[216] Matthew xxi, 12.

[217] Jeremiah xvii, 11 (best in Septuagint and Vulgate).  “As the partridge, fostering what she brought not forth, so he that getteth riches not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.” [Ruskin.]

  [218] Meaning, fully, “We have brought our pigs to it.” [Ruskin.]

  [219] Cf. Hamlet, 5. 1. 306.

  [220] Referring to a lecture on Modern Manufacture and Design,
  delivered at Bradford, March 1, 1859 published later as Lecture III
  in The Two Paths.

  [221] See Wordsworth’s Rob Roy’s Grave, 39-40.

  [222] 1 Kings x, 27.

  [223] A beautiful ruin in Yorkshire.

  [224] Cf.  Tennyson’s The Brook.

  [225] Genesis vi, 2.

  [226] Deuteronomy xxxii, 5.

  [227] Daniel iii, 1.

  [228] Proverbs iii, 17.

  [229] Acts vii, 48.

LIFE AND ITS ARTS

This lecture, the full title of which is “The Mystery of Life and its Arts,” was delivered in Dublin on May 13, 1868.  It composed one of a series of afternoon lectures on various subjects, religion excepted, arranged by some of the foremost residents in Dublin.  The latter half of the lecture is included in the present volume of selections.  The first publication of the lecture was as an additional part to a revised edition of Sesame and Lilies in 1871.  Ruskin took exceptional care in writing “The Mystery of Life”:  he once said in conversation, “I put into it all that I know,” and in the preface to it when published he tells us that certain passages of it “contain the best expression I have yet been able to put in words of what, so far as is within my power, I mean henceforward both to do myself, and to plead with all over whom I have any influence to do according to their means.”  Sir Leslie Stephen says this “is, to my mind, the most perfect of his essays.”  In later editions of Sesame and Lilies this lecture was withdrawn.  At the time the lecture was delivered its tone was characteristic of Ruskin’s own thought and of the attitude he then took toward the public.

We have sat at the feet of the poets who sang of heaven, and they have told us their dreams.  We have listened to the poets who sang of earth, and they have chanted to us dirges and words of despair.  But there is one class of men more:—­men, not capable of vision, nor sensitive to sorrow, but firm of purpose—­practised in business; learned in all that can be, (by handling,) known.  Men, whose hearts and hopes are wholly in this present world, from whom, therefore, we may surely learn, at least, how, at present, conveniently to live in it.  What will they say to us, or show us by example?  These kings—­these councillors—­these statesmen and builders of kingdoms—­these capitalists and men of business, who weigh the earth, and the dust of it, in a balance.[230] They know the world, surely; and what is the mystery of life to us, is none to them.  They can surely show us how to live, while we live, and to gather out of the present world what is best.