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Sesame and Lilies-Part21_John Ruskin(1819-1900)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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{19} This abbreviation of the penalty of useless labour is

curiously coincident in verbal form with a certain passage which



some of us may remember. It may perhaps be well to preserve beside

this paragraph another cutting out of my store-drawer, from the



'Morning Post,' of about a parallel date, Friday, March 10th, 1865:-

"The SALONS of Mme. C-, who did the honours with clever imitative



grace and elegance, were crowded with princes, dukes, marquises, and

counts--in fact, with the same MALE company as one meets at the



parties of the Princess Metternich and Madame Drouyn de Lhuys. Some

English peers and members of Parliament were present, and appeared



to enjoy the animated and dazzlingly improper scene. On the second

floor the supper tables were loaded with every delicacy of the



season. That your readers may form some idea of the dainty fare of

the Parisian demi-monde, I copy the menu of the supper, which was



served to all the guests (about 200) seated at four o'clock. Choice

Yquem, Johannisberg, Laffitte, Tokay, and champagne of the finest



vintages were served most lavishly throughout the morning. After

supper dancing was resumed with increased animation, and the ball



terminated with a CHAINE DIABOLIQUE and a CANCAN D'ENFER at seven in

the morning. (Morning service--'Ere the fresh lawns appeared, under



the opening eyelids of the Morn.-') Here is the menu:- 'Consomme de

volaille e la Bagration: 16 hors-d'oeuvres varies. Bouchees e la



Talleyrand. Saumons froids, sauce Ravigote. Filets de boeuf en

Bellevue, timbales milanaises, chaudfroid de gibier. Dindes



truffees. Pates de foies gras, buissons d'ecrevisses, salades

venetiennes, gelees blanches aux fruits, gateaux mancini, parisiens



et parisiennes. Fromages glaces. Ananas. Dessert.'"

{20} Please observe this statement, and think of it, and consider



how it happens that a poor old woman will be ashamed to take a

shilling a week from the country--but no one is ashamed to take a



pension of a thousand a year.

{21} I am heartily glad to see such a paper as the 'Pall Mall



Gazette' established; for the power of the press in the hands of

highly educated men, in independent position, and of honest purpose,



may indeed become all that it has been hithertovainly vaunted to

be. Its editor will therefore, I doubt not, pardon me, in that, by



very reason of my respect for the journal, I do not let pass

unnoticed an article in its third number, page 5, which was wrong in



every word of it, with the intense wrongness which only an honest

man can achieve who has taken a false turn of thought in the outset,



and is following it, regardless of consequences. It contained at

the end this notable passage:-



"The bread of affliction, and the water of affliction,--aye, and the

bedsteads and blankets of affliction, are the very utmost that the



law ought to give to OUTCASTS MERELY AS OUTCASTS." I merely put

beside this expression of the gentlemanly mind of England in 1865, a



part of the message which Isaiah was ordered to "lift up his voice

like a trumpet" in declaring to the gentlemen of his day: "Ye fast



for strife, and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Is not this

the fast that I have chosen, to deal thy bread to the hungry, and



that thou bring the poor THAT ARE CAST OUT (margin, 'afflicted') to

THY house?" The falsehood on which the writer had mentally founded



himself, as previously stated by him, was this: "To confound the

functions of the dispensers of the poor-rates with those of the



dispensers of a charitableinstitution is a great and pernicious

error." This sentence is so accurately and exquisitely wrong, that



its substance must be thus reversed in our minds before we can deal

with any existing problem of national distress. "To understand that



the dispensers of the poor-rates are the almoners of the nation, and

should distribute its alms with a gentleness and freedom of hand as



much greater and franker than that possible to individual charity,

as the collective national wisdom and power may be supposed greater



than those of any single person, is the foundation of all law

respecting pauperism." (Since this was written the 'Pall Mall






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