видни

and

THE MS. OF A PORTION OF LETTER 41 (§ 3)

p. 80

impotent churl mind; so that, to take only so poor an instance of them as my own life-because I have passed it in almsgiving, not in fortune-hunting; because I have laboured always for the honour of others, not my own, and have chosen rather to make men look to Turner and Luini, than to form or exhibit the skill of my own hand; because I have lowered my rents, and assured the comfortable lives of my poor tenants, instead of taking from them all I could force for the roofs they needed;' because I love a wood walk better than a London street, and would rather watch a seagull fly, than shoot it, and rather hear a thrush sing, than eat it; finally, because I never disobeyed my mother, because I have honoured all women with solemn worship, and have been kind even to the unthankful and the evil; therefore the hacks of English art and literature wag their heads at me, and the poor wretch who pawns the dirty linen of his soul daily for a bottle of sour wine and a cigar, talks of the "effeminate sentimentality of Ruskin." "

2

4. Now of these despised sentiments, which in all ages have distinguished the gentleman from the churl, the first is that reverence for womanhood which, even through all the cruelties of the Middle Ages, developed itself with increasing power until the thirteenth century, and became consummated in the imagination of the Madonna, which ruled over all the highest arts and purest thoughts of that age. To the common Protestant mind the dignities ascribed

1

[For Ruskin's pioneer work in this matter, under Miss Octavia Hill's management, see Letter 10, § 15 (Vol. XXVII. p. 175).]

2 [Luke vi. 35.]

3 [The facsimile of the original MS. of § 3 (here reproduced) was given in John Ruskin: a Biographical Outline, by W. G. Collingwood, 1889. For Ruskin's refutation of the charge of "sentimentality," see Time and Tide, § 164 (Vol. XVII. p. 451); Queen of the Air, § 111 (Vol. XIX. p. 396); and below, Letter 42, § 14 (p. 102), where Ruskin attributes the remark to the Saturday Review, though on p. 87, in a reference to the present passage, he seems to attribute it to the Pall Mall Gazette. It has not been found in the Saturday, and in Time and Tide, Ruskin cites it from the Pall Mall Gazette, where the expression does occur (April 23, 1867), without the word "effeminate" (see Vol. XVII. p. 451 n.). Ruskin's memory of the periodical is probably at fault, but he may have been thinking of the abusive reception of Unto this Last by the Saturday Review, and of the epithets then applied to him: see Vol. XVII. p. xxviii.]

XXVIII.

F

to the Madonna have been always a violent offence; they are one of the parts of the Catholic faith which are openest to reasonable dispute, and least comprehensible by the average realistic and materialist temper of the Reformation. But after the most careful examination, neither as adversary nor as friend, of the influences of Catholicism for good and evil, I am persuaded that the worship of the Madonna has been one of its noblest and most vital graces, and has never been otherwise than productive of true holiness of life and purity of character. I do not enter into any question as to the truth or fallacy of the idea; I no more wish to defend the historical or theological position of the Madonna than that of St. Michael or St. Christopher; but I am certain that to the habit of reverent belief in, and contemplation of, the character ascribed to the heavenly hierarchies, we must ascribe the highest results yet achieved in human nature, and that it is neither Madonna-worship nor saint-worship, but the evangelical self-worship and hellworship-gloating, with an imagination as unfounded as it is foul, over the torments of the damned, instead of the glories of the blest,-which have in reality degraded the languid powers of Christianity to their present state of shame and reproach. There has probably not been an innocent cottage home throughout the length and breadth of Europe during the whole period of vital Christianity, in which the imagined presence of the Madonna has not given sanctity to the humblest duties, and comfort to the sorest trials of the lives of women; and every brightest and loftiest achievement of the arts and strength of manhood has been the fulfilment of the assured prophecy of the poor Israelite maiden, "He that is mighty hath magnified me, and Holy is His name.' What we are about to substitute for such magnifying in our modern wisdom, let the reader judge from two slight things that chanced to be noticed by me in my walk round Paris. I generally go first to Our Lady's Church, for though the towers [Luke i. 49 (Prayer-book).]

1

and most part of the walls are now merely the modern model of the original building, much of the portal sculpture is still genuine, and especially the greater part of the lower arcades of the north-west door, where the common entrance is. I always held these such valuable pieces of the thirteenth-century work that I had them cast, in mass, some years ago, brought away casts, eight feet high by twelve wide, and gave them to the Architectural Museum.1 So as I was examining these, and laboriously gleaning what was left of the old work among M. Viollet-le-Duc's fine fresh heads of animals and points of leaves,' I saw a brass plate in the back of one of the niches, where the improperly magnified saints used to be. At first I thought it was over one of the usual almsboxes which have a right to be at church entrances (if anywhere); but catching sight of an English word or two on it, I stopped to read, and read to the following effect:

"F. du Larin,

office

of the

Victoria Pleasure Trips

And Excursions to Versailles.

Excursions to the Battle-fields round Paris.

"A four-horse coach with an English guide starts daily from Notre Dame Cathedral, at 10 A.M. for Versailles, by the Bois de Boulogne, St. Cloud, Montretout, and Ville d'Avray. Back in Paris at 5 P.M. Fares must be secured one day in advance at the entrance of Notre Dame.3 "The Manager, H. du Larin."

66

Magnificat anima mea Dominum, quia respexit humilitatem ancillæ Suæ."4 Truly it seems to be time that God should again regard the lowliness of His handmaiden, now that she has become keeper of the coach-office for excursions to Versailles. The arrangement becomes still

1 [See Vol. VIII. p. 13, and Vol. XII. p. lxxi.]

2 Viollet-le-Duc's "restoration" of the church was in progress for many years from 1845 onward.]

3 [See a reference to this announcement in Mornings in Florence, § 121 (Vol. XXIII. p. 414).]

[Luke i. 46, 48.]