DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61217#0287
‘ FORS CLAVIGERA.’
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this modern world. Bred in luxury, which I perceive to
have been unjust to others, and destructive to myself;
vacillating, foolish, and miserably failing in all my own
conduct in life—and blown about hopelessly by storms
of passion — I, a man clothed in soft raiment, — I, a
reed shaken with the wind— ! ”
To this passion of grief how shall any one desire that
consolation had been brought ? Not for passion, but
for the lack of it, he reminds us, are men condemned-
“because they had no pity.” To wish him less mercy,
to wish, with the vain wish of retrospection, that Ruskin
had found some solace in the midst of the martyrdom
of his convictions, is forbidden us.
Let this be borne in mind by those who care anything
for the attempt—the conception, the project, and the
failure of the Company : it was not intended to be a
curative measure; it was not to cure drunkenness or to
give alms, but to change the motive and action of the
responsible social world.
The knotty parts of Political Economy must remain
knotty for ordinary minds. Ruskin thinks his way
through them as though they were easy to him. In
reading Mill, on the other hand, you find him making
his way with difficulty. The mere reader may choose
his teachers, but has the right to ask that they shall
speak to him in pure and exact English. This Ruskin
does and Mill does not. There is nothing left, worth
saying, of some of Mill’s famous definitions after Ruskin
has translated them. Those who call Ruskin’s system
“ sentimental ” (intending to insult it) and think they
2/5
this modern world. Bred in luxury, which I perceive to
have been unjust to others, and destructive to myself;
vacillating, foolish, and miserably failing in all my own
conduct in life—and blown about hopelessly by storms
of passion — I, a man clothed in soft raiment, — I, a
reed shaken with the wind— ! ”
To this passion of grief how shall any one desire that
consolation had been brought ? Not for passion, but
for the lack of it, he reminds us, are men condemned-
“because they had no pity.” To wish him less mercy,
to wish, with the vain wish of retrospection, that Ruskin
had found some solace in the midst of the martyrdom
of his convictions, is forbidden us.
Let this be borne in mind by those who care anything
for the attempt—the conception, the project, and the
failure of the Company : it was not intended to be a
curative measure; it was not to cure drunkenness or to
give alms, but to change the motive and action of the
responsible social world.
The knotty parts of Political Economy must remain
knotty for ordinary minds. Ruskin thinks his way
through them as though they were easy to him. In
reading Mill, on the other hand, you find him making
his way with difficulty. The mere reader may choose
his teachers, but has the right to ask that they shall
speak to him in pure and exact English. This Ruskin
does and Mill does not. There is nothing left, worth
saying, of some of Mill’s famous definitions after Ruskin
has translated them. Those who call Ruskin’s system
“ sentimental ” (intending to insult it) and think they