Graduate Room
TR
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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
GIFT OF MRS.
ROBERT ARCHET WOODS
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
JOHN RUSKIN
Two thousand and sixty-two copies of this edition — of which two thousand are for sale in England and America — have been printed at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh, and the type has been distributed.
LIBRART EDITION
THE WORKS OF
JOHN RUSKIN
EDITED BY
E. T. COOK
AND
ALEXANDER WEDDERBURN
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
NEW YORK : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1908
All rights reserved
Library
TR
LIBRARY EDITION S*f\
C *n
VOLUME XXXIV
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
ON THE OLD ROAD
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
RUSKINIANA
John Ruskin 1882
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
ON THE OLD ROAD
ARROWS OF THE CHACE
RUSKINIANA
BY
JOHN RUSKIN
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
NEW YORK : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1908
CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXXIV
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ......... xxi
INTRODUCTION TO THIS VOLUME ....... xxiii
I. THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (1884)
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ......... 5
TEXT :—
PREFACE .......... 7
LECTURE i. (FEBRUARY 4, 1884) . . . . . . 9
LECTURE ii. (FEBRUARY 11, 1884 : MAINLY NOTES ON LECTURE i.) 42
II. ON THE OLD ROAD
Miscellaneous Essays and Articles, 1871-1888 GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . .85
1. INTRODUCTORY. " MY FIRST EDITOR : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
REMINISCENCE" (1878): — BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 92
TEXT ........... 93
2. "THE RANGE OF INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTION PROPORTIONED TO
THE RANK IN ANIMATED LIFE" (1871): — BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . .106
TEXT ........... 107
3. THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF MIRACLE (1873): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . • .114
TEXT . . . . . . . . . . .115
4. ART SCHOOLS OF MEDIAEVAL CHRISTENDOM : A PREFACE AND
NOTES (1875): — BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . .128
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . .129
NOTES . 130
x CONTENTS
5. RAILWAYS IN THE LAKE DISTRICT (1876): —
PAGE
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE (with two Circulars issued by Rusfcin) . 135
TEXT 137
6. THE THREE COLOURS OF PRE-RAPHAELITISM (1878): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . .146
TEXT . ........ 14-7
7. THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH : LETTERS TO THE
CLERGY (1879):—
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . .179
LETTERS I.-XI. ...... ... 191
EPILOGUE . . . . . . . . . .215
APPENDIX :
1. A LATIN LITANY ........ 231
2. ADDITIONAL LETTERS TO THE REV. F. A. MALLESON , 234
8. A MUSEUM OR PICTURE GALLERY (1880): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 246
TEXT ........... 247
9. FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL (1880, 1881): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ..... ... 264
TEXT :
I. SCOTT (June 1880) 265
II. SCOTT, RYME, AND WORDSWORTH (August 1880) . . 303
HI. BYRON (September 1880) 322
iv. WORDSWORTH AND BYRON (November 1880) . . . 348 v. THE TWO SERVANTS (October 1881) . . . .370
APPENDIX (additional matter from the MS.): —
SOUTHKY AND BYRON ....... 395
SHELLEY AND BYRON ....... 397
10. USURY: A REPLY AND A REJOINDER (1880): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 400
TEXT :
THE BISHOP OF MANCHESTER'S REPLY .... 401 RUSKIN'S REJOINDER 405
CONTENTS xi
11. THE STUDY OF BEAUTY AND ART IN LARGE TOWNS: AN
INTRODUCTION (1883): —
PACK BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . .428
TEXT ........... 429
12. THE ENGLISH SCHOOL OF PAINTING: A PREFACE (1884): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 436
TEXT ........... 437
13. USURY AND THE ENGLISH BISHOPS: AN INTRODUCTION (1885): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 442
TEXT ........... 443
14. THE NATIONAL GALLERY: A PREFACE (1888): —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 450
TEXT . . . . . . . . . . .451
III. ARROWS OF THE CHACE
Scattered Letters in the Neivspapers, etc., 1851-1899 GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ....... 459
AUTHOR'S PREFACE (RouEN, 1880) ....... 469
AUTHOR'S EPILOGUE (AMIENS, 1880) ...... 473
CONTENTS OF THE LETTERS ACCORDING TO SUBJECT .... 475
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : —
HISTORICAL NOMENCLATURE FOR ENGLISH GOTHIC (VENICE, October
1851)- 481
" THE ANIMALS OF SCRIPTURE " :
A LETTER TO THE ARTIST (1854) ..... 483
A REVIEW (January 1855) ...... 483
EDINBURGH CASTLE. TWO LETTERS (ouNBAR, September 14, and
PENRITH, September 27, 1857) 484
THE SALE OF MR. WINDUs's PICTURES (DENMARK HILL, March 28,
1859) 488
COVENTRY PATMORE'S " FAITHFUL FOR EVER " (DENMARK HILL,
October I860) 488
ART-TEACHING BY CORRESPONDENCE (DENMARK HILL, November
I860) 490
xii CONTENTS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : Continued : —
PAGE
PROVERBS ON RIGHT DRESS (GENEVA, October 20, 1862) . . 491
OAK SILKWORMS (GENEVA, October 20, 1862) .... 49S
TURNER AND CLAUDE (GENEVA, February 16, 1863) . . . 493 "THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE." TWO LETTERS (November 20
and December 15, 1866) . ..... 494
TO AN AUTOGRAPH COLLECTOR (DENMARK HILL, June 20, 1867) . 495
AN OBJECT OF CHARITY (DENMARK HILL, January 21, 1868) . 495
TRUE EDUCATION (DENMARK HILL, January 31, 1868) . . 496
USURY AND THE JEWS (DENMARK HILL, August 12, 1868) . . 497
GERALD MASSEY'S POEMS (1869). ...... 497
THE MORALITY OF FIELD SPORTS (DENMARK HILL, January 14, 1870) 498
FEMALE FRANCHISE (VENICE, May 29, 1870) .... 499 THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. TWO LETTERS (DENMARK HILL, OctO-
ber 6 and 7, 1870) 499
SAD-COLOURED COSTUMES (DENMARK HILL, October 14, 1870) . 502
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS (January 1871) . . . . . 503
COMING CATASTROPHE (1871) . • . . . . . 504
"THE QUEEN OF THE AIR" (May 18, 1871) .... 504
THE BLIND (DENMARK HILL, September 2, 1871) . . . 505
"FORS CLAVIGERA" (MELROSE, September 24, 1871) . . . 505
DRUNKENNESS AND CRIME (DENMARK HILL, December 11, 1871) . 505
CASTLES AND KENNELS (DENMARK HILL, December 20, 1871) . 506
VERONA v. WARWICK (DENMARK HILL, December 24, 1871) . . 507
TO THE AUTHOR OF A REVIEW (OXFORD, October 30, 1872) . 508 "ACT, ACT, IN THE LIVING PRESENT" (OXFORD, December 24,
1872) 508
WOMAN'S WORK (May 1873) ....... 509
TURNER'S "WINDMILL AND LOCK" (December 13, 1873) . . 510 TO THE DERBY SCHOOL OF ART (OXFORD, December 1873) . .510
"LABORARE EST ORARE" (OXFORD, December 1873) . . . 512
RAPHAEL FOR LIVERPOOL (OXFORD, December 31, 1873) . . 512
THE GOLD MEDAL OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS.
TWO LETTERS (ROME, May 20, and ASSISI, June 12, 1874). 513 THE VALUE OF LECTURES (ROME, May 26, 1874) . . .517
THE SLADE PROFESSORSHIP (OXFORD, 1874) . . . .518
THE POSITION OF CRITICS (BRANTWooo, January 18, 1875) . 518
THE PUBLICATION OF BOOKS (OXFORD, June 6, 1875) . . . 519
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY (OXFORD, June 18, 1875) . . . 520
CONTENTS xiii
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : Continued ; —
PAGE
ART AND SMOKE (February 18, 1876) 521
BLAKE'S POEMS (BRANTWOOD, May 8, 1876) . . . .521
MODERN WARFARE (1876) ........ 522
"A GENTLE SCHOLAR" (VENICE, November 13, 1876) . . 525
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHIVALRY. FIVE LETTERS (VENICE, February
8, 10, 11, and 12, 1877; and MALHAM, July 3, 1878) . 526
MODERN RESTORATION ( VENICE, April 15, 1877) . . .531
RIBBESFORD CHURCH (BRANTWOOD, July 24, 1877) . . . 531
THE TEACHING OF SINGING (1877) 532
THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY (October 10, 1877) . . . 533
LIFE IN GLASGOW (OXFORD, December 1877) .... 534
A PAGAN MESSAGE (KERNE HILL, December 19, 1877) . . 534
NOTES ON A WORD IN SHAKESPEARE. TWO LETTERS (BRANTWOOD,
n.d., and EDINBURGH, September 29, 1878) . . . 535 SHEPHERD'S "BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUSKIN." TWO LETTERS (BRANT- WOOD, September 30, and October 23, 1878) . . . 537 TURNER'S "LIBER STUDIORUM " (BRANTWOOD, November 14, 1878) 538 THE SOCIETY OF THE ROSE (February 1, 1879) .... 539
THE READING OF NONSENSE (May 3, 1879) .... 540
BLINDNESS AND SIGHT (flRANTWOOD, July 18, 1879) . • . 540
"THE EAGLE'S NEST" (BRANTWOOD, August 17, 1879) • • 541 POLITICS IN YOUTH (SHEFFIELD, October 19, 1879) . • .541
ON THE PURCHASE OF PICTURES (January 1880) . . . 542
THE PERFECTION OF PRINTING (1880) ..... 543
TRUE NEWS OF GOOD (AMIENS, October 26, 1880) . . . 543
THE CERTAINTY OF REVOLUTION (January 8, 1880) . . . 544
WHISTLER v. RUSKIN (BRANTWOOD, January 24, 1880) . . 544
IRVING'S "MERCHANT OF VENICE" (February 6, 1880) . . 545
RECITATIONS (SHEFFIELD, February 16, 1880) .... 545
RUSKIN'S TEACHING (BRANTWOOD, June 7, 1880) . . . 546
THE LORD RECTORSHIP OF GLASGOW UNIVERSITY. FIVE LETTERS
(BRANTWOOD, June 10, June 13, June 24; ROUEN, September
28; BRANTWOOD, n.d., 1880) 547
DRAMATIC REFORM. TWO LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, July 30, and
AMIENS, October 12, 1880) 549
"THE QUEEN OF THE AIR" (1880) ...... 551
A "CHESTERFIELD" LETTER. TWO LETTERS (HERNE HILL, Novem- ber 15 and 19, 1880) .551
xiv CONTENTS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : Continued : —
PAGE
COUNSEL TO YOUNG SCOTS (BRANTWOOD, January 1, 1881). . 553
A DRAWING LESSON (1881 ?)....... 554
WOOD-CARVING. TWO LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, February 18, 1881,
and HERNE HILL, December 5, 1882) .... 555
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION (BRANTWOOD, May 23, 1881) . . 556
THE SHORES OF CONISTON (BRANTWOOD, May 27, 1881) . . 557
SHORT WORDS AND LONG (BRANTWOOD, July 1, 1881) . . 558
GEORGE ELIOT (BRANTWOOD, October 2, 1881) . . . . 558
NURSERIES (BRANTWOOD, November 23, 1881) .... 559
THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY (BRANTWOOD, February 1882) . 560
JUMBO AT THE zoo (HERNE HILL, February 23, 1882) . . 560
A MEDAL FROM THE PRINCE OF MANTUA (HERNE HILL, April 2,
1882) 561
PHOTOGRAPHS (April 30, 1882) 562
EMERSON (BRANTWOOD, February 9» 1883) .... 563
TO THE SALTAIRE SALT SCHOOLS (1883) ..... 56*3
THE BUNNEY MEMORIAL FUND (BRANTWOOD, August 10, 1883) . 563
SEA PICTURES (1883) ........ 564
SYDNEY SMITH (OXFORD, November 15, 1883) .... 564 A PENNYWORTH OF THOUGHTS (BRANTWOOD, December 30,
1883) 565
MR. HENRY GEORGE AND LAND REFORM (BRANTWOOD, December 31,
1883) 565
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. TWO LETTERS (January 1884) . . . 565
PAINTING AND MUSIC (HERNE HILL, February 10, 1884) . . 567
A NEWLY DISCOVERED TURNER (February 1884) .... 567
"THE CHURCH REFORMER" (February 1884) .... 567
RAILWAYS IN DERBYSHIRE. THREE LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, April 2,
7, and 13, 1884) 568
BILLIARDS (BRANTWOOD, June 1884) ...... 572
RULES OF PERSPECTIVE (June 4, 1884) ..... 573
AMATEUR CHESS. FOUR LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, June 25, July 2,
4, 1884; and HERNE HILL, Whit Monday, 1885) . . 573
ART CRITICISM (October 1884) 576
CHEAP BOOKS (OXFORD, November 4, 1884) .... 576
STIPPLING (BRANTWOOD, December 16, 1884) .... 577
"WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE" (January 24, 1885) . . . 577
GORDON AND THE SOUDAN (BRANTWOOD, February 19, 1885) . 578
CONTENTS xv
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : Continued : —
PAGE
GORDON AND CARLYLE (BRANTWOOD, February 24, 1885) . . 579
USURY AND INTEREST (BRANTWOOD, March 10, 1885) . . 579
THE DESTRUCTION OF FOOTPATHS (BRANTWOOD, March 25, 1885) 580
MODERN ENGLISH SPORTS (cHISLEHURST, June 5, 1885) . . 580
THE IRISH QUESTION (BRANTWOOD, January 4, 1886) . . .581
THE BEST HUNDRED BOOKS. THREE LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, January
13, and February, 1886) 582
ADVICE TO A READER (1886) ....... 589
"MR. RUSKIN'S VIEWS" (BRANTAVOOD, January 16, 1886) . . 589
MODERN EDUCATION (BRANTWOOD, March l6, 1886) . . . 590
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY RESULTS (BRANTWOOD, March 24, 1 886) . 590
THE LIFE OF ST. PATRICK (BRANTWOOD, April 2, 1886) . . 592
KEEPING ONE'S MONEY (BRANTWOOD, April 20, 1886) . . 593
WASTING IT (BRANTWOOD, May 18, 1886) ..... 593
THE BIBLE (BRANTWOOD, St. Mark's Day, April 25, 1886) . 593
A CHRISTIAN'S DUTY (BRANTWOOD, May 6, 1886) . . . 594
THE CRIME OF DEBT. TWO LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, May l.Q and
June 14, 1886) 594
DARWINISM (BRANTWOOD, May 24, 1886) ..... 595
NATIONAL PENANCE (BRANTWOOD, May 29, 1886) . . . 596
A POLITICAL IDEAL (BRANTWOOD, June 26, 1886) . . . 597
UNOBJECTIONABLE THEFT (BRANTWOOD, June 27, 1886) . . 597
RUSKIN'S ILLNESSES (BRANTWOOD, November 6, 1886) . . . 598
THE CHANCES OF REFORM (BRANTWOOD, November 23, 1886) . 598
THE ABOLITION OF RENT (BRANTWOOD, December 11, 1886) . 599
TO A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN (BRANTWOOD, December 28, 1886) . 599
PICTURES FOR THE POOR (1886?) ...... 600
LIFE ASSURANCE (BRANTWOOD, January 6, 1887) . . . 600 LEADERSHIP (BRANTWOOD, January 7, 1887) . . . .601
HOME RULE (BRANTWOOD, January 16, 1887) .... 602
ART IN MANCHESTER (BRANTWOOD, February 2, 1887) . . 602
THE AMBLESIDE RAILWAY. TWO LETTERS (BRANTWOOD, March 1,
1887) 603
THE LAKE DISTRICT (BRANTWOOD, March 19, 1887) . . . 604 THE BUSINESS OF UNIVERSITIES (BRANTWOOD, March 14, 1887) . 605 " BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME." TWO LETTERS (BRANT- WOOD, May 14 and June 3, 1887) 605
SCOTT AND SCOTSMEN (BRANTWOOD, Whit Tuesday, 1887) . . 606
xvi CONTENTS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF LETTERS : Continued : —
PAGE THE FUNCTION OF THE " PALL MALL GAZETTE " (BRANTWOOD,
June 6, 1887) 607
CHARLES KINGSLEY (BRANTWOOD, 1887) ..... 60Q "AT WHAT AGE SHOULD A MAN MARRY " (1887) . . . 609
CHEAP BOOKS (BRANTWOOD, 1887) . . . . . . 6lO
OLD FOLKESTONE (FOLKESTONE, September 30, 1887) . . .610
MODERN SELFISHNESS (1887) . . . . . . . 6ll
AN EARTHQUAKE AT FLORENCE (sANDGATE, November 18, 1887) . 6ll THE TRAFALGAR SQUARE RIOTS (TRAFALGAR SQUARE, December 7,
1887) 612
CHARLES DICKENS (SANDGATE, January 4, 1888) . . .612
CEASING TO BE ENGLISH (SANDGATE, January 9> 1888) . .613 NOVELS AND THEIR ENDINGS (SANDGATE, January 15, 1888) . 6l4 RUSKIN AND HIS TRANSLATORS (SANDGATE, January 25, 1888) . 6l5
A NOTE FROM HIS SECRETARY (1896) ..... 6l6 n.
WELSH SCENERY (SANDGATE, February 27, 1888) . • . .6l6 THE SCENERY OF SCOTT (February 1888) ..... 6l6
BICYCLES (1888) 617
JOURNALISM (1888) . . . . . . . . .617
THE ALPS (BRANTWOOD, March 21, 1889) ..... 617
RUSKIN'S CREED (1889?) • • • • • • • .618
" FROM THE AUTHOR OF ' MUNERA PULVERIS ' " (BRANTWOOD,
May 28, 1889) 618
ST. GEORGE'S FARMS (BRANTWOOD, May 29, 1889) • • • 619
THE WELSH LANGUAGE (1889) ....... 620
ICELANDIC INDUSTRIES (1890) ....... 620
THE FALLS OF FOYERS (BRANTWOOD, August 31, 1895) . .621
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL (BRANTWOOD, December 17, 1896) . 621
RUSKIN HALL (BRANTWOOD, March 1, 1899) .... 622
. IV. RUSKINIANA
ADDRESSES : —
Lectures at Eton: —
THE WING OF THE SWALLOW (May 10, 1873) . . .627 THE BEAK OF THE CHOUGH (May 1 7, 1873) .... 628 THE SPANISH CHAPEL AT FLORENCE (November 27. 1875) . 628 STREAMS OF WESTMORLAND (December 8, 1877) . . . 630
CONTENTS xvii
ADDRESSES : Continued : —
PAGE
PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS (July 1877) . . . 631
A CHRISTMAS GREETING (CONISTON, 1881) . . . . . 632
THE ARUNDEL SOCIETY (1878 AND 1882) ..... 634
TO "ACADEMY GIRLS" (February 1884) ..... 639
VIVISECTION (December 1884) ....... 643
EPITAPHS : —
ON H.R.H. THE DUKE OF ALBANY (1884) ..... 647
ON THE REV. OSBORNE GORDON (1885) ..... 647
CIRCULARS, NOTICES, ETC. : —
EXCUSES FROM CORRESPONDENCE (1858, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1886) 651
AN OXFORD PROTEST (1874) ....... 653
AN APOLOGY AT A CONCERT (CONISTON, December 3, 1880) . 653
A CHARITABLE APPEAL (CONISTON, 1884) ..... 654
PICTURES FOR JUDGMENT (OXFORD, 1884) ..... 655
CONVERSATIONS : —
WITH SPURGEON (1858, etc.) ....... 659
WITH HOLMAN HUNT IN THE SCUOLA DI SAN ROCCO (1869 ) . 66l
IN AN OXFORD DRAWING-ROOM ....... 663
WITH JOWETT AT BRANTWOOD (1883) ..... 664
WITH M. H. SPIELMANN AT BRANTWOOD (1884) . . . . 665
AT FARNLEY (1884) 670
AT SANDGATE WITH AN AMERICAN VISITOR (1887) . . . 671
AT BRANTWOOD WITH AMERICAN VISITORS ..... 673
AT SALLENCHES (1888) ........ 674
FROM RUSKIN'S NOTE-BOOKS : —
I. NOTES ON THE BIBLE : —
1. CONDUCT AND FAITH (1856, 1858, 1859) =—
(i.) IN THE OLD TESTAMENT ..... 679
(ii.) AS SPOKEN OF BY CHRIST ..... 680
2. THE MINOR PROPHETS (1882) ..... 684
II. NOTES ON THE CLASSICS: —
1. THE "PLUTUS" OF ARISTOPHANES (1858) . . . 688
2. THE ODES OF HORACE ....... 690
XXXIV. b
xviii CONTENTS
RUSKIN'S LIBRARY AND MARGINALIA : —
PAGE
RUSKIN'S LIBRARY ......... 69?
MARGINALIA : —
A BOOK OF LESSONS IN GREEK ....... 70S
IN A BIRTHDAY BOOK ........ 705
FITZGERALD'S " OMAR KHAYYAM "...... 705
JOWETT'S PLATO ("REPUBLIC," ix.) . . . . . . 706
"MEMOIR OF DR. JOHN FOTHERGILL" ..... 706
ON MILL'S "LIBERTY" ........ 707
ON MILL'S " POLITICAL ECONOMY "...... 708
REJECTED BOOKS ......... 709
ANECDOTA, ETC. : — Personalia : —
HOW RUSKIN WROTE ......... 713
GRAMMAR . . . . . . . . . .713
RUSKIN AND TYPOGRAPHY (WITH SOME LETTERS) . . .713
AUTHOR AND PRINTERS (WITH SOME LETTERS) . . . .715
AS CHILDREN'S FRIEND (WITH SOME LETTERS) . . . . 7l6
MASTER AND SERVANT (WITH A LETTER) . . . . .717
RUSKIN AND THE BRICKLAYER . . . . . . .719
AS ENGINEER: A MEMORIAL AT FULKING ..... 719
A DAY ON DERWENTWATER . . . . . .719
A DRAWING OF A FEATHER J AND BUTTERFLIES .... 720
A LESSON AT THE WORKING MEN*S COLLEGE . . . .720
A GARDEN PARTY AT MISS INGELOw's ...... 720
TOBACCO ........... 721
AN OLD COLLIER . . . . . . . . .721
RUSKIN AND CARLYLE . . . . . . . .721
RUSKIN AND FREDERIC HARRISON ...... 722
THE EAGLE'S EYE ......... 722
THE BRANTWOOD POST-BAG ....... 722
RUSKIN'S GOOD-BYE ......... 722
Obiter Dicta : —
ARCHITECTURAL ORNAMENT ....... 723
ART, IMMORTALITY, AND NATURE ...... 723
" BELIEVING " AND " KNOWING " ...... 723
BOOKS FOR GIRLS ......... 723
CATS IN HEAVEN . . . 723
CONTENTS xix
Obiter Dicta : Continued : —
PAGE
CORY'S "IONICA" . . . . . . . . . 723
THE ETHICS OF " EXPERTISING " ...... 724
THE GUIDES OF LONDON . . . . . . . .724
A PICTURE BY HOGARTH . . . . . . . .724
HOW MUCH DID SHAKESPEARE MEAN ? . . . . . . 724
HOW TO BECOME AN ARTIST . . . . . . . 724
VICTOR HUGO .......... 724
IMMORTALITY .......... 724
KEBLE COLLEGE, OXFORD ........ 725
THE LEEDS TOWN HALL ........ 725
"RUSKIN ON LUINI AT LUGANO" ..... 725
MODERN WARFARE ......... 725
NOTES ON TURNER'S "LIBER STUDIORUM " ..... 725
SARAH GRAND'S "IDEALA" ... ... 726
SCOTT'S MANUSCRIPTS ..... ... 726
THE ART OF MISQUOTATION ....... 726
THE " PRETTIEST THING IN NATURE " ..... 727
THE TRUE KNIGHT ......... 727
THE TRUE LADY ......... 727
WALT WHITMAN ......... 727
WORK AND RHYME ......... 727
"UNTO THIS LAST" ......... 727
Miscellanea : —
A GHOST STORY ......... 728
A JAPANESE VIEW OF RUSKIN ....... 728
PIRATED RUSKINS ......... 728
RUSKIN AND TURNER ........ 728
TOLSTOY ON RUSKIN ......... 729
RUSKIN'S NAME ON GIOTTO'S TOWER ...... 729
COMPLIMENTARY ADDRESSES TO RUSKIN : —
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........ 732
ON HIS RECOVERY FROM ILLNESS (Christmas 1885) . . . 733 ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY (February 1899) : —
(i.) FROM MEMBERS OF VARIOUS SOCIETIES .... 734
(ii.) FROM MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD . . 735
xx CONTENTS
THIS VOLUME ALSO CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING MINOR RUSKINIANA NOT INCLUDED IN THE ABOVE LlSTS :
PAGE
LETTER TO HIS FATHER ox GOTHIC NOMENCLATURE (VENICE, OCTOBER 19,
1851) 481
HANS ANDERSEN : EXTRACT FROM RUSKIN'S DIARY (Si. LAURENT, SEPTEM- BER 8, 1856) 585
LETTER TO HIS FATHER (MORNEX, FEBRUARY 21, 1863) .... 662 ON WOMEN'S SPHERE : LETTER TO Miss EMILY FAITHFULL (FEBRUARY 1871) 499
LETTERS TO HIS PRINTERS : —
TO MR. CHESTER (OCTOBER 22, 1871) 716
TO MR. JOWETT (VARIOUS DATES) 714, 715
" RAILWAYS IN THE LAKE DISTRICT " : LETTERS TO MR. R. SOMERVELL
(JUNE 1876) xxvi
" INTEGER VIT^E " : EXTRACT FROM RUSKIN'S DIARY (VENICE, DECEMBER 31,
1876) 691
LETTER TO EDWARD BURXE-JONES (BRANTWOOD, NOVEMBER 2, 1878) . 152
LETTERS ON THE TITLE "ARROWS OF THE CHACE" (1880): —
TO MR. ALLEN (MARCH 21)
TO MR. WEDDERBUHN (APRIL 14, 16, 22 J MAY 4, 14, 19 ; AUGUST 5)
"FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL": A LETTER TO MR. G. ALLEN (MAY 18,
1880) xxxv
A SUNSET : EXTRACT FROM RUSKIN'S DIARY (BRANTWOOD, AUGUST 6, 1880) 23
THE "CHESTERFIELD LETTER": A DISCLAIMER (HERNE HILL, NOVEM- BER 13, 1880) 552
LETTER TO THE AUTHOR OF "THE ETHICS OF LOVE" (1881) . . . 527
GLASGOW AND ART : A LETTER (JANUARY 1882) 534
LETTER TO G. BIRKBECK HILL (DECEMBER 7, 1883) 12
LETTERS TO Miss GERALDIXE BATEMAN (1883) 716, 717
THE STAGE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION : A LETTER (1888) .... 549
LETTER TO HIS COACHMAX 718
LETTERS IN REPLY TO AUTOGRAPH COLLECTORS 495
REMINISCENCES OF RUSKIN : —
BY THE REV. F. A. MALLESOX 216
ON SCOTT'S NOVELS : BY MR. WEDDERBURN 284
THE XATIOXAL GALLERY REVISITED : BY MR. COOK (1888) . . . 453
ON MR. AND MRS. CARLYLE : BY MRS. L. ALLEN BARKER . . 671
PLATES
RUSKIN AT HIS DESK, 1883 (Photogravure from a photo- graph by H. R. Barraud) ..... Frontispiece
(Woodcuts by J. D. Cooper, after dratvings by Ruskiri) PLATE
((Fig. 1) A SUNSET AT ABBEVILLE, 1868. . To face page 22
{(Fig. 2) AN AUGUST SKY AT BRANTWOOD, 1880 . „ „ 22
(PRINTED IN THE TEXT, Fig. 3.) TWILIGHT BETWEEN
VERONA AND BRESCIA, 1845 ..... Page 28
'(Fig. 4) A JULY THUNDER-CLOUD IN THE VAL
D'AOSTA, 1858 . . . . . . To face page 40
\(Fig. 5) AN OLD-FASHIONED SUNSET : HERNE HILL,
1876 40
III. WARWICK CASTLE, 1847 (Photogravure from a sepia
drawing by Ruskin) ......„„ 506
IV. STUDIES IN GROTESQUE (Photogravure from an etched plate by George Cruikshank after drawings by Raskin) ........... 566
V. WATENDLATH TARN, 1838 (Photogravure from a
pencil drawing by Ruskin) . . . „ „ 604
VI. OLD FOLKESTONE, 1849 (Photogravure from a pen
and sepia drawing by Ruskin) . . . . ,, ,, 6lO
VII. THE MADONNA AND CHILD (Photograiwe from a photograph of the piece by Luca della Robbia at Brantwood) . . . ' . . . „ „ 666
xxii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACSIMILES
A PAGE OF THE MS. OF " THE THREE COLOURS OF PRE-
RAPHAELITISM " (§§ 18, 19) .... Between pp. 166, 167
A PAGE OF THE MS. (FIRST DRAFT) OF " FICTION, FAIR
AND FOUL" (§43) „ 312, 313
A PAGE OF THE MS. OF THE PREFACE TO " ARROWS OF
THE CHACE" ......... 470,471
FIRST DRAFT OF A LETTER ON "THE MORALITY OF
FIELD SPORTS" (January 14, 1870) „ 498, 499
FIRST DRAFT OF A LETTER ON "THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN
WAR" (October 7, 1870) To face p. 501
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK'S LIST OF THE BEST HUNDRED BOOKS
" BLOTTESQUELY " AMENDED BY RuSKIN .... Page 583
A PAGE OF THE GREEK GOSPELS, WITH ANNOTATIONS BY
RUSKIN To face p. 703
Note. — The drawings by Ruskin given in this volume have not hitherto appeared. For Figs. 1-5, see p. xxvii. The facsimile of the " Page of the Greek Gospels" appeared in W. G. Collingwood's Rutkin Relics, 1903, p. 201.
INTRODUCTION TO VOL. XXXIV
THIS volume contains (I.) the lectures of 1884 upon The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century, held over for reasons of space from the last volume. (II.) Such of Ruskin's scattered pieces, and (III.) letters to the press, as have not been given in previous volumes, together with (IV.) various Ruskiniana. For the second and third Parts of the volume, the titles have been retained Avhich Ruskin chose for similar collections published in his lifetime — On the Old Road and Arrows of the Chace. In each case, however, the present collection contains some matter which was not included, and omits some which was included, in the books thus entitled. It omits much, because many of the scattered pieces and letters have, in the chronological arrangement of this edition, been already given in previous volumes. It includes much which appeared (or was traced) subsequently to the publication of On the Old Road in 1885 and of Arrows of the Chace in 1880. Full particulars on these matters will be found in the Bibliographical Notes (pp. 88, 462).
"THE STORM-CLOUD"
In the Appendix to his Oxford lectures on The Art of England, Ruskin, being released from his self-imposed restraint,1 mixed a little vinegar with the oil ; and in the course of general reflections on the deficiencies of that Art, laid some of the blame upon the atmospheric conditions in which modern landscape-painters live.2 These remarks bring us to the first Part of this volume, containing the lectures which Ruskin gave at the London Institution in February 1884 on "The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century." In reading these lectures, it is well to distinguish Ruskin's account of phenomena from any theory of their cause. At the time when he first published the lectures,
1 See Vol. XXXIII. p. Ixviii.
2 Ibid., pp. 397 *eq.
xxiv INTRODUCTION
they encountered much ridicule. He had not clearly propounded any theory, or at any rate not any physical theory, of the phenomena in question. He contented himself with ascribing them to the Devil ; and, wrapping himself as it were in the gloom, the Prophet denounced woe upon a wicked and perverse generation.1 There was, as we shall presently see, a perfectly sober, solid, material, and accurate sense in which Ruskin's words were true. But he was not fully conscious of it himself, or he did not choose to make it explicit; and his readers, not penetrating to the true cause, were led by Ruskin's prophecies of woe to throw doubt and derision even upon the phenomena on which he based them. The newspapers, as he says in his Preface, " scouted his assertion of radical change, during recent years, in weather aspect as imaginary or insane" (p. 7).
Nothing could be worse-founded than such criticism. Ruskin was before all things a close and accurate observer of natural phenomena. For fifty years, he says, he had made patient and accurately recorded observations of the sky. Every reader of this edition of his Works now knows how true this assertion was. Few men have ever studied so many sunsets, and perhaps no man has ever studied so many sunrises, as Ruskin. He saw them and he did not let them go; he " kept them bottled,'1 as he said in an aside in the lecture, " like his father's sherries " 2 — bottled in minute descriptions in his diary, or memoranda in his sketch-books. It was in 1871 that he " first recog- nized the clouds brought by the plague-wind as distinct in character." The observation was noted in Fors, and is repeated in The Storm- Cloud (p. 32). From that time forward, he says, his attention "never relaxed in its record of the phenomena." His diaries are full of it and many notes upon it occur in his books.8
It is interesting to find that another artist-observer, who had also been in the habit for many years of noting cloud-phenomena, had been
1 In this connexion, Ruskin's notes on the Minor Prophets may be compared : see below, pp. 685, 686 (Nos. 6 and 22).
2 Quoted from a notice of the lecture in the Pall Mall Gazette, February 5, 1884. Compare Vol. VII. p. xxvi.
3 See Fors, Letter 53, May 1875 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 317), and General Index. The extracts from his diary in The Storm-Cloud are as follow : —
Bolton, July 4, 1875 page 30
Coniston, June 22, 1876 36
June 25-6, 1876 July 16, 1876 Aug. 13, 1879 Aug. 17, 1879 Aug. 6, 1880 Sallenches, Sept. 11, 1882 Coniston, Feb. 22, 1883
35 36 37
38 23 n.
70 38
INTRODUCTION xxv
struck, as Ruskin was, by "the storm-cloud of the nineteenth century.11 Mr. G. D. Leslie, R.A., in his pleasant volume of country notes, thus wrote : —
" No doubt you have read the two lectures by Professor Ruskin which he entitles 'The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century.' In them is described, in the most wonderfully accurate manner, that sort of blight of bad weather which seems to have fallen upon us in these latter days. His description of what he calls the plague, or devil, wind is singularly correct ; its character, persistence, and effects being dwelt on with that marvellous power of language for which he is so famous. One thing which he points out as characteristic of this wind is that its baneful nature does not seem to be influenced by the quarter from which it blows. Most of us can remember when an east wind was dry and cold, a south wind warm and wet, a west wind bright and clear, and a north wind bright and cold, but now we seem to have dark, cold winds persistently recurring from all quarters alike. The Professor allows that there are intervals of fine and even lovely weather, but the phenomena is in the ever-returning spells of this plague wind. A few years ago this wind was of a damp and rainy character, but certainly during this year and the last it has been one of cold and drought. In all years it has been attended with darkness and gloom ; the clouds being, as he describes them, of paltry shapelessness. I have been noting in my diary for the last two years the state of the weather, and find that the wind in question has been blowing with its curiously pertinacious character almost entirely from the north and north-east. Even when, in the winter, we had the wind from the south, it was not accom- panied by warmth or rain, some of the severest frosts having taken place when the wind was south. I have waited in vain for any explanations, or even recognition, from the meteorological experts of this singular state of affairs. These gentlemen would, of course, pay little attention to Mr. Ruskin's lectures, regarding them, no doubt, as unworthy of any serious scientific consideration ; but for all that I am convinced, from my own experiences, the Professor never wrote anything that was more true in fact and description."
And, again, a few days later : —
" I have been particularly struck with the colourless aspect of the north-east wind lately; there is always a white haze or glare round the sun, which seems to bleach its rays, and when a few thin beggarly clouds pass over, it appears, as the Professor so happily expresses it, exactly like a bad half-crown at the bottom of a basin of soap-suds." *
1 Letters to Marco, by G. D. Leslie, R.A., 1893, pp. 201-203, 209-210.
xxvi INTRODUCTION
Ruskirfs observations of the phenomena of " the storm-cloud " were, then, perfectly accurate. Nor is there any mystery about their origin. The Devil is every bit as black as Ruskin painted him ; he is Smoke — smoke, mixed with damp. " Air currents meet the gaseous products of combustion, mixed with minute material particles, and are hindered or diverted in their course thereby, and move forward, dirty, irregular, and scattered. It would appear as though the upper air did not always have time to become cleansed each day from the gases and carbon which rise into it; there is not enough free space at hand, and an unclean atmosphere blocks what was once the serene expanse of the sky." The writer from whose recent work on the subject I am quot- ing,1 adds that industrial statistics fully bear out the date which Ruskin fixes for the growth of the phenomena in question; the storm- cloud thickened just when the consumption of coal went up by leaps and bounds, both in this country and in the industrialised parts of central Europe. The distance which the blight of the plague-wind will travel is very great. " On Coronation Night," Mr. Collingwood has recorded,2 " I saw it trailing from Barrow and Carnforth up the Lime valley as far as Tebay, always low and level, leaving the upper hills clear, perfectly continuous and distinct from the mist of water. This winter (1903), from the top of Wetherlam on a brilliant frosty day, I saw it gradually invade the Lake District from the south-east; the horizontal, clean-cut upper surface at about 2000 feet; the body of it dun and semi-transparent; its thick veil fouling the little cotton-woolly clouds that nestled in the cover of the Kirkstone group, quite separate from the smoke-pall; and by sunset it had reached to Dungeon Gill, leaving the Bow Fell valleys clear. Coming down by moonlight, I found the dales in a dry, cold fog, and heard that there had been* no sunshine at Coniston that afternoon." Ruskin, as the conclusion of his lectures, says that the plague-wind and the storm-cloud will only be removed when men sincerely pray that " God may be merciful unto us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us." The investigations of meteorologists and economists confirm his words ; it is the Devil of Smoke that needs to be exorcised, if the earth is to yield her increase.
The text of The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century here given follows that of the first (and hitherto only) edition. But the sections have now been numbered ; and in Lecture II., which consisted largely of Notes on Lecture I., the necessary references have been inserted.
1 The Destruction of Daylight : a Study in the Smoke Problem, by J. W. Graham, Principal of Dalton Hall, University of Manchester (George Allen, 1907).
2 Ruskin Belies, p. 56. Compare Graham, p. 13.
INTRODUCTION xxvii
The manuscript and corrected proofs of the greater part of The Storm-Cloud are at Brant wood.
A comparison of these with the final text reveals Ruskin's usual care in revision. A few notes are added from the MS. (see, e.g., pp. 9, 20).
The illustrations, now included in the lecture, are reprinted from the report of it in the Art Journal. The lecture itself had been illus- trated by coloured enlargements from Buskin's sketches, which were thrown on a screen by the lime-light. Some of the enlargements were made for him by Mr. Arthur Severn (§ 26); others, by Mr. Colling- wood (§ 40). " Such colours ! such brushes ! such — everything — wait- ing ! " Ruskin had written to his aide-de-camp, who was set to work with Messrs. Newman's extra-luminous water-colours.1 For the abstract of the lecture (by Mr. Wedderburn) in the Art Journal, woodcuts were made by Mr. J. D- Cooper from the drawings, and these are here included (Plates I. and II. and Fig. 3).
"ON THE OLD ROAD"
Under this title, Ruskin's miscellanies were collected and edited for him by Mr. Wedderburn in 1885. It was "A Collection of Mis- cellaneous Essays, Pamphlets, etc., published 1834-1885," and a large number of the miscellanies belonged to Ruskin's earlier periods of literary activity. These earlier pieces have all been printed in the volumes to which they belonged in point of the time of their com- position. The present collection comprises fourteen pieces which were published at various dates between 1871 and 1888. The last of them is also the last, with two exceptions,2 that Ruskin wrote.
The autobiographical reminiscence entitled My First Editor appro- priately introduced the volumes of miscellanies issued in 1885, and it is here again placed first (pp. 93-104). The reminiscence, written in 1878, is of William Henry Harrison, the faithful friend and literary mentor of Ruskin's early days of authorship. A notice of him has been given in the Introduction to Ruskin's Poems (Vol. II.), and many letters from him and to him have been published,3 which illustrate
1 Life and Work of John Ruskin, 1900, p. 375.
2 The Epilogue to Modern Painters (September 1888) and the conclusion of Pra-teritu (June 1889).
3 See, for instance, Vol. II. p. 27 n. ; Vol. III. p. lii. n. ; Vol. VIII. p. 275 ; and General Index.
xxviii INTRODUCTION
what Ruskin here says (p. 93) of Harrison's care in reading proofs, and criticising the author's style.
The piece was written by way of preface to a series of Reminis- cences by Harrison, published after his death1 in the Dublin University Magazine (1878). Though not himself an author, except in a very mild way, Harrison lived near the rose. As editor of Friendship^ Offering and Registrar of the Royal Literary Fund,2 he came across many men of distinction, in whose reflected radiance he sunned him- self joyfully, as Ruskin describes.3
My First Editor is one of the most charming of Ruskin's shorter pieces; it shows the same serenity of temper, the same felicity in humorous reminiscence, and the same delicate skill in character- draw- ing that were afterwards conspicuous in Prceterita. It is of peculiar interest in a connected study of Ruskin's writings, because this chapter — exhibiting, as it does, so complete a mastery of all his literary arts and graces — was written almost on the eve of his serious illness in 1878. 4
The second and third pieces in this volume — on The Range of Intellectual Conception (pp. 107-111) and The Nature and Authority of Miracle (pp. 115—125) respectively — were papers read by Ruskin to the Metaphysical Society in 1871 and 1873. A third paper, read to the same Society in 1875 — on Social Policy — was included by Ruskin in A Joy for Ever, and has already been printed.6 The Society was founded by Tennyson and Sir James Knowles in 1869, its original members including Dean Stanley, James Martineau, R. H. Hutton, Ward, Bagehot, Froude, Gladstone, Manning, Father Dal- gairns, Hinton, Henry Sidgwick, and Mark Pattison.6 Ruskin was
1 He had died in August 1874. See Vol. XXIV. p. xxxvi.
z See Vol. XX. p. liv. ; and below, § 10.
8 One of his reminiscences is worth disinterring from the Magazine, because it is the original authority for an interesting anecdote about Turner : —
" I used to meet Turner at the table of Mr. Ruskin, the father of the art critic. The first occasion was a few days after the appearance of a notice in the Athenaeum, of a picture of Turner's which was therein characterised as ' Eggs and Spinach.' This stuck in the great painter's throat, and as we were returning together in Mr. Ruskin's carriage Turner ejaculated the obnoxious phrase every five minutes. I told him that if I had attained to his eminence in art I should not care a rush for what any one said of me. But the only reply I could get was, ' Eggs and Spinach.' " (May 1878, p. 546.)
4 See Vol. XXV. p. xxiv.
6 Vol. XVI. pp. 161-169.
6 The full list, with other particulars of the Society, may be read in Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by his Son, 1897, vol. ii. p. 167. Tennyson's poem "The Higher Pantheism " was read at the first meeting of the Society (ibid., p. 168). To Dalgairns, Ruskin refers in a letter to Professor Norton of November 10, 1870 ; for Hinton, see Fors C'lavigera, Letter 75, § 10 (Vol. XXIX. p. 67).]
INTRODUCTION xxix
added in 1870. The Society died in 1880— "of too much love," according to Huxley; "because after ten years of strenuous effort no one had succeeded,11 said Tennyson, "in even defining the term ' metaphysics.1 " Ruskin's attempt, in the first of the papers here printed, if not to define the term, yet to delimit the scope of the science (p. Ill), was one of the many attempts, equally unsuccessful in all ages, it would seem, in this direction.
Of the proceedings of the Metaphysical Society, a vivid sketch was published in 1885 by R. H. Hutton.1 In this he gave imaginary speeches by several of its members; that put into Ruskin's mouth is a compost of the actual papers here printed. He describes Ruskin's " deep-toned, musical voice which dwelt with slow emphasis on the most important words of each sentence, and which gave a singular force to the irony with which the speaker's expression of belief was freely mingled." Of the meeting at which Ruskin read his paper on Miracle, a lively account was given by Dr. Magee, then Bishop of Peterborough, in a letter to his wife : 2 —
"... I went to dinner duly at the Grosvenor Hotel. The dinner was certainly a strangely interesting one. Had the dishes been as various we should have had severe dyspepsia, all of us. Archbishop Manning in the chair was flanked by two Protestant bishops right and left — Gloucester and Bristol and myself — on my right was Hutton, editor of the Spectator — an Ariari ; then came Father Dalgairns, a very able Roman Catholic priest ; opposite him, Lord A. Russell, a Deist ; then two Scotch metaphysical writers — Freethinkers ; then Knowles, the very broad editor of the Contemporary ; then, dressed as a layman and looking like a country squire, was Ward, formerly Rev. Ward, and earliest of the perverts to Rome ; then Greg, author of The Creed of Christendom, a Deist ; then Froude, the historian, once a deacon in our church, now a Deist ; then Roden Noel, an actual Atheist and red republican, and looking very like one ! Lastly Ruskin, who read after dinner a paper on miracles ! which we discussed for an hour and a half! Nothing could be calmer, fairer, or even, on the whole, more reverent than the discussion. Nothing flippant or scoffing or bitter was said on either side, and very great ability, both of speech and thought, was shown by most speakers. In. my opinion, we, the Christians, had much the best of it. Dalgairns, the priest, was very masterly ; Manning, clever and precise and weighty ; Froude, very acute, and so was Greg; while Ruskin declared himself
1 "The Metaphysical Society: a Reunion," in the Nineteenth Century, August 1885, vol. 18, pp. 177 seq. The speech given to Ruskin is on pp. 186, 187.
2 The Life and Correspondence of William Connor Magee, by J. C. Macdonnell, 1890, vol. i. p. 284.
xxx INTRODUCTION
delighted ' with the exquisite accuracy and logical power of the Bishop of Peterborough.' There is the story of the dinner. Altogether a remark- able and most interesting scene, and a greater gathering of remarkable men than could easily be met elsewhere. We only wanted a Jew and a Mahometan to make our Religious Museum complete."
The next piece (pp. 129, 130) is a Preface which Ruskin wrote for the daughter of an Oxford friend, Miss A. C. Owen, to her sketches, republished from the Monthly Packet, of Art Schools of Mediaeval Christendom (1875).1 The occasional notes which Ruskin appended to the author's text are added (pp. 130-132) ; and it may be noticed that good things are often to be found even in remarks thus made casually by the way. How excellent, for instance, is the characterisation of Vasari — "an ass with good things in his panniers'" (p. 132).
The fifth paper is on a subject which, in a different connexion, will meet us again later in the volume, and which at all times enlisted Ruskin's ardent protest. Thirty years ago, schemes for the Extension of Railways in the Lake District were much discussed. In 1875 there was no definite scheme before Parliament, but a proposal was in the air for a continuation of the line from Windermere to Amble- side, and thence by Rydal and Grasmere and over Dunmail Raise to Keswick. An actual scheme was produced twelve years later, and was rejected by Parliament; for which result some share of the credit must be given to the nucleus of opposition formed at this earlier date by Ruskin arid the St. George's Guild.2 It was a Companion of the Guild, Mr. Robert Somervell, who organised the local protest. At the first whisper of the threatened "assault," Mr. Somervell drew up a form of petition, and Ruskin called attention to it, begging all " who may have taken an interest in his writings, or who may have any personal regard for him," to associate themselves with the protest. This request was distributed with Fors Clavigera, and is now reprinted (p. 135). A later slip — now one of the rare Ruskinian fly-sheets — in which he thanks those who had forwarded petitions, is also given (pp. 135-136). In 1876 Mr. Somervell's protest Avas enlarged and issued as a pamphlet, with the Preface by Ruskin now included among his Miscellanies (pp. 137-143).
1 For a reference to the papers, see Pleasures of England, § 99 n. (Vol. XXXIII. p. 491).
2 At the later date the local opposition was organised mainly by Mr. W. H. Hills, of Ambleside, Canon llawnsley, of Crosthwaite, and Mr. Gordon Somervell, of Windermere.
INTRODUCTION xxxi
Ruskin's Preface takes the form of a destructive analysis, written with characteristic vigour and point, of the arguments in favour of the new railway, and, mutatis mutandis, is applicable to other cases in which the destruction of natural scenery in favoured spots is defended by what Wordsworth called the " false utilitarian lure." The greatest happiness of the greatest number demands, it is said, that such scenery should be made accessible by the cheapest and swiftest transit to the largest number of persons. Ruskin's answer is that the scenery thus made accessible would no longer be the same scenery, and that its full capacity of pleasing the mind and heart would be gone (pp. 140, 141). In 1887 the scheme for an Ambleside railway was again mooted, and Ruskin once more intervened in the controversy (p. 603). Perhaps the ultimate solution, and safety, will be found in the proposal with which he expressed his agreement in a yet later letter (p. 604) ; namely, the acquisition or reservation of certain districts as National Trusts.
The manuscript of a portion of Ruskin's Preface (§§ 4, 5) is at Brantwood. Letters from Ruskin to Mr. Somervell show that the Preface cost him much trouble. " It will not come right,'1 he said ; but it did come in the end. "I've done the Preface at last," he wrote (June 22, 1876), "and I think it stunning. It came to me all of a heap as I was shaving. Nothing that's worth sixpence ever conies to me but that way; only sometimes it makes me cut myself.1"
The Three Colours of Pre-Raphaelitism — the piece which comes next in the volume1 (pp. 147-174) — is reprinted from two consecutive numbers of the Nineteenth Century (November and December 1878), where it appeared in the form of an undelivered Oxford lecture (§ 1). The discourse was suggested to Ruskin by a visit to the late Mr. William Graham and his daughter at Dunira, where he had found himself in company of three pictures, typical of different aspects of the Pre-Raphaelite movement — the " Ecce Ancilla Domini " of Rossetti, the " Blind Girl " of Millais, and a drawing called " The King's Bridal " by Burne-Jones. The descriptions of these pictures, with the analysis of their several aims and characteristics, should be read in connexion with the first and second lectures in the later course on The Art of England (1883), in which Ruskin again discussed the meaning of the Pre-Raphaelite movement and paid a further tribute to the genius of Burne-Jones.2
1 In the chronological order, the " Introductory " chapter on My First Editor precedes the Three Colours.
2 See Vol. XXXIII. pp. 270-271, 287 seq.
xxxii INTRODUCTION
Ruskin's visit was further fortunate in suggesting to him an illus- trative conclusion to his discourse. In his bedroom there chanced to be a photograph of Jacopo della Quercia's effigy of Ilaria — the piece of sculpture which, when Ruskin first saw it in 1845, " became at once," what it " ever since remained," his " ideal of Christian sculpture." l In the present paper, it is instanced and described as a typical work of the perfect masters of art. The reader will find it interesting as a study in style to compare — as Ruskin does incidentally here (p. 172 n.) — the descriptions which he wrote at different periods of this tomb — first in a letter to his father, May 6, 1845 (Vol. IV. p. 122 n.) ; then in Modern Painters, vol. ii. (ibid., pp. 122-124); next in The Schools of Art in Florence (Vol. XXIII. pp. 229-232); and finally in this place. In 1883, in a passage just referred to, he referred to it again. He had seen the tomb once more in the previous year, and Mr. Colling- wood, who was then his companion at Lucca, has described his wrath when some one offered him a plaster mask — a hard, dead caricature — of his loved lady of Lucca.2 In his autobiography written a few years later, he referred once again to the impression produced upon him by the perfect art of " the sleeping Ilaria." 3
The manuscript of the second paper, §§ 11-19, 25, 26, is at Brant- wood. A page of it is here included in facsimile (§§ 18-19).
The Letters to the Clergy on The Lord's Prayer and the Church (pp. 191-243) have been printed in one form or another, and in whole or in part, several times; the collector, interested in such matters, will find the complicated details unravelled in the Bibliographical Note (pp. 179-189). The origin of the Letters appears in the text.4 Ruskin was persuaded to write a series of letters for Mr. Malleson, the vicar of Broughton-in-Furness, to read at meetings of a local clerical society. The persuasion was somewhat against his will, but Ruskin had a keen sense of the obligations of friendly neighbourliness, and he undertook the task imposed upon him. The principal series of Letters are very
1 Epilogue of 1883 to the second volume of Modern Painters (Vol. IV. p. 347).
2 See " Ruskin' s Ilaria" in Ruskin Relics, pp. 98-99. In connexion with what Ruskin says, in Vol. XXIII. p. 233, about the affection of the peasantry for Ilaria, a quotation from the Arundel Society's note on the monument (see below, p. 170 n.) may be given : " We have often noticed the Lucchesi, on leaving the Duomo by the door beside which the monument is placed, stoop and press their lips for a moment to the sweet upturned face." The monument, then placed against the wall of the north transept, was in 1891 removed to the centre and protected by an iron railing.
3 Preeterita, ii. §§ 113, 114 (Vol. XXXV.). * See pp. 191-193.
INTRODUCTION xxxiii
clear and cogent, though the audience to which they were read does not always seem to have grasped the writer's meaning very easily.1 When the Letters were complete, they were privately printed (at the instance and cost of the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley) and circulated among the local clergy. They were next printed by Mr. Malleson in the Contemporary Review, and in this form excited much controversy. Mr. Malleson thereupon made a book out of the Letters and various replies and comments which he received ; and for this book Ruskin wrote the Epilogue, here included (pp. 215-230). At a later date, Mr. Malleson published other letters, etc., from Ruskin referring to the subject (pp. 231-243).
The manuscript of a portion of the Epilogue (§§ 249-262, 266) is at Brant wood.
The papers on A Museum or Picture Gallery, which come next in this volume (pp. 247-262), were first printed in the Art Journal in 1880. They are in the form of letters to a friend who was interested in the formation of a municipal gallery and museum at Leicester. The last part of the papers was repeated by Ruskin, with some rearrangement, in Fors Clavigera, as a sketch of the ideal, in one department, for his own Museum of St. George, and the papers gener- ally should be read in connexion with the account of that Museum in Vol. XXX.
The manuscript of §§ 19-21 is at Brantwood ; it shows much re- touching.
We come next to the most important of the miscellanies — the series of essays entitled Fiction, Fair and Foul, which were first printed in the Nineteenth Century (1880, 1881). These were written at irregular intervals, and are somewhat discursive. The main subjects with which they deal are two, and Ruskin takes up the one or the other as the spirit moves him. One of the subjects is that indicated in the title given to the papers. What is fiction ? he asks (though not till the last paper). He answers in a passage (pp. 370, 371) in which a Greek vase is happily taken as a type of a fair fictile thing. His attack is upon the morbid taint in modern fiction, which he traces in several pages of acute analysis (pp. 268-282) to the unhealthy conditions of modern town-life. The study of Gotthelf may be taken as a correc- tive which he desired to supply, though he was conscious enough that the novelist of agricultural Switzerland had longueurs and dulness which
1 See the note on p. 197 below, xxxiv. c
xxxiv INTRODUCTION
readers of the highly-spiced fiction of the day might find intolerable.1 But in the present papers Sir Walter is the model which Ruskin holds up in contrast, and a considerable part of the essays is taken up with various studies in Scott's novels. He defines and classifies the novels in order of merit; explains and defends Scott's use of dialect; draws out points of character from Sir Walter's Sunday diversions; classifies his types, and so forth. The drawing up of a class-list of Scott's novels is a pastime in which most lovers of Sir Walter have indulged, and Ruskin's list is entitled to respectful attention. He recurs to the subject in one of the late letters included in the present volume (p. 607), and discusses some of his preferences in Fors Clavigera? But the theory which, in Fiction, Fair and Foul, the class-list is meant to illustrate, breaks down at a crucial point, when brought to the test of dates. The theory is that Scott's perfect novels were all written in unclouded days and before physical suffering had come upon him ; and, though much of his later work was still grand, that yet every pang in the stomach paralysed the brain. There may be some element of truth in the diagnosis. But Rob Roy is included by Ruskin in his series of the perfect and untainted novels ; and yet, as Lockhart relates, Rob Roy was written in acute pain.3
The second main subject of the essays is a critical comparison between Wordsworth and Byron, and this occupies the third and fourth chapters, where also is contained a most interesting disquisition on the characteristics of good style in literature (pp. 334-337). Ruskin is not blind to the defects of Byron ; but, writing in a generation when depreciation of Byron has been the critical fashion, he lays stress on the native force, the strain of noble feeling, the heroic themes, and the sense for the great style which are to be counted among the poet's virtues. In this respect the present essays should be read with the chapter of Prceterita* in which Ruskin again renders homage to Byron as one of his masters. Tempted by the then recently published essays in which Matthew Arnold had extolled Wordsworth, to the depreciation of Byron, Ruskin, in Fiction, Fair and Foul, goes to the other extreme and depreciates Wordsworth, to the aggrandisement of Byron. The passages in which he executes this manoeuvre are admirable examples of the resources of Ruskin's literary art — sometimes highly charged with allusive ornament (as in the comparison between the Little Duddon and the rivers of stormier history to whose music Byron sang, p. 322) ;
1 See Vol. XXXII.
2 Letter 92 (Vol. XXIX. pp. 455, 456).
3 See further, on this point, p. 289 n.
* "Vester, Camenae"; i. ch. viii. (Vol. XXXV.).
INTRODUCTION xxxv
sometimes barbed with gentle irony (as in the reference to Fox How and Rydal Mount, p. 318). Nor is Ruskin's criticism of Wordsworth in itself unfair. But, as contained in these papers, it is partial ; much of what is rightly to be said in praise of Wordsworth had been said finely by Ruskin elsewhere.1 Ruskin's "bucolic friends11 protested, it seems, against his present disparagement of Wordsworth (p. 349), and certainly it has given pain and puzzlement to some fervent admirers of both writers.2 But Ruskin's appreciation of Wordsworth remains where it will not soon be forgotten — on every title-page of Modern Painters. These later essays unsay nothing of what Ruskin had said before in praise of his master ; 3 but there is no poet, I suppose, more unequal than Wordsworth, and Ruskin was moved by injustice done, as he considered, to Byron, to deal out severe justice to Wordsworth's occa- sional narrowness of view and fatal facility in dropping into bathos. It may, I think, be held further that in these papers on Fiction, Fair and Foul, as he says of Fors Clavigera, Ruskin was desirous "to say things a little piquantly.1' * "Look at my Nineteenth Century article," he wrote to Mr. Allen (May 18, 1880); "there's a lot of fun in it, if people can find it out ! " There are many of us who could wish that an attack upon George Eliot was an incidental indiscretion, but Ruskin, as will be seen later on in this volume (p. 558), ruled out such a suggestion. The judicious reader, in the case of Ruskin's literary, as in that of his artistic, criticism, finds firmer ground perhaps in his praises than in his disparagements. Certainly one may read these brilliant critical essays with profit and with pleasure, without admit- ting that George Eliot's characters are but "the sweepings of the Pentonville omnibus," or that the description which some foolish person seems to have given Ruskin of The Mill on the Floss (p. 282) is a fitting account of the flight and return of Maggie Tulliver.
The manuscript of Fiction, Fair and Foul, is in the possession of Mr. Wedderburn,5 who took some of it through the press for Ruskin.
1 See, for instance, Sesame and Lilies, § 70 (Vol. XVIII. p. 124), and General Index.
8 See the chapters on " Ruskin and Wordsworth " in Canon H. D. Rawnsley's Ruskin and the English Lakes, 1901.
3 They unsay nothing, but Ruskin in his later writings adds qualifications to his former praise. See, for instance, a note of 1883 to Modern Painters, vol. ii., where he qualifies the remark that Wordsworth is " without appeal " as to the impressions of natural things on the human mind, by the addendum, "but by no means as to the logical conclusions to be surely drawn from them" (Vol. IV. p. 78 n.). In The Pleasures of England (1884), also, there is a vein of gentle sar- casm in Ruskin's allusions to the poet (see Vol. XXXIII. p. 483 n.).
4 See Prceterita, i. § 55 (Vol. XXXV.).
5 A fair copy (in Ruskin's hand) of the MS. of Chapter I., dated 13th May 1880, is in the possession of Mr. Frederick Hillyard.
xxxvi INTRODUCTION
It includes some unused sheets ; and, in the case of Chapter V., a few leaves of its first draft, as well as the printed revise, to which § 123 was a final addition. Some additional passages are here printed from the MS. sheets (pp. 395-397).
The tenth and the thirteenth pieces in the volume — separated by an interval of five years in date— deal with the subject of Usury. The earlier of them — Usury : a Reply and a Rejoinder (pp. 401-425) — appeared in the Contemporary Review for February 1880, and grew out of another article in the same review. In the Epilogue to the Letters to the Clergy, published in the Contemporary for December 1879, Ruskin had incidentally referred to a challenge repeatedly addressed to the Bishop of Manchester in the pages of Fors Clavigera, on the subject of Usury. The Bishop, Dr. Fraser, had not seen the challenges, of which he heard for the first time, it seems,1 on caking up the Con- temporary Review. He forthwith addressed a Reply to Ruskin, who published it in the Review, with a Rejoinder on his own part. There the matter rested. The Bishop did not retort ; the Rejoinder, he wrote to his friend Archdeacon Norris, seemed to him the "ravings of a lunatic."2 This is a judgment which will hardly commend itself to disinterested third parties; the Bishop would have done better, I think, in explaining his reason for leaving Ruskin alone, to have taken the line which Leslie Stephen tells us that Fawcett adopted in a like case. There was " an utter absence of any common ground," and the argument could therefore only have been " at cross purposes." 3 Ruskin's Rejoinder in the present instance is fairly open to criticism as being somewhat stilted and overweighted ; but raving or incoherent, it certainly is not. It was the premises which the Bishop had to destroy, and this was a task which would perhaps have presented some inconveniences. For the position to which Ruskin sought to pin down his antagonist, and from which the argument proceeds with ruthless exactitude, is the condemnation of "usury,11 by the literal text of the Bible and by the authority of learned divines. The Rejoinder was written, if hotly, yet not with haste. On the contrary, Ruskin took a certain malicious glee in polishing his points. " I must give the Bishop a turn," he said to a friend;4 the "turn" was for roasting.
1 The Bishop cannot have received the private challenge which Ruskin sent him in addition to the public references in Fors: see Vol. XXIX. p. 95.
2 Life of Bishop Fraser, by Thomas Hughes, p. 305.
3 See Vol. XXVII. p. 378 n.
* At another time he said to a friend who remonstrated with him, " You and
INTRODUCTION xxxvii
The first draft in manuscript of §§ 4—7 is at Brantwood, and bears witness to the labour of the file — or the spit.
The other paper on Usury (pp. 443-447) was written in 1885 as a Preface to a tract by Mr. R. G. Sillar, one of two brothers who were equally persistent in tilting against the "accursed thing," and by whose pamphlets Ruskin was converted to the same crusade. In his earlier books, as we have seen,1 Ruskin condemned usury only in the sense of excessive interest ; subsequently, he came to condemn all interest as a matter of principle, though he preached its abolition as a counsel of perfection, not as an immediately practical policy. His point of view is clearly expressed in a letter, now included in Arrows of the Chace (below, p. 579), written at the time when the Preface to Mr. Si liar's pamphlet was forthcoming.
The eleventh paper in this volume (pp. 429-434) is a Preface which Ruskin wrote in 1883 to a pamphlet by Mr. T. C. Horsfall, of Manchester, on The Study of Beauty and Art in Large Towns. Ruskin's acquaintance and correspondence with Mr. Horsfall have been noted in Fors Clavigera;* the present Preface was in connexion with the Art Museum which Mr. Horsfall founded and arranged in Manchester. References to the Museum, for which Ruskin wrote some Catalogue notes, have been given in Vol. XIII. pp. 616, 625.
The next Preface (pp. 437—440) was written at the end of 1884 for an English translation of M. Ernest Chesneau's book on The English School of Painting (1885). Ruskin, as he notes in the Preface (p. 439)> had already in his Oxford lectures expressed his concurrence with M. Chesneau's critical judgment, telling his pupils that they might "accept M. Chesneau's criticism as his own." The life of Turner, which Ruskin commissioned M. Chesneau to write, and for which he sup- plied much material, was unfortunately never completed, and Ruskin's material, as mentioned in a previous volume,3 has disappeared. Many private letters to M. Chesneau will be found in a later volume of this edition.
The thirteenth piece in this volume — Usury and the English Bishops — has already been mentioned, above.
the Bishop are dangling over the pit of hell, and you want me to sprinkle you with rose-water" (Saturday Review, September 14, 1907).
1 Vol. XVII. p. xcviii.
2 See Vol. XXIX. pp. 149, 589. » Vol. XIII. p. Ivi.
xxxviii INTRODUCTION
The last piece is a Preface (pp. 451-453), written in April 1888, to my Popular Handbook to the National Gallei-y. Two notes which he appended to the text are added (p. 453), together with some remarks which he made on the occasion of one of his last visits to the Gallery. With the exception of the Epilogue to Modern Painters and the last chapter of Prceterita, this Preface is the latest piece of writing that came from Ruskin^s pen. It now stands not inaptly at the end of On the Old Road, dealing as it does with the Old Masters in the National Gallery, where Ruskin's earliest studies had been made.
"ARROWS OF THE CHACE"
The next section of the volume contains a collection of all Ruskin's letters to the press which have not been given in previous volumes of this edition. With letters to the press are included some which, though not addressed to the newspapers, were obviously written for publication, and a few others not of a personal character which were published by their recipients. Ruskin's Personal Letters are reserved for Volumes XXXVI. and XXXVII.
The Public Letters were first collected in 1880 under the title here retained. In 1878 Mr. R. H. Shepherd had published a Biblio- graphy of Ruskin in which he succeeded, at the cost of much labour, in tracing most of Ruskin's contributions to the periodical press, and this suggested to "An Oxford Pupil" (Mr. Wedderburn) the printing of the letters themselves in 1880. The two volumes of Arrows of the Chace then issued contained 152 Letters, etc. Of these, 93 have already been given in previous volumes, while two are reserved for the Personal Letters. The Letters already given belong for the most part to the earlier periods of Ruskin's literary activity. In 1890 Mr. Wedderburn made a further collection of the published Letters, supplementary to those previously given in Arrows of the Chace. The collection was first printed in a magazine, now defunct, called Igdrasil, and was afterwards privately issued in a volume entitled RusJciniana. Of this only ten copies were printed, so that this supplementary collection has hitherto been little known even among Ruskinians. It included 144 Letters, etc. Of these, 32 have already been given, while 20 are reserved for the Personal Letters.
Full bibliographical particulars with regard to these matters are given below (pp. 459-468). It will be seen that the collection in the present volume comprises (1) 58 Letters from Arrows of the Chace,
INTRODUCTION xxxix
and (2) 84 from Ruskmiana; whilst (3) 50 more are given, as the result of further gleaning, bringing the total of the present collection up to 192, and that of the whole collection given in this or earlier volumes up to 323.1 It may be added that of the 192 in the present volume, no less than 174 belong to the years 1870 onwards, whereas in the collection of 1880, 72 belonged to dates earlier than 1870.
The figures just given are interesting in two ways. They show, first, how voluminous Ruskin was as a contributor to the public press ; and, secondly, that in his two latest decades (for his literary activity was at an end by 1890) he was especially prone to write de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis.
What, it may be asked, is the nature of these contributions, what their place in the corpus of Buskin's work, and what their value? The questions have been answered by two critics of high authority — Ruskin himself and Mark Pattison.
Ruskin has defined their nature in one of the happiest of his titles. Like other happy things, it did not occur at once. Many an author has confessed that the hardest part of a book was its title, and Mr. Wedderburn's correspondence enables us to trace Ruskin in pursuit of the right phrase: —
"(21st March 1880. To MR. ALLEN.) — Mr. Wedderburn has shown me this morning his plan of arrangement for the volume, or volumes, of my letters to papers. I don't think my own egotistic pride has ever been so much gratified as by the look of this bill of fare, and I leave it to the Editor and to you to arrange everything concerning its production and ministration to the, I doubt not, hungry public."
And to Mr. Wedderburn he wrote: —
"(14th April.) — For 'Public Letters' I certainly don't care as a title. It's a lovely afternoon and I must go out, and hope some mellifluous nomenclature will come into my head in the sun."
"(16^ April.) — Your letters always are a delight to me, and hearing of this letter-book is a great pride and amusement to me, and there's not the least fear of your doing anything wrong in it. The title, of course, I like my finger in, that I may lick it afterwards if the title's nice, but all the rest I leave with secure comfort to you. So for your queries. 1. Title, still undetermined, very puzzling, but will get a nice one, please the pigs. 2. Don't send me any proofs."
1 This figure excludes twenty-five included in Arrow* or Ruskiniana, but now- reserved for the Personal Letters.
xl INTRODUCTION
April.) — I've been thinking every morning before I got up, for a title, but it's very cliffy [difficult]. I'm not sure that I shall not have to take your plain one after all.1 'Spare Minutes,' 'Spent Shot,' 'Surdis auribus ' are the three best I've got. You may guess how bad the three worst were. — Ever affiy. yours, J. R." (Mr. Wedderburn then suggested "A Quiver of Arrows.") "(9.5th April.) — It is curious that I had thought myself of 'Lost Arrows,' and your quotation would be delicious, and your objections to the other names are all sound. Howbeit, I can't resolve this Sunday morning, and I think the 'Quiver' is a little too poetical. I incline in spite of the Latin to the ' Surdis.' It's so thoroughly true, and people would find out and be impressed by that fact. But I'll think more."
" (4>th May.) — It's very nice having a respite still. I thought of ' Totus in Illis ' and of ' Here and There/ but they're neither here nor there. I'm not sure my own motto ' To-day ' might do, but am so busy with Scott. I dare not trust my wits." "(\4,th May.)— Witt 'Signals on the Old Road' do?" "(19M May.)— Yes, will think. I like 'The Faggot.' I don't mind its being called sticks (why not rods ?). I think it will do."
"(5th Aug.) — At last I have got it! 'Arrows of the Chace.' . . . Preface as soon as I can, but I've a terrific paper on Byron for September2 which takes everything out of me that's in."
The Letters, then, went forth as arrows shot by an archer in the fray ; and if often " winged with feathers," certainly they are also, like those of Hiawatha, " tipped with flint." In his Preface to the original collection of 1880 — "a model," as was said at the time, " of pure, sweet, equable English," and concluding with "one of the finest and loftiest, and at the same time the sweetest and most urbane, sentences to be found in the whole range of purely personal elo- quence"3 — Ruskin explains the value which he himself placed upon the Letters. They were written "with fully provoked zeal," and "expressed with deliberate precision," " within narrow limits of space and time " ; they thus contain, said with " the best art he had " at command, " the indices of nearly everything he cared for most deeply."
Unlike Ruskin's other books published after 1871, Arrows of the Chace, being collected from the newspapers, was sent to them for
1 " The Public Letters of John Ruskin " was the title under which Mr. Wedder- burn had given a preliminary account of the collection in the Contemporary Review: see below, p. 462.
3 Fiction, Fair and Foul, III. ; below, p. 322.
3 Athenaeum, December 18, 1880 : see further below, p. xlvi.
INTRODUCTION xli
notice, and it was fortunate in numbering Mark Pattison among its reviewers. His estimate of the book, given in a signed article in the Academy (February 12, 1881), does not materially differ from its author's. He disputes, indeed, Ruskin's foible of omniscience "from foreign politics to domestic servants, from war to silk-worms.11 " Upon art, and all that concerns it," he says, "Mr. Ruskin, however dis- putable opinions he may have at times broached, stands unrivalled as a judge, an interpreter, an appreciator. But he cannot claim the same deferential hearing when he speaks of ... the morality of field sports, dress, female franchise, Shakspere, dramatic reform, and so on ad infinitum. It is not that upon any of these things Mr. Ruskin may not have something good to say, but that he cannot expect to transfer to any of these subjects the prestige which his special know- ledge has justly conferred on his opinions on art. . . . When it comes to speaking of sweeping crossings, the crossing-sweeper is sure to know a thing or two which we do not know." Having entered this caveat, Mark Pattison goes on as follows : —
" But what excellent things are scattered up and down these miscel- laneous letters ! ' A gentleman would hew for himself a log-hut rather than live in modern houses.' 'You can't have art where you have smoke [; you may have it in hell, perhaps, for the Devil is too clever not to consume his own smoke ']. ' So far from wishing to give votes to women, I would fain take them away from most men.' ' There is only one way to have good servants; that is, to be worthy of being well served.' 'Good art cannot be produced as an investment. You cannot build a good cathedral, if you only build it that you may charge sixpence for admission.' 'We must recognize the duties of governors before we can elect the men fit to perform them.' ' While everybody shrinks at abstract suggestions of there being possible error in a book of Scripture, your sensible English housewife fearlessly rejects Solomon's opinion when it runs slightly counter to her own.' 1 Such sparkling bits of aphoristic wit and wisdom are scattered in profusion over these letters, even those of which the main tenor is para- doxical or unpractical. Without attempting to deny that many of the social and economical opinions and proposals here put forward are of this un- practical character, I think the reader will nevertheless feel himself stirred and animated in a way in which more sober and well-considered sugges- tions never move him. Mr. Ruskin does but feel more keenly than the rest of us those evils which spoil and darken the wholesomeness and beauty of modern life. When the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together, there are some spirits who feel the anguish too acutely, and cry out in their
1 For these passages, see Vol. XVII. p. 526 ; below, pp. 521, 499 ; Vol. XVII. pp. 518, 533 (§ 3), 533 (§ 4), 521.
xlii INTRODUCTION
noble rage that we have but to will it and the evil will disappear. Mr. Ruskin, like other humanitarians, exaggerates the power of human skill and energy to cope with natural conditions. . . . But we are quickened and invigorated for the struggle in which we are all engaged with the misery of the world, and the sluggish and the selfish may be reached by Mr. Ruskin's random arrows where homilies and exhortations are all in vain."
There is a piece of self-criticism in Ruskin's Preface on which Mark Pattison makes an interesting note. Ruskin says that in his earlier period, to which most of the Letters in the original collection belonged, he was "fonder of metaphor, and more fertile in simile," and "employed both with franker trust in the reader's intelligence1'; he could then "dismiss in six words forms of art on which I should now perhaps spend half a page of analytic vituperation" (p. 470). Mark Pattison's comment is this: —
"What has happened to Mr. Ruskin — the drying up of the richest source of poetical expression, the power of metaphor — is only what has happened to all men of the gifted tongue who have lived long enough, and to the greatest poets most conspicuously — witness Milton and Words- worth. But whoever before Ruskin knew it of himself and dared to say so ? The unfortunate effect upon us of ageing is that our feeling of the evil of life, and the mistakes of the managers of affairs, continues to be no less intense than it was in our youth, while the power of venting our indignation in veiled sarcasm, or flashing figure, is no longer at command. We are thus tempted to take refuge in expressions of direct scorn and contempt, which directness is but the sign and mark of intellectual failure — failure, not in judgment, but in power of expression. We all regard 'restoration' with horror, and are aghast at the havoc it has made among our antiquities. But surely the cause of the beautiful and the venerable is not served by outbreaks such as 'All restoration is accursed architects' jobbery, and will go on as long as they can get their filthy bread by such business.' Another such burst of splenetic irritation against John Stuart Mill is only to be palliated by the apology which the editor offers in a note — viz., that it occurs not in a published letter sent by the writer to the papers, but in a private communication to a friend."
The greater part of the Letters collected in the present volume belong, as we have seen, to Ruskin's later period, in which the mood of splenetic irritation becomes more frequent. It should be remembered that, as his influence became more widely spread, he was the more invited to express his opinion on this, that, and the other subject. Partly in good nature, and partly in self-confidence, he was easily
INTRODUCTION xliii
"drawn," and allowed himself, as he says in one of the Letters, to be " plagued about things in general.11 x That he still wrote " with fully provoked zeal" need not be doubted; but in these latter years the stimulus often came from without, not from within. In such cases he would speed his arrow, sometimes in hasty scorn, sometimes to tease or startle. There was a great hubbub in the critical press when, in amending Lord Avebury's list of the "Best Hundred Books," Ruskin "put his pen blottesquely " through the name of Gibbon. Solemn critics informed Ruskin that "to omit Gibbon is to leave a gap in your knowledge of the history of the world which nothing else can fill.112 As if Ruskin were not aware of that fact! He knew his Gibbon well, and had annotated it page by page. He quarried from the marvellous mine freely; but he was not going to abstain from his fling at Gibbon's epithets, nor was he persuaded that every book indispensable to a scholar is necessarily to be included among the selection for a general reader. Here, as elsewhere, Ruskin's explosions of opinion are personal, sincere, and therefore interesting to any student of his life and work.
They are, also, seldom expressed except with characteristic vigour or felicity. The later letters are, as we have seen, often more hasty, and, as Ruskin says, less rich in metaphor than the earlier. But his art of expression is still there. It is noteworthy that of the "spark- ling bits of aphoristic wit and wisdom" quoted by Mark Pattison, a fair proportion comes, in fact, from letters of the later period of Ruskin's style; and the list might be extended from other letters later still, which were not before Pattison at the time. How happy, for instance, is his rule for critics — to "praise the living and be just to the dead " (p. 559) ; or his satire upon those who " think to refresh themselves from the foundry by picnic in a lime-kiln" (p. 571). His description of the Derbyshire glens is as vivid as anything he ever wrote (p. 572). His excursions into politics were random ; but he put very happily some facts about Ireland which professional politicians do not always remember (p. 582); and the bitterness of his diatribes against the moral standards and mechanism of the age is often re- deemed by the finished art in the vituperation (see, e.g., some phrases on pp. 594, 604). One likes to think that even in his moments of greatest anger and seeming despair, he had the craftsman's or the swordsman's pleasure in a sentence well pieced or a blow deftly struck.
1 See below, p. 598.
1 "Ruskin's Judgment of Gibbon and Darwin," in the New York Critic, May 1, 1886.
xliv INTRODUCTION
His old friend, Dr. John Brown, was of that conviction. "You must have pleasure sometimes in your work,'1 he wrote, " though fierce indignation not seldom lacerates your heart. Did you not like that sentence beginning * A shepherd maid 1 and ending with ' the ruins of the world ' ? "" Dr. Brown was writing of a passage in The Bible of Amiens;1 but a like felicity, or force, of language appears on many a page of the Arrows, and habitual energy of diction, as has been well said,2 was "never yet practised by a melancholy man, and must have armed Ruskin himself, indignant, insurgent, menacing, against that profounder calamity, sadness.11
Very few are the pages of this collection from which things as good could not be culled. The verdict of another critic of the original Arrows of the Chace may be given : —
"There is not a letter in the book of which it can be said that it is not interesting ; not one but is distinguished by some notable feature, as a touch of fine and pleasant wit, or a stout stroke of satire, or a piece of wisdom nobly thought and luminously phrased, or a passage of sonorous and splendid rhetoric, or a fling of whimsical temper. To follow their author through his many moods of irony and reproof, of indignation and of calm, of fun and suggestiveness and scorn, is an intellectual exercise not only as agreeable as can be imagined, but as serviceable also. . . . Mr. Ruskin has much to say, and he knows so well how to say it that people are apt to value his sayings even more for their manner's sake than for the sake of their matter. It is the common lot of most of those who deal in prose to be either useful at the expense of beauty, or ornamental at the cost of serviceableness. With Mr. Ruskin it is otherwise. To him the instrument of prose is lyre and axe, is lamp and trowel, is a brush to paint with and a sword to slay, in one. A great artist in speech, he is a working exemplification of the theory which holds that English prose is of no particular epoch, but that in all its essentials, and allowing for the influence of current fashions of speech, it is one and the same thing with Shakespeare and with Addison, with Bunyan and with Burke, with Browne and Bacon, and with Carlyle and Sterne. There are few manners in litera- ture at once so affluent and so subtle, so capable and so full of refinement, as that of the author of Modern Painters. The reason why it is felt to be so is, we take it, that Mr. Ruskin, in fact, is not only great as a writer, but great as an intelligence and as a man. To a mind extraordinarily vigorous yet subtle, to an imagination unwontedly rich and vivid and
1 Chapter ii. § 4 (Vol. XXXIII. p. 55) : see Letters of Dr. John Brown, 1907, p. 275.
* In a review of Brown's letters, in the Athenceum.
INTRODUCTION xlv
splendid, he adds the precious attributes of a noble heart, a sweet and earnest temper, and a boundless goodwill. These attributes are perceived in his work and impart to it, however questionable its aim and however dubitable its conclusions, a certain fine and human quality of reality, which is one secret of its prodigious force." l
Whether this estimate be accepted or not, it is of historical interest in this edition of Huskies Works as marking the assured place which he had now won for himself from a leading critical organ, at one time very grudging to his literary claims.
The arrangement of the Letters in the present collection is, in accordance with the general rule of the edition, chronological ; but the chronological list of contents at the beginning of the volume (p. xi.) is supplemented by another in which the Letters are grouped together under their several subjects (p. 475). The list of subjects is, as Ruskin says, a sort of index to his interests, and most of them have been dealt with more elaborately in earlier volumes. Among the hobbies which the Letters illustrate is chess. From his boyhood to the verge of extreme old age, he was a great lover of the game. An attentive reader might have guessed as much from analogies drawn from chess in Ruskin's books, and occasional references to masters of the game.2 He himself played, says a friend, " with great rapidity and considerable brilliancy. At one time he was a constant visitor to the Maskelyne and Cooke entertainment, where on at least one occasion he took a hand in the rubber with * Psycho ' ; and whenever a new chess-playing automaton made a public appearance he would endeavour to try con- clusions with it. Indeed, it was a matter of pride to him that he had obtained more than one victory over the famous Mephisto at the time when it was performing at the Crystal Palace with considerable eclat." z He was a Vice- President of the British Chess Association, and " en- dowed the national tournaments with a set of his works — a prize much coveted by the competitors and valued by the winners."4 Ruskin was impatient, as may be gathered from the letters in this volume, with an opponent who did not play quickly. The squares on Ruskin's own board were coloured red and green. He was fond also of playing by correspondence ; Mr. Macdonald, the drawing-master of his school at
1 Athenceum, December 18, 1880. The reviewer was W. E. Henley.
a See Vol. VI. p. 85 ; Vol. XIII. pp. 259, 272 ; Vol. XIX. p. 466 ; Vol. XXXII. p. 492.
* John Ruskin, by M. H. Spielmann, p. 150. Compare a letter to C. E. Norton of February 15, 1874 (Vol. XXXVII.).
4 From the Chess Column of the Westminster Gazette, January 27, 1900.
xlvi INTRODUCTION
Oxford, was often his antagonist in that sort.1 His library contained a corner of books on the subject (see below, p. 699).
The manuscript of Raskin's public letters, which were sent to the press, is naturally not available; but he often took great pains with their composition, and rough drafts of some of them are contained in his note-books. Two pages from these are given in facsimile, pp. 498, 501 ; whilst his " blottesque " emendation of Lord Avebury's list of the "Best Hundred Books" is reproduced from the Pall Mall Gazette (p. 583).
"RUSKINIANA"
The last part of this volume is devoted to a collection of Rus- kiniana.
The first section of these contains Reports of various lectures or Addresses which have not been included in previous volumes (pp. 627- 644).
These are followed by the Epitaphs which Ruskin composed for monuments to his friend and pupil, Prince Leopold (Duke of Albany), and to his friend and tutor, the Rev. Osborne Gordon (pp. 647, 648).
The next section collects a number of Circulars and Notices issued at various times by Ruskin (pp. 651-655).
The fourth section (pp. 659-676) brings together from various sources a number of Conversations with Ruskin which have been recorded in print.
In the following sections we enter, as it were, into Ruskin's study and library. His Note-books and Diaries are very voluminous, and it has been thought that some typical extracts from the former might be interesting. No author has preached more usefully than Ruskin on the duty of careful reading, and the Notes here given show him at practice, reading, marking, learning, and inwardly digesting. To the constancy of his Bible studies, repeated reference has been made in the Introductions to these volumes ; while the references supplied under the] text show how the language of the Bible mingled perpetually with his thoughts. The Notes on the Bible, printed in this volume (pp. 679-688), are samples of studies of the kind which occur in almost all his note-books and diaries. " Once in his rooms at Oxford," says Mr. Collingwood,2 "I remember getting into a difficulty about the correct quotation of some passage. ' Haven't you a concordance ? '
1 See Vol. XXL p. xxvi.
2 ItusJcin Relics, p. 211.,
INTRODUCTION xlvii
I asked. 'I'm ashamed to say I have/ he said. I did not quite understand him. 'Well,1 he explained, 'you and I oughtn't to need Cruden ! ' ' Ruskin, it is safe to say, seldom found the need. He habitually quoted from memory; and it is very rarely that, in editing these volumes, we have found his memory even at trivial fault. Together with the Bible, Ruskin made constant, and generally a daily, study of some Greek or Latin author, or of Dante; and here, again, he annotated as he read.1 The Notes on the Plutus of Aristophanes (pp. 688-690), which he read in 1858 (as he tells us in Prceterita*), show the manner in which he read. His selection of English titles for the Odes of Horace is added (pp. 690-694), together with a few notes for his intended commentary, already mentioned.8
An account of RtiskiiCs Library follows (pp. 697-702), and this is supplemented by such of his Marginalia (pp. 703-709) as have found their way into print, together with a few additions.
Next comes a section of Ruskiniana devoted to a collection of personal Anecdotes (pp. 713-722), Obiter Dicta (pp. 723-727), and Miscellanea (pp. 728, 729).
Once when his talk was rather confidential, Mr. Collingwood said, " Never mind, Fm not Boswell taking notes.1" " I think," he replied, "you might do worse !"4 Ruskin had many note-takers among his friends, disciples, and casual acquaintances. For many years Ruskiniana, of any sort, were accounted "good copy" by the newspapers; and few authors have had their sayings and doings so minutely chronicled. This section of our volume does not pretend to be exhaustive. Many additional pages would have been required for the inclusion of every story, reminiscence, and casual remark which has appeared in print in connexion with Ruskin. But it is believed that this edition includes, either in the present collection or in other volumes, all the Ruskiniana that are of any interest or throw any light on the author's character.
Finally, the text of various addresses presented to Ruskin is added (pp. 733-735).
The illustrations in the volume remain to be noticed. The frontis- piece is a photograph, by H. R. Barraud, of Ruskin. It is one of the
1 He made similar entries in his note-books on Homer, Pindar, Plato, Xeuophon, Pausanias, Livy, Pliny. Analyses of Dante and indices of topics are frequent in them. He kept also a series of note-books in which he noted passages in the classics or other authors under different headings. There is thus a "Topics" book, a "Myth" book, a "Places" book, and a "Grammar" book.
2 Vol. iii. § 22 (Vol. XXXV.).
3 Vol. XXXIII. p. xxiii.
4 Ruskin Relics, p. 11.
xlviii INTRODUCTION
photographs to which Ruskin refers below (p. 562) as " the first that expressed what good or character there is in me for my own work."
The illustrations to The Storm,-Cloud (Plates I. and II.) have been mentioned already (p. xxvii.). The others are introduced to illustrate various passages in the Letters or Conversations. Ruskin's drawing of Warwick Castle (Plate III.) was made in 1847; it is in sepia (18x22£). The Plate (IV.) of Studies in the Grotesque was etched for him by George Cruikshank, and was perhaps intended for use in Stones of Venice, where two of the figures were separately used ; for further particulars, see p. 566. In connexion with Ruskin's defence of the Lake Country, an early drawing (1838) of a well-known spot, Watend- lath Tarn, is introduced (Plate V.); it is in pencil (8f X 10$ ). The drawing of Folkestone done in 1849 in pen and sepia (11 X 18) — Plate VI. — shows the place in the old days which Ruskin remembered and regretted (pp. 610, 673). These two drawings, and that of Warwick Castle, are in the collection of Mr. B. B. Macgeorge, of Glasgow, by whose kindness they are here reproduced. The last Plate (VII.) shows the piece of faience which in Ruskin's later years occupied the central position over the mantelpiece in his study ; he attributed it to Luca del la Robbia, but Mr. Fairfax Murray, who obtained the piece for him, assigned it to Andrea (p. 666).
E. T. C.
I
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
(1884)
XXXIV.
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
TWO LECTURES
DELIVERED AT THE LONDON INSTITUTION
FEBRUARY 4TH AND IITH, 1884.
BY
JOHN RUSKIN,
HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, HONORARY FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART, OXFORD.
GEORGE ALLEN,
SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT.
1884.
[Bibliographical Note. — The book entitled The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century was first written for two lectures delivered at the London Institu- tion on February 4 and 11, 1884.
The first lecture was fully reported in the Times of February 5, 1884, and in the Pall Mall Gazette of the same date (by Mr. Cook), and less fully in several other newspapers (e.g., the Standard). The second lecture, which it had been understood was to be only a repetition of the first, was not reported. The first lecture was also fully reported (by Mr. Wedderburn) in the Art Journal of April 1884, N.S. No. 40, pp. 105- 108 ; and this report was illustrated by woodcuts, made by Mr. J. D. Cooper from Mr. Severn's enlargements of Ruskin's drawings. In the Art Journal the titles of the " Sunset at Abbeville" (now Fig. 1 on Plate I.) and the Herne-Hill Sunset (Fig. 5 on Plate II.) were transposed. These woodcuts are given in the present edition. A very few copies of them were printed separately for binding up with the edition of The Storm-Cloud next described.
ISSUE IN PARTS
The lectures were first issued in two Parts, small quarto, in May 1884, 3000 copies of each being printed.
Part I. — The title-page was as given here (p. 3), except that instead of the rose there was " Lecture I." On the reverse was the imprint, ' ' Printed by | Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Limited, | London and Ayles- bury." Preface, pp. iii.-vi. ; Lecture, pp. 1-63.
Issued in buff-coloured paper wrappers, with the title-page (enclosed in a plain ruled frame) reproduced upon the front. On this title-page the date " Monday, February 4th " was added below " Lecture I."
Part II. — The title-page was as before, except for the words " Lecture II. | Monday, February llth." On the reverse was the imprint, " Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Limited, London and Aylesbury." A half-title preceded the title-page. " Lecture II.," pp. 65-142 ; half-title " Index," p. 143 ; Index (by Mr. Wedderburn), 145-152 (with the imprint repeated at the foot of p. 152). Title-page and Contents to the complete work were stitched in at the end of the Part.
Issued as before ; the words " Price Three Shillings the Two Lectures. | (Not sold separately)" being added below the frame.
ISSUE IN VOLUME FORM
This may still be called First Edition, as it was made up of remainder sheets of the separate Parts.
The title-page is as here given (p. 3) ; on the reverse is the imprint,
6 THE STORM-CLOUD
" Printed by | Hazel! , Watson, and Viney, Limited, | London and Ayles- bury." The half-title and title-page are not counted in the pagination. Contents, p. i. ; Preface, pp. iii.-vi.
Issued in green or brown cloth boards, lettered across the back : " Ruskin | Storm | Cloud | 1884." Price 4s. 6d. The edition is still current.
An unauthorised American edition was issued at 50 cents.
Reviews of the first lecture were numerous. See, for instance, the St. James's Gazette, February 5 ; Daily News, February 6, 1884 (noticed by Ruskin, p. 77), August 8, 1884 ; Standard, February 6 ; Whitehall Review, February 7 ("Sin and the Weather"); Knowledge, February 8, 1884 (vol. vi. p. 81); World, February 13, 1884.
A note in the World (February 20, 1884) states that Ruskin, "on the second delivery of his lecture, inadvertently raised a perfect storm-cloud of hisses and applause by speaking of the mountain which faces his residence at Coniston as the grand 'Old Man.' When the tumult had subsided, the lecturer rebuked his audience (amongst whom was Miss Gladstone) for their display of feeling ; but he was unable to eradicate the confusion from their minds ; and when he came (§ 35) to describe the grand Old Man as looking quite frantic, his added 'I mean the mountain' was only just in time to save a second outburst."
In the present edition, the sections have been numbered.
The words Lecture I. and the date have been added on p. 9. And the date on p. 42.
Ruskin's references in Lecture I. to Notes in Lecture II. were numerical " 1 " to " 19," but the references to Notes 17 (in § 21) and 20 (in § 38) were omitted. In this edition references to the Note, section, and page are given ; and similarly in the Notes (in Lecture II.), references back to the several pages in Lecture I. are given, and occasionally the words commented upon (which Ruskin in his text did not always quote) are supplied.
A few typographical errors in the Greek in §§ 6, 54 have been cor- rected ; and references to Ruskin's other books have been adjusted to the present edition. In § 57, line 2, "atmosphere" is a correction for " atmospheric " ; and in § 65 " On the Change," etc., a correction for "On the Changes."]
PREFACE
THE following lectures, drawn up under the pressure of more imperative and quite otherwise directed work,1 contain many passages which stand in need of support, and some, I do not doubt, more or less of correction, which I always prefer to receive openly from the better knowledge of friends, after setting down my own impressions of the matter in clearness as far as they reach, than to guard myself against by submitting my manuscript, before publi- cation, to annotators whose stricture or suggestion I might often feel pain in refusing, yet hesitation in admitting.
But though thus hastily, and to some extent incautiously, thrown into form, the statements in the text are founded on patient and, in all essential particulars, accurately re- corded observations of the sky, during fifty years of a life of solitude and leisure; and in all they contain of what may seem to the reader questionable, or astonishing, are guardedly and absolutely true.
In many of the reports given by the daily press, my assertion of radical change, during recent years, in weather aspect was scouted as imaginary, or insane. I am indeed, every day of my yet spared life, more and more grateful that my mind is capable of imaginative vision, and liable to the noble dangers of delusion which separate the specu- lative intellect of humanity from the dreamless instinct of brutes : but I have been able, during all active work, to use or refuse my power of contemplative imagination, with as easy command of it as a physicist's of his telescope : the times of morbid are just as easily distinguished by me from
1 [Namely, the publication of the Oxford lectures on The Art of England, Vol. XXXIII.]
7
8 THE STORM-CLOUD
those of healthy vision, as by men of ordinary faculty dream from waking; nor is there a single fact stated in the following pages which I have not verified with a chemist's analysis, and a geometer's precision.
The first lecture is printed, with only addition here and there of an elucidatory word or phrase, precisely as it was given on the 4th February. In repeating it on the llth, I amplified several passages, and substituted for the con- cluding one, which had been printed with accuracy in most of the leading journals, some observations which I thought calculated to be of more general interest. To these, with the additions in the first text, I have now prefixed a few explanatory notes, to which numeral references are given in the pages they explain, and have arranged the fragments in connection clear enough to allow of their being read with ease as a second Lecture.
HERNE HILL, 12/A March, 1884.
THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
LECTURE I
(Delivered on February 4, 1884)
1. LET me first assure my audience that I have no arriere pensee in the title chosen for this lecture. I might, indeed, have meant, and it would have been only too like me to mean, any number of things by such a title ; — but, to-night, I mean simply what I have said, and propose to bring to your notice1 a series of cloud phenomena, which, so far as I can weigh existing evidence, are peculiar to our own times ; yet which have not hitherto received any special notice or description from meteorologists.
2. So far as the existing evidence, I say, of former literature can be interpreted, the storm-cloud — or more accurately plague-cloud, for it is not always stormy — which I am about to describe to you, never was seen but by now living, or lately living eyes. It is not yet twenty years that this — I may well call it, wonderful — cloud has been, in its essence, recognizable. There is no description of it, so far as I have read, by any ancient observer. Neither Homer nor Virgil, neither Aristophanes nor Horace, ac- knowledge any such clouds among those compelled by Jove. Chaucer has no word of them, nor Dante;2 Milton none, nor Thomson. In modern times, Scott, Wordsworth, and Byron are alike unconscious of them ; and the most observant and descriptive of scientific men, De Saussure,
1 [Here, as always, a comparison of the final text with its earlier stage* shows Ru skin's chastening upon revision. The proofs read : " . . . bring to your notice no pictorial images of political gloom, but only a series . . ."]
* [See Note 1 ; below, § 41, p. 42.]
9
10 THE STORM-CLOUD
is utterly silent concerning them. Taking up the traditions of air from the year before Scott's death, I am able, by my own constant and close observation, to certify you that in the forty following years (1831 to 1871 approxi- mately— for the phenomena in question came on gradually) — no such clouds as these are, and are now often for months without intermission, were ever seen in the skies of England, France, or Italy.
3. In those old days, when weather was fine, it was luxuriously fine; when it was bad — it was often abomin- ably bad, but it had its fit of temper and was done with it — it didn't sulk for three months without letting you see the sun, — nor send you one cyclone inside out, every Saturday afternoon, and another outside in, every Monday morning.
In fine weather the sky was either blue or clear in its light; the clouds, either white or golden, adding to, not abating, the lustre of the sky. In wet weather, there were two different species of clouds, — those of beneficent rain, which for distinction's sake I will call the non-electric rain-cloud, and those of storm, usually charged highly with electricity. The beneficent rain-cloud was indeed often ex- tremely dull and grey for days together, but gracious never- theless, felt to be doing good, and often to be delightful after drought; capable also of the most exquisite colouring, under certain conditions ; l and continually traversed in clear- ing by the rainbow: — and, secondly, the storm-cloud, always majestic, often dazzlingly beautiful, and felt also to be beneficent in its own way, affecting the mass of the air with vital agitation, and purging it from the impurity of all morbific elements.
4. In the entire system of the Firmament, thus seen and understood, there appeared to be, to all the thinkers of those ages, the incontrovertible and unmistakable evi- dence of a Divine Power in creation, which had fitted, as the air for human breath, so the clouds for human sight and nourishment ; — the Father who was in heaven feeding
1 [See Note 2 ; § 42, p. 43.]
LECTURE I 11
day by day the souls of His children with marvels, and satisfying them with bread, and so filling their hearts with food and gladness.1
Their hearts, you will observe, it is said, not merely their bellies, — or indeed not at all, in this sense, their bellies — but the heart itself, with its blood for this life, and its faith for the next. The opposition between this idea and the notions of our own time may be more accu- rately expressed by modification of the Greek than of the English sentence. The old Greek is —
e/ATrtTrXwj/ Tooffis KOI evcppoo'vvris ra? Kap6ia$ f]/
filling with meat, and cheerfulness, our hearts. The modern Greek should be —
€fJiTrnr\u>v ave/mov KOI a(j)po<rvvtj$ raf ydo-repa?
filling with wind, and foolishness, our stomachs.
5. You will not think I waste your time in giving you two cardinal examples of the sort of evidence which the higher forms of literature furnish respecting the cloud- phenomena of former times.
When, in the close of my lecture on landscape last year at Oxford,2 I spoke of stationary clouds as distinguished from passing ones, some blockheads wrote to the papers to say that clouds never were stationary.3 Those foolish letters were so far useful in causing a friend to write me the pretty one I am about to read to you, quoting a passage about clouds in Homer which I had myself never noticed, though perhaps the most beautiful of its kind in the Iliad. In the fifth book, after the truce is broken, and the
1 [Acts xiv. 17.]
1 [See Art of England, § 191 (Vol. XXXHI. p. 392).]
3 [The reference is to some correspondence in the Pall Mall Gazette, which followed its report of Raskin's sixth lecture on The Art of England. Sir Robert Rawlinson (November 21), in an interesting letter (headed " Clouds, Poets, and Painters"), said that "Mr. Ruskin never saw, other than in imagination, a fair- weather cloud remain motionless," and cited Antony and Cleopatra, Act iv. sc. 12. Another correspondent ("L," November 24) referred to "Mr. Ruskin's extraordi- nary remarks on stationary clouds."]
12 THE STORM-CLOUD
aggressor Trojans are rushing to the onset in a tumult of clamour and charge, Homer says that the Greeks, abiding them, "stood like clouds." My correspondent, giving the passage, writes as follows : —
"Sm, — Last winter when I was at Ajaccio, I was one day reading Homer by the open window, and came upon the lines —
'AAA' ep-evov, ve<f>fXr)(riv eoi/cores, as TC Kpovtwv
eo-nytrev «r' aK/ooTroAouriv opea-criv, s, o<f>p' evoyo-t juevos Bopeao KCU a
dve/ia>v, otre vefaa
TlvoiQ(riv Xiyvpfjfri SuwKiSvofriv acvres ' Aavaoi
e But they stood, like the clouds which the Son of Kronos establishes in calm upon the mountains, motionless, when the rage of the North and of all the fiery winds is asleep.' As I finished these lines, I raised my eyes, and looking across the gulf, saw a long line of clouds resting on the top of its hills. The day was windless, and there they stayed, hour after hour, without any stir or motion. I remember how I was delighted at the time, and have often since that day thought on the beauty and the truthfulness of Homer's simile.
" Perhaps this little fact may interest you, at a time when you are attacked for your description of clouds.
"I am, sir, yours faithfully,
"G. B. HILL." 2
6. With this bit of noonday from Homer, I will read you a sunset and a sunrise from Byron. That will enough express to you the scope and sweep of all glorious litera- ture, from the orient of Greece herself to the death of the last Englishman who loved her.3 I will read you from Sardanapalus the address of the Chaldean priest Beleses
1 [Iliad, v. 522-527.]
* [George Birkbeck Hill, D.C.L. ; for his winter sojourn in Corsica (1882-1883), see Lettert of George Birkbeck Hill, 1906, pp. 145-146. He was an early admirer of Ruskin's books : see ibid., p. 60. Ruskin's reply to this letter was as follows : —
"BRANTWOOD, 7th Dec. '83.
" MY DEAR SIR, — I've just time to thank you, by this post — but please let me know if your address is permanent. I had totally forgot the passage ! — but I don't think the young generation will teach me much about clouds ! It is a curious feeling in old age. Homer has his word about that too, hasn't he? — that nobody knows one's old sinews. — Ever grate- fully yours, J. RUSKIN."
(Talks about Autographs, by George Birkbeck Hill, 1896, p. 26, where the letter is given in facsimile).]
3 [See Note 3 ; § 3, p. 44.]
LECTURE I 18
to the sunset, and of the Greek slave, Myrrha, to the morning.
" The sun goes down : methinks he sets more slowly, Taking his last look of Assyria's empire. How red he glares amongst those deepening clouds,1 Like the blood he predicts.2 If not in vain, Thou sun that sinkest, and ye stars which rise, I have outwatch'd ye, reading ray by ray The edicts of your orbs, which make Time tremble For what he brings the nations, 't is the furthest Hour of Assyria's years. And yet how calm ! An earthquake should announce so great a fall — A summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon Its everlasting page the end of what Seem'd everlasting ; but oh ! thou TRUE sun ! The burning oracle of all that live, As fountain of all life, and symbol of Him who bestmvs it, wherefore dost thou limit Thy lore unto calamity ? 3 Why not Unfold the rise of days more worthy thine All-glorious burst from ocean ? why not dart A beam of hope athwart the future years, As of wrath to its days ? Hear me ! oh, hear me ! I am thy worshipper, thy priest, thy servant — I have gazed on thee at thy rise and fall, And bow'd my head beneath thy mid-day beams, When my eye dared not meet thee. I have watch'd For thee, and after thee, and pray'd to thee, And sacrificed to thee, and read, and fear'd thee, And ask'd of thee, and thou hast answer'd — but Only to thus much. While I speak, he sinks — Is gone — and leaves his beauty, not his knowledge, To the delighted west, which revels in Its hues of dying glory. Yet what is Death, so it be but glorious? 'T is a sunset; And mortals may be happy to resemble The gods but in decay."4
Thus the Chaldean priest, to the brightness of the setting sun. Hear now the Greek girl, Myrrha, of his rising: —
" The day at last has broken. What a night Hath usher'd it ! How beautiful in heaven ! Though varied with a transitory storm,
See Note 4 ; § 44, p. 44.1 'See Note 5 ; § 45, p. 45.1 |See Note 6 ; § 46, p. 45.] Act ii. scene 1. The following quotation is from Act v. scene 1.]
14 THE STORM-CLOUD
More beautiful in that variety : l
How hideous upon earth ! where peace, and hope,
And love, and revel, in an hour were trampled
By human passions to a human chaos,
Not yet resolved to separate elements : —
'T is warring still ! And can the sun so rise,
So bright, so rolling back the clouds into
Vapours more lovely than the unclouded sky,
With golden pinnacles, and snowy mountains,
And billows purpler than the ocean's, making
In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth,
So like, — we almost deem it permanent ;
So fleeting, — we can scarcely call it aught
Beyond a vision, 't is so transiently
Scatter'd along the eternal vault : and yet
It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the soul,
And blends itself into the soul, until
Sunrise and sunset form the haunted epoch
Of sorrow and of love."
How often now — young maids of London, — do you make sunrise the " haunted epoch " of either ? 2
7. Thus much, then, of the skies that used to be, and clouds "more lovely than the unclouded sky," and of the temper of their observers. I pass to the account of clouds that are, and — I say it with sorrow — of the ^temper of their observers.
But the general division which I have instituted between bad-weather and fair-weather clouds must be more carefully carried out in the sub-species, before we can reason of it farther: and before we begin talk either of the sub-genera and sub-species, or super-genera and super-species of cloud, perhaps we had better define what every cloud is, and must be, to begin with.
Every cloud that can be, is thus primarily definable : "Visible vapour of water floating at a certain height in the air." The second clause of this definition, you see, at once implies that there is such a thing as visible vapour of water which does not float at a certain height in the air. You are all familiar with one extremely cognizable variety of
1 [See Note 7 ; § 47, p. 46.]
1 [Compare the "Notes on a Word in Shakespeare," below, p. 535.]
LECTURE I 15
that sort of vapour — London Particular;1 but that especial blessing of metropolitan society is only a strongly-developed and highly-seasoned condition of a form of watery vapour which exists just as generally and widely at the bottom of the air, as the clouds do — on what, for convenience' sake, we may call the top of it ; — only as yet, thanks to the sagacity of scientific men, we have got no general name for the bottom cloud, though the whole question of cloud nature begins in this broad fact, that you have one kind of vapour that lies to a certain depth on the ground, and another that floats at a certain height in the sky.2 Perfectly definite, in both cases, the surface level of the earthly vapour, and the roof level of the heavenly vapour, are each of them drawn within the depth of a fathom. Under their line, drawn for the day and for the hour, the clouds will not stoop, and above theirs, the mists will not rise. Each in their own region, high or deep, may expatiate at their pleasure; within that, they climb, or decline, — within that they congeal or melt away ; but below their assigned horizon the surges of the cloud sea may not sink, and the floods of the mist lagoon may not be swollen.
8. That is the first idea you have to get well into your minds concerning the abodes of this visible vapour; next, you have to consider the manner of its visibility. Is it, you have to ask, with cloud vapour, as with most other things, that they are seen when they are there, and not seen when they are not there? or has cloud vapour so much of the ghost in it, that it can be visible or invisible as it likes, and may perhaps be all unpleasantly and malignantly there, just as much when we don't see it, as when we do ? To which I answer, comfortably and generally, that, on the whole, a cloud is where you see it, and isn't where you don't ; 3 that, when there's an evident and honest
[Dickens's phrase for London fog: coined in Bleak House (1852), ch. in.]
2 [On the general subject of the scientific questions which Ruskiu asks in these lectures about the clouds, see the Postscript to ch. i. part vii. of Modern Painters (Vol. VII. p. 141), and compare the correspondence of 1885 with Sir Oliver Lodge (Vol. XXXVII.).]
3 [For a reference by Ruskin to this passage, see § 60 (below, p. 55).]
16 THE STORM-CLOUD
thunder- cloud in the north-east, you needn't suppose there's a surreptitious and slinking one in the north-west ; — when there's a visible fog at Bermondsey, it doesn't follow there's a spiritual one, more than usual, at the West End : and when you get up to the clouds, and can walk into them or out of them, as you like, you find when you're in them they wet your whiskers, or take out your curls, and when you're out of them, they don't; and therefore you may with probability assume — not with certainty, observe, but with probability — that there's more water in the air where it damps your curls than where it doesn't. If it gets much denser than that, it will begin to rain; and then you may assert, certainly with safety, that there is a shower in one place, and not in another; and not allow the scientific people to tell you that the rain is everywhere, but palpable in Tooley Street, and impalpable in Grosvenor Square.
9. That, I say, is broadly and comfortably so on the whole, — and yet with this kind of qualification and farther condition in the matter. If you watch the steam coming strongly out of an engine-funnel,1 — at the top of the funnel it is transparent, — you can't see it, though it is more densely and intensely there than anywhere else. Six inches out of the funnel it becomes snow-white, — you see it, and you see it, observe, exactly where it is, — it is then a real and proper cloud. Twenty yards off the funnel it scatters and melts away; a little of it sprinkles you with rain if you are underneath it, but the rest disappears ; yet it is still there ; — the surrounding air does not absorb it all into space in a moment ; there is a gradually diffusing current of invisible moisture at the end of the visible stream — an invisible, yet quite substantial, vapour ; but not, according to our defini- tion, a cloud, for a cloud is vapour visible.
10. Then the next bit of the question, of course, is, What makes the vapour visible, when it is so? Why is the compressed steam transparent, the loose steam white, the dissolved steam transparent again ?
1 [See Note 8 ; § 48, p. 46.]
LECTURE I 17
The scientific people tell you that the vapour becomes visible, and chilled, as it expands. Many thanks to them ; but can they show us any reason why particles of water should be more opaque when they are separated than when they are close together, or give us any idea of the difference of the state of a particle of water, which won't sink in the air, from that of one that won't rise in it?1
11. And here I must parenthetically give you a little word of, I will venture to say, extremely useful, advice about scientific people in general. Their first business is, of course, to tell you things that are so, and do happen, — as that, if you warm water, it will boil ; if you cool it, it will freeze ; and if you put a candle to a cask of gun- powder, it will blow you up. Their second, and far more important business, is to tell you what you had best do under the circumstances, — put the kettle on in time for tea ; powder your ice and salt, if you have a mind for ices ; and obviate the chance of explosion by not making the gunpowder. But if, beyond this safe and beneficial business, they ever try to explain anything to you, you may be confident of one of two things, — either that they know nothing (to speak of) about it, or that they have only seen one side of it — and not only haven't seen, but usually have no mind to see, the other. When, for instance, Professor Tyndall explains the twisted beds of the Jung- frau to you by intimating that the Matterhorn is growing flat ; 2 or the clouds on the lee side of the Matterhorn by the wind's rubbing against the windward side of it,3 — you may be pretty sure the scientific people don't know much (to speak of) yet, either about rock-beds, or cloud-beds. And even if the explanation, so to call it, be sound on one side, windward or lee, you may, as I said, be nearly certain it won't do on the other. Take the very top and centre of scientific interpretation by the greatest of its masters :
1 [See Note 9 ; § 50, p.
* [See '
* [See
XXXIV.
iiuie »7 , >j u\jy p. no.j
Note 10; § 51, p. 48.1 Note 11 ; § 52, p. 49.]
18 THE STORM-CLOUD
Newton explained to you — or at least was once supposed to have explained — why an apple fell ; but he never thought of explaining the exactly correlative, but infinitely more difficult question, how the apple got up there !
You will not, therefore, so please you, expect me to explain anything to you, — I have come solely and simply to put before you a few facts, which you can't see by candlelight, or in railroad tunnels, but which are making themselves now so very distinctly felt as well as seen, that you may perhaps have to roof, if not wall, hah0 London afresh before we are many years older.
12. I go back to my point — the way in which clouds, as a matter of fact, become visible. I have defined the floating or sky cloud, and defined the falling or earth cloud. But there's a sort of thing between the two, which needs a third definition : namely, Mist. In the 22nd page of his Glaciers of the Alps? Professor Tyndall says that " the marvellous blueness of the sky in the earlier part of the day indicated that the air was charged, almost to saturation, with transparent aqueous vapour." Well, in certain weather that is true. You all know the peculiar clearness which precedes rain, — when the distant hills are looking nigh. I take it on trust from the scientific people that there is then a quantity — almost to saturation — of aqueous vapour in the air, but it is aqueous vapour in a state which makes the air more transparent than it would be without it. What state of aqueous molecule is that, absolutely unre- flective2 of light — perfectly transmissive of light, and show- ing at once the colour of blue water and blue air on the distant hills?
13. I put the question — and pass round to the other side. Such a clearness, though a certain forerunner of rain, is not always its forerunner. Far the contrary. Thick air is a much more frequent forerunner of rain than clear air. In cool weather, you will often get the transparent
1 [The references are to the first edition (1860) of The Glaciers of the Alps.]
2 [See Note 12 ; § 54, p. 51. Also Note 14, § 57, p. 63.]
LECTURE I 19
prophecy: but in hot weather, or in certain not hitherto defined states of atmosphere, the forerunner of rain is mist. In a general way, after you have had two or three days of rain, the air and sky are healthily clear, and the sun bright. If it is hot also, the next day is a little mistier — the next misty and sultry, — and the next and the next, getting thicker and thicker, end in another storm, or period of rain.
14. I suppose the thick air, as well as the transparent, is in both cases saturated with aqueous vapour ; — but also in both, observe, vapour that floats everywhere, as if you mixed mud with the sea ; and it takes no shape anywhere : you may have it with calm, or with wind, it makes no difference to it. You have a nasty haze with a bitter east wind, or a nasty haze with not a leaf stirring, and you may have the clear blue vapour with a fresh rainy breeze, or the clear blue vapour as still as the sky above. What difference is there between these aqueous molecules that are clear, and those that are muddy, these that must sink or rise, and those that must stay where they are, these that have form and stature, that are bellied like whales and backed like weasels,1 and those that have neither backs nor fronts, nor feet nor faces, but are a mist — and no more — over two or three thousand square miles ?
I again leave the questions with you, and pass on.
15. Hitherto I have spoken of all aqueous vapour as if it were either transparent or white — visible by becoming opaque like snow, but not by any accession of colour. But even those of us who are least observant of skies, know that, irrespective of all supervening colours from the sun, there are white clouds, brown clouds, grey clouds, and black clouds. Are these indeed — what they appear to be — entirely distinct monastic disciplines of cloud : Black Friars, and White Friars, and Friars of Orders Grey ? Or is it only their various nearness to us, their denseness, and
1 [Compare Art of England, § 185 : Vol. XXXIII. p. 389.]
20 THE STORM-CLOUD
the failing of the light upon them, that makes some clouds look black1 and others snowy?
I can only give you qualified and cautious answer. There are, by differences in their own character, Domini- can clouds, and there are Franciscan; — there are the Black Hussars of the Bandiera della Morte,2 and there are the Scots Greys whose horses can run upon the rock.3 But if you ask me, as I would have you ask me, why argent and why sable, how baptized in white like a bride or a novice and how hooded with blackness like a Judge of the Vehmgericht Tribunal,4 — I leave these questions with you, and pass on.
16. Admitting degrees of darkness, we have next to ask what colour from sunshine can the white cloud receive, and what the black ?
You won't expect me to tell you all that, or even the little that is accurately known about that, in a quarter of an hour; yet note these main facts on the matter.
On any pure white, and practically opaque, cloud, or thing like a cloud, as an Alp, or Milan Cathedral, you can have cast5 by rising or setting sunlight, any tints of amber, orange, or moderately deep rose — you can't have lemon yellows, or any kind of green except in negative hue by opposition ; and though by storm-light you may sometimes get the reds cast very deep, beyond a certain limit you cannot go, — the Alps are never vermilion colour, nor flamingo colour, nor canary colour ; nor did you ever see a full scarlet cumulus of thunder-cloud.
On opaque white vapour, then, remember, you can get a glow or a blush of colour, never a flame of it.
17. But when the cloud is transparent as well as pure,
1 [See Note 13 ; § 55, p. 52.]
2 [For the reference here, see Fiction, Fair and Foul, § 89 (below, p. 359).]
3 [" Shall horses run upon the rock?" (Amos vi. 12). To the "terrible Scots Greys," Ruskin often refers: see Vol. XXXIII. p. 475, and the other passages there noted.]
* [The MS. has, in place of "like a Judge," etc., "like a sister of mercy as they dress nowadays, or a carrion crow as they dress on all days." For "the Vehmgericht," see Anne of Geierstein, ch. «.]
* [The word "cast" is to be distinguished from "reflected": see Note 14, § 56, p. 53.]
LECTURE I 21
and can be filled with light through all the body of it, you then can have by the light reflected1 from its atoms any force conceivable by human mind of the entire group of the golden and ruby colours, from intensely burnished gold colour, through a scarlet for whose brightness there are no words, into any depth and any hue of Tyrian crim- son and Byzantine purple. These with full blue breathed between them at the zenith, and green blue nearer the horizon, form the scales and chords of colour possible to the morning and evening sky in pure and fine weather; the keynote of the opposition being vermilion against green blue, both of equal tone, and at such a height and acme of brilliancy that you cannot see the line where their edges pass into each other.
18. No colours that can be fixed in earth can ever represent to you the lustre of these cloudy ones. But the actual tints may be shown you in a lower key, and to a certain extent their power and relation to each other.
I have painted the diagram here shown you2 with colours prepared for me lately by Messrs. Newman, which I find brilliant to the height that pigments can be;3 and the ready kindness of Mr. Wilson Barrett4 enables me to show you their effect by a white light as pure as that of the day. The diagram is enlarged from my careful sketch of the sunset of 1st October, 1868, at Abbeville, which was a beautiful example of what, in fine weather about to pass into storm, a sunset could then be, in the districts of Kent and Picardy unaffected by smoke.5 In reality, the ruby and vermilion clouds were, by myriads, more numerous than I have had time to paint : but the general character of their grouping is well enough expressed. All the illumined
1 [See Note 14 ; § 56, p. 53.] ' [Fig. 1 on Plate 1.1
3 [Compare Raskin's letter to Mr. Collingwood given in the Introduction, above, p. xxvii.]
4 [For a letter from Ruskin to Mr. Wilson Barrett, then the actor-manager of the Princess' Theatre, on his production of Claudian, see a later volume of this edition.]
8 [See the further description of this sky below, § 60, p. 56. In his diary at Abbeville (October 1, 1868) Ruskin notes : " The most lovely sunset I ever saw in heaven, beating the Boulogne one of 1861, not in richness, but in exquisiteuess."]
22 THE STORM-CLOUD
clouds are high in the air, and nearly motionless ; beneath them, electric storm-cloud rises in a threatening cumulus on the right, and drifts in dark flakes across the horizon, casting from its broken masses radiating shadows on the upper clouds. These shadows are traced, in the first place by making the misty blue of the open sky more trans- parent, and therefore darker ; and secondly, by entirely intercepting the sunbeams on the bars of cloud, which, within the shadowed spaces, show dark on the blue instead of light.
But, mind, all that is done by reflected light — and in that light you never get a green ray from the reflecting cloud ; there is no such thing in nature as a green lighted cloud relieved from a red sky, — the cloud is always red, and the sky green, and green, observe, by transmitted, not reflected light.1
19. But now note, there is another kind of cloud, pure white, and exquisitely delicate ; which acts not by reflecting, nor by refracting, but, as it is now called,2 diffracting, the sun's rays. The particles of this cloud are said — with what truth I know not3 — to send the sunbeams round them instead of through them ; somehow or other, at any rate, they resolve them into their prismatic element ; and then you have literally a kaleidoscope in the sky, with every colour of the prism in absolute purity ; but above all in force, now, the ruby red and the green, — with purple, and violet-blue, in a virtual equality, more definite than that of the rainbow.4 The red in the rainbow is mostly brick red, the violet, though beautiful, often lost at the edge; but in the prismatic cloud the violet, the green, and the ruby are all more lovely than in any precious stones, and they are varied as in a bird's breast, changing their places, depths, and extent at every instant ; — the main cause of this change
1 [See, again, Note 14; § 57, p. 53.]
2 [The proof has, " as Professor Tyndall calls it " : see Glaciers of the Alps, 1860, p. 237.]
3 [See Note 15 ; § 58, p. 54]
4 [For a reference to this passage, see Vol. VII. p. 148 n.]
Fig. I
A Sunset at Abbeville, 1868
1
An August Sky at Brantwood, 1880
LECTURE I 23
being, that the prismatic cloud itself is always in rapid, and generally in fluctuating motion.
"A light veil of clouds had drawn itself/' says Professor Tyndall, in describing his solitary ascent of Monte Rosa,1 " between me and the sun, and this was flooded with the most brilliant dyes. Orange, red, green, blue — all the hues produced by diffraction — were exhibited in the utmost splendour.
" Three times during my ascent (the short ascent of the last peak) similar veils drew themselves across the sun, and at each passage the splendid phenomena were renewed. There seemed a tendency to form circular zones of colour round the sun ; but the clouds were not sufficiently uniform to permit of this, and they were consequently broken into spaces, each steeped with the colour due to the condition of the cloud at the place."
Three times, you observe, the veil passed, and three times another came, or the first faded and another formed ; and so it is always, as far as I have registered prismatic cloud : and the most beautiful colours I ever saw were on those that flew fastest.
20. This second diagram2 is enlarged admirably by Mr. Arthur Severn from my sketch of the sky in the after- noon of the 6th of August, 1880, at Brantwood, two hours before sunset.3 You are looking west by north, straight towards the sun, and nearly straight towards the wind.
1 [Glaciers of the Alps, p. 154]
2 [Fig. 2 on Plate I.]
3 [For further remarks on it, see below, § 60, p. 56. In his diary (Brantwood, August 6) Ruskin made the following entry : —
" In the afternoon the most overwhelming1, wonderful hours of increas- ing prismatic light, like a painted window in heaven, pale but intent ; and in one or two cases, even deep rose colour, passing into orange, barred or interstained with pale emerald green, passing here and there into olive but not violet except in some dark grey clouds which became violet by being touched with the ruby : these very rare and small, like Turner's lightest spray of dark touches in Flint Castle. All this on the edges above the sun, at about 12-15° above him ; he, some 20° above horizon ; and all sky interwoven with muslin and netting of diviuest cirri cloud, over infinite shoals and sands of mackerel cloud ; but all flying, failing, melting — re-appearing — twisting and intertwisting — faster than eye could follow ; and, after some three hours of this play (5 to 8), ending in two great ranks of storm-cloud — lower, pale against higher, dark (or backing of dark) : the latter with long locks and tresses, as of hair at its edge ; and both overlying the range of hills, exactly like the Hesperides dragon — ending northward in a clear sky against a black monster cloud — half dolphin, half tiger (which ?) rolled and rose, and finally toppled and tumbled — the face of it, or where, had it been a beast, the face would
24 THE STORM-CLOUD
From the west the wind blows fiercely towards you out of the blue sky. Under the blue space is a flattened dome of earth-cloud clinging to, and altogether masquing the form of, the mountain, known as the Old Man of Coniston.
The top of that dome of cloud is two thousand eight hundred feet above the sea, the mountain two thousand six hundred, the cloud lying two hundred feet deep on it. Behind it, westward and seaward, all's clear; but when the wind out of that blue clearness comes over the ridge of the earth-cloud, at that moment and that line, its own moisture congeals into these white — I believe, ice- clouds ; threads, and meshes, and tresses, and tapestries, flying, fail- ing, melting, reappearing; spinning and unspinning them- selves, coiling and uncoiling, winding and unwinding, faster than eye or thought can follow: and through all their dazzling maze of frosty filaments shines a painted window in palpitation ; its pulses of colour interwoven in motion, intermittent in fire, — emerald and ruby and pale purple and violet melting into a blue that is not of the sky, but of the sunbeam ; — purer than the crystal, softer than the rain- bow, and brighter than the snow.
But you must please here observe that while my first diagram did with some adequateness represent to you the colour facts there spoken of, the present diagram can only explain, not reproduce them. The bright reflected colours of clouds can be represented in painting, because they are relieved against darker colours, or, in many cases, are dark colours, the vermilion and ruby clouds being often much darker than the green or blue sky beyond them. But in the case of the phenomena now under your attention, the colours are all brighter than pure white, — the entire body
have been, falling forward like a gloomy and slow avalanche and melting,
as it was torn down or dragged, into nothingness.
11 1 believe these swift and mocking clouds and colours are only between
storms. They are assuredly new in Heaven, so far as my life reaches.
I never saw a single example of them till after 1870."
For a coloured reproduction of Turner's " Flint Castle," see Plate XI. in Vol. XXII. (p. 62). For the dragon in his " Garden of the Hesperides," see Plate 78 in Modern Painters, vol. v. (Vol. VII. p. 402).]
LECTURE I 25
of the cloud in which they show themselves being white by transmitted light, so that I can only show you what the colours are, and where they are, — but leaving them dark on the white ground. Only artificial, and very high illumination would give the real effect of them, — painting cannot.
21. Enough, however, is here done to fix in your minds the distinction between those two species of cloud, — one, either stationary, or slow in motion, reflecting unresolved light ; * the other, fast-flying, and transmitting resolved light. What difference is there in the nature of the atoms, be- tween those two kinds of clouds ? I leave the question with you for to-day, merely hinting to you my suspicion that the prismatic cloud is of finely-comminuted water, or ice,2 instead of aqueous vapour ; but the only clue I have to this idea is in the purity of the rainbow formed in frost mist, lying close to water surfaces. Such mist, however, only becomes prismatic as common rain does, when the sun is behind the spectator, while prismatic clouds are, on the contrary, always between the spectator and the sun.
22. The main reason, however, why I can tell you nothing yet about these colours of diffraction or interfer- ence, is that, whenever I try to find anything firm for you to depend on, I am stopped by the quite frightful inac- curacy of the scientific people's terms, which is the conse- quence of their always trying to write mixed Latin and English,3 so losing the grace of the one and the sense of the other. And, in this point of the diffraction of light I am stopped dead by their confusion of idea also, in using the words undulation and vibration as synonyms. " When," says Professor Tyndall,4 "you are told that the atoms of the sun vibrate at different rates, and produce waves of different sizes, — your experience of water-waves will enable you to form a tolerably clear notion of what is meant."
See Note 16 ; § 60, p. 55.] |See Note 17 ; 8 61, p. 56.]
Compare Deucalion, ii. ch. i. § 36 n. (Vol. XXVI. p. 317).] 'Forms of Water, § 29 (p. 11).]
26 THE STORM-CLOUD
" Tolerably clear " ! — your toleration must be consider- able, then. Do you suppose a water-wave is like a harp- string ? Vibration is the movement of a body in a state of tension, — undulation, that of a body absolutely lax. In vibration, not an atom of the body changes its place in relation to another, — in undulation, not an atom of the body remains in the same place with regard to another. In vibration, every particle of the body ignores gravitation, or defies it, — in undulation, every particle of the body is slavishly submitted to it. In undulation, not one wave is like another; in vibration, every pulse is alike. And of undulation itself, there are all manner of visible conditions, which are not true conditions. A flag ripples in the wind, but it does not undulate as the sea does, — for in the sea, the water is taken from the trough to put on to the ridge, but in the flag, though the motion is progressive, the bits of bunting keep their place. You see a field of corn undu- lating as if it was water, — it is different from the flag, for the ears of corn bow out of their places and return to them, — and yet, it is no more like the undulation of the sea, than the shaking of an aspen leaf in a storm, or the lowering of the lances in a battle.
And the best of the jest is, that after mixing up these two notions in their heads inextricably, the scientific people apply both when neither will fit ; and when all undulation known to us presumes weight, and all vibration, impact, — the undulating theory of light is proposed to you concern- ing a medium which you can neither weigh nor touch !
All communicable vibration — of course I mean — and in dead matter: You may fall a-shivering on your own ac- count, if you like, but you can't get a billiard-ball to fall a-shivering on its own account.1
23. Yet observe that in thus signalizing the inaccuracy of the terms in which they are taught, I neither accept, nor assail, the conclusions respecting the oscillatory states of light, heat, and sound, which have resulted from the
1 [See Note 18 ; § 65, p. 59.]
LECTURE I 27
postulate of an elastic, though impalpable and imponder- able ether, possessing the elasticity of air. This only I desire you to mark with attention, — that both light and sound are sensations of the animal frame, which remain, and must remain, wholly inexplicable, whatever manner of force, pulse, or palpitation may be instrumental in producing them : nor does any such force become light or sound, except in its rencontre with an animal. The leaf hears no murmur in the wind to which it wavers on the branches, nor can the clay discern the vibration by which it is thrilled into a ruby. The Eye and the Ear are the creators alike of the ray and the tone ; and the conclusion follows logically from the right conception of their living power, — " He that planted the Ear, shall He not hear ? He that formed the Eye, shall not He see ? " l
24. For security, therefore, and simplicity of definition of light, you will find no possibility of advancing beyond Plato's "the power that through the eye manifests colour,"2 but on that definition, you will find, alike by Plato and all great subsequent thinkers, a moral Science of Light founded, far and away more important to you than all the physical laws ever learned by vitreous revelation. Concern- ing which 1 will refer you to the sixth lecture which I gave at Oxford in 1872, on the relation of Art to the Science of Light (Eagle's Nest, § 97 3), reading now only the sentence introducing its subject : —
" The ' Fiat lux ' of creation is therefore, in the deep sense, ' fiat aniraa/ and is as much, when you understand it, the ordering of Intelligence as the ordering of Vision. It is the appointment of change of what had been else only a mechanical effluence from things unseen to things unseeing, — from Stars, that did not shine, to Earth, that did not perceive, — the change, I say, of that blind vibration into the glory of the Sun and Moon for human eyes : so making possible the communication out of the un- fathomable truth of that portion of truth which is good for us, and animating to us, and is set to rule over the day and over the night of our joy and our sorrow."
1 [Psalms xciv. 9.]
J [Minos, 314 A : see Vol. XX. p. 223, and compare Vol. XXII. p. 194.1
» [Vol. XXII. p. 194.]
*/r
28 THE STORM-CLOUD
25. Returning now to our subject at the point from which I permitted myself, I trust not without your pardon, to diverge ; you may incidentally, but carefully, observe, that the effect of such a sky as that represented in the second diagram, so far as it can be abstracted or conveyed by painting at all, implies the total absence of any pervad- ing warmth of tint, such as artists usually call "tone." Every tint must be the purest possible, and above all the white. Partly, lest you should think, from my treatment of these two phases of effect, that I am insensible to the
Fig. 3
TWILIGHT BETWEEN VERONA AND BRESCIA, 1845
quality of tone, — and partly to complete the representation of states of weather undefiled by plague-cloud, yet capable of the most solemn dignity in saddening colour, I show you, Diagram 3, the record of an autumn twilight of the year 1845, — sketched while I was changing horses between Verona and Brescia. The distant sky in this drawing is in the glowing calm which is always taken by the great Italian painters for the background of their sacred pictures ; a broad field of cloud is advancing upon it overhead, and meeting others enlarging in the distance; these are rain- clouds, which will certainly close over the clear sky, and bring on rain before midnight : but there is no power in them to pollute the sky beyond and above them : they do
LECTURE I 29
not darken the air, nor defile it, nor in any way mingle with it; their edges are burnished by the sun like the edges of golden shields, and their advancing march is as deliberate and majestic as the fading of the twilight itself into a darkness full of stars.
26. These three instances are all I have time to give of the former conditions of serene weather, and of non-electric rain-cloud. But I must yet, to complete the sequence of my subject, show you one example of a good, old-fashioned, healthy, and mighty, storm.
In Diagram 4,1 Mr. Severn has beautifully enlarged my sketch of a July thunder-cloud of the year 1858, on the Alps of the Val d'Aosta, seen from Turin, that is to say, some twenty-five or thirty miles distant. You see that no mistake is possible here about what is good weather and what bad, or which is cloud and which is sky; but I show you this sketch especially to give you the scale of heights for such clouds in the atmosphere. These thunder cumuli entirely hide the higher Alps.2 It does not, however, follow that they have buried them, for most of their own aspect of height is owing to the approach of their nearer masses; but at all events, you have cumulus there rising from its base, at about three thousand feet above the plain, to a good ten thousand in the air.
White cirri, in reality parallel, but by perspective radiat- ing, catch the sunshine above, at a height of from fifteen to twenty thousand feet ; but the storm on the mountains gathers itself into ;a full mile's depth of massy cloud,— every fold of it involved with thunder, but every form of it, every action, every colour, magnificent : — doing its mighty work in its own hour and its own dominion, nor snatching from you for an instant, nor defiling with a stain, the abiding blue of the transcendent sky, or the fretted silver of its passionless clouds.
27. We so rarely now see cumulus cloud of this grand
1 [Fig. 4 on Plate II. (p. 40).]
1 [In the MS., "Monte Combin and Velan."]
30 THE STORM-CLOUD
kind, that I will yet delay you by reading the description of its nearer aspect, in the 130th page of Eagle's Nest : x —
"The rain which flooded our fields the Sunday before last, was followed, as you will remember, by bright days, of which Tuesday the 20th (February, 1872) was, in London, notable for the splendour, towards the afternoon, of its white cumulus clouds. There has been so much black east wind lately, and so much fog and artificial gloom, besides, that I find it is actually some two years since I last saw a noble cumulus cloud under full light. I chanced to be standing under the Victoria Tower at West- minster, when the largest mass of them floated past, that day, from the north-west; and I was more impressed than ever yet by the awfulness of the cloud-form, and its unaccountableness, in the present state of our know- ledge. The Victoria Tower, seen against it, had no magnitude : it was like looking at Mont Blanc over a lamp-post. The domes of cloud-snow were heaped as definitely : their broken flanks were as grey and firm as rocks, and the whole mountain, of a compass and height in heaven which only became more and more inconceivable as the eye strove to ascend it, was passing behind the tower with a steady march, whose swiftness must in reality have been that of a tempest : yet, along all the ravines of vapour, precipice kept pace with precipice, and not one thrust another.
" What is it that hews them out ? Why is the blue sky pure there, — the cloud solid here ; and edged like marble : and why does the state of the blue sky pass into the state of cloud, in that calm advance ?
" It is true that you can more or less imitate the forms of cloud with explosive vapour or steam ; but the steam melts instantly, and the ex- plosive vapour dissipates itself. The cloud, of perfect form, proceeds un- changed. It is not an explosion, but an enduring and advancing presence. The more you think of it, the less explicable it will become to you."
28. Thus far then of clouds that were once familiar ; now at last, entering on my immediate subject, I shall best introduce it to you by reading an entry in my diary which gives progressive description of the most gentle aspect of the modern plague-cloud.
"BoLTON ABBEY, 4th July, 1875.
" Half-past eight, morning ; the first bright morning for the last fortnight.
"At half-past five it was entirely clear, and entirely calm; the moorlands glowing, and the Wharfe glittering
1 [The reference is to the first edition; §§ 130, 131 (Vol. XXJI. pp. 212- 213).]
LECTURE I 31
in sacred light, and even the thin-stemmed field-flowers quiet as stars, in the peace in which —
" ' All trees and simples, great and small,
That balmy leaf do bear, Than they were painted on a wall, No more do move, nor steir.' 1
But, an hour ago, the leaves at my window first shook slightly. They are now trembling continuously, as those of all the trees, under a gradually rising wind, of which the tremulous action scarcely permits the direction to be defined, — but which falls and returns in fits of varying force, like those which precede a thunderstorm — never wholly ceasing : the direction of its upper current is shown by a few ragged white clouds, moving fast from the north, which rose, at the time of the first leaf-shaking, behind the edge of the moors in the east.
"This wind is the plague- wind of the eighth decade of years in the nineteenth century ; a period which will assuredly be recognized in future meteorological history as one of phenomena hitherto unrecorded in the courses of nature, and characterized pre-eminently by the almost ceaseless action of this calamitous wind. While I have been writing these sentences, the white clouds above speci- fied have increased to twice the size they had when I began to write ; and in about two hours from this time — say by eleven o'clock, if the wind continue, — the whole sky will be dark with them, as it was yesterday, and has been through prolonged periods during the last five years. I first noticed the definite character of this wind, and of the clouds it brings with it, in the year 1871, describing
1 [Hymnes, or Sacred Songs, wherein the right use of Poesie may be espied. By Alexander Hume, Edinburgh, 1699. The author (1560-1609) was minister of Logie ; the verse (which is from his best poem, A Description of the Day Estivall, p. 15) is in the original : —
"All trees and simples, great and small,
That balmie leife do beir, Nor thay were painted on a wall, Nae mair they move or steir."]
82 THE STORM-CLOUD
it then in the July number1 of Fors Clavigera; but little, at that time, apprehending either its universality, or any probability of its annual continuance. I am able now to state positively that its range of power extends from the North of England to Sicily; and that it blows more or less during the whole of the year, except the early autumn. This autumnal abdication is, I hope, beginning: it blew but feebly yesterday, though without intermission, from the north, making every shady place cold, while the sun was burning ; its effect on the sky being only to dim the blue of it between masses of ragged cumulus. To-day it has entirely fallen ; and there seems hope of bright weather, the first for me since the end of May, when I had two fine days at Aylesbury; the third, May 28th, being black again from morning to evening. There seems to be some reference to the blackness caused by the prevalence of this wind in the old French name of Bise, ' grey wind ' ; and, indeed, one of the darkest and bitterest days of it I ever saw was at Vevay in 1872."2
29. The first time I recognized the clouds brought by the plague-wind as distinct in character was in walking back from Oxford, after a hard day's work, to Abingdon,3 in the early spring of 1871 : it would take too long to give you any account this evening of the particulars which drew my attention to them ; but during the following months I had too frequent opportunities of verifying my first thoughts of them, and on the first of July in that year wrote the description of them which begins the Fors Clavigera of August, thus: —
" It is the first of July, and I sit down to write by the dismallest light that ever yet I wrote by ; namely, the light of this midsummer morning, in mid-England (Matlock, Derbyshire), in the year 1871.
" For the sky is covered with grey cloud ; — not rain-cloud, but a dry black veil, which no ray of sunshine can pierce ; partly diffused in mist,
1 [That is, the August number, written in July : see below, § 29.]
2 [An error for 1870; his diary of that year notes on May C at Vevay the "bitter black east wind."!
3 [Where Ruskin was living at the time : see Vol. XX. p. xxxix.]
LECTURE I 33
feeble mist, enough to make distant objects unintelligible, yet without any substance, or wreathing, or colour of its own. And everywhere the leaves of the trees are shaking fitfully, as they do before a thunderstorm ; only not violently, but enough to show the passing to and fro of a strange, bitter, blighting wind. Dismal enough, had it been the first morning of its kind that summer had sent. But during all this spring, in London, and at Oxford, through meagre March, through changelessly sullen April, through despondent May, and darkened June, morning after morning has come grey-shrouded thus.
" And it is a new thing to me, and a very dreadful one. I am fifty years old, and more; and since I was five, have gleaned the best hours of my life in the sun of spring and summer mornings ; and I never saw such as these, till now.
"And the scientific men are busy as ants, examining the sun and the moon, and the seven stars, and can tell me all about them, I believe, by this time ; and how they move, and what they are made of.
"And I do not care, for my part, two copper spangles how they move, nor what they are made of. I can't move them any other way than they go, nor make them of anything else, better than they are made. But I would care much and give much, if I could be told where this bitter wind comes from, and what it is made of.
"For, perhaps, with forethought, and fine laboratory science, one might make it of something else.
" It looks partly as if it were made of poisonous smoke ; very possibly it may be : there are at least two hundred furnace chimneys in a square of two miles on every side of me. But mere smoke would not blow to and fro in that wild way. It looks more to me as if it were made of dead men's souls — such of them as are not gone yet where they have to go, and may be flitting hither and thither, doubting, themselves, of the fittest place for them.
"You know, if there are such things as souls, and if ever any of them haunt places where they have been hurt, there must be many above us, just now, displeased enough ! " l
The last sentence refers of course to the battles of the Franco-German campaign, which was especially horrible to me, in its digging, as the Germans should have known, a moat flooded with waters of death between the two nations for a century to come.
30. Since that Midsummer day, my attention, however otherwise occupied, has never relaxed in its record of the phenomena characteristic of the plague-wind ; and I now define for you, as briefly as possible, the essential signs of it.
(1.) It is a wind of darkness, — all the former conditions of tormenting winds, whether from the north or east, were more or less capable of co-existing with sunlight, and often
1 [Vol. XXVII. pp. 132, 133.]
34 THE STORM-CLOUD
with steady and bright sunlight ; but whenever, and wher- ever the plague-wind blows, be it but for ten minutes, the sky is darkened instantly.
31. (2.) It is a malignant quality of wind, unconnected with any one quarter of the compass ; it blows indifferently from all, attaching its own bitterness and malice to the worst characters of the proper winds of each quarter. It will blow either with drenching rain, or dry rage, from the south, — with ruinous blasts from the west, — with bitterest chills from the north, — and with venomous blight from the east.
Its own favourite quarter, however, is the south-west, so that it is distinguished in its malignity equally from the Bise of Provence, which is a north wind always, and from our own old friend, the east.
32. (3.) It always blows tremulously, making the leaves of the trees shudder as if they were all aspens, but with a peculiar fitfumess which gives them — and I watch them this moment as I write — an expression of anger as well as of fear and distress. You may see the kind of quivering, and hear the ominous whimpering, in the gusts that precede a great thunderstorm ; but plague-wind is more panic-struck, and feverish ; and its sound is a hiss instead of a wail.
When I was last at Avallon,1 in South France, I went to see Faust played at the little country theatre : it was done with scarcely any means of pictorial effect, except a few old curtains, and a blue light or two. But the night on the Brocken was nevertheless extremely appalling to me, — a strange ghastliness being obtained in some of the witch scenes merely by fine management of gesture and drapery ; and in the phantom scenes, by the half-palsied, half-furious, faltering or fluttering past of phantoms stum- bling as into graves ; as if of not only soulless, but senseless, Dead, moving with the very action, the rage, the decrepi- tude, and the trembling of the plague-wind.
33. (4.) Not only tremulous at every moment, it is also intermittent with a rapidity quite unexampled in former
1 [In August 1882 : see the Introduction to Vol. XXXIII. p. xxxv.]
LECTURE I 35
weather. There are, indeed, days — and weeks, on which it blows without cessation, and is as inevitable as the Gulf Stream ; but also there are days when it is contending with healthy weather, and on such days it will remit for half an hour, and the sun will begin to show itself, and then the wind will come back and cover the whole sky with clouds in ten minutes; and so on, every half-hour, through the whole day ; so that it is often impossible to go on with any kind of drawing in colour, the light being never for two seconds the same from morning till evening.
34. (5.) It degrades, while it intensifies, ordinary storm; but before I read you any description of its efforts in this kind, I must correct an impression which has got abroad through the papers,1 that I speak as if the plague-wind blew now always, and there were no more any natural weather. On the contrary, the winter of 1878-9 was one of the most healthy and lovely I ever saw ice in ; — Coniston lake shone under the calm clear frost in one marble field, as strong as the floor of Milan Cathedral, half a mile across and four miles down; and the first entries in my diary which I read you shall be from the 22nd to 26th June, 1876, of perfectly lovely and natural weather: —
"Sunday, 25tk June, 1876.
" Yesterday, an entirely glorious sunset, unmatched in beauty since that at Abbeville,2 — deep scarlet, and purest rose, on purple grey, in bars; and stationary, plumy, sweep- ing filaments above in upper sky, like 'using up the brush? said Joanie ; remaining in glory, every moment best, chang- ing from one good into another, (but only in colour or light— -form steady,) for half an hour full, and the clouds afterwards fading into the grey against amber twilight, stationary in the same form for about two hours, at least.
1 [This passage, it will be noted, was added in revising the spoken lecture for the press.]
1 [See above, p. 21.] xxxiv. c
36 THE STORM-CLOUD
The darkening rose tint remained till half-past ten, the grand time being at nine.
" The day had been fine, — exquisite green light on after- noon hills."
"Monday, 26th June, 1876.
"Yesterday an entirely perfect summer light on the Old Man ; Lancaster Bay all clear ; Ingleborough and the great Pennine fault as on a map. Divine beauty of western colour on thyme and rose, — then twilight of clearest warm amber far into night, of pale amber all night long; hills dark-clear against it.
" And so it continued, only growing more intense in blue and sunlight, all day. After breakfast, I came in from the well under strawberry bed, to say I had never seen any- thing like it, so pure or intense, in Italy ; and so it went glowing on, cloudless, with soft north wind, all day. "
" 16th July.
" The sunset almost too bright through the blinds for me to read Humboldt at tea by, — finally, new moon like a lime-light, reflected on breeze-struck water; traces, across dark calm, of reflected hills."
35. These extracts are, I hope, enough to guard you against the absurdity of supposing that it all only means that I am myself soured, or doting, in my old age, and always in an ill humour. Depend upon it, when old men are worth anything, they are better-humoured than young ones ; and have learned to see what good there is, and pleasantness, in the world they are likely so soon to have orders to quit.
Now then — take the following sequences of accurate description of thunderstorm, with plague-wind.
"22nd June, 1876.
" Thunderstorm ; pitch dark, with no blackness, — but deep, high, Jilthiness of lurid, yet not sublimely lurid,
LECTURE I 37
smoke-cloud ; dense manufacturing mist ; fearful squalls of shivery wind, making Mr. Severn's sail1 quiver like a man in a fever fit — all about four, afternoon — but only two or three claps of thunder, and feeble, though near, flashes. I never saw such a dirty, weak, foul storm. It cleared suddenly after raining all afternoon, at half-past eight to nine, into pure, natural weather, — low rain-clouds on quite clear, green, wet hills."
" Branttvood, IStk August, 1879.
" The most terrific and horrible thunderstorm, this morn- ing, I ever remember. It waked me at six, or a little before — then rolling incessantly, like railway luggage trains, quite ghastly in its mockery of them — the air one loath- some mass of sultry and foul fog, like smoke ; scarcely raining at all, but increasing to heavier rollings, with flashes quivering vaguely through all the air, and at last terrific double streams of reddish- violet fire, not forked or zigzag, but rippled rivulets — two at the same instant some twenty to thirty degrees apart, and lasting on the eye at least half a second, with grand artillery- peals following ; not rattling crashes, or irregular cracklings, but delivered volleys. It lasted an hour, then passed off, clearing a little, without rain to speak of, — not a glimpse of blue, — and now, half- past seven, seems settling down again into Manchester devil's darkness.
" Quarter to eight, morning. — Thunder returned, all the air collapsed into one black fog, the hills invisible, and scarcely visible the opposite shore ; heavy rain in short fits, and frequent, though less formidable, flashes, and shorter thunder. While I have written this sentence the cloud has again dissolved itself, like a nasty solution in a bottle, with miraculous and unnatural rapidity, and the hills are in sight again ; a double-forked flash — rippled, I mean, like the others — starts into its frightful ladder of light between me and Wetherlam, as I raise my eyes. All black above,
1 [That is, the sail of Mr. Severn's boat on Coniston Lake, seen from Ruskin's study-window.]
88 THE STORM-CLOUD
a rugged spray cloud on the Eaglet. (The 'Eaglet' is my own name for the bold and elevated crag to the west of the little lake above Coniston mines. It had no name among the country people, and is one of the most con- spicuous features of the mountain chain, as seen from Brantwood.)
" Half-past eight. — Three times light and three times dark since last I wrote, and the darkness seeming each time as it settles more loathsome, at last stopping my reading in mere blindness. One lurid gleam of white cumulus in upper lead-blue sky, seen for half a minute through the sul- phurous chimney-pot vomit of blackguardly cloud beneath, where its rags were thinnest."
" Thursday, 22m/ Feb. 1883.
" Yesterday a fearfully dark mist all afternoon, with steady, south plague-wind of the bitterest, nastiest, poisonous blight, and fretful flutter. I could scarcely stay in the wood for the horror of it. To-day, really rather bright blue, and bright semi-cumuli, with the frantic Old Man blowing sheaves of lancets and chisels across the lake — not in strength enough, or whirl enough, to raise it in spray, but tracing every squall's outline in black on the silver grey waves, and whistling meanly, and as if on a flute made of a file."
"Sunday, 11 th August, 1879.
" Raining in foul drizzle, slow and steady ; sky pitch- dark, and I just get a little light by sitting in the bow- window ; diabolic clouds over everything : and looking over my kitchen garden yesterday, I found it one miserable mass of weeds gone to seed, the roses in the higher garden putrefied into brown sponges, feeling like dead snails ; and the half-ripe strawberries all rotten at the stalks."
36. (6.) And now I come to the most important sign of the plague-wind and the plague-cloud : that in bringing on their peculiar darkness, they blanch the sun instead of
LECTURE I 39
reddening it. And here I must note briefly to you the uselessness of observation by instruments, or machines, instead of eyes. In the first year when I had begun to notice the specialty of the plague- wind, I went of course to the Oxford observatory to consult its registrars. They have their anemometer always on the twirl, and can tell you the force, or at least the pace, of a gale,1 by day or night. But the anemometer can only record for you how often it has been driven round, not at all whether it went round steadily, or went round trembling. And on that point depends the entire question whether it is a plague breeze or a healthy one : and what's the use of telling you whether the wind's strong or not, when it can't tell you whether it's a strong medicine, or a strong poison ?
But again — you have your -swrc-measure, and can tell exactly at any moment how strong, or how weak, or how wanting, the sun is. But the suri-measurer can't tell you whether the rays are stopped by a dense shallow cloud, or a thin deep one. In healthy weather, the sun is hidden behind a cloud, as it is behind a tree ; and, when the cloud is past, it comes out again, as bright as before. But in plague-wind, the sun is choked out of the whole heaven, all day long, by a cloud which may be a thousand miles square and five miles deep.
And yet observe : that thin, scraggy, filthy, mangy, miserable cloud, for all the depth of it, can't turn the sun red, as a good, business-like fog does with a hundred feet or so of itself. By the plague-wind every breath of air you draw is polluted, half round the world; in a London fog the air itself is pure, though you choose to mix up dirt with it, and choke yourself with your own nastiness.
37. Now I'm going to show you a diagram of a sunset in entirely pure weather, above London smoke. I saw it and sketched it from my old post of observation — the top garret of my father's house at Herne Hill. There, when
1 [See Note 19 ; § 70, p. 62.]
40 THE STORM-CLOUD
the wind is south, we are outside of the smoke and above it ; and this diagram,1 admirably enlarged from my own drawing by my, now in all things best aide-de-camp, Mr. Collingwood, shows you an old-fashioned sunset — the sort of thing Turner and I used to have to look at, — (nobody else ever would) constantly. Every sunset and every dawn, in fine weather, had something of the sort to show us. This is one of the last pure sunsets I ever saw, about the year 1876, — and the point I want you to note in it is, that the air being pure, the smoke on the horizon, though at last it hides the sun, yet hides it through gold and ver- milion. Now, don't go away fancying there's any exaggera- tion in that study. The prismatic colours, I told you, were simply impossible to paint ; these, which are transmitted colours, can indeed be suggested, but no more. The brightest pigment we have would look dim beside the truth.
88. I should have liked to have blotted down for you a bit of plague-cloud to put beside this ; but Heaven knows, you can see enough of it nowadays without any trouble of mine ; and if you want, in a hurry, to see what the sun looks like through it, you've only to throw a bad half-crown into a basin of soap and water.
Blanched Sun, — blighted grass, — blinded man. — If, in conclusion, you ask me for any conceivable cause or mean- ing of these things — I can tell you none, according to your modern beliefs ; but I can tell you what meaning it would have borne to the men of old time. Remember, for the last twenty years, England, and all foreign nations, either tempting her, or following her, have blasphemed* the name of God deliberately and openly ; and have done iniquity by proclamation, every man doing as much injustice to his brother as it is in his power to do. Of states in such moral gloom every seer of old predicted the physical gloom, saying, " The light shall be darkened in the heavens thereof,
1 [Fig. 5 on Plate II.]
2 [See Note 20; § 80, p. 72.]
A July Thunder-cloud in the Val d'Aosta, 1858
An Old-fashioned Sunset, 1876
Fig. 5
LECTURE I 41
and the stars shall withdraw their shining." * All Greek, all Christian, all Jewish prophecy insists on the same truth through a thousand myths ; but of all the chief, to former thought, was the fable of the Jewish warrior and prophet, for whom the sun hasted not to go down, with which I leave you to compare at leisure the physical result of your own wars and prophecies, as declared by your own elect journal not fourteen days ago, — that the Empire of England, on which formerly the sun never set, has become one on which he never rises.2
39. What is best to be done, do you ask me? The answer is plain. Whether you can affect the signs of the sky or not, you can the signs of the times.3 Whether you can bring the sun back or not, you can assuredly bring back your own cheerfulness, and your own honesty. You may not be able to say to the winds, " Peace ; be still," but you can cease from the insolence of your own lips, and the troubling of your own passions. And all that it would be extremely well to do, even though the day were coming when the sun should be as darkness, and the moon as blood. But, the paths of rectitude and piety once regained, who shall say that the promise of old time would not be found to hold for us also ? — " Bring ye all the tithes into my storehouse, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord God, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."
1 [Joel ii. 10 : for the next Bible reference, see Joshua x. 13 ; for other refer- ences to the sun standing still for Joshua, see below, pp. 117, 327.]
* [The reference is to the Pall Mall Gazette. On January 2 it had published the report of " registered sunshine " for the week ending December 29 ; namely, "nil." The sunless weather continued, and on January 23 the Gazette published "the following simple ditty: —
Old England is afraid of none, He who retails this axiom in
She fears no foomen's threats, His generation wise is ;
For on her mighty empire The sun it never sets because
The sun it never sets. The sun it never rises."]
* [Matthew xvi. 3 ; for the following Bible references, see Mark iv. 39 ; Job iii. 17 ; Joel ii. 31 ; Malachi iii. 10.]
LECTURE II
(Delivered on February 11, 1884)
March llth, 1884.
40. IT was impossible for me, this spring, to prepare, as I wished to have done, two lectures for the London Institu- tion : but finding its members more interested in the sub- ject chosen than I had anticipated, I enlarged my lecture at its second reading by some explanations and parentheses, partly represented, and partly farther developed, in the fol- lowing notes ; which led me on, however, as I arranged them, into branches of the subject untouched in the former lecture, and it seems to me of no inferior interest.
41. (Note 1; § 2, p. 9: "Dante has no word of the storm-clouds") The vapour over the pool of Anger in the Inferno, the clogging stench which rises from Caina, and the fog of the circle of Anger in the Purgatorio resemble,1 indeed, the cloud of the Plague-wind very closely, — but are conceived only as supernatural. The reader will no doubt observe, throughout the following lecture, my own habit of speaking of beautiful things as " natural," and of ugly ones as " unnatural." In the conception of recent philosophy, the world is one Kosmos in which diphtheria is held to be as natural as song, and cholera as digestion. To my own mind — and the more distinctly the more I see, know, and feel — the Earth, as prepared for the abode of man, appears distinctly ruled by agencies of health and disease, of which the first may be aided by his industry, prudence, and piety ; while the destroying laws are allowed to prevail against him, in the degree in which he allows himself in idleness, folly,
1 [Purgatorio, xv. 142. For the "-pool of Anger," see Inferno, vii. 123. The " clogging stench " rises, not from Caina, but from the quarters assigned to the Flatterers in the second Bolgia of Circle viii. of Hell : see Inferno, xviii. 106 seq.]
42
LECTURE II 43
and vice. Had the point been distinctly indicated where the degrees of adversity necessary for his discipline pass into those intended for his punishment, the world would have been put under a manifest theocracy; but the declaration of the principle is at least distinct enough to have con- vinced all sensitive and earnest persons, from the beginning of speculation in the eyes and mind of Man : and it has been put in my power by one of the singular chances which have always helped me in my work when it was in the right direction, to present to the University of Oxford the most distinct expression of this first principle of mediaeval Theology which, so far as I know, exists in fifteenth-century art. It is one of the drawings of the Florentine book which I bought for a thousand pounds, against the British Museum,1 some ten or twelve years since ; being a compendium of classic and mediaeval religious symbolism. In the two pages of it, forming one picture, given to Oxford, the delivery of the Law on Sinai is represented on the left hand, (contrary to the Scriptural narrative, but in deeper expression of the benediction of the Sacred Law to all nations,) as in the midst of bright and calm light, the figure of the Deity being supported by luminous and level clouds, and attended by happy angels: while opposite, on the right hand, the worship of the Golden Calf is symbolized by a single decorated pillar, with the calf on its summit, surrounded by the clouds and darkness of a furious storm, issuing from the mouths of fiends; — uprooting the trees, and throwing down the rocks, above the broken tables of the Law, of which the frag- ments lie in the foreground.
42. (Note 2 ; see § 3, p. 10 : " The beneficent rain-cloud . . . capable of the most exquisite colouring under certain con- ditions") These conditions are mainly in the arrangement
1 [Ultimately, however, Ruskin sold the book to the Museum for the same sum, and the drawing, taken from it for presentation to Oxford, was replaced ; for particulars, see Vol. XV. p. 380, Vol. XX. p. 335 n., and Vol. XXII. p. 426. The two pages here described are reproduced on Plates 20 and 21 in A Florentine Picture-Chronicle . . . by Maso Finiguerra, with critical and descriptive text by Sidney C'olvin (1898).]
44 THE STORM-CLOUD
of the lower rain-clouds in flakes thin and detached enough to be illuminated by early or late sunbeams : their textures are then more softly blended than those of the upper cirri, and have the qualities of painted, instead of burnished or inflamed, colour.
They were thus described in the 4th chapter of the 7th part of Modern Painters:1 —
" Often in our English mornings, the rain-clouds in the dawn form soft level fields, which melt imperceptibly into the blue ; or when of less extent, gather into apparent bars, crossing the sheets of broader cloud above ; and all these bathed throughout in an unspeakable light of pure rose-colour, and purple, and amber, and blue, not shining, but misty-soft, the barred masses, when seen nearer, found to be woven in tresses of cloud, like floss silk, looking as if each knot were a little swathe or sheaf of lighted rain.
" No clouds form such skies, none are so tender, various, inimitable ; Turner himself never caught them. Correggio, putting out his whole strength, could have painted them, — no other man."
43. ( Note 3 ; see § 6, p. 12 : " Byron . . . the last Eng- lishman who loved Greece."} I did not, in writing this sen- tence, forget Mr. Gladstone's finely scholastic enthusiasm for Homer;2 nor Mr. Newton's for Athenian — (I wish it had not been also for Halicarnassian) sculpture. But Byron loved Greece herself — through her death — and to his own; while the subsequent refusal of England to give Greece one of our own princes for a king,3 has always been held by me the most ignoble, cowardly, and lamentable, of all our base commercial impolicies.
44. (Note 4; § 6, p. 13.) "Deepening" clouds. — Byron never uses an epithet vainly, — he is the most accurate, and therefore the most powerful, of all modern describers. The deepening of the cloud is essentially necessary to the redness of the orb. Ordinary observers are continually unaware of this fact, and imagine that a red sun can be darker than
1 [
2 [
[Vol. VII. p. 179.]
[For another reference to Mr. Gladstone's Homeric Studies, see Vol. XXXI.
?. 16 ; and for C. T. Newton's discoveries at Halicarnassus, Preeterita. ii. § 155 Vol. XXXV.).]
3 [For other references to this episode, see Time and Tide, §161 (Vol. XVII. p. 449), and Vol. XVIII. p. 551.]
LECTURE II 45
the sky round it ! Thus Mr. Gould, though a professed naturalist, and passing most of his life in the open air, over and over again, in his British Birds, draws the setting sun dark on the sky !
45. (Note 5; § 6, p. 13.) "Like the blood he predicts." — The astrological power of the planet Mars was of course ascribed to it in the same connection with its red colour. The reader may be interested to see the notice, in Modern Painters? of Turner's constant use of the same symbol; partly an expression of his own personal feeling, partly, the employment of a symbolic language known to all careful readers of solar and stellar tradition : —
" He was very definitely in the habit of indicating the association of any subject with circumstances of death, especially the death of multitudes, by placing it under one of his most deeply crimsoned sunset skies.
"The colour of blood is thus plainly taken for the leading tone in the storm-clouds above the ' Slave-ship.' It occurs with similar distinctness in the much earlier picture of ' Ulysses and Polypheme,' in that of ' Napoleon at St. Helena,' and, subdued by softer hues, in the ' Old Temeraire.'
" The sky of this Goldau is, in its scarlet and crimson, the deepest in tone of all that I know in Turner's drawings.
" Another feeling, traceable in several of his former works, is an acute sense of the contrast between the careless interests and idle pleasures of daily life, and the state of those whose time for labour, or knowledge, or delight, is passed for ever. There is evidence of this feeling in the intro- duction of the boys at play in the churchyard of Kirkby Lonsdale, and the boy climbing for his kite among the thickets above the little mountain churchyard of Brignal-banks ; it is in the same tone of thought that he has placed here the two figures fishing, leaning against these shattered flanks of rock, — the sepulchral stones of the great mountain Field of Death."
46. (Note 6; § 6, p. 13.) "Thy lore unto calamity."— It is, I believe, recognized by all who have in any degree be- come interested in the traditions of Chaldean astrology, that its warnings were distinct, — its promises deceitful. Horace thus warns Leuconoe against reading the Babylonian num- bers to learn the time of her death,2 — he does not imply their promise of previous happiness ; and the continually deceptive character of the Delphic oracle itself tempted
1 [In vol. iv. ch. xviii. § 24 (Vol. VI. p. 381).] e#, i. 11: "Tu ne quaesieris."]
46 THE STORM-CLOUD
always rather to fatal than to fortunate conduct, unless the inquirer were more than wise in his reading. Byron gathers into the bitter question all the sorrow of former superstition, while in the lines italicized, just above, he sums in the briefest and plainest English, all that we yet know, or may wisely think, about the Sun. It is the "Burning oracle" (other oracles there are by sound, or feeling, but this by fire) of all that live ; the only means of our accurate know- ledge of the things round us, and that affect our lives : it is the fountain of all life, — Byron does not say the wigin ; — the origin of life would be the origin of the sun itself; but it is the visible source of vital energy, as the spring is of a stream, though the origin is the sea. "And symbol of Him who bestows it." — This the sun has always been, to every one who believes there is a bestower; and a symbol so perfect and beautiful that it may also be thought of as partly an apocalypse.
47. (Note 7; § 6, p. 14.) "More beautiful in that variety." — This line, with the one italicized beneath, ex- presses in Myrrha's mind, the feeling which I said, in the outset,1 every thoughtful watcher of heaven necessarily had in those old days ; whereas now, the variety is for the most part, only in modes of disagreeableness ; and the vapour, instead of adding light to the unclouded sky, takes away the aspect and destroys the functions of sky altogether.
48. (Note 8; § 9, p. 16.) "Steam out of an engine funnel." — Compare the sixth paragraph of Professor Tyn- dall's Forms of Water, and the following seventh one, in which the phenomenon of transparent steam becoming opaque is thus explained : —
"Every bit of steam shrinks, when chilled, to a much more minute particle of water. The liquid particles thus produced form a kind of water dust of exceeding fineness, which floats in the air, and is called a cloud."
But the author does not tell us, in the first place, what
1 [See above, pp. 10-14.]
LECTURE II 47
is the shape or nature of a " bit of steam," nor, in the second place, how the contraction of the individual bits of steam is effected without any diminution of the whole mass of them, but on the contrary, during its steady expansion; in the third place he assumes that the particles of water dust are solid, not vesicular, which is not yet ascertained ; in the fourth place, he does not tell us how their number and size are related to the quantity of invisible moisture in the air; in the fifth place, he does not tell us how cool invisible moisture differs from hot invisible moisture ; and in the sixth, he does not tell us why the cool visible mois- ture stays while the hot visible moisture melts away. So much for the present state of " scientific " information, or at least communicativeness, on the first and simplest con- ditions of the problem before us !
49. In its wider range that problem embraces the total mystery of volatile power in substance ; and of the visible states consequent on sudden — and presumably, therefore, imperfect — vaporization ; as the smoke of frankincense, or the sacred fume of modern devotion which now fills the inhabited world, as that of the rose and violet its deserts. What, — it would be useful to know, is the actual bulk of an atom of orange perfume ? — what of one of vapo- rized tobacco, or gunpowder ? — and where do these artificial vapours fall back in beneficent rain ? or through what areas of atmosphere exist, as invisible, though perhaps not innocuous, cloud ?
All these questions were put, closely and precisely, four- and-twenty years ago, in the 1st chapter of the 7th part of Modern Painters, paragraphs 4 to 9,1 of which I can here allow space only for the last, which expresses the final difficulties of the matter better than anything said in this lecture : —
" But farther : these questions of volatility, and visibility, and hue, are all complicated with those of shape. How is a cloud outlined ? Granted whatever you choose to ask, concerning its material, or its aspect, its
1 [See Vol. VII. pp. 130-141.]
48 THE STORM-CLOUD
loftiness and luminousness, — how of its limitation ? What hews it into a heap, or spins it into a web ? Cold is usually shapeless, I suppose, extend- ing over large spaces equally, or with gradual diminution. You cannot have in the open air, angles, and wedges, and coils, and cliffs, of cold. Yet the vapour stops suddenly, sharp and steep as a rock, or thrusts itself across the gates of heaven in likeness of a brazen bar; or braids itself in and out, and across and across, like a tissue of tapestry ; or falls into ripples, like sand ; or into waving shreds and tongues, as fire. On what anvils and wheels is the vapour pointed, twisted, hammered, whirled, as the potter's clay ? By what hands is the incense of the sea built up into domes of marble ? "
50. (Note 9; § 10, p. 17.) The opposed conditions of the higher and lower orders of cloud, with the balanced intermediate one, are beautifully seen on mountain summits of rock or earth. On snowy ones they are far more com- plex : but on rock summits there are three distinct forms of attached cloud in serene weather ; the first that of cloud veil laid over them, and falling in folds through their ravines, (the obliquely descending clouds of the entering chorus in Aristophanes *) ; secondly, the ascending cloud, which develops itself loosely and independently as it rises, and does not attach itself to the hillside, while the falling veil cloud clings to it close all the way down ; — and lastly the throned cloud, which rests indeed on the mountain summit, with its base, but rises high above into the sky, continually changing its outlines, but holding its seat per- haps all day long.
These three forms of cloud belong exclusively to calm weather; attached drift cloud, (see Note 11) can only be formed in the wind.
51. (Note 10; § 11, p. 17: " Tyndatt explains the twisted beds of the Jungfrau by intimating that the Matter/torn is growing flat "} Glaciers of the Alps, page 10: —
"Let a pound weight be placed upon a cube of granite" (size of sup- posed cube not mentioned), " the cube is flattened, though in an infinitesimal degree. Let the weight be removed, the cube remains a little flattened.
1 [Clouds, 325: see Modern Painters, vol. i. (Vol. III. p. 26 /».).]
LECTURE II 49
Let us call the cube thus flattened No. 1. Starting with No. 1 as a new mass, let the pound weight be laid upon it. We have a more flattened mass, No. 2. ... Apply this to squeezed rocks, to those, for example, which form the base of an obelisk like the Matterhorn, — the conclusion seems inevitable that the mountain is sinking by its own weight," etc., etc.
Similarly the Nelson statue must be gradually flattening the Nelson column, — and in time Cleopatra's needle will be as flat as her pincushion ?
52. (Note 11 ; § 11, p. 17 : "... or the clouds on the lee side of the Matterhorn by the winds rubbing against the windward side"} Glaciers of the Alps, page 146 : —
"The sun was near the western horizon, and I remained alone upon the Grat to see his last beams illuminate the mountains, which, with one exception, were without a trace of cloud.
" This exception was the Matterhorn, the appearance of which was extremely instructive. The obelisk appeared to be divided in two halves by a vertical line, drawn from its summit half-way down, to the windward of which we had the bare cliffs of the mountain ; and to the left of it a cloud which appeared to cling tenaciously to the rocks.
" In reality, however, there was no clinging ; the condensed vapour incessantly got away, but it was ever renewed, and thus a river of cloud had been sent from the mountain over the valley of Aosta. The wind, in fact, blew lightly up the valley of St. Nicholas, charged with moisture, and when the air that held it rubbed against the cold cone of the Matter- horn, the vapour was chilled and precipitated in his lee."
It is not explained, why the wind was not chilled by rubbing against any of the neighbouring mountains, nor why the cone of the Matterhorn, mostly of rock, should be colder than cones of snow. The phenomenon was first described by De Saussure, who gives the same explana- tion as Tyndall; and from whom, in the first volume of Modern Painters, I adopted it without sufficient examina- tion.1 Afterwards I re-examined it, and showed its fallacy, with respect to the cap or helmet cloud, in the fifth volume of Modern Painters, page 128,2 in the terms given in the
1 [See Vol. III. pp. 371-372.]
• [The reference is to the first edition: see now Vol. VII. p. 164.]
50 THE STORM-CLOUD
subjoined note,* but I still retained the explanation of Saussure for the lee-side cloud, engraving in Plate 69 the modes of its occurrence on the Aiguille Dru, of which the most ordinary one was afterwards represented by Tyndall in his Glaciers of the Alps? under the title of "Banner-cloud." Its less imaginative title, in Modern Painters? of " Lee-side cloud," is more comprehensive, for this cloud forms often under the brows of far-terraced precipices, where it has no resemblance to a banner. No true explanation of it has ever yet been given ; for the first condition of the problem has hitherto been unobserved, — namely, that such cloud is constant in certain states of weather, under precipitous rocks; — but never developed with distinctness by domes of snow.
53. But my former expansion of Saussure's theory is at least closer to the facts than Professor Tyndall's "rubbing
* '•' But both Saussure and I ought to have known, — we did know, but did not think of it, — that the covering or cap-cloud forms on hot summits as well as cold ones ; — that the red and bare rocks of Mont Pilate, hotter, certainly, after a day's sunshine than the cold storm-wind which sweeps to them from the Alps, nevertheless have been renowned for their helmet of cloud, ever since the Romans watched the cloven summit, grey against the south, from the ramparts of Vindonissa, giving it the name from which the good Catholics of Lucerne have warped out their favourite piece of terrific sacred biography. And both my master and I should also have reflected that if our theory about its formation had been generally true, the helmet cloud ought to form on every cold summit, at the approach of rain, in approximating proportions to the bulk of the glaciers ; which is so far from being the case that not only (A) the cap-cloud may often be seen on lower summits of grass or rock, while the higher ones are splendid \y clear (which may be accounted for by supposing the wind containing the moisture not to have risen so high) ; but (B) the cap-cloud always shows a preference for hills of a conical form, such as the Mole or Niesen, which can have very little power in chilling the air, even supposing they were cold themselves ; while it will entirely refuse to form huge masses of mountain, which, supposing them of chilly temperament, must have dis- comforted the atmosphere in their neighbourhood for leagues."
1 [Not in Glaciers of the Alps, but as frontispiece to The Forma of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers, 1872 (" Cloud Banner of the Aiguille du u").] * [Vol. v. part vii. ch. iii. § 5 (Vol. VII. pp. 165-166).]
LECTURE II
51
against the rocks," and I therefore allow room for it here, with its illustrative woodcut : —
" When a moist wind blows in clear weather over a cold summit, it has not time to get chilled as it approaches the rock, and therefore the air remains clear, and the sky bright on the windward side ; but under the lee of the peak, there is partly a back eddy, and partly still air; and in that lull and eddy the wind gets time to be chilled by the rock, and the cloud appears, as a boiling mass of white vapour, rising continually with the return current to the upper edge of the mountain, where it is caught by the straight wind and partly torn, partly melted away in broken frag- ments.
" In the accompanying figure, the
dark mass represents the mountain peak, the arrow the main direction of the wind, the curved lines show the directions of such current and its concentration, and the dotted line encloses the space in which cloud forms densely, floating away beyond and above in irregular tongues and flakes."
54. (Note 12; § 12, p. 18.) See below, on the different uses of the word "reflection," Note 14, and note that throughout this lecture I use the words "aqueous mole- cules," alike of water liquid or vaporized, not knowing under what conditions or at what temperatures water-dust becomes water-gas ; and still less, supposing pure water-gas blue, and pure air blue, . what are the changes in either which make them what sailors call " dirty " ; but it is one of the worst omissions of the previous lecture, that I have not stated among the characters of the plague-cloud that it is always dirty,* and never blue under any con- ditions, neither when deep in the distance, nor when in the electric states which produce sulphurous blues in natural cloud. But see the next note.
* In my final collation of the lectures given at Oxford last year on the Art of England, I shall have occasion to take notice of the effect of this character of plague-cloud on our younger painters, who have perhaps never in their lives seen a clean sky ! *
1 [The reference is to the Appendix to the delivered lectures which Ruskin added when publishing them : see §§ 198 seq. (Vol. XXXIII. pp. 398-402).] XXXIV. D
52 THE STORM-CLOUD
55. (Note 18; § 15, p. 20.) Black clouds.— For the sudden and extreme local blackness of thundercloud, see Turner's drawing of Winchelsea,1 (England series,) and compare Homer, of the Ajaces, in the 4th book of the Iliad, — (1 came on the passage in verifying Mr. Hill's quotation 2 from the 5th) : —
" a/Aa Se v€<£os CHTCTO Trefwv.
' 12s 8' or' aTrb (TKOTTI^S etSev vt<£os awroXos av7J/> 'Eipxopcvov Kara TTOVTOV VTTO Zeffrvpoto IWT)S, T«j) 8f T' , avfvOcv eovri, /ieXai/Tfpov, rjvrf Tricrcra \ lov Kara TTOVTOV, a-yct 8e re XatXaTra Tr
Total a// AiavTctrcrii' a/arji'^ocov A^ibv «s woXtjMov TrvKivat KIVWTO Kvaveai." 3
I give Chapman's version — noting only that his breath of Zephyrus, ought to have been " cry "or " roar " of Zephyrus, the blackness of the cloud being as much con- nected with the wildness of the wind as, in the formerly quoted passage, its brightness with calm of air.
"Behind them hid the ground
A cloud of foot, that seemed to smoke. And as a Goatherd spies On some hill top, out of the sea a rainy vapour rise, Driven by the breath of Zephyrus, which though far off he rest, Comes on as black as pitch, and brings a tempest in his breast Whereat he, frighted, drives his herds apace into a den ; So, darkening earth, with swords and shields, showed these with all their men."
I add here Chapman's version of the other passage, which is extremely beautiful and close to the text, while Pope's is hopelessly erroneous.4
" Their ground they still made good,
And in their silence and set powers, like fair still clouds they stood, With which Jove crowns the tops of hills in any quiet day When Boreas, and the ruder winds that use to drive away Air's dusky vapours, being loose, in many a whistling gale, Are pleasingly bound up and calm, and not a breath exhale."
1 [In Raskin's collection : see his notes upon it in Vol. XIII. p. 437.]
2 'See above, p. 12.] 1 'Iliad, iv. 274-282.]
* [For a similar comparison between Chapman's version of Homer, and Pope's, see Proserpina (Vol. XXV. p. 275).]
LECTURE II 53
56. (Note 14; § 17, p. 21.) " Reflected."— The reader must be warned in this place of the difference implied by my use of the word " cast " in § 16, and " reflected " here : that is to say, between light or colour which an object possesses, whatever the angle it is seen at, and the light which it reverberates at one angle only. The Alps, under the rose * of sunset, are exactly of the same colour whether you see them from Berne or Schaffhausen. But the gilding to our eyes of a burnished cloud depends, I believe, at least for a measure of its lustre, upon the angle at which the rays incident upon it are reflected to the eye, just as much as the glittering of the sea beneath it — or the spark- ling of the windows of the houses on the shore.
57. Previously, at page 18, in calling the molecules of transparent atmosphere "absolutely" unreflective of light, I mean, in like manner, unreflective from their surfaces. Their blue colour seen against a dark ground is indeed a kind of reflection, but one of which I do not under- stand the nature. It is seen most simply in wood smoke, blue against trees, brown against clear light ; but in both
* In speaking, at p. 20 of the first lecture, of the limits of depth in the rose-colour cast on snow, I ought to have noted the greater strength of the tint possible under the light of the tropics. The following passage, in Mr. Cunningham's Natural History of the Strait of Magellan,1 is to me of the greatest interest, because of the beautiful effect described as seen on the occasion of his visit to " the small town of Santa Rosa " (near Valparaiso). "The day, though clear, had not been sunny, so that, although the snowy heights of the Andes had been distinctly visible throughout the greater part of our journey, they had not been illuminated by the rays of the sun. But now, as we turned the corner of a street, the chain of the Cordillera suddenly burst on our gaze in such a blaze of splendour that it almost seemed as if the windows of heaven had been opened for a moment, permitting a flood of crimson light to stream forth upon the snow. The sight was so unexpected, and so transcend ently magnificent, that a breathless silence fell upon us for a few moments, while even the driver stopped his horses. This deep red glow lasted for three or four minutes, and then rapidly faded into that lovely rosy hue so characteristic of snow at sunset among the Alps."
1 [For another reference to this book, see Deucalion, Vol. XXVI. p. 344.]
54 THE STORM-CLOUD
cases the colour is communicated to (or left in) the trans- mitted rays.
So also the green of the sky (p. 26) is said to be given by transmitted light, yellow rays passing through blue air : much yet remains to be known respecting translucent colours of this kind ; only let them always be clearly dis- tinguished in our minds from the firmly possessed colour of opaque substances, like grass or malachite.
58. (Note 15; § 19, p. 22.) Diffraction.— Since these passages were written, I have been led, in conversation with a scientific friend, to doubt my statement that the coloured portions of the lighted clouds were brighter than the white ones. He was convinced that the resolution of the rays would diminish their power, and in thinking over the matter, I am disposed to agree with him, although my impres- sion at the time has been always that the diffracted colours rose out of the white, as a rainbow does out of the grey. But whatever the facts may be, in this respect the statement in the text of the impossibility of representing diffracted colour in painting is equally true. It may be that the resolved hues are darker than the white, as coloured panes in a window are darker than the colourless glass, but all are alike in a key which no artifice of painting can approach.
59. For the rest, the phenomena of diffraction are not yet arranged systematically enough to be usefully discussed : some of them involving the resolution of the light, and others merely its intensification. My attention was first drawn to them near St. Laurent, on the Jura mountains, by the vivid reflection, (so it seemed,) of the image of the sun from a particular point of a cloud in the west, after the sun itself was beneath the horizon : but in this image there were no prismatic colours, neither is the constantly seen metamorphosis of pine forests into silver filigree on ridges behind which the sun is rising or setting, accom- panied with any prismatic hue ; the trees become luminous,
LECTURE II 55
but not iridescent : on the other hand, in his great account of his ascent of Mont Blanc with Mr. Huxley, Professor Tyndall thus describes the sun's remarkable behaviour on that occasion : —
" As we attained the brow which forms the entrance to the Grand Plateau, he hung his disk upon a spike of rock to our left, and, surrounded by a glory of interference spectra of the most gorgeous colours, blazed down upon us." (Glaciers of the Alps, p. 76.)
Nothing irritates me more, myself, than having the colour of my own descriptions of phenomena in anywise attributed by the reader to accidental states either of my mind or body ; — but I cannot, for once, forbear at least the innocent question to Professor Tyndall, whether the extreme beauty of these " interference spectra " may not have been partly owing to the extreme sobriety of the observer? no refreshment, it appears, having been attainable the night before at the Grands Mulcts, except the beverage diluted with dirty snow, of which I have elsewhere quoted the Professor's pensive report, — " my memory of that tea is not pleasant."1
60. (Note 16; § 21, p. 25.) "Either stationary or slow in motion, reflecting unresolved light."
The rate of motion is of course not essentially connected with the method of illumination ; their connection, in this instance, needs explanation of some points which could not be dealt with in the time of a single lecture.
It is before said,2 with reserve only, that "a cloud is where it is seen, and is not where it is not seen." But thirty years ago, in Modern Painters, I pointed out (see the paragraph quoted in note 8th3) the extreme difficulty of arriving at the cause of cloud outline, or explaining how, if we admitted at any given moment the atmospheric moisture to be generally diffused, it could be chilled by
1 [See Deucalion, Vol. XXVI. p. 144.]
2 [Set; above, p. 15.] 8 {Above, ]>. 4~.]
56 THE STORM-CLOUD
formal chills into formal clouds. How, for instance, in the upper cirri, a thousand little chills, alternating with a thousand little warmths, could stand still as a thousand little feathers.
But the first step to any elucidation of the matter is in the firmly fixing in our minds the difference between wind- less clouds, unaffected by any conceivable local accident, and windy clouds, affected by some change in their circum- stances as they move.
In the sunset at Abbeville, represented in my first diagram,1 the air is absolutely calm at the ground sur- face, and the motion of its upper currents extremely slow. There is no local reason assignable for the presence of the cirri above, or of the thundercloud below. There is no conceivable cause either in the geology, or the moral character, of the two sides of the town of Abbeville, to explain why there should be decorative fresco on the sky over the southern suburb, and a muttering heap of gloom and danger over the northern. The electric cloud is as calm in motion as the harmless one: it changes its form, indeed, but imperceptibly ; and, so far as can be discerned, only at its own will is exalted, and with its own consent abased.
But in my second diagram are shown forms of vapour sustaining at every instant all kinds of varying local in- fluences ; beneath, fastened down by mountain attraction, above, flung afar by distracting winds ; here, spread abroad into blanched sheets beneath the sunshine, and presently gathered into strands of coiled cordage in the shade. Their total existence is in metamorphosis, and their every aspect a surprise, or a deceit.
61. (Note 17 ; § 21, p. 25.) " Finely commi