THE LIFE OF RUSKIN.*
BIOGRAPHIES are of two kinds—monuments and quarries, where the materials for monuments are to be found. Mr. E. T. Cook's life of Ruskin is a quarry. In these two thick volumes are crowded every discoverable fact concerning their subject; indeed, a second title to the book might have been " Ruskin day by day." Throughout his life Ruskin was a voluminous letter-writer, and he also kept diaries, so that the available material was enormous, and it has been brought before us in full detail. It would be quite unfair to say that the work is not interesting, for the person- ality shown to us is so many-sided, so contradictory, and so freakish, that the record is never dull, in spite of its diffuseness. The least satisfactory part of the book is that which covers Ruskin's own autobiography : of necessity it keeps so close to Praeterita that we could wish that Mr. Cook had merely reprinted this wonderful fragment with notes. Mr. Cook is an intense admirer, but he can see his hero's faults, though he always tries to excuse them. He very truly says that arrogance was Buskin's chief failing : the teacher too often had a contempt for those he wished to instruct, and he had a craving for implicit belief in his views. The teacher could abase himself before the good and beauti- ful, but the world must always be on its knees to him. In one of those explanatory and generalizing passages too rare in this book, though excellent when they do occur, the writer gives a summary of Ruskin's economic views. At the root ]ay the conviction that to call an individual, or a community, rich because either had large possessions was mistaken. The happiness derived from, or the good use
made of, wealth, not its mere abundance, was the true measure of prosperity. In many ways Ruskin was an advanced Socialist, but he drew the line at sharing his paint-box with any one, and he was autocratic by nature.
The failure of happiness which resulted from his marriage
was again repeated when in later years Ruskin fell in love with a young girl, Rose La Touche. The course of this love did not run smooth. Ruskin had at that time lost all definite religious belief, and Miss La Touche was deeply, and perhaps narrowly, religious. When the lovers separated Ruskin wrote these curious words to his friend, Miss Susan Hoover " You expect to see your Margaret again, and you will be happy with her in heaven. I wanted my Rosie here, In heaven I mean to go and talk to Pythagoras and Socrates and Valerius Publicola. I shan't care a hit for Rosie them—she need not think it. What will grey eyes and red cheeks be good for there ?" There is something inhuman in this; it is too much like a collector who has missed the chance of securing a gem for his museum. How unlike the spirit of Browning when addressing his "lyric love, half angel • The Life of John Ruskin. By E. T. Cook. 2 vols. London: George .Allen and Co. 121s. not. J and half bird." It is this inhumanity which sets our minds against Ruskin's teaching and too often makes him seem to hate wrong more than he loves mankind.
From the chapter dealing with political economy we may quote Mr. Cook's summary of the root ideas which, rather than political systems, occupied Ruskin's mind :—
"Ho looked more to the spirit than to the form. To the land- lords ho said, The land is yours only on condition that you hold it in trust for the rearing and tending of healthy and happy
To the employers he said, Your business is to be captains' of industry, trustees of the wealth you hold. To the workmen, Do good work whether you live or die. To the State at large he said, Your political reforms, your unexampled prosperity,' are all meaningless and worthless so long as masses of your people are herded together in soul-destroying conditions of life. To the 'bishops' he said, Yours is the duty of overseeing the flock of Christ's people and of preaching to the rich their duties to the poor. The forms into which Ruskin threw his reconstruction of society belong to the sphere of Utopian suggestion. The essential thing was the spirit which was to influence it and the end to which it was to be directed. This is what he means when he says that it is no business of his to think about possibilities,' he was concerned only to lay down the principles which were essential to sound reform, in whatever form it might be embodied. For
instance, in what he says about Doge of Sheffield' and his duties, the root of the matter is not in the title given to the appointed officer, but in the pleading for a quickened sense of obligation, on the part of the municipal authorities, to use their powers for the promotion of public health and the pro- tection of the food of the people from impurity or adulteration. He did not expect any great or sudden changes. He know per- fectly well the interval which separates counsels of perfection from practical reforms. We shall never soo the realization of Ruskin's Utopia ; and yet each man may realize it for himself. For ' the better Burg which shall be for ever' is 'the city which is your own.'"
We must also quote Mr. Cook's excellent summary of the reasons why Ruskin's books on Art retain their interest even for people who do not agree with their reasoning :—
" The true secret of Ruskin's influence, the real reason why his work will, if it do, survive, is this, that his books are stimulating and suggestive, because they were the expression, by a master in the art of language, of a mind which was extraordinarily rich and acute, and which had grasped some great and abiding principles. The methods of the studios change, and the fashions of criticism with them, but there is that in Ruskin's books which is independent of thorn, and which may survive tho whims, prejudices, and exaggerations of Ruskin himself. If his influence should be an abiding one, it will be less for any information that he imparts than for the thoughts that ho suggests and the sources of pleasure he communicates. The criticism current at the present day is largely intellectual and scientific. It searches archives, measures ears and toes, traces influences, connects or disconnects schools. And this is all excellent work, but is it quite certain that such criticism has rendered the more emotional mothod of Ruskin out of date for all time P Certainly he was often wrong according to present lights in his attribution of particular works to particular names. But what he did was to bring to the study of particular works or particular artists the attraction of joy, of fervour, of life."
Ruskin has certainly been fortunate in having a biographer who has spared himself in no way, but who has striven with enormous labour to master every detail of his subject, and to understand in the most complete manner the mind whose activities he is chronicling. Mr. Cook in preparing his great and scholarly edition of Ruskin's works served the best
apprenticeship possible'for writing such a book as the one before us.
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