We do not tell generals to undercut each other on
the eve of a war. We either employ none of them or we employ all of them
at an official rate of pay. All this was set out in the strongest and
least sentimental of his books, _Unto this Last_; but many suggestions
of it are scattered through _Sesame and Lilies_, _The Political Economy
of Art_, and even _Modern Painters_. On this side of his soul Ruskin
became the second founder of Socialism. The argument was not by any
means a complete or unconquerable weapon, but I think it knocked out
what little remained of the brains of the early Victorian rationalists.
It is entirely nonsensical to speak of Ruskin as a lounging aesthete, who
strolled into economics, and talked sentimentalism. In plain fact,
Ruskin was seldom so sensible and logical (right or wrong) as when he
was talking about economics. He constantly talked the most glorious
nonsense about landscape and natural history, which it was his business
to understand. Within his own limits, he talked the most cold common
sense about political economy, which was no business of his at all.
On the other side of his literary soul, his mere unwrapping of the
wealth and wonder of European art, he set going another influence,
earlier and vaguer than his influence on Socialism.
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