These are the terms in which the great poet explains the matter. The less poet—or, rather, man of modern wit and breeding, without superior poetical power—thus puts the affair into dignified language:
Then emulous the royal robes they lave,
And plunge the vestures in the cleansing wave,
(The vestures cleansed o'erspread the shelly sand,
Their snowy lustre whitens all the strand.)
Now, to my mind, Homer's language is by far the most poetical of the two—is, in fact, the only poetical language possible in the matter. Whether it was desirable to give any account of this, or anything else, depends wholly on the relation of the passage to the rest of the poem, and you could only show Mr. Patmore's glance into the servant's room to be ridiculous by proving the mother's mind, which it illustrates, to be ridiculous. Similarly, if you were to take one of Mr. George Richmond's perfectest modern portraits, and give a little separate engraving of a bit of the neck-tie or coat-lappet, you might easily demonstrate a very prosaic character either in the riband-end or the button-hole. But the only real question respecting them is their relation to the face, and the degree in which they help to express the character of the wearer. What the real relations of the parts are in the poem in question only a thoughtful and sensitive reader will discover. The poem is not meant for a song, or calculated for an hour's amusement; it is, as I said, to the best of my belief, a finished and tender work of very noble art. Whatever on this head may be the final judgment of the public, I am bound, for my own part, to express my obligation to Mr. Patmore, as one of my severest models and tutors in use of English, and my respect for him as one of the truest and tenderest thinkers who have ever illustrated the most important, because commonest, states of noble human life.[156]
I remain, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. Ruskin.
Denmark Hill.
FOOTNOTES:
[154] The tone of the criticism is sufficiently explained in this letter.
[155] See Homer, Odyssey, vi. 90.
Εἵματα χερσὶν ἕλοντο καὶ ἐσφόρεον μέλαν ὕδωρ,
Στεῖβον δ' ἐν βόθροισι θοῶς ἔριδα προφέρουσαι.
Αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πλῦνάν τε κάθηράν τε ῥύπα πάντα,
Ἑξείης πέτασαν παρὰ θῖν' ἁλὸς, ἧχι μάλιστα
Λάϊγγας ποτὶ χέρσον ἀποπλύνεσκε θάλασσα.
The verse translation of this passage given in the letter is from Pope's Odyssey.