Glass. i5. J 7 Book — . K"r fi'"-' > By WILLIAM BURGESS The Religion of Ruskin A Biographical and Antholog- ical Study Large 8vo, net $2.00 The Bible in Shakespeare A Study of the Relation of the Works of William Shakespeare to the Bible Large 8vo, net $1.50 THE RELIGION of RUSKIN The Life and Works of "John Ruskin A Biographical and Anthological Study BY WILLIAM BURGESS Author of "The Bible in Shakspeare," Etc. New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1907, by WILLIAM BURGESS "To my Dear and Ethereal Ruskin, whom God preserve." — Inscrip- tion of Thos. Carlyle in a hook presented to Ruskin. "There is nothing going on among us as notable to me as those fierce lightning-bolts Ruskin is copiously and desperately pouring into the black world of Anarchy all around him. No other man in England that I meet has in him that divine rage against iniquity, falsity and baseness that Ruskin has, and that every man ought to have." — Letter from Carlyle to Emerson. "No other critic ever occupied such a position. He expresses thoughts on art in words which, in their exquisite collocation, their perfection at once of form and lucidity, have been rivalled in our generation, only by Cardinal Newman His older books are among the treasures of the bibliophile, his later works are purchased like scarce plates, his opinions are quoted like texts from a holy book." — The Spectator. CONTENTS Explanation and Books Consulted vii Preface ix Index , 4^ 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 at- tached 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 "Sensual- ity 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, Chap- ter 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 Rus- kin to Chas. Eliot Norton." "Modem Men of Letters," J. H. Friswell. "Bible References," Mary and Ellen Gibbs. "Art and Life," W. S. Kennedy. "Lit- erary Leaders of Modem England," W. J. Dawson. "Great Books of Life Teachers," Newell Dwight Hillis. "Great Epochs of Art History," J. M. Hop- pin. '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 imperti- nence. 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 gen- eral 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 refer- ence, 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 per- suasion 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 intro- duction 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 per- sonal life of the man whose writings it presents, and we very gladly acknowl- edge 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 con- secutive 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 sep- arate 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 stand- ards and return to the simplicity and naturalness of true art. To this move- ment Ruskin gave his able support, and it is very largely through the influ- ence 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 every- thing to him, and such artists as Holman Hunt, Rossetti, and Millais were greatly his debtors. On the other hand he heartily disliked and openly dis- credited 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 repre- sented 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, imal- tered 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 hap- piness." Not only was Ruskin an interpreter of Scripture truths in the same sense as was Dante, Shakspeare, and other writers who embodied them (often uncon- sciously) in their dramatic and poetic works. He was emphatically and pur- posely 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 libra- ries. 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 speak- ing 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 accom- panying 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 Life of John Ruskin LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN 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 splen- dor 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, Abra- ham 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 impreg- nable 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- 3 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 Spen- cer/ Yet higher than these among the world's teachers and inter- preters 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 din- ing 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 pre- serving: — "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 let- ter 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 vibrat- ing 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 Colling- wood's Life of Ruskin. (2 vols.) 5 "John Ruskin." By Frederick Harrison. THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN $ 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 devel- oped 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 'publica- tion 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 pas- sage 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 remem- bered 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 pro- nouncing 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. 6 THE RELIGION OF RUSKIN 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 read- er's kind conjecture" this is seen to be a remarkable literary pro- duction 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 state- ments. "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 lit- erally 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. THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSK IN 7 "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 sys- tematic 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 beau- tiful 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 con- siderable 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 mer- chant' " — Ruskin in Fors, Vol. 1, p. 131. 8 THE RELIGION OF RUSKIN 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 1 Life of John Ruskin. THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN 9 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."^ Evidently the marriage of Adele struck young Ruskin a hard blow. For nearly four years he had been a devoted and faithful lover. His devotion and hope were so deep and strong, that it seems to have seriously affected his health. Still, as Mr. Collingwood says, *'at twenty, young men do not die of love."^ Ruskin was, by this time, an author of fame, having written a number of poems of merit and he was in much demand for maga- zine articles. His illness did not check his passion for work. His parents designed him for a clergyman, and fondly looked forward to his bearing the disting-uished title of "Lord Bishop" of the Episco- pal Church, but subsequent changes in his religious experience would have made this impossible, even if his desires had not run in another direction. Perhaps the most highly esteemed prize at the University of Oxford was that known as the "Newdigate," and for this young 1 PraeteHta, Vol. 1, Page 152. 2 The following notes on the subject of lovers, written by Ruskin in his riper years, will be of interest in this connection : "First, a girl's proper confidant is her father. If there is any break whatever in her trust in him, from her infancy to her marriage, there is wrong somewhere, — often on his part, but most likely it is on hers ; by getting into the habit of talking with her girl-friends about what they have no business with, and her father much. What she is not inclined to tell her father, should be told to no one ; and, in nin« cases out of ten, not thought of by herself. "And I believe that few fathers, however wrong-headed or hard-hearted, would fail of answering the habitual and patient confidence of their child with true care for her. On the other hand, no father deserves, nor can he entirely and beautifully win, his daughter's confidence, unless he loves her better than he does himself, which is not always the case. But again here, the fault may not be all on papa's side. "In the second place, when a youth is fully in love with a girl, and feels that he is wise in loving her, he should at once tell her so plainly, and take his chance bravely, with other suitors. No lover should have the insolence to think of being accepted at once, nor should any girl have the cruelty to refuse at once; without severe reasons. If she simply doesn't like him, she may send him away for seven years or so, — he vowing to live on cresses, and wear sackcloth meanwhile, or the like penance: if she likes him a little, or thinks she might come to like him la time, she may let him stay near her, putting him always on sharp trial to see what stuff he is made of, and requiring, figuratively, as many lion-skins or giants* heads as she thinks herself worth. The whole meaning and power of true court- ship is Probation ; and it oughtn't to be shorter than three years at least — seven is, to my own mind, the orthodox time. And these relations between the young people should be openly and simply known, not to their friends only, but to everybody who has the least interest in them : and a girl worth anything ought to have always half a dozen or so of suitors under vow for her." — Fors, Letter 90. lo THE RELIGION OF RUSKIN Riiskin worked with a will. The first year of his contest for this laurel, he had for a competitor a young man of brilliant intellect who carried off the prize and who was afterwards known to the world as "Dean Stanley." The next year Ruskin again entered the race without success, but in the third effort, when, as yet, he was only twenty, he wrote "Salsette and Elephanta," a poem describing the dawn of Christianity in Hindustan, and with this he won the coveted prize. With the publication of this poem, according to Collingwood, it seemed that "he had found his vocation and was well on the high road to fame as a poet." By the time he reached his majority he had already written more verse and prose- poetry that live than fall to the lot of many a first-rate literary man in a life-time. More than twenty of his works were published from 1834 to 1840, while he was a student at the University, from which he graduated at twenty-three. At Oxford, during these years, young Ruskin met many who afterwards ranked among the most distinguished men of his time. Such men as Dr. Buckland, the eminent geologist. Sir Henry Ac- land, the famous physician. Dean Liddell, Sir Charles Newton, Charles Darwin and Dean Stanley. William Ewart Gladstone had passed through Oxford a little before Ruskin's time. From the standpoint of this volume no incident of Ruskin's youth is of greater interest than the Scripture training which he received from his mother. Mrs. Ruskin was a rare woman, of strong intellect, very decided piety, and a theology of the Scotch- Presbyterian order of that time. Her ideals were of the loftiest, both for herself as a mother, and for her son as a man. No care was too self-sacrificing, no training too insistent, if only she could lead her child into the pathway of right thought and action. The story of Bible drill under this painstaking mother is told by Ruskin in later years and he seems to dwell upon it fondly, for he tells the same incidents more than once. The following list of chapters which he gives in Fors in 1873 he repeats in Praeterita in 1885 : "Walter Scott and Pope's Homer were reading of my own selection, but my mother forced me, by steady daily toil, to learn long chapters of the Bible by heart ; as well as to read it every syllable through, aloud, hard names and all, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, about once a year ; and to that discipline, — patient, accurate, and resolute, I owe, not only a knowledge of the book, which I find occasionally serviceable, but of my general power of taking pains, and the best THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN ii of my taste in literature. . . . Once knowing the 32nd of Deuter- onomy, the 119th Psalm, the 15th of 1st Corinthians, the Sermon on the Mount, and most of the Apocalypse, every syllable by heart, and having always a way of thinking with myself what words meant, it was possible for me, even in the foolishest times of youth, to write entirely superficial or formal English." .... "I opened my Bible just now, yellow with age, and flexible but not unclean with much use, except that the lower corners of the pages at 8th of first Kings, and Deut. 32nd, are worn somewhat thin and dark, the learning of those two chapters having cost me much pains. My mother's list of the chapters with which, learned every syllable accurately, she established my soul in life, has fallen out of it. . . . . I will take what indulgence the sagacious reader will give me for printing the list thus accidentally occurrent : Exodus, Chaps. 15 and 20, 2 Samuel, Chap. 1, verse 17 to the end. 1 Kings, 8. Psalms, 23, 32, 90, 91, 103, 112, 119, 139. Proverbs, Chaps. 2, 3, 8, 12. Isaiah, Chap. 58. Matthew, Chaps, 5, 6, 7.^ Acts, Chap. 26. 1 Cor. Chaps. 13, 15. James, Chap. 4. Revelation, Chaps. 5, 6." In Prseterita he tells us that as soon as he was able to read with fluency his mother began a course of Bible work with him, which never ceased till he went to Oxford. "She read alternate verses with me," he says, "watching, at first, every intonation of my voice, and correcting the false ones till she made me understand the verse, if within my reach, rightly, and energetically. It might be beyond me altogether ; that she did not care about ; but she made sure that as soon as I got hold of it at all, I should get hold of it by the right end. In this way she began with the first verse of Genesis, and went straight through, to the last verse of the Apocalypse; hard names, numbers, Levitioal law, and all ; and began again in Genesis the next day. If a name was hard, the better the exercise in pronuncia- tion, — if a chapter was tiresome, the better lesson in patience, — if loathsome, the better lesson in faith that there was some use in its being so outspoken." To this training he adds: — "I owe the first cultivation of my ear in sound." If, as has been said,^ this was severe discipline reflecting upon the "judgment and discretion" of his mother, it may be answered that it was fully justified in the after life of Ruskin, for he himself refers to it, again and again, as laying the foundation of much that was best in his life and work. Indeed he defended his mother against some such criticisms, long before Mr. Hobson wrote his book. He says : 1 John Ruskin, Social Reformer, J. A. Hobson. 12 TEE RELIGION OF HVSKW "After taking me at least six times through the Bible, she was not afraid of plain words to, or for, me ; . . . . Her Punlan- ism was clear enough in common sense to see that, while Shak- speare and Burns lay open on the table all day, there was no reason for much mystery with Byron. . My mother , . had sym- pathy with every passion, as well as every virtue, of true woman- hood. . . And there was one feature in my mother's character which must be here asserted at once, to put an end to the notion of which I see traces in some newspaper comments on my past descriptions of her, that she was in any wise like Esther's religious aunt in 'Bleak House.' Far on the contrary, there was a hearty, frank, and sometimes even irrepressible laugh in my mother! . . . . If, however, there was the least bitterness or irony in a jest, my mother did not like it."^ Thus we may see that the elementary food upon which the child- mind was daily fed entered into the moral and mental life of young Kuskin, developing and sustaining that rare quality of intellect with which he was endowed at his very birth. The child, well-born, was also well trained. The promise of his future lay not only in his heredity, genius and transcendent spirit, but, perhaps, in even greater measure, in that never failing supply of the richest of -all literature, — in that spiritual perception imparted to him through his familiarity with the most spiritual of Bible Truths and by the expository teaching of his mother, — illumined by her own rare faith and love. iPraeterita, Chap. 8. II RUSKIN— THE MAN. "Among tKe heroic souls who have sought to recover the lost paradise and recapture the glory of an undefiled and blessed world stands John Ruskin, oft an apostle of gentle words that heal like medicines, and sometimes a prophet of Elijah-like sternness and grandeur, consuming man's sins with words of flame. .... Unlike Burns, and Byron, Shelley and Goethe, no passion ever poi- soned his purpose and no vice ever disturbed the working of his genius. What he taught in theory he first was in practice. . . . Unlike that rich young man who went from Christ sorrowful, John Ruskin gladly forsook all his possessions to follow Jesus." — Newell Dwight Hillis in *'Great Books as Life Teachers." In his later years Ruskin did not hold his University career in high regard. "The whole time I was there," he says, "my mind was simply in the state of a squash before 'tis a peaspod, — and remained so yet a year or two afterward, I grieve to say."* Whether this was a sort of ironical expression of dissatisfied contempt for the measure of his attainments, or simply an effect of his more morbid moods, we cannot say, but certainly these reflections upon his stu- dent days do not represent a just view of the facts as we have them. He was only nineteen when the Publisher of Loudon's Magazine wrote to his father: — "Your son is certainly the greatest genius that ever it has been my fortune to become acquainted with," and, not- withstanding his protracted sickness, young Ruskin graduated with honors before he was twenty-three years of age. He was not, however, the sort of young fellow to enter into in- stant sympathy with the life of the average college man with whom he was thrown into contact by his father's choice. Entered as a "Gentleman Commoner" of Christ Church College of the Univer- sity, he found himself among the sons of the aristocratic families of England. "These young lords and squires who rode races, betted, shirked all work and got into scrapes, naturally regarded the queer ^ Two circumstances seem to lend a little color to this self-disparagement. He did not win the coveted Newdigate prize until the third attempt and when visit- ing at Rome after reaching his majority he fell sick of a fever which lost him a full year of his time. 13 14 TEE RELIGWN OF RUSKIN poet as a butt rather than an equal. "^ But there was something in young Ruskin, which speedily melted these prejudices. "He was one of the gentlest creatures ever seen in Oxford, more like a girl than a man, who was looked upon as a joke until a few men perceived his genius and the rest became aware of his goodness. His fine temper, his wit, his mastery of drawing, his skill in chess, his hospitality, and superb sherry, won for him the young bloods who at last agreed to regard him as something quite of an order by himself."^ Various writers have drawn pictures of Ruskin, as he was at this time, and they.are all in substantial harmony with May Russell Mit- ford's sketch: — "tall, fair and slender, with a gentle playfulness and a sort of pretty waywardness that was quite charming." Here is a pen portrait, drawn by his friend and biographer as he saw him when first introduced to him : "He received me with radiant courtesy when I told him that I had sought him to hear more of his thoughts about Labor and Wealth. I recall him as a man of slight figure, rather tall, except that he had a stoop from the shoulders, with a countenance of singu- lar mobility and expressiveness. His eyes were blue and very keen, full of fire and meaning ; the hair was brown, luxuriant, and curly ; the brows rather marked, and with somewhat shaggy eyebrows. The lips were full of movement and character, in spite of the injury caused by a dog's bite in childhood. His countenance was eminent- ly spirituel — winning, magnetic, and radiant."^ Mr. Collingwood has preserved a Reporter's portrait of him, when lecturing in Edinburgh in 1853. Ruskin was then thirty- four, and the sketch affords us a view of the manner and style of the lecturer as well as the face and form of the man : "Before you can see the lecturer you must get into the hall and that is not an easy matter, .... the crowd in waiting, not only fills the passage, but occupies the pavement, in front of the entrance, and overflows into the road, .... the door beside the platform opens and a thin gentleman, with light hair, a stiff white cravat, dark overcoat with velvet collar, walking, too, with a slight stoop, goes up to the desk, and looking round with a self-possessed and somewhat formal air, .... 'Dark hair, pale face, and massive marble brow, — that is my ideal of Mr. Ruskin,' said a young lady near us. This proved to be quite a fancy portrait, as unlike the reality as could well be imagined, Mr. Ruskin has light sand- ^ "John Ruskin." Harrison. THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN 15 colored hair; his face is more red than pale; the mouth well cut, with a good deal of decision in its curve, though somewhat wanting in sustained dignity and strength; an aquiline nose; his forehead by no means broad or massive, but the brows full and well bound together; the eye we could not see, in consequence of the shadows that fell upon his countenance from the lights overhead, but we are sure that the poetry and passion we looked for, almost in vain, in other features must be there."^ In a volume of Letters, is a description of Ruskin's "manifold pleasant ways; his graceful and delightful manner — bright, gentle, delicately courteous; the lyric melody of his voice — ^more intensely spiritual than any voice I ever heard. He is a swift observer and acute. Not talkative, but ever willing to be interested in things, and to throw gleams of his soul's sunlight over them ; original in his dazzling idealism. Forever thinking on 'whatsoever things are pure, and lovely, and of good report,' annihilating in the intense whit« heat of his passionate contempt and hatred, all vile, dark, hateful things. They are not — cannot be. They are lies, negations, blanks, nonentities. God is — and there is none else beside Him. So I wend my way home by a circuit through the cottage domain, dreaming of nothing but Ruskin and the glory of his soul, and the ideals he would have us worship."^ Canon Scott Holland wrote of him, after his death, in the follow- ing terms: "Who that had ever seen him could forget John Ruskin? He had the touch that goes straight to the heart. He came up to one eo confidentially, so appealingly, with that wistful look in his gray- glinting eyes, which seemed to say, 'I never find anybody who quite understands me, but I still hope and think that you will.' .... He somehow moved one as with the delicate tenderness of a woman ; and he felt frail, as if the roughness of the world would hurt and break him; and one longed to shelter him from all that was ugly and cruel. "^ And again, his biographer wrote of him, at the time of his death : "He was the very mirror of courtesy, with an indescribable charm of spontaneous lovingness. It was neither the old-world gracious- ness of Mr. Gladstone, nor the stately simplicity of Tourgenief. — It was simply the irrepressible bubbling up of a bright nature, full * Life of John Ruskin.. 2 Raskin at Hawarden in "Letters to M. O. and H. O." 3 Paper by Holland in "Letters to M. G. and H. G" i6 THE RELIGION OF RUSKIN to the brim with enthusiasm, chivalry, and affection. No boy could blurt out all that he enjoyed and wanted with more artless freedom ; no girl could be more humble, modest and unassuming. His ideas, his admiration, and his fears seemed to flash out of his spirit and escape his control. But (in private life) it was always what he loved, not what he hated, that aroused his interest. Now all this was extraordinary in one who, in writing, treated what he hated and scorned with real savage violence, who used such bitter words, even in letters to his best friends, who is usually charged with inordinate arrogance and conceit. The world must judge his writings as they stand. I 01 n only say, that, in personal intercourse, I have never known him, in full health, betrayed into a harsh word, or an ungra- cious phrase, or an unkind judgment, or a trace of egotism. Face to face, he was the humblest, most willing and patient of listeners, always deferring to the judgment of others in things wherein he did not profess to be a student, and anxious to learn To paraphrase an absurd epigram of Oliver Goldsmith's talk and his books, it might be said of Ruskin that he talked like an angel and wrote as if he were one of the Major Prophets."* These sketches of Ruskin's personal traits would be incomplete as portraiture without the perspective which Ruskin himself furnishes : "Readers should be clearly aware of one peculiarity in the man- ner of my writing in Fors which might otherwise much mislead them: — namely, that if they will enclose in brackets with their pen, passages of evident irony, all the rest of the book is written with absolute seriousness and literalness of meaning. The violence, or grotesque aspect, of a statement may seem as if I were mocking; but this comes mainly of my endeavour to bring the absolute truth out into pure crystalline structure, unmodified by disguise of cus- tom, or obscurity of language ; for the result of that process is con- tinually to reduce the facts into a form so contrary, if theoretical, to our ordinary impressions, and so contrary, if moral, to our ordi- nary practice, that the straightforward statement of them looks like a jest. But every such apparent jest will be found, if you think of it, a pure, very dreadful, and utterly imperious, veracity. "- The apparent contradictions in Ruskin never mean that he was, in the least, insincere ; for no one who knew him, or ever studied his life and work could doubt the transparent honesty of all he said and did. He was not the man to be silent in presence of any evil, real or imaginary. He was prone to lay the ax to the root of the tree, when it once appeared to him as corrupt. Hence he often * Harrison. 2 Fors. Vol. III. Letter xlvii. THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN 17 travelled out of tli« path which the world oame to regard as legiti- mately his. Yet, in doing this, he was always on the side of justice and truth, as he saw them. After graduating at Oxford, Ruskin gave himself but little rest, although he had, several times, been warned by sickness. All his studies were pursued with a purpose and a passion. He was never contented with a mere passive or receptive state of mind which takes in knowledge for its own sake, much less for the sake of 'completing a task. Everything he did bad some purpose in view for which the task was but a preparation. As a thinker, he was absolutely independent, — indifferent to cur- rent opinion and conventionalities. As we have seen, he was gen- tle and kind in his personal contact with men and women, but he was severe in his written attacks upon everything which seemed to him to be false or erroneous, and he was absolutely honest in his criticisms of the work of the most influential people, including his closest friends.* He had