-When I consider the quantity of wise talking which has passed in at one long ear of the world, and out at the other, without making the smallest impression upon its mind, I am tempted for the rest of my life to try and do what seems to me rational, silently; and to speak no more.-

--Ruskin in Fors Clavigera (27:353)

Ruskin did, however, speak voluminously throughout the late nineteenth century in opposition to the abstract theoretical musings of the day. His Fors Clavigera--a collection of monthly letters published over thirteen years--offered his readers a model of critical...

-When I consider the quantity of wise talking which has passed in at one long ear of the world, and out at the other, without making the smallest impression upon its mind, I am tempted for the rest of my life to try and do what seems to me rational, silently; and to speak no more.-

--Ruskin in Fors Clavigera (27:353)

Ruskin did, however, speak voluminously throughout the late nineteenth century in opposition to the abstract theoretical musings of the day. His Fors Clavigera--a collection of monthly letters published over thirteen years--offered his readers a model of critical...