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poetry in his works as is to be found in a thousand of those 

 volumes of verse which are issued from the press every year. 

 Cavillers say that Ruskin's "ideas" are Utopian, the principles 

 he advocates impracticable. But this does not detract from 

 the charm or usefulness of his works. Is it not well to have a 

 lofty ideal even though we may be conscious that it is almost 

 impossible of attainment ? At least we may press toward the 

 mark; and in an age when there is so much to degrade life from 

 its sweet and serious sanctity into vulgarism and frivolity, an age 

 of fierce competition, of hardening struggles, a period in which 

 the contrast between the rich and the poor is so marked as to 

 constitute the chief danger of the state — surely in such an age it is 

 well that we should be taken back in language the most eloquent 

 and convincing to the great first principles enunciated in the 

 Sermon on the Mount, and should be reminded that the words 

 " Man shall not live by bread alone " have something more than 

 a mere theological import. That there is an ambition greater 

 than that of glory, and a covetousness nobler than that of gain — 

 is not this the very lesson needed by men who in pursuit of 

 wealth " have given their hearts away — a sordid boon " ? We 

 should not take our political economy from Goldsmith, yet even 

 from him the statesman may learn something of the danger which 

 portends a state where " wealth accumulates and men decay." 



The man who wields a great monopoly on the exercise of 

 which may depend the comfort and welfare of a community — 

 will it do such an one any harm to be reminded that while it is 

 excellent to have a giant's strength it is tyrannous to use it like 

 a giant ? We may adapt Johnson's words and say if any one 

 wish to attain a thoroughly English style of writing let him give 

 his days and nights to the study of — Ruskin. Read the ideal 

 which in the " Two paths " he places before the sculptor and the 

 painter, and say if the spirit of the passage is not one which men 

 of business, especially those possessing great influence, may well 

 take to heart. 



Other names can be considered but briefly. If Carlyle had 

 written no other sentences than those in which in rugged and 

 fervent language he teaches the usefulness, the dignity and the 

 holiness of labour, he would have deserved hearty recognition at 

 the hands of Britons. Such a lesson is necessary, not only in the 

 wealthy metropolis, but in Lancashire, where all too often we see 

 the sons of a successful hard-working man of business leading 

 idle useless lives — toiling not nor spinning — and setting evil 

 examples to those in the classes " beneath them." Carlyle 

 preached to the poets of this century on the duty of staying at 

 home. " The poet can never have far to seek for a subject ; the 

 elements of his art are in him and around him on every hand ; 

 for him the ideal world is not remote from the actual, but under 



