The Pleasures of England: Lectures given in OxfordRuskin, John
General
The Pleasures of England: Lectures given in Oxford
Ruskin, John
England -- Civilization
Without venturing to allude to the _raison d'être_ of the present
French and English Stock Exchanges, I will merely ask any of you here,
whether of Saxon or Norman blood, to define for himself what he means
by the "possession of India." I have no doubt that you all wish to
keep India in order, and in like manner I have assured you that Duke
William wished to keep England in order. If you will read the lecture
on the life of Sir Herbert Edwardes, which I hope to give in London
after finishing this course,[20] you will see how a Christian British
officer can, and does, verily, and with his whole heart, keep in order
such part of India as may be entrusted to him, and in so doing, secure
our Empire. But the silent feeling and practice of the nation about
India is based on quite other motives than Sir Herbert's. Every
mutiny, every danger, every terror, and every crime, occurring under,
or paralyzing, our Indian legislation, arises directly out of our
national desire to live on the loot of India, and the notion always
entertained by English young gentlemen and ladies of good position,
falling in love with each other without immediate prospect of
establishment in Belgrave Square, that they can find in India,
instantly on landing, a bungalow ready furnished with the
loveliest fans, china, and shawls,--ices and sherbet at
command,--four-and-twenty slaves succeeding each other hourly to
swing the punkah, and a regiment with a beautiful band to "keep order"
outside, all round the house.
[Footnote 20: This was prevented by the necessity for the
re-arrangement of my terminal Oxford lectures: I am now preparing that
on Sir Herbert for publication in a somewhat expanded form.]
Entreating your pardon for what may seem rude in these personal
remarks, I will further entreat you to read my account of the death
of Cœur de Lion in the third number of 'Fors Clavigera'--and also the
scenes in 'Ivanhoe' between Cœur de Lion and Locksley; and commending
these few passages to your quiet consideration, I proceed to give you
another anecdote or two of the Normans in Italy, twelve years later
than those given above, and, therefore, only thirteen years before the
battle of Hastings.
Their division of South Italy among them especially, and their defeat
of Venice, had alarmed everybody considerably,--especially the Pope,
Leo IX., who did not understand this manifestation of their piety. He
sent to Henry III. of Germany, to whom he owed his Popedom, for some
German knights, and got five hundred spears; gathered out of all
Apulia, Campania, and the March of Ancona, what Greek and Latin troops
were to be had, to join his own army of the patrimony of St. Peter;
and the holy Pontiff, with this numerous army, but no general, began
the campaign by a pilgrimage with all his troops to Monte Cassino, in
order to obtain, if it might be, St. Benedict for general.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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