Fine Frends,
In yesterday’s post, I confessed I that had lost the location of the Ruskin quote I reproduced and asked if there was anyone out there reading might know where it could be found in the original.. Not long after, I received an email from Steven Sas, a follower of our blog, Stephen had been able to digitally search the Library Edition of Ruskin’s works and, marvelously – the wonders of tech when it works properly! – he had been able to locate it in one of Ruskin’s letters sent to an acquaintance, Thomas Dixon, in the late 1860s. The little book that resulted from that correspondence–Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne: 25 letters to a Workingman of Sunderland–is still easily and inexpensively available on the web, and, although it is rarely read today, like all of Ruskin’s works, it will much reward your investiture of time. The passage under consideration can be found in Letter 22.
Indeed, the letters Ruskin sent Dixon proved most important as they became the model for the much longer series of letters he would call Fors Clavigera, monthly missives he would address ta o the workers of England beginning in 1871. (The Fors series would continue to 1884. We have often considered it in earlier posts. If you would like to have a look at some of these, type Fors Clavigera into the search engine on the right-hand side of this page.) If you would like to find out more about Time and Tide. and Mr. Dixon, read, post 174: On Reading the Bible (If You’ve a Mind).
Finally, with copious thanks to Stephen Sas, I will take this last moment to remind you that today is mid-term election day in the US and urge you, if you are resident of that fine, complex, and troubled nation, to go out and vote!
Until next time!
Cheers,
Jim
whyruskin.wordpress.com 