As Charis becomes Charitas, the word “Cher,” or “Dear,” passes from Shylock’s sense of it (to buy cheap and sell dear) into Antonio’s sense of it: emphasized with the final i in tender “Chéri,” and hushed to English calmness in our noble “Cherish.” The reader must not think that any care can be misspent in tracing the connexion and power of the words which we have to use in the sequel. (See Appendix VI.LE1) Much education sums itself in making men economize their words, and understand them. Nor is it possible to estimate the harm which has been done, in matters of higher speculation and conduct, by loose verbiage, though we may guess at it by observing the dislike which people show to having anything about their religion said to them in simple words, because then they understand it. Thus congregations meet weekly to invoke the influence of a Spirit of Life and Truth; yet if any part of that character were intelligibly expressed to them by the formulas of the service, they would be offended. Suppose, for instance, in the closing benediction, the clergyman were to give vital significance to the vague word “Holy,” and were to say, “the fellowship of the Helpful LE2 and Honest Ghost be with you, and remain with you always,” what would be the horror of many, irreverence of so intelligible an expression; and secondly, at the discomfortable occurrence of the suspicion that while throughout the commercial dealings of the week they had denied the propriety of Help, and possibility of Honesty, the Person whose company they had been now asking to be blessed with could have no fellowship with cruel people or knaves.
Footnotes by Editors of the Library Edition
[The editors of the Library Edition added the following to Ruskin's note: For Charis, wife of Hephæstus, see Iliad, xviii. 382. For the two Graces of Sparta and Athens, etc., see Pausanias, ix. 35, 1–5. For the three Graces, see Hesiod, Theogony, 907, and for Aglaia, as wife of Hephæstus, ibid., 945. For other notes by Ruskin on the expression Dei Gratia, see § 105, p. 229; Sesame and Lilies, § 91 (18.139); and Crown of Wild Olive, § 145; and on cariV and gratia, compare Lectures on Art, § 91.]
LE1. See below, p. 292. The original essay here reads:— “. . . sequel. Not only does all soundness of reasoning depend on the work done in the outset, but we may sometimes gain more by insistance on the expression of a truth, than by much wordless thinking about it; for to strive to express it clearly is often to detect it thoroughly; and education, even as regards thought, nearly sums itself in making . . .”
LE2. On “Holy” and “Helpful,” compare, below, p. 287n., and 7.206; and see Unto this Last, § 44 (above, p. 60).]
Last modified 14 March 2019