My dear——: This is a nobly done piece of work of yours—a fireman's duty in fire of hell; and I would fain help you in all I could, but my way of going at the thing would be from the top down—putting the fire out with the sun, not with vain sprinklings. People would say I wasn't practical, as usual of course; but it seems to me the last thing one should do in the business is to play Lord Angelo, and set bar and door to deluge. Not but I should sift the windows of our Oxford printsellers, if I had my full way in my Art Professorship; but I can't say the tenth part of what I would. I'm in the very gist and main effort of quite other work, and can't get my mind turned to this rightly, for this, in the heart of it, involves—well, to say the whole range of moral philosophy, is nothing; this, in the heart of it, one can't touch unless one knew the moral philosophy of angels also, and what that means, "but are as the angels in heaven." For indeed there is no true conqueror of Lust but Love; and in this beautifully scientific day of the British nation, in which you have no God to love any more, but only an omnipotent coagulation of copulation: in which you have no Law nor King to love any more, but only a competition and a constitution, and the oil of anointing for king and priest used to grease your iron wheels down hill: when you have no country to love any more, but "patriotism is nationally what selfishness is individually,"[140] such the eternally-damned modern view of the matter—the moral syphilis of the entire national blood: and, finally, when you have no true bride and groom to love each other any more, but a girl looking out for a carriage and a man for a position, what have you left on earth to take pleasure in, except theft and adultery?
The two great vices play into each other's hands. Ill-got money is always finally spent on the harlot. Look at Hogarth's two 'prentices; the sum of social wisdom is in that bit of rude art-work, if one reads it solemnly.
[139] The following letters were addressed by Mr. Ruskin to the author of a pamphlet on continence, entitled "The Science of Life." There were two editions of the pamphlet, and of these only the second contained the first and last of these letters, whilst only the first contained the last letter but one. Some passages also in the other letters are omitted in the first edition, and a few slight alterations are made in the second in the letter of February 10.
[140] For further notice by Mr. Ruskin of this maxim, which occurs in Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Study of Sociology," p. 205, see the article on "Home and its Economies" in the Contemporary Review of May, 1873, and "Bibliotheca Pastorum," p. xxxiv.
Hence, if from any place in earth, I ought to be able to send you some words of warning to English youths, for the ruin of this mighty city was all in one word—fornication. Fools who think they can write history will tell you it was "the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope," and the like! Alas it was indeed the covering of every hope she had, in God and his Law.
For indeed, my dear friend, I doubt if you can fight this evil by mere heroism and common-sense. Not many men are heroes; not many are rich in common-sense. They will train for a boat-race; will they for the race of life? For the applause of the pretty girls in blue on the banks; yes. But to win the soul and body of a noble woman for their own forever, will they? Not as things are going, I think, though how or where they are to go or end is to me at present inconceivable.
You think, perhaps, I could help you therefore with a lecture on good taste and Titian? No, not at all; I might with one on politics, but that everybody would say was none of my business. Yet to understand the real meaning of the word "Sire," with respect to the rider as well as the horse, is indeed the basis of all knowledge, in policy, chivalry, and social order.
All that you have advised and exposed is wisely said and bravely told; but no advice, no exposure, will be of use, until the right relation exists again between the father and the mother and their son. To deserve his confidence, to keep it as the chief treasure committed in trust to them by God: to be the father his strength, the mother his sanctification, and both his chosen refuge, through all weakness, evil, danger, and amazement of his young life. My friend, while you still teach in Oxford the "philosophy," forsooth, of that poor cretinous wretch, Stuart Mill, and are endeavoring to open other "careers" to English women than that of the Wife and the Mother, you won't make your men chaste by recommending them to leave off tea.[141]
[141] I have to state that this expression regarding Stuart Mill was not intended for separate publication; and to explain that in a subsequent but unpublished letter Mr. Ruskin explained it to refer to Mill's utter deficiency in the powers of the imagination.—The last words of this letter will be made clearer by noting that the pamphlet dealt with physical, as well as mental, diet.
My dear——: I would say much more, if I thought any one would believe me, of the especial calamity of this time, with respect to the discipline of youth—in having no food any more to offer to their imagination. Military distinction is no more possible by prowess, and the young soldier thinks of the hurdle-race as one of the lists and the field—but the noble temper will not train for that trial with equal joy. Clerical eminence—the bishopric or popular pastorship—may be tempting to men of genial pride or sensitive conceit: but the fierce blood that would have burned into a patriarch, or lashed itself into a saint—what "career" has your modern philosophy to offer to it?
The entire cessation of all employment for the faculty, which, in the best men of former ages, was continually exercised and satisfied in the realization of the presence of Christ with the hosts of Heaven, leaves the part of the brain which it employed absolutely vacant, and ready to suck in, with the avidity of vacuum, whatever pleasantness may be presented to the natural sight in the gas-lighted beauty of pantomimic and casino Paradise.
All these disadvantages, you will say, are inevitable, and need not be dwelt upon. In my own school of St. George I mean to avoid them by simply making the study of Christianity a true piece of intellectual work; my boys shall at least know what their fathers believed, before they make up their own wise minds to disbelieve it. They shall be infidels, if they choose, at thirty; but only students, and very modest ones, at fifteen. But I shall at least ask of modern science so much help as shall enable me to begin to teach them at that age the physical laws relating to their own bodies, openly, thoroughly, and with awe; and of modern civilization, I shall ask so much help as may enable me to teach them what is indeed right, and what wrong, for the citizen of a state of noble humanity to do, and permit to be done, by others, unaccused.
And if you can found two such chairs in Oxford—one, of the Science of Physical Health; the other, of the Law of Human Honor—you need not trim your Horace, nor forbid us our chatty afternoon tea.
I could say ever so much more, of course, if there were only time, or if it would be of any use—about the mis-appliance of the imagination. But really, the essential thing is the founding of real schools of instruction for both boys and girls—first, in domestic medicine and all that it means; and secondly, in the plain moral law of all humanity: "Thou shalt not commit adultery," with all that it means.
Ever most truly yours,
J. Ruskin.
My dear——: Two words more, and an end. I have just re-read the paper throughout. There are two omissions which seem to me to need serious notice.
The first, that the entire code of counsel which you have drawn up, as that which a father should give his son, must be founded on the assumption that, at the proper time of life, the youth will be able, no less than eager, to marry. You ought certainly to point out, incidentally, what in my St. George's work I am teaching primarily, that unless this first economical condition of human society be secured, all props and plasters of its morality will be in vain.
And in the second place, you have spoken too exclusively of Lust, as if it were the normal condition of sexual feeling, and the only one properly to be called sexual. But the great relation of the sexes is Love, not Lust; that is the relation in which "male and female created He them;" putting into them, indeed, to be distinctly restrained to the office of fruitfulness, the brutal passion of Lust: but giving them the spiritual power of Love, that each spirit might be greater and purer by its bond to another associate spirit, in this world, and that which is to come; help-mates, and sharers of each other's joy forever.
Ever most truly yours,
J. Ruskin.
Dear——: I wish I were able to add a few more words, with energy and clearness, to my former letters, respecting a subject of which my best strength—though in great part lately given to it, has not yet enforced the moment—the function, namely, of the arts of music and dancing as leaders and governors of the bodily, and instinctive mental, passions. No nation will ever bring up its youth to be at once refined and pure, till its masters have learned the use of all the arts, and primarily of these; till they again recognize the gulf that separates the Doric and Lydian modes, and perceive the great ordinance of Nature, that the pleasures which, rightly ordered, exalt, discipline, and guide the hearts of men, if abandoned to a reckless and popular Dis-order, as surely degrade, scatter, and deceive alike the passions and intellect.
I observe in the journals of yesterday, announcement that the masters of many of our chief schools are at last desirous of making the elements of Greek art one of the branches of their code of instruction: but that they imagine such elements may be learned from plaster casts of elegant limbs and delicate noses.
They will find that Greek art can only be learned from Greek law, and from the religion which gives law of life to all the nations of the earth. Let our youth once more learn the meaning of the words "music," "chorus," and "hymn" practically; and with the understanding that all such practice, from lowest to highest, is, if rightly done, always in the presence and to the praise of God; and we shall have gone far to shield them in a noble peace and glorious safety from the darkest questions and the foulest sins that have perplexed and consumed the youth of past generations for the last four hundred years.
Have you ever heard the charity children sing in St. Paul's? Suppose we sometimes allowed God the honor of seeing our noble children collected in like manner to sing to Him, what think you might be the effect of such a festival—even if only held once a year—on the national manners and hearts?
Ever faithfully and affectionately yours,
J. Ruskin.
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.