Arrows of the Chace, vol. 1/2 / being a collection of scattered letters published chiefly in the daily newspapers 1840-1880

by John Ruskin

ARROWS OF THE CHACE

BEING
A COLLECTION OF
SCATTERED LETTERS
PUBLISHED CHIEFLY IN THE DAILY NEWSPAPERS
1840-1880
VOLUME I.
LETTERS ON ART AND SCIENCE

“I NEVER WROTE A LETTER IN MY LIFE WHICH ALL THE WORLD ARE NOT WELCOME TO READ IF THEY WILL.”

Fors Clavigera, Letter 59, 1875.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

	PAGE
[Author’s Preface]	[ix]
[Editor’s Preface]	[xviii]
[Chronological List of the Letters in Volume I]	[xviii]
[Letters on Art]:
[I. Art Criticism and Art Education.]
“Modern Painters;” a Reply. 1843	[3]
Art Criticism. 1843	[10]
The Arts as a Branch of Education. 1857	[24]
Art-Teaching by Correspondence. 1860	[32]
[II. Public Institutions and the National Gallery.]
Danger to the National Gallery. 1847	[37]
The National Gallery. 1852	[45]
The British Museum. 1866	[52]
On the Purchase of Pictures. 1880	[55]
[III. Pre-raphaelitism.]
The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren. 1851 (May 13)	[59]
The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren. 1851 (May 30)	[63]
“The Light of the World,” Holman Hunt. 1854	[67]
“The Awakening Conscience,” Holman Hunt. 1854	[71]
Pre-Raphaelitism in Liverpool. 1858	[73]
Generalization and the Scotch Pre-Raphaelites. 1858	[74]
[IV. Turner.]
The Turner Bequest. 1856	[81]
[Turner’s Sketch Book. 1858	[86, note]
The Turner Bequest and the National Gallery. 1857	[86]
The Turner Sketches and Drawings. 1858	[88]
[The Liber Studiorum. 1858	[97, note]
The Turner Gallery at Kensington. 1859	[98]
Turner’s Drawings. 1876 (July 5)	[100]
Turner’s Drawings. 1876 (July 19)	[104]
Copies of Turner’s Drawings. 1876	[105]
[Copies of Turner’s Drawings—Extract. 1857	[105, note]
[Copy of Turner’s Fluelen	[ibid.]
“Turners,” False and True. 1871.	[106]
The Character of Turner. 1857.	[107]
[Thornbury’s Life of Turner. 1861.	[108]
[V. Pictures and Artists.]
John Leech’s Outlines. 1872.	[111]
Ernest George’s Etchings. 1873.	[113]
The Frederick Walker Exhibition. 1876.	[116]
[VI. Architecture and Restoration.]
Gothic Architecture and the Oxford Museum. 1858.	[125]
Gothic Architecture and the Oxford Museum. 1859.	[131]
The Castle Rock (Edinburgh). 1857 (Sept. 14)	[145]
Edinburgh Castle. 1857 (Sept. 27)	[147]
Castles and Kennels. 1871 (Dec. 22)	[151]
Verona v. Warwick. 1871 (Dec. 24)	[152]
Notre Dame de Paris. 1871	[153]
Mr. Ruskin’s Influence—A Defence. 1872 (March 15)	[154]
Mr. Ruskin’s Influence—A Rejoinder. 1872 (March 21)	[156]
Modern Restorations. 1877	[157]
Ribbesford Church. 1877	[158]
Circular relating to St. Mark’s, Venice. 1879.	[159]
[Letters relating to St. Mark’s, Venice. 1879.	[169, note.]
[Letters on Science]:
[I. Geological.]
The Conformation of the Alps, 1864	[173]
Concerning Glaciers. 1864.	[175]
English versus Alpine Geology. 1864	[181]
Concerning Hydrostatics. 1864	[185]
James David Forbes: His Real Greatness. 1874.	[187]
[II. Miscellaneous.]
On Reflections in Water. 1844	[191]
On the Reflection of Rainbows. 1861	[201]
A Landslip Near Giagnano. 1841	[202]
On the Gentian. 1857	[204]
On the Study of Natural History (undated)	[204]

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

My good Editor insists that this book must have an Author’s Preface; and insists further that it shall not contain compliments to him on the editorship. I must leave, therefore, any readers who care for the book, and comprehend the trouble that has been spent on it, to pay him their own compliments, as the successive service of his notes may call for them: but my obedience to his order, not in itself easy to me, doubles the difficulty I have in doing what, nevertheless, I am resolved to do—pay, that is to say, several extremely fine compliments to myself, upon the quality of the text.

For of course I have read none of these letters since they were first printed: of half of them I had forgotten the contents, of some, the existence; all come fresh to me; and here in Rouen, where I thought nothing could possibly have kept me from drawing all I could of the remnants of the old town, I find myself, instead, lying in bed in the morning, reading these remnants of my old self—and that with much contentment and thankful applause.

For here are a series of letters ranging over a period of, broadly, forty years of my life; most of them written hastily, and all in hours snatched from heavier work: and in the entire mass of them there is not a word I wish to change, not a statement I have to retract, and, I believe, few pieces of advice, which the reader will not find it for his good to act upon.

With which brief preface I am, for my own part, content; but as it is one of an unusual tenor, and may be thought by some of my friends, and all my foes, more candid than graceful, I permit myself the apologetic egotism of enforcing one or two of the points in which I find these letters so well worth—their author’s—reading.

In the building of a large book, there are always places where an indulged diffuseness weakens the fancy, and prolonged strain subdues the energy: when we have time to say all we wish, we usually wish to say more than enough; and there are few subjects we can have the pride of exhausting, without wearying the listener. But all these letters were written with fully provoked zeal, under strict allowance of space and time: they contain the choicest and most needful things I could within narrow limits say, out of many contending to be said; expressed with deliberate precision; and recommended by the best art I had in illustration or emphasis. At the time of my life in which most of them were composed, I was fonder of metaphor, and more fertile in simile, than I am now; and I employed both with franker trust in the reader’s intelligence. Carefully chosen, they are always a powerful means of concentration; and I could then dismiss in six words, “thistledown without seeds, and bubbles without color,” forms of art on which I should now perhaps spend half a page of analytic vituperation; and represent, with a pleasant accuracy which my best methods of outline and exposition could now no more achieve, the entire system of modern plutocratic policy, under the luckily remembered image of the Arabian bridegroom, bewitched with his heels uppermost.

It is to be remembered also that many of the subjects handled can be more conveniently treated controversially than directly; the answer to a single question may be made clearer than a statement which endeavors to anticipate many; and the crystalline vigor of a truth is often best seen in the course of its serene collision with a trembling and dissolving fallacy. But there is a deeper reason than any such accidental ones for the quality of this book. Since the letters cost me, as aforesaid, much trouble; since they interrupted me in pleasant work which was usually liable to take harm by interruption; and since they were likely almost, in the degree of their force, to be refused by the editors of the adverse journals, I never was tempted into writing a word for the public press, unless concerning matters which I had much at heart. And the issue is, therefore, that the two following volumes contain very nearly the indices of everything I have deeply cared for during the last forty years; while not a few of their political notices relate to events of more profound historical importance than any others that have occurred during the period they cover; and it has not been an uneventful one.

Nor have the events been without gravity; the greater, because they have all been inconclusive. Their true conclusions are perhaps nearer than any of us apprehend; and the part I may be forced to take in them, though I am old,—perhaps I should rather say, because I am old,—will, as far as I can either judge or resolve, be not merely literary.

Whether I am spared to put into act anything here designed for my country’s help, or am shielded by death from the sight of her remediless sorrow, I have already done for her as much service as she has will to receive, by laying before her facts vital to her existence, and unalterable by her power, in words of which not one has been warped by interest nor weakened by fear; and which are as pure from selfish passion as if they were spoken already out of another world.

J. Ruskin.

Rouen, St. Firmin’s Day, 1880.

EDITOR’S PREFACE.

Some words are needed by way of a general note to the present volumes in explanation of the principles upon which they have been edited. It is, however, first due to the compiler of the Bibliography of Mr. Ruskin’s writings,[1] to state in what measure this book has been prompted and assisted by his previous labors. Already acquainted with some few of the letters which Mr. Ruskin had addressed at various times to the different organs of the daily press, or which had indirectly found their way there, it was not until I came across the Bibliography that I was encouraged to complete and arrange a collection of these scattered portions of his thought. When I had done this, I ventured to submit the whole number of the letters to their author, and to ask him if, after taking two or three of them as examples of the rest, he would not consider the advisability of himself republishing, if not all, at least a selected few. In reply, he was good enough to put me in communication with his publisher, and to request me to edit any or all of the letters without further reference to him.

I have, therefore, to point out that except for that request, or rather sanction; for the preface which he has promised to add after my work upon the volumes is finished; and for the title which it bears, Mr. Ruskin is in no way responsible for this edition of his letters. I knew, indeed, from the words of “Fors Clavigera” which are printed as a motto to the book, that I ran little risk of his disapproval in determining to print, not a selection, but the whole number of letters in question; and I felt certain that the completeness of the collection would be considered a first essential by most of its readers, who are thus assured that the present volumes contain, with but two exceptions, every letter mentioned in the last edition of the bibliography, and some few more beside, which have been either printed or discovered since its publication.

The two exceptions are, first, the series of letters on the Lord’s Prayer which appeared in the pages of the Contemporary Review last December; and, secondly, some half-dozen upon “A Museum or Picture Gallery,” printed in the Art Journal of last June and August. It seemed that both these sets of letters were really more akin to review articles cast in an epistolary form, and would thus find fitter place in a collection of such papers than in the present volumes; and for the omission of the second set there was a still further reason in the fact that the series is not yet completed.[2] On the other hand, the recent circular on the proposed interference with St. Mark’s, Venice, is included in the first, and one or twoother extraneous matters in the second volume, for reasons which their connection with the letters amongst which they are placed will make sufficiently clear.

The letters are reprinted word for word, and almost stop for stop, from the newspapers and other pages in which they first appeared. To ensure this accuracy was not an easy matter, and to it there are a few intentional exceptions. A few misprints have been corrected, such as that of “Fat Bard” for “Fort Bard” (vol. i. p. 147): and now and then the punctuation has been changed, as on the 256th page of the same volume, where a comma, placed in the original print of the letter between the words “visibly” and “owing,” quite confused the sentence. To these slight alterations may be added others still less important, such as the commencement of a fresh paragraph, or the closing up of an existing one, to suit the composition of the type, which the number of notes rendered unusually tiresome. The title of a letter, too, is not always that provided it by the newspaper; in some cases it seemed well to rechristen, in others it was necessary to christen a letter, though the former has never been done where it was at all possible that the existing title (for which reference can always be made to the bibliography) was one given to it by Mr. Ruskin himself.

The classification of the letters is well enough shown by the tables of contents. The advantages of a topical over a chronological arrangement appeared beyond all doubt; whilst the addition to each volume of a chronological list of the letters contained in it, and the further addition to the second volume of a similar list of all the letters contained in the book, and of a full index, will, it is hoped, increase the usefulness of the work.

The beautiful engraving which forms the frontispiece of the first volume originally formed that of “The Oxford Museum.” The plate was but little used in the apparently small edition of that book, and was thus found to be in excellent state for further use here. The woodcut of the chestnut spandril (vol. i. p. 144) is copied from one which may also be found in “The Oxford Museum.” The facsimile of part of one of the letters is not quite satisfactory, the lines being somewhat thicker than they should be, but it answers its present purpose.

Lastly, the chief difficulty of editing these letters has been in regard to the notes, and has lain not so much in obtaining the necessary information as in deciding what use to make of it when obtained. The first point was, of course, to put the reader of the present volumes in possession of every fact which would have been common knowledge at the time when such and such a letter was written; but beyond this there were various allusions, which might be thought to need explanation; quotations, the exact reference to which might be convenient; and so forth. Some notes, therefore, of this character have been also added; whilst some few which were omitted, either intentionally or by accident, from the body of the work, may be found on reference to the index.[3]

The effort to make the book complete has induced the notice of slight variations of text in one or two cases, especially in the reprint of the St. Mark’s Circular. The space occupied by such notes is small, the interest which a few students take in the facts they notice really great, and the appearance of pedantry to some readers is thus risked in order to meet the special wish of others. The same effort will account for the reappearance of one or two really unimportant letters in the Appendix to the second volume, which contains also some few letters the nature of which is rather personal than public.

I have asked Mr. Ruskin to state in his preface to the book the value he may set upon it in relation to his other and more connected work; and for the rest, I have only to add that the editing of it has been the pleasant labor of my leisure for more than two years past, and to express my hope that these scattered arrows, some from the bow of “An Oxford Graduate,” some from that of an Oxford Professor, may not have been vainly winged anew by

An Oxford Pupil.

October, 1880.

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE LETTERS CONTAINED IN THE FIRST VOLUME.
Note.--In the second and third columns the bracketed words and figuresare dating of more or less certainly conjectured; whilst those unbracketed give theactual the letter.
Title of Letter.	Where Written.	When Written.	Where and when First Published.	Page.
A Landslip near Giagnano	Naples	February 7, 1841	Proceedings of the Ashmolean Society	[202]
Modern Painters: a Reply	[Denmark Hill	About Sept. 17, 1843]	The Weekly Chronicle, Sept. 23, 1843	[3]
Art Criticism	[Denmark Hill	December, 1843]	The Artist and Amateur’s Magazine, 1844	[10]
On Reflections in Water	[Denmark Hill	January, 1844]	The Artist and Amateur’s Magazine, 1844	[191]
Danger to the National Gallery	[Denmark Hill]	January 6 [1847]	The Times, January 7, 1847	[37]
The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, I.	Denmark Hill	May 9 [1851]	The Times, May 13, 1851	[59]
The Pre-Raphaelite Brethren, II.	Denmark Hill	May 26 [1851]	The Times, May 30, 1851	[63]
The National Gallery	Herne Hill, Dulwich	December 27 [1852]	The Times, December 29, 1852	[45]
“The Light of the World”	Denmark Hill	May 4 [1854]	The Times, May 15, 1854	[67]
“The Awakening Conscience”	[Denmark Hill	May 24 [1854]	The Times, May 25, 1854	[71]
The Turner Bequest	Denmark Hill	October 27 [1856]	The Times, October 28, 1856	[81]
On the Gentian	Denmark Hill	February 10 [1857]	The Athenæum, February 14, 1857	[204]
The Turner Bequest & National Gallery	[Denmark Hill	July 8, 1857]	The Times, July 9, 1857	[86]
The Castle Rock (Edinburgh)	Dunbar	14th September, 1857	The Witness (Edinburgh), Sept. 16, 1857	[145]
The Arts as a Branch of Education	Penrith	September 25, 1857	“New Oxford Examinations, etc.,” 1858	[24]
Edinburgh Castle	Penrith	27th September [1857]	The Witness (Edinburgh), Sept. 30, 1857	[147]
The Character of Turner	[	1857]	Thornbury’s Life of Turner. Preface, 1861	[107]
Pre-Raphaelitism in Liverpool	[	January, 1858]	The Liverpool Albion, January 11, 1858	[73]
Generalization & Scotch Pre-Raphaelites	[	March. 1858]	The Witness (Edinburgh), March 27, 1858	[74]
Gothic Architecture & Oxford Museum, I.	[	June, 1858]	“The Oxford Museum,” 1859.	[125]
The Turner Sketches and Drawings	[	November, 1858]	The Literary Gazette, Nov. 13, 1858	[88]
Turner’s Sketch Book (extract)	[	] 1858	List of Turner’s Drawings, Boston, 1874	[86] n.
The Liber Studiorum (extract)	[	] 1858	List of Turner’s Drawings, Boston, 1874	[97] n.
Gothic Architecture & Oxford Museum, II.	[	January 20, 1859	“The Oxford Museum,” 1859	[131]
The Turner Gallery at Kensington	Denmark Hill	October 20 [1859]	The Times, October 21, 1859	[98]
Mr. Thornbury’s “Life of Turner” (extract)	Lucerne	December 2, 1861	Thornbury’s Life of Turner. Ed. 2, Pref.	[108]
Art Teaching by Correspondence	Denmark Hill	November, 1860	Nature and Art, December 1, 1866	[32]
On the Reflection of Rainbows	[ ]	7th May, 1861	The London Review, May 16, 1861	[201]
The Conformation of the Alps	Denmark Hill	10th November, 1864	The Reader, November 12, 1864	[173]
Concerning Glaciers	Denmark Hill	November 21 [1864]	The Reader, November 26, 1864	[175]
English versus Alpine Geology	Denmark Hill	29th November [1864]	The Reader, December 3, 1864	[181]
Concerning Hydrostatics	Norwich	5th December [1864]	The Reader, December 10, 1864	[185]
The British Museum	Denmark Hill	Jan. 26 [1866]	The Times, January 27, 1866	[52]
Copies of Turner’s Drawings (extract)	[	] 1867	List of Turner’s Drawings, Boston, 1874	[105] n.
Notre Dame de Paris	[Denmark Hill	January 18, 1871]	The Daily Telegraph, January 19, 1871	[153]
“Turners” False and True	Denmark Hill	January 23 [1871]	The Times, January 24, 1871	[106]
Castles and Kennels	Denmark Hill	December 20 [1871]	The Daily Telegraph, December 22, 1871	[151]
Verona v. Warwick	Denmark Hill, S. E.	24th (for 25th) Dec. [1871]	The Daily Telegraph, December 25, 1871	[152]
Mr. Ruskin’s Influence: a Defence	Denmark Hill	March 15 [1872]	The Pall Mall Gazette, March 16, 1872	[154]
Mr. Ruskin’s Influence: a Rejoinder	Denmark Hill	March 21 [1872]	The Pall Mall Gazette, March 21, 1872	[156]
John Leech’s Outlines	[	1872]	The Catalogue to the Exhibition, 1872	[111]
Ernest George’s Etchings	[Denmark Hill	December, 1873]	The Architect, December 27, 1873	[113]
James David Forbes: his Real Greatness	[	1874]	“Rendu’s Glaciers of Savoy,” 1874	[187]
The Frederick Walker Exhibition	[	January, 1876]	The Times, January 20, 1876	[116]
Copies of Turner’s Drawings	Peterborough	April 23 [1876]	The Times, April 25, 1876	[105]
Turner’s Drawings, I.	Brantwood	July 3 [1876]	The Daily Telegraph, July 5, 1876	[100]
Turner’s Drawings, II.	Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire	July 16 [1876]	The Daily Telegraph, July 19, 1876	[104]
Modern Restoration	Venice	15th April, 1877	The Liverpool Daily Post, June 9, 1877	[157]
Ribbesford Church	Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire	July 24, 1877	The Kidderminster Times, July 28, 1877	[158]
St. Mark’s Venice--Circular relating to	[Brantwood	Winter 1879]	See the Circular	[159]
St. Mark’s Venice--Letters	[Brantwood	Winter 1879]	Birmingham Daily Mail, Nov. 27, 1879	[169]
On the Purchase of Pictures	[Brantwood	January 1880]	Leicester Chronicle, January 31, 1880	[55]
Copy of Turner’s “Fluelen”	London	20th March, 1880	Lithograph copy issued by Mr. Ward, 1880	[105] n.
The Study of Natural History	[ ]	Undated	Letter to Adam White [unknown]	[204]

LETTERS ON ART.

I.
ART CRITICISM AND ART EDUCATION.

“Modern Painters”; A Reply. 1843.

Art Criticism. 1843.

The Arts as a Branch of Education. 1857.

Art Teaching by Correspondence. 1860.