.jpg){kind=link}
Introduction
John Ruskin’s ‘Ethics of the Dust’ is a series of classroom dialogues inspired by the famous art critic’s visits to Winnington Hall, a girls’ school near Northwich in Cheshire, where he taught Scripture, geology and art, and oversaw cricket matches. Pianist Sir Charles Hallé performed for the girls too, and would surely have enjoyed Ruskin’s musical analogy.
ISABEL. But perhaps it will rain to-morrow, too!
Lecturer. It may also rain the day after to-morrow. We can make ourselves uncomfortable to any extent with perhapses, Isabel.* You may stick perhapses into your little minds, like pins, till you are as uncomfortable as the Lilliputians made Gulliver with their arrows, when he would not lie quiet.*
Isabel. But what are we to do to-day?
Lecturer. To be quiet, for one thing, like Gulliver when he saw there was nothing better to be done. And to practise patience. I can tell you children, that requires nearly as much practising as music; and we are continually losing our lessons when the master comes.* Now, to-day, here’s a nice little adagio lesson for us, if we play it properly.*
Ruskin tells us that Isabel is eleven, and Kathleen fourteen. The girls in his book are ‘imaginary’ he says, but adds: “I do not mean, in saying ‘imaginary,’ that I have not permitted to myself, in several instances, the affectionate discourtesy of some reminiscence of personal character.”
A reference to ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ by Jonathan Swift. Lemuel Gulliver finds himself in Lilliput, a country where the inhabitants are barely six inches high, but they manage to tie him down and teach him patience by firing tiny arrows at him.
That is, we fail to practise properly and when the school music tutor visits he is unable (or unwilling) to teach us anything. Ruskin means that those who do not practise patience will not be able to draw strength from it in times when we are tested with frustration.
Adagio is an Italian word generally used in music to indicate a slow but flowing pace. It comes from ad agio, ‘at ease.’
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
You are welcome to share your creativity with me, or ask for help with any of the exercises on Clay Lane. Write to me at this address:
See more at Email Support.
If you like what I’m doing here on Clay Lane, from time to time you could buy me a coffee.
Buy Me a Coffee is a crowdfunding website, used by over a million people. It is designed to help content creators like me make a living from their work. ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ prides itself on its security, and there is no need to register.
