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190 THIRD PERIOD.
definite and practical pleasures of daily life, there is, first, the
pleasure of doing good ; the greatest of all, only apt to be despised from not being often enough tasted : and then, I know
not in what order to put them, nor does it matter,—the pleasure of gaining knowledge; the pleasure of the excitement of
imagination and emotion (or poetry and passion); and, lastly,
the gratification of the senses, first of the eye, then of the ear,
and then of the others in their order.
§ xxx. All these we are apt to make subservient to the
desire of praise; nor unwisely, when the praise sought is God's
and the conscience's: but if the sacrifice is made for man's
admiration, and knowledge is only sought for praise, passion
repressed or affected for praise, and the arts practised for praise,
we are feeding on the bitterest apples of Sodom, suffering
always ten mortifications for one delight. And it seems to me,
that in the modern civilized world we make such sacrifice
doubly : first, by laboring for merely ambitious purposes; and
secondly, which is the main point in question, by being ashamed
of simple pleasures, more especially of the pleasure in sweet
color and form, a pleasure evidently so necessary to man's per-
fectness and virtue, that the beauty of color and form has been
given lavishly throughout the whole of .creation, so that it may
become the food of all, and with such intricacy and subtlety
that it may deeply employ the thoughts of all. If we refuse
to accept the natural delight which the Deity has thus provided for us, we must either become ascetics, or we must seek
for some base and guilty pleasures to replace those of Paradise,
which we have denied ourselves.
Some years ago, in passing through some of the cells of the
Grand Chartreuse, noticing that the window of each apartment
looked across the little garden of its inhabitant to the wall of
the cell opposite, and commanded no other view, I asked the
monk beside me, why the window was not rather made on the
side of the cell whence it would open to the solemn fields of
the Alpine valley. " We do not come here," he replied, " to
look at the mountains."
§ xxxi. The same answer is given, practically, by the men
| Title | The stones of Venice - 3 |
| Creator | Ruskin, John |
| Publisher | J. Wiley |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Date | 1889 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Title | 00000208 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | 190 THIRD PERIOD. definite and practical pleasures of daily life, there is, first, the pleasure of doing good ; the greatest of all, only apt to be despised from not being often enough tasted : and then, I know not in what order to put them, nor does it matter,—the pleasure of gaining knowledge; the pleasure of the excitement of imagination and emotion (or poetry and passion); and, lastly, the gratification of the senses, first of the eye, then of the ear, and then of the others in their order. § xxx. All these we are apt to make subservient to the desire of praise; nor unwisely, when the praise sought is God's and the conscience's: but if the sacrifice is made for man's admiration, and knowledge is only sought for praise, passion repressed or affected for praise, and the arts practised for praise, we are feeding on the bitterest apples of Sodom, suffering always ten mortifications for one delight. And it seems to me, that in the modern civilized world we make such sacrifice doubly : first, by laboring for merely ambitious purposes; and secondly, which is the main point in question, by being ashamed of simple pleasures, more especially of the pleasure in sweet color and form, a pleasure evidently so necessary to man's per- fectness and virtue, that the beauty of color and form has been given lavishly throughout the whole of .creation, so that it may become the food of all, and with such intricacy and subtlety that it may deeply employ the thoughts of all. If we refuse to accept the natural delight which the Deity has thus provided for us, we must either become ascetics, or we must seek for some base and guilty pleasures to replace those of Paradise, which we have denied ourselves. Some years ago, in passing through some of the cells of the Grand Chartreuse, noticing that the window of each apartment looked across the little garden of its inhabitant to the wall of the cell opposite, and commanded no other view, I asked the monk beside me, why the window was not rather made on the side of the cell whence it would open to the solemn fields of the Alpine valley. " We do not come here," he replied, " to look at the mountains." § xxxi. The same answer is given, practically, by the men |
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