Of Vulgarity

by John Ruskin

Ruskin Treasuries

OF VULGARITY

London: George Allen
1906

What do you mean by "vulgarity"? You will find it a fruitful subject of thought; but, briefly, the essence of all vulgarity lies in want of sensation.

Sesame and Lilies, § 28.

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RUSKIN TREASURIES

OF VULGARITY

1. Two great errors, colouring, or rather discolouring, severally, the minds of the higher and lower classes, have sown wide dissension, and wider misfortune, through the society of modern days. These errors are in our modes of interpreting the word "gentleman."

Its primal, literal, and perpetual meaning is "a man of pure race;"[#] well bred, in the sense that a horse or dog is well bred.