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Fors Clavigera (Volume 2 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain — John Shaqi

Fors Clavigera (Volume 2 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John

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Fors Clavigera (Volume 2 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain

Name: Fors Clavigera (Volume 2 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain
Author: Ruskin, John

Ruskin, John

Aesthetics; Conduct of life; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class -- Great Britain

FORS CLAVIGERA.

                                LETTERS

                      TO THE WORKMEN AND LABOURERS
                           OF GREAT BRITAIN.


                                   BY
                          JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D.,
  HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART.


                                Vol. II.


                             GEORGE ALLEN,
                      SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT.
                                 1872.









FORS CLAVIGERA.

LETTER XIII.


My Friends,

                                                      1st January, 1872.

I would wish you a happy New Year, if I thought my wishes likely to be
of the least use. Perhaps, indeed, if your cap of liberty were what
you always take it for, a wishing cap, I might borrow it of you, for
once; and be so much cheered by the chime of its bells, as to wish you
a happy New Year, whether you deserved one or not: which would be the
worst thing I could possibly bring to pass for you. But wishing cap,
belled or silent, you can lend me none; and my wishes having proved,
for the most part, vain for myself, except in making me wretched
till I got rid of them, I will not present you with anything which
I have found to be of so little worth. But if you trust more to any
one else's than mine, let me advise your requesting them to wish that
you may deserve a happy New Year, whether you get one or not.

To some extent, indeed, that way, you are sure to get it: and it
will much help you towards the seeing such way if you would make it
a practice in your talk always to say you "deserve" things, instead
of that you  "have a right" to them. Say that you  "deserve"  a
vote,--"deserve"  so much a day, instead of that you have "a right to"
a vote, etc. The expression is both more accurate and more general;
for if it chanced, which heaven forbid,--but it might be,--that you
deserved a whipping, you would never think of expressing that fact by
saying you "had a right to" a whipping; and if you deserve anything
better than that, why conceal your deserving under the neutral term,
"rights"; as if you never meant to claim more than might be claimed
also by entirely nugatory and worthless persons? Besides, such accurate
use of language will lead you sometimes into reflection on the fact,
that what you deserve, it is not only well for you to get, but certain
that you ultimately will get; and neither less nor more.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Fors Clavigera (Volume 2 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain

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