on that day to practise a little roller-skating. For
humility and gratitude should not blind us to the fact that few writers
in English of Ruskin's reputation have ever considered such a rosy cloud
of rhetoric as is his lecture on war, in which a reasonable shape no
sooner looms than it is lost again, to be worth preserving. The subject
of war is of importance, inflammable humanity being what it is, and the
results of war being what we know; and the quality of the critical
attention we give to so great a matter is unfortunately clear when we
regard the list of distinguished critics of letters who have accepted,
apparently without difficulty, as great prose, Ruskin's heedless rush of
words upon it. Perhaps his language appears noble because the rhythmic
pour of its sentences lulls reason into a comfortable and benignant
sleepiness.

I remember the solemn voice of a lecturer on English literature, years
ago, moving me to buy _The Crown of Wild Olive_. Such obvious ignorance
as I knew mine to be could not be tolerated. Whatever I went without, it
could not be that book. I put it in my hold-all when, as was my duty, I
went for my training with the artillery volunteers. I read in camp the
essay on war, when bombardiers no longer claimed my attention, and the
knightly words of sergeant instructors were taking a needed rest. I
pondered over that essay, and concluded that though plainly I was very
young and very wrong to feel puzzled and even derisive over English
prose which fascinated a learned lecturer into solemnity, yet I would
sooner learn to make imitation flowers of wool than read that essay to a
critical audience, especially if I had written it myself.

Ruskin, in fact, with no more experience of war than a bishop's wife, did
not know what he was talking about. Throughout the essay, too, he is in
two minds. One is that of a gentleman who knows that war is the same
phenomenon, artistically, ethically, and socially, as a public-house riot
with broken bottles caused by a dispute over one of those fundamental
principles which are often challenged in such a place. Those riots are
natural enough. They are caused by the nature of man. They continue to
happen, for it has taken the Church longer to improve our manners than it
has taken stock-raisers to improve the milking qualities of kine. And
Ruskin's other mind is still in the comical Tennysonian stage about war,
dwelling with awe on swords and shields, glory, honour, patri