The Life of John Ruskin

In every human life there are days or years of blackletter and of red. The final apportioning of good and evil fortune may be just; every right exactly rewarded, and every wrong exactly punished. Yet there is also, as Ruskin wrote, “a startlingly separate or counter ordinance of good and evil,—one to this man, and the other to that,—one at this hour of our lives, and the other at that,—ordinance which is entirely beyond our control; and of which the providential law, hitherto, defies investigation.”

Ruskin was writing thus on New Year's Day 1872, and looking back over his fortunes in 1871, found an example near at hand: —

“Throughout the year which ended this morning, I have been endeavouring, more than hitherto in any equal period, to act for others more than for myself: and looking back on the twelve months, am satisfied that in some measure I have done right. So far as I am sure of that, I see also, even already, definitely proportioned fruit, and clear results following from that course;— consequences simply in accordance with the unfailing and undeceivable Law of Nature.