The Crown of Wild Olive
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Illustrated Library Edition
THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE
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MUNERA PULVERIS
PRE-RAPHAELITISM--ARATRA PENTELICI
THE ETHICS OF THE DUST
FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL
THE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING
by
JOHN RUSKIN, M.A.
Boston and New York
Colonial Press Company
Publishers
CONTENTS.
THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE.
PAGE
LECTURE I.
WORK, 17
LECTURE II.
TRAFFIC, 44
LECTURE III.
WAR, 66
MUNERA PULVERIS.
PREFACE, 97
CHAP.
I. DEFINITIONS, 111
II. STORE-KEEPING, 125
III. COIN-KEEPING, 151
IV. COMMERCE, 170
V. GOVERNMENT, 181
VI. MASTERSHIP, 204
APPENDICES, 222
PRE-RAPHAELITISM.
PREFACE, 235
PRE-RAPHAELITISM, 237
ARATRA PENTELICI.
PREFACE, 283
LECTURE
I. OF THE DIVISION OF ARTS, 287
II. IDOLATRY, 304
III. IMAGINATION, 322
IV. LIKENESS, 350
V. STRUCTURE, 372
VI. THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS, 395
THE FUTURE OF ENGLAND, 415
NOTES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PRUSSIA, 435
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
ARATRA PENTELICI.
PLATES FACING PAGE
I. PORCH OF SAN ZENONE. VERONA, 300
II. THE ARETHUSA OF SYRACUSE, 302
III. THE WARNING TO THE KINGS, 302
IV. THE NATIVITY OF ATHENA, 308
V. TOMB OF THE DOGES JACOPO AND LORENZO TIEPOLO, 333
VI. ARCHAIC ATHENA OF ATHENS AND CORINTH, 334
VII. ARCHAIC, CENTRAL AND DECLINING ART OF GREECE, 355
VIII. THE APOLLO OF SYRACUSE AND THE SELF-MADE MAN, 366
IX. APOLLO CHRYSOCOMES OF CLAZOMENAE, 368
X. MARBLE MASONRY IN THE DUOMO OF VERONA, 381
XI. THE FIRST ELEMENTS OF SCULPTURE, 382
XII. BRANCH OF PHILLYREA. DARK PURPLE, 390
XIII. GREEK FLAT RELIEF AND SCULPTURE BY EDGED INCISION, 392
XIV. APOLLO AND THE PYTHON. HERACLES AND THE NEMEAN LION, 400
XV. HERA OF ARGOS. ZEUS OF SYRACUSE, 401
XVI. DEMETER OF MESSENE. HERA OF CROSSUS, 402
XVII. ATHENA OF THURIUM. SEREIE LIGEIA OF TERINA, 402
XVIII. ARTEMIS OF SYRACUSE. HERA OF LACINIAN CAPE, 404
XIX. ZEUS OF MESSENE. AJAX OF OPUS, 405
XX. GREEK AND BARBARIAN SCULPTURE, 407
XXI. THE BEGINNINGS OF CHIVALRY, 409
FIGURE PAGE
1. SPECIMEN OF PLATE, 293
2. WOODCUT, 323
3. FIGURE ON GREEK TYPE OF VASES, 326
4. EARLY DRAWING OF THE MYTH 330
5. CUT, "GIVE IT TO ME," 332
6. ENGRAVING ON COIN, 335
7. DRAWING OF FISH. BY TURNER, 362
8. IRON BAR, 379
9. DIAGRAM OF LEAF, 391
THE
CROWN OF WILD OLIVE
THREE LECTURES ON
WORK, TRAFFIC AND WAR
PREFACE.
Twenty years ago, there was no lovelier piece of lowland scenery in
South England, nor any more pathetic in the world, by its expression of
sweet human character and life, than that immediately bordering on the
sources of the Wandle, and including the lower moors of Addington, and
the villages of Beddington and Carshalton, with all their pools and
streams. No clearer or diviner waters ever sang with constant lips of
the hand which 'giveth rain from heaven;' no pastures ever lightened in
spring time with more passionate blossoming; no sweeter homes ever
hallowed the heart of the passer-by with their pride of peaceful
gladness--fain-hidden--yet full-confessed. The place remains, or, until
a few months ago, remained, nearly unchanged in its larger features;
but, with deliberate mind I say, that I have never seen anything so
ghastly in its inner tragic meaning,--not in Pisan Maremma--not by
Campagna tomb,--not by the sand-isles of the Torcellan shore,--as the
slow stealing of aspects of reckless, indolent, animal neglect, over the
delicate sweetness of that English scene: nor is any blasphemy or
impiety--any frantic saying or godless thought--more appalling to me,
using the best power of judgment I have to discern its sense and scope,
than the insolent defilings of those springs by the human herds that
drink of them. Just where the welling of stainless water, trembling and
pure, like a body of light, enters the pool of Carshalton, cutting
itself a radiant channel down to the gravel, through warp of feathery
weeds, all waving, which it traverses with its deep threads of
clearness, like the chalcedony in moss-agate, starred here and there
with white grenouillette; just in the very rush and murmur of the first
spreading currents, the human wretches of the place cast their street
and house foulness; heaps of dust and slime, and broken shreds of old
metal, and rags of putrid clothes; they having neither energy to cart it
away, nor decency enough to dig it into the ground, thus shed into the
stream, to diffuse what venom of it will float and melt, far away, in
all places where God meant those waters to bring joy and health. And, in
a little pool, behind some houses farther in the village, where another
spring rises, the shattered stones of the well, and of the little
fretted channel which was long ago built and traced for it by gentler
hands, lie scattered, each from each, under a ragged bank of mortar, and
scoria; and brick-layers' refuse, on one side, which the clean water
nevertheless chastises to purity; but it cannot conquer the dead earth
beyond; and there, circled and coiled under festering scum, the stagnant
edge of the pool effaces itself into a slope of black slime, the
accumulation of indolent years. Half-a-dozen men, with one day's work,
could cleanse those pools, and trim the flowers about their banks, and
make every breath of summer air above them rich with cool balm; and
every glittering wave medicinal, as if it ran, troubled of angels, from
the porch of Bethesda. But that day's work is never given, nor will be;
nor will any joy be possible to heart of man, for evermore, about those
wells of English waters.
When I last left them, I walked up slowly through the back streets of
Croydon, from the old church to the hospital; and, just on the left,
before coming up to the crossing of the High Street, there was a new
public-house built. And the front of it was built in so wise manner,
that a recess of two feet was left below its front windows, between them
and the street-pavement--a recess too narrow for any possible use (for
even if it had been occupied by a seat, as in old time it might have
been, everybody walking along the street would have fallen over the legs
of the reposing wayfarers). But, by way of making this two feet depth of
freehold land more expressive of the dignity of an establishment for the
sale of spirituous liquors, it was fenced from the pavement by an
imposing iron railing, having four or five spearheads to the yard of it,
and six feet high; containing as much iron and iron-work, indeed as
could well be put into the space; and by this stately arrangement, the
little piece of dead ground within, between wall and street, became a
protective receptacle of refuse; cigar ends, and oyster shells, and the
like, such as an open-handed English street-populace habitually scatters
from its presence, and was thus left, unsweepable by any ordinary
methods. Now the iron bars which, uselessly (or in great degree worse
than uselessly), enclosed this bit of ground, and made it pestilent,
represented a quantity of work which would have cleansed the Carshalton
pools three times over;--of work, partly cramped and deadly, in the
mine; partly fierce[1] and exhaustive, at the furnace; partly foolish
and sedentary, of ill-taught students making bad designs: work from the
beginning to the last fruits of it, and in all the branches of it,
venomous, deathful, and miserable. Now, how did it come to pass that
this work was done instead of the other; that the strength and life of
the English operative were spent in defiling ground, instead of
redeeming it; and in producing an entirely (in that place) valueless
piece of metal, which can neither be eaten nor breathed, instead of
medicinal fresh air, and pure water?
There is but one reason for it, and at present a conclusive one,--that
the capitalist can charge per-centage on the work in the one case, and
cannot in the other. If, having certain funds for supporting labour at
my disposal, I pay men merely to keep my ground in order, my money is,
in that function, spent once for all; but if I pay them to dig iron out
of my ground, and work it, and sell it, I can charge rent for the
ground, and per-centage both on the manufacture and the sale, and make
my capital profitable in these three bye-ways. The greater part of the
profitable investment of capital, in the present day, is in operations
of this kind, in which the public is persuaded to buy something of no
use to it, on production, or sale, of which, the capitalist may charge
per-centage; the said public remaining all the while under the
persuasion that the per-centages thus obtained are real national gains,
whereas, they are merely filchings out of partially light pockets, to
swell heavy ones.
Thus, the Croydon publican buys the iron railing, to make himself more
conspicuous to drunkards. The public-housekeeper on the other side of
the way presently buys another railing, to out-rail him with. Both are,
as to their _relative_ attractiveness to customers of taste, just where
they were before; but they have lost the price of the railings; which
they must either themselves finally lose, or make their aforesaid
customers of taste pay, by raising the price of their beer, or
adulterating it. Either the publicans, or their customers, are thus
poorer by precisely what the capitalist has gained; and the value of the
work itself, meantime, has been lost to the nation; the iron bars in
that form and place being wholly useless. It is this mode of taxation of
the poor by the rich which is referred to in the text (page 31), in
comparing the modern acquisitive power of capital with that of the lance
and sword; the only difference being that the levy of black mail in old
times was by force, and is now by cozening. The old rider and reiver
frankly quartered himself on the publican for the night; the modern one
merely makes his lance into an iron spike, and persuades his host to buy
it. One comes as an open robber, the other as a cheating pedlar; but the
result, to the injured person's pocket, is absolutely the same. Of
course many useful industries mingle with, and disguise the useless
ones; and in the habits of energy aroused by the struggle, there is a