I was following up another intriguing trail from Mauriac. He wrote of how, as a youngster, he read "The Preface to Sesame & Lilies by a man called Proust of whom I knew nothing"
I thought I must be misremembering, muddling things up. Or it must be a different Sesame & Lilies
But no: Proust really did translate Ruskin’s work, even though he spoke no English
The mind boggled & I just had to go back to Ruskin – or rather, read it for the first time. I am pretty sure that it was one of those books I did not persist with when I was at school – just not worth my time, I thought. I do however have friends who tell me that it was actually tremendously popular, especially in all-girls schools, in the early mid-twentieth century
Anyone who is apt to say I am not a feminist, but … should read this, at least the Lilies half, aimed at “getting a clear & harmonious idea of what the womanly mind & virtue are in power & office, with respect to man’s”
That Ruskin, with his personal history, should see fit to lecture on marriage seems rich. One has to say that his marriage probably never stood a chance if this was how he thought, regardless of any other difficulties
I am reading the 1907 Everyman edition however which quotes Ruskin’s own preface to the 1871 edition in which he wrote about “thinking over subjects full of pain”, so one feels some sympathy for the poor man. And I for one would not even try to argue that we have got things right, or that jaws will not similarly drop when (if) the writings of our own age are read in 100 years time
Nor can we afford to be too smug about Ruskin, who explained in 1871 that he had been saying that the two most heinous sins are Idleness & Cruelty, & condemned as torture 2 practices of his own day
The first is sweated labour: “Sweating is not extinct; nor have purchasers learnt, as yet, how effectively how to discourage it”
He also calls imprisonment a form of torture operating chiefly on the mind, & doubts if we have a right to inflict it. That passage (not actually in Sesame & Lilies) is worth reading
The other thing I have learned is that these were originally given as lectures in Manchester in 1864 under the titles Of Kings’ Treasuries & Of Queens’ Gardens. Ruskin found it difficult to rouse his audience into sympathy
I shall have to gird myself up to go into Manchester to do battle with the microfilm readers to see if there are any contemporary newspaper reports
In particular I should just love to find a reaction from Miss Lydia Becker
In particular I should just love to find a reaction from Miss Lydia Becker
