The Harvest of Ruskin. Graham John William

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СКАЧАТЬ – for the girl who loved him would not marry him because he was not orthodox, so far as reasons can ever be given for such decisions, but died of a decline instead – we shall see how heavy was the lonely task set before him to do. Nor had the veneration of disciples and the growing recognition of all good men come to him yet; it came afterwards, built the prophet’s shrine, in his lifetime certainly,14 but only after the world’s neglect, and his failure even to carry his own friends with him, had helped to break the powers of his mind and set his brain reeling in recurring attacks of delirious inflammation. He was, in that madness, being offered upon the sacrifice and service of our faith.

      During this middle period of prime mental power, he wrote nineteen volumes, and numerous catalogues and pamphlets. They are, in order of time: The Two Paths, Modern Painters, vol. v., Unto This Last, Munera Pulveris, Sesame and Lilies, The Ethics of the Dust, The Crown of Wild Olive, Time and Tide, The Queen of the Air, Lectures on Art at Oxford, the first half of Flors Clavigera, Aratra Pentelici, The Eagle’s Nest, Love’s Meinie, Ariadne Florentina, Val D’Arno, and most of the papers reprinted in On the Old Road. As an author he was in his full strength.

      The significance of the period is that under the most painful uncertainties of doctrine, true religion shone still, blazed beaconlike, in fact: blazed as a beacon blazes when blown by tempest. But few readers ever thought of the writer as a heretic. He preached all the time the simple eternal sanction for right conduct which the nature of man, akin to the Divine, provides. He recognized the ineradicable claim which the teaching of the New Testament has upon our obedience. He attacked the Churches, not for being too Christian, but for not being anything like Christian enough. Referring to his mother’s gift of twenty-six chapters learnt by heart, he says in 1874: —

      “The chapters became, indeed, strictly conclusive and protective to me in all modes of thought; and the body of divinity they contain, acceptable through all fear or doubt; nor, through any fear or doubt or fault have I ever lost my loyalty to them, nor betrayed the first command in the one I was made to repeat oftenest: ‘Let not Mercy and Truth forsake thee.’ And at my present age of fifty-five, in spite of some enlarged observations of what modern philosophers call the Reign of Law, I perceive more distinctly than ever the Reign of a Spirit of Mercy and Truth – infinite in pardon and purification for its wandering and faultful children, who have yet Love in their hearts; and altogether adverse and implacable to its perverse and lying enemies, who have resolute hatred in their hearts, and resolute falsehood on their lips.”15

      The classical passage, as I should esteem it, for this period is in The Eagle’s Nest,16 the Oxford Lectures of 1872; which contain some of his most careful religious writing:

      “All of you who have ever read your Gospels carefully must have wondered sometimes, what could be the meaning of those words, ‘If any speak against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven; but if against the Holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the next.’ The passage may have many meanings which I do not know; but one meaning I know positively, and I tell you so just as frankly as I would that I knew the meaning of a verse in Homer. Those of you who still go to Chapel say every day your creed; and, I suppose, too often, less and less every day believing it. Now, you may cease to believe two articles of it, and – admitting Christianity to be true – still be forgiven. But I can tell you, you must not cease to believe the third!

      “You begin by saying that you believe in an Almighty Father. Well, you may entirely lose the sense of that Fatherhood and yet be forgiven.

      “You go on to say that you believe in a Saviour Son. You may entirely lose the sense of that Sonship and yet be forgiven.

      “But the third article – disbelieve if you dare! ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life.’ Disbelieve that! and your own being is degraded into the state of dust driven by the wind; and the elements of dissolution have entered your very heart and soul.

      “All Nature, with one voice – with one glory – is set to teach you reverence for the life communicated to you from the Father of Spirits. The song of birds, and their plumage, the scent of flowers, their colour, their very existence, are in direct connection with the mystery of that communicated life: and all the strength, and all the arts of men, are measured by and founded upon their reverence for the passion, and their guardianship of the purity, of Love.”

      Such is the utmost asceticism of the soul; the most careful and determined assimilation of the least quantity of the bread of life. We may sum his creed in the words: Happy are the pure in heart, for they yet in their flesh shall see the light of Heaven and know the will of God.

      Perhaps the question of Divine Personality may be felt even in our most audacious moments to be beyond our analysis. I do not count the word Personality a very helpful one, one way or the other. It is clearly on the human plane, must be imperfect, and may seriously limit our thought of God. Tennyson’s favourite prayer was “O Thou Infinite, Amen.” And with this much of personal address or aspiration our souls may surely rest. Take this as a satisfying account of the Creative Logos of the Greeks, written in the light of evolution, in 1869 (Queen of the Air, pp. 124-6):

      “With respect to all these divisions and powers of plants – it does not matter in the least by what concurrences of circumstance or necessity they may gradually have been developed: the concurrence of circumstance is itself the supreme and inexplicable fact. We always come at last to a formative cause, which directs the circumstance, and mode of meeting it. If you ask an ordinary botanist the reason of the form of a leaf, he will tell you it is ‘a developed tubercle,’ and that ‘its ultimate form is owing to the directions of its vascular threads.’ But what directs its vascular threads? ‘They are seeking for something they want’ he will probably answer. What makes them want that? What made them seek for it thus? Seek for it, in five fibres or in three? Seek for it, in serration, or in sweeping curves? Seek for it, in servile tendrils, or impetuous spray? Seek for it, in woollen wrinkles rough with stings, or in glossy surfaces, green with pure strength, and winterless delight?

      “There is no answer. But, the sum of all is, that over the entire surface of the earth and its waters, as influenced by the power of the air under solar light, there is developed a series of changing forms, in clouds, plants and animals, all of which have reference in their action or nature, to the human intelligence that perceives them; and on which, in their aspects of horror and beauty, and their qualities of good and evil, there is engraved a series of myths or words of the forming power, which, according to the true passion and energy of the human race, they have been enabled to read into religion. And this forming power has been by all nations partly confused with the breath of air through which it acts, and partly understood as a creative wisdom, proceeding from the Supreme Deity; but entering into and inspiring all intelligences that work in harmony with Him. And whatever intellectual results may be in modern days obtained by regarding this effluence only as a motion or vibration, every formative human art hitherto, and the best states of human happiness and order, have depended on the apprehension of its mystery (which is certain), and of its personality (which is probable).”

      He concludes that lecture, the second in The Queen of the Air, with these words:

      “This only we may discern assuredly; this, every true light of science, every mercifully granted power, every wisely restricted thought, teach us more clearly day by day, that in the heaven above, and the earth beneath, there is one continual and omnipotent presence of help, and of peace, for all men who know that they Live, and remember that they Die.”

      To quote from the religious teaching of these fruitful years would be an endless task; I must only refer, I fear, without quoting any of it, to The Mystery of Life and its Arts, printed in the complete edition of Sesame and СКАЧАТЬ