Fors Clavigera (Volume 1 of 8) / Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain

FORS CLAVIGERA.
LETTERS
TO THE WORKMEN AND LABOURERS OF GREAT BRITAIN.
BY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D., HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART.
Vol. I. GEORGE ALLEN, SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT. 1871.


Denmark Hill, 1st January, 1871 .
Friends,
We begin to-day another group of ten years, not in happy circumstances. Although, for the time, exempted from the direct calamities which have fallen on neighbouring states, believe me, we have not escaped them because of our better deservings, nor by our better wisdom; but only for one or two bad reasons, or for both: either that we have not sense enough to determine in a great national quarrel which side is right, or that we have not courage to defend the right, when we have discerned it.