John Ruskin
A Joy For Ever
UUID: 58a9fc36-886f-11e5-9ce9-119a1b5d0361
This ebook was created with StreetLib Write (http://write.streetlib.com)by Simplicissimus Book Farm
Table of contents
PREFACE TO THE 1880 EDITION.
PREFACE TO THE 1857 EDITION.
LECTURE I.
LECTURE II.
ADDENDA
EDUCATION IN ART.
REMARKS ADDRESSED TO THE MANSFIELD ART NIGHT CLASS
SOCIAL POLICY BASED ON NATURAL SELECTION.
FOOTNOTES
PREFACE TO THE 1880 EDITION.
The
title of this book,—or, more accurately, of its subject;—for no
author was ever less likely than I have lately become, to hope for
perennial pleasure to his readers from what has cost himself the most
pains,—will be, perhaps, recognised by some as the last clause of
the line chosen from Keats by the good folks of Manchester, to be
written in letters of gold on the cornice, or Holy rood, of the great
Exhibition which inaugurated the career of so many,—since
organized, by both foreign governments and our own, to encourage the
production of works of art, which the producing nations, so far from
intending to be their "joy for ever," only hope to sell as
soon as possible. Yet the motto was chosen with uncomprehended
felicity: for there never was, nor can be, any essential beauty
possessed by a work of art, which is not based on the conception of
its honoured permanence, and local influence, as a part of appointed
and precious furniture, either in the cathedral, the house, or the
joyful thoroughfare, of nations which enter their gates with
thanksgiving, and their courts with praise."Their"
courts—or "His" courts;—in the mind of such races, the
expressions are synonymous: and the habits of life which recognise
the delightfulness, confess also the sacredness, of homes nested
round the seat of a worship unshaken by insolent theory: themselves
founded on an abiding affection for the past, and care for the
future; and approached by paths open only to the activities of
honesty, and traversed only by the footsteps of peace.The
exposition of these truths, to which I have given the chief energy of
my life, will be found in the following pages first undertaken
systematically and in logical sequence; and what I have since written
on the political influence of the Arts has been little more than the
expansion of these first lectures, in the reprint of which not a
sentence is omitted or changed.The
supplementary papers added contain, in briefest form, the aphorisms
respecting principles of art-teaching of which the attention I gave
to this subject during the continuance of my Professorship at Oxford
confirms me in the earnest and contented re-assertion.John
Ruskin,Brantwood,April
29th, 1880.
PREFACE TO THE 1857 EDITION.
The
greater part of the following treatise remains in the exact form in
which it was read at Manchester; but the more familiar passages of
it, which were trusted to extempore delivery, have been written with
greater explicitness and fulness than I could give them in speaking;
and a considerable number of notes are added, to explain the points
which could not be sufficiently considered in the time I had at my
disposal in the lecture room.Some
apology may be thought due to the reader, for an endeavour to engage
his attention on a subject of which no profound study seems
compatible with the work in which I am usually employed. But profound
study is not, in this case, necessary either to writer or readers,
while accurate study, up to a certain point, is necessary for us all.
Political economy means, in plain English, nothing more than
"citizen's economy"; and its first principles ought,
therefore, to be understood by all who mean to take the
responsibility of citizens, as those of household economy by all who
take the responsibility of householders. Nor are its first principles
in the least obscure: they are, many of them, disagreeable in their
practical requirements, and people in general pretend that they
cannot understand, because they are unwilling to obey them: or
rather, by habitual disobedience, destroy their capacity of
understanding them. But there is not one of the really great
principles of the science which is either obscure or
disputable,—which might not be taught to a youth as soon as he can
be trusted with an annual allowance, or to a young lady as soon as
she is of age to be taken into counsel by the housekeeper.I
might, with more appearance of justice, be blamed for thinking it
necessary to enforce what everybody is supposed to know. But this
fault will hardly be found with me, while the commercial events
recorded daily in our journals, and still more the explanations
attempted to be given of them, show that a large number of our
so-called merchants are as ignorant of the nature of money as they
are reckless, unjust, and unfortunate in its employment.The
statements of economical principles given in the text, though I know
that most, if not all, of them are accepted by existing authorities
on the science, are not supported by references, because I have never
read any author on political economy, except Adam Smith, twenty years
ago. Whenever I have taken up any modern book upon this subject, I
have usually found it encumbered with inquiries into accidental or
minor commercial results, for the pursuit of which an ordinary reader
could have no leisure, and by the complication of which, it seemed to
me, the authors themselves had been not unfrequently prevented from
seeing to the root of the business.Finally,
if the reader should feel induced to blame me for too sanguine a
statement of future possibilities in political practice, let him
consider how absurd it would have appeared in the days of Edward I.
if the present state of social economy had been then predicted as
necessary, or even described as possible. And I believe the advance
from the days of Edward I. to our own, great as it is confessedly,
consists, not so much in what we have actually accomplished, as in
what we are now enabled to conceive.
LECTURE I.
THE
DISCOVERY AND APPLICATION OF ART.
A
Lecture delivered at Manchester, July 10, 1857.
1.
Among the various characteristics of the age in which we live, as
compared with other ages of this not yet
very
experienced world, one of the most notable appears to me to be the
just and wholesome contempt in which we hold poverty. I repeat, the
just
and
wholesome
contempt; though I see that some of my hearers look surprised at the
expression. I assure them, I use it in sincerity; and I should not
have ventured to ask you to listen to me this evening, unless I had
entertained a profound respect for wealth—true wealth, that is to
say; for, of course, we ought to respect neither wealth nor anything
else that is false of its kind: and the distinction between real and
false wealth is one of the points on which I shall have a few words
presently to say to you. But true wealth I hold, as I said, in great
honour; and sympathize, for the most part, with that extraordinary
feeling of the present age which publicly pays this honour to riches.
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
