Transcribed from the 1894 George Allen edition ,
SESAME AND LILIES
By
John Ruskin
Contents
Lecture I. Sesame |
Lecture II. Lilies |
Preface to the Later Editions |
Lecture III. The Mystery of Life and its Arts |
Preface to the Later Editions
Being now fifty-one years old, andlittle likely to change my mind hereafter on any importantsubject of thought (unless through weakness of age), I wish topublish a connected series of such parts of my works as now seemto me right, and likely to be of permanent use. In doing soI shall omit much, but not attempt to mend what I think worthreprinting. A young man necessarily writes otherwise thanan old one, and it would be worse than wasted time to try torecast the juvenile language: nor is it to be thought that I amashamed even of what I cancel; for great part of my earlier workwas rapidly written for temporary purposes, and is nowunnecessary, though true, even to truism. What I wroteabout religion, was, on the contrary, painstaking, and, I think,forcible, as compared with most religious writing; especially inits frankness and fearlessness: but it was wholly mistaken: for Ihad been educated in the doctrines of a narrow sect, and had readhistory as obliquely as sectarians necessarily must.
Mingled among these either unnecessary or erroneousstatements, I find, indeed, some that might be still of value;but these, in my earlier books, disfigured by affected language,partly through the desire to be thought a fine writer, andpartly, as in the second volume of ‘Modern Painters,’in the notion of returning as far as I could to what I thoughtthe better style of old English literature, especially to that ofmy then favourite, in prose, Richard Hooker.
For these reasons,—though, as respects either art,policy, or morality, as distinct from religion, I not only stillhold, but would even wish strongly to re-affirm the substance ofwhat I said in my earliest books,—I shall reprint scarcelyanything in this series out of the first and second volumes of‘Modern Painters’; and shall omit much of the‘Seven Lamps’ and ‘Stones of Venice’; butall my books written within the last fifteen years will berepublished without change, as new editions of them are calledfor, with here and there perhaps an additional note, and havingtheir text divided, for convenient reference, into paragraphs,consecutive through each volume. I shall also throwtogether the shorter fragments that bear on each other, and fillin with such unprinted lectures or studies as seem to me worthpreserving, so as to keep the volumes, on an average, composed ofabout a hundred leaves each.
The first book of which a new edition is required chances tobe ‘Sesame and Lilies,’ from which I now detach thewhole preface, about the Alps, for use elsewhere; and to I whichI add a lecture given in Ireland on a subject closely connectedwith that of the book itself. I am glad that it should bethe first of the complete series, for many reasons; though in nowlooking over these two lectures, I am painfully struck by thewaste of good work in them. They cost me much thought, andmuch strong emotion; but it was foolish to suppose that I couldrouse my audiences in a little while to any sympathy with the