The rest is silence. Last words of the chief wisdom of the heathen, spoken of this idol of riches; this idol of yours; this golden image, high by measureless cubits, set up where your green fields of England are furnace-burnt into the likeness of the plain of Dura; this idol, forbidden to us, first of all idols, by your own Master and faith; forbidden to us also by every human lip that has ever, in any age of people, been accounted of as able to speak according to the purposes of God. Continue to make that forbidden deity your principal one, and soon no more art, no more science, no more pleasure will be possible. [249]
Ruskin came out of an evangelical religious background, but also was one of the first modern writers to use the symbolical grotesque, which some have described as succeeding religion as the one thing still able to unify all people — in horror, rather than faith. Here Ruskin seems to be applying both the grotesque and the religious for a truly epic conclusion to his "Traffic".
Questions
Have grotesques replaced faith? Is the pull of the horrible stronger than the pull of religion?
Which rhetoric is more effective for Ruskin — his grotesques or his religion-themed speeches?
What is the effect of fusing together speech reminiscent of the Bible ("this golden image, high by measureless cubits") and great secular literature ("The rest is silence")
Last modified 14 June 2002