FOOTNOTES:
[89] In the "admirable article" of September 15, in which the main features of the voluminous correspondence received by the Daily Telegraph on the subject were shortly summed up.
[90] A: Fairservice is mentioned in Mr. Ruskin's discussion of parts of the "Antiquary" in "Fiction, Fair and Foul" (Nineteenth Century, June, 1880) as an "example of innate evil unaffected by external influences."
[91] This refers to a letter in which the writer gave an account of a robbery by a housemaid, and, drawing from her conduct the moral "put not your trust in London servants," concluded by signing his letter, "Ab hoc disce omnes."
[92] The last volume of Bishop Colenso's work on "The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined" was published in the April of the year in which these letters were written, and his deposition by the Bishop of Capetown had but recently been reversed by the Privy Council. It is to the discussion aroused by his book that Mr. Ruskin indirectly refers.
[93] The leader in the Art-Journal is Chapter vi. of "The Cestus of Aglaia," where "the infinite follies of modern thought, centred in the notion that liberty is good for a man, irrespectively of the use he is likely to make of it," are discussed at some length. The epitaphs quoted are not in the Idler itself, but in the "Essay on Epitaphs" printed at the end of some editions of it.
[94] This refers to a letter signed "W. B." in the Daily Telegraph of September 12.
[95] Charlotte Winsor was at this time under sentence of death for the murder of a child, which had been entrusted to her charge. I have been unable to verify the anecdote of her heroic anti-type.
[96] The "admirable article" which had closed the discussion advised mistresses to resemble those of the good old days, and to deserve good servants, if they wished to secure them. It, somewhat inconsistently with the previous articles, declared that the days of good service would not be found altogether past, if it was remembered that by derivation "domestic" meant "homelike," and "family" one's servants, not one's children.
[97] See "The Economist of Xenophon," since (1875) translated and published in the "Bibliotheca Pastorum," edited by Mr. Ruskin (vol. i. p. 50, chap. vii. §§ 37-43). Mr. Ruskin in his preface to the volume speaks of the book as containing "first, a faultless definition of wealth" ... "secondly, the most perfect ideal of kingly character and kingly government given in literature" ... and "thirdly, the ideal of domestic life." It may be interesting to note an earlier and quaint estimate of the work, given in "Xenophon's Treatise of Housholde—imprinted at London, in Fleet Street, by T. Berthelet, 1534," where the dialogue is described as "ryght counnyngly translated out of the Greke tongue into Englysshe by Gentian Hervet at the desyre of Mayster Geffrey Pole, whiche boke for the welthe of this realme I deme very profitable to be red."
[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 17, 1865.]
MODERN HOUSES.
To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."
Sir: I trust you will hold the very able and interesting letter from "W. H. W.,"[98] which you publish to-day, excuse enough for my briefly trespassing on your space once more. Indeed, it has been a discomfort to me that I have not yet asked the pardon of your correspondent, "A Tenant, not at will" (Sept. 21),[99] for the apparent discourtesy of thought of which he accused me. He need not have done so: for although I said "a gentleman would hew for himself a log hut" rather than live in modern houses, I never said he would rather abandon his family and his business than live in them; and your correspondent himself, in his previously written letter, had used precisely the same words. And he must not suspect that I intend to be ironical in saying that the prolonged coincidence of thought and word in the two letters well deserves the notice of your readers, in the proof it gives of the strength and truth of the impression on both minds. "W. H. W.'s" graphic description of his house is also sorrowfully faithful to the facts of daily experience; and I doubt not that you will soon have other communications of the same tenor, and all too true.
I made no attempt to answer "A Tenant, not at will," because the subject is much too wide for any detailed treatment in a letter; and you do not care for generalizations of mine. But I am sure your two correspondents, and the large class of sufferers which they represent, would be very sincerely grateful for some generalizations of yours on this matter. For, Sir, surely of all questions for the political economist, this of putting good houses over people's heads is the closest and simplest. The first question in all economy, practically as well as etymologically, must be this, of lodging. The "Eco" must come before the "Nomy." You must have a house before you can put anything into it; and preparatorily to laying up treasure, at the least dig a hole for it. Well, Sir, here, as it seems to my poor thinking, is a beautiful and simple problem for you to illustrate the law of demand and supply upon. Here you have a considerable body of very deserving persons "demanding" a good and cheap article in the way of a house. Will you or any of your politico-economic correspondents explain to them and to me the Divinely Providential law by which, in due course, the supply of such cannot but be brought about for them?
There is another column in your impression of to-day to which, also, I would ask leave to direct your readers' attention—the 4th of the 3d page; and especially, at the bottom of it, Dr. Whitmore's account of Crawford Place,[100] and his following statement that it is "a kind of property constituting a most profitable investment;" and I do so in the hope that you will expand your interpretation of the laws of political economy so far as to teach us how, by their beneficent and inevitable operation, good houses must finally be provided for the classes who live in Crawford Place, and such other places; and, without necessity of eviction, also for the colliers of Cramlington (vide 2d column of the same 3d page).[101] I have, indeed, my own notions on the subject, but I do not trouble you with them, for they are unfortunately based an that wild notion of there being a "just" price for all things, which you say in your article of Oct. 10, on the Sheffield strikes, "has no existence but in the minds of theorists."[102] The Pall Mall Gazette, with which journal I have already held some discussion on the subject, eagerly quoted your authority on its side, in its impression of the same evening; nor do I care to pursue the debate until I can inform you of the continuous result of some direct results which I am making on my Utopian principles. I have bought a little bit of property of the Crawford Place description, and mending it somewhat according to my notions, I make my tenants pay me what I hold to be a "just" price for the lodging provided. That lodging I partly look after, partly teach the tenants to look after for themselves; and I look a little after them, as well as after the rents. I do not mean to make a highly profitable investment of their poor little rooms; but I do mean to sell a good article, in the way of house room, at a fair price; and hitherto my customers are satisfied, and so am I.[103]
In the mean time, being entirely busy in other directions, I must leave the discussion, if it is to proceed at all, wholly between you and your readers. I will write no word more till I see what they all have got to say, and until you yourself have explained to me, in its anticipated results, the working—as regards the keeping out of winter and rough weather—of the principles of Non-iquity (I presume that is the proper politico-economic form for the old and exploded word Iniquity); and so I remain, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. Ruskin.
Denmark Hill, Oct. 16.