that is highest in art and literature; for it is an insult to what is really great in either to suppose that it in any way addresses itself to mean or uncultivated faculties. It is a matter of the simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated but by his equal or superior. His inferior may over-estimate him, in enthusiasm ; or, as is more commonly the case, degrade him, in ignorance; but he cannot form a grounded and just estimate. Without proving this, however, which would take more space to do than I can spare, it is sufficiently evident that there is no process of amalga- mation by which opinions, wrong individually, can become right merely by their multitude. If I stand by a picture in the Academy, and hear twenty persons in succession admiring some paltry piece of mechanism or imitation, in the lining of a cloak, or the satin of a slipper, it is absurd to tell me that they reprobate collectively what they admire individually : or, if they pass with apathy by a piece of the most noble conception or most perfect truth, because it has in it no tricks of the brush nor grimace of expression, it is absurd to tell me that they collectively Respect what they separately scorn, or 27 418 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. that the feelings and knowledge of such judges, by any length of time or comparison of ideas, could come to any right con- clusion with respect to what is really high in art. The question is not decided by them, but for them; — decided at first by few : by fewer in proportion as the merits of the work are of a higher order. From these few the decision is com- municated to the number next below them in rank of mind, and by these again to a wider and lower circle ; each rank being so far cognizant of the superiority of that above it, as to receive its decision with respect; until, in process of time, the right and consistent opinion is communicated to all, and held by all as a matter of faith, the more positively in proportion as the grounds of it are less perceived. — M. P. I. Pt. i. ch. i. § 1. Judgment of the Multitude. — Take Don Quixote for example. The lowest mind would find in it perpetual and brutal amusement in the misfortunes of the knight, and per- petual pleasure in sympathy with the squire. A mind of average feeling would perceive the satirical meaning and force of the book, would appreciate its wit, its elegance, and its truth. But only elevated and peculiar minds discover, in addition to all this, the full moral beauty of the love and truth which are the constant associates of all that is even most weak and erring in the character of its hero, and pass over the rude adventure and scurrile jest in haste — perhaps in pain, to penetrate beneath the rusty corslet, and catch from the wandering glance, the evidence and expression of forti- tude, self-devotion, and universal love. So again, with the works of Scott and Byron : popularity was as instant as it was deserved, because there is in them an appeal to those passions which are universal in all men, as well as an expres- sion of such thoughts as can be received only by the few. But they are admired by the majority of their advocates for the weakest parts of their works, as a popular preacher by the majority of his congregation for the worst part of his sermon. The process is rapid and certain, when, though there may be little to catch the multitude at once, there is much which MISCELLANEOUS. 419 they can enjoy when their attention is authoritatively directed to it. So rests the reputation of Shakspere. No ordinary mind can comprehend wherein his undisputed superiority consists, but there is yet quite as much to amuse, thrill, or excite, — quite as much of what is in the strict sense of the word, dramatic, in his works as in any one else’s. They were received, therefore, when first written, with average approval, as works of common merit : but when the high decision was made, and the circle spread, the public took up the hue and cry conscientiously enough. Let them have daggers, ghosts, clowns, and kings, and, with such real and definite sources of enjoyment, they will take the additional trouble to learn half a dozen quotations, without understanding them, and admit the superiority of Shakspere without further demur. The process is impossible where there is in the work nothing to attract and something to disgust the vulgar mind. Neither their intrinsic excellence, nor the authority of those who can judge of it, will ever make the poems of Wordsworth or George Herbert popular, in the sense in which Scott and Byron are popular, because it is to the vulgar a labour instead of a pleasure to read them ; and there are parts in them which to such judges cannot but be vapid or ridiculous. Most works of the highest art, — those of Raphael, M. Angelo, or Da Yinci, — stand as Shakspere does, — that which is commonplace and feeble in their excellence being taken for its essence by the uneducated, imagination assisting the impression (for we readily fancy that we feel, when feeling is a matter of pride or conscience), and affectation and preten- sion increasing the noise of the rapture, if not its degree. Giotto, Orcagna, Angelico, Perugino, stand, like George Herbert, only with the few. Wilkie becomes popular, like Scott, becauses he touches passions which all feel, and expresses truths which all can recognize. — M. P. I. Pt. i. sec. i. ch. i. note. Taste. — He who has followed up these natural laws of aversion and desire, rendering them more and more authori- tative by constant obedience, so as to derive pleasure always 27—2 420 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. from that which God originally intended should give him pleasure, and who derives the greatest possible sum of pleasure from any given object, is a man of taste. Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection. He who receives little pleasure from these sources, wants taste ; he who receives pleasure from any other sources, has false or bad taste. And it is thus that the term u taste ” is to be distinguished from that of “judgment,” with which it is constantly con- founded. Judgment is a general term, expressing definite action of the intellect, and applicable to every kind of subject which can be submitted to it. There may be judgment of congruity, judgment of truth, judgment of justice, and judgment of difficulty and excellence. But all these exertions of the intellect are totally distinct from taste, properly so called, which is the instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to another without any obvious reason, except that it is proper to human nature in its perfection so to do. — M.P. I. Pt. i. sec. i. ch. vi. §1, 2, 3. Right Taste. — The temper by which right taste is formed, is characteristically patient. It dwells upon what is submitted to it. It does not trample upon it, lest it should be pearls, even though it look like husks. It is a good ground, soft, penetrable, retentive; it does not send up thorns of unkind thoughts, to choke the weak seed; it is hungry and thirsty too, and drinks all the dew that falls on it. It is an honest and good heart, that shows no too ready springing before the sun be up, but fails not afterwards ; it is distrustful of itself, so as to be ready to believe and to try all things, and yet so trustful of itself, that it will neither quit what it has tried, nor take anything without trying. And the pleasure which it has in things that it finds true and good is so great, that it cannot possibly be led aside by any tricks of fashion, or diseases of vanity ; it cannot be cramped in its conclusions by partialities and hypocrisies ; its visions and its delights are too penetrating, MISCELLANEOUS. 421 too living, for any white washed object or shallow fountain long to endure or supply. It clasps all that it loves so hard, that it crushes it if it be hollow. — M. P. II. Pt. iii. ch. iii. § 9. Beauty and Ugliness. — Beauty has been appointed by the Deity to be one of the elements by which the human soul is continually sustained ; it is therefore to be found more or less in all natural objects, but in order that we may not satiate ourselves with it, and weary of it, it is rarely granted to us in its utmost degrees. When we see it in those utmost degrees, we are attracted to it strongly, and remember it long, as in the case of singularly beautiful scenery, or a beautiful countenance. On the other hand, absolute ugliness is admitted as rarely as perfect beauty ; but degrees of it more or less distinct are associated with whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty is associated with what has the nature of virtue and of life. This being so, you see that when the relative beauty of any particular forms has to be examined, we may reason, from the forms of nature around us, in this manner : — what nature does generally, is sure to be more or less beautiful ; what she does rarely, will either be very beautiful, or absolutely ugly ; and we may again easily determine, if we are not willing in such a case to trust our feelings, which of these is indeed the case, by this simple rule, that if the rare occurrence is the result of the complete fulfilment of a natural law, it will be beautiful ; if of the violation of a natural law, it will be ugly . — Lectures on Architecture and Painting , Lect. 1. True Sense of the Term “Romantic.” — The real and proper use of the word romantic is simply to characterize an impro- bable or unaccustomed degree of beauty, sublimity, or virtue. For instance, in matters of history, is not the Retreat of the Ten Thousand romantic ? Is not the death of Leonidas? of the Horatii ? On the other hand, you find nothing romantic, though much that is monstrous, in the excesses of Tiberius or Commodus. So again, the battle of Agincourt is romantic, and of Bannockburn, simply because there was an extra- 422 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. ordinary display of human virtue in both those battles. But there is no romance in the battles of the last Italian campaign, in which mere feebleness and distrust were on one side, mere physical force on the other. And even in fiction, the opponents of virtue, in order to be romantic, must have sub- limity mingled with their vice. It is not the knave, not the ruffian, that are romantic, but the giant and the dragon ; and these, not because they are false, but because they are majestic. So again as to beauty. You feel that armour is romantic, because it is a beautiful dress, and you are not used to it. You do not feel there is anything romantic in the paint and shells of a Sandwich Islander, for these are not beautiful. So, then, observe, this feeling which you are accustomed to despise — this secret and poetical enthusiasm in all your hearts, which, as practical men, you try to restrain — is indeed one of the holiest parts of your being. It is the instinctive delight in, and admiration for, sublimity, beauty, and virtue, un- usually manifested. And so far from being a dangerous guide, it is the truest part of your being. It is even truer than your consciences. A man’s conscience may be utterly perverted and led astray ; but so long as the feelings of romance endure within us, they are unerring, — they are as true to what is right and lovely as the needle to the north ; and all that you have to do is to add to the enthusiastic sen- timent, the majestic judgment — to mingle prudence and fore- sight with imagination and admiration, and you have the perfect human soul. But the great evil of these days is that we try to destroy the romantic feeling, instead of bridling and directing it. Mark what Young says of the men of the world. “ They, who think nought so strong of the romance, So rank knight-errant, as a real friend.” And they are right. True friendship is romantic, to the men of the world — true affection is romantic — true religion is romantic . — Lectures on Architecture and Sculpture , Lect. 2. Quixotism, or Utopianism. — Since the time of Cervantes the purest impulses and the noblest purposes have perhaps MISCELLANEOUS. 423 been oftener stayed by the devil, under the name of Quixotism, than under any other base name or false allegation. Quixotism, or Utopianism : that is another of the devil’s pet words. I believe the quiet admission which we are all of us so ready to make, that, because things have long been wrong, it is impossible they should ever be right, is one of the most fatal sources of misery and crime from which this world suffers. Whenever you hear a man dissuading you from attempting to do well, on the ground that perfection is 11 Utopian,” beware of that man. Cast the word out of your dictionary altogether. There is no need for it. Things are either possible or impossible — you can easily determine which, in any given state of human science. If the thing is impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it ; if possible, try for it. It is very Utopian to hope for the entire doing away with drunkenness and misery out of the Canongate ; but the Utopianism is not our business — the work is. It is Utopian to hope to give every child in this kingdom the knowledge of God from its youth ; but the Utopianism is not our business — the work is . — Lectures on Architecture and Painting , Lect. 2. Scenes near a Modern and Medleval Town. — In an after- noon walk, last week, in the suburbs of one of our large manufacturing towns, I was thinking of the difference in the effect upon the designer’s mind, between the scene which I then came upon, and the scene which would have presented itself to the eyes of any designer of the middle ages, when he left his workshop. Just outside the town I came upon an old English cottage, or mansion, I hardly know which to call it, set close under the hill, and beside the river, perhaps built somewhere in the Charles’s times, with mullioned windows and a low arched porch ; round which, in the little triangular garden, one can imagine the family as they used to sit in old summer times, the ripple of the river heard faintly through the sweetbriar hedge, and the sheep on the far-off wolds shining in the evening sunlight. There, uninhabited for many and many a year, it had been left in unregarded havoc of ruin ; the garden-gate still swung loose to its latch ; 424 WRITINGS OF JOHN BUSKIN. the garden, blighted utterly into a field of ashes, not even a weed taking root there ; the roof torn into shapeless rents ; the shutters hanging about the windows in rags of rotten wood ; before its gate, the stream which had gladdened it now soaking slowly by, black as ebony, and thick with curdling scum ; the bank above it trodden into unctuous, sooty slime : far in front of it, between it and the old hills, the furnaces of the city foaming forth perpetual plague of sulphurous dark- ness; the volumes of their storm clouds coiling low over a waste of grassless fields, fenced from each other, not by hedges, but by slabs of square stone, like gravestones, riveted together with iron. That was a scene for the designer’s contemplation in his afternoon walk at Rochdale. Now fancy what was the scene which presented itself, in his afternoon walk, to a designer of the Gothic school of Pisa — Nino Pisano, or any of his men. On each side of a bright river he saw rise a line of brighter palaces, arched and pillared, and inlaid with deep red por- phyry, and with serpentine ; along the quays before their gates were riding troops of knights, noble in face and form, dazzling in crest and shield ; horse and man one labyrinth of quaint colour and gleaming light — the purple, and silver, and scarlet fringes flowing over the strong limbs and clashing mail, like sea-waves over rocks at sunset. Opening on each side from the river were gardens, courts, and cloisters ; long successions of white pillars among wreaths of vine ; leaping oh* fountains through buds of pomegranate and orange : and still along the garden-paths, and under and through the crimson of the pomegranate shadows, moving slowly, groups of the fairest women that Italy ever saw — fairest, because purest and though tfullest ; trained in all high knowledge, as in all courteous art — in dance, in song, in sweet wit, in lofty learning, in loftier courage, in loftiest love — able alike to cheer, to enchant, or save, the souls of men. Above all this scenery of perfect human life, rose dome and bell-tower, burning with white alabaster and gold : beyond dome and bell-tower the slopes of mighty hills, hoary with olive; far in the north, above a purple sea of peaks of solemn Apennine, MISCELLANEOUS. 425 the clear, sharp-cloven Carrara mountains sent up their stead- fast flames of marble summit into amber sky ; the great sea itself, scorching with expanse of light, stretching from their feet to the Gorgonian isles ; and over all these, ever present, near or far — seen through the leaves of vine, or imaged with all its march of clouds in the Arno’s stream, or set with its depth of blue close against the golden hair and burning cheek of lady and knight, — that untroubled and sacred sky, which was to all men, in those days of innocent faith, indeed the unquestioned abode of spirits, as the earth was of men ; and which opened straight through its gates of cloud and veils of dew into the awfulness of the eternal world ; — a heaven in which every cloud that passed was literally the chariot of an angel, and every ray of its Evening and Morning streamed from the throne of God. What think you of that for a school of design ? — The Two Paths , Lect. 3. St. Mark in the Hearts of the Venetians. — Daily, as the white cupolas rose like wreaths of sea-foam in the dawn, while the shadowy campanile and frowning palace were still withdrawn into the night, they rose with the Easter Voice of Triumph, — “ Christ is risen ; ” and daily as they looked down upon the tumult of the people, deepening and eddying in the wide square that opened from their feet to the sea, they uttered above them the sentence of warning, — “ Christ shall come.” And this thought may surely dispose the reader to look with some change of temper upon the gorgeous building and wild blazonry of that shrine of St. Mark’s. He now perceives that it was in the hearts of the old Venetian people far more than a place of worship. It was at once a type of the Redeemed Church of God, and a scroll for the written word of God. It was to be to them, both an image of the Bride, all glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold; and the actual Table of the Law and the Testimony, written within and without. And whether honoured as the Church or as the Bible, was it not fitting that neither the gold nor the 426 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. crystal sliould be spared in the adornment of it ; that, as the symbol of the Bride, the building of the wall thereof should be of jasper,* and the foundations of it garnished with all manner of precious stones; and that, as the channel of the Word, that triumphant utterance of the Psalmist should be true of it, — “ I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches ? ” And shall we not look with changed temper down the long perspective of St. Mark’s Place towards the sevenfold gates and glowing domes of its temple, when we know with what solemn purpose the shafts of it were lifted above the pavement of the populous square ? Men met there from all countries of the earth, for traffic or for pleasure ; but, above the crowd swaying for ever to and fro in the restless- ness of avarice or thirst of delight, was seen perpetually the glory of the temple, attesting to them, whether they would hear or whether they would forbear, that there was one treasure which the merchantman might buy without a price, and one delight better than all others, in the word and the statutes of God. Not in the wantonness of wealth, not in vain ministry to the desire of the eyes or the pride of life, were those marbles hewn into transparent strength, and those arches arrayed in the colours of the iris. There is a message written in the dyes of them, that once was written in blood ; and a sound in the echoes of their vaults, that one day shall fill the vault of heaven, — “ He shall return, to do judgment and justice.” The strength of Venice was given her, so long as she remembered this : her destruction found her when she had forgotten this ; and it found her irrevocably, because she forgot it without excuse. Never had city a more glorious Bible. Among the nations of the North, a rude and shadowy sculpture filled their temples with confused and hardly legible imagery ; but, for her, the skill and the treasures of the East had gilded every letter, and illumined every page, till the Book-Temple shone from afar off like the star of the Magi. In other cities, the meetings of the people were often in places ■withdrawn from religious association, subject to violence and to change ; and on the grass of the dangerous rampart, and in * Rev. xxi. 1 8 . MISCELLANEOUS. 427 the dust of the troubled street, there were deeds done and counsels taken, which, if we cannot justify, we may sometimes forgive. But the sins of Venice, whether in her palace or in her piazza, were done with the Bible at her right hand. The walls on which its testimony was written were separated but by a few inches of marble from those which guarded the secrets of her councils, or confined the victims of her policy. And when in her last hours she threw off all shame and all restraint, and the great square of the city became filled with the madness of the whole earth, be it remembered how much her sin was greater, because it was done in the face of the House of God, burning with the letters of His Law. Mounte- bank and masquer laughed their laugh, and went their way ; and a silence has followed them, not unforetold; for amidst them all, through century after century of gathering vanity and festering guilt, that white dome of St. Mark’s had uttered in the dead ear of Venice, “Know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.” — S. V. II. ch. iv. §71. Two Cities : a Contrast. — I remember a city, more nobly placed even than Edinburgh, which, instead of the valley now filled by lines of railroad, has a broad and rushing river of blue water sweeping through the heart of it ; which, for the dark and solitary rock that bears your castle, has an amphitheatre of cliffs crested with cypresses and olive; which, for the two masses of Arthur’s Seat and the ranges of the Pentlands, has a chain of blue mountains higher than the haughtiest peaks of the Highlands ; and which, for the far away Ben Ledi and Ben More, has the great central chain of the St. Gothard Alps : and yet as you go out of the gates, and walk in the suburban streets of that city — I mean Verona — the eye never seeks to rest on that external scenery, however gorgeous; it does not look for the gaps between the houses : it may for a few moments follow the broken line of the great Alpine battlements ; but it is only where they form a background for other battlements, built by the hand of man. There is no necessity felt to dwell on the 428 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSK IN. blue river or the burning hills. The heart and eye have enough to do in the streets of the city itself ; they are contented there ; nay, they sometimes turn from the natural scenery, as if too savage and solitary, to dAvell with a deeper interest on the palace walls that cast their shade upon the streets, and the crowd of towers that rise out of that shadow, into the depth of the sky. That is a city to be proud of indeed . — Lectures on Architecture and Painting , Lect. 1. English and Foreign Villages. — In these days of swift locomotion I may doubtless assume that most of my audience have been somewhere out of England — have been in Scotland, or France, or Switzerland. Whatever may have been their impression, on returning to their own country, of its supe- riority or inferiority in other respects, they cannot but have felt one thing about it — the comfortable look of its towns and villages. Foreign towns are often very picturesque, very beautiful, but they never have quite that look of warm self- sufficiency and wholesome quiet with which our villages nestle themselves down among the green fields. If you will take the trouble to examine into the sources of this impression, you will find that by far the greater part of that warm and satisfactory appearance depends upon the rich scarlet colour of the bricks and tiles. It does not belong to the neat build- ing — very neat building has an uncomfortable rather than a comfortable look — but it depends on the warm building; our villages are dressed in red tiles as our old women are in red cloaks ; and it does not matter how worn the cloaks, or how bent and bowed the roof may be, so long as there are no holes in either one or the other, and the sobered but unex- tinguishable colour still glows in the shadow of the hood, and burns among the green mosses of the gable. And what do you suppose dyes your tiles of cottage roof? You don’t paint them. It is nature who puts all that lovely vermilion into the clay for you ; and all that lovely vermilion is this oxide of iron. Think, therefore, what your streets of towns would become — ugly enough, indeed, already, some of them, but still comfortable-looking — if instead of that warm brick red, MISCELLANEOUS. 429 the houses became all pepper-and-salt colour. Fancy your country villages changing from that homely scarlet of theirs which, in its sweet suggestion of laborious peace, is as honourable as the soldier’s scarlet of laborious battle — suppose all those cottage roofs, I say, turned at once into the colour of unbaked clay, the colour of street gutters in rainy weather. That’s what they would be, without iron. There is, however, yet another effect of colour in our English country towns which, perhaps, you may not all your- selves have noticed, but for which you must take the word of a sketcher. They are not so often merely warm scarlet as they are warm purple ; — a more beautiful colour still: and they owe this colour to a mingling with the vermilion of the deep grayish or purple hue of our fine Welsh slates on the more respectable roofs, made more blue still by the colour of intervening atmosphere. If you examine one of these Welsh slates freshly broken, you will find its purple colour clear and vivid ; and although never strikingly so after it has been long exposed to weather, it always retains enough of the tint to give rich harmonies of distant purple in opposition to the green of our woods and fields. Whatever brightness or power there is in the hue is entirely owing to the oxide of iron. Without it the slates would either be pale stone colour, or cold gray, or black . — The Two Paths , Lect. 5. Tombs. — Our respect for the dead, when they are just dead, is something wonderful, and the way we show it more wonderful still. We show it with black feathers and black horses ; we show it with black dresses and black heraldries ; we show it with costly obelisks and sculptures of sorrow, which spoil half of our most beautiful cathedrals. We show it with frightful gratings and vaults, and lids of dismal stone, in the midst of the quiet grass ; and last, and not least, we show it by permitting ourselves to tell any number of lies we think amiable or credible, in the epitaph. This feeling is common to the poor as well as the rich ; and we all know how many a poor family will nearly ruin themselves, to testify their respect for some member of it in his coffin, whom 430 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. they never much cared for when he was out of it ; and how often it happens that a poor old woman will starve herself to death, in order that she may be respectably buried ! Now, this being one of the most complete and special ways of wasting money ; — no money being less productive of good, or of any percentage whatever, than that which we shake away from the ends of undertakers’ plumes — it is of course the duty of all good economists, and kind persons, to prove and proclaim continually, to the poor as well as the rich, that respect for the dead is not really shown by laying great stones on them to tell us where they are laid ; but by remembering where they are laid, without a stone to help us ; trusting them to the sacred grass and saddened flowers ; and still more, that respect and love are shown to them, not by great monuments to them which we build with our hands, but by letting the monuments stand which they built with their oivn. — Political Economy of Art, Lect. 2. Marble. — Consider first, what marble seems to have been made for. Over the greater part of the surface of the world, we find that a rock has been providentially distributed, in a manner particularly pointing it out as intended for the service of man. Not altogether a common rock, it is yet rare enough to command a certain degree of interest and attention wherever it is found ; but not so rare as to preclude its use for any purpose to which it is fitted. It is exactly of the consistence which is best adapted for sculpture : that is to say, neither hard nor brittle, nor flaky nor splintery, but uniform, and delicately, yet not ignobly, soft, — exactly soft enough to allow the sculptor to work it without force, and trace on it the finest lines of finished form ; and yet so hard as never to betray the touch or moulder away beneath the steel ; and so admirably crystallized, and of such permanent elements, that no rains dissolve it, no time changes it, no atmosphere decom- poses it : once shaped, it is shaped for ever, unless subjected to actual violence or attrition. This rock, then, is prepared by Nature for the sculptor and architect, just as paper is MISCELLANEOUS. 431 prepared by the manufacturer for the artist, with as great — nay, with greater — care, and more perfect adaptation of the material to the requirements. And of this marble paper, some is white and some coloured ; but more is coloured than white, because the white is evidently meant for sculpture, and the coloured for the covering of large surfaces. Now, if we would take Nature at her word, and use this precious paper ■which she has taken so much care to provide for us (it is a long process, the making of that paper ; the pulp of it needing the subtlest possible solution, and the pressing of it — for it is all hot-pressed — having to be done under the sea, or under something at least as heavy) ; if, I say, we use it as Nature would have us, consider what advantages would follow. The colours of marble are mingled for us just as if on a prepared palette. They are of all shades and hues (except bad ones), some being united and even, some broken, mixed, and interrupted, in order to supply, as far as possible, the want of the painter’s power of breaking and mingling the colour with the brush. But there is more in the colours than this delicacy of adaptation. There is history in them. By the manner in which they are arranged in every piece of marble, they record the means by which that marble has been produced, and the successive changes through which it has passed. And in all their veins and zones, and flame-like stainings, or broken and disconnected lines, they write various legends, never untrue, of the former political state of the mountain kingdom to which they belonged, of its infirmities and fortitudes, convulsions and consolidations, from the beginning of time. Now, if we were never in the habit of seeing anything but real marbles, this language of theirs would soon begin to be understood; that is to say, even the least observant of us would recognize such and such stones as forming a peculiar class, and would begin to inquire where they came from, and, at last, take some feeble interest in the main question, Why they were only to be found in that or the other place, and how they came to make a part of this mountain, and not of that ? And in a little while, it would not be possible to stand 432 WRITINGS OF JOHN ltUSKIN. for a moment at a shop door, leaning against the pillars of it, without remembering or questioning of something well worth the memory or the inquiry, touching the hills of Italy, or Greece, or Africa, or Spain ; and we should be led on from knowledge to knowledge, until even the unsculptured walls of our streets became to us volumes as precious as those of our libraries. — S. V. III. ch. i. § 41, 42. Iron as the Colouring Matter in Nature. — A deeper interest, and larger beneficence belong to that ochreous earth of iron which stains the marble of your springs. It stains much besides that marble. It stains the great earth wheresoever you can see it, far and wide — it is the colouring substance appointed to colour the globe for the sight, as well as subdue it to the service of man. You have just seen your hills covered with snow, and, perhaps, have enjoyed, at first, the contrast of their fair white with the dark blocks of pine woods; but have you ever considered how you would like them always white — not pure white, but dirty white — the white of thaw, with all the chill of snow in it, but none of its brightness ? That is what the colour of the earth would be without its iron ; that would be its colour, not here or there only, but in all places, and at all times. Follow out that idea till you get it in some detail. Think first of your pretty gravel walks in your gardens, yellow and fine, like plots of sunshine between the flower-beds ; fancy them all suddenly turned to the colour of ashes. That is what they would be without iron ochre. Think of your winding walks over the common, as warm to the eye as they are dry to the foot, and imagine them all laid down suddenly with gray cinders. Then pass beyond the common into the country, and pause at the first ploughed field that you see sweeping up the hill sides in the sun, with its deep brown furrows, and wealth of ridges all a-glow, heaved aside by the ploughshare, like deep folds of a mantle of russet velvet — fancy it all changed suddenly into grisly furrows in a field of mud. That is what it would be without iron. Pass on, in fancy, over hill and dale, till you reach the bending line of MISCELLANEOUS. 433 the sea shore ; go down upon its breezy beech — watch the white foam flashing among the amber of it, and all the blue sea embayed in belts of gold : then fancy those circlets of far sweeping shore suddenly put into mounds of mourning — all those golden sands turned into gray slime; the fairies no more able to call to each other, “ Come unto these yellow sands ; ” but, “ Come unto these drab sands.” That is what they would be, without iron. Iron is in some sort, therefore, the sunshine and light of landscape, so far as that light depends on the ground. — The Two Paths , Lect. 5. Three Kinds of Earth. — There are three kinds of earth which, in mixed mass and prevalent quantity, form the world. Those are, in common language, the earths of clay, of lime, and of flint. Many other elements are mingled with these in sparing quantities ; but the great frame and substance of the earth is made of these three, so that wher- ever you stand on solid ground, in any country of the globe, the thing that is mainly under your feet will be either clay, limestone or some condition of the earth of flint, mingled with both. These being what we have usually to deal with, Nature seems to have set herself to make these three substances as interesting to us, and as beautiful for us, as she can. The clay, being a soft and changeable substance, she doesn’t take much pains about, as we have seen, till it is baked ; she brings the colour into it only when it receives a permanent form. But the limestone and flint she paints, in her own way, in their native state : and her object in painting them seems to be much the same as in her painting of flowers ; to draw us, careless and idle human creatures, to watch her a little, and see what she is about — that being on the whole good for us, — her children. For Nature is always carrying on every strange work with this limestone and flint of hers : laying down beds of them at the bottom of the sea ; building islands out of the sea ; filling chinks and veins in mountains with curious treasures; petrifying mosses, and trees, and 9 shells ; in fact, carrying on all sorts of business, subterranean 28 434 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. or submarine, which it would be highly desirable for us, who profit and live by it, to notice as it goes on. And apparently to lead us to do this, she makes picture-books for us of lime- stone and flint; and tempts us, like foolish children as we are, to read her books by the pretty colours in them. The pretty colours in her limestone-books form those variegated marbles which all mankind have taken delight to polish and build with from the beginning of time ; and the pretty colours in her flint-books form those agates, jaspers, cornelians, bloodstones, onyxes, cairngorms, chrysoprases, which men have in like manner taken delight to cut, and polish, and make ornaments of, from the beginning of time ; and yet, so much of babies are they, and so fond of looking at the pictures instead of reading the book, that I question whether, after six thousand years of cutting and polishing, there are above two or three people out of any given hundred, who know, or care to know-how a bit of agate or a bit of marble was made, or painted. How it was made, may not be always very easy to say ; but with what it was painted there is no manner of question. All those beautiful violet veinings and variegations of the marbles of Sicily and Spain, the glowing orange and amber colours of those of Siena, the deep russet of the Eosso antico, and the blood-colour of all the precious jaspers that enrich the temples of Italy; and, finally, all the lovely transitions of tint in the pebbles of Scotland and the Ehine, which form, though not the most precious, by far the most interesting portion of our modern jewellers’ work; — all these are painted by Nature with this one material only, variously proportioned and applied — the oxide of iron that stains your Tunbridge springs. But this is not all, nor the best part of the work of iron. Its service in producing these beautiful stones is only rendered to rich people, who can afford to quarry and polish them. But Nature paints for all the world, poor and rich together ; and while, therefore, she thus adorns the innermost rocks of her hills, to tempt your investigation, or indulge your luxury, — she paints, far more carefully, the outsides of the Jiills, MISCELLANEOUS. 435 which are for the eyes of the shepherd and the ploughman. I spoke just now of the effect in the roofs of our villages of their purple slates ; but if the slates are beautiful even in their flat and formal rows on house-roofs, much more are they beautiful on the rugged crests and flanks of their native mountains. Have you ever considered, in speaking as we do so often of distant blue hills, what it is that makes them blue ? To a certain extent it is distance ; but distance alone will not do it. Many hills look white, however distant. That lovely dark purple colour of our Welsh and Highland hills is owing, not to their distance merely, but to their rocks. Some of their rocks are, indeed, too dark to be beautiful, being black or ashy gray ; owing to imperfect and porous structure. But when you see this dark colour dashed with russet and blue, and coming out in masses among the green ferns, so purple that you can hardly tell at first whether it is rock or heather, then you must thank your old Tunbridge friend, the oxide of iron. But this is not all. It is necessary for the beauty of hill scenery that Nature should colour not only her soft rocks, but her hard ones; and she colours them with the same thing, only more beautifully. Perhaps you have wondered at n^ use of the word “ purple,” so often of stones ; but the Greeks, and still more the Romans, who had profound respect for purple, used it of stone long ago. You have all heard of “porphyry” as among the most precious of the harder massive stones. The colour which gave it that noble name, as well as that which gives the flush to all the rosy granite of Egypt — yes, and to the rosiest summit of the Alps themselves — is still owing to the same substance — -your humble oxide of iron. And last of all: A nobler colour than all these — the noblest colour ever seen on this earth — one which belongs to a strength greater than that of the Egyptian granite, and to a beauty greater than that of the sunset or the rose — is still mysteriously con- nected with the presence of this dark iron. I believe it is not ascertained on what the crimson of blood actually depends ; but the colour is connected, of course, with its vitality, and 43C WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. that vitality with the existence of iron as one of its substantial elements. Is it not strange to find this stern and strong metal mingled so delicately in our human life, that we cannot even blush without its help ? — The Two Paths , Lect. 5. Irregularity a Principle of Nature. — Let us go down and stand by -the beach of the great, irregular sea, and count whether the thunder of it is not out of time. One, — two : — here comes a well-formed wave at last, trembling a little at the top, but, on the whole, orderly. So, crash among the shingle, and up, as far as this grey pebble ; now stand by and watch ! Another : — Ah, careless wave ! why couldn’t you have kept your crest on? it is all gone away into spray, striking up against the cliffs there — I thought as much — * missed the mark by a couple of feet ! Another : — How now, impatient one ! couldn’t you have waited till your friend’s reflux was done with, instead of rolling yourself up with it in that unseemly manner ? You go for nothing. A fourth, and a goodly one at last. What think we of yonder slow rise, and crystalline hollow, without a flaw ? Steady, good wave ; not so fast, not so fast ; where are you coming to ? — By our architectural word, this is too bad ; two yards over the mark, and ever so much of you in our face besides ; and a wave which we had some hope of, behind there, broken all to pieces out at sea, and laying a great white tablecloth of foam all the way to the shore, as if the marine gods were to dine off it ! Alas, for these unhappy arrow shots of Nature ; she will never hit her mark with those unruly waves of hers, nor get one of them into the ideal shape, if we wait for her a thousand years But the sea was meant to be irregular ! Yes, and were not also the leaves, and the blades of grass ; and, in a sort, as far as may be without mark of sin, even the counte- nance of man ? Or would it be pleasanter and better to have us all alike, and numbered on our foreheads, that we might be known one from the other ? — S. V. I. ch. xxx. §3,4. MISCELLANEOUS. 437 Innocent Susceptibility. — The longer I live, the more ground I see to hold in high honour a certain sort of childish- ness or innocent susceptibility. Generally speaking, I find that when we first look at a subject, we get a glimpse of some of the greatest truths about it : as we look longer, our vanity, and false reasoning, and half-knowledge, lead us into various wrong opinions ; but as we look longer still, we gradually return to our first impressions, only with a full understanding of their mystical and innermost reasons ; and of much beyond and beside them, not then known to us, now added (partly as a foundation, partly as a corollary) to what at first we felt or saw. It is thus eminently in this matter of colour. Lay your hand over the page of this book, — any child or simple person looking at the hand and book, would perceive, as the main fact of the matter, that a brownish pink thing was laid over a white one. The grand artist comes and tells you that your hand is not pink, and your paper is not white. He shades your fingers and shades your book, and makes you see all manner of starting veins, and projecting muscles, and black hollows, where before you saw nothing but paper and fingers. But go a little farther, and you will get more innocent again ; you will find that, when “ science has done its worst, two and two still make four ; ” and that the main and most important facts about your hand, so seen, are, after all, that it has four fingers and a thumb — showing as brownish pink things on white paper. — M. P. IV. Pt. v. ch. iii. § 21. Man the Great Destroyer. — Nearly every great and intellectual race of the world has produced, at every period of its career, an art with some peculiar and precious character about it, wholly unattainable by any other race, and at any other time ; and the intention of Providence concerning that art, is evidently that it should all grow together into one mighty temple ; the rough stones and the smooth all finding their place, and rising, day by day, in richer and higher pinnacles to heaven. Now, just fancy what a position the world, considered as one great workroom — one great factory in the form of a globe — would have been in by this time, 438 WHITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. if it Lad in the least understood this duty, or been capable of it. Fancy what we should have had around us now, if, instead of quarrelling and fighting over their work, the nations had aided each other in their work, or if even in their con- quests, instead of effacing the memorials of those they suc- ceeded and subdued, they had guarded the spoils of their victories. Fancy what Europe would be now, if the delicate statues and temples of the Greeks, — if the broad roads and massy walls of the Romans, — if the noble and pathetic architecture of the middle ages, had not been ground to dust by mere human rage. You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time : I tell you, Time is scytheless and tooth- less ; it is we who gnaw like the worm — we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish — ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame, and the soul of man is to its own work as the moth, that frets when it cannot fly, and as the hidden flame that blasts where it cannot illumine. All these lost treasures of human intellect have been wholly destroyed by human industry of destruc- tion ; the marble would have stood its two thousand years as well in the polished statue as in the Parian cliff ; but we men have ground it to powder, and mixed it with our own ashes. The walls and the ways would have stood — it is we who have left not one stone upon another, and restored its path- lessness to the desert ; the great cathedrals of old religion would have stood — it is we who have dashed down the carved work with axes and hammers, and bid the mountain-grass bloom upon the pavement, and the sea-winds cliaunt in the galleries. You will perhaps think all this was somehow necessary for the development of the human race. I cannot stay now to dispute that, though I would willingly ; but do you think it is still necessary for that development ? Do you think that in this nineteenth century it is still necessary for the European nations to turn all the places where their principal art- treasures are into battle-fields? For that is what they are doing even while I speak ; the great firm of the world is managing its business at this moment, just as it has done in past time . — Political Economy of Art, Lect. 2, § 3. MISCELLANEOUS. 430 Toil the only Source of Wealth. — By far the greater part of the suffering and crime which exist at this moment in civilized Europe, arises simply from people not under- standing this truism — not knowing that produce or wealth is eternally connected by the laws of heaven and earth with resolute labour ; but hoping in some way to cheat or abrogate this everlasting law of life, and to feed where they have not furrowed, and be warm where they have not woven. I repeat, nearly all our misery and crime result from this one nlisapprehension. The law of nature is, that a certain quantity of work is necessary to produce a certain quantity of good, of any kind whatever. If you want knowledge, you must toil for it : if food, you must toil for it ; and if pleasure, you must toil for it. But men do not acknowledge this law, or strive to evade it, hoping to get their knowledge, and food, and pleasure for nothing; and in this effort they either fail of getting them, and remain ignorant and miserable, or they obtain them by making other men work for their benefit ; and then they are tyrants and robbers. Yes, and worse than robbers. I am not one who in the least doubts or disputes the progress of this century in many things useful to man- kind ; but it seems to me a very dark sign respecting us that we look with so much indifference upon dishonesty and cruelty in the pursuit of wealth. In the dream of Nebuchadnezzar it was only the feet that were part of iron and part of clay ; but many of us are now getting so cruel in our avarice, that it seems as if, in us, the heart were part of iron, part of clay. — The Two Paths , Lect. 5. Mechanical Advances of the Age. — The great mechanical impulses of the age, of which most of us are so proud, are a mere passing fever, half speculative, half childish. People will discover at last that royal roads to anything can no more be laid in iron than they can in dust ; that there are, in fact, no royal roads to anywhere worth going to ; that if there were, it would that instant cease to be worth going to, — I mean, so far as the things to be obtained are in any way estimable in terms of price. For there are two classes of 440 WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. precious things in the world : those that God gives us for nothing — sun, air, and life (both mortal life and immortal) ; and the secondarily precious things which He gives us for a price : these secondarily precious things, worldly wine and milk, can only be bought for definite money ; they never can be cheapened. No cheating nor bargaining will ever get a single thing out of nature’s “ establishment ” at half-price. Do we want to be strong? — we must work. To be hungry ? — we must starve. To be happy ? — we must be kind. To be wise ? — we must look and think. No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour, nor making of stuffs a thousand yards a minute, will make us one whit stronger, happier, or wiser. There was always more in the world than men could see, walked they ever so slowly ; they will see it no better for going fast. And they will at last, and soon too, find out that their grand inventions for conquering (as they think) space and time, do, in reality, conquer nothing ; for space and time are, in their own essence, unconquerable, and besides did not want any sort of conquering ; they wanted using. A fool always wants to shorten space and time : a wise man wants to lengthen both. A fool wants to kill space and kill time : a wise man, first to gain them, then to animate them. Your railroad, when you come to understand it, is only a device for making the world smaller : and as for being able to talk from place to place, that is, indeed, well and con- venient ; but suppose you have, originally, nothing to say. We shall be obliged at last to confess, what we should long ago have known, that the really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast ; and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow ; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being. — M. P. III. 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