Aug. 9, 1900]
The Nation.
117
landscape painter to do what ho lik She does not seo that this 1s one of his con- tradictions which may be explained rather than reconciled. His tesching was purely naturalistic, but his admiration for Turner forced bim into making exceptions. It is plain enough that his “great imaginative landscape painter” was Turner, and Turner ‘alone; and his real attitude was that Turner could do as he liked, but that if you did so you would be damned.
Mrs. Meynell’s nearest approach to pro- found criticlam is in her suggestion that Ruskin was “‘no musician,” and consequently could not concelve “an art that imitates no- but she does not push the thought ‘Whether or not it was from lack of ear that Ruskin so blundered, there ts no doubt that to him art was always a state. ment and “true” or “‘talse'"; never an ar- rangement and beautiful or ugly. ‘This was his fundamental error, and the cause of bis struggles and contradictions and entangle. ments. It was this error that made the final volumes of ‘Modern Painters,’ which were ‘meant to deal with beauty, only more de- talled statements of the same natural facts that had been dwelt on in the first volume. It was this orror that led him to justify e Lombard ornament as a representation of the crystals of salt. It was this error that Jed, finally, to the Impossible arguments of “The Two Paths,’ which “a fugitive writer” 1s rebuked for calling “unutterable dosh,” and at which we are bidden not to Jaugh, though they be nonsense, because it was “an intellectual martyrdom” to have written them,
It would be presumptuous to try, In the tall of a book notice, to write the book that neither Mra. Meynell nor any one else has ‘written; yet we cannot forbear the attempt to note the heads of it. In the first place, he who would explain Ruskin will have to face the necessity of dealing with a delicate matter in his life; we mean what most of the obituary notices have called his “dl- vorce.” Mrs, Meynell is more accurate, and says that his marriage was “logally an- nulled,” while the younger Millais, in a note to his biography of his father, states, with- ‘out mentioning the name of tho husband, that hia mother’s first marriage was annulled (we quote from memory) “for reasons rec- ognized alike by State and Church.” In other words, the marriage was pronounced vold after several years because It had never deen anything but nominal. This fact has to be mentioned because it throws a flood of light on Ruskin’s exaggerated horror of sensuality or of anything even distantly approaching it; and this horror accounts for much of his hatred of the Renaissance, for his love of ascetic and monkish art, for his lack of sympathy with the art of ancient Greece, and for much Nelther in his faulta nor his virtues, his strength nor his weakness, was Ruskin distinctively masculine. He could be lavishly generous, but he could not be calmly just; he could ‘be extreme in enthusiasm, as in denuncia- tion, but he could not be reasonable. He was whimsical, petulant, paradoxical. He had a pretty gift of seemingly logical argu- ‘ment to justify opinions adopted at the be- hest of emotion. Ho was positive, dogmatic, subtle, with a conviction that what he liked was right, and that what displeased him was morally wrong, and that the salvation of the ‘world depended upon its recognition of the truth of his preaching. In all these things
he was less man than woman, and lees wo- man than priest.
In the second place, we must remember that Ruskin was a Scotchman by oxtrac- tlon and a graduate of Oxford—that 1s, that he came of the least artistic and most re- Uglous race in Europe, and that his training was almost wholly literary. He had a strong love for nature, and very little real ‘sympathy with art, and his culture was al- ‘most as antl-plastic as that of our own Concord school. If there was merit in a work of art, ft must seem to him that it was merit of thought, or at least merit of true statement. Turner aroused emotion fo him, and he therefore set to work to prove that Turner was true to nature, Claude left him cold, and he therefore saw plainly that Claude was untrue, He formu- Inted a theory of art which could, and aid, lead only to Pre-Raphaelitism; and when he found that Turner could by no means ‘be fitted into his theory, he “hedged” and made exceptions.
It was the insularity of the Scotch-Eng- Ashman that made Ruskin blind to the ex- istence of any art out of Rngland that was ‘not three hundred years old, and one won- dere if it were not because Constable was ad- mired in France that Ruskin could see no merit in his sturdily British style. But of course Constable was even harder to fit into the pre-Raphaelite thoory than Turner; he ‘was in some sort « rival of Turner's, and he had not begun by rousing Ruskin's emotions. ‘As Millais sald, Ruskin's eye was “only ft to Judge of portraits of insecta.” He saw every- ‘thing in detail, and « synthetfe manner of painting could only offend him. If he had ever sald anything of Corot, it would likely have been that he was slovenly and smeared. Ho had also a love for colors and no eye for color, and gray painting reminded him only of corruption. He varied greatly in his feel- ing at different times, but what ultimately most pleased him was brightness of colors, with little light and shade, accuracy of Grawing, minute finish, and religious emo- ton or iterary thought. The painting of painters pleased him only exceptionally, and ‘when it did ho generally gave a wrong rea- son for it,
In these two elements of Ruskin's nature, ‘his irrational emotionalism and his narraw- ness of culture, lie the explanation of much Desides his opinions on painting. His raco and training bad made of him the bigoted evangelical who could inveigh against Eng land for having “implously conceded to the Romaniat” » place in Parliament, while his ‘emotionalism made him the lover of the “ages of faith” who wanted, as Charles ‘Reade sald, “to make John Bull back again into John Galt.” He hated smoke and grime, and always had money enough to enable him to travel in his own carriage like @ good old English gentleman; so he cried out against the railway which was first mak- Ing it possible for poorer men to see the things, whether in nature or art, that be most loved. He wrote many books, yet he probably had his doubts about the utility of the invention of printing.
In words be was an artist, and, like most artists, paid Uttle attention to theories when they interfered with practice. He preached that truth, and truth alone, was the aim of art, but he never spolled a description by too nico a regard for facts His style in writing 4s not unlike that of his hero in painting— ‘effective, but something perfervid and over-
strained, lacking in restraint and modera- ton. No one's patches are more purple than ‘is, and at his worst they are confluent and the whole texture ia incarnadined. Yet it is for his style that his books will probably Jong contiaue to be read, or rather to be read in, after thelr influence, never really Yery great, shall be entirely « thing of the Dast. The intensity of his feeling often made ‘him clear-sighted, and his writings are full of true as well as of eloquent things, but they must be hunted for and sifted out. As for reconciling them with each other or with the general body of his doctrine, he seldom tried tt himself, and it ts hardly worth while for any one else to do 80. Half Socialist, whole absolutist, artist, poet, preacher, he is everything but a critic or a philosopher.
Brown of Lost River. By Mary E. Stickney.
D. Appleton & Co,
‘Bben Holden. By Irving Bacheller.
ton: Lothrop Publishing Oo,
Pine Knot. By William E. Barton. D.
Appleton & Co.
The Joy-Howkers. By Adela E, Orpen. D.
Appleton & Co.
‘Brown of Lost River’ is so ai fresco story of a Wyoming ranch that a move to Denver at the last is almost suffocating. ‘There 1s a thoroughly delightful atmosphere of prairie and hill; of wild-rose thickets and water-courses; of bronco-breaking and eattle-herding; with darkly contrasting mud-holes and happily antldoted rattle- snakes. The social phases of Wyoming, too, whether in dinner-partles or cowboy dances, fare touched into the scene with Lively colors. There is a cowboy hero who is Just too sweet for anything and just strong enough for everything; there is s compii- cating unseen lover, a heroine with a small, sloved hand and loose strands of hatr, which tho light wind plays with, touching the girl's chook ke a caress. One scems to have met such an one before, but ho will at least find originality in her not knowing what to do when the rattlesnake bites the hero. The heroine who spends herself in doing the usoless thing ts on the whole re- freshing. It must be owned that the love story needs a considerable amount of cod- dling and coaxing to last through the book. Nor is the characterisation marked by ex- ceptional cleverness, Thin rather than Gull, howover, the book is sprightly and agreeable; the persons are the accessories; the real flavor and zost of the story Iles in the pletures of ranch life, and the writer's ability ts best displayed in whisking us along with her to scour the plain.
‘After a Wyoming story it is suggestive to find in the opening scene of ‘Eben Holden’ that the “West” to which be is emigrating with a small boy carried on his back ina big basket, ts the Adirondack wilderness of two generations ago, to which he ts feoing from a ruined home in Vermont. Like “Brown of Lost River,’ the atory 1s another tincture of America; if the one 1s geogra- phy, the other is agriculture. The forest- camp and the farm were nearly allfed in the rugged early days of the “North Country” settlers. Even Now York, for an episode, with Horace Greoley in high reliet, suggests Agriculture and serves to maintain a home- stead flavor, Uncle Bben is a rural charac- ter whose oddities, Kindnesses, and shrewd- ness no village should be without. He loves
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