Fors Clavigera (Volume 6 of 8): $b Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 6 of 8): $b 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
And now let my general readers observe, finally, about all reading,—You
must read, for the nourishment of your mind, precisely under the moral
laws which, regulate your eating for the nourishment of the body. That
is to say, you must not eat for the pleasure of eating, nor read, for
the pleasure of reading. But, if you manage yourself rightly, you will
intensely enjoy your dinner, and your book. If you have any sense, you
can easily follow out this analogy: I have not time at present to do it
for you; only be sure it holds, to the minutest particular, with this
difference only, that the vices and virtues of reading are more harmful
on the one side, and higher on the other, as the soul is more precious
than the body. Gluttonous reading is a worse vice than gluttonous
eating; filthy and foul reading, a much more loathsome habit than
filthy eating. Epicurism in books is much more difficult of attainment
than epicurism in meat, but plain and virtuous feeding the most
entirely pleasurable.
And now, one step of farther thought will enable you to settle a great
many questions with one answer.
As you may neither eat, nor read, for the pleasure of eating or
reading, so you may do nothing else for the pleasure of it, but for the
use. The moral difference between a man and a beast is, that the one
acts primarily for use, the other for pleasure. And all acting for
pleasure before use, or instead of use, is, in one word, ‘Fornication.’
That is the accurate meaning of the words ‘harlotry,’ or ‘fornication,’
as used in the Bible, wherever they occur spoken of nations, and
especially in all the passages relating to the great or spiritual
Babylon.
And the Law of God concerning man is, that if he acts for use—that is
to say, as God’s servant;—he shall be rewarded with such pleasure as no
heart can conceive nor tongue tell; only it is revealed by the Spirit,
as that Holy Ghost of life and health possesses us; but if we act for
pleasure instead of use, we shall be punished by such misery as no
heart can conceive nor tongue tell; but which can only be revealed by
the adverse spirit, whose is the power of death. And that—I assure
you—is absolute, inevitable, daily and hourly Fact for us, to the
simplicity of which I to-day invite your scholarly and literary
attention.
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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