The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-05-13 00:00:00

A NEW ARCADIA.

Mr. Ruskin concludes his fifth letter, pnbilthed on the let
inst, to the Workmen of Great Britain, with the f0i1...10g
offer:—

" Are there any landlords, any masters, who would
like better to be served by men than by iron devils?
Any tenants, any workmen, who can be true to their
leaders and to each other? who can vow to work and
to live faithfully for the sake of the joy of their
homes? Will any such give the tenth of what
they have, and of what they earn—not to emigrate
with, but to stay in England with, and do what
is in their hands and hearts to make her a happy
England? I am not rich (as people now estimate riches,)
and great part of what I have is already engaged
in maintaining art workmen, or for other objects
more or less of public utility. The tenth of whatever
is left to me, estimated as accurately as I can (you
shall see the accounts) I will make over to you in
perpetuity, with the best security that English law
can give, on Christmas Day of this year, with engage-
ment to add the tithe of whatever I earn afterwards.
Who elee will help, with little or much, the object of
such fund being to begin, and gradually—no matter
how slowly— to increase the buying and securing of
land in England, which shall not be built upon, but
cultivated by Englishmen with their own hands and
such help of force as they can find in wind and
Wave? I do not care with how many or how few
this thing is begun, tor on what inconsiderable scale,
if it he but In two poor men's gardens. So much, at
least, I can buy myself and give them. If no
help come. I have done and said what I could, and
there will be an end. If any help come to me,
it is to been the following conditions :—We will try to
make some small piece of English ground, beautiful,
peaceful and fruitful. We will have no steam-engines
upon it, and no railroads ; we will have no untended
or unthought-of creatures on it ; none wretched,
but the sick ; none idle, but the dead. We will have
no liberty upon it; but instant obedience to known
law and appointed persons: no equality upon it ; but
recognition of every betterness that we can find, and
reprobation of every worseness. When we want to
go anywhere, we will go there quietly and safely, not
at 40 miles an hour in the risk of our lives ; when we
want to carry anything anywhere we will carry it
either on the backs of beasts, or on our own, or in carts
or boats ; we will have plenty of flowers and vegetables
in our gardens, plenty of corn and grass in our fields,
and few bricks. We will have some music and poetry;
the children shall learn to dance in it and sing it—
perhaps some of the old people in time may also. We
will have some art, moreover; we will at least try if,
like the Greeks, we can't make some pots. The Greeks
used to paint pictures of gods on their pots; we pro-
bably cannot do as much, but we may put some
pictures of insects on them, and reptiles—butterflies
and frogs, if nothing better. There was an excellent
old potter in France who used to put frogs and vipers
into his dishes, to the admiration of mankind ; we can
purely put something nicer than that. Little by little,
some higher art and imagination may manifest them-
selves among us; and feeble rays of science may dawn
for Ulf. Botany, though too dull to dispute the exis-
tence of flowers ; and history, though too simple to
question the nativity of men ;—nay, even perhaps an
nncalculating and uncovetous wisdom, as of rude
Magi, presenting, at such nativity, gifts of gold and
frankincense."