Fors Clavigera (Volume 1 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 1 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain
Ruskin, John
Aesthetics; Conduct of life; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class -- Great Britain
'Fortitude' means the power of bearing necessary pain, or trial of
patience, whether by time, or temptation.
'Fortune' means the necessary fate of a man: the ordinance of his
life which cannot be changed. To 'make your Fortune' is to rule that
appointed fate to the best ends of which it is capable.
Fors is a feminine word; and Clavigera, is, therefore, the feminine of
'Claviger.'
Clava means a club. Clavis, a key. Clavus, a nail, or a rudder.
Gero means 'I carry.' It is the root of our word 'gesture' (the way
you carry yourself); and, in a curious bye-way, of 'jest.'
Clavigera may mean, therefore, either Club-bearer, Key-bearer,
or Nail-bearer.
Each of these three possible meanings of Clavigera corresponds to
one of the three meanings of Fors.
Fors, the Club-bearer, means the strength of Hercules, or of Deed.
Fors, the Key-bearer, means the strength of Ulysses, or of Patience.
Fors, the Nail-bearer, means the strength of Lycurgus, or of Law.
I will tell you what you may usefully know of those three Greek
persons in a little time. At present, note only of the three powers:
1. That the strength of Hercules is for deed, not misdeed; and that
his club--the favourite weapon, also, of the Athenian hero Theseus,
whose form is the best inheritance left to us by the greatest of Greek
sculptors, (it is in the Elgin room of the British Museum, and I shall
have much to tell you of him--especially how he helped Hercules in
his utmost need, and how he invented mixed vegetable soup)--was for
subduing monsters and cruel persons, and was of olive-wood. 2. That
the Second Fors Clavigera is portress at a gate which she cannot
open till you have waited long; and that her robe is of the colour of
ashes, or dry earth. [2] 3. That the third Fors Clavigera, the power
of Lycurgus, is Royal as well as Legal; and that the notablest crown
yet existing in Europe of any that have been worn by Christian kings,
was--people say--made of a Nail.
That is enough about my title, for this time; now to our work. I
told you, and you will find it true, that, practically, all wages
mean the food and lodging given you by the possessors of the land.
It begins to be asked on many sides how the possessors of the land
became possessed of it, and why they should still possess it, more than
you or I; and Ricardo's 'Theory' of Rent, though, for an economist,
a very creditably ingenious work of fiction, will not much longer be
imagined to explain the 'Practice' of Rent.
The true answer, in this matter, as in all others, is the best. Some
land has been bought; some, won by cultivation: but the greater part,
in Europe, seized originally by force of hand.
You may think, in that case, you would be justified in trying to
seize some yourselves, in the same way.
If you could, you, and your children, would only hold it by the same
title as its present holders. If it is a bad one, you had better not so
hold it; if a good one, you had better let the present holders alone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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