intimacy with the man whose life and practical mind which could with all work he so aptly records, is the trans- sobriety of judgment address itself to parent honesty and fairness in the esti- the bare facts of life is a new revelation mate it forms of both. It was well to not a few. When more than ten that some one should undertake to years ago, the present writer, as the clear Mr. Ruskin's memory of the founder and first president of a Ruskin charge of utter impracticability, and society in a northern town, was called scoffers and unbelievers will be aston-upon to select a subject for his inauguished to see here how much can be said ral address, he felt it necessary to in favor of Mr. Ruskin's practical good select for his theme, "Ruskin as a sense. Readers of this review will be, practical teacher." For addressing, moreover, specially pleased to discover as he did, an audience of enquirers that this is entirely attributed to his into, rather than students of, Ruskin's Scottish descent and Scottish acquaint-methods of teaching, he felt that to ances. As one is occasionally sur- remove prejudices on this head was prised and pleased to find an Irishman his first duty. Since then, with more of one's own acquaintance—and we knowledge of his writings and progress have known such preternaturally in culture generally, such prejudices calm, cool, and collected, and able to have been partially removed, and readpossess his soul in patience, and ers of Mr. Ruskin's books now come to straightway puts it down to the fact them with minds better prepared and that Scottish blood runs in his veins, more favorably predisposed, so as to so in the case of Mr. Ruskin what read them with more sympathetic inthere is of practical common sense in sight and intelligence. Hence we find his teaching on art and the art of life, both from the information contained in both in practice and precept, is natu- that lately published biography, and rally attributed to his Scottish origiu from other sources, that these books and breed, and the Scots who influ- are more widely read than ever, and enced his modes of thought and feel- that they actually furnish at the presing, such as Sir Walter, Lord Lindsay, ent time the chief source of income to Principal Forbes, but most of all Car- their gifted author. This may be a lyle. Mr. Collingwood informs us sordid fact to record, but of very praceven that Scotchmen such as Hogg, tical significance in the present day. Pringle, and Lockhart, were among the And practical people may learn a lesfirst to discover the genius of Ruskin. son, too, from this. Here is Mr. RusBut lest readers of this paper should kin, who starts in life with a colossal be, as Scotchmen, puffed up above fortuue (of some £150,000 or £200,000) measure, we could add the testimony and we see him in his impractical way of an English woman who knew Ruskin lavishing thousands in founding masintimately, Mrs. Ritchie, the daughter terships of drawing, and collections to of Thackeray, speaks in her personal illustrate their teaching; in founding reminiscences of Ruskin's "conscience guilds for impractical objects, but on and common sense wrapped up and high moral grounds, and spending what hidden among the flowers." With the remains, in large sums, for objects of flowers of his poetical mind all men private and public benevolence, until are acquainted, and their sweet odor is he is nearly left penniless; and lo! readily acknowledged even by his op- and behold! the books he writes in ponents; that Ruskin's conscience had the face of opposition of all the coma keen edge and was delicately formed mon-sense, practical people, are now to discern good and evil when others practically a source of wealth to commore obtuse morally could see little or pensate the writer for his noble unselfno distinction in ethical niceties was ishness -the lesson is this, that of never doubted by any one who had lucre as well as of life, it is true someread say a dozen pages of his volumi- times that he who loses shall find it, nous works. But that there was a and here, too, wisdom is justified by her children. Of Mr. Ruskin as a man, | only for delight, he falls into the sun, little need be said here by way of intro- and extinguishes himself in ashes." duction to his practical teaching. We In other words, enjoyment there must may content ourselves with the modest be, but mere indulgence in artistic or estimate he gives of himself: "Not an aesthetic pleasure is of the evil; intelunjust person, nor an unkind one, not lectual luxury may become a snare and a false one; but a lover of order, labor, a selfish hoarding of art treasures for and peace. "" By many he has been re- private enjoyment, like every other garded at times in the light of an intel- form of selfishness, not to be encourlectual despot and literary usurper, but aged; in short, artistic or literary epimainly because he was misunderstood. cureanism, Mr. Ruskin does not preach, The consciousness of having an impor- or practise. He would have all the tant mission entrusted to him, to teach achievements of the mind, whether in new or neglected truths to a generation | literature or in art, serve a practical unwilling to give heed to them, may purpose. "Thus end all the evils of have induced Mr. Ruskin to speak with life, only in death; and thus issue all an air of authority, bearing a strong the gifts of man, only in his dishonor, resemblance to positive self-assertion. when they are pursued, or possessed in But a careful perusal of his republished the service of pleasure only." works, and a close attention to the Those who would have a competent numerous foot-notes, where he becomes knowledge of Mr. Ruskin's theory of his own commentator and critic, will art, and its relation to the art of life, soon acquit him of the charge of proud should read in the first instance the self-sufficiency, for they are full of self- "Lectures on Art" delivered before depreciatory remarks on his own pro- the University of Oxford. Here, as ductions. And no one, in such a man, Mr. Collingwood reminds his readers,. can doubt the genuineness of these "we must look for that matured Rusexpressions of humility and self-accu- kinian theory of art which his early sation. Unlike some of his affected works do not reach, and which his followers, Ruskin is perfectly free from writings between 1860 and 1870 do not the 66 consummate pharisaism and touch." Though the Oxford lectures self-idolizing æstheticism which are are only a fragment of what he ought characteristic rather of the minor to have done, they should be sufficient prophets of culture, sitting like the foolish soul in Tennyson's "Palace of Art," on her intellectual throne, and saying (we cannot believe that Tennyson here refers to Goethe, though Professor Seeley thinks so): — I marvel if my still delight to a careful reader; though their expression is sometimes obscured by diffuse treatment, they contain the root of the matter thought out for fifteen years, since the close of the more brilliant but less profound period of " Modern Painters." In this great house so royal, rich, and wide, that section of the lectures which bears But before we proceed to examine Be flattered to the height. He wished his followers, his biographer informs us, should live their lives to the full in "admiration, hope, and love," and in his address before the Cambridge School of Art, in 1858, Mr. Ruskin himself says to his audience: "There is no way of getting good art, I repeat, but one-at once the simplest and most difficult - namely, to enjoy it." He shows that "if the artist works without delight, he passes away into space, and perishes of cold; if he works on our present subject, it may he as well to say a word or two on those impracticalities in Ruskin's teaching which it were vain to ignore, so as to clear the way for the unprejudiced consideration of the main argument. We remember how, some years ago, when conversing with the Rev. J. LI. Davies on the economic theories of Ruskin, and the importance attached here to ethics, our interlocutor, by a shake of the head, gave us to understand he could not agree, and said, his 66 That his actual proposals for remedying the evils he attacks were far from practical at times must be admitted. All the same, the salient points in his ethical theory of political economy are no longer controverted, and his standpoint is now adopted by recognized teachers of the science, in a modified form at least. In the words of his latest exponent: only response, "he is so very im- | severity of his criticism, as when practicable." Less calm and cautious in "Modern Painters," quoted again thinkers, and some less competent to in "Unto this Last,' "he sweepingly pronounce judgment on the question, asserts that "Government and Cowill be apt to be even more severe in operation are in all things the laws of their criticism on Mr. Ruskin's eco- life; Anarchy and Competition the nomic theories. As a matter of fact, laws of death," no one can doubt. Thackeray, as editor of the Cornhill, had to stop the publication of the essays which were afterwards republished under the title "Unto this Last," because the public were incensed against the author of those strange definitions and descriptions of value and wealth, and the implied or expressed severe criticism on the prevailing modes of industry which they contained. That wealth is "the posHe showed, as others have since shown session of the valuable by the valiant," more calmly and completely, after he broke put into big capitals; that to be "valu- the ground for them, that the old Economy able" is to "avail towards life," did not take in the whole facts of the case, money gain being only the shadow as any true science does, and must do. of the true gain, which is humanity," he showed that competition, for example, and such expressions as "There is no was not a "law," but only a phase of comwealth but life," this seemed at that mercial society. If it were a law, properly time the ravings of a lunatic. When so-called, it would be universal and inevhe described in "Time and Tide" itable, like the attraction of gravitation; whereas, in many cases it was actually set competition as a confused wreck of aside at the will of one man or company of social order and life," and suggested in men, for co-operation; and in other cases, these "Letters to a workingman of he showed, it stopped progress, and the Sunderland on work" "the necessity flow of wealth which it was supposed to of some restraint on the properties and promote . and where the so-called laws incomes of the upper classes within of this so-called science were taken as praccertain fixed limits," when he speaks tical rules for life and conduct, and clashed, here of "the deadly influence of the as they often did, with plain morality, or moneyed power," when in his letters were made the shield of selfishness to the Pall Mall Gazette, then in its then he pressed the conclusion that it was infancy (now republished under the a superannuated creed, no better than a title of "Arrows of the Chace"), de- heathenism in whose name all manner of evils might be speciously justified: "tanfending his own as against the prevail- tum religio potuit suadere malorun ” — in ing notions of the economists, he said short Ruskin's Economy points to an ideal, "that wages are determined by supply it calls a practical legislation to accept the and demand, is no proof that under any principle, "I ought, therefore I can," and circumstances they must be—still less to drag the world up to a moral standard ; that under all circumstances they ought whereas, the Old Economy's influence was to be," and that the laws of political the reverse. And in practical issues he economy are not those of the "law of was fully cognizant of human infirmities, the wolf and the locust," but the laws and of the necessity for gradual evolution of justice, he was like one speaking in to the "moral culture" he speaks of. an unknown tongue. That much of His biographer adds a curious anecwhat he said then in his virtuous indiguation at the commonplaces of economic science, falsely so called, was not always said wisely, that there was want of moderation in the outspoken dote to show the practicalness of this teaching (which, however, we must add, Mr. Ruskin full well knew would not be received or acted upon by practical people for many a day), that when E buying land for the nation, and entrusting the general of the Salvation Army was some simplicity, as a champion of working out his social scheme, he told what is noble and true, as against all the Rev. H. V. Mills, the first pro- that is ugly, base, and churlish, desemoter of the home-colony plan, that he crating nature and degrading humanity. was entirely ignorant of political econ- | Again, his efforts practically to embody omy, and asked for a book on the sub- his ideals in the formation, e.g., of the ject. Mills thereupon gave him" Unto St. George's Guild : this Last" the "Munera Pulveris " would have been a more valuable gift that it is time for honest persons to sepaA body of persons who think, primarily, as a guide to the science. The theo- rate themselves intelligibly from knaves, ries and schemes formulated in "Fors announcing their purpose, if God help Clavigera" have been more than once them, to live in godliness and honor, not in called "utterly impractical." Mr. Col- atheism and rascality; and who think, seclingwood points out, that what Ruskin ondarily, that the sum which well-disposed suggested as an ideal, was never in-persons usually set aside for charitable tended for immediate adoption, and purposes (named the tenth part of their differed from other Utopias in being income) may be most usefully applied in "far nearer realization than they." We may add here, as an illustration of this, that one of his suggestions, the re-introduction of the old guild system, and making it universal, not local, to adapt it to modern needs, is held up as a social panacea at this very moment by practical statesmen in Austria and France, and has been partially at-mercial principles; his organization of tempted in the legislation of the former crossing sweeping between the British country. And what could be more Museum and St. Giles's, on ethical practical than to say, as Mr. Ruskin principles, and that of bands of underdoes to the workmen in one of his let- graduates for digging roads, so as to ters in the "Fors," "Your prosperity serve their day and generation by manis in your own hands. Only in a re-ual labor, and for the benefit of their mote degree does it depend on external own moral and mental culture; in matters, and, least of all, on forms of these things he cannot be said to have government. There are many say- been eminently practical. They were ings, no doubt, which are not so easily protests against the false assumptions reconciled with practical common and inconsistent doings of selfish pracsense. His definition, e.g., of the tical people, whom he perhaps too "civilized nation," as consisting severely taxed with being given to broadly of mob, money-collecting ma- "sharp practice." But in doing all chine (by which he means the State), this, he practised what he preached, and capitalists, his unmeasured terms which is not always true of the modern of contempt, in which he declaims philanthropist. The principle which against machinery, the exaggerated guided him is contained in the followglorification of "hand-labor," and ing passage, illustrating his intention equally exaggerated dislike of steam in what may seem to some Quixotic smoking kettles," his sweeping con- attempts to realize his ideals. It is demnation of "this age of steam and taken from "Unto this Last," and iron, luxury and selfishness," and "the distinguishes between true and false discordant insolence of modernism." wealth, the methods of acquiring and All these must be put down as the using it when accumulated : excusable vagaries of genius, as the rash though vigorous utterances of a chivalric soul trying his lance in the defence of natural beauty and whole 66 Any given accumulation of commercial wealth may be indicative, on the one hand, of faithful industries, progressive energies, and productive ingenuities; or, on the action which has annihilated — ten times as much in the gathering of it; such and such strong hands have been paralyzed, as if they had been numbed by night shade; so many strong men's courage broken, so many productive operations hindered; this and the other false direction given to labor, and lying image of prosperity set up on Dura plains dug in seven-times-heated furnaces. That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of far-reaching ruin; a wrecker's handful of coin gleaned from the beach to which he has beguiled an argosy; an army-follower's bunch of rags unwrapped from the breasts of goodly soldiers dead; the purchase-pieces of potter's fields, wherein shall be buried together the citizen and the stranger. a other, it may be indicative of mortal lux-ing art studies in our own day enumerury, merciless tyranny, ruinous chicane ated by Mr. Ruskin in the "Lectures one man of money is the outcome of on Art," there are at least two which action which has created-another, of affect Great Britain, namely, the frequent intercourse with foreign nations, this facilitates acquaintance with the as a result of maritime greatness, and masterpieces of foreign art; secondly, the impulse given to the production of art treasures by the rapid accumulation of wealth, as a purchasing power to acquire them. Such, too, was the case with Italian towns of the Renaissance. Both causes operate in the same direction. They make us feel the want of a safe guide to the masterpieces of art, and a guardian to warn faults of taste in the encouragement of us against artists, but the search after the beautiful ends, as it undoubtedly has done in quite recent times, in æsthetic knightStripped of its gorgeous array of errantry and sensuous degeneracy, style, this passage has its practical sug-new faction threatening to dominate gestion, directly and suggestively on modern literature as well as modern the great question, not only of getting, art, which is apt to regard them as but also of spending the surplus of wealth at any given time or place; in short, on the relation of commerce to art, and the close connection that exists between the ideals of art and an ideal art of life. This more particularly as applying to our own times and country. For there comes a time in the history of every great commercial community, when the mere acquisition of money for its own sake gives way to the tendency of making a rational use of it in surrounding ourselves with objects of art, which, for their due appreciation, require a cultivated mind and refined taste, the results of leisure, liberation of mind from sordid cares, luxurious the moderns. His lectures on Dutch ease, and new dangers arise from art, delivered in Edinburgh, are an these. This was the case in the rising excellent example of the latter. But towns at the close of the medieval era, what is of still greater importance, he and partly in consequence of the dis- never loses sight of the truth, not apcovery of new treasures in hitherto un-preciated by the professed lovers of discovered countries. Such, again, is" art for art's sake," that the fine arts the case now, owing to the vast increase are a moral force in society, so that of wealth as the result of the discovery "the art of any country is an exact of steam and machinery, and number- exponent of its ethical life," or as Mr. less mechanical appliances taught by Ruskin says still more distinctly in the modern science. With it the interest" Crown of Wild Olive," "what we in art and culture has been growing like determines what we are, and is the apace. Among the four causes promot- sign of what we are; and to teach taste means to "amuse indolence or satisfy sensibility." Now this want of the age Mr. Ruskin may be said to supply. This evidently he considers to be his right province; all his works bear testimony to it. Unconsciously at first, too consciously since, perhaps, he has made himself the art prophet of his age and nation. As such, it cannot be denied that he combines in his person and doctrine artistic thoroughness with catholicity of taste, having a fine appreciation alike for the lofty idealism and consummate execution peculiar to the old masters, and the truth loving and truth expressing minute realism of R 6 E e |