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III. I am gradually rising into greater indignation against the baseness and conceit of the modern scientific mob, than even against the mere money-seekers. The following fragment of a letter from a Companion bears notably on this matter:—
“The only earnest folks I know are cold-hearted ‘Freethinkers,’ and not very earnest either. My church-going friends are not earnest, except about their form of sound words. But I get on best with them. They are warmer, and would be what I wish, were circumstances not so dead set against it. My ‘Freethinking’ acquaintances say that with Carlyle the last of the great dreamers who have impeded the advance of science will pass away, and that, in fact, he is dead already, for nobody minds him. I don’t heed such words now as I used to do. Had I lived when Socrates was condemned, I would have felt hope extinguished; yet Jesus came long after him, and I will not fear that God will fail to send His great and good men, any more than that the sun will forget to rise.
“My Freethinking friends sneer even at the mention of any God; and their talk of methods of reformation that infer any wisdom above their own has long since sickened me. One Sunday evening last year, I accompanied one of them to what they call the ‘Eclectic Hall’ here, to hear a Mrs. Law speak. There were from two to three hundred present,—few women—almost all toil-worn looking men. Mrs. Law, the lecturess—a stout, coarse-looking lady, or woman who might have been a lady—based her address on another by Mr. Gladstone, M.P. One thing she said will give you an idea of the spirit of her lecture, which was full of sadness to me, because highly appreciated by her audience: ‘Jesus tells you,’ she shouted, ‘ “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven,” but I tell you, Blessed are the rich, for theirs is no myth-world, but this substantial one with its tangible, satisfying joys.’
“I got one of them to read the October Letter—and then [[68]]Volumes I. and IV. of Fors. Another young fellow, a Londoner, read them too, and then at leisure moments there was a talk over them for some days. But, with the exception of the first referred to, they talked pitifully enough. Your incidental remark about destroying the new town of Edinburgh, and other items of dubious sort, blinded them to any good, and it was a blessing when something else came athwart their vacant minds, and they ceased to remember you.”
IV. I am grateful for the following note on the name ‘Sheffield’:—
“Leeds, 29th Dec, 1875.
“Sir,—The town, in all probability, took its name from the river ‘Sheaf,’ which flows into the Don.
“Doncaster is a case in point out of hundreds of others. It may be that the river has been named in recent times, but it is unlikely; for as a rule a river always has some name by which it is known before any settlements are made on its banks.”
V. I must now request my reader’s attention somewhat gravely to the questions in debate between my correspondents at Wakefield; not that these are in themselves of any importance, but they are of extreme importance in their general issue. In the first place, observe the extreme difficulty of writing history. You shall have one impertinent coxcomb after another in these days, writing constitutional Histories of England and the like, and telling you all the relationships and all the motives of Kings and Queens a thousand years dead; and here is question respecting the immediate ancestor of a living lady, which does not appear at once or easily determinable; and which I do not therefore pursue;—here again is question respecting the connection of her husband with the cases of bribery reported in the subjoined evidence on the Wakefield election petition, also indeterminable;—here are [[69]]farther two or three questions respecting the treatment of his workmen, respecting which the evidence is entirely conflicting; and finally, here is the chapel on Wakefield bridge pulled down,[4] a model of it built in its place, and the entire front of the historical building carried away to decorate a private boathouse; and I, quite as knowing in architecture as most people, am cheated into some very careful and quite useless work, and even into many false conclusions, by the sculpture of the sham front, decayed and broken enough in thirty years to look older than sculpture of 500 years B.C. would, or does, in pure air.
Observe, in the second place, how petulant and eager people are, the moment a single word touches themselves, while universal abuses may be set before them enough to bring all the stones in heaven but what serve for the thunder, down about their ears,—and they will go on talking about Shakspeare and the musical glasses undisturbed, to the end of their lives; but let a single word glance at their own windows, or knock at their own doors, and—instantly—‘If Mr. Ruskin is what I think him, he will retract,’ etc. etc. But, alas! Mr. Ruskin is not the least what Mrs. Green thinks him,—does not in the smallest degree care for a lady’s “Fie’s,” and, publishing the following letters and newspaper extracts for the general reader’s satisfaction and E. L.’s justification, very contentedly, for his part, ends the discussion, though of course Fors shall be open to any further communication, if not too long, which either Mrs. Green or her husband may desire to have inserted.
In the following letter I have left all the passages containing due apology, while I have removed some which contained matter of further debate, if not offence, thereby much weakening the whole.
“Dear Mr. Ruskin,—I have been away from home, and have only recently seen Mrs. Green’s letter in the Fors of last month. [[70]]
“I am sorry to have vexed her; I did not think that you would print the passages referring to her husband in the form in which they stood.[5]
“When you said that you would assume my permission to print passages from the letter, I supposed that they would be those relating to the general life of Wakefield. All that I have written is essentially true, but I do not wish to hold any controversy on the matter, for if I defended myself publicly I should have to wound still further the feelings of one who is no doubt a devoted wife.
“It is for your satisfaction alone that I write these lines. I have been inaccurate on two points, on which I wrote too hastily, from hearsay, gleaned on brief visits to Wakefield. Mr. Green has not a Scotch estate, only occasional shooting, and he is not concerned in the forges that stand near the bridge, as I was wrongly informed.
“I did not say, though I may have led your readers to infer it, that the so-called ‘American devil’ was his. I knew, or rather was told, that it belonged to Whithams, who have the largest foundry. He (Mr. Green) does not forge iron, it seems; he makes it into machines. He can hardly be classed as an engineer; he is a machine-maker. If he is not an ‘iron lord,’ on what is his wealth based?
“Robin the Pedlar is no myth. I often heard him mentioned, when a girl, as being Mrs. Green’s father. I dare say that Mrs. Edward Green never heard of him. She came into the family in its genteeler days; but there are old people in Wakefield who remember all about him. I send by this post a Wakefield paper containing some speeches highly illustrative of the town of which Mr. Green is the hero and model.” (These I do not think it necessary to publish.) “Party feeling still runs high at Wakefield, and when the next election occurs, Mrs. Green expects to find big yellow bills on the gate-pillars of Heath Common, [[71]]‘Professor Ruskin on Ned Green,’ and she is naturally angry.
“Of course he is not the sole offender. This case occurred to me because he is the most prominent type of the modern successful men who are to inaugurate a new era in the town’s history. It is the blind leader of the blind in the downward way that things are going. Everybody wants to get rich like him; everybody who has greed and competence pushes to the front. The town council promise them that they will make of Wakefield a second Bradford. Meanwhile they squabble about their duties, the streets are filthy, smallpox breeds there, and they set up a hospital in a tent. It catches fire, and nurse and patients are burnt together. I think that was eight or nine years since. Possibly arrangements are better now.
“You say truly that quickly acquired fortunes must be ill acquired, but you must live on my level to realize fully how the prospect and possibility of such gains are disorganizing middle-class life. English people do not lift their families along with them, as we reproach the ‘clannish’ Scotch with doing.
“Ignorant pride on the one hand, envy on the other, breed hate between those who should be a mutual stay. As classes are estranged, so are families.
“In conclusion, I must again say that I shall always feel regret at having pained Mrs. Green, but what I have said is true in all essentials.
“He is the hero of the men who are changing Wakefield so rapidly. I liked it better thirty years since, when, if it was poor, it was clean and honest.
“I am, dear Mr. Ruskin, yours truly,
“E. L.”
I print the following first portion (about the fourth part) of a column and a half of the evidence on the Wakefield election [[72]]petition, sent me by my correspondent; though I do not suppose it to indicate anything more than compliance on Mr. Green’s part with the ordinary customs of English electioneering.