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
But next, as to the inside of the house. Before you got your
power-looms, a woman could always make herself a chemise and
petticoat of bright and pretty appearance. I have seen a Bavarian
peasant-woman at church in Munich, looking a much grander creature,
and more beautifully dressed, than any of the crossed and embroidered
angels in Hesse's high-art frescoes; (which happened to be just above
her, so that I could look from one to the other). Well, here you are,
in England, served by household demons, with five hundred fingers, at
least, weaving, for one that used to weave in the days of Minerva. You
ought to be able to show me five hundred dresses for one that used to
be; tidiness ought to have become five hundred-fold tidier; tapestry
should be increased into cinque-cento-fold iridescence of tapestry. Not
only your peasant-girl ought to be lying on the sofa reading poetry,
but she ought to have in her wardrobe five hundred petticoats instead
of one. Is that, indeed, your issue? or are you only on a curiously
crooked way to it?
It is just possible, indeed, that you may not have been allowed to
get the use of the goblin's work--that other people may have got the
use of it, and you none; because, perhaps, you have not been able to
evoke goblins wholly for your own personal service: but have been
borrowing goblins from the capitalist, and paying interest, in the
"position of William," on ghostly self-going planes; but suppose you
had laid by capital enough, yourselves, to hire all the demons in the
world,--nay,--all that are inside of it; are you quite sure you know
what you might best set them to work at? and what "useful things"
you should command them to make for you? I told you, last month,
that no economist going (whether by steam or ghost) knew what are
useful things and what are not. Very few of you know, yourselves,
except by bitter experience of the want of them. And no demons,
either of iron or spirit, can ever make them.
There are three Material things, not only useful, but essential to
Life. No one "knows how to live" till he has got them.
These are, Pure Air, Water, and Earth.
There are three Immaterial things, not only useful, but essential to
Life. No one knows how to live till he has got them.
These are, Admiration, Hope, and Love. [11]
Admiration--the power of discerning and taking delight in what
is beautiful in visible Form, and lovely in human Character; and,
necessarily, striving to produce what is beautiful in form, and to
become what is lovely in character.
Hope--the recognition, by true Foresight, of better things to
be reached hereafter, whether by ourselves or others; necessarily
issuing in the straightforward and undisappointable effort to advance,
according to our proper power, the gaining of them.
Love, both of family and neighbour, faithful, and satisfied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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