The religion of Ruskin. The life and works of John Ruskin; a biographical and anthological study

Front matter

Glass.

By WILLIAM BURGESS

A Biographical and Anthological Study

Book I. The Ln^E of John Buskin. «

1. Ruskin — Ohildhood and Youth,

2. Ruskin — The Man.

3. Ruskin — Art Critic and Author.

4. Ruskin — Reformer and Economist.

5. Ruskin — Lecturer and Teacher.

6. The Religious Mind of Ruskiik

Book II. Religious Thought in Abt

1. Modern, Painters, Vol I. — Truth and General Principles.

2. Modern Painters, Vol. II. — Truth and Beauty in Nature,

3. Modern Painters, Vol. III. — Of Many Things in Art.

4. Modern Painters, Vol. IV. — Mountain Beauty.

5. Modern Painters, Vol. V. — Ideas of Relation. (Leaf and Cload

Beauty.)

6. Pre-Raphaelitism — (Work in Art).

7. Giotto and His Works.

8. Elements of Drawing.

9. Elements of Perspective.

10. Address at Cambridge.

11. History and Criticism of Art.

12. Lectures on Art.

13. The E}agle'8 Nest.

*il4. Ariadne Florentina. (Engraving.)

15. The Laws of Fesole. (Elementary principles.)

16. The Arrows of the Chace. (Vol. I. Art Education.)

17. The Art of England.

18. Our Fathers Have Told Us. (Art in Christendom.)

Book III. Religious Light in Abchitectube and Scuxptubb

1. The Poetry of Architecture.

2. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. 1. Sacrifice. 2. Troth.

3. Power. 4. Bea'uty. 5. Life. 6. Memory. 7. Obedience.

T vi CONTENTS

3. The Stones of Venice— 3 Vols. (Architecture.)

4, Lectures on Architecture and Painting.

6. The Two Paths. (Art and Manufacture.)

6. The Study of Architecture.

7. Val D'Amo. (Tuscan Art)

8. Aratra Pentelici. (Elements of Sculpture.)

9. Mornings in Florence. (Studies of Christian Art). 20. St Mark's Rest (Venice.)

Book IV. Religious Studies ik Nature

1. Ethics of the Dust (Crystals.)

2. The Queen of the Air.

3. Love's Meinie. (Birds.)

4. Deucalion. (Minerals and Waves.)

5. Proserpina. (Wayside Flowers.)

6. The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century.

7. In Montibus Sanctis. (Mountains.)

8. Coeli Enrarrant.

9. Hortus Inclusus. (Letters to Ladies.)

10. The King of the Golden River. (A Fairy Story.)

Book V. PoLtriCAL Economy and Other Things

1. A Joy Forever. (Political Economy of Art)

2. Unto This Last (Political Economy.)

3. Munera Pulveris. (The Laws of Political Economy.)

4. Time and Tide. (The Laws of Work.)

5. Crown of Wild Olive. (Work, Traffic, War.)

6. Fors Clavigera. (Letters to Workmen, Etc.)

7. Arrows of the Chace — Vol. 11. (Politics, Economy, Etc.)

8. Fiction Fair and Foul.

Book VI. Religion in Life and Poetry

1. Sheepfolds. (Christian Nurture.)

2. Sesame and Lilies. (Life and Purpose.)

3. The Pleasures of England. (Learning, Faith, D«ed.)

4. Praeterita. (Autobiographical.)

5. Poems.

EXPLANATORY NOTES.

In preparing Books II to VI of this Anthology the writings of Ruskin have first been arranged, as far as seemed practicable, into groups of subjects — then quoted in the chronological order of the works in each group. The reader may thus find the progress of the great Author's religious mind in his own words.

All Ruskin's larger works were arranged by himself, or under his direction, into volumes, parts, sections, chapters and paragraphs, to which are often attached lengthy prefaces and appendices.

The method adopted in the following selections is to give the name and ntmiber of the volume at the head of the chapter, letting the Author's own paragraph number stand at the beginning of each quotation, and giving the further references at the end.

Thus on page 105 of this volume will be found paragraphs on "Sensuality Fatal to Beauty in Art." The numbers 21 and 24 are those of Ruskin's own paragraphing and this, with Pt. Ill, Sec. 1, Ch. 14, puts the reader in possession of the full reference, viz. : Modern Painters, Vol. II, Part III, Section 1, Chapter 14, Paragraphs 21, 24.

In some instances, where the quotations are continuous, the references to the chapters, etc., are only given at the end of several, but the numbers of the paragraphs are always given. This is especially notable of Vol. IV, Modem Painters.

In still other instances no reference is needed other than the number of the paragraph of the work from which it is taken.

It must be understood that the topical headlines are our own and not Ruskin's.

BOOKS CONSULTED IN THIS WORK

•Tiuskin's Complete Works." "Life of John Ruskin," Collingwood. "John Ruskin," Frederick Harrison. "John Ruskin, Social Reformer," J. A. Hobson. "An Introduction to the Writings of John Ruskin," Vida D. Scudder. "Letters to the Clergy," F. A. Malleson. "Letters to M. G. and H. G." "Letters of Ruskin to Chas. Eliot Norton." "Modem Men of Letters," J. H. Friswell. "Bible References," Mary and Ellen Gibbs. "Art and Life," W. S. Kennedy. "Literary Leaders of Modem England," W. J. Dawson. "Great Books of Life Teachers," Newell Dwight Hillis. "Great Epochs of Art History," J. M. Hoppin. 'Nature Studies from Ruskin," Rose Porter. "Three Great Teachers," Alex. H. Jopp. Carlyle's Works, Emerson's Essays, etc., etc.

Preface

If all the best things of Ruskin were contained in "Sesame and Lilies" and two or three other of his lesser works, of which there are numerous reprints, there would be no need of this book, and its publication would be an impertinence. But of the millions of intelligent, educated people, how few there are who know of the rich treasures which abound in the monumental works of this great teacher.

If any should mistake this as offering, in any way, a substitute for the general study of his works, we shall, to that extent, fail in our purpose. Very sincerely and earnestly it is hoped that, while this volume will direct attention to the religious and ethical teaching of Ruskin, and serve as a book of reference, it will also stimulate interest in the writings of this Master of English in all their great sweep of intellectual horizon.

In his first volume of Fors Clavigera Ruskin himself commends the work attempted here. He says: "/ have always thought that more true force of persuasion might be obtained by rightly choosing and arranging what others have said, than by painfully saying it over again in one's own way."

The purpose here is to give, in a single volume, the very best of Ruskin's religious thoughts and interpretations, together with a brief history of his life and work. Indeed, broadly speaking, the entire volume is biographical, for the bibliography of a great writer is also his biography. It is thus that we know Shakspeare and Carlyle, and even Emerson, who is so near to us. Our sketch, therefore, of the circumstances and incidents of Ruskin's life is but an introduction to the fuller revelation of this unique man, to be found in the connected and chronologically arranged anthology which follows.

It may be said that there are already excellent biographies of this great teacher, written by men who enjoyed his personal friendship and who had ample opportunities to study his life and character. But this volume would hardly have answered its purpose without, at least, a brief account of the personal life of the man whose writings it presents, and we very gladly acknowledge the abler pens of Mr. W. G. Collingwood and Mr. Fred. Harrison, whose books are each a delightful tribute to the memory of their old friend.

The plan of this volume is a division of the work into six sections or "books," the first being devoted to the Life of Ruskin, and the other five into groups of subjects, with a brief outline of the history, purpose and aim of each respective work, from which the selections are taken. This arrangement provides for the continuous reading of our Author's mind on many subjects, instead of mere quotations set apart under some general heading. Thus, if one desire a consecutive reading of Ruskin's wide range of thought on the moral aspects of "Beauty," he will find it here in Book second.

The book is prepared, not for the sake of reproducing the literary gems which abound in Ruskin's works, — but more for the purpose of bringing into

X PREFACE

Tiew, and making popularly available, the religious and moral thoughts of this great writer. For it should be known that every subject, however secular its character, or technical its study, appealed to him, primarily, from these aspects. Art in all its many forms interests him first as so many expressions of some ethical or moral truth. Whether he writes of the old or the new school of painters; or of architecture, or sculpture; or if he travels into the more debatable subjects of philosophy and political economy; all themes alike, with him, take their root, or find their center in religion.

Ruskin is singularly and strikingly the prophet of his times, who wrote and spoke in the purest of English prose-poetry, and in a form that can be readily understood and appreciated.

Carlyle was a prophet, too, and in some respects, stronger and more rugged, but his language was often grotesque and unfamiliar.

Ruskin saw that Art had been relegated to a place wholly distinct and separate from the experiences and values of life. Its relation to religion was cramped and colored with the ascetism of mediaeval times. It had no warmth and no touch of sympathy with life as it is; but was formal and severe, or else, merely the expression of ideal saints and imaginary angels. In 1848 a brotherhood (Pre-Raphaelites) was organised to break down these false standards and return to the simplicity and naturalness of true art. To this movement Ruskin gave his able support, and it is very largely through the influence of his powerful advocacy that the best of the school of artists of his time were able to take front rank in public favor. Thus, Turner owed everything to him, and such artists as Holman Hunt, Rossetti, and Millais were greatly his debtors. On the other hand he heartily disliked and openly discredited such fanciful artists as Gustave Dore, especially his Bible illustrations.

Ruskin's firm adherence to fundamentals in religious truth, through all the changes of his experience and faith, is the golden thread in the web of his life. His constant appeal to the Scriptures, as of final and unquestionable authority, is the more remarkable in view of his intellectual environment and of his revolt from the orthodoxy of his time. Indeed, here is the explanation of his uniform use of simple and vigorous English. He built upon the Bible which, with the works of old English divines, such as Hooker and Bunyan, varied with his favorites, Scott and Wordsworth, formed the staple of his early reading.

The spirit of the age was the expression of materialistic philosophy represented by such men as Darwin, Tyndall, and Spencer. These directed their great powers of research to the purely material. In this they rendered great service to the human family and no protest would be called for, if that were all that is claimed for them. But when their teachings are treated as answering to the whole realm of man ; when spiritual truth is subjected to their philosophy, they are credited with a function for which they are, not only not equipped, — but have absolutely no soul to appreciate. Concentration of gaze upon one object, or set of objects, has always a tendency to limit the vision, even of the greatest of intellects. No one should be surprised that so great a mind as Darwin's did not directly contribute to the Science of Astronomy or the Faith of Religion. His mind was wholly turned earthwards, — the heavens offered no revelation to him; his eye was not directed heavenwards.

PREFACE xi

But Ruskin's mind was many-sided. He looked into all Nattire and his soul was not bounded by his intellectual environment. His persistent, imaltered doctrine was that "Man's use and function is to be the witness of the glory of God, and to advance that glory by his reasonable and resultant happiness."

Not only was Ruskin an interpreter of Scripture truths in the same sense as was Dante, Shakspeare, and other writers who embodied them (often unconsciously) in their dramatic and poetic works. He was emphatically and purposely a Bible teacher ; as much so as any theological professor. Nay, more so, for although he did not profess any theological system, his works are a veritable Bible university, in which the Scriptures are profoundly studied with a purpose and are illumined by the light of the finest scholarship, the deepest thought and a very devout spirit.

Let the reader spend an hour with our excerpts from Modern Painters, and then another hour with The Seven Lamps, and again with The Stones of Venice; let him observe how the numbered paragraphs, here given, invite him to many others, in the works of their author, for a vast fund of instruction in Biblical truth, such as he may search for in vain in whole theological libraries. Here, indeed, the Scriptures are studied in the light of Art, Science, Nature, History, and last and best, of Moral Philosophy and Spiritual perception; and then, finally, arc presented and illuminated by a clearness of style, an eloquence and poetry such as is not surpassed in all the literary world.

The labor involved in this work has not been light, although very enjoyable. It would have been much easier to have selected some theme and written an equal number of pages of original matter. But it is not new books that the world needs. We have more than enough, unless one comes as a Voice speaking a new message to the World.

What is needed by many a teacher, and we think also by many a preacher, is an open sesame to the mines of intellectual and spiritual wealth which resides in the literature of the greater geniuses. The one thing attempted here is, to give to the average reader, a key to what is greatest and best in one, at least, of the Master Minds of the world's Literature.

The writer does not undertake to prove that Ruskin experienced no break in his religious faith. On the contrary, it is shown in chapter VI. of the accompanying sketch of his life, that such experience was his, in very real and stormy form.

But if the reader will follow the selections in the chronological order in which they are here placed, as well as the chapter referred to above, he will, I think, find that Ruskin's mind was ever reverent, and that, even when his intellectuality refused to recognize the orthodox classifications and utterances of evangelical religion, and while the darkest shadow hung over his soul, his moral being turned always to the Truth of God and the Eternal Essentials of the Christian religion.

Book First Ruskin— Childhood And Youth

The child is father of the man." — Wordsivorih.

The age which gave us Shakspeare, Milton and Bacon has been called "the golden age" — the •crown of all the ages for literary splendor and -creative genius in the English tongue. But in the early yeare of the nineteenth century the "stars" which appeared, — if not so brilliant, — were yet more numerous and varied, filling a place in. the world's illumination that has never been surpassed.

Carlyle came just before the century's dawn, Maoaulay in the first year of it, Emerson three years later, and Hawthorne was born July 4th, 1804. The year 1809 gave us William Ewart Gladstone, Abraham Lincoln, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Darwin, Edgar Allen Poe, and Alfred Tennyson.

And these are not all. No grander group of men and women ever engaged in human service than that which includes the moral and intellectual leaders of the first half of the nineteenth century. What a noble army of Apostles 1 Breaking down hitherto impregnable walls of superstition and ignorance and bearing the banner of Christian civilization into darkest heathendom were John. Williams, Robert Moffat, David Livingstone and John Paton. Preaching the gospel with a power and eloquence never surpassed since the Galilean Teacher himself taught in Palestine, we have Frederick W. Robertson, Charles G. Finney, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles H. Spurgeon, Phillips Brooks, Henry Drummond, Dwight L. Moody, Joseph Parker and many more ; and leading in woman's work of emancipation were Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, and a little later, Frances E. Willard and Josephine E. Butler.

In the realm of pK>etry we had Wordsworth, Whittier, Longfellow, Lowell, Bryant, Hemans, Havergal, and the Brownings; in gen-

4 TRE RELIGION OF RUSKIN

eral literature Scott, Cooper, Kingsley, Thackeray, Dickens, Eliot, and in that of science such men as Tyndall, Huxley, Mill, Bain and Spencer/ Yet higher than these among the world's teachers and interpreters stands — John Ruskin. "By acclamation," says Dr. Hillis, "we vote Ruskin the first prose writer of his century."^ "Other men are greater," says Prof. Vida D. Scudder, "stronger in thought, more balanced in character, mightier in creative power, but no one has turned upon the complex modern world a nature more keen in appreciative insight, more many sided, sensitive and pure."'

John Ruskin was born in London, February 8, 1819, of ScoteK parentage. In his earliest years he gave promise of a rare and unique personality. Mr. Fred. Harrison, his long-time friend and one of his biographers, speaks of him as "this miraculous infant,'*- and truly, his infant genius is one of the marvels of his life. Mr, Harrison tells how Ruskin's mother used to sing to him the old nursery lines: — "Hush-a-by baby, on the tree-top"; and even as an infant, he objected to the bad rhyme: "When the wind blows the cradle will rock." John was a babe of four when a celebrated artist (Northcote) painted his portrait. The picture of a chubby child in white frock and blue sash now hangs in the dining room at Brantwood.* When the painter, pleased by his patience, asked what he would like as a background, he replied, "Blue hills." At the same age, it is recorded, that he "wrote with a clear hand, spelling correctly," and even before this he preached a sermon to his playmates which Mr. Harrison has thought to be worth preserving: — "People, be dood. If you are dood, Dod will love you, if you are not dood, Dod will not love you."^ The child's first letter bears a postmark which shows it was written when he was just turned four. We are told that "it was correct and natural."

* "Sporadic great men come everywhere. But for a community to get vibrating through and through with intensely active life, many geniuses coming together and in rapid succession are required. This is why great epochs are so rare, — why the sudden bloom of a Greece, an early Rome, a Renaissance, is such a mystery. Blow must follow blow so fast that no cooling can occur in the intervals. Then the mass of the nation grows incandescent, and may continue to glow by pure inertia long after the originators of its internal movement have passed away."- — > "The Will to Believe." Prof. W. James.

' Oreat Books as Life Teachers.

3 "John Ruskin: Introduction to His Writings."

* An excellent copy of this picture adorns th<,» London edition of Collingwood's Life of Ruskin. (2 vols.)

5 "John Ruskin." By Frederick Harrison.

Collingwood tells us that as a child Ruskin "was a bookworm and the books he read were chosen as favorites from an especial interest in the subjects, an interest which arose from his character of mind. But he was no milksop or weakling; he was a bright, active lad, full of fun and pranks, not without companions, though solitary when at home." .... "He was so little afraid of animals that he must needs meddle with the fierce Newfoundland dog 'Lion,' which bit him in the mouth and spoiled his looks. Another time he showed some address in extricating himself from the water-butt. He did not fear ghosts or thunder, instead of that his early developed landscape feeling showed itself in dread of foxglove dells and dark pools of water." .... "At the age of seven he kept a diary with much literary skill and regularity, containing very accurate descriptions of places which he visited."

At the age of seven, also, this young prodigy planned the 'publication of a set of four volumes, of which, however, he only completed one, the whole of which he tells us, "was written and printed in imitation of book-print." This volume contained his first six, dated, poems and also a sketch which he says was his first effort at mountain drawing.^ A copy of the title-page of this volume is given, in Prseterita and also some pages of extracts from it. A single passage will serve to indicate the mental powers of this "miraculous infant" :

"Harry knew very well what it was and went on with his drawing but Lucy soon called him away and bid him observe a great black cloud from the north which seemed electrical. Harry ran for an electrical apparatus which his father had given him and the cloud electrified his apparatus negatively and then a long train of smaller ones but before this cloud came a flash of lightning was seen to dart through the cloud of dust upon which the negative cloud spread very much and dissolved in rain which presently cleared the sky After this phenomenon was over and also the surprise Harry began to wonder how electricity would get where there was so much water but he soon observed a rainbow and a rising mist under it which his fancy soon transformed into a female form. He then remembered the witch of the waters of the Alps who was raised from them by takeing some water in the hand and throwing it into the air pronouncing some unintelligible words. And though it was a tale it affected Harry now when he saw in the clouds something like it."

1 Prseterita, Vol. I.

These extra'Cts are printed in Prseterita with imitations of the original divisions of line and three "variations of size in imitation of type," and notwithstanding that "punctuation is left to the reader's kind conjecture" this is seen to be a remarkable literary production for a child of seven. Two years later he wrote a poem which he called "Eudosia, — On the Universe." This poem was written in 220 lines and is dated September 28, 1828. A single stanza will serve here to show its character and merit:

"I sing the Pin«, which clothes high Switzer's head And high enthroned, grows on a rocky bed, On gulphs so deep, on cliffs so high.

He that would dare climb them, daree to die."

It was about this time that he wrote the famous sentence: — " 'Tis vice, not war, that is the curse of man."

At eleven young Ruskin was taught Latin, at twelve French, and it was now that he began to see Nature with the eyes of Turner, the great artist, he (Turner) being about sixty years of age. At fifteen Ruskin wrote an essay on "The geologic strata of Mont Blanc" which was published in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History" (1834). At this time he possessed quite an important collection of geologic specimens which he increased by his own industry in his wanderings at Matlock, Clifton, or in the Alps. He earned enough money by "scribbling" to indulge also in the purchase of anything that struck his fancy. He was a veritable interrogation point, asking questions that nobody oared to answer, and engaging in controversy against all sorts of theories and statements. "The analytic John Ruskin," says Harrison, "was an enfant terrible."^

At seventeen, he wrote a masterly article in praise of Turner, and ably attacking that great artist's critics. This was written in 1836 and has been preserved in manuscript. As a specimen foreword of Ruskin's literary work Mr. Harrison quotes the following glowing extract from that article :

* Ruskin himself makes no claim to infant genins. He says : — "None such existed, except that patience in looking, and precision in feeling, which afterward, with due industry, formed my analytic power. In all essential qualities of genius, except these, I was deficient ; my memory only of average power. I have literally never known a child so incapable of acting a part, or telling a tale. On the other hand, I have never known one whose thirst for visible fact was at once 80 eager and so methodic." — Prceterita, Chap, 3.

"His (Turner's) imagination is Shakespearian in its mightiness. , . . Many-colored mists are floating above the distant city; but such mists as you might imagine to be ethereal spirits, souls of the mighty dead breathed out of the tombs of Italy into the blue of her bright heaven, and wandering in vague and infinite glory around the earth that they have loved. Instinct with the beauty of uncertain light, they move and mingle among the pale stars, and rise up into the brightness of the illimitable heaven, whose soft, sad, blue eye gazes down into the deep waters of the sea forever — that sea whose motionless and silent transparency is beaming with phosphor light, that emanates out of its sapphire serenity like bright dreams into the spirit of a deep sleep. And the spires of the glorious city rise indistinctly bright into those living mists like pyramids of pale fire from some vast altar ; and amidst the glory of the dream there is, as it were, the voice of a multitude entering by the eye, arising from the stillness of the city like the summer wind passing over the leaves of the forest when a murmur is heard amidst their multitude."

At eighteen Ruskin entered the Oxford University, and he had "already seen more of England and the Continent than most systematic tourists, and observed and thought about all this, perhaps more than any living man. He had, no doubt, written more prose and verse than is recorded of any man of his years."

A sketch of the life of such a youth would be manifestly defective which omitted all mention of his love affairs. The father of our author, John James Ruskin, was a London Wine-Merchant who possessed great business sagacity, and although at the start heavily handicapped, succeeded in amassing considerable wealth.* His partner was a Frenchman (M. Domecq) who conducted the Paris end of the business firm.

In the year 1836 M. Domecq took his daughters, four in number, to England, to visit the Ruskin's at their home in London. John was now seventeen and Adele Domecq was a graceful, gay and beautiful girl of fifteen. What more natural than that the fervid, poetic, young Ruskin should fall "head over heels" in love with Adele? The following interesting sketch is quoted from Collingwood a3

1 "My father began business as a wine merchant, with no capital, and a considerable amount of debt bequeathed him by his grandfather. He accepted the bequest and paid them all, before he began to lay by anything for himself, for which his best friends called him a fool, and I, without expressing any opinion as to his wisdom, which I knew in such matters to be at least equal to mine, have written on the granite slab over his grave that he was 'an entirely honest merchant' " — Ruskin in Fors, Vol. 1, p. 131.

much for the portraiture which it contains as for the love affair which it records:

"Adele hewitched him at once with her graceful figure and that oval face which was so admired in those times. She was fair, too, another recommendation. He was on the brink of seventeen, at the ripe moment, and he fell passionately in love with her. She was only fifteen, and did not understand his adoration, unspoken and unexpressed, except by intense shyness; for he was a very shy boy in the drawing-room, though brimming over with life and fun among his schoolfellows. And* yet he possessed advantages, if he had known how to use them. He was tall and active, light and lithe in gesture, not a clumsy, hobbledehoy. He had the face that caught the eye, in Rome a few years later, of Keats' Severn, no mean judge of poets' faces. He was undeniably clever; he knew all about minerals and mountains ; he was quite an artist, and a printed poet. But these things weigh little with a girl of fifteen who wants to be amused: and so she only laughed at John. He tried to amuse her . . . . but the note of passion was too real for the girl and she only laughed the more."^

Of course the young man wrote poetical effusions to the fair Adele. He tells us, in Praeterita : "I dared not address my sonnets straight to herself; but when she went back to Paris, wrote her a French letter, seven quarto pages long, descriptive of the desolations and solitudes of Heme Hill since her departure."

We may get a glimpse of the love verses of this gifted youth, as they were printed in Friendship's Offering at a later date. A single verse will serve to note the style.

"I do not ask a single tear ; but while

I linger where I must not stay, Ch ! give me but a parting smile

To light me on my lonely way."

But the course of true love does not run smooth for a genius any more than for an ordinary mortal ; Ruskin's first love affair was soon doomed. Adele married a rich and handsome young Frenchman. Looking back upon this episode when he was sixty-six years old, Ruskin says: "The entirely inscrutable thing to me is my total want of all reason, will, or design in the 'business. I had neither the resolution to win Adele, the courage to do without her, the sensa to consider what was at last to come of it all, or the grace to thin ■ how disagreeable I was making myself at the time to everybcd about me. There was really no more capacity nor intelligence in me than in a just fledged owlet, or just open-eyed puppy, disconsolate at the existence of the moon."^