Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church Part 13

1.

_July 8th, 1879._

MY DEAR MR. MALLESON,--You must make no public announcement of any paper by me. I am not able to count on my powers of mind for an hour; and will absolutely take no responsibility. What I do send you--if anything--will be in the form of a series of short letters to yourself, of which you have already the first: This the second for the sake of continuing the order unbroken contains the next following question which I should like to ask. If when the sequence of letters is in your possession you like to read any part or parts of them as a subject of discussion at your afternoon meeting, I shall be glad and grateful.

Ever faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN.

2.

[_Undated._]

I am so ashamed of keeping R.'s book--but it's impossible for me to look at it properly till I have done my lecture, so much must be left undone of it anyhow * * *

Yes--you were glad to find we were at one in many thoughts. So was I.

But we are not yet, you know, at one in our _sight_ of this world and the dark ways of it. I hope to have you for a St. George's soldier one day.

3.

_23rd July, 1879._

Thanks for your note and your kind feelings. But you ought to know more about me.

I profess to be a teacher; as you profess also.

But we teach on totally different methods.

_You_ believe what you wish to believe; teach that it is wicked to doubt it, and remain at rest and in much self-satisfaction.

_I_ believe what I find to be true, whether I like or dislike it. And I teach other people that the chief of all wickednesses is to tell lies in G.o.d's service, and to disgrace our Master and destroy His sheep as _involuntary_ Wolves.

_I_, therefore, am in perpetual effort to learn and discern--in perpetual Unrest and Dissatisfaction with myself.

But it would simply require you to do twenty years of such hard work as I have done before you could in any true sense speak a word to me on such matters. You could not use a word in my sense. It would always mean to you something different.

For instance--one of my quite bye works in learning my business of a teacher--was to read the New Testament through in the earliest Greek MS.

(eleventh century) which I could get hold of. I examined every syllable of it and have more notes of various readings and on the real meanings of perverted pa.s.sages than you would get through in a year's work. But I should require you to do the same work before I would discuss a text with you. From that and such work in all kinds I have formed opinions which you could no more move than you could Coniston Old Man. They may be wrong, G.o.d knows; I _trust_ in them infinitely less than you do in those which you have formed simply by refusing to examine--or to think--or to know what is doing in the world about you; but you cannot stir them.

I very very rarely make presents of my books. If people are inclined to learn from them, I say to them as a physician would--Pay me my fee--you will not obey me if I give you advice for nothing.

But I should like a kind neighbour like you to know something about me, and I have therefore desired my publisher to send you one[21] of my many books which, after doing the work that I have done, you would have to read before you could really use words in my meaning.

[21] Crown of Wild Olive.--ED.

If you will read the introduction carefully, and especially dwell on the 10th to 15th lines of the 15th page, you will at least know me a little better than to think I believe in my own resurrection--but not in Christ's: and if you look to the final essay on War, you may find some things in it which will be of interest to you in your own[22] work.

[22] Translating some of Erckmann-Chatrian's.--ED.

4.

VENICE, _8th September, 1879_.

* * * * There is nothing whatever said as far as I remember in the July 'Fors,' about "people's surrendering their judgment." A colonel does not surrender his judgment in obeying his general, nor a soldier in obeying his colonel. But there can be no army where they _act_ on their own judgments.

The Society of Jesuits is a splendid proof of the power of obedience, but its curse is falsehood. When the Master of St. George's Company bids you lie, it will be time to compare our discipline to the Jesuits. We are their precise opposites--fiercely and at all costs frank, while they are calmly and for all interests lying.

5.

BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, _July 30th, 1879_.

DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I fear I have kept the proofs too long, but I wanted to look atain. I am confirmed in my impression that the book will do much good.[23] But I think it would have done more if you had written the lives of two or three of your paris.h.i.+oners. Such an answer would I give to a painter who sent to me a picture of the Last Supper. "You had better, it seems to me, have painted a Harvest Home." I am gravely doubtful of the possibility, in these days, of writing or painting on such subjects, advisedly and securely.

Ever affectionately yours, J. R.

[23] Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Ward & Lock.--ED.

6.

_July 31st, 1879._

I have received this week the two most astonis.h.i.+ng letters I ever yet received in my life. And one of them is yours, read this morning--telling me--that you don't think you could write the life of an old woman! Yet you think you _can_ write the life of Christ!

If you can at all explain this state of your mind to me I will tell you more distinctly what I think of the piece I saw. But I don't think you will communicate the thought to your publisher; and I never meant you to use my former one in that manner.

Mind a publisher thinks only of money, and I know nothing of saleableness. The pause in my other letters is one of pure astonishment at you; which at present occupies all the time I have to spare on the subject, and has culminated to-day.