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The Ethics of the Dust By: John Ruskin (1819-1900) |
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TEN LECTURES TO LITTLE HOUSEWIVES ON THE ELEMENTS OF CRYSTALLIZATION BY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D., HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART DEDICATION.
TO THE REAL LITTLE HOUSEWIVES, WHOSE GENTLE LISTENING AND
THOUGHTFUL QUESTIONING ENABLED THE WRITER TO WRITE THIS BOOK, IT
IS DEDICATED WITH HIS LOVE. CHRISTMAS, 1875. CONTENTS.
LECTURE I. THE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS
II. THE PYRAMID BUILDERS
III. THE CRYSTAL LIFE
IV. THE CRYSTAL ORDERS
V. CRYSTAL VIRTUES
VI. CRYSTAL QUARRELS
VII. HOME VIRTUES
VIII. CRYSTAL CAPRICE
IX. CRYSTAL SORROWS
X. THE CRYSTAL REST
NOTES PERSONAE
OLD LECTURER (of incalculable age). FLORRIE,
on astronomical evidence presumed to be aged 9. ISABEL ..................................... " 11. MAY ........................................ " 11. LILY ....................................... " 12. KATHLEEN.................................... " 14. LUCILLA..................................... " 15. VIOLET ..................................... " 16. DORA (who has the keys and is housekeeper)... " 17. EGYPT (so called from her dark eyes) ....... " 17. JESSIE (who somehow always makes the room
look brighter when she is in it) ........... " 18. MARY (of whom everybody, including the Old
Lecturer, is in great awe) ................. " 20. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
I have seldom been more disappointed by the result of my best
pains given to any of my books, than by the earnest request of my
publisher, after the opinion of the public had been taken on the
"Ethics of the Dust," that I would "write no more in dialogue!"
However, I bowed to public judgment in this matter at once
(knowing also my inventive powers to be of the feeblest); but in
reprinting the book (at the prevailing request of my kind friend,
Mr. Henry Willett), I would pray the readers whom it may at first
offend by its disconnected method, to examine, nevertheless, with
care, the passages in which the principal speaker sums the
conclusions of any dialogue: for these summaries were written as
introductions, for young people, to all that I have said on the
same matters in my larger books; and, on re reading them, they
satisfy me better, and seem to me calculated to be more generally
useful, than anything else I have done of the kind. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The summary of the contents of the whole book, beginning, "You may
at least earnestly believe," at p. 215, is thus the clearest
exposition I have ever yet given of the general conditions under
which the Personal Creative Power manifests itself in the forms of
matter; and the analysis of heathen conceptions of Deity,
beginning at p. 217, and closing at p. 229, not only prefaces, but
very nearly supersedes, all that in more lengthy terms I have
since asserted, or pleaded for, in "Aratra Pentelici," and the
"Queen of the Air." And thus, however the book may fail in its intention of suggesting
new occupations or interests to its younger readers, I think it
worth reprinting, in the way I have also reprinted "Unto this
Last," page for page; that the students of my more advanced works
may be able to refer to these as the original documents of them;
of which the most essential in this book are these following. I. The explanation of the baseness of the avaricious functions of
the Lower Pthah, p. 54, with his beetle gospel, p. 59, "that a
nation can stand on its vices better than on its virtues,"
explains the main motive of all my books on Political Economy. II. The examination of the connection between stupidity and crime,
pp. 87 96, anticipated all that I have had to urge in Fors
Clavigera against the commonly alleged excuse for public
wickedness, "They don't mean it they don't know any better." III. The examination of the roots of Moral Power, pp. 145 149, is
a summary of what is afterwards developed with utmost care in my
inaugural lecture at Oxford on the relation of Art to Morals;
compare in that lecture, sections 83 85, with the sentence in p... Continue reading book >>
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