RUSKIN AS A WHITER OF ENGLISH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 35

RUSKIN AS A WHITER OF ENGLISH.

The following is the first portion of an address recently delivered by Mr A. Wilson, M.A., at the opening of the Knox Church Literary Society :— If nofc all, at any rate a good many of you have read the sonnet written by Keats when first he made acquaintance with Homer : Much have I travelled in tho realm 3of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen", Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne ; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out, loud and bold ; Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken ; Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific— and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmiseSilent, upon a peak in Darien. Chapman's "Homer," which inspired this sonnet, is only a translation ; a rare translation it is true, though even the baldest would have given to Keats the sense of treading a hitherto unknown continent. This sense of exploration is once and again the experience of every reader to whom reading is an enjoyment ; and Keats has done poet's work in giving to a common human experience this beautiful, though perhaps not perfect, form of expression. One of. the greatest blessings possessed by the young is that, they are all explorers. Each yard of their way is new. I repeatedly tell girls how fortunate they are not to have read some work of which I find them ignorant : for they have still their cake, whilst mine is eaten. Nor is it literature alone that offers to the young golden realms to explore. It is as trite as true that life itself is an unknown land, with surprises at each turn of the road ; but Ido not know that the pleasure of discovery is anywhere so largely possible as in literature. In life itself rapid discovery is often attended with danger to the discoverer— he has to pay for his experience in proportion to its variety and intensity ; but in literature each discovery is a conquest, an annexation of territory, widening the borders of the individual, extending the sweep of his Burvey, bringing treasure to his treasuries : it is in short what Keats so happily calls it— a Realm of Gold. Yet do not imagine me to mean that every new book you read is to be regarded as a conquest—still less as a- new country explored. I dare say there are hero a few novel readers. Now I could mention one or two novels which to read for the first time is to find yourself in an absolutely new country, where everything is made to astonish and delight. When you have read one of these novels your identity changes : you are not what you were before, and you never again can be. I have said that I could name a few novels — (or, for convenience, say novelists)— which give this feeliDg of discovery. I dare say most of you read " Robinson Crusoe " at an age when everything was new and charming, when you had no palate for Defoe's exquisite bouquet, and would have been quite as well pleased with the "Swiss Family"— better probably. Now, the " Swiss Family "is a capital book for boys, but "Robinson Crusoe" is a book for men. I have read it more than once, and more than twice ; I long to read it again, and I never read it without new wonder. Then there is Fielding. I should like to knew how many read Fielding now. I confess that I do not read him much myself — but when I first came upon him no doubt I felt like some star-gazer when "a new planet swims into his ken." And there is Richardson — good, old, lumbering, slow-coach Richardson. How.xnany, I wonder, in this room could put their hands on their hearts and pledge their honour that they have read one of Richardson's novels through from end to end, conscientiously, that is to say — without skipping ; to say nothing of yawning, for which no one in this century can be held responsible ? I find myself that a volume a year is about as quick a rate as I can travel at — a volume observe, not a novel ; and as my edition runs three volumes to the novel, I have reasonable hopes of one day being able to finish him. Vast and wearisome I am obliged to admit Richardson is, but indubitably new country to him who enters it for the first time — no repetition of any place he has ever been in before : flat and 1 tame as the Norfolk Broads ; the roads interminably long and straight and dry and dusty — but a realm of gold for all that. Again, does anyone nowadays read Jane Austen ? Who held the mirror to Nature in a way.to make envious even the Wizard of the North. Genius is an infinite faculty for attending to infinitely little things, says some great writer whose name I have forgotten — (or it may be a definition of my own) ; and if this be true, what a geniu9 was Jane Austen ! Like one of those Italians who make charming works of art from microscopic fragments of porphyry and marble. Many years ago— though not so many but some still living may remember it — a new star swam into the ken of English eyes. All interested in this kind of astronomy hailed with enthusiasm the new planet, not a very large one, but brilliant, and they called it " Currer Bell." I need not, even to the youngest here, name bodies of such magnitude as Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot. Familiar as we are with their resources, wo have not yet done wondering at these realms of gold. But in the myriad multitude of novels how few, relatively speaking, can be considered "realms of gold." What would one give to have put into one's hands anew "Vanity Fair," a new "Mill on the Floss," a new "David Copperfie\d " ? What would one give ? I, for my part, would give a round gross of " Robert Elsmeres," with a cartload of "David Grieves" to tip the balance. Do not imagine that I decry recent novels because I have not read them. Jupiter forfend that I should read them all ! But Ido not mind confessing that I read a few, and if there are English novels now being published that can compare with the masterpieces of the dead novelists they do not often come in my way. As to the common ruck of novels— fairly written, ingeniously contrived, amusing, edifying, instructive, and all that, — they are as plentiful as blackberries, but you will find no more originality in them than in a railway station. This it is— originality— that gives the something new, fresh, unexplored, characteristic of the great writer: individuality, sometimes of thought, sometimes it may be of style only— though I doubt this— most frequently of both. Again, to leave novels for the "realms" of history. There is a sense in which all modern history is deadly trite. Go back to the dawn of history, to your Bible, £ay, or to Herodotus, and you will find that most of tho questions of Socialism and statecraft on which pamphleteers and newspaper quidnuncs nowadays make* so many and such brilliant discoveries are as old as the hills. If history were a mere question of institutions and theories, it could have little more novelty than school games, and who within historic times has heard of a new game for boys ? But thanks to human nature, which is infinitely various, history is something

more than a mere question of "marbles in, tops out." For let the modern school say what it likes about the utility of history, which we are to believe is concerned with the social organism as a whole, and with institutions, not with individuals, yet to the end of time, wherever the utility may lie, the interest will attach itself to individual men and women ; and men and women are infinitely various, so that we need not fear that history will not be everlastingly fresh. But even if the matter of history were ever so banal the heaven-sent historian, let us hope, will always be there to put his own quality into it. You may think that the duty of history is to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth ; yet all the readable histories are fictions. The art of the thing is a question of selection and of light and colour ; of exaggerating some truths and suppressing others, whitewashing here, blackwashing there, bringing into relief, casting into shadow— of strong chiaroscuro. Otherwise Hazell's "Almanac" and • • Hansard " would be your best history. Why is it that when a youDg man reads Macaulay for the firfct time he feels that if this is history he has never known before what hißtory meant ? This is a new country, a new and golden realm ; like to what he has known, yet how unlike ! It has its trees, its hills, its dales, it 3 rocks, its rivers ; but upon them all such a light as he has never before beheld on land or sea. And, again, when he reads Carlyle he has a fresh experience, and again he feels that till now he has not known what history meant. He has read before in some pedestrian Alison or Hallam about the French Revolution, about the stern Ironside and the great Brandenburger, and thought that he knew something of the subject; but now he reads, as somebody has said, by " flashes of lightning." Perhaps the trouble I have taken to explain what is that pleasure in literature which Keats compares to the explorer's delight may appear a little disproportionate, inasmuch as my more immediate object is to say something about a realm where he who sets foot in it for the first time will find abundance of what is new and good— at anyrate if bis organism is at all sensitive to manner of writing. I can imagine people of the nicest literary sensibilites rising up and, like a well-known lady also of tender sensibilities, " morally and physically denouncing" Ruskin. He writes, they say, whatever comes into his head; and anyone who does this must needs write many foolish things. For myself f< if a man will only occasionally say a wise thing I will forgive him the foolish things till seventy times seven. After all there are foolish things and foolish things, and there are men whose foolishness is wieer than other men's wisdom. Ruskin has delivered opinions about everything under the sun — about things he understood, and about things he did not understand quite so well. How could it be that he should not set many teeth on edge? I know types of mind to which Ruakin must always be a thing accursed ; and at times I should think he must try the temper even of the Ruskin Society. But howeTer you may resent his seeming arrogance, or smile at the occasional impossibility of his logic, you cannot deny that he is a master of the language and plays upon it with a magnificent command of the instrument. Much, however, as I enjoy a well-turned paragraph, I shouldjbe sorry to think that the only or chief attraction I found in Ruskin was his style. Manner is much, but matter is more ; and few writers of this century have supplied more matter for serious thought than Ruskin. Further, I cannot think that any writer has ever been a great master of style who has not also been a great master of thought. But that is not the question I have selected to deal with at present. My affair is to consider Ruskin as a writer of English ; whom, for my own part, I find a supreme master of English prose. His prose is not " faultily faultless " by any means ; but it is often exquisitely graceful — not pedantically correct, any more than the petals of a rose, but supple, sinewy, many coloured ; quiet sometimes, and sometimes, be it said, tawdry ; many times Oriental, in the richness of its tones — barbaric almost in its jewelled splendour.

In attempting any judgment of an author's style there are two ways in which you may proceed. You may say •' I like it, or Ido not like it, because it affects me in such and such a way." One may doubt whether there is much use in such criticism ; but if there is any, it is in constant ratio to the confidence you have in the critic ; and if such criticism is ever very interesting, the interest felt is rather in the critic than in the thing criticised. I will not assume that it is possible for you to feel any interest in my likes or dislikes, or in the degree and manner in which I am affected by this or that ; and therefore the only judgment of a subjective kind that I will offer you in dealing with Ruskin is this, that, according to my experience, the distinguishing feature of Ruskin's style is a magnificent motion, like exhilarating open-air exercise — yachting, riding, coaching — which leaves you, if it suits your constitution at all, 50 per cent, better than it found you. You may say perhaps that it is the thought that exhilarates, not the manner of expressing it ; but there you would be wrong, for the same thoughts differently expressed would affect you differently. Spoken by Dr Johnson they would make you feel, if they gave you any sense of motion at all, as if you were walking up Fleet street in a Lord Mayor's show ; or by Dante, as if you were travelling with painful steps over the burning marl. It is not the thought that so affects you, but the manner of its current — the style, its music, freedom, flexibility, the richneFs of the tones, the fitness of expression. It is only great men who have this noble individuality of literary style — for the s^yle is as much the man's intellectual expression as the photograph is theexpreesion of his features. Of course I know that the style of great authors is influenced, to some extent created, by the accident of environment. Thus, if Carlyle had not studied German his style would no doubt have been other than it is ; and so would Ruskin's have bsen had he nofc taken for his masters Hooker and Carlyle. But this is really ouly stating the same thing in other terms, for those spiritual and intellectual elements which together make up character are largely moulded by the accidents of books and language. In addition, however, to these accidental elements of character, your great man has a certain native distinctiveness of manner all hisown, which will impress itself on what he says and writes ; and so the saying is in a large sense true that the style is the man. You may of course have the commonplace person imitating the manner of the uncommonplace, as weak young men used to affect Byronesquß collars and an interesting melancholy. Such weak imitation is their style, and is just as much an index to character as the style of their great exemplar, who had a large amount of the affectation they affect. In parody again you have an attempt to mimic the characteristic expression of writers in some manner eminent ; and the reason why parody is ridiculous is this : that the dress of the great man's thoughts, so to speak, is fitted on to trivial thoughts — just as if a little boy were to masquerade in hia father's coat and spectacles. So that parody is a compliment to the parodied in so far as it implies a certain eminence, und an individuality and originality of character possessing a literary expression of its own. Aud the more distinctive the style the more easy the parody. You could not parody a newspaper article; bub what could be easier than to

parody Johnson, Carlyle, BrowningorMacaulayP And this brings me— though I must confess by somewhat of a detour— to the ob j ective qualities of Ruskin's style. For purposes of illustration I will first select the "Amiens Bible" — a first and, unhappily, only volume of the series "Our Fathers have Told Us ; " and I must confess to having been not altogether pleasurably affected by this attempt at history-writing. It was carried out, as Ruakin himself tells us, " at the request of a young English governess that he would write some pieces of history which her pupils could gather some good out of, the fruit of historical documents placed by modern educational systems at her disposal being to them labour only and sorrow." I should very much like to have an opportunity of asking the young English governess how her pupils received the €l Bible of Amiens " — which, I may explain for those who have not read it, is a morsel of French history, dealing with Clovis and his times ; and of asking her also whether she herself, presumably an intelligent young lady, since she was dissatisfied with all existing school histories, did not find this partic^ar historical document a labour, if not a sorrow ? But it is the stylo of the book, and not its subject matter, that I wish at present to note. It is written in what I cannot help thinking is Ruskin's very worst vein ; or, rather, it is not Ruskin at all, but an objectionable imitation of Carlyle, and imitations of Carlyle cannot help beiDg to the end of time the most detestable of all possible imitations. Take for example this sample paragraph:— " North of these rudely but patiently resident races, possessing fields and orchards, quiet herds, homes of a sort, moralities and memories not ignoble, dwelt, or rather drifted, and shook, a shattered chain of gloomier tribes, piratical mainly, and predatory, nomade essentially ; homeless, of necessity, finding no stay nor comfort in earth, or bitter sky ; desperately wandering along the waste sands and drenched morasses of the flat country stretching from the mouths of the Rhine to those of the Vistula nobody knows where, or needs to know. Waste sands and rootless bogs their portion, icefastened and cloud-shadowed, for many a day of the rigorous year ; shallow pools and oozings and windings of retarded streams, black decay of neglected woods, scarcely habitable, never lovable ; to this day the inner mainlands little* changed for good— and their inhabitants now fallen even on sadder times." — (The Bible of Amiens, page 48). Whose writing is that ? Carlyle's, you would say — a descriptive paragraph from the " Fredelick" ; though it is only imitation Carlyle, by no loss an imitator than Ruskin ; and you may further judge from the paragraph how history for children and for young English governesses ought not to be written. ludubitably " The Bible of Amiens" is a fine piece of history, apart from this reflected style— history-fiction, it is true, but none the less profitable for that as Ruskin treats it ; full of a fierce irony and gcorn, which, if they understood it, would make too hot an atmosphere for children. But they would be only puzzled and come to the conclusion that history was uncommonly like Greek. I take another paragraph at haphazard. Imagine yourselves presenting it to any half-dozen, or half-hundred, average or even precocious boys and girls as history :— " This is the apparent, this the only recognised world history, as I have said, for five centuries to come. And yet the real history is underneath all this. The wandering armies are, in the he«.rt of them, only living hail, and thunder, and fire along the ground. But the Suffering Life, the rooted heart of native humanity, growing up in eternal gentleness, howsoever wasted, forgotten, or spoiled — itself neither wasting, nor wandering, nor slaying, but inconquerable by grief or death, became the seed * ground of all love, that was to be born in due time ; giving then to mortality, what hope, joy, or genius it could receive ; and — if there be immortality — rendering out of the grave to the church her fostering saints, and to Heaven her helpful angels.

" Of this low-nestling, speechless, harmless, infinitely submissive, infinitely serviceable order of being no historian ever takes the smallest notice, except when it is robbed or slain. I can give you no picture of it, bring to your ears no murmur of it, nor cry. I can only show you the absolute 'must have been' of its unrewarded past, and the way in which all we have thought of, or been told, is founded on the deeper facts in its history, unthought of and untold."— ("Bible of Amiens," page 50.)

I venture to think that this is not what the English governess expected when she asked Ruslrin to write her some pieces of history. Why, this sort of thing is more difficult than a page of Bacon or of Sir Thomas Brown, and would require exploring by the square inch before its meaning would be clear, I am afraid, even to the young English governess herself, let alone to her pupils. But though in this work the manner of Carlyle is too much in evidence, it exemplifies also many of the notable features of Ruskin's own style. There is first his discursiveness. An inexperienced reader will often be deluded by the Ruskin will-o'-the-wisp. He will have his interest excited by 6ome question of history, philosophy, art, or criticism. His attention will be focussed on a certain point of light, towards which, in hopes of more light, he believes that his author will take him by the most direct way, which, indeed, ho promises to do in the very nexb chapter. But Ruskin is a magnificent breaker of promises. When he promisee, of course, he intends to perform, as many promise breakers do, takiDg no account of his own incurable discursiveness ; of which, however, it cannot be said that he i 3 unconscious, for iv a paragraph of this very "Bible of Amiens" he confesses the shortcomiag. " I have latoJy obr-erved with compunction," he says, " in re-reading some of my books for revised issue, that if I ever promise, in one number or chapter, cireful consideration of any particular point in my next, the next never does touch upon the promised point at all, but is sure to fix itself passionately on some antithetic, antipathetic, or autipodic point in the opposite homisphere. This manner of conducting a treatise I find, indeed, extremely conducive to impartiality and largeness or' view ; but can conceive it to be, to the general reader, not only disappointing (if, indeed, I may flatter myself that I ever interest enough to disappoint), but even liable to confirm in his mind some of the fallacious and extremely absurd insinuations of adverse critics respecting my inconsistency, vacillation, and liability to be affected by changes of the weather in my principles or opinions." Suppose it possible, for a moment, that Ruskin had promised to bo your cicerone to the moon. Knowing the moon to be, comparatively speaking, next door to the earth, whose satellite she is, you naturally expect that your guide will take you thither by the most direct route. Not a bit of it. He will rush away with ymi in a series of gyrations to Venus, read you a homily on wood carving iv one of her temples, flit across butterfly fashion to Mars, where he will denounce in words of fire the vain and murderous expenditure of human labour on his arsenals, and you may be thankful if you ultimately reach the moon at all, after ho has explored the extreme verge of the system and touched upon the confines of Sirius. If you would read Ruskin with delight you must learn to form 110 expectations ;

for you will soon find that whafe you expect is precisely what you will not get ; though if you abandon yourself entirely to his keeping you will mo3tly get something infinitely better than ever you expected. He will take you along no high road leading broad, straight, and dusty to your destination, but guide you across stiles, through grassy meadows, along pleasant shady by-paths to the place whither he wishes you to go, your wishes in the matter beiDg in no degree considered. If you took up a volume entitled "The Bible of Amiens "you would naturally look for interesting information about the Bible— about some particular copy or version of the Holy Scriptures preserved possibly or issued at Amiens. And a good deal about the Bible you would find, but presented to you in a way you little expected ; so that you might be as much surprised— though let us hope not so much disgusted— as 'the farmer who ordered Ruskin's treatise "On the Construction of Sheepfolds." (To be continued.) NOTES ABOUT THE CHURCHES. A copy of the "Church Musician" sent to Bishop Nevill was addressed as follows:— "The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Dunedin, Victoria, N.S. Wales, Australia." The Rev. Mr Gellie was inducted to the pastorate of Lauder at St. Bathans on the 29bh ult. There was only a meagre attendance of members of the presbytery, but what the gathering lacked in ministers was made up by elders and laymen — such a largely-attended religious and social meeting being unprecedented in the history of St. Bathans. Owing to the inclement weather the ceremony of consecrating the memorial stone over tho grave of the late Rev. Mr Lichtcnstein and his son, which was to have taken place on Sunday, was postponed. About 2000 clergymen preach in London every Sunday. The Rev. S. B. Fellowes, who was sent from Riverton to be one of the Weslcyan missionaries in New Guinea, has acquired such a knowledge of the language of the natives that he is now able to deal with it freely. Some specimens of his favourite hymns in the native language are published in the Riverton Star. The Building Committee of the Clyde Presbyterian Church have received so many offers of assistance that they expect to be able to make a start with the building early in the spring. The Rev. T. Ghent, of Clyde, has been presented with a cheque for £80 12s, collected by Mrs Jameson for the purpose of recouping him in some measure for the unfortunate losb of his buggy in the Clutha river. The position of locum tenens of St. Michael and All Angels', Christchurch, had been offered to and accepted by the Rev. Lyttelton FitzGerald for a term of three months from Ist July. The New Zealand Methodist considers that the death of the King of Tonga does not appear to have changed the position of the Wesleyan Church. Many of the leading chiefs have a sort of patriotic devotion to the Free Church, however, quite apart from their loyalty to the king, and any move which would look like an aggression upon it would be bitterly resented by them. The young king Taufa'ahau is said to have no particular leanings towards a church of any kind. A soiree in the Dipton Presbyterian Church realised £15, and as the eatables, &c. were presented, the amount was nearly all profit. The foundation stone of a new Presbyterian church at the Bluff is to be laid on Wednesday next. The Rev. J. C. Harris, of Granville, New South Wales, has undertaken to supply the pulpit of the Timaru Congregational Church for two months. The Rev. B. Best, after spending a few days in Sydney on his. way back to New Zealand from England, has returned to Auckland. The Rev. H. T. Robjohns says that the crisis through which the British and Foreign Bible Society has been passing, through ever-increas-ing work with practically stationary resources, has disappeared in an effort to raise an additional £50,000, of which £30,000 has already come in. The Southland Presbytery have received a gratifying report of progress at Orepuki. The income during last year was £131 14s, an increase of nearly £30. The editor of the New Zealand Methodist, referring to the Worthington scandal, says that the geographical situation of a country determines the character of its people. Christchurch is on aflat. The people there would buy hair restorers from a baldheaded quack ; Brigham Young would have been their ideal preacher on celibacy just as a man whose words and life are a lie is now their model of truth. The Rev. Gavin Lang, of Inverness, Scotland, who supplied the pulpit of the Wickham ' terrace Presbyterian Church, Brisbane, during the Rev. G. D. Buchanan's absence in Europe, has been relieving his feelings to the übiquitous interviewer. Questioned as to spiritual matters, Mr Lang considers ecclesiastic relations in Australia to be very unsatisfactory. "There does not seem to be any religious enterprise in any denomination, and there are none of them I grasping the necessities of the situation." The Melbourne Hebrew congregation arc in the throes of a serious financial difficulty. Their cheques were dishonoured by the City of Melbourne Bank, and they were further threatened with a writ, the only alternatives to which were rigid retrenchment or the raising of a loan by mortgage over the land of the congregation. It was decided to go in for a loan. The Henley correspondent of the Taieri Advocate writes: — "Quite a 'religious wave' has passed over our small community, and the result 13 that the number of conversions has been greatly on the increase. Whether the effects will be permanent I cannot state ; but no great harm has been done, althongh tho numerous immersions in the never-too-clean waters of the sinuous Taieri river are perhap3 accountable for the colds and rheuaiatipni that have attacked masy in the district/ It is said that the Pope at Rome is the only priest in Chrisbendem who never preaches a sermon Only once during 300 years has this rule — if rule it bs — been departed from. This was in 184-7, when Pius IX was Pope. Father Ventura, a famous orator, was to have preached at a church in Rome. A great crowd assembled to hear him, but at the appointed hour there was no priest. Presently the Pope arrived; probably he, too, had come to listen to Ventura. Taking in the situation at a glance, Pio Nono was equal to the occasion, for he preached the sermon. The editor of a monthly flysheot published in tho interests of tho Albert street Baptist Church, Melbourne, has been saying atrociously hard things about "Episcopalians, Presbyterianp, Independent?, WesleyaDS, Primitives, Unitarians, Swedcnburgiaus, and Nondescriptarians." Stray or lapsed Baptists are accused of sanctioning by their presence in any of these churches "old wives' fables, delu3iveand pernicious errors," o£ having "fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness," of "winking at practices which arc a smoke in the eyes of God and stench in His nostrils," of " joining themselves to corruptera," and thereby becoming

"abettors of corruption" and thesirs of magio, legerdemain, deceit, falsehood, mockery, and blasphemy," committed by all churches but his own. Sizing this gentleman up, Editor Fison of the Spectator says: — "The deepest shame is that any church iv Melbourne is capable of so insulting and libelling any other* church bearing the Christian name, especially those which have always striven to maintain a catholic and Christian attitude towards the Baptist denomination ; and, further, that there is a Christian man or minister out of whose heart such a foul ssreain of abusive epithets can be ejected against brother ministers and fellow Christians with whom he appeared to fraternise in ' brotherly kindness and charity.' " The Bishop of Christchurch, Df Julius, took part in a very imposing ceremony in Westminster Abbey during his vie it to England, when three bishops were consecrated — Key. W. J. Burn for the diocese of Que Appelle, Canada ; Rev. W. W. Perrin, for British Columbia ; and Rev. W. P. Swaby, for British Guiana. A remarkable sermon was preached by Canon Body on " The Catholic Church and the Incarnation."