I. VIEW OF LUCERNE FROM ABOVE (1861) II. HOUSES AND MOUNTAIN-SIDE AT ALTDORF (1861) V. "VIEW FROM MY WINDOW AT MORNEX" (1862) VI. THE MOUNTAINS OF ANNECY SEEN FROM THE BREZON FACSIMILES Note.-The drawing from which the frontispiece is made was reproduced by chromo-lithography as frontispiece to vol. i. of The Life and Work of John Ruskin, by W. G. Collingwood, 1893. The drawing of Lucerne (Plate I.) was reproduced, by autotype process, in the large-paper edition of E. T. Cook's Studies in Ruskin (Plate 3), 1890. The drawing of the Mountains of Annecy xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (Plate VI.) was reproduced by chromo-lithography in Studies in Both Arts (Plate X.), 1895. The other drawings have not hitherto been reproduced. The Portrait was shown at the Ruskin Exhibition at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, 1901 (No. 404), and at the Manchester Exhibition, 1904 (No. 363). The "View from the Base of the Brezon" was No. 366 in the Manchester Exhibition. The "View from Mornex" was No. 222 in the Exhibition at the Water-Colour Society. The "Mountains of Annecy" was No. 303 in that Exhibition; No. 104 at Manchester; and No. 76 D at the Coniston Exhibition, 1900 (where it was sold for the benefit of the Coniston Institute for 25 guineas). "Lauffenbourg" was No. 376 in the Exhibition at the Water-Colour Society; it was bought at the sale of Sir John Simon's collection in 1905 for the Birmingham Art Gallery (26 guineas). INTRODUCTION TO VOL. XVII (In the chronological order, Vol. XVII. follows Vol. VII.) In this volume are collected those of Ruskin's writings which were devoted exclusively to Political Economy. They range from the year 1860 to 1867. The Political Economy of Art, belonging to an earlier date (1857), has already been given in Volume XVI. The miscellany which he called Fors Clavigera is also concerned in large measure with Political Economy, but this belongs to a later date (1871 onwards), and treats moreover de omnibus rebus, et quibusdam aliis. The pieces here collected are: (I.) Unto this Last. The volume, so entitled and published in 1862, consists of four essays which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for August, September, October, and November 1860. (II.) Munera Pulveris. This work, though not published as a book until 1872, was written ten years earlier, and originally appeared in Fraser's Magazine for June, September, and December 1862, and April 1863. (III.) Time and Tide. This book was published in 1867, being a collection of letters which had appeared in newspapers earlier in that year. Time and Tide thus belongs to a later period than the other books, and its inclusion here puts it somewhat out of its chronological order; for in the next volume we shall be concerned with Ruskin's productions in 1864-1866. But the inclusion of the third treatise on Political Economy, in the same volume with Unto this Last and Munera Pulveris, is required by the subject-matter. The three books were written in the same temper; they deal, from different points of approach, with the same topics; and, as we shall see more fully hereafter, they form progressive parts of a comprehensive scheme. Unto this Last delivered Ruskin's first general attack on the Political Economy current at the time; Munera Pulveris set forth in outline the scheme of his alternative system; in Time and Tide he turned from the science to the art of economics, and threw out suggestions for an Ideal Commonwealth in conformity with the principles enunciated in the earlier treatises. There was to be a fourth stage in Ruskin's progress as a Political Economist; he was to pass from theory to practice and to initiate various schemes towards the realisation here on earth of his Community which was in heaven. The story of this attempt belongs to the period of Fors Clavigera. In the meanwhile, Ruskin had been very busy in following up Unto this Last and Munera Pulveris with letters to the newspapers, defending and illustrating his views, and meeting his critics. These " arrows of the chace" are collected in the Appendix to this volume. In this Introduction we shall first carry the story of Ruskin's life and work down to March 1864, when the death of his father changed, for a time, the course of his career. We shall follow the pursuits and studies which accompanied his economic writings; trace, by aid of his letters and diaries, the temper of mind in which those writings were conceived; and narrate the fortunes of the books themselves. "You can in truth understand a man's word," says Ruskin, "only by understanding his temper." We shall then, in a second part, give a connected account-which in accordance with the general scheme of this edition will be expository rather than critical—of the whole body of Ruskin's economic work. It has had a considerable effect on the thought of the age; but his teaching is discursive in method, and is scattered through many different books and papers. "I've no more to say, I believe, now on any subject," wrote Ruskin in later years, "if I knew all I had said and could index it."2 The collection of his principal economic writings for the first time in a single volume gives an opportunity for an attempt to bring them into relation with one. another. PART I "UNTO THIS LAST" (1860) The completion of Modern Painters left the author exhausted, and suffering in some measure from the effects of reaction after a long spell of concentration upon a particular task. "I am more tired out,” he wrote to his friend Dr. John Brown (Lausanne, August 6, 1860), "than the bulk of that last volume would apparently justify, but not half the work I did is in it. I cut away half of what I had written, as I threw it into the final form, thinking the book would be too big; and half or nearly half of the drawings were left unfinished, the engraver not having time to do them. There are only three etchings of mine in the book, but I did seven, of which one was spoiled in biting, three in mezzotinting, so that I was fairly knocked up when I got the last sheet corrected." The sheets were passed in May, and leaving his father to see the work finally through the press, the author set out for Chamouni. "My father well pleased," he says, "with the last chapter and the engraved drawings from Nuremberg and Rheinfelden. On the strength of this piece of filial duty I am cruel enough to go away to St. Martin's again, by myself, to meditate on what is to be done next. Thence I go up to Chamouni-where a new epoch of life and death begins."2 Elsewhere he marks this epoch of transition yet more trenchantly. "I got the bound volume of Modern Painters in the valley of St. Martin's in that summer of 1860, and in the valley of Chamouni I gave up my art-work and wrote this little book-the beginning of the days of reprobation." 3 "This little book " was Unto this Last, written, as he elsewhere says, at the old "Union" inn.4 Of Ruskin's sojourn abroad in this year there is no detailed record.5 He kept no diary, for this was doubtless written in the form of the usual daily letter to his father, but the letters of 1860 have not been preserved. His companion throughout this time was an American, Mr. W. J. Stillman-then a young artist, whose acquaintance he had made nine or ten years before, and of whose studies of landscape he hoped great things. Mr. Stillman, who was Ruskin's guest, says that "more princely hospitality than his no man ever received, or more kindly companionship." They spent much time in sketching together, Ruskin sometimes sitting over his pupil and directing his work so closely that, as another pupil said, "he wanted me to hold the brush while he painted." "Every day," says Mr. Stillman, "we climbed some secondary peak, five or six thousand feet, and in the evenings we discussed art or played chess, mainly in 1 One of the chapters thus thrown out was no doubt the discussion of "Sir Joshua and Holbein," which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for March 1860 (see a later volume of this edition). • Præterita, iii. § 12. 3 "Readings in Modern Painters" (see a later volume of this edition). See Vol. XIII. p. 497. He left Dover on May 22 and went to Geneva (May 28). There he stayed for some days; afterwards going by Bonneville (June 15) to St. Martin and Chamouni. He returned by Lausanne (August 6), Freiburg, Neuchâtel, Bâle, Lauffenburg, and Geneva; being back at Denmark Hill early in September. • Mr. Rowse: see W. J. Stillman's Autobiography of a Journalist, vol. i. p. 264. |