NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE

17. THE following bit of a private letter to a good girl belonging to the upper classes may be generally useful; so I asked her to copy it for Fors.

"January, 1874.

"Now mind you dress always charmingly; it is the first duty of a girl to be charming, and she cannot be charming if she is not charmingly

dressed.

"And it is quite the first of firsts in the duties of girls in high position, nowadays, to set an example of beautiful dress without extravagance,- -that is to say, without waste, or unnecessary splendour.

"On great occasions they may be a blaze of jewels, if they like, and can; but only when they are part of a great show or ceremony. In their daily life, and ordinary social relations, they ought at present to dress with marked simplicity, to put down the curses of luxury and waste which are consuming England.

"Women usually apologize to themselves for their pride and vanity, by saying, 'It is good for trade.'

"Now you may soon convince yourself, and everybody about you, of the monstrous folly of this, by a very simple piece of definite action.

"Wear, yourself, becoming, pleasantly varied, but simple dress, of the best possible material.

"What you think necessary to buy (beyond this) for the good of trade,' buy, and immediately burn.

"Even your dullest friends will see the folly of that proceeding. You can then explain to them that by wearing what they don't want (instead of burning it) for the good of trade, they are merely adding insolence and vulgarity to absurdity."1

18. I am very grateful to the writer of the following letters for his permission to print the portions of them bearing on our work.2 The first was written several years ago.

"Now, my dear friend, I don't know why I should intrude what I now want to say about my little farm, which you disloyally dare to call a kingdom, but that I know you do feel an interest in such things; whereas I find not one in a hundred

1 [Compare A Joy for Ever, § 48 (Vol. XVI. p. 48 and n.).]

2[The letters were from Ruskin's friend, Charles H. Woodd, and refer to Oughtershaw in Upper Wharfedale-" a bit of God's garden," writes Miss Woodd, "still untouched by smoke or railways, though last year (1902) a new railway was begun, to run from Skipton to within 15 miles of us."]

does care a jot for the moral influence and responsibilities of landowners, or for those who live out of it, and, by the sweat of the brow for them and their's,' own luxuries which pamper them, whilst too often their tenants starve, and the children die of want and fever.

"One of the most awful things I almost ever heard was from the lips of a clergyman, near B- when asked what became of the children, by day, of those mothers employed in mills. He said, 'Oh, I take care of them; they are brought to me, and I lay them in the churchyard.' Poor lambs! What a flock!

"But now for my little kingdom, the royalties of which, by the way, still go to the Duke of Devonshire, as lord of the minerals under the earth.

"It had for many years been a growing dream and desire of mine (whether right or wrong I do not say) to possess a piece of God's earth, be it only a rock or a few acres of land, with a few people to live out of and upon it. Well, my good father had an estate about four miles across, embracing the whole upper streams and head of dale, some twelve hundred feet above the sea, and lifted thus far away above the din and smoke of men, surrounded by higher hills, the grassy slopes of Ingleborough and Carn Fell. It was a waste moorland, with a few sheep farms on it, undivided, held in common,-a few small enclosures of grass and flowers, taken off at the time of the Danes, retaining Danish names and farm usages,-a few tenements, built by that great and noble Lady Anne Clifford, two hundred years ago; in which dwelt honest, sturdy, great-hearted English men and women, as I think this land knows.

"Well, this land my father made over by deed of gift to me, reserving to himself the rents for life, but granting to me full liberty to improve' and lay out what I pleased; charged also with the maintenance of a schoolmaster for the little school-house I built in memory of my late wife, who loved the place and people. With this arrangement I was well pleased, and at once began to enclose and drain, and, on Adam Smith principle, make two blades of grass grow where one grew before. This has gone on for some years, affording labour to the few folks there, and some of their neighbours. Of the prejudices of the old farmers, the less said the better; and as to the prospective increased value of rental, I may look, at least, for my five per cent., may I not? I am well repaid, at present, by the delight gained to me in wandering over this little Arcady, where I fancy at times I still hear the strains of the pipe of the shepherd Lord Clifford of Cumberland, blending with the crow of the moor-fowl, the song of the lark, and cry of the curlew, the bleating of sheep, and heaving and dying fall of the many waters. To think of all this, and yet men prefer the din of war or commercial strife! It is so pleasant a thing to know all the inhabitants, and all their little joys and woes,-like one of your bishops; and to be able to apportion them their work. Labour, there, is not accounted degrading work; even stone-breaking for the roads is not pauper's work, and a test of starvation, but taken gladly by tenant farmers to occupy spare time; for I at once set to work to make roads, rude bridges, plantations of fir-trees, and of oak and birch, which once flourished there, as the name signifies.

"I am now laying out some thousands of pounds in draining and liming, and killing out the Alpine flowers, which you tell me is not wrong to do, as God has reserved other gardens for them, though I must say not one dies without a pang to me; yet I see there springs up the fresh grass, the daisy, the primrose-the

* I don't remember telling you anything of the sort. I should tell you another story now, my dear friend.

[This passage has hitherto been printed unintelligibly as "and by the sweat of the brow for them and their own luxuries. . ." The MS. is not available; but the alteration now adopted makes sense.]

2 [See Letter 12, § 17, and the letter there referred to (Vol. XXVII. p. 210).]

life of growing men and women, the source of labour and of happiness; God be thanked if one does even a little to attain that for one's fellows, either for this world or the next!

"How I wish you could see them on our one day's feast and holiday, when all-as many as will come from all the country round---are regaled with a hearty Yorkshire tea at the Hall, as they will call a rough mullioned-windowed house I built upon a rock rising from the river's edge. The children have their games, and then all join in a missionary meeting, to hear something of their fellowcreatures who live in other lands; the little ones gather their pennies to support and educate a little Indian school child; this not only for sentiment, but to teach a care for others near home and far off.

"The place is five miles from church, and, happily, as far from a public-house, though still, I grieve to say, drink is the one failing of these good people, mostly arising from the want of full occupation.

"You speak of mining as servile work: why so? Hugh Miller was a quarryman, and I know an old man who has wrought coal for me in a narrow seam, lying on his side to work, who has told me that in winter time he had rather work thus than sit over his fireside; † he is quiet and undisturbed, earns his bread, and is a man not without reflection. Then there is the smith, an artist in his way, and loves his work too; and as to the quarrymen and masons, they are some of the merriest fellows I know: they come five or six miles to work, knitting stockings as they walk along.

"I must just allude to one social feature which is pleasant, that is, the free intercourse, without familiarity, or loss of respect for master and man. The farmer or small landowner sits at the same table at meals with the servants, yet the class position of yeoman or labourer is fully maintained, and due respect shown to the superior, and almost royal worship to the lord of the soil, if he is in anywise a good landlord. Now, is England quite beyond all hope, when such things_exist here, in this nineteenth century of machine-made life? I know not why, I say again, I should inflict all this about self upon you, except that I have a hobby, and I love it, and so fancy others must do so too.

"Forgive me this, and believe me always,

"Yours affectionately."

"5th January, 1874.

19. "MY DEAR MR. RUSKIN,-I have just come from an old Tudor house in Leicestershire, which tells of happier days in some ways than our own. It was once the Grange of St. Mary's Abbey, where rent and service were paid and done in kind. When there, I wished I could have gone a few miles with you to St. Bernard's Monastery in Charnwood Forest; there you would see what somewhat resembles your St. George's land, only without the family and domestic features

* Very fine; but have all the children in Sheffield and Leeds had their pennyworth of gospel, first? 2

+ All I can say is, tastes differ; but I have not myself tried the degree of comfort which may be attained in winter by lying on one's side in a coal-seam, and cannot therefore feel confidence in offering an opinion.

[A mile east of Whitwick; the Abbey of Mount St. Bernard, the first Abbey completed by the Roman Catholics in England since the Reformation. A Cistercian monastery, founded in 1835, but removed to the present site in 1839; the buildings designed by Pugin; opened in 1844. The Abbey is occupied by about sixty monks of the Cistercian order, founded by the Englishman, Stephen Harding. They observe perpetual silence, employ themselves in husbandry, and have redeemed the neighbouring waste land by their industry.]

2 [On the subject of home and foreign missions, compare Letter 60, § 8 (p. 468).]

certainly most essential to the happiness of a people.* But there you may see rich well-kept fields and gardens, where thirty years ago was nothing but wild moorland and granite tors on the hill ridges.

"The Cross of Calvary rises now on the highest rock; below are gardens and fields, all under the care and labour (happy labour it seems) of the Silent Brothers,+ and a reformatory for boys. There is still much waste land adjoining. The spot is central, healthy, and as yet unoccupied: it really seems to offer itself to you. There, too, is space, pure air and water, and quarries of slate and granite, etc., for the less skilled labour.

"Well, you ask if the dalesmen of Yorkshire rise to a vivid state of contented life and love of the pretty things of heaven and earth. They have a rough outside, at times hard to penetrate; but when you do, there is a warm heart, but not much culture, although a keen value of manly education, and their duty to God and man. Apart from the vanities of the so-called 'higher education, their calling is mostly out of doors, in company with sheep and cattle; the philosophy of their minds often worthy of the Shepherd Lord,-not much sight for the beauties

* Very much so indeed, my good friend; and yet, the plague of it is, one never can get people to do anything that is wise or generous, unless they go and make monks of themselves. I believe this St. George's land of mine will really be the first place where it has been attempted to get married people to live in any charitable and human way, and graft apples where they may eat them, without getting driven out of their Paradise.

+ There, again! why, in the name of all that's natural, can't decent men and women use their tongues, on occasion, for what God made them for,-talking in a civil way; but must either go and make dumb beasts of themselves, or else (far worse) let out their tongues for hire, and live by vomiting novels and reviews !

[The following is the letter from Ruskin, to which his correspondent is here replying :

"Dec. 29, 1873.

"MY DEAR WOODD,-I am very grateful for your letter. I have just put aside for reference some former ones, very interesting and valuable, about your people. There is certainly no need for any measures of mine when proprietors like yourself are taking due charge of their people, and -so that the land be made the best of, that there is a 'return,' is all the better-my work being only to deal with land that can give no return except in the future.

66

May I ask-for it is a matter of grave importance to me-how far you are satisfied with the state of your hill people. Satisfying themselves, it ought not to be interfered with, unless with extreme caution; but have you any idea of leading them into a more vivid and refined state of equally contented life? or of removing causes of unnecessary hardship? It seems to me you have exactly the conditions under your control which will enable you to ascertain and illustrate the duty of English landlords. You have a peaceful tenantry, who will not explode at a touch into insurrection; you have space, pure earth and water, and-the Knowledge of divine law, which is my notion of 'Capital.' What are you going to do? or to keep untouched?

"Ever affectionately yours,

"J. RUSKIN.

"Thanks for the lovely story of your little boy. The pretty things? What? How far might the hill peasant's child recognize them also?" The "lovely story" was of Mr. Woodd's son, who, when taken out of a pond, said to his mother, "Am I drowned? I don't want to leave you and all the pretty things yet."]

of Nature beyond its uses. I CAN say their tastes are not low nor degraded by literature of the daily press, etc. I have known them for twenty years, have stood for hours beside them at work, building or draining, and I never heard one foul or coarse word. In sickness, both man and woman are devoted. They have, too, a reverence for social order and ‘Divine Law,'—familiar without familiarity. This even pervades their own class or sub-classes;-for instance, although farmers and their families, and work-people and servants, all sit at the same table, it is a rare thing for a labourer to presume to ask in marriage a farmer's daughter. Their respect to landlords is equally shown. As a specimen of their politics, I may instance this; to a man at the county election they voted for Stuart Wortley, because he bore a well-known Yorkshire name, and had the blood of a gentleman.'

"As to hardships, I see none beyond those incident to their calling, in snowstorms, etc. You never see a child unshod or ill-clad. Very rarely do they allow a relative to receive aid from the parish.

"I tried a reading-club for winter evenings, but found they liked their own fireside better. Happily, there is, in my part, no public-house within six miles; still I must say drink is the vice of some. In winter they have much leisure time, in which there is a good deal of card-playing. Still some like reading; and we have among them now a fair lot of books, mostly from the Pure Literature Society. They are proud and independent, and, as you say, must be dealt with cautiously. Everywhere I see much might be done. Yet on the whole, when compared with the town life of men, one sees little to amend. There is a pleasant and curious combination of work. Mostly all workmen,-builders (ie., wallers), carpenters, smiths, etc.,-work a little farm as well as follow their own craft; this gives wholesome occupation as well as independence, and almost realizes Sir T. More's Utopian plan. There is contented life of men, women, and children,-happy in their work and joyful in prospect: what could one desire further, if each be full according to his capacity and refinement?

"You ask what I purpose to do further, or leave untouched. I desire to leave untouched some 3000 acres of moorland needed for their sheep, serviceable for peat fuel, freedom of air and mind and body, and the growth of all the lovely things of moss and heather. Wherever land is capable of improvement, I hold it is a grave responsibility until it is done. You must come and look for yourself some day.

"I enclose a cheque for ten guineas for St. George's Fund, with my best wishes for this new year.

"Ever yours affectionately."

I have questioned one or two minor points in my friend's letters; but on the whole, they simply describe a piece of St. George's old England, still mercifully left, and such as I hope to make even a few pieces more, again; conquering them out of the Devil's new England.

1 [That is, at the election for the West Riding, when the Hon. J. Stuart Wortley won the seat for the Conservatives. In 1846 he succeeded his father as Lord Wharncliffe, and the Liberals then regained the seat.]