4.

[21]Crown of Wild Olive.—Ed.

[22]Translating some of Erckmann-Chatrian's.—Ed.

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 armywhere theyacton 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.

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 wouldhave 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.

[23]Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Ward & Lock.—Ed.

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! Yetyou think youcanwrite 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?

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]

[24]Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou to comprehend the way of the most High? Then answered he me, and said, Thou hast given a right judgment, but why judgest thou not thyself also. For like as the ground is given unto the wood, and the sea to his floods: even so they that dwell upon the earth may understand nothing, but that which is upon the earth: and he only that dwelleth above the heavens, may understand the things that are above the height of the heavens.

August 4th, 1879.

It is just because you undertook the task sohappily, 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 beconscientious, yes—but I think the judicial doom of this country is to have conscience alike of its Priests and Prophetshardened. Why should any letter of mine make you anxious if you had indeed conscience of inspiration?

Ever affectionately yours,J. R.

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.

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.

[25]My clerical friends and brethren must not be displeased with me if I here mention the fact that at the meeting of twenty-three clergy where Iproposedto read Mr. Ruskin's letters to them, I was only authorized to do so by a majority of two. I can scarcely describe the dismay and consternation with which the letters themselves were received,—though of course not universally, in another meeting of the same number.

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 youwill 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."

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 besimilar. 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.

[27]At Liverpool and Brighton.

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 haveonly written them in the sense of your sympathy in most points, and am sure you will make the best possible use of them.

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.

[28]A projected Public Hall.

September 9th, 1879.

There is absolutely no debate possible as to what usury is any more thanwhat adultery is. The Church has only been polluted by the indulgence of it since the 16th century. Usury isany kind whateverof 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. Doyou 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:—

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 Ioughtto 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 yourselfagainst 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 ofenthusiasmrings in answering chords to the notes you strike. Yet I do notalwaysagree. But when I do disagree, I acknowledge it is because your standard isexcessively 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 commentsbefore 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.

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 thekind of carte-blanche I should rejoicingly give you.

Interrupted to-day! more to-morrow, with, I hope, the last letter.

j. r.

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 aboutmepersonally, except only to express your knowledge of my real desire for the health and power of theChurch. More than this praise youmustnot give me, for I have learned almost everything I may say that I know by my errors.

Ever affectionately yours,J. Ruskin.

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.

[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.

October 13th.

I did not get your kind and interesting letter till yesterday, and can only write in utter haste thismorning 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]

[29]Canon Rawnsley kindly offered to print them at his own expense; only as many were printed as would be sufficient for three or four clerical societies. Had I known how valuable those little pamphlets were destined to become, I should have had many more printed!—Ed.

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.

FromCanon Farrar.

October 29th1879.

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.

Sheffield,October 17th, 1879.

Dear Mr. Malleson,—I am sincerely interested and moved by yourhistory 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—therewillbe 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 bedipped 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, andc, 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.

[30]This, of course, with Mr. Allen's concurrence, is my intention.—Ed.

[31]Aufidus,Qui regna Dauni præfluit AppuliQuum sævit, horrendamque cultisDiluviem meditatur agris.—Hor.Carm.iv. 14.

Aufidus,Qui regna Dauni præfluit AppuliQuum sævit, horrendamque cultisDiluviem meditatur agris.—Hor.Carm.iv. 14.

Extract of a Letter from the lateMiss 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 closerexamination 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. * * *

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.

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 takesmeas 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, butI 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.

[32]Meaning in the press notices of the Editor's "Life of Christ."—Ed.

[33]Seventeenvery good, fivegood, fivefair, sixbad, twonasty, envious!—Ed.

[34]Glasgow University.

[35]Of the Waterhead, Coniston.

January 5th, 1880.

A Happy New Year to you. If I may judge or guess by the effortsmade 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 theContemporary.

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 theBishop a turn to-morrow. This weather takes my little wits out of me wofully; but I am always affectionately yours,

J. R.

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—intrying 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.

April 17.

The letters seem all very nice—I shall have very little to say about them, except to explain what you observeand 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.

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.

May 9.

You are really very good about this, and shall have the notes (D.V.) within a fortnight. The Scott could not beput 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.

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 seenyoursat 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 readingyour own, on which I very earnestly congratulate you. God knows it isn't because they are friendly or complimentary, but because youdosee 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 everythingIwant 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 affectionatelyand gratefully yours,J. Ruskin.

and gratefully yours,J. Ruskin.

(Note.—A legal friend remarks that in his opinion I should refrain from printingextractsfrom letters, and always printthe 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 hemayhave 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.)

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]

[36]Needless to say that in this energetic language, the Master of the Company of St. George is referring to nothing whatever in the stainless character of the great Bishop, of whom it is justly recorded in the inscription on his monument in Manchester Cathedral that "he won all hearts by opening to them his own;" except only in the matter of house-rent and interest of money, opinions which the Bishop shared with the great mass of civilized humanity.

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 spiciestbits: 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.

June 13th1880.

You are really very good to put up with all that vicious Epilogue. But it won't discredityouin 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; fordomptnumis, I believe, strong Yorkshire Latin for Donum Apostolicum, not Dominum.

Theein Ecclesie foræis 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!

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.

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 anybodywho 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.)

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!

June 25th.

Dear Malleson,—No, I don't want the letter printed in the least; but itought 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. Thedomptis a very important matter indeed.

I have got the last bit of epiloguefairly on foot this morning, and can promise it on Monday all well.

Back to Index Next