NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

I. The following communication was sent to me on a post-card, without the writer’s name; but it is worth notice:—

“ ‘Ut et corda nostra mandatis tuis dedita.’ If some manuscript Breviary has omitted ‘dedita,’ it must be by a slip of the pen. The sense surely is this: that while there is either war or only an evil and deceitful peace within, self-surrender to the Divine commandments above and freedom from terror of foes around are alike impossible.

“In the English Prayer-book ‘set’ has the same meaning as in Psalm lxxviii. ver. 9 (sic: the writer means ver. 8); and the context shows the ‘rest and quietness’ desired, to be rest and quietness of spirit.”

The ‘context’ cannot show anything of the sort, for the sentence is an entirely independent one: and the MS. I use is not a Breviary, but the most perfect Psalter and full service, including all the hymns quoted by Dante, that I have seen in English thirteenth-century writing. The omission of the word ‘dedita’ makes not the smallest difference to the point at issue—which is not the mistranslation of a word, but the breaking of a clause. The mistranslation nevertheless exists also; precisely because, in the English Prayer-book, ‘set’ has the same meaning as in Psalm lxxviii.; where the Latin word is ‘direxit,’ not ‘dedit’; and where discipline is meant, not surrender.

I must reserve my comments on the two most important letters next following, for large type and more leisure. [316]

II. “I hope that you will live to see Fors and everything printed without steam: it’s the very curse and unmaking of us. I can see it dreadfully in every workman that I come across. Since I have been so happily mixed up with you these eighteen years, great changes have taken place in workmen. It was beginning fearfully when I last worked as a journeyman. One instance among many:—The head foreman came to me at Messrs. Bakers’, and threatened discharge if he caught me using a hand bow-saw to cut a little circular disc, which I could have done in ten minutes. I then had to go and wait my turn at the endless steam saw—or, as commonly called, a band saw. I had to wait an hour and a half to take my turn: the steam saw did it in perhaps three minutes; but the head foreman said, ‘We’ve gone to great expense for steam machinery, and what is the use if we don’t employ it?’ This little occurrence was by no means uncommon. What workpeople have been brought to is beyond conception, in tone of feeling and character. Here, as I have told you, we do all we can ourselves, indoors and out; have no servant, but make the children do: and because we are living in a tidy-sized house, and a good piece of ground, the labouring people make a dead set against us because we are not dependent upon them, and have even combined to defeat us in getting a charwoman now and then. We ought, I suppose, to employ two servants, whether we can pay for them or not, or even obtain them (which we couldn’t). They have been picking hops here next our hedge: this is done by people in the neighbourhood, not imported pickers; and their children called over the hedge to ours, and said, ‘Your mother is not a lady; she don’t keep a servant, but does the work herself.’ I name this little incident because it seems so deep.”

III. “My dear Mr. Ruskin,—I write to ask leave to come and enter my name on the Roll of Companions of the Company of [317]St. George.10 I have seen enough and read enough of the pace at which we are going, more especially in business matters, to make me long to see some effort made to win back some of the honesty and simplicity of our fathers. And although I am afraid I can be but of very little use to the Company, I would gladly do anything that lay within my power; and it would be a great help to feel oneself associated with others, however feebly, in a practical work.

“I am trying to carry out what you have taught me in business, where I can do it. Our trade is dressing and buying and selling leather, etc., and making leather belting, hose, and boots. I am trying to the utmost to make everything as good as it can be made, then to ask a fair price for it, and resist all attempts to cheapen or depreciate it in any way. First, because the best thing is, as far as I know, invariably the ‘best value’; secondly, because shoe manufacturing, as now carried on, is, through the division of labour, a largely mechanical work, (though far less so than many trades),—and I believe the surest way of diminishing, as it is surely our duty to do, the amount of all such work, is to spend no labour, nor allow of its being spent, on any but the best thing for wear that can be made; and thirdly, because workmen employed even somewhat mechanically are, I think, far less degraded by their employment when their work and materials are good enough to become the subjects of honest pride. You will understand that, being only in the position of manager of the business, I can only carry out these ideas to a certain point. Still I have been able to reduce the amount of what is called ‘fancy stitching’ on parts of boots, on the stated ground of the injury the work ultimately causes to the operator’s eyesight. And in the dressing of some descriptions of leather, where we used to print by machinery an artificial grain on the skin or hide, we have [318]dispensed with the process, and work up the natural grain by hand-power.

“And this brings me to the point I want to put to you about the permitted use of the sewing machine (see Fors XXXIV., p. 30).11 It may seem unreasonable, when our firm employs so many. But it seems to me that the admission of machinery at all is unwise in principle. Machinery, especially the sewing machine, has demoralized the shoe trade,—the same I think you would find in all other trades,—notably in piece-goods for ladies’ dresses—which, owing to the cheapness with which they can be made up, are far more in number than they could have been if no sewing machine had been used. And a manufacturer told me, only the other day, that common piece-goods, both woollen and others, take as much and generally more labour in making than the best. If all work required to supply clothing to the race were to be done by hand, it would be worth no one’s while to make rubbish of any kind,—the work would be done by fewer people, and all raw material would be cheapened.

“In your advice to a young lady, printed at page 29, Letter XXXIV., in the third volume of Fors Clavigera, you give her permission to use a sewing machine. I hope that, on fuller consideration of the subject, you will advise all who set the weal of their country above their own convenience, to discontinue its use wherever it can possibly be dispensed with. [319]

“For the effect of the sewing machine upon the great industries connected with clothing has been most disastrous.

“Given a certain quantity of cloth, or calico, or leather; and, before it can be made available as clothing, it must be joined or stitched together in certain shapes.

“Now so long as this stitching was, of necessity, all done by hand, it was never worth while, supposing the labour to be paid for at a just rate, to use any but good materials. A print dress at three-halfpence per yard, which might wear a week, would cost as much to make as a dress that would wear a year; and, except for the rich and luxurious, all extravagance of trimming, and all sewing useless for wear, were unattainable.

“But with the introduction of the sewing machine a great change took place. It would be impossible within the limits of a letter to follow it out in every trade which has felt its influence. But briefly,—when it was found that the stitching process could be got through, though less solidly, at a very much reduced cost, it became possible for all classes to have dresses, clothes, and shoes in far greater number, and to embody in all kinds of clothing a larger amount of useless and elaborate work.

“And then arose among manufacturers generally a vigorous competition,—each one striving, not to make the most enduring and sound fabric (the best value), but that which, retaining some appearance of goodness, should be saleable at the lowest price and at the largest apparent profit.

“The Statutes of the old Trade Guilds of England constantly provide for the purity of their several manufactures; as did Richard Cœur de Lion, in his law for the cloth makers, (Fors, Letter III., p. 15,)—on this thoroughly wise and just ground: namely, that the best cloth, leather, etc., producible, being accurately the cheapest to the consumer,—the man who used [320]his knowledge of his trade to make other than the best, was guilty of fraud. Compare this view of the duty of a manufacturer with modern practice!

“It may be said that the customer is not cheated; since he knows, when he buys what is called a cheap thing, that it is not the best. I reply that the consumer never knows to the full what bad value, or unvalue, the common article is. And whose fault is it that he buys any but the best value?

“The answer involves a consideration of the duty and position of the retailer or middleman, and must be given, if at all, hereafter.

“One might multiply instances to show how this kind of competition has lowered the standard of our manufactures; but here most readers will be able to fall back upon their own experience.

“Then these common fabrics require for their production always a larger amount of labour in proportion to their value,—often actually as much and sometimes more, than would suffice to make an equal quantity of material of the best value. So that, roughly, when we demand two common coats where one good one would serve, we simply require certain of our fellow-creatures to spend double the necessary time working for us in a mill. That is, supposing we get the full value out of our two common coats when we have them: the evil is greater if we fail to do so, and, to gratify our selfishness or caprice, require three instead of two. And the question arises,—Is it kind or just to require from others double the needful quantity of such labour as we would not choose to undergo ourselves? That it is not Christian so to do, may be learned by any one who will think out to their far-reaching consequences the words of our Lord: ‘Therefore ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’ [321]

“Now the use of the sewing machine has been all in favour of the ‘three-coat’ system, indefinitely multiplied and variously recommended; and the consequent absorption, year by year, of larger numbers of persons in mechanical toil; toil of the hands only—numbing to the brain, and blighting to the heart, or maddening to both.

“So far as the question of clothing is concerned, I would venture to sum up our duty under present circumstances, broadly, as follows.” [It can’t possibly be done better.—J. R.]

“Always demand the best materials, and use no more of them than is necessary to dress yourselves neatly or handsomely, according to your station in society. Then have these materials made up by hand, if possible under your own supervision, paying a just price for the labour. For such ornament as you need to add, remember that it must be the expression, first of your delight in some work of God’s, and then, of the human skill that wrought it. This will save you from ever tampering with the lifeless machine-work; and though you have little ornament, it will soon be lovely and right.

“Above all, never buy cheap ready-made clothing of any kind whatsoever; it is most of it stained with blood, if you could see it aright. It is true you may now buy a ‘lady’s costume,’ made up and trimmed by the sewing machine (guided by a human one), for the sum of two shillings and fourpence (wholesale), but you had a great deal better wear a sack with a hole in it.” [Italics mine.—J. R.] “It may be worth while hereafter to define with some precision what is the best value in various kinds of goods; Meantime, should it be suggested that machine sewing is good enough for common materials, or for clothes that you intend to wear only a few times, and then throw aside, remember you have no business to buy any but good materials, nor to waste when you have bought them; and that it is worth while to put solid hand-work into such.” [322]

(“I use the word ‘value’ for the strength or ‘availing of a thing towards life.’ See Munera Pulveris, p. 10.”)

IV. With respect to the next following letter—one which I am heartily glad to receive—I must beg my readers henceforward, and conclusively, to understand, that whether I print my correspondence in large type, or small, and with praise of it, or dispraise, I give absolutely no sanction or ratification whatever to any correspondent’s statements of fact, unless by express indication. I am responsible for my own assertions, and for none other; but I hold myself bound to hear, and no less bound to publish, all complaints and accusations made by persons supposing themselves injured, of those who injure them, which I have no definite reason for supposing to be false or malicious, and which relate to circumstances affecting St. George’s work. I have no other means of determining their truth, than by permitting the parties principally concerned to hear them, and contradict them, according to their ability; and the wish with which my present correspondent’s letter closes, to be delivered from evil speaking and slandering, (she seems not quite clearly to understand that the prayer in the Litany is to be delivered from the guilt of these,—not from their effects,) may, so far as these affect her own family, be much more perfectly accomplished by her own statement of their true history, than by any investigation possible to me of the facts in question. But, as far as respects the appeal made by her to myself, my answer is simply, that, whether made by patents, ingenuities, or forges, all fortunes whatever, rapidly acquired, are, necessarily, ill acquired; and exemplary of universal ill to all men. No man is ever paid largely for ingenuity; he can only be paid largely by a tax on the promulgation of that ingenuity.

Of actual ingenuities, now active in Europe, none are so utterly deadly, and destructive to all the beauty of nature and the art of man, as that of the engineer. [323]

And with respect to what my correspondent too truly urges—the shame of our ancient races in leaving their houses abandoned—it does not make me look with more comfort or complacency on their inhabitation by men of other names, that there will soon be left few homes in England whose splendour will not be a monument at once of the guilt of her nobles, and the misery of her people.

“Dear Mr. Ruskin,—We have only just read the September number of Fors Clavigera. My husband is the Ned G—— referred to in the letter you quote from E. L. Said he, ‘It (i.e., the letter) is not worth notice.’ I replied, ‘In itself perhaps not; but I have known Mr. Ruskin in his writings many years, and I shall write him to put before him the actual facts, and request him to withdraw these misstatements.’ The whole letter is written on the supposition that Mr. Green is an iron king, or iron lord. No such thing: he is an engineer—quite a different affair; the maker of a patent which is known all over the world as the ‘Fuel Economiser.’ He consequently never had a forge, and is indebted to the use of his intellect and the very clever mechanical genius of his father for their rise in life, and not merely to toiling half-naked Britons, as stated. The picture of the forge, with its foul smoke and sweltering heat and din, is drawn from some other place, and is utterly unlike the real workshops of E. Green and Son—costly, airy, convenient, and erected to ensure the comfort of the workpeople, having a handsome front and lofty interior.

“As to smoke, the whole concern makes no more than, if as much as, an ordinary dwelling-house; while we suffer too much at Heath from the town smoke to add to the dense volumes. We have no whistle—some other place is meant; we were never possessed of a ‘devil,’ American or English, of any sort. Mr. Green derives no pecuniary benefit from Wakefield, and but for the attachment of his father and himself to their birthplace, [324]would long ago have conducted his operations in a more central spot.

“Several other grave charges are brought against Mr. Green—one so serious that I am surprised to see it printed: viz., that he rules his people with an iron hand. That may go with the rest of the ‘iron tale.’ Your correspondent is either very ignorant or wilfully false. No such assertion can be for a moment sustained, after inquiry is made among our people; nor by any one in the town could an instance of such be proved.

“As to the Scotch estate, Mr. Green does not possess one.

“The history of Robin the Pedlar is equally a work of E. L.’s imagination, although no false shame as to a humble descent has ever been shown or felt. What! you taunt a man because he and his father have risen above the state in which they were born by use of the intellect God gives them? Fie! What sort of encouragement do you give to the working men to whom you address these letters, when you insinuate that one sprung from the people has no right to dwell in a hall or drive a carriage; and broadly hint he is no gentleman, no scholar, and has nothing to boast of but his money? Come here, and see if Ned G—— is the sort of man you picture; see the refinement visible in his idea of art, and which he has tried to impress on others by his example, and then ask yourself whether you have done well to lend the sanction of your name to decry, as a mere vulgar parvenu, one who has done his best to keep a high standard before him.

“As to living at Heath Hall, I ask, Is it a crime to spend your money in preserving to posterity a beautiful specimen of the house, of the smaller gentry in Queen Elizabeth’s time, which you only enjoy during a few years’ lease? A little longer neglect, and this fine old house would have become a ruin: when we took it, ivy grew inside, and owls made their nests in what are now guest-chambers.

“No squire has lived here for a century and a quarter; and the [325]last descendant of the venerated Lady B——, (Dame Mary Bolles, that is,) utterly refused to reside near so dull a town as Wakefield—preferring Bath, then at the height of its glory and Beau Nash’s; even before his time the hereditary squires despised and deserted the lovely place, letting it to any who would take it. Now it is repaired and restored, and well worth a visit even from Mr. Ruskin—who, if he is what I believe him, will withdraw the false imputations which must cause pain to us and surprise to those who know us. That last little stroke about bribery betrays E. L.’s disgust, not at the successful man, but at the Blue Tory. Well! from envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, from evil-speaking and slandering: Good Lord deliver us!

“Yours very truly,
“Mary Green.”

(I make no comments on this letter till the relations of Dame Mary Bolles have had time to read it, and E. L. to reply.)

V. The following account, with which I have pleasure in printing the accompanying acknowledgment of the receipt, contains particulars of the first actual expenditure of St. George’s monies made by me, to the extent of twenty-nine pounds ten shillings, for ten engravings12 now the property of the Company. The other prints named in the account are bought with my own money, to be given or not given as I think right. The last five engravings—all by Durer—are bought at present for my proposed school at Sheffield, with the Melancholia, which I have already; but if finer impressions of them are some day given me, as is not unlikely, I should of course withdraw these, and substitute the better examples—retaining always the right of being myself the ultimate donor of the two St. Georges, in their finest state, from my own collection. But these must at present remain in Oxford. [326]

London, October 5, 1875.

John Ruskin, Esq.

£

s.

d.

St. G.

1.

Apollo and the Python, by Master of the Die

1

0

0

St.,, G.,,

2.

Raglan Castle

3

10

0

St.,, G.,,

3.

Solway Moss

4

0

0

St.,, G.,,

4.

Hind Head Hill

1

10

0

St.,, G.,,

5, a, b, c.

Three impressions of Falls of the Clyde (£2 each)

6

0

0

St.,, G.,,

6.

Hindoo Worship

2

0

0

St.,, G.,,

7.

Dumblane Abbey

3

10

0

St.,, G.,,

8.

Pembury Mill

St.,, G.,,

9.

Etching of the Severn and Wye

2

10

0

St.,, G.,,

10.

Tenth Plague (of Egypt)

2

0

0

St.,, G.,,

11.

Æsacus and Hesperie

3

10

0

29

10

0

(The above Prints sold at an unusually low price, for Mr. Ruskin’s school.)

J. R.

1.

Sir John Cust

0

10

0

J.,, R.,,

2.

Lady Derby

5

0

0

J.,, R.,,

3, 4.

Two Etchings of Æsacus and Hesperie (£4 each)

8

0

0

J.,, R.,,

5, 6.

Two Holy Islands (£2 6s. each)

4

12

0

J.,, R.,,

7.

Etching of Procris

4

4

0

J.,, R.,,

8.

Holy Island

2

6

0

J.,, R.,,

9.

The Crypt

4

4

0

J.,, R.,,

10.

The Arvernon

8

8

0

J.,, R.,,

11.

Raglan Castle

7

0

0

J.,, R.,,

12.

Raglan,, Castle,,

6

0

0

J.,, R.,,

13.

Raglan,, Castle,,

6

0

0

J.,, R.,,

14.

Woman at the Tank

7

17

6

J.,, R.,,

15.

Grande Chartreuse

8

8

0

101

19

6

Discount (15 per cent.)

10

1

0 [327]

St. G.

16.

Knight and Death

18

0

0

St.,, G.,,

17.

St. George on Horseback

3

10

0

St.,, G.,,

18.

St.,, George,, on,, Foot

7

0

0

St.,, G.,,

19.

Pilate

2

0

0

St.,, G.,,

20.

Caiaphas

3

0

0

£125

8

6

My dear Sir,—It is delightful to do business with you. How I wish that all my customers were imbued with your principles. I enclose the receipt, with best thanks, and am

Yours very sincerely and obliged.
John Ruskin, Esq.

Of course, original accounts, with all other vouchers, will be kept with the Company’s registers at Oxford. I do not think it expedient always to print names; which would look like advertisement.

Respecting the picture by Filippo Lippi, I find more difficulty than I expected. On inquiring of various dealers, I am asked three shillings each for these photographs. But as I on principle never use any artifice in dealing, most tradesmen think me a simpleton, and think it also their first duty, as men of business, to take all the advantage in their power of this my supposed simplicity; these photographs are therefore, I suppose, worth actually, unmounted, about a shilling each; and I believe that eventually, my own assistant, Mr. Ward, will be able to supply them, of good impression, carefully chosen, with due payment for his time and trouble, at eighteenpence each; or mounted, examined by me, and sealed with my seal, for two shillings and sixpence each. I don’t promise this, because it depends upon whether the government at Florence will entertain my request, [328]made officially as Slade Professor at Oxford, to have leave to photograph from the picture.

At present holding it of more importance not to violate confidence13 than to sell photographs cheap, I do not even publish what I have ascertained, since this note was half written, to be the (actual) trade price, and I must simply leave the thing in the beautiful complexity of competition and secretiveness called British Trade; only, at Oxford, I have so much personal influence with Mr. Davis, in Exeter Street, as may, I think, secure his obtaining the photographs, for which, as a dealer combined with other dealers, he must ask three shillings, of good quality; to him, therefore, at Oxford, for general business, my readers may address themselves; or in London, to Miss Bertolacci, 7, Edith Grove, Kensington; and, for impressions certified by me, to Mr. Ward, at Richmond, (address as above,) who will furnish them, unmounted, for two shillings each, and mounted, for three. And for a foundation of the domestic art-treasure of their establishment, I do not hold this to be an enormous or unjustifiable expense. [329]

1 I quote from memory, and may be out in a word or two; not in the sense: but I don’t know if the young lady is really approved by the author, and held up as an example to others; or meant, as I have taken her, for a warning. The method of error, at all events, is accurately and clearly shown. ↑

2 To make the definition by itself complete, the words ‘in his work’ should be added after ‘submitted’ and ‘by his work’ after ‘bestow’; but it is easier to learn without these phrases, which are of course to be understood. ↑

3 The ‘few there be that find it’ is added, as an actual fact; a fact consequent not on the way’s being narrow, but on its being disagreeable. ↑

4 Namely, Modern Painters, Stones of Venice, Seven Lamps, and Elements of Drawing. I cut these books to pieces, because in the three first, all the religious notions are narrow, and many false; and in the fourth, there is a vital mistake about outline, doing great damage to all the rest. ↑

5 Fors, Ariadne, Love’s Meinie, Proserpina, Deucalion, Mornings in Florence,—and this: and four of these require the careful preparation of drawings for them by my own hand, and one of these drawings alone, for Proserpina, this last June, took me a good ten days’ work, and that hard. ↑

6 Inaugural Lectures, Aratra Pentelici, Val d’Arno, and Eagle’s Nest; [306]besides a course on Florentine Sculpture, given last year, and not yet printed, the substance of it being in re-modification for Mornings in Florence. ↑

7 Mr. W. Ward, 2, Church Terrace, Richmond, Surrey, will give any necessary information about this or other photographs referred to in Fors; and generally have them on sale; but see terminal Note. ↑

8 The transparent part of the veil which descends from the point of the cap is entirely lost, for instance, in this Madonna. ↑

9 Last but one article in the Notes. ↑

10 The writer is now an accepted Companion. ↑

11 I am only too happy to be justified in withdrawing it. But my errors will, I trust, always be found rather in the relaxation than the unnecessary enforcement, even of favourite principles; and I did not see what line I could draw between the spinning-wheel, which I knew to be necessary, and the sewing machine, which I suspected to be mischievous, and gave therefore permission only to use; while I shall earnestly urge the use of the spinning-wheel. I will give the reason for distinction, (so far as my correspondent’s most interesting letter leaves me anything more to say,) in a future letter. ↑

12 The printseller obligingly giving an eleventh, “Pembury Mill,”—Fors thus directing that the first art gift bestowed on the Company shall be Turner’s etching of a flour mill. ↑

13 Remember, however, that the publication of prime cost, and the absolute knowledge of all circumstances or causes of extra cost, are inviolable laws of established trade under the St. George’s Company. ↑

FORS CLAVIGERA.