I HAVE not attempted to support, by the authority of other writers, any of the statements made in these papers; indeed, if such authorities were rightly collected, there would be no occasion for my writing at all. Even in the scattered passages referring to this subject in three books of Carlyle’s—Sartor Resartus, -, and the Latter Day Pamphlets,—all has been said that needs to be said, and far better than I shall ever say it again. * Compare the close of the Fourth Lecture in Aratra Pentelici. [287/288] But the habit of the public mind at present is to require everything to be uttered diffusely, loudly, and a hundred times over, before it will listen; and it has revolted against these papers of mine as if they contained things daring and new, when there is not one assertion in them of which the truth has not been for ages known to the wisest, and proclaimed by the most eloquent of men. It would be [I had written will be; but have now reached a time of life for which there is but one mood—the conditional,]1 a far greater pleasure to me hereafter, to collect their words than to add to mine; Horace’s clear rendering of the substance of the passages in the text may be found room for at once,
Si quis emat citharas, emptas comportet in unum,
Nec studio citharae nec Musae deditus ulli;
Si scalpra et formas non sutor; nautica vela,
Aversus mercaturis, delirus et amens
Undique dicatur merito. Quî discrepat istis
Qui nummos aurumque recondit, nescius uti
Compositis, metuensque velut contingere sacrum?2
[Which may be roughly thus translated:—
Were anybody to buy fiddles, and collect a number, being in no wise given to fiddling, nor fond of music: or if, being no cobbler, he collected awls and lasts, or, having no mind for sea-adventure, bought sails, every one would call him a madman, and deservedly. But what difference is there between such a man and one who lays by coins and gold, and does not know how to use, when he has got them?
With which it is perhaps desirable also to give Xenophon’s statement, it being clearer than any English one can be, owing to the power of the general Greek term for wealth, “useable things.”
[I have cut out the Greek because I can’t be troubled to correct the accents, and am always nervous about them; here it is in English, as well as I can do it:—
This being so, it follows that things are only property to the man who knows how to use them; as flutes, for instance, are property to the man who can pipe upon them respectably; but to one who knows not how to pipe, they are no property, unless he can get rid of them advantageously. . . . For if they are not sold, the flutes are no property (being serviceable for nothing); but, sold, they become property. To which Socrates made answer,—‘and only then if he knows how to sell them, for if he sell them to another man who cannot play on them, still they are no property.3
Notes by Editors of the Library Edition
1. The square brackets here and below, in this Appendix, with the words within them, were inserted by the author in 1872.
2. Satires, ii. 3, 104.
3. The passage quoted in the original essay is as follows:— Τακηα αρα οκηα, ηω ιεκ επζζηαιεκω cρδζqαζ ακηωκ εηαζηοζV cρδιαηα εζηζ ηω δε ιδ επζζηαιεκω cρδζqαζ οκ τρδιαηα. ωζπερ βε ακθοζ ηω ιεκ επζζηαιεκω αγζωV θζβοε αεθεζκ τρδιαηα εζζζ, ηω δε ιδ, επζζηαιεκω οεδεκ ιαθθοκ δ αcρδζηοζ θζθοζ, εζ ιδ αποδζδοζηο βε αεηοεV. . . . Μδ πωθοειεκοζ ιεκ βαρ οε cρδιαηα εζζζκ οζ αεθοζ οεδεκ βαρ cρδζζιοζ εζζζ πωθοειεκοζ δε τρδιαηα. ΘΘροζ ηαεηα δ ο ΣωηραηδV εζπεκ, Ηκ επζζηδηαζ βε πωθεζκ εζ δε πωθοζδ αε προζ ηοεηοκ δV ιδ επζζηαζηο cρδζqαζ, οεδε πωθοειεκοζ εζζζ τρδιαηα. This passage (from the Economist, i. 10–12) was printed in the magazine, cut up into lengths as if it were verse (see Ruskin’s note, below, p. 290).
Last modified 25 March 2019