Fors Clavigera (Volume 5 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 5 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
Do not let it be supposed that I mean to assert any irregularity or
impropriety in Dick’s profession—I merely assert the necessity for Mr.
Greg’s examination, if he would be master of his subject, of the manner
of Gain in every case, as well as the manner of Expenditure. Such
accounts must always be accurately rendered in a well-regulated
society.
“Le lieutenant adressa la parole au capitaine, et lui dit qu’il venait
d’enlever ces mannequins, remplis de sucre, de cannelle, d’amandes, et
de raisins secs, à un épicier de Bénavente. Après qu’il eut rendu
compte de son expédition au bureau, les dépouilles de l’épicier furent
portées dans l’office. Alors il ne fut plus question que de se réjouir;
je débutai par le buffet, que je parai de plusieurs bouteilles de ce
bon vin que le Seigneur Rolando m’avoit vanté.”
Mr. Greg strictly confines himself to an examination of the benefits
conferred on the public by this so agreeable festivity; but he must not
be surprised or indignant that some inquiry should be made as to the
resulting condition of the épicier de Bénavente.
And it is all the more necessary that such inquiry be instituted, when
the captain of the expedition is a minion, not of the moon, but of the
sun; and dazzling, therefore, to all beholders. “It is heaven which
dictates what I ought to do upon this occasion,” [83] says Henry of
Navarre; “my retreat out of this city, before I have made myself master
of it, will be the retreat of my soul out of my body. Accordingly, all
the quarter which still held out, we forced,” says M. de Rosny; “after
which the inhabitants, finding themselves no longer able to resist,
laid down their arms, and the city was given up to plunder. My good
fortune threw a small iron chest in my way, in which I found about four
thousand gold crowns.”
I cannot doubt that the Baron’s expenditure of this sum would be in the
highest degree advantageous to France, and to the Protestant religion.
But complete economical science must study the effect of its
abstraction on the immediate prosperity of the town of Cahors; and even
beyond this—the mode of its former acquisition by the town itself,
which perhaps, in the economies of the nether world, may have delegated
some of its citizens to the seventh circle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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