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Miserables again, whose fault is that? The landlords choose to make the farmers middlemen between the peasants and themselves-grinders, not of corn, but of flesh,-for their rent. And of course you dare not put your children under them to be taught.

Read Gotthelf's Ulric the Farm Servant on this matter. It is one of his great novels,-great as Walter Scott's, in the truth and vitality of it, only inferior in power of design. I would translate it all in Fors, if I had time; and indeed hope to make it soon one of my school series,' of which, and other promised matters, or delayed ones, I must now take some order, and give some account, in this opening letter of the year, as far as I can, only, before leaving the young farmer among the Blacks, please observe that he goes there because you have all made Artificial Blacks of yourselves, and unmelodious Christys,2-nothing but the whites of your eyes showing through the unclean skins of you, here, in Merry England, where there was once green ground to farm instead of ashes.

8. And first, here's the woodcut, long promised, of a rose-leaf cut by the leaf-cutting bee, true in size and shape; a sound contribution to Natural History, so far as it reaches.3 Much I had to say of it, but am not in humour to-day. Happily, the letter from a valued Companion, Art. III. in Notes (§ 21), may well take place of any talk of mine.*

Secondly, I promised a first lesson in writing, of which, therefore (that we may see what is our present knowledge on the subject, and what farther we may safely ask

*The most valuable notes of the kind correspondent who sent me this leaf, with many others, and a perfect series of nests, must be reserved till spring-time my mind is not free for them, now.5

[See below, p. 499. Ulric the Farm Servant, translated for Ruskin by Julia

Firth, was published by him in 1886-1888: see Vol. XXXII.]

[For another reference to the Christy Minstrels, see Vol. XXIX. p. 85.]

3 [For account of leaf-cutting bee, see Letter 52, § 16 (p. 305).]

[See Letter 59, § 6 (p. 444).]

[See Letter 69, § 21 (p. 708).]

Theuth to teach), I have had engraved two examples, one of writing in the most authoritative manner, used for modern service, and the other of writing by a practised scribe of the fourteenth century. To make the comparison fair, we must take the religious, and therefore most careful, scripture of both dates; so, for example of modern sacred scripture, I take the casting up of a column in my

24.!

Fig. 5

banker's book; and for the ancient, a letter A, with a few following words, out of a Greek Psalter, which is of admirable and characteristic, but not (by any honest copyist) inimitable execution.

Here then, first, is modern writing; in facsimile of which I have thought it worth while to employ Mr. Burgess's utmost skill; for it seems to me a fact of profound significance that all the expedients we have invented for saving time, by steam and machinery (not to speak of the art of

Compare Letter 16, § 7, and 17, § 5 [Vol. XXVII. pp. 284, 294].

printing), leave us yet so hurried, and flurried, that we cannot produce any lovelier calligraphy than this,' even to certify the gratifying existence of a balance of eleven hundred and forty-two pounds, thirteen shillings, and twopence,

[blocks in formation]

while the old writer, though required, eventually, to produce the utmost possible number of entire psalters with his own hand, yet has time for the execution of every initial letter of them in the manner here exhibited.2

Respecting which, you are to observe that this is pure writing; not painting or drawing, but the expression of form by lines such as a pen can easily produce (or a brush used with the point, in the manner of a pen); and with a certain habitual currency and fluent habit of finger, yet not dashing or flourishing, but with perfect command of direction in advance, and moment of pause, at any point.

9. You may at first, and very naturally, suppose, good reader, that it will not advance your power of English writing to copy a Greek sentence. But, with your pardon, the first need, for all beautiful writing, is that your hand should be, in the true and virtuous sense, free; that is to say, able to move in any direction it is ordered, and not cramped to a given slope, or to any given form of letter. And also, whether you can learn Greek or not, it is well (and perfectly easy) to learn the Greek alphabet, that if by chance a questionable word occur in your Testament, or in scientific books, you may be able to read it, and even

1

[For a later reference to this specimen of handwriting, see Letter 94, § 7 (Vol. XXIX. p. 486).]

[The MS. (from which Fig. 7 is taken) is of Psalm xviii. 1: see the explanatory passage in Appendix 15, Vol. XXIX. p. 563.]

look it out in a dictionary. And this particular manner of Greek writing I wish you to notice, because it is such as Victor Carpaccio represents St. Jerome reading in his study;1 and I shall be able to illustrate by it some points of Byzantine character of extreme historical interest.2

Copy, therefore, this letter A, and the following words, in as perfect facsimile as you can, again and again, not being content till a tracing from the original fits your copy to the thickness of its penstroke. And even by the time

Fig. 7

next Fors comes out, you will begin to know how to use a pen. Also, you may at spare times practise copying any clearly-printed type, only without the difference of thickness in parts of letters; the best writing for practical purposes is that which most resembles print, connected only, for speed, by the current line.

10. Next, for some elementary practice of the same kind in the more difficult art of Reading.

A young student, belonging to the working classes, who has been reading books a little too difficult or too grand for him, asking me what he shall read next, I have told him, Waverley-with extreme care.

It is true that, in grandeur and difficulty, I have not a

1 [See St. Mark's Rest, § 185 (Vol. XXIV. p. 354).]
2 See below, p. 524.]

whit really lowered his standard; for it is an achievement as far beyond him, at present, to understand Waverley, as to understand the Odyssey; but the road, though as steep and high-reaching as any he has travelled, is smoother for him. What farther directions I am now going to give him, will be good for all young men of active minds who care to make such activity serviceable.

Read your Waverley, I repeat, with extreme care: and of every important person in the story, consider first what the virtues are; then what the faults inevitable to them by nature and breeding; then what the faults they might have avoided; then what the results to them of their faults and virtues, under the appointment of fate.

1

Do this after reading each chapter; and write down the lessons which it seems to you that Scott intended in it; and what he means you to admire, what to despise.

11. Secondly, supposing you to be, in any the smallest real measure, a Christian,-begin the history of Abraham as preparatory to that of the first Lawgiver whom you have in some understanding to obey. And the history of Abraham must be led up to, by reading carefully from Genesis ix. 20th, forward, and learning the main traditions which the subsequent chapters contain.

And observe, it does not matter in the least to you, at present, how far these traditions are true. Your business is only to know what is said in Genesis. That does not matter to you, you think? Much less does it matter what Mr. Smith or Mr. Robinson said last night at that public meeting; or whether Mr. Black or his brother, shot Mrs. White; or anything else whatever, small or great, that you will find said or related in the morning papers. But to know what is said in Genesis will enable you to understand, in some sort, the effect of that saying on men's minds, through at least two thousand years of the World's History. Which, if you mean to be a scholar and gentleman, you must make some effort to do.

1 [Compare Proserpina, Vol. XXV. p. 296.]

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