FOOTNOTES:
[150] This letter refers to an article on Mr. Ruskin's peculiar method of publication which appeared in the World of May 26, 1875. It was entitled "Ruskin to the Rescue," and with the criticism to which Mr. Ruskin alludes, strongly approved the idea of some reform being attempted in the matter of the publication of books. Mr. Ruskin began the still-continued method of publishing his works in 1871; and the following advertisement, inserted in the earlier copies of the first book thus published—"Sesame and Lilies"—will give the reader further information on the matter.
"It has long been in my mind to make some small beginning of resistance to the existing system of irregular discount in the bookselling trade—not in hostility to booksellers, but, as I think they will find eventually, with a just regard to their interest, as well as to that of authors. Every volume of this series of my collected works will be sold to the trade without any discount or allowance on quantity, at such a fixed price as will allow both author and publisher a moderate profit on each volume. It will be sold to the trade only; who can then fix such further profit on it as they deem fitting, for retail.
"Every volume will be clearly printed, and thoroughly well bound: on such conditions the price to the public, allowing full profit to the retailer, may sometimes reach, but ought never to exceed, half a guinea, nor do I wish it to be less. I will fully state my reasons for this procedure in the June number of Fors Clavigera.
"The price of this first volume to the trade is seven shillings."
In subsequent similar notices, some parts of this plan, especially as regarded purchasers and price, were altered; the trade not accepting the offer of sale to them only, and the "trouble and difficulty of revising text and preparing plates" proving much greater than Mr. Ruskin had expected.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 11, 1875.]
A MISTAKEN REVIEW.[151]
To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."
Sir: The excellent letters and notes which have recently appeared in your columns on the subject of reviewing lead me to think that you will give me space for the statement of one or two things which I believe it is right the public should know respecting the review which appeared in the Examiner of the 2d of this month (but which I did not see till yesterday), by Mr. W. B. Scott, of Mr. St. J. Tyrrwhitt's "Letters on Landscape Art."
1. Mr. Scott is one of the rather numerous class of artists of whose works I have never taken any public notice, and who attribute my silence to my inherent stupidity of disposition.
2. Mr. Scott is also one of the more limited and peculiarly unfortunate class of artists who suppose themselves to have great native genius, dislike being told to learn perspective, and prefer the first volume of "Modern Painters," which praises many third-rate painters, and teaches none, to the following volumes, which praise none but good painters, and sometimes admit the weakness of advising bad ones.
3. My first acquaintance with Mr. Scott was at the house of a gentleman whose interior walls he was decorating with historic frescos, and whose patronage I (rightly or wrongly) imagined at that time to be of importance to him. I was then more good-natured and less conscientious than I am now, and my host and hostess attached weight to my opinions. I said all the good I truly could of the frescos, and no harm; painted a corn-cockle on the walls myself, in reverent subordination to them; got out of the house as soon afterwards as I could, and never since sought Mr. Scott's acquaintance further (though, to my regret, he was once photographed in the same plate with Mr. Rosetti and me). Mr. Scott is an honest man, and naturally thinks me a hypocrite and turncoat as well as a fool.
4. The honestest man in writing a review is apt sometimes to give obscure statements of facts which ought to have been clearly stated to make the review entirely fair. Permit me to state in very few words those which I think the review in question does not clearly represent. My "Elements of Drawing" were out of print, and sometimes asked for; I wished to rewrite them, but had no time, and knew that my friend and pupil, Mr. Tyrrwhitt, was better acquainted than I myself with some processes of water-color sketching, and was perfectly acquainted with and heartily acceptant of the principles which I have taught to be essential in all art. I knew he could write, and I therefore asked him to write, a book of his own to take the place of the "Elements," and authorized him to make arrangements with my former publisher for my wood-blocks, mostly drawn on the wood by myself.
The book is his own, not mine, else it would have been published as mine, not his. I have not read it all, and do not answer for it all. But when I wrote the "Elements" I believed conscientiously that book of mine to be the best then attainable by the public on the subject of elementary drawing. I think Mr. Tyrrwhitt's a better book, know it to be a more interesting one, and believe it to be, in like manner, the best now attainable by the British public on elementary practice of art.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
John Ruskin.
Brantwood, Jan. 10.