ful fashion, the beauty and value of an existence which we profess nowadays to find a little burdensome on our hands.
All these things have the lovers of war said to us, and in all these ways have they striven to fire our hearts. But Mr. Ruskin is not content to regard any matter from a purely artistic standpoint, or to judge it on natural and congenital lines; he must indorse it ethically or condemn. Accordingly, it is not enough for him, as it would be for any other man, to claim that "no great art ever yet rose on earth but among a nation of soldiers." He feels it necessary to ask himself some searching and embarrassing questions about fighting "for its own sake," and as "a grand pastime,"—questions which he naturally finds it extremely difficult to answer. It is not enough for him to say, with equal truth and justice, that if "brave death in a red coat" be no better than "brave life in a black one," it is at least every bit as good. He must needs wax serious, and commit himself to this strong and doubtful statement:—
"Assume the knight merely to have ridden out occasionally to fight his neighbor for exer-
