138 ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING

Classical period,1 St. Louis in the Mediæval period, and Lord Nelson in the Modern period.

Leonidas had the most rigid sense of duty, and died with the most perfect faith in the gods of his country, fulfilling the accepted prophecy of his death. St. Louis had the most rigid sense of duty, and the most perfect faith in Christ. Nelson had the most rigid sense of duty, and-

You must supply my pause with your charity.

Now you do not suppose that the main difference between Leonidas and Nelson lay in the modern inventions at the command of the one, as compared with the imperfect military instruments possessed by the other. They were not essentially different in that the one fought with lances and the other with guns. But they were essentially different in the whole tone of their religious belief.

113. By this instance you may be partially prepared for the bold statement I am going to make to you, as to the change which constitutes Modernism. I said just now that it was like that of the worm to the butterfly. But the changes which God causes in His lower creatures are almost always from worse to better, while the changes which God allows man to make in himself are very often quite the other way; like Adam’s new arrangement of his nature. And in saying that this last change was like that of a chrysalis, I meant only in the completeness of it, not in the tendency of it. Instead of from the worm to the butterfly, it is very possible it may have been from the butterfly to the worm.

Have patience with me for a moment after I tell you what I believe it to have been, and give me a little time to justify my words.

¹ [For another reference to Leonidas, see above, § 31, and see also Stones of Venice, vol. i. (Vol. IX. p. 446); Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. xiii. § 5; vol. v. pt. viii. ch. iii. § 4; A Joy for Ever, § 109; Ethics of the Dust, § 117; other minor references to passages where Ruskin similarly takes Leonidas as the type of classical heroism will be found in the General Index. For St. Louis, see Fors Clavigera, Letter 3, and other references in General Index. References to Nelson will be found in fors Clavigera, Letters 25 and 66, and Dilecta, § 23.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]