A Joy For Ever; (And Its Price in the Market)

A Joy For Ever, by John Ruskin

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Title: A Joy For Ever (And Its Price in the Market)
Author: John Ruskin
Release Date: November 30, 2006 [EBook #19980]
Language: English
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"A JOY FOR EVER"; (AND ITS PRICE IN THE MARKET): BEING
THE SUBSTANCE (WITH ADDITIONS) OF TWO LECTURES ON
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART, Delivered at Manchester,
July 10th and 13th, 1857.
BY

JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D.,
HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND
HONORARY FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE,
OXFORD.
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever."--KEATS.
SIXTEENTH THOUSAND. LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN, 156,
CHARING CROSS ROAD. 1904. [All rights reserved] Printed by
BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. At the Ballantyne Press

PREFACE
TO THE RE-ISSUE OF 1880.
The title of this book,--or, more accurately, of its subject;--for no
author was ever less likely than I have lately become, to hope for
perennial pleasure to his readers from what has cost himself the most
pains,--will be, perhaps, recognised by some as the last clause of the
line chosen from Keats by the good folks of Manchester, to be written
in letters of gold on the cornice, or Holy rood, of the great Exhibition
which inaugurated the career of so many,--since organized, by both
foreign governments and our own, to encourage the production of
works of art, which the producing nations, so far from intending to be
their "joy for ever," only hope to sell as soon as possible. Yet the motto
was chosen with uncomprehended felicity: for there never was, nor can
be, any essential beauty possessed by a work of art, which is not based
on the conception of its honoured permanence, and local influence, as a
part of appointed and precious furniture, either in the cathedral, the
house, or the joyful thoroughfare, of nations which enter their gates
with thanksgiving, and their courts with praise.
"Their" courts--or "His" courts;--in the mind of such races, the
expressions are synonymous: and the habits of life which recognise the
delightfulness, confess also the sacredness, of homes nested round the
seat of a worship unshaken by insolent theory: themselves founded on

an abiding affection for the past, and care for the future; and
approached by paths open only to the activities of honesty, and
traversed only by the footsteps of peace.
The exposition of these truths, to which I have given the chief energy
of my life, will be found in the following pages first undertaken
systematically and in logical sequence; and what I have since written
on the political influence of the Arts has been little more than the
expansion of these first lectures, in the reprint of which not a sentence
is omitted or changed.
The supplementary papers added contain, in briefest form, the
aphorisms respecting principles of art-teaching of which the attention I
gave to this subject during the continuance of my Professorship at
Oxford confirms me in the earnest and contented re-assertion.
JOHN RUSKIN,
BRANTWOOD,
April 29th, 1880.

PREFACE
TO THE 1857 EDITION.
The greater part of the following treatise remains in the exact form in
which it was read at Manchester; but the more familiar passages of it,
which were trusted to extempore delivery, have been written with
greater explicitness and fulness than I could give them in speaking; and
a considerable number of notes are added, to explain the points which
could not be sufficiently considered in the time I had at my disposal in
the lecture room.
Some apology may be thought due to the reader, for an endeavour to
engage his attention on a subject of which no profound study seems
compatible with the work in which I am usually employed. But

profound study is not, in this case, necessary either to writer or readers,
while accurate study, up to a certain point, is necessary for us all.
Political economy means, in plain English, nothing more than "citizen's
economy"; and its first principles ought, therefore, to be understood by
all who mean to take the responsibility of citizens, as those of
household economy by all who take the responsibility of householders.
Nor are its first principles in the least obscure: they are, many of them,
disagreeable in their practical requirements, and people in general
pretend that they cannot understand, because they are unwilling to obey
them: or