talking metaphysics, and expects to be fed by the law of Supply and Demand. I do not say that I shall always succeed in regulating prices, or quantities, absolutely to my mind; but in the event of any scarcity of provision, rich tables shall be served like the poorest, and we will see.

11. The price of every other article will be founded on the price of food. The price of what it takes a day to produce, will be a day's maintenance; of what it takes a week to produce, a week's maintenance,--such maintenance being calculated according to the requirements of the occupation, and always with a proportional surplus for saving.

"How am I to know exactly what a day's maintenance is?" I don't want to know exactly. I don't know exactly how much dinner I ought to eat; but, on the whole, I eat enough, and not too much. And I shall not know "exactly" how much a painter ought to have for a picture. It may be a pound or two under the mark-a pound or two over. On the average it will be right, that is to say, his decent keep* during the number of days' work that are properly accounted for in the production.

"How am I to hinder people from giving more if they like?"

* As for instance, and in farther illustration of the use of herrings, here is some account of the maintenance of young painters and lawyers in Edinburgh, sixty years since, sent me by the Third Fors; and good Dr. Brown, in an admirable sketch of the life of an admirable Scottish artist, says: "Raeburn (Sir Henry) was left an orphan at six, and was educated in Heriot's Hospital. At fifteen he was apprenticed to a goldsmith; but after his time was out, set himself entirely to portrait painting. About this time he became acquainted with the famous cynic, lawyer, and wit, John Clerk, afterwards Lord Eldin, then a young advocate. Both were poor. Young Clerk asked Raeburn to dine at his lodgings. Coming in, he found the landlady laying the cloth, and setting down two dishes, one containing three herrings, and the other three potatoes. 'Is this a'?' said John. 'Ay, it's a'.' 'A'! didna I tell ye, woman, that a gentleman is to dine wi' me, and that ye were to get six herrin' and six potatoes?'" 2

[Hitherto misprinted "Eldon." John Clerk (1757-1832), Lord Eldin, was a Lord of Session (1823-1828).]

2 [Compressed from p. 2 of Dr. John Brown's notice of the artist prefixed to Portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn, Photographed by Thomas Annan, with Bibliographical Sketches, Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot. There is no date on the title-page, but Dr. Brown's essay is dated December 6, 1873.]

People whom I catch doing as they like will generally have to leave the estate.

"But how is it to be decided to which of two purchasers, each willing to give its price, and more, anything is to belong?"

In various ways, according to the nature of the thing sold, and circumstances of sale. Sometimes by priority; sometimes by privilege; sometimes by lot; and sometimes by auction, at which whatever excess of price, above its recorded value, the article brings, shall go to the national treasury. So that nobody will ever buy anything to make a profit on it.

12. 11th January, 1874.-Thinking I should be the better of a look at the sea, I have come down to an old watering-place,' where one used to be able to get into a decent little inn, and possess one's self of a parlour with a bow window looking out on the beach, a pretty carpet, and a print or two of revenue cutters, and the Battle of the Nile. One could have a chop and some good cheese for dinner; fresh cream and cresses for breakfast, and a plate of shrimps.

I find myself in the Umfraville Hotel, a quarter of a mile long by a furlong deep; in a ghastly room, five-andtwenty feet square, and eighteen high,-that is to say, just four times as big as I want, and which I can no more light with my candles in the evening than I could the Peak cavern.2 A gas apparatus in the middle of it serves me to knock my head against, but I take good care not to light it, or I should soon be stopped from my evening's work by a headache, and be unfit for my morning's business besides. The carpet is threadbare, and has the look of having been spat upon all over. There is only one window, of four huge panes of glass, through which one commands a view of a plaster balcony, some ornamental iron railings, an esplanade,—and,-well, I suppose,—in the

1 [Margate.]

2 [Familiar to Ruskin from his boyhood: see Vol. I. p. 412 and Præterita, i. § 83.]

distance, that is really the sea, where it used to be. I am ashamed to ask for shrimps,-not that I suppose I could get any if I did. There's no cream, "because, except in the season, we could only take so small a quantity, sir.” The bread's stale, because it's Sunday; and the cheese, last night, was of the cheapest tallow sort. The bill will be at least three times my old bill;-I shall get no thanks from anybody for paying it;-and this is what the modern British public thinks is "living in style." But the most comic part of all the improved arrangements is that I can only have codlings for dinner, because all the cod goes to London, and none of the large fishing-boats dare sell a fish, here.

13. And now but a word or two more, final, as to the fixed price of this book.

A sensible and worthy tradesman writes to me in very earnest terms of expostulation, blaming me for putting the said book out of the reach of most of the persons it is meant for, and asking me how I can expect, for instance, the working men round him (in Lancashire),—who have been in the habit of strictly ascertaining that they have value for their money,-to buy, for tenpence, what they know might be given them for twopence-halfpenny.

14. Answer first:

My book is meant for no one who cannot reach it. If a man with all the ingenuity of Lancashire in his brains, and breed of Lancashire in his body; with all the steam and coal power in Lancashire to back his ingenuity and muscle; all the press of literary England vomiting the most valuable information at his feet; with all the tenderness of charitable England aiding him in his efforts, and ministering to his needs; with all the liberality of republican Europe rejoicing in his dignities as a man and a brother; and with all the science of enlightened Europe directing his opinions on the subject of the materials of the Sun, and the origin of his species; if, I say, a man so circumstanced, assisted, and informed, living besides in the richest country of the

globe, and, from his youth upwards, having been in the habit of "seeing that he had value for his money," cannot, as the upshot and net result of all, now afford to pay me tenpence a month-or an annual half-sovereign, for my literary labour,-in Heaven's name, let him buy the best reading he can for twopence-halfpenny. For that sum, I clearly perceive he can at once provide himself with two penny illustrated newspapers and one halfpenny one,-full of art, sentiment, and the Tichborne trial. He can buy a quarter of the dramatic works of Shakespeare, or a whole novel of Sir Walter Scott's. Good value for his money, he thinks;-reads one of them through, and in all probability loses some five years of the eyesight of his old age; which he does not, with all his Lancashire ingenuity, reckon as part of the price of his cheap book. But how has he read? There is an act of Midsummer Night's Dream printed in a page. Steadily and dutifully, as a student should, he reads his page. The lines slip past his eyes,

and mind, like sand in an hour-glass; he has some dim idea at the end of the act that he has been reading about Fairies, and Flowers, and Asses. Does he know what a Fairy is? Certainly not. Does he know what a flower is? He has perhaps never seen one wild, or happy, in his life. Does he even know-quite distinctly, inside and out-what an Ass is?

15. But, answer second. Whether Whether my Lancashire friends need any aid to their discernment of what is good or bad in literature, I do not know;-but I mean to give them the best help I can; and, therefore, not to allow them to have for twopence what I know to be worth tenpence. For here is another law of Florence, still concerning fish, which is transferable at once to literature.

"Eel of the lake shall be sold for three soldi a pound; and eel of the common sort for a soldo and a half."

1

And eel of a bad sort was not allowed to be sold at all.

[For other references to the Tichborne trial, see Letters 44, § 17 (p. 143), and 94, § 2 n. (Vol. XXIX. p. 480); also Vol. XXVI. p. 110.]

"Eel of the lake," I presume, was that of the Lake of Bolsena; Pope Martin IV. died of eating too many, in spite of their high price. You observe I do not reckon my Fors Eel to be of Bolsena; I put it at the modest price of a soldo a pound, or English tenpence. One cannot be precise in such estimates;-one can only obtain rude approximations. Suppose, for instance, you read the Times newspaper for a week, from end to end; your aggregate of resultant useful information will certainly not be more than you may get out of a single number of Fors. But your Times for the week will cost you eighteenpence.

You borrow the Times? Borrow this then; till the days come when English people cease to think they can live by lending, or learn by borrowing.

16. I finish with copy of a bit of a private letter to the editor of an honestly managed country newspaper, who asked me to send him Fors.

"I find it-on examining the subject for these last three years very closely-necessary to defy the entire principle of advertisement; and to make no concession of any kind whatsoever to the public press-even in the minutest particular. And this year I cease sending Fors to any paper whatsoever. It must be bought by every one who has it, editor or private person.

willing to sub

"If there are ten people in scribe a penny each for it, you can see it in turn; by no other means can I let it be seen. From friend to friend, or foe to foe, it must make its own way, or stand still, abiding its time."

[Compare Val d'Arno, § 261 (Vol. XXIII. p. 153).]