JOHN RUSKIN
1819—1900
BUT granting that we had both the will and the sense to choose our friends well, how few of us have the power! Or, at least, how limited, for most, is the sphere of choice! Nearly all our associations are determined by chance or necessity; and restricted within a narrow circle. We cannot know whom we would; and those whom we know, we cannot have at our side when we most need them. All the higher circles of human intelligence are, to those beneath, only momentarily and partially open. We may, by good fortune, obtain a glimpse of a great poet, and hear the sound of his voice; or put a question to a man of science, and be answered good-humouredly. We may intrude ten minutes’ talk on a cabinet minister, answered probably with words worse than silence, being deceptive; or snatch, once or twice in our lives, the privilege of throwing a bouquet in the path of a princess, or arresting the kind glance of a queen. And yet these momentary chances we covet; and spend our years, and passions, and powers, in pursuit of little more than these; while, meantime, there is a society continually open to us, of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or occupation talk to us in the best words they can choose, and of the things nearest their hearts. And this society, because it is so numerous and so gentle, and can be kept waiting round us all day long—kings and statesmen lingering patiently, net to grant audience, but to gain it! —In those plainly furnished and narrow anterooms, our bookcase shelves, —we make no account of that company, —perhaps never listen to a word they would say, all day long!
You may tell me, perhaps, or think within yourselves,
that the apathy with which we regard this company of the noble, who are praying
us to listen to them; and the passion~ with which we pursue the company,
probably of the ignoble, who despise us, or who have nothing to teach us, are
grounded in this, — that we can see the faces of the living men, and it is
themselves, and not their sayings, with which we desire to become familiar. But
it is not so. Suppose you never were to see their faces; —suppose you could be
put behind a screen in the statesman’s cabinet, or the prince’s chamber, would
you not be glad to listen to their words, though you were forbidden to advance
beyond the screen? And when the screen is only a little less, folded in two instead
of four, and you can be hidden behind the cover of the two boards that
bind a book, and listen all day long, not to the casual talk, but to the
studied, determined, chosen addresses of the wisest of men; —this station of
audience, and honour-able privy council, you despise! But perhaps you will say
that it is because the living people talk of things that are passing, and are
of immediate interest to you, that you desire to hear them. Nay; that cannot be
so, for the living people will themselves tell you about passing matters much better
in their writings than in their careless talk.
Yet I admit that this motive does influence you, so
far as you prefer those rapid and ephemeral writings to slow and enduring
writings—hooks, properly so called. For all books are divisible into two classes,
the books of the hour, and the books of all time. Mark this distinction—it is
not one of quality only. It is not merely the bad book that does not last, and
the good one that does. It is a distinction of species. There are good books
for the hour, and good ones for all time; bad books for the hour, and bad ones
for all time. I must define the two kinds before I go farther. The good book of
the hour, then, I do not speak of the
bad ones, —is simply the useful or pleasant talk of Borne person whom you cannot
otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what
you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend’s present talk
would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-honoured and witty
discussions of question; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel;
firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing
history; —all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education
becomes more general, are a peculiar possession of the present age; we
ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we
make no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use if we allow them
to usurp the place of true books; for, strictly speaking, they are not books at
all, but merely letters or newspapers in gold print Our friend’s letter may be
delightful, or necessary, today; whether worth keeping or not, is to be
considered. The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but
assuredly it is not reading for all day. So, though bound up in a volume, the
long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, and roads, and
weather, last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing
story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however
valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a
‘book’ at all, nor, in the real sense, to be read.
A book is essentially not a talking thing, but a
written thing; and written, not with a view of mere communication, but of
permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to
thousands of people at once; if he could, he would—the volume is mere
multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you
could, you would; you write instead; that is mere conveyance of voice. But a
book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but
to perpetuate it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true
and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it;
so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and
melodiously if he may; clearly at all events. In the sum of his life he finds
this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; —this, the piece of
true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted
him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever engrave it on rock, if he
could; saying, ‘This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and
slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not;
but this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.’ That
is his ‘writing’; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of
true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a ‘Book.’
Perhaps you think no books were ever so written? But, again, I ask you, do you
at all believe in honesty, or at all in kindness, or do you think there is
never any honesty or benevolence in wise people? None of us, I hope, are so
unhappy as to think that. Well, whatever bit of a wise man’s work is honestly
and benevolently done, that bit is his book or his piece of art. It is mixed
always with evil fragments—ill done, redundant, affected work. But if you read
rightly, you will easily discover the true bits, and those are the books. Now
books of this kind have been written in all ages by their greatest men; —by
great readers, great statesmen, and great thinkers.
These are all at your choice; and Life is short. You
have heard as much before; — yet have you measured and mapped out this short
life and its possibilities? Do you know, if you read this that you cannot read
that—that what you lose to day you cannot gain to-morrow? ‘Will you go and
gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk with queens
and kings; or flatter yourself that it is with any worthy consciousness of your
own claims to respect, that you jostle with the hungry and common crowd for entrée
here, and audience there, when all the while this eternal court is open to
you, with its society, wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the
chosen, and the mighty, of every place and time? into that you may enter
always; in that you may take fellowship and rank according to your wish; from
that, once entered into it, you can never be outcast but by your own fault; by
your aristocracy of companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy will be
assuredly tested, and the motives with which you strive to take high place in
the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and sincerity that are
in them, by the place you desire to take in this company of the Dead. ‘The place
you desire,’ and the place you fit yourself for, I must also say;
because, observe, this court of the past differs from all living aristocracy in
this; — it is open to labour and to merit, but to nothing else. No wealth will
bribe, no name overawe, no artifice deceive, the guardian of those Elysian
gates. In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the
portieres of that silent Faubourg St. Germain, there is but brief question :—‘
Do you deserve to enter? Pass. Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? Make
yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise?
Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it. But on other terms? —No. If you
will not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you. The living lord may assume
courtesy, the living philosopher explain his thought to you with considerate
pain; but here we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the level of
our thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and share our feelings, if you
would recognise our presence.’ This, then, is what you have to do, and I admit
that it is much. You must, in a word, love these people, if you are to be
among them. No ambition is of any use. They scorn your ambition. You
must love them, and show your love in these two following ways. First, by a
true desire to be taught by them, and to enter into their thoughts. To enter
into theirs, observe; not to find your own expressed by them. If the person who
wrote the book is not wiser than you, you need not read it; if he be, he will
think differently from you in many respects.
Very ready we are to say of a book, ‘How good this
is—that’s exactly what I think!’ But the right feeling is, ‘How strange that
is! I never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true; or if I do not
now, I hope I shall some day.’ But whether thus submissively or not, at least
be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.
Judge it afterwards if you think yourself qualified to do so; but ascertain it
first. And be sure, also, if the author is worth anything, that you will not
get at his meaning all at once; —nay, that at his whole meaning you will not
for a long time arrive in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and
in strong words too; but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, will
not, but in a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure
you want it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyse that cruel
reticence in the breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper
thought. They do not give it you by way of help, but of reward; and will make
themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it. But it
is the same with the physical type of wisdom, gold. There seems, to you and me,
no reason why the electric forces of the earth should not carry whatever there
is of gold within it at once to the mountain tops, so that kings and people
might know that all the gold they could get was there; and without any trouble
of digging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste of time, cut it away, and coin as
much as they needed. But Nature does not manage it so. She puts it in little fissures
in the earth, nobody knows where; you may dig long and find none; you must dig
painfully to find any. And it is just the same with men’s best wisdom. When
you come to a good book, you must as~ yourself, ‘Am I inclined to work as an
Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I
in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, and
my temper?’ And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at cost of
tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of
being the author’s mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to
crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care,
wit, and learning; your ~smelting furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not
hope to get at any good author’s meaning without those tools and that fire;
often you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and patientest fusing, before
you can gather one grain of the metal.