4152. John Ruskin to EBB & RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 78–80.
[London]
Monday 29th March. [1858] [1]
Dear Mr & Mrs Browning
You are the only husband and wife whom I write single letters to this way—but I never think of you two separately—never of one without the other: I like getting those nice double letters too—a bit of white and brown like a blackcock’s breast.
—Only—dear lady—this time you are the least bit in the world too white—more innocent & feminine is your defence of flounces than you ought to be. Aurora would really have put her cousin all out in his plans if she had been such a bad political economist. Think it over again– I assure you, as Albert Durer [2] did his friend of his picture, my book is all right, in its principles. [3] How far its proposals are right is questionable—but its principles are every one mathematically demonstrable—(or arithmetically—which is as strong, if not as grand, demonstration.)
I’ve just come back from Spurgeon’s. —He is a little bit emptier than he was at first; he ought to be shut up with some books—or sent out into the fields. And touching that great question you put to me, I am all at sea myself .. all that I am sure of is that we live in very “dark ages,” compared with ages which will be; and that most churches are in a sad state because they all keep preaching the wrong way upwards, and say “Know and you shall do,” instead of “do and you shall know[.]” [4] As I read the Bible, my main result in way of belief, is that those people are to be exalted in eternity who in this life have striven to do God’s will—not their own. And so very few people appear to me to do this in reality that I don’t know what to believe—the truth as far as I can make it out seems too terrible to be the truth. All churches seem to me mere forms of idolatry. A Roman Catholic idolizes his saint and his relic,—an English high Churchman idolizes his propriety and his family pew—a Scotch Presbyterian idolizes his own obstinacy and his own opinions—a German divine idolizes his dreams, and an English one his pronunciation .. and all their mistakes, and all their successes and rightnesses, are so shabby and slight and absurd—and pitiable—and paltry—and so much dependent on early edu—no—early teaching of prejudices—and on the state of their stomachs in after life—and of the weather—that I can’t conceive any great Spirit’s ordering them either into hell or heaven for anything of the kind—their beliefs and disbeliefs seem to me one worth about as much as the other—their doings & shortcomings alike blind and ridiculous—not by any means worth being d—d for—it always haunts, and forces itself upon me—that the Creator[’]s voice to them is always– “You poor little dusty-cobwebby creatures, go and lie down in your graves, and be thankful you’ve come to any sort of end at last.” I am very ready to accept the notion of their immortality—but it seems to me just as natural to expect the immortality of the bloom on a plum, and to talk of the little blue creatures that make it up being made Kings and Priests, as of our being made so.
—And so—that’s just where I am—and if you can help me any way—either of you—please do[.] —And so goodbye for the minute. I have’nt seen those poems of W Morris’s you speak of—but I[’]ve seen his poems just out, about old chivalry and they are most noble. [5] Very very great indeed, in their own peculiar way.
Ever your affectionate
J Ruskin
Address: Robert Browning Esq / Casa Guidi / Florence.
Publication: Cook, pp. 279–280.
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), German painter and engraver.
3. Ruskin made a similar, if bolder, remark concerning The Political Economy of Art (1857) in a letter to Henry Acland: “I mean to send you an essay on political economy, perhaps even soon, with a quiet echo of Albert Dürer’s assertion about his engraving—‘Sir, it cannot be better done’” (Cook, p. 240).
4. Cf. John 7:17.
5. The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems, by William Morris (1834–96), was issued by Bell and Daldy in February 1858. Dedicated to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, it was Morris’s first published book of poetry. Previously, some of his poems had appeared in The Oxford & Cambridge Magazine, where the Brownings may have seen them.
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