{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_45913/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_45913","id":"gutenberg_45913","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45913","summary":null,"tags":["Aesthetics","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Criticism","Liberty","Social ethics"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n                           Ruskin Treasuries\n\n\n\n                              OF VULGARITY\n\n\n\n                          London: George Allen\n                                  1906\n\n\n\n\n    _What do you mean by \"vulgarity\"?  You will find it a fruitful\n    subject of thought; but, briefly, the essence of all vulgarity\n    lies in want of sensation._\n\n    Sesame and Lilies, Sec. 28.\n\n\n\n\n                         _All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\n                          *RUSKIN TREASURIES*\n\n                             *OF VULGARITY*\n\n\n1.  Two great errors, colouring, or rather discolouring, severally, the\nminds of the higher and lower classes, have sown wide dissension, and\nwider misfortune, through the society of modern days.  These errors are\nin our modes of interpreting the word \"gentleman.\"\n\nIts primal, literal, and perpetual meaning is \"a man of pure race;\"[#]\nwell bred, in the sense that a horse or dog is well bred.\n\n\n[#] See below, pp. 39-47.\n\n\nThe so-called higher classes, being generally of purer race than the\nlower, have retained the true idea, and the convictions associated with\nit; but are afraid to speak it out, and equivocate about it in public;\nthis equivocation mainly proceeding from their desire to connect another\nmeaning with it, and a false one;--that of \"a man living in idleness on\nother people's labour;\"--with which idea the term has nothing whatever\nto do.\n\nThe lower classes, denying vigorously, and with reason, the notion that\na gentleman means an idler, and rightly feeling that the more any one\nworks, the more of a gentleman he becomes, and is likely to\nbecome,--have nevertheless got little of the good they otherwise might,\nfrom the truth, because, with it, they wanted to hold a\nfalsehood,--namely, that race was of no consequence.  It being precisely\nof as much consequence in man as it is in any other animal.\n\n\n2.  The nation cannot truly prosper till both these errors are finally\ngot quit of.  Gentlemen have to learn that it is no part of their duty\nor privilege to live on other people's toil.  They have to learn that\nthere is no degradation in the hardest manual, or the humblest servile,\nlabour, when it is honest.  But that there is degradation, and that\ndeep, in extravagance, in bribery, in indolence, in pride, in taking\nplaces they are not fit for, or in coining places for which there is no\nneed.  It does not disgrace a gentleman to become an errand boy, or a\nday labourer; but it disgraces him much to become a knave, or a thief.\nAnd knavery is not the less knavery because it involves large interests,\nnor theft the less theft because it is countenanced by usage, or\naccompanied by failure in undertaken duty. It is an incomparably less\nguilty form of robbery to cut a purse out of a man's pocket, than to\ntake it out of his hand on the understanding that you are to steer his\nship up channel, when you do not know the soundings.\n\n\n3.  On the other hand, the lower orders, and all orders, have to learn\nthat every vicious habit and chronic disease communicates itself by\ndescent; and that by purity of birth the entire system of the human body\nand soul may be gradually elevated, or, by recklessness of birth,\ndegraded; until there shall be as much difference between the well-bred\nand ill-bred human creature (whatever pains be taken with their\neducation) as between a wolf-hound and the vilest mongrel cur.  And the\nknowledge of this great fact ought to regulate the education of our\nyouth, and the entire conduct of the nation.[#]\n\n\n[#] See below, pp. 41-42.\n\n\n4.  Gentlemanliness, however, in ordinary parlance, must be taken to\nsignify those qualities which are usually the evidence of high breeding,\nand which, so far as they can be acquired, it should be every man's\neffort to acquire; or, if he has them by nature, to preserve and exalt.\nVulgarity, on the other hand, will signify qualities usually\ncharacteristic of ill-breeding, which, according to his power, it\nbecomes every person's duty to subdue.  We have briefly to note what\nthese are.\n\n\n5.  A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in\nthe body, which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and\nof structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate\nsympathies--one may say, simply, \"fineness of nature.\"  This is, of\ncourse, compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness; in\nfact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy.\nElephantine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel no\ntouch of the boughs; but the white skin of Homer's Atrides would have\nfelt a bent rose-leaf, yet subdue its feeling in glow of battle, and\nbehave itself like iron.  I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar\nanimal; but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his\nnon-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine\nnature; not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot; but in the\nway he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his\nsensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique\non points of honour.\n\n\n6.  And, though rightness of moral conduct is ultimately the great\npurifier of race, the sign of nobleness is not in this rightness of\nmoral conduct, but in sensitiveness.  When the make of the creature is\nfine, its temptations are strong, as well as its perceptions; it is\nliable to all kinds of impressions from without in their most violent\nform; liable therefore to be abused and hurt by all kinds of rough\nthings which would do a coarser creature little harm, and thus to fall\ninto frightful wrong if its fate will have it so.  Thus David, coming of\ngentlest as well as royalest race, of Ruth as well as of Judah, is\nsensitiveness through all flesh and spirit; not that his compassion will\nrestrain him from murder when his terror urges him to it; nay, he is\ndriven to the murder all the more by his sensitiveness to the shame\nwhich otherwise threatens him. But when his own story is told under a\ndisguise, though only a lamb is now concerned, his passion about it\nleaves him no time for thought.  \"The man shall die\"--note the\nreason--\"because he had no pity.\"  He is so eager and indignant that it\nnever occurs to him as strange that Nathan hides the name.  This is true\ngentleman.  A vulgar man would assuredly have been cautious, and asked\nwho it was.\n\n\n7.  Hence it will follow that one of the probable signs of high-breeding\nin men generally, will be their kindness and mercifulness; these always\nindicating more or less fineness of make in the mind; and miserliness\nand cruelty the contrary; hence that of Isaiah: \"The vile person shall\nno more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.\"  But a\nthousand things may prevent this kindness from displaying or continuing\nitself; the mind of the man may be warped so as to bear mainly on his\nown interests, and then all his sensibilities will take the form of\npride, or fastidiousness, or revengefulness; and other wicked, but not\nungentlemanly tempers; or, farther, they may run into utter sensuality\nand covetousness, if he is bent on pleasure, accompanied with quite\ninfinite cruelty when the pride is wounded or the passions are\nthwarted;--until your gentleman becomes Ezzelin, and your lady, the\ndeadly Lucrece; yet still gentleman and lady, quite incapable of making\nanything else of themselves, being so born.[#]\n\n\n[#] See below, p. 44.\n\n\n8.  A truer sign of breeding than mere kindness is therefore\nsympathy;--a vulgar man may often be kind in a hard way, on principle,\nand because he thinks he ought to be; whereas, a highly-bred man, even\nwhen cruel, will be cruel in a softer way, understanding and feeling\nwhat he inflicts, and pitying his victim.  Only we must carefully\nremember that the quantity of sympathy a gentleman feels can never be\njudged of by its outward expression, for another of his chief\ncharacteristics is apparent reserve.  I say \"apparent\" reserve; for the\nsympathy is real, but the reserve not: a perfect gentleman is never\nreserved, but sweetly and entirely open, so far as it is good for\nothers, or possible, that he should be.  In a great many respects it is\nimpossible that he should be open except to men of his own kind.  To\nthem, he can open himself, by a word or syllable, or a glance; but to\nmen not of his kind he cannot open himself, though he tried it through\nan eternity of clear grammatical speech.  By the very acuteness of his\nsympathy he knows how much of himself he can give to anybody; and he\ngives that much frankly;--would always be glad to give more if he could,\nbut is obliged, nevertheless, in his general intercourse with the world,\nto be a somewhat silent person; silence is to most people, he finds,\nless reserve than speech.  Whatever he said, a vulgar man would\nmisinterpret: no words that he could use would bear the same sense to\nthe vulgar man that they do to him; if he used any, the vulgar man would\ngo away saying, \"He had said so and so, and meant so and so\" (something\nassuredly he never meant): but he keeps silence, and the vulgar man goes\naway saying, \"He didn't know what to make of him.\"  Which is precisely\nthe fact, and the only fact which he is anywise able to announce to the\nvulgar man concerning himself.\n\n\n9.  There is yet another quite as efficient cause of the apparent\nreserve of a gentleman.  His sensibility being constant and intelligent,\nit will be seldom that a feeling touches him, however acutely, but it\nhas touched him in the same way often before, and in some sort is\ntouching him always. It is not that he feels little, but that he feels\nhabitually; a vulgar man having some heart at the bottom of him, if you\ncan by talk or by sight fairly force the pathos of anything down to his\nheart, will be excited about it and demonstrative; the sensation of pity\nbeing strange to him and wonderful.  But your gentleman has walked in\npity all day long; the tears have never been out of his eyes; you\nthought the eyes were bright only; but they were wet.  You tell him a\nsorrowful story, and his countenance does not change; the eyes can but\nbe wet still: he does not speak neither, there being, in fact, nothing\nto be said, only something to be done; some vulgar person, beside you\nboth, goes away saying, \"How hard he is!\"  Next day he hears that the\nhard person has put good end to the sorrow he said nothing about;--and\nthen he changes his wonder, and exclaims, \"How reserved he is!\"\n\n\n10.  Self-command is often thought a characteristic of high-breeding;\nand to a certain extent it is so, at least it is one of the means of\nforming and strengthening character; but it is rather a way of imitating\na gentleman than a characteristic of him; a true gentleman has no need\nof self-command; he simply feels rightly on all occasions; and desiring\nto express only so much of his feeling as it is right to express, does\nnot need to command himself.  Hence perfect ease is indeed\ncharacteristic of him; but perfect ease is inconsistent with\nself-restraint.  Nevertheless gentlemen, so far as they fail of their\nown ideal, need to command themselves, and do so; while, on the\ncontrary, to feel unwisely, and to be unable to restrain the expression\nof the unwise feeling, is vulgarity; and yet even then, the vulgarity,\nat its root, is not in the mistimed expression, but in the unseemly\nfeeling; and when we find fault with a vulgar person for \"exposing\nhimself,\" it is not his openness, but clumsiness, and yet more the want\nof sensibility to his own failure, which we blame; so that still the\nvulgarity resolves itself into want of sensibility.  Also, it is to be\nnoted that great powers of self-restraint may be attained by very vulgar\npersons when it suits their purposes.\n\n\n11.  Closely, but strangely, connected with this openness is that form\nof truthfulness which is opposed to cunning, yet not opposed to falsity\nabsolute.  And herein is a distinction of great importance.\n\nCunning signifies especially a habit or gift of over-reaching,\naccompanied with enjoyment and a sense of superiority. It is associated\nwith small and dull conceit, and with an absolute want of sympathy or\naffection.  Its essential connection with vulgarity may be at once\nexemplified by the expression of the butcher's dog in Landseer's \"Low\nLife.\"  Cruikshank's \"Noah Claypole,\" in the illustrations to _Oliver\nTwist_, in the interview with the Jew, is, however, still more\ncharacteristic.  It is the intensest rendering of vulgarity absolute and\nutter with which I am acquainted.\n\nThe truthfulness which is opposed to cunning ought, perhaps, rather to\nbe called the desire of truthfulness; it consists more in unwillingness\nto deceive than in not deceiving,--an unwillingness implying sympathy\nwith and respect for the person deceived; and a fond observance of truth\nup to the possible point, as in a good soldier's mode of retaining his\nhonour through a _ruse-de-guerre_.  A cunning person seeks for\nopportunities to deceive; a gentleman shuns them.  A cunning person\ntriumphs in deceiving; a gentleman is humiliated by his success, or at\nleast by so much of the success as is dependent merely on the falsehood,\nand not on his intellectual superiority.\n\n\n12.  The absolute disdain of all lying belongs rather to Christian\nchivalry than to mere high-breeding; as connected merely with this\nlatter, and with general refinement and courage, the exact relations of\ntruthfulness may be best studied in the well-trained Greek mind.  The\nGreeks believed that mercy and truth were co-relative virtues--cruelty\nand falsehood, co-relative vices.  But they did not call necessary\nseverity, cruelty; nor necessary deception, falsehood.  It was needful\nsometimes to slay men, and sometimes to deceive them.  When this had to\nbe done, it should be done well and thoroughly; so that to direct a\nspear well to its mark, or a lie well to its end, was equally the\naccomplishment of a perfect gentleman.  Hence, in the pretty\ndiamond-cut-diamond scene between Pallas and Ulysses, when she receives\nhim on the coast of Ithaca, the goddess laughs delightedly at her hero's\ngood lying, and gives him her hand upon it;--showing herself then in her\nwoman's form, as just a little more than his match.[#]  \"Subtle would he\nbe, and stealthy, who should go beyond thee in deceit, even were he a\ngod, thou many-witted!  What! here in thine own land, too, wilt thou not\ncease from cheating?  Knowest thou not me, Pallas Athena, maid of Jove,\nwho am with thee in all thy labours, and gave thee favour with the\nPhaeacians, and keep thee, and have come now to weave cunning with\nthee?\"  But how completely this kind of cunning was looked upon as a\npart of a man's power, and not as a diminution of faithfulness, is\nperhaps best shown by the single line of praise in which the high\nqualities of his servant are summed up by Chremulus in the _Plutus_--\"Of\nall my house servants, I hold you to be the faithfullest, and the\ngreatest cheat (or thief).\"[#]\n\n\n[#] Homer, _Od._, xiii. 291 _seq._\n\n[#] Aristophanes, _Plutus_, 26-27.\n\n\n13.  Thus, the primal difference between honourable and base lying in\nthe Greek mind lay in honourable purpose.  A man who used his strength\nwantonly to hurt others was a monster; so, also, a man who used his\ncunning wantonly to hurt others.  Strength and cunning were to be used\nonly in self-defence, or to save the weak, and then were alike\nadmirable.  This was their first idea.  Then the second, and perhaps the\nmore essential, difference between noble and ignoble lying in the Greek\nmind, was that the honourable lie--or, if we may use the strange, yet\njust, expression, the true lie--knew and confessed itself for such--was\nready to take the full responsibility of what it did.  As the sword\nanswered for its blow, so the lie for its snare. But what the Greeks\nhated with all their heart was the false lie;--the lie that did not know\nitself, feared to confess itself, which slunk to its aim under a cloak\nof truth, and sought to do liars' work, and yet not take liars' pay,\nexcusing itself to the conscience by quibble and quirk.  Hence the great\nexpression of Jesuit principle by Euripides, \"The tongue has sworn, but\nnot the heart,\"[#] was a subject of execration throughout Greece, and\nthe satirists exhausted their arrows on it--no audience was ever tired\nof hearing ([Greek: to Euripideion ekeino]) \"that Euripidean thing\"\nbrought to shame.\n\n\n[#] Hippolytus, 612.\n\n\n14.  And this is especially to be insisted on in the early education of\nyoung people.  It should be pointed out to them with continual\nearnestness that the essence of lying is in deception, not in words: a\nlie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a\nsyllable, by a glance of the eye attaching a peculiar significance to a\nsentence; and all these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many\ndegrees than a lie plainly worded; so that no form of blinded conscience\nis so far sunk as that which comforts itself for having deceived,\nbecause the deception was by gesture or silence, instead of utterance;\nand, finally, according to Tennyson's deep and trenchant line, \"A lie\nwhich is half a truth is ever the worst of lies.\"[#]\n\n\n[#] _The Grandmother_.\n\n\n15.  Although, however, ungenerous cunning is usually so distinct an\noutward manifestation of vulgarity, that I name it separately from\ninsensibility, it is in truth only an effect of insensibility, producing\nwant of affection to others, and blindness to the beauty of truth.  The\ndegree in which political subtlety in men such as Richelieu, Machiavel,\nor Metternich, will efface the gentleman, depends on the selfishness of\npolitical purpose to which the cunning is directed, and on the base\ndelight taken in its use.  The command, \"Be ye wise as serpents,\nharmless as doves,\" is the ultimate expression of this principle,\nmisunderstood usually because the word \"wise\" is referred to the\nintellectual power instead of the subtlety of the serpent.  The serpent\nhas very little intellectual power, but according to that which it has,\nit is yet, as of old, the subtlest of the beasts of the field.\n\n\n16.  Another great sign of vulgarity is also, when traced to its root,\nanother phase of insensibility, namely, the undue regard to appearances\nand manners, as in the households of vulgar persons, of all stations,\nand the assumption of behaviour, language, or dress unsuited to them, by\npersons in inferior stations of life.  I say \"undue\" regard to\nappearances, because in the undueness consists, of course, the\nvulgarity.  It is due and wise in some sort to care for appearances, in\nanother sort undue and unwise.  Wherein lies the difference?\n\nAt first one is apt to answer quickly: the vulgarity is simply in\npretending to be what you are not.  But that answer will not stand.  A\nqueen may dress like a waiting-maid,--perhaps succeed, if she chooses,\nin passing for one; but she will not, therefore, be vulgar; nay, a\nwaiting-maid may dress like a queen, and pretend to be one, and yet need\nnot be vulgar, unless there is inherent vulgarity in her.  In Scribe's\nvery absurd but very amusing _Reine d'un jour_, a milliner's girl\nsustains the part of a queen for a day.  She several times amazes and\ndisgusts her courtiers by her straightforwardness; and once or twice\nvery nearly betrays herself to her maids of honour by an unqueenly\nknowledge of sewing; but she is not in the least vulgar, for she is\nsensitive, simple, and generous, and a queen could be no more.\n\n\n17.  Is the vulgarity, then, only in trying to play a part you cannot\nplay, so as to be continually detected?  No; a bad amateur actor may be\ncontinually detected in his part, but yet continually detected to be a\ngentleman: a vulgar regard to appearances has nothing in it necessarily\nof hypocrisy. You shall know a man not to be a gentleman by the perfect\nand neat pronunciation of his words: but he does not pretend to\npronounce accurately; he _does_ pronounce accurately, the vulgarity is\nin the real (not assumed) scrupulousness.\n\n\n18.  It will be found on farther thought, that a vulgar regard for\nappearances is, primarily, a selfish one, resulting not out of a wish to\ngive pleasure (as a wife's wish to make herself beautiful for her\nhusband), but out of an endeavour to mortify others, or attract for\npride's sake;--the common \"keeping up appearances\" of society, being a\nmere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.  But the deepest stain\nof the vulgarity depends on this being done, not selfishly only, but\nstupidly, without understanding the impression which is really produced,\nnor the relations of importance between oneself and others, so as to\nsuppose that their attention is fixed upon us, when we are in reality\nciphers in their eyes--all which comes of insensibility.  Hence pride\nsimple is not vulgar (the looking down on others because of their true\ninferiority to us), nor vanity simple (the desire of praise), but\nconceit simple (the attribution to ourselves of qualities we have not)\nis always so. In cases of over-studied pronunciation, etc., there is\ninsensibility, first, in the person's thinking more of himself than of\nwhat he is saying; and, secondly, in his not having musical fineness of\near enough to feel that his talking is uneasy and strained.\n\n\n19.  Finally, vulgarity is indicated by coarseness of language or\nmanners, only so far as this coarseness has been contracted under\ncircumstances not necessarily producing it.  The illiterateness of a\nSpanish or Calabrian peasant is not vulgar, because they had never an\nopportunity of acquiring letters; but the illiterateness of an English\nschool-boy is.  So again, provincial dialect is not vulgar; but cockney\ndialect, the corruption, by blunted sense, of a finer language\ncontinually heard, is so in a deep degree; and again, of this corrupted\ndialect, that is the worst which consists, not in the direct or\nexpressive alteration of the form of a word, but in an unmusical\ndestruction of it by dead utterance and bad or swollen formation of lip.\nThere is no vulgarity in--\n\n    \"Blythe, blythe, blythe was she,\n      Blythe was she, but and ben,\n    And weel she liked a Hawick gill,\n      And leugh to see a tappit hen;\"\n\nbut much in Mrs. Gamp's inarticulate \"bottle on the chimley-piece, and\nlet me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged.\"\n\n\n20.  So also of personal defects, those only are vulgar which imply\ninsensibility or dissipation.\n\nThere is no vulgarity in the emaciation of Don Quixote, the deformity of\nthe Black Dwarf, or the corpulence of Falstaff; but much in the same\npersonal characters, as they are seen in Uriah Heep, Quilp, and\nChadband.\n\n\n21.  One of the most curious minor questions in this matter is\nrespecting the vulgarity of excessive neatness, complicating itself with\ninquiries into the distinction between base neatness, and the\nperfectness of good execution in the fine arts.  It will be found on\nfinal thought that precision and exquisiteness of arrangement are always\nnoble; but become vulgar only when they arise from an equality\n(insensibility) of temperament, which is incapable of fine passion, and\nis set ignobly, and with a dullard mechanism, on accuracy in vile\nthings.  In the finest Greek coins, the letters of the inscriptions are\npurposely coarse and rude, while the relievi are wrought with\ninestimable care.  But in an English coin, the letters are the best\ndone, and the whole is unredeemably vulgar.  In a picture of Titian's,\nan inserted inscription will be complete in the lettering, as all the\nrest is; because it costs Titian very little more trouble to draw\nrightly than wrongly, and in him, therefore, impatience with the letters\nwould be vulgar, as in the Greek sculptor of the coin, patience would\nhave been.  For the engraving of a letter accurately is difficult work,\nand his time must have been unworthily thrown away.\n\n\n22.  All the different impressions connected with negligence or foulness\ndepend, in like manner, on the degree of insensibility implied.\nDisorder in a drawing-room is vulgar, in an antiquary's study, not; the\nblack battle-stain on a soldier's face is not vulgar, but the dirty face\nof a housemaid is.\n\nAnd lastly, courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is peculiarly the\nmark of a gentleman or a lady: but it becomes vulgar if rude or\ninsensitive, while timidity is not vulgar, if it be a characteristic of\nrace or fineness of make. A fawn is not vulgar in being timid, nor a\ncrocodile \"gentle\" because courageous.\n\n\n23.  Without following the inquiry into farther detail, we may conclude\nthat vulgarity consists in a deadness of the heart and body, resulting\nfrom prolonged, and especially from inherited conditions of\n\"degeneracy,\" or literally \"un-racing;\"--gentlemanliness being another\nword for an intense humanity. And vulgarity shows itself primarily in\ndulness of heart, not in rage or cruelty, but in inability to feel or\nconceive noble character or emotion.  This is its essential, pure, and\nmost fatal form. Dulness of bodily sense and general stupidity, with\nsuch forms of crime as peculiarly issue from stupidity, are its material\nmanifestation.\n\n\n24.  Two years ago, when I was first beginning to work out the subject,\nand chatting with one of my keenest-minded friends (Mr. Brett, the\npainter of the Val d'Aosta in the Exhibition of 1859), I casually asked\nhim, \"What is vulgarity?\" merely to see what he would say, not supposing\nit possible to get a sudden answer.  He thought for about a minute, then\nanswered quietly, \"It is merely one of the forms of Death.\"  I did not\nsee the meaning of the reply at the time; but on testing it, found that\nit met every phase of the difficulties connected with the inquiry, and\nsummed the true conclusion. Yet, in order to be complete, it ought to be\nmade a distinctive as well as conclusive definition; showing _what_ form\nof death vulgarity is; for death itself is not vulgar, but only death\nmingled with life.  I cannot, however, construct a short-worded\ndefinition which will include all the minor conditions of bodily\ndegeneracy; but the term \"deathful selfishness\" will embrace all the\nmost fatal and essential forms of mental vulgarity.\n\n_Modern Painters,_\n       _vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vii._\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nWe ought always in pure English to use the term \"good breeding\"\nliterally; and to say \"good nurture\" for what we usually mean by good\nbreeding.  Given the race and make of the animal, you may turn it to\ngood or bad account; you may spoil your good dog or colt, and make him\nas vicious as you choose, or break his back at once by ill-usage; and\nyou may, on the other hand, make something serviceable and respectable\nout of your poor cur and colt if you educate them carefully; but\nill-bred they will both of them be to their lives' end; and the best you\nwill ever be able to say of them is, that they are useful, and decently\nbehaved, ill-bred creatures.\n\nAn error, which is associated with the truth, and which makes it always\nlook weak and disputable, is the confusion of race with name; and the\nsupposition that the blood of a family must still be good, if its\ngenealogy be unbroken and its name not lost, though sire and son have\nbeen indulging age after age in habits involving perpetual degeneracy of\nrace.  Of course it is equally an error to suppose that, because a man's\nname is common, his blood must be base; since his family may have been\nennobling it by pureness of moral habit for many generations, and yet\nmay not have got any title, or other sign of nobleness, attached to\ntheir names.  Nevertheless, the probability is always in favour of the\nrace which has had acknowledged supremacy, and in which every motive\nleads to the endeavour to preserve its true nobility.\n\n_Modern Painters,_\n       _vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vii._ Sec. 3 _n._\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nThe old English rough proverb is irrevocably true,--you can make no silk\npurse of a sow's ear.  And this great truth also holds--though it is a\ndisagreeable one to look full in the face--that, named or nameless, no\nman can make himself a gentleman who was not born one.  If he lives a\nright life, and cultivates all the powers, and yet more all the\nsensibilities, he is born with, and chooses his wife well, his own son\nwill be more a gentleman than he is, and he may see yet better blood\nthan his son's in his grandchild's cheeks, but he must be content to\nremain a clown himself--if he was born a clown.\n\n_Modern Painters,_\n       _vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vii._ Sec. 3 _n._\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nThe two great words which, in their first use, meant only perfection of\nrace, have come, by consequence of the invariable connection of virtue\nwith the fine human nature, both to signify benevolence of disposition.\nThe word \"generous\" and the word \"gentle\" both, in their origin, meant\nonly \"of pure race,\" but because charity and tenderness are inseparable\nfrom this purity of blood, the words which once stood only for pride,\nnow stand as synonymous for virtue.\n\n_The Crown of Wild Olive,_ Sec. 108.\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nWhat vulgarity is, whether in manners, acts, or conceptions, most\nwell-educated persons understand; but what it consists in, or arises\nfrom, is a more difficult question.  I believe that on strict analysis\nit will be found definable as \"the habit of mind and act resulting from\nthe prolonged combination of insensibility with insincerity.\"\n\nIt would be more accurate to say, \"constitutional insensibility\"; for\npeople are born vulgar, or not vulgar, irrevocably.  An apparent\ninsensibility may often be caused by one strong feeling quenching or\nconquering another; and this to the extent of involving the person in\nall kinds of cruelty and crime: yet, Borgia or Ezzelin, lady and knight\nstill; while the born clown is dead in all sensation and capacity of\nthought, whatever his acts or life may be.\n\nCloten, in _Cymbeline_, is the most perfect study of pure vulgarity,\nwhich I know in literature; Perdita, in _Winter's Tale_, the most\nperfect study of its opposite (irrespective of such higher virtue or\nintellect as we have in Desdemona or Portia).  Perdita's exquisite\nopenness, joined with as exquisite sensitiveness, constitute the precise\nopposite of the apathetic insincerity which is, I believe, the essence\nof vulgarity.\n\n_Academy Notes_, 1859.\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nGentlemanliness in a limited sense [may mean] only the effect of careful\neducation, good society, and refined habits of life, on average temper\nand character.  Deep and true gentlemanliness [is] based on intense\nsensibility and sincerity, perfected by courage and other qualities of\nrace, [as opposed to] that union of insensibility with cunning, which is\nthe essence of vulgarity.\n\n_Sir Joshua and Holbein_, Sec. 6 _n._\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nThere is, indeed, perhaps, no greater sign of innate and real vulgarity\nof mind or defective education than the want of power to understand the\nuniversality of the ideal truth; the absence of sympathy with the\ncolossal grasp of those intellects, which have in them so much of\ndivine, that nothing is small to them, nothing large; but with equal and\nunoffended vision they take in the sum of the world,--Straw Street[#]\nand the seventh heaven,--in the same instant.\n\n\n[#] Dante, _Paradiso_, x. 133-34.\n\n\nA certain portion of this divine spirit is visible even in the lower\nexamples of all the true men; it is, indeed, perhaps, the clearest test\nof their belonging to the true and great group, that they are\ncontinually touching what to the multitude appear vulgarities.  The\nhigher a man stands, the more the word \"vulgar\" becomes unintelligible\nto him.  Vulgar? what, that poor farmer's girl of William Hunt's, bred\nin the stable, putting on her Sunday gown, and pinning her best cap, out\nof the green and red pin-cushion! Not so; she may be straight on the\nroad to those high heavens, and may shine hereafter as one of the stars\nin the firmament for ever.  Nay, even that lady in the satin bodice,\nwith her arm laid over a balustrade to show it, and her eyes turned up\nto heaven to show them; and the sportsman waving his rifle for the\nterror of beasts, and displaying his perfect dress for the delight of\nmen, are kept, by the very misery and vanity of them, in the thoughts of\na great painter, at a sorrowful level, somewhat above vulgarity.  It is\nonly when the minor painter takes them on his easel, that they become\nthings for the universe to be ashamed of.\n\nWe may dismiss this matter of vulgarity in plain and few words, at least\nas far as regards art.  There is never vulgarity in a _whole_ truth,\nhowever commonplace.  It may be unimportant or painful.  It cannot be\nvulgar.  Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.\n\n_Modern Painters,_\n       _vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. vii._ Sec. 9.\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nThe first thing then that he has to do, if unhappily his parents or\nmasters have not done it for him, is to find out what he is fit for.  In\nwhich inquiry a man may be safely guided by his likings, if he be not\nalso guided by his pride.  People usually reason in some such fashion as\nthis: \"I don't seem quite fit for a head-manager in the firm of ---- &\nCo., therefore, in all probability, I am fit to be Chancellor of the\nExchequer.\"  Whereas, they ought rather to reason thus: \"I don't seem\nquite fit to be head-manager in the firm of ---- & Co., but I dare say I\nmight do something in a small greengrocery business; I used to be a good\njudge of pease;\" that is to say, always trying lower instead of trying\nhigher, until they find bottom: once well set on the ground, a man may\nbuild up by degrees, safely, instead of disturbing every one in his\nneighbourhood by perpetual catastrophes. But this kind of humility is\nrendered especially difficult in these days, by the contumely thrown on\nmen in humble employments.  The very removal of the massy bars which\nonce separated one class of society from another, has rendered it\ntenfold more shameful in foolish people's, _i.e._, in most people's\neyes, to remain in the lower grades of it, than ever it was before.\nWhen a man born of an artisan was looked upon as an entirely different\nspecies of animal from a man born of a noble, it made him no more\nuncomfortable or ashamed to remain that different species of animal,\nthan it makes a horse ashamed to remain a horse, and not to become a\ngiraffe. But now that a man may make money, and rise in the world, and\nassociate himself, unreproached, with people once far above him, not\nonly is the natural discontentedness of humanity developed to an\nunheard-of extent, whatever a man's position, but it becomes a veritable\nshame to him to remain in the state he was born in, and everybody thinks\nit his _duty_ to try to be a \"gentleman.\"  Persons who have any\ninfluence in the management of public institutions for charitable\neducation know how common this feeling has become.  Hardly a day passes\nbut they receive letters from mothers who want all their six or eight\nsons to go to college, and make the grand tour in the long vacation, and\nwho think there is something wrong in the foundations of society because\nthis is not possible.  Out of every ten letters of this kind, nine will\nallege, as the reason of the writers' importunity, their desire to keep\ntheir families in such and such a \"station of life.\"  There is no real\ndesire for the safety, the discipline, or the moral good of the\nchildren, only a panic horror of the inexpressibly pitiable calamity of\ntheir living a ledge or two lower on the molehill of the world--a\ncalamity to be averted at any cost whatever, of struggle, anxiety, and\nshortening of life itself.  I do not believe that any greater good could\nbe achieved for the country, than the change in public feeling on this\nhead, which might be brought about by a few benevolent men, undeniably\nin the class of \"gentlemen,\" who would, on principle, enter into some of\nour commonest trades, and make them honourable; showing that it was\npossible for a man to retain his dignity, and remain, in the best sense,\na gentleman, though part of his time was every day occupied in manual\nlabour, or even in serving customers over a counter.  I do not in the\nleast see why courtesy, and gravity, and sympathy with the feelings of\nothers, and courage, and truth, and piety, and what else goes to make up\na gentleman's character, should not be found behind a counter as well as\nelsewhere, if they were demanded, or even hoped for, there.\n\n_Pre-Raphaelitism_, Sec. 2.\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nAs in nothing is a gentleman better to be discerned from a vulgar\nperson, so in nothing is a gentle nation (such nations have been) better\nto be discerned from a mob, than in this,--that their feelings are\nconstant and just, results of due contemplation, and of equal thought.\nYou can talk a mob into anything; its feelings may be--usually are--on\nthe whole, generous and right; but it has no foundation for them, no\nhold of them; you may tease or tickle it into any, at your pleasure; it\nthinks by infection, for the most part, catching an opinion like a cold,\nand there is nothing so little that it will not roar itself wild about,\nwhen the fit is on;--nothing so great but it will forget in an hour,\nwhen the fit is past.  But a gentleman's, or a gentle nation's, passions\nare just, measured, and continuous.\n\n_Sesame and Lilies_, Sec. 30.\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nWhether it is indeed the gods who have given any gentleman the grace to\ndespise the rabble depends wholly on whether it is indeed the rabble, or\nhe, who are the malignant persons.\n\n_Fiction, Fair and Foul_, Sec. 46.\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nI have summed the needful virtue of men under the terms of gentleness\nand justice; gentleness being the virtue which distinguishes gentlemen\nfrom churls, and justice that which distinguishes honest men from\nrogues. Now gentleness may be defined as the Habit or State of Love, and\nungentleness or clownishness as the State or Habit of Lust.\n\nNow there are three great loves that rule the souls of men: the love of\nwhat is lovely in creatures, and of what is lovely in things, and what\nis lovely in report.  And these three loves have each their relative\ncorruption, a lust--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the\npride of life.\n\nAnd, as I have just said, a gentleman is distinguished from a churl by\nthe purity of sentiment he can reach in all these three passions; by his\nimaginative love, as opposed to lust; his imaginative possession of\nwealth as opposed to avarice; his imaginative desire of honour as\nopposed to pride.\n\n_Fors Clavigera, Letter_ 41.\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nOf all essential things in a gentleman's bodily and moral training, this\nis really the beginning--that he should have close companionship with\nthe horse, the dog, and the eagle.  Of all birthrights and\nbookrights--this is his first.  He needn't be a Christian,--there have\nbeen millions of Pagan gentlemen; he needn't be kind--there have been\nmillions of cruel gentlemen; he needn't be honest,--there have been\nmillions of crafty gentlemen. He needn't know how to read, or to write\nhis own name.  But he _must_ have horse, dog, and eagle for friends. If\nthen he has also Man for his friend, he is a noble gentleman; and if God\nfor his Friend, a king.  And if, being honest, being kind, and having\nGod and Man for his friends, he _then_ gets these three brutal friends,\nbesides his angelic ones, he is perfect in earth, as for heaven.  For,\nto be his friends, these must be brought up with him, and he with them.\nFalcon on fist, hound at foot, and horse part of himself--Eques, Ritter,\nCavalier, Chevalier.\n\nYes;--horse and dog you understand the good of; but what's the good of\nthe falcon, think you?\n\nTo be friends with the falcon must mean that you love to see it soar;\nthat is to say, you love fresh air and the fields.  Farther, when the\nLaw of God is understood, you will like better to see the eagle free\nthan the jessed hawk.  And to preserve your eagles' nests, is to be a\ngreat nation.  It means keeping everything that is noble; mountains and\nfloods, and forests, and the glory and honour of them, and all the birds\nthat haunt them.\n\n_Fors Clavigera, Letter_ 75.\n\n\n\n\n                      BALLANTYNE PRESS, EDINBURGH\n\n\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\n                         *The Works of Ruskin*\n\n\n               _These are published in various forms:--_\n\n1.  The Library Edition, now in course of issue.\n\nThis is the definitive and complete edition, and contains much literary\nand personal matter, not published in any other form.  It alone contains\nall Ruskin's works. This edition is strictly limited, and should be\nsubscribed for without delay.\n\n2.  The Works Edition.  8vo.\n\n3.  The Students' Edition.  Crown 8vo.\n\n4.  The Pocket Edition.  Fcap. 8vo.  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Allen, 156\nCharing Cross Road, London, who will send complete Catalogue on\napplication._\n\n\n\n                          *Ruskin Reprints for\n                              the Pocket*\n\n                  *Fcap.  8vo, Gilt tops, Gilt backs.\n                          Autograph on side.*\n\nCLOTH LIMP . . . 2s. 6d  )\nLEATHER LIMP . . 3s. 6d  ) net per Vol.\nWith Indices\n\n                              _NOW READY_\n\nSESAME AND LILIES.\n       Three Lectures and Long Preface.\n\nTHE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE.\n       Essays on Work, Traffic, War, and\n       the Future of England.\n\nTHE TWO PATHS.\n       On Decoration and Manufacture.\n\nTIME AND TIDE.\n       On Laws of Work.\n\nLECTURES ON ART.\n       Delivered at Oxford in 1870.\n\nA JOY FOR EVER.\n       On the Political Economy of Art.\n\nTHE QUEEN OF THE AIR.\n       A Study of Greek Myths.\n\nTHE ETHICS OF THE DUST.\n       On the Elements of Crystallisation.\n\nTHE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.\n       With 50 Woodcuts.\n\nTHE EAGLE'S NEST.\n       On the Relation of Natural Science to Art.\n\nMUNERA PULVERIS.\n       On the Elements of Political Economy\n\nFRONDES AGRESTES.\n       Readings in \"Modern Painters.\"\n\nMORNINGS IN FLORENCE.\n       Studies of Christian Art.\n\nST. MARK'S REST.\n       The History of Venice.\n\nTHE STONES OF VENICE.\n       Vol. I.  Selections for Travellers.\n\nTHE STONES OF VENICE.\n       Vol. II.  Selections for Travellers.\n\n\n\n                     *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n                            _IN PREPARATION_\n\n                          *RUSKIN TREASURIES*\n\n                     _*A Series of little Books on\n                   LIFE, ART, TRADE, WORK, &c., &c.*_\n\n                    *Demy 32mo, Cloth, 6d. each net;\n                      Leather, gilt, 1s. each net*\n\nList of Titles--\n\nWealth.\nWomen and Dress.\nGirlhood.\nReligion.\nArt.\nEducation and Youth.\nThe Dignity of Man.\nVulgarity.\nLiberty and Government.\nEconomy.\nMaxims.\nTrade and Money.\nBooks and Reading.\nThe Bible.\nShakespeare.\nThe Greek Poets.\nThe Latin Poets.\nDante.\nArchitecture.\nArtists (Various).\nSculpture.\nEngraving and Photography.","title":"Of Vulgarity","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":7317}