PREFACE
Some apology will naturally be expected for setting the following letters before the searching eye of a critical and possibly censorious public. I can only plead that the suggestion of their publication did not emanate from myself (for the idea of making these letters public property had never once in fifteen years crossed my mind), but was made to me by friends to whom it appeared that much in these letters is strongly characteristic of Mr. Ruskin, and illustrates (much too indulgently, alas!) the estimate he is good enough to form of a correspondent who does not to this day clearly understand to what happy circumstance he is indebted for so fortunate a partiality. At the same time it must be confessed that Laudari a viro laudato is a harmless ambition for the possession of a stimulus which is good for every soul of man.
I will say no more upon that subject, lest my self-depreciation should be set down to vanity. Nevertheless it has always been a source of innocent pleasure to me that I have been enabled to bring my ship without damage through so perilous a voyage to port in a safe and honourable harbourage.
The matters discussed in the following letters range only over a narrow field; but it will be found that they present a truly life-like picture of the writer with his shrewd common-sense and deeper wisdom, enlivened in no small measure by a quick impulsiveness which is sometimes rather startling. Some of his sudden sallies serve the purpose of the condiments, which displeasing if taken alone, give piquancy to our ordinary food.
F. A. Malleson.
1.
July 8th, 1879.
My dear Mr. Malleson,—You must make no public announcement of any paper by me. I am not able to count on my powers of mind for an hour; and will absolutely take no responsibility. What I do send you—if anything—will be in the form of a series of short letters to yourself, of which you have already the first: This the second for the sake of continuing the order unbroken contains the next following question which I should like to ask. If when the sequence of letters is in your possession you like to read any part or parts of them as a subject of discussion at your afternoon meeting, I shall be glad and grateful.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin.
2.
[Undated.]
I am so ashamed of keeping R.'s book—but it's impossible for me to look at it properly till I have done my lecture, so much must be left undone of it anyhow * * *
Yes—you were glad to find we were at one in many thoughts. So was I. But we are not yet, you know, at one in our sight of this world and the dark ways of it. I hope to have you for a St. George's soldier one day.
3.
23rd July, 1879.
Thanks for your note and your kind feelings. But you ought to know more about me.
I profess to be a teacher; as you profess also.
But we teach on totally different methods.
You believe what you wish to believe; teach that it is wicked to doubt it, and remain at rest and in much self-satisfaction.
I believe what I find to be true, whether I like or dislike it. And I teach other people that the chief of all wickednesses is to tell lies in God's service, and to disgrace our Master and destroy His sheep as involuntary Wolves.
I, therefore, am in perpetual effort to learn and discern—in perpetual Unrest and Dissatisfaction with myself.
But it would simply require you to do twenty years of such hard work as I have done before you could in any true sense speak a word to me on such matters. You could not use a word in my sense. It would always mean to you something different.
For instance—one of my quite bye works in learning my business of a teacher—was to read the New Testament through in the earliest Greek MS. (eleventh century) which I could get hold of. I examined every syllable of it and have more notes of various readings and on the real meanings of perverted passages than you would get through in a year's work. But I should require you to do the same work before I would discuss a text with you. From that and such work in all kinds I have formed opinions which you could no more move than you could Coniston Old Man. They may be wrong, God knows; I trust in them infinitely less than you do in those which you have formed simply by refusing to examine—or to think—or to know what is doing in the world about you; but you cannot stir them.
I very very rarely make presents of my books. If people are inclined to learn from them, I say to them as a physician would—Pay me my fee—you will not obey me if I give you advice for nothing.
But I should like a kind neighbour like you to know something about me, and I have therefore desired my publisher to send you one[21] of my many books which, after doing the work that I have done, you would have to read before you could really use words in my meaning.
If you will read the introduction carefully, and especially dwell on the 10th to 15th lines of the 15th page, you will at least know me a little better than to think I believe in my own resurrection—but not in Christ's: and if you look to the final essay on War, you may find some things in it which will be of interest to you in your own[22] work.
4.
Venice, 8th September, 1879.
* * * * There is nothing whatever said as far as I remember in the July 'Fors,' about "people's surrendering their judgment." A colonel does not surrender his judgment in obeying his general, nor a soldier in obeying his colonel. But there can be no army where they act on their own judgments.
The Society of Jesuits is a splendid proof of the power of obedience, but its curse is falsehood. When the Master of St. George's Company bids you lie, it will be time to compare our discipline to the Jesuits. We are their precise opposites—fiercely and at all costs frank, while they are calmly and for all interests lying.
5.
Brantwood, Coniston,
July 30th, 1879.
Dear Mr. Malleson,—I fear I have kept the proofs too long, but I wanted to look atain. I am confirmed in my impression that the book will do much good.[23] But I think it would have done more if you had written the lives of two or three of your parishioners. Such an answer would I give to a painter who sent to me a picture of the Last Supper. "You had better, it seems to me, have painted a Harvest Home." I am gravely doubtful of the possibility, in these days, of writing or painting on such subjects, advisedly and securely.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
6.
July 31st, 1879.
I have received this week the two most astonishing letters I ever yet received in my life. And one of them is yours, read this morning—telling me—that you don't think you could write the life of an old woman! Yet you think you can write the life of Christ!
If you can at all explain this state of your mind to me I will tell you more distinctly what I think of the piece I saw. But I don't think you will communicate the thought to your publisher; and I never meant you to use my former one in that manner.
Mind a publisher thinks only of money, and I know nothing of saleableness. The pause in my other letters is one of pure astonishment at you; which at present occupies all the time I have to spare on the subject, and has culminated to-day.
I am so puzzled. I can scarcely think of anything else till you tell me what you mean in the bit about being "called late."
Have you done no work in the vineyard 'yet' then?
7.
August 2nd, 1879.
I am still simply speechless with astonishment at you. It is no question of your right to the best I can say; it is all at your command. But for the present my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. I can only tell you with all the strength I have to read and understand and believe 2 Esdras iv. 2, 20, 21.[24]
8.
August 4th, 1879.
It is just because you undertook the task so happily, that I should have thought you unfit to write the life of a Man of Sorrows, even had he been a Man only. But your last letter, remember, claims inspiration for your guide, and recognizes a personal call at sixty, as if the Call to the ministry had been none, and the receiving the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands an empty ceremony.
In writing the life of a parishioner and in remitting or retaining their sins you would in my conception have been fulfilling your appointed work. But I cannot conceive the claim to be a fit Evangelist without more proof of miraculous appointment than you are conscious of. I know you to be conscientious, yes—but I think the judicial doom of this country is to have conscience alike of its Priests and Prophets hardened. Why should any letter of mine make you anxious if you had indeed conscience of inspiration?
Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
9.
August 7th.
I hope to be able soon now to resume the series of letters; but it seems to me there is no need whatever of more than three or four more respecting the last clauses of the Lord's Prayer. Those in your hands contain questions enough, if seriously entertained, to occupy twenty meetings; and I could only hope that some one of them might be carefully taken up by your friends. I think, however, in case of the clerical feeling being too strong, that I must ask you, if you print letters at all, to print them without omission. And if you do not print them, to return them to me for my own expansion and arrangement.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
10.
August 9th.
I have got to work on the letters again; it would make me nervous to think of all these plans of yours. Suppose you leave all that till you see what the first debate comes to?[25] And in the meantime I'll finish as best I can.
11.
September 2nd.
That there are only a hundred copies in that form,[26] is just a reason why the book should be in your library, where it will be enjoyed and useful; and not in mine, where it would not be opened once in a twelvemonth. It is one of the advantages of a small house (and it has many) that one is compelled to consider of all one's books whether they are in use or not.
I yesterday ordered a 'Fors' to be sent you containing in its close the most important piece of a religious character in the book—this I hope you will also allow to stay on your shelves. The two that I sent with this note contain so much that is saucy that I only send them in case you want to look at the challenge referred to in the Letters to the Bishop of Manchester, see October, 1877, pp. 322, 323, and January 1875, p. 11. You can keep as long as you like, but please take care of them, as my index is not yet done. The next letter will come before the week end, but it's a difficult one.
[26] Grosart, "Poems of Christopher Harvey."
12.
The Vicarage,
Broughton-in-Furness,
September 4th, 1879.
My dear Mr. Ruskin,—These parish engagements having been discharged which have taken up my time very closely since I came back from Brighton, I am returning to your letters, and I think you would like to know what I am doing. I am copying them down, first, as I can read them aloud better in my own handwriting, and secondly, because I shall not place the originals in the printer's hands.
Then many thoughts arise in my mind as I re-peruse them, and I must needs (and I think I am allowed) give expression to my thoughts. Hence each letter is followed by my own comments or reflections upon it. But this need not make you feel nervous. On the whole there is much agreement between your modes of thought on religious subjects and my own.
If this is thought a piece of cool assurance, I may reply in the words or sense of Euclid, That similar triangles may have the most various areas. I am not equal to you, but I claim to be similar. These comments I sometimes think I ought to show to you before publication; but perhaps you will agree with me that if I am fit to be trusted at all, I had better be left unconstrained. I shall certainly come to you first, if I find myself seriously at variance with you, which has not happened yet as far as the first clause of the Lord's Prayer. Then it is likely that I shall read the letters before two or three Clerical Societies,[27] including my own, the Furness.
The opinions delivered by those clergy it will be my duty, and I hope it will be my pleasure, to collect and to record. I propose also to invite the clergy who have not time or opportunity to speak in the meeting to write to me, and I will use my best judgment in selecting from their correspondence all that seems worth preserving.
I am very sensible that this is a most delicate and responsible task that is laid upon me, and I wonder to find myself so engaged. It will need tact, discretion, and kindness of heart, and I trust I may be endued with the necessary qualifications to a much larger extent than I think I naturally possess.
I find no small comfort at the foot of the first page of the Preface to "Sesame and Lilies." There I feel I am at one with you.
Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. Malleson.
13.
Brantwood, September 5th, 1879.
I shall be delighted to have the comments, though it will be well first to have the series of letters done—the last but one is coming to-morrow. I have only written them in the sense of your sympathy in most points, and am sure you will make the best possible use of them.
14.
September 7th, 1879.
It is rather comic that your first reply to my challenge concerning usury should be a prospectus of a Company[28] wishing to make 5 per cent. out of Broughton poor men's ignorance. You couldn't have sent me a project I should have regarded with more abomination.
15.
September 9th, 1879.
There is absolutely no debate possible as to what usury is any more than what adultery is. The Church has only been polluted by the indulgence of it since the 16th century. Usury is any kind whatever of interest on loan, and it is the essential modern form of Satan.
I send you an old book full of sound and eternal teaching on this matter—please take care of it as a friend's gift, and one I would not lose for its weight in gold. Please read first the Sermon by Bishop Jewel, page 14, and then the rest at your pleasure or your leisure.
No halls are wanted, they are all rich men's excuses for destroying the home life of England.
The public library should be at the village school (and I could put ten thousand pounds' worth of books into a single cupboard), and all that is done for education should be pure Gift. Do you think that this rich England, which spends fifty millions a year in drink and gunpowder, can't educate her poor without being paid interest for her Charity?
At the time of writing this the following letters passed between Mr. Ruskin and myself:—
16.
The Vicarage,
Broughton-in-Furness,
September 12th, 1879.
My dear Mr. Ruskin,—I feel in a great strait. I have before me a task of the utmost delicacy, and one before which I feel that I ought to shrink,—that of editing your letters, with the accompaniment of comments of my own. You trust me, evidently, or you would have laid down limitations to guard yourself against misrepresentation. My anxiety is lest I should abuse that large and generous confidence you have so kindly placed in me. Let me explain my position, as I see it myself.
The series will consist of eleven letters, when you have sent me your last. I have now copied nine, and written concisely the views I have presumed to form upon each. With every letter I mostly agree and sympathize, looking on them as "counsels of perfection," and viewing the great subjects you deal with from a far higher standpoint than (in my experience) either laymen or clergymen generally view them. All that there is in me of enthusiasm rings in answering chords to the notes you strike. Yet I do not always agree. But when I do disagree, I acknowledge it is because your standard is excessively high—too high for practical purposes.
Now, I ask, shall you consider it strictly fair and honourable in me to receive your letters, read them or send them to assemblies of clergy, gather their views, both adverse and favourable, and add diffident animad-versions of my own? If you will allow this to be right, and if you will trust to my sense of what is proper, to deal with your letters in the spirit of a Christian and a gentleman, then, hoping to fulfil your expectations, I shall proceed in my work with a mind more at ease; for I could not endure the thought that, after all was done, I had written a single sentence or word that had inflicted pain upon you.
Then comes another question. Do you wish to hear or read my comments before they are printed? I say frankly, if you trust me, I would prefer not; for it would not, perhaps, be pleasant for me either to read your praises, or my poor criticisms, to your face. But still, if you wish it, I shall be ready at your bidding; for I recognize your right to require it. Only I would rather read them to you myself some quiet autumn evening or two.
17.
September 13th.
Dear Mr. Malleson,—I am so very grateful for your proposal to edit the letters without further reference to me. I think that will be exactly the right way; and I believe I can put you at real ease in the doing of it by explaining as I can in very few words the kind of carte-blanche I should rejoicingly give you.
Interrupted to-day! more to-morrow, with, I hope, the last letter.
j. r.
18.
Sunday, September 14th.
I've nearly done the last letter, but will keep it to-morrow rather than finish hurriedly for the earlier post. Your nice little note has just come, and I can only say that you cannot please me better than by acting with perfect freedom in all ways, and that I only want to see or reply to what you wish me for the matter's sake. And surely there is no occasion for any thought for waste of type about me personally, except only to express your knowledge of my real desire for the health and power of the Church. More than this praise you must not give me, for I have learned almost everything I may say that I know by my errors.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. Ruskin.
19.
September 16th, 1879.
I should have returned these two recent letters before now, but have been looking for the earlier letters which have got mislaid in a general rearrangement of all things by a new secretary. I am almost sure to come on them to-morrow in my own packing up for town, where I must be for a month hence. Please address, &c.
20.
[Undated.]
I am sincerely grieved by the first part of your letter, and scarcely like to trouble you with answer to the close. * * * Surely the first thing to be done with the letters is to use them as you propose, and you may find fifty suggestions, made by persons or circumstances after that, worth considering. I do not doubt that I could easily add to the bulk of MS.; but should then, I think, stipulate for having the book published by my own publisher.
21.
October 13th.
I did not get your kind and interesting letter till yesterday, and can only write in utter haste this morning to say that I think nothing can possibly be more satisfactory (to me personally at least) and more honourable than what you tell me of the wish of the meeting to have the letters printed for their quiet consideration.[29]
They are entirely at your command and theirs—but don't sell the copyright to any publisher. Keep it in your own hands, and after expenses are paid of course any profits should go to the poor. Please write during this week to me at St. George's Museum, Walkley, Sheffield.
22.
From Canon Farrar.
October 29th 1879.
I am much obliged to you for your courtesy in sending me the letters. I am not, however, inclined to enter into any controversy, being painfully overwhelmed with the very duties which Mr. Ruskin seems to think that we don't do—looking after the material and religious interests of the sick, the suffering, the hungry, the drunken, and the extremely wretched.
Yours very truly,
F. W. Farrar.
23.
Sheffield, October 17th, 1879.
Dear Mr. Malleson,—I am sincerely interested and moved by your history of your laborious life—and shall be entirely glad to leave the completed volume as your property, provided always you sell it to no publisher—but take just percentage on the editions: and provided also that an edition be issued of the letters themselves in their present simple form of which the profits, if any, shall be for the poor of the district.[30] It would lower your position in the whole matter if it could be hinted that I had written the letters with any semi-purpose of serving my friend. On the other hand you will have just and honourable right to the profits of the completed edition which your labour and judgment will have made possible and guided into the most serviceable form.
I am thankful to see that the letters read clearly and easily, and contain all that it was in my mind to get said; that nothing can be possibly more right in every way than the printing and binding—nor more courteous and firm than your preface.
Yes—there will be a chasm to cross—a tauriformis Aufidus[31]—greater than Rubicon, and the roar of it for many a year has been heard in the distance, through the gathering fog on earth more loudly.
The River of Spiritual Death in this world—and entrance to Purgatory in the other, come down to us.
When will the feet of the Priests be dipped in the still brim of the water? Jordan overflows his banks already.
When you have got your large edition with its correspondence into form, I should like to read the sheets as they are issued, and put merely letters of reference, a, b, and c, to be taken up in a short epilogue. But I don't want to do or say anything till you have all in perfect readiness for publication. I should merely add my reference letters in the margin, and the shortest possible notes at the end.
Please send me ten more of these private ones for my own friends.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. Ruskin.
24.
Extract of a Letter from the late
Miss Susanna Beever.
("The Younger Lady of the Thwaite, Coniston," to whom Mr. Ruskin dedicated "Frondes Agrestes.")
October 28th, 1879.
Dear Mr. Malleson,—My sister has asked me to write and thank you for two copies of Mr. Ruskin's Letters, which you have been so good as to send to her. It is curious that before the post came this morning I had been wondering whether I might ask you for a copy. * * * I have already read these deeply interesting Letters five times. They are like the "foam globes of leaven," I might say they have exercised my mind very much. Things in them which at first seemed rather startling, prove on closer examination to be full of deep truth. The suggestions in them lead to "great searchings of heart." There is much with which I entirely agree; much over which to ponder. What an insight into human nature is shown in the remark that though we are so ready to call ourselves "miserable sinners," we resent being accused of any special fault. * * *
25.
November 7th, 1879.
I am so glad we understand each other now and that you will carry out your plan quietly.
I think you should correct the present little book by my revise, and print enough for whatever private circulation the members of the meeting wish, but that it should not be made public till well after the large book is out. For which I shall look with deepest interest.
26.
November 19th, 1879.
My dear Malleson,—I have not been able to answer a word lately, being quite unusually busy in France—and you never remember that it takes me as long to write a chapter as you to write a book, and tries me more to do it—so that I am sick of the feel of a pen this many a day. I'm delighted to hear of your popularity,[32] being sure that all you advise people to do will be kind and right. I am not surprised at the popularity, but I wonder that you have not had some nasty envious reviews.[33]
I like the impudence of these Scotch brats.[34] Do they suppose it would have been either pleasure or honour to me to come and lecture there? It is perhaps as much their luck as mine that they changed their minds about it. I shall be down at Brantwood soon (D.V.). Poor Mr. Sly's[35] death is a much more troublous thing to me than Glasgow Elections.
27.
January 5th, 1880.
A Happy New Year to you. If I may judge or guess by the efforts made to draw me into the business, it is likely to be a busy one for you! Will you kindly now send me back my old book on Usury? I've got a letter (which for his lordship's sake had better never been written) from the Bishop of Manchester, and may want to quote a word or two of my back letter. I send the letter with my reply this month to the Contemporary.
28.
January 7th, 1880.
So many thanks for your kind little note and the book which I have received quite safely; and many more thanks for taking all the enemies' fire off me and leaving me quiet. I've been all this morning at work on finches and buntings; but I must give the Bishop a turn to-morrow. This weather takes my little wits out of me wofully; but I am always affectionately yours,
J. R.
29.
May 10th, 1880.
My dear Malleson,—Yes, the omission of the 'Mr.' meant much change in all my feelings towards you and estimates of you—for which change, believe me, I am more glad and thankful than I can well tell you. Not but that of course I always felt your essential goodness and rightness of mind, but I did not at all understand the scope of them.
And you will have the reward of the Visitation of the Sick, though every day I am more sure of the mistake made by good people universally—in trying to pull fallen people up—instead of keeping yet safe ones from tumbling after them, and always spending their pains on the worst instead of the best material. If they want to be able to save the lost like Christ, let them first be sure they can say with Him, "Of those Thou gavest Me I have lost none."
Ever affectionately yours,
J. Ruskin.
The 'Epilogue's' an awful bother to me in this May time! I have not done a word yet, but you shall have it before the week is out.
30.
April 17.
The letters seem all very nice—I shall have very little to say about them, except to explain what you observe and have been misunderstood.... Of course my notes shall be sent to you and added to when you see need. But I cannot do it quickly.
31.
April 14, 1880.
Thanks for nice new proofs. I haven't found any false references, but I didn't look. I'll have all verified by my secretary. I'm busy with an article on modern novels and don't feel a bit pious just now; so the responses have hung fire.
32.
May 9.
You are really very good about this, and shall have the notes (D.V.) within a fortnight. The Scott could not be put off, being promised for June 19, Nineteenth Century, and I could not do novels and sermons together. I don't think the notes will be long. The letters seem to be mostly compliments or small objections not worth noticing.
33.
May 14th, 1880.
I've just done—yesterday with Scott, and took up the letters for the first time this morning seriously.
I had never seen yours at all when I wrote last. I fell first on Mr. ——, whom I read with some attention, and commented on with little favour; went on to the next, and remained content with that taste till I had done my Scott.
I have this morning been reading your own, on which I very earnestly congratulate you. God knows it isn't because they are friendly or complimentary, but because you do see what I mean, and people hardly ever do—and I think it needs very considerable power and feeling to forgive and understand as you do. You have said everything I want to say, and much more—except on the one point of excommunication, which will be the chief, almost the only subject of my final note.
I write in haste to excuse myself for my former note.
Ever affectionately
and gratefully yours,
J. Ruskin.
(Note.—A legal friend remarks that in his opinion I should refrain from printing extracts from letters, and always print the whole; or, indeed, in the present case, the whole series of letters, lest it should be suspected that I am making a self-indulgent selection only of the good words which Mr. Ruskin is kind enough to use in his communications with me. Let me here say, however, that had there been in all these letters any which conveyed censure, stricture, or blame of any kind, I should not have withheld my hand from including them. But no such letters ever came to me. Mr. Ruskin is the very pink of courtesy with his friends, and he may have suppressed remarks which he thought might wound me. But I am reproducing here not my friend's secret thoughts, but only those of his letters which remain in my possession.—Editor.)
34.
May 26th, 1880.
I'm at work on the 'Epilogue,' but it takes more trouble than I expected. I see there's a letter from you which I leave unopened, for fear there should be anything in it to put me in a bad temper, which you might easily do without meaning it. You shall have the 'Epilogue' as soon as I can get it done; but you won't much like it, for there are bits in the Clergymen's letters that have put my bristles up. They ought either to have said nothing about me, or known more.
I should give that rascally Bishop a dressing "au sÉrieux," only you wouldn't like to godfather it, so I'll keep it for somewhere else.[36]
35.
June 7th, 1880.
Your letter is a relief to my mind, and shall not be taken advantage of for more delay. The wet day or two would get all done: but I simply can't think of anything but the sun while it shines.
And I've had second, third, and seventh thoughts about several things: as it is coming out I believe it will be a useful contribution to the book.
I shall get it in the copyist's hand on Monday, and as it's one of my girl secretaries, I shall be teased till it's done, so it's safe for the end of the week (D.V.). I am sadly afraid she'll make me cut out some of the spiciest bits: the girl secretaries are always allowed to put their pens through anything they choose. Please drop the 'Mr.'; it is a matter of friendship, not as if there were any of different powers. God only knows of higher and lower, and, as far as I can judge, is likely to put ministry to the sick much above public letters.
Thanks for note of Menyanthes Trifoliata.
I haven't seen it, scarcely moving at present beyond my wood or garden.
36.
June 13th 1880.
You are really very good to put up with all that vicious Epilogue. But it won't discredit you in the end, whatever it may do me. I hope much otherwise.
I will send you to-morrow the Lincoln, or, possibly, York MS. to look at. You will find the Litany following the Quicunque vult, and on the leaf marked by me 83, at the top the passage I began quotation with. It will need a note; for domptnum is, I believe, strong Yorkshire Latin for Donum Apostolicum, not Dominum.
The e in Ecclesie for Æ is the proper form in medieval Latin.
The calendar and Litany are invaluable in their splendid lists of English saints, and the entire book unreplaceable, so mind you lock it up carefully!
37.
There's a good deal of interest in the enclosed layman's letter, I think. Would you like to print any bits of it? I cannot quite make up my mind if it's worth or not.
38.
June 27th, 1880.
The 'Epilogue' is all but done to-day, and shall be sent by railway guard to-morrow (D.V.), with a book which will further interest you and your good secretary. It is as fine an example of the coloured print Prayer-Book as I have seen, date 1507, and full of examples of the way Romanism had ruined itself at that date. But it may contain in legible form some things of interest. I never could make out so much as its Calendar; but the songs about the saints and rhymed hours are very pretty. Though the illuminations are all ridiculous and one or two frightful, most are more or less pretty, and nearly all interesting. You can keep it any time, but you must promise me not to show it to anybody who does not know how to handle a book. * * *
(Note.—I may mention here, once for all, that wherever there are omissions left in Mr. Ruskin's letters, there is nothing of interest or importance in those passages for any one but for the receiver of that letter.)
39.
July 15th, 1880.
* * * It is a further light to me, on your curious differences from most clergymen, very wonderful and venerable to me, that you should understand Byron!
40.
June 25th.
Dear Malleson,—No, I don't want the letter printed in the least; but it ought to have interested you very differently. It is by a much older man than I, who has never heard of our letters, but has been a very useful and influential person in his own parish, and is a practical and acceptable contributor to sporting papers. He is an able lawyer also, and knows far better than I do and far better than most clergymen know, what could really be done in their country parishes if they had a mind.
The bit of manuscript is perfectly fac-similed by your niece, but I can't read it: and it will be much better that you mark the places you wish certification about, and that I then send the book up to the British Museum, and have the whole made clear. The dompt is a very important matter indeed.
I have got the last bit of epilogue fairly on foot this morning, and can promise it on Monday all well.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
41.
April 30th, 1881.
Dear Malleson,—It will be many a day before I recover yet—if ever—but with caution I hope not to go wild again, and to get what power belongs to my age slowly back. When were you in the same sort of danger? Let me very strongly warn you from the whirlpool edge—the going down in the middle is gloomier than I can tell you.
But I shall thankfully see you and your friend here. Visiting is out of the question for me. I can bear no fatigue nor excitement away from my home. I pay visits no more—anywhere (even in old times few). It is always a great gladness to me when young students care about old books—and I remember as a duty the feeling I used to have in getting a Missal, even after I was past a good many other pleasures. You made such good use of that book too, that I am happy in yielding to any wish of yours about it, so your young friend[37] shall have it if he likes. The marked price is quite a fair market one for it, though you might look and wait long before such a book came into the market. The British Museum people were hastily and superciliously wrong in calling it a common book. It is not a showy one; but there are few more interesting or more perfect service books in English manuscript, and the Museum people buy cart-loads of big folios that are not worth the shelf room.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. Ruskin.
42.
April 23rd 1881.
My dear Malleson,—These passages of description and illustration of the general aspect of Ephesus in St. Paul's time seem to me much more forcibly and artistically written than anything you did in the "Life of Christ"; and I could not suggest any changes to you which you could now carry out under the conditions of time to revise, except a more clear statement of the Ephesian goddess.
[I really do not think Mr. Ruskin would wish that all he wrote in the next sentence about the Ephesian Diana should be placed before the public eye. But I resume in the middle of a sentence.]
... practically at last and chiefly of the Diabolic Suction of the Usurer; and her temple, which you luckily liken to the Bank of England, was in fact what that establishment would be as the recognised place of pious pilgrimage for all Jews, infidels, or prostitutes in the realm of England. You could not conceive the real facts of these degraded worships of the mixed Greek and Asiatic races, unless you gave a good year's work to the study of the decline of Greek art in the 3rd and 4th centuries b.c.
Charles Newton's pride in discovering Mausolus, and engineers' whistling over his Asiatic mummy, have entirely corrupted and thwarted the uses of the British Museum Art Galleries. The Drum of that Diana Temple is barbarous rubbish, not worth tenpence a ton; and if I shewed you a photograph of the head of Mausolus without telling you what it was, I will undertake that you saw with candid eyes in it nothing more than the shaggy poll of a common gladiator. But your book will swim with the tide. It is best so.
43.
July....
I'm not in the least anxious about my MS., and shall only be glad if you like to keep it long enough to read thoroughly. There must surely be published copies of such extant, though, and worth enquiring after?
Partly the fine weather, partly the heat, partly a fit of Scott and Byron have stopped the Epilogue utterly for the time! You cannot be in any hurry for it surely? There's plenty to go on printing with.
I don't think you will find the n's and m's much bother; the contractions are the great nuisance. But I do think this development of Gothic writing one of the oddest absurdities of mankind.
The illumination of "the fool hath said in his heart," snapping his fingers, or more accurately making the indecent sign called "the fig" by the Italians, is a very unusual one in this MS., and peculiarly English.
44.
There is not the least use in my looking over these sheets: you probably know more about Athens than I do, and what I do know is out of and in Smith's Dictionary, where you can find it without trouble.
For the rest you must please always remember what I told you once for all, that you could never interest me by writing about people, either at Athens or Ephesus, but only of those of the parish of Broughton-in-Furness.
That new translation could not come out well; that much I know without looking at it. One must believe the Bible before one understands it, (I mean, believe that it is understandable) and one must understand before one can translate it. Two stages in advance of your Twenty-Four Co-operative Tyndales!
45.
26th May.
Dear Malleson,—I should be delighted to see Canon Weston and you any day: but I want J—— to be at home, and she is going to town next week for a month, and will be fussy till she goes. She promises to be back faithfully within the week after that—within the Sunday, I mean. Fix any day or any choice of days if one is wet after the said Sunday, and we shall both be in comfort ready.
If Canon Weston or you are going away anywhere, come any day before that suits you.
In divinity matters I am obliged to stop—for my sins, I suppose. But it seems I am almost struck mad when I think earnestly about them, and I'm only reading now natural history or nature.
Never mind Autograph people, they are never worth the scratch of a pen.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
46.
August 26th, 1881.
I'm in furious bad humour with the weather, and cannot receive just now at all, having had infinitely too much of indoors, and yet unable to draw for darkness, or write for temper. But I will see Mr. —— if he has any other reason than curiosity for wishing to see me—what does he want with me?
47.
21st October.
I am fairly well, but have twenty times the work in hand that I am able for; and read—Virgil, Plato, and Hesoid, when I have time! But assuredly no modern books; least of all my friends', lest I should have either to flatter or offend. Still less will I have to say to young men proposing to become clergymen. I have distinctly told them their business is at present—to dig, not preach.
Let your young friend read his Fors. All that he needs of me is in that.
48.
Annecy, Savoy,
November 15th, 1882.
I have got your kind little note of the 11th yesterday, and am entirely glad to hear of your papers on the Duddon. I shall be very happy indeed if you find any pleasure in remembering our walk to the tarn.[38] I hope I know now better how to manage myself in all ways, and we may still have some pleasant talks, my health not failing me.
49.
Talloire, Switzerland,
November 20th, 1882.
My dear Malleson,—I am sincerely grieved that you begin to feel the effect of overwork; but as this is the first warning you have had, and as you are wise enough to obey it, I trust that the three months' rest will restore you all your usual powers on the conditions of using them with discretion, and not rising to write at two in the morning.
I am very thankful to find in my own case that a quiet spring of energy filters back into the old well-heads—if one does not bucket it out as fast as it comes in.
But my last illnesses seriously impaired my walking powers, and I'm afraid if you came to Switzerland I should be very jealous of you.
Certainly it is not in this season a country for an invalid, and I believe you cannot be safer than by English firesides with no books to work at nor parishioners to visit.
Dear Malleson,—I am heartily glad to hear that you are better, and that you are going to lead the Vicar of Wakefield's quiet life. I am not stronger myself, but think it right to keep hold of the Oxford Helm, as long as they care to trust it to me.
I've entirely given up reviewing, but if the Editor of the Contemporary would send me Mr. Peek's Article, when set up, I might perhaps send a note or two on it, which the real reviewer might use or not at his pleasure. In the meantime it would greatly oblige me if the Editor could give me the reference to an old article of mine on Herbert Spencer, (or at least on a saying of his), which I cannot find where I thought it was in the Nineteenth Century, and suppose therefore to have been in the Contemporary before the Nineteenth Century Athena arose out of its cleft head.
The Article had a lot about Coniston in it, but I quite forget what else it was about. I think it must have been just before the separation. Kindest regards and congratulations on your convalescence from all here.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. Ruskin.
51.
Brantwood, February 6th, 1883.
My dear Malleson,—I'm nearly beside myself with a sudden rush of work on my return from abroad, and resumption of Oxford duties, and I simply cannot yet think over the business of the letters, the rather that I certainly never would re-publish most of those clergymen's letters at all.
My own were a gift to you, and I am quite ready to print them if you like, and let you have half profits, the St. George's Guild having the other. But that could not be for some time yet.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. Ruskin.
ToC
