On the Old Road Volume Ii Part 16

BRANTWOOD, _28th June, 1883._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 21: Introduction by Mr. Ruskin to a pamphlet ent.i.tled "The Study of Beauty and Art in Large Towns, two papers by T. C. Horsfall"

(London, Macmillan & Co., 1883). The first of the two papers was originally read at the Congress at Nottingham of the Social Science a.s.sociation, and the second at the Manchester Field Naturalists'

Society.--ED.]

[Footnote 22: See "Art of England."]

[Footnote 23: The pa.s.sages referred to are as follows:--

1. "Our idea of what beauty is in human being's, in pictures, in houses, in chairs, in animals, in cities, in everything, in short, which we know to have a use, in the main depends on what we believe that human beings, pictures, and the rest ought to be and do.

2. "Every bank in every country lane, every bush, every tree, the sky by day and by night, every aspect of nature, is full of beautiful form or color, or of both, for those whose eyes and hearts and brains have been opened to perceive beauty. Richter has somewhere said that man's _greatest_ defect is that he has such a lot of _small_ ones. With equal truth it may be said that the greatest happiness man can have is to have a great many little happinesses, and therefore a strong love of beauty, which enables almost every square inch of unspoiled country to give us pleasant sensations, is one of the best possessions we can have.

3. "It must be evident to everyone who watches life carefully that hardly anyone reaches the objects which all should live for who does not strive to reach them, and that at present not one person in a hundred so much as knows what are the objects which should be sought in life. It is astounding, therefore, that in a country which possesses an Established Church, richly endowed universities, and even several professors of education, no book exists which can be put into the hands of every intelligent youth, and of every intelligent father and mother, showing what our wisest and best men believe are the best things which can be done in life, and what is the kind of training which makes the doing of these things most easy. It is often said that each of us can profit only by his own experience, but no one believes that. No one can see how many well-meaning persons mistake means for ends and drift into error and sin, simply because neither they nor their parents have known what course should be steered, and what equipment is needed, in the voyage of life,--no one can see this and doubt that a 'guidebook to life,'

containing the results of the comparison of the experiences of even half-a-dozen able and sincere men, would save countless people from wasting their lives as most lives are now wasted.

4. "That which is true with regard to music is true with regard to beauty of form and color. Because a great many grown-up people, in spite of great efforts, find it impossible to sing correctly or even to perceive any pleasantness in music, it used to be commonly supposed that a great many people are born without the power of gaining love of, and skill in, music. Now it is known that it is a question of early training, that in every thousand children there are very few,--not, I believe, on an average, more than two or three,--who cannot gain the power of singing correctly and of enjoying music, if they are taught well in childhood while their nervous system can still easily form habits and has not yet formed the habit of being insensible to differences of sound.

"There is every reason to believe that susceptibility to beauty of form and color can also be gained through proper training in childhood by almost everyone.

5. "In such circ.u.mstances as ours there is no such thing as 'a _wise_ pa.s.siveness.' If we are to attain to a high morality or to strong love of beauty, attainment must be the result of strenuous effort, of strong will.

6. "The principle I refer to is, that, as art is the giving of right or beautiful form, or of beautiful or right appearance, if we desire to make people take keen interest in art, if we desire to make them love good art, we must show it them when applied to things which themselves are very interesting to them, and about the rightness of appearance of which it is therefore possible for them to care a great deal.

7. "Success in bringing the influence of art to bear on the ma.s.ses of the population in large towns, or on any set of people who have to earn their bread and have not time to acquire an unhealthy appet.i.te for nonsense verses or nonsense pictures, will certainly only be attained by persons who know that art is important just in proportion to the importance of that which it clothes, and who themselves feel that rightness of appearance of the bodies, and the houses, and the actions, in short of the whole life, of the population of those large towns which are now, or threaten soon to be, 'England,' is of far greater importance than rightness of appearance in all that which is usually called 'art,'

and who feel, to speak of only the fine arts, that rightness of appearance in pictures of n.o.ble action and pa.s.sion, and of beautiful scenery, love of which is almost a necessary of mental health, is of far greater importance than art can be in things which cannot deeply affect human thought and feeling."--ED.]

NOTES ON NATURAL SCIENCE.

THE COLOR OF THE RHINE. 1834.

THE STRATA OF MONT BLANC. 1834.

THE INDURATION OF SANDSTONE. 1836.

THE TEMPERATURE OF SPRING AND RIVER WATER. 1836.

METEOROLOGY. 1839.

TREE TWIGS. 1861.

STRATIFIED ALPS OF SAVOY. 1863.

INTELLECTUAL CONCEPTION AND ANIMATED LIFE. 1871.

INQUIRIES ON THE CAUSES OF THE COLOR OF THE WATER OF THE RHINE.[24]

269. I do not think the causes of the color of transparent water have been sufficiently ascertained. I do not mean that effect of color which is simply optical, as the color of the sea, which is regulated by the sky above or the state of the atmosphere, but I mean the settled color of transparent water, which has, when a.n.a.lyzed, been found pure. Now, copper will tinge water green, and that very strongly; but water thus impregnated will not be transparent, and will deposit the copper it holds in solution upon any piece of iron which may be thrown into it.

There is a lake in a defile on the northwest flank of Snowdon, which is supplied by a stream which previously pa.s.ses over several veins of copper; this lake is, of course, of a bright verdigris green, but it is not transparent. Now the coloring effect, of which I speak, is well seen in the water of the Rhone and Rhine. The former of these rivers, when it enters the Lake of Geneva, after having received the torrents descending from the mountains of the Valais, is fouled with mud, or white with the calcareous matter which it holds in solution. Having deposited this in the Lake Leman[25] (thereby gradually forming an immense delta), it issues from the lake perfectly pure, and flows through the streets of Geneva so transparent, that the bottom can be seen twenty feet below the surface, jet so blue, that you might imagine it to be a solution of indigo. In like manner, the Rhine, after purifying itself in the Lake of Constance, flows forth, colored of a clear green, and this under all circ.u.mstances and in all weathers. It is sometimes said that this arises from the torrents which supply these rivers generally flowing from the glaciers, the green and blue color of which may have given rise to this opinion; but the color of the ice is purely optical, as the fragments detached from the ma.s.s appear white. Perhaps some correspondent can afford me information on the subject.

J. R.[26]

_March, 1834._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 24: From London's _Magazine of Natural History_ (London, Longmans & Co., 1834), vol. vii., No. 41, pp. 438-9, being its author's earliest contribution to literature.--ED.]

[Footnote 25: This lake, however, if the poet have spoken truly, is not very feculent:--

"Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, The mirror where the stars and mountains view The stillness of their aspect in each trace Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue."

BYRON.]

[Footnote 26: In the number of the magazine in which this note appeared was an article by "E. L." on the perforation of a leaden pipe by rats, upon which, in a subsequent number (Vol. vii., p. 592), J. R. notes as follows: "E. S. has been, surely, too inattentive to proportions: there is an inconsistency in the dimensions of a leaden pipe about 1-1/4 in. in external diameter, with a bore of about 3/4 in. in diameter; thus leaving a solid circ.u.mference of metal varying from 1/2 in. to 3/4 in. in thickness.--_J. R._, _Sept. 1834._"--ED.]

FACTS AND CONSIDERATIONS ON THE STRATA OF MONT BLANC, AND ON SOME INSTANCES OF TWISTED STRATA OBSERVABLE IN SWITZERLAND.[27]

270. The granite ranges of Mont Blanc are as interesting to the geologist as they are to the painter. The granite is dark red, often inclosing veins of quartz, crystallized and compact, and likewise well-formed crystals of schorl. The average elevation of its range of peaks, which extends from Mont Blanc to the Tete Noire, is about 12,000 English feet above the level of the sea. [The highest culminating point is 15,744 feet.] The Aiguille de Servoz, and that of Dru, are excellent examples of the pyramidal and spiratory formation which these granite ranges in general a.s.sume. They rise out of immense fields of snow, but, being themselves too steep for snow to rest upon, form red, bare, and inaccessible peaks, which even the chamois scarcely dares to climb.

Their bases appear sometimes ab.u.t.ted (if I may so speak) by mica slate, which forms the southeast side of the Valley of Chamonix, whose flanks, if intersected, might appear as (in _fig._ 72), _a_, granite, forming on the one side (B) the Mont Blanc, on the other (C) the Mont Breven; _b_, mica slate resting on the base of Mont Blanc, and which contains amianthus and quartz, in which capillary crystals of t.i.tanium occur; _c_, calcareous rock; _d_, alluvium, forming the Valley of Chamonix. I should have mentioned that the granite appears to contain a small quant.i.ty of gold, as that metal is found among the granite debris and siliceous sand of the river Arve [_Bakewell_, i. 375]; and I have two or three specimens in which chlorite (both compact and in minute crystals) occupies the place of mica.

J. R.

_March_, 1834.

With this paper were printed some observations on it by the Rev. W. B.

Clarke, after which (p. 648) appears the following note by J. R.