The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-03-04

teacher of the theory or art. but 1t mani
tested itself in all his writings, embitter-
ed his life in measure and almost over
| whelmed him with a sense of failure He
| began to write as protest against, dog
matism i'll art; he ended by being equally
dogmatic. To the last he believed, with
many another reformer, that it lay in him
to stem the tendencies of the world; he
| would not learn that the most that any
may do is TO 60 with the tendencies
and in a measure control and direct
them. a-
| HIS INFLUENCE on LETTERS.
| AS deep and radical as was Ruskin's
influence on art, however, it is. not
| through it but through his uncomfortable
books that he will live. The schools of
art will forget him, for his hated word
taste" is variable, and men will follow
their bent; but in literature it is apt to
| he long before another shall take up his
field or make 1t bear so rich harvest
John Ruskin was the first to write of art
in terms ineligible to the average: drop
him cut of English letters and who is
there to take his place? Other men
have written of art; other men have writ
ten of nature. Is there any who has
written of both at once so char-mingly, so
| POLITICALLY, SO cOnvi ncingly? "A picture
cannot be multiplied. 1t must APP
peal always ito a limited number of men;
it lis JOY of the few. But .,vvi1s-there
is no end to their multiplication. 1T has
| been Rusllin'S business to appeal to that
| dormant love of the beautiful which lies.
| often unsuspected and mdeveloped in
| the souls Of the many. He lis a larger
Matthew Arnold preaching Il 'higher Hell
| lenism-and preaching it with an elo-
quence so rich that he who once falls
| under its spell may not forget; preaching
| it with an appreciation so keen, so many
sided, that who so reads finds new treas
ures that he will not by any means give
| UP.
Ruskin has his faults of style. to be
| sure. He is grandioSe at times; he piles
| it on, You say? Doubtless. But is there
any master of style upon whose faults
even the school girl may not lay her
tinger-in these days when critics are
| multiplied? Carlyle is rugged and irreg-
ular; De Quincy is loose and hopelessly
complex; Macaulay is verbose and over
fond of the adjective. Ruskin said that
he formed his style from the Bible and
Carlyle; but SO far as appears, Rllskin's
style is his own. One thing is certain
he has wrought with it nightly, and that
when all is said, is the supreme test.
1t is worse than useless to attempt to
fix Ruskin's place in literature. That
may very we'll be left for the present to
those who live by doing that sort Of
thing for the magazines, and who possess
ready made Pantheons with a properly
placed book for each immortal. They
| will tell us shortly who looks down on
Rusk I'M and who looks up to him. Let us
| not dare to suggest that this. is net the
proper way to treat the immortals.
HIS ECONOMIC THEORIES.
Ruskin's influence on economies has
been far less wide and on the whole OF
| much more questionable. character than
his influence on art and letters. His
theories of political econ6fny We're rooted
inythe protest of Ibis artists soul against
the hideousness. of tbe contrasts in mod
ern society. He undertook to reform So
ciety as he had reformed art-and failed
most miserably In economics he has
done nothing more than to become the
patron saint of coanlnunistic societies, the
demi-god of the nam with a hardluck
story. His theory is noble and beautiful
but not very new nor very Origlnal-belnS
| based on the postulate that it eis "a very
wicked thing for man to be selfish and
not to love his neighbor as himself. He
threw himself into the lJromlllgatioD OF
his economic views with fire and passion
even greater than that with which he
championed the cause of Turner in
Modern Painters He squandered Il
large part of his fortune in his attempt
to make his Theory a reality 1T is need
less to say the attempt was worse than
futile He did not. like Tolsto,. recant in
his old age; he believed to the last that
his great work was his writings on polit
ical economy. He declared repeatedly
that Unto This Last was his greatest
book. His indictment of the present or
der of things is very We'd summed up III
this passage from his ''Fors Clavigera:
The guilty thieves of Europe, the real
sources of all deadly war in it, are the
capitalists-that is to say, people who
live bygpercentages on the labor of others:
instead of by fair wages of their own.
All social evils and religious en-
rors arise out of the pillage of the labor
er by the idler: the idler leaving him only
enough to live on land even that misera
| bly,. and taking all the rest of the pro-
| ducc of his work to spend in his own lux
| ury or in the toys with which he beguileS
| his idleness."
But human society is not art, and lam
guage however forcible does change the
natures of men. natures gotten IN that
rather strenuous scramble whose out
come is the survival of the fittest.
Ruskin's views on art are found very
well laid down in three books-"M Cdern
Painters" THE Seven Lamps of Archl-
lecture" and The Stones of Venice"
His economical theories are embodied in
Unto This Last "Fors Clavigera.'
Time and Tide and "Munera l "
veris.''
Upon the first his claim to the grateful
attention of his fellows must chiefly
rest. t. l., ).
In the March Forum George T.. Rob
erts. Director of the United States Mint
at Washington. comes to the rescue OF
Secretary Gage in an article ON Coy
eminent Deposits in Banks" Henry q.
Dwight writes of Our Mohammodar
Wards George F. Becker takes tn
side of England strongly i'll Rights and
WropUS nm South A rica - Wfll;1vn Or