(AND ITS PRICE IN THE MARKET):
BEING
THE SUBSTANCE (WITH ADDITIONS)
OF
Delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857.
BY
HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND HONORARY FELLOWOF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD.
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever."—Keats.
SIXTEENTH THOUSAND.
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At the Ballantyne Press
The title of this book,—or, more accurately, of its subject;—for noauthor was ever less likely than I have lately become, to hope forperennial pleasure to his readers from what has cost himself the mostpains,—will be, perhaps, recognised by some as the last clause of theline chosen from Keats by the good folks of Manchester, to be written inletters of gold on the cornice, or Holy rood, of the great Exhibitionwhich inaugurated the career of so many,—since organized, by bothforeign governments and our own, to encourage the production of works ofart, which the producing nations, so far from intending to be their "joyfor ever," only hope to sell as soon as possible. Yet the motto wasvichosen with uncomprehended felicity: for there never was, nor can be,any essential beauty possessed by a work of art, which is not based onthe conception of its honoured permanence, and local influence, as apart of appointed and precious furniture, either in the cathedral, thehouse, or the joyful thoroughfare, of nations which enter their gateswith thanksgiving, and their courts with praise.
"Their" courts—or "His" courts;—in the mind of such races, theexpressions are synonymous: and the habits of life which recognise thedelightfulness, confess also the sacredness, of homes nested round theseat of a worship unshaken by insolent theory: themselves founded on anabiding affection for the past, and care for the future; and approachedby paths open only to the activities of honesty, and traversed only bythe footsteps of peace.
The exposition of these truths, to which I have given the chief energyof my life, will be found in the following pages first undertakensystematically and in logical sequence; and what I have since written onthe political influence of the Arts has been little more than theexpansion of these first lectures, in the reprint of which not asentence is omitted or changed.
The supplementary papers added contain, in briefest form, the aphorismsrespecting principles of art-teaching of which the attention I gave tothis subject during the continuance of my Professorship at Oxfordconfirms me in the earnest and contented re-assertion.
John Ruskin,
Brantwood,
April 29th, 1880.
The greater part of the following treatise remains in the exact form inwhich it was read at Manchester; but the more familiar passages of it,which were trusted to extempore delivery, have been written with greaterexplicitness and fulness than I could give them in speakin