We emerge
from eternity, we plunge into eternity; we have but a brief space to
poise ourselves in the light ere we drop into the gulf of doom, and
our duty is to be miserly over every moment and every faculty that is
vouchsafed to us. The essentials of thought and knowledge are
contained in a very few books, and the most toilsome drudge who ever
preached a sermon, drove a rivet, or swept a floor may become
perfectly educated by exercising a wise self-restraint, by resolutely
refusing to be guided by the ambitious advice of airy cultured
persons, and by mastering a few good books to the last syllable. Mr.
Ruskin is one of our greatest masters of English, and his supremacy as
a thinker is sufficiently indicated by Mazzini's phrase--"Ruskin has
the most analytic mind in Europe." No truer word was ever spoken than
this last, for, in spite of his dogmatic disposition, Mr. Ruskin does
utter the very transcendencies of wisdom. Now this glorious writer of
English, this subtlest of thinkers, was rigidly kept to a very few
books until he reached manhood. Under the eye of his mother he went
six times through the Bible, and learned most of the Book by heart.
Pages:
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81