To the Editor of "Macmillan's Magazine."
Sir: At p. 423 of your current number, Mr. Stopford A. Brooke states that it is a proposal of mine for regenerating the country, that the poor should be "dressed all in one sad-colored costume."[147]
It is, indeed, too probable that one sad-colored costume may soon be "your only wear," instead of the present motley—for both poor and rich. But the attainment of this monotony was never a proposition of mine; and as I am well aware Mr. Brooke would not have been guilty of misrepresentation, if he had had time to read the books he was speaking of, I am sure he will concur in my request that you would print in full the passages to which he imagined himself to be referring.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
John Ruskin.
1. "You ladies like to lead the fashion: by all means lead it. Lead it thoroughly. Lead it far enough. Dress yourselves nicely, and dress everybody else nicely. Lead the fashions for the poor first; make them look well, and you yourselves will look—in ways of which you have at present no conception—all the better."—Crown of Wild Olive (1866), p. 18.[148]
2. "In the simplest and clearest definition of it, economy, whether public or private, means the wise management of labor; and it means this mainly in three senses: namely, first, applying your labor rationally; secondly, preserving its produce carefully; lastly, distributing its produce seasonably.
"I say first, applying your labor rationally; that is, so as to obtain the most precious things you can, and the most lasting things by it: not growing oats in land where you can grow wheat, nor putting fine embroidery on a stuff that will not wear. Secondly, preserving its produce carefully; that is to say, laying up your wheat wisely in storehouses for the time of famine, and keeping your embroidery watchfully from the moth; and lastly, distributing its produce seasonably; that is to say, being able to carry your corn at once to the place where the people are hungry, and your embroideries to the place where they are gay; so fulfilling in all ways the wise man's description, whether of the queenly housewife or queenly nation: 'She riseth while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry, her clothing is silk and purple. Strength and honor are in her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come.'
"Now you will observe that in this description of the perfect economist, or mistress of a household, there is a studied expression of the balanced division of her care between the two great objects of utility and splendor: in her right hand, food and flax, for life and clothing; in her left hand, the purple and the needlework, for honor and for beauty.... And in private and household economy you may always judge of its perfectness by its fair balance between the use and the pleasure of its possessions: you will see the wise cottager's garden trimly divided between its well-set vegetables and its fragrant flowers: you will see the good housewife taking pride in her pretty tablecloth and her glittering shelves, no less than in her well-dressed dish and full store-room: the care will alternate with gayety; and though you will reverence her in her seriousness, you will know her best by her smile."—"Political Economy of Art" (1857), pp. 10-13.[149]