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. IV. GEORGE ALLEN, SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT. 1874. FORS CLAVIGERA. LETTER XXXVII. 1st January, 1874 “Selon la loy, et ly prophetes, Qui a charité parfaicte Il ayme Dieu sur toute rien De cueur, de force, et d’ame nette; Celui devons-nous tous de debte Comme soy-mesmes, son prochain; Qu’on dit qui in ayme, ayme mon chien. De tel pierre, et de tel merrien Est ès cieulx nostre maison faicte Car nulz ne peut dire, ‘c’est mien,’ Fors ce qu’il a mis en ce bien; Tout le remenant est retraicte.” According to the Law and the Prophets, He who has perfect charity, Loves God above everything, With heart, with flesh, and with spirit pure. Him also, our neighbour, we are all in debt To love as ourselves; For one says, Who loves me, loves my dog. Of such stone, and of such crossbeam, Is in the heavens our house made; For no one can say, ‘It is mine,’ Beyond what he has put into that good, All the rest is taken away. One day last November, at Oxford, as I was going in at the private door of the University galleries, to give a lecture on the Fine Arts in Florence, I was hindered for a moment by a nice little girl, whipping a top on the pavement. She was a very nice little girl; and rejoiced wholly in her whip, and top; but could not inflict the reviving chastisement with all the activity that was in her, because she had on a large and dilapidated pair of woman’s shoes, which projected the full length of her own little foot behind it and before; and being securely fastened to her ancles in the manner of mocassins, admitted, indeed, of dextrous glissades, and other modes of progress quite sufficient for ordinary purposes; but not conveniently of all the evolutions proper to the pursuit of a whipping-top.